Online Reputation Management is an important area on which a business needs to work on, in this era of complete digitisation. Online reviews are an important part of online marketing strategies that can impact your business in a positive or a negative way, depending on the quality of your products or services. This hugely depends on your work towards Reputation Management.
“We are in a period where comments, posts, shares and even likes can be taken way out of context and create way more issues than they should for businesses and reputations. It is not about managing your reputation online to please everybody, but taking the right steps to reinforce and manage your online reputation can make all the difference for today, tomorrow, next week, next month and next year.” ― Loren Weisman.
Hence, it becomes crucial for your company to employ ORM (Online Reputation Management) services for efficient online marketing.
What is Online Reputation Management?
As per Techopedia, Online reputation management (ORM) is the practice of crafting strategies that shape or influence the public perception of an organisation, individual or other entity on the Internet. It helps drive public opinion about a business and its products and services. Online Reputation usually depicts the way in which people perceive your business and to an extent the founders or the top management. It dictates the level of trust they have in being your potential customers for a period.
5 Benefits of Online Reputation Management:
Online Reputation Management is one of the foundations on which the complete structure of your business rests. There are many benefits associated with it, thanks to the hard works of ORM service consultants. Following are the five major benefits from ORM:
- Boost in Sales: If your company has a good online reputation, that means it has got really good reviews from customers. This proves that your online marketing efforts have finally borne fruits. These reviews help bring new customers to your business and most of them are willing to go ahead and buy your services or products as they already have inherent faith in your good work. Hence, good online reputation management leads to good reviews which leads to a significant boost in sales.
- An increase in Web Search Frequency: As your brand gains popularity by way of online reputation and advocacy built up by good online marketing, more and more people are curious to know about your products or services. They start visiting your website more often. This, in turn, proves to be very advantageous for your business.
- Credibility Build-Up: An element of trust in a brand is what people look-out for the most while making a buying decision. Online Reputation Management helps you build a good image by proper online marketing. Customers start leaving good reviews for your business on the various platforms available online. This directly impacts the image of your brand in a positive way in the eyes of the existing and prospective customers.
- Attracts potential Employees: If your business enjoys a good reputation, it’s a given that more people would like to work with you as most people look forward to working at a place that adds some value to other’s lives. It gives them work satisfaction and motivates them to continuously do better at their respective jobs.
- Improves the chance of Prospective Business Collaborations: Practicing the right Online Reputation Management strategies makes your organisation more visible in a good way. Other businesses looking for collaborations will come forward with their requests, and this might benefit your brand in more ways than one.
Role of an ORM Consultant in Enhancing Online Reputation:
An ORM service consultant is a professional who can help your business build a good online reputation by the practice of various Online Reputation Management strategies. Their services also include sustaining this good reputation. Role of an ORM service consultant in enhancing your online reputation includes the following:
- Reputation Monitoring and Protection – They follow and study the online reviews (positive, neutral and negative), garnered by your business over a period and prepare an action plan from the same. Once your business has a good reputation, an ORM service consultant develops various strategies to retain it.
- Reputation Repair – If your organisation does not have a good reputation, an ORM service consultant can help you build one with his/her knowledge of Reputation Management. They do this by following online reviews that help them get to the root of the problems and rectify them.
- Helps build a good Brand Image – An ORM service consultant analyses your past marketing tactics and comes up with ways to improve them. Next, he/she develops an effective Online Reputation Management strategy to build the perfect image for your brand.
Key Takeaways
- ORM initiative makes a business look flawless and credible on search engine result pages (SERP’s).Online Reputation Management builds Trust and Credibility for a business among consumer mind space.
- Every business survives and succeeds with the contribution of motivated and talented employees who usually stays long with the business. Hence effective ORM creating a credible business image helps in employee retention, which in due course helps the business achieve its short- and long-term goals.
- Finally, a good ORM strategy leads to a substantial reduction in advertising cost for any business as effective ORM strategy implementation helps boosting the brand recall and creates a positive rub off for the brand and business.
Every business, big or small needs to have a good reputation management strategy in place to improve its prospects on the digital platform. A good Online Reputation Management practice ensures optimum visibility and excellent reputation for your brand. It also helps in the promotion of your products or services by employing effective online marketing tactics. There are many more benefits associated with this like more trust, better talent, less risks and a significant increase in profits.
