Whenever a customer goes online to shop for a product, they explore content related to it in blogs, reviews, news, etc., before making a purchase. Because it is easy to share and access information with others, it doesn’t take much time to spread bad or good word online, ultimately to affect your company’s reputation.
Negative content could spread like fire and cause havoc to your reputation, and it may not always be possible to change your brand’s image overnight. So, what can you do? It turns out, online reputation management (ORM) is the way to move forward – a way to discourage the negative content and encourage positive promotion.
According to research, around 97% of business owners consider online reputation management essential to their corporate strategy. Though it is paramount to a company’s long-term success, many businesses owners are unsure how to begin curating their ORM strategies.
If you’re in a fix and don’t know how to proceed, we are here to help. Today, we’ll discuss five easy steps that you can take to develop an effective ORM strategy to shape the conversation surrounding your company. Let’s take a look.
Conducting Reputation Research
Before you can develop a plan, you must know your reputation online. You can start with a simple search on Google. Apart from Google, you must also look at your social media handles to learn what users are talking about your brand.
Curating a Response Plan
When you know what people are saying about your brand, your job would be to chalk out a plan on how you wish to respond. You will need a team that can collectively handle the effort. You can either outsource an ORM agency or hire a team in-house.
Having a Framework for Negative Reviews
You must know how to answer negative comments and reviews online. Instead of deleting it, you must reconsider how you’d like to address it to benefit your business’s image.
Reply to those comments while maintaining a friendly, professional, and polite tone could help you win over your critics. Your reviewers must know that you’re listening to what they have to say, and the best way you can do so is by reaching out.
Accentuating the Positive Remarks
Every business has its positives, and it’s your job to highlight the strengths of your business. From fast project turnaround to top-notch customer service, you mustn’t ignore when someone says anything good about your company by thanking anyone who gives a positive and kind review. Additionally, you could nudge customers to leave feedback whenever they use your services to increase your chances of getting more positive reviews.
Making Changes and Monitoring Results
In the last stage of your online reputation management, you must make all the changes you’ve promised to your users. Your customers are smart, and they will know if you’re a fake. Failing to carry through your word could be disastrous, so make sure you’re doing what you’re telling your customers.
You must also use a monitoring tool to evaluate your progress – to watch the numbers in order to see if you’re moving in the right direction.
Alongside, make sure you’re leveraging other aspects of digital marketing to benefit your brand’s success and discoverability. If you’re having difficulty, you can look for search engine marketing services India to rank higher on search result pages, making your brand visible to new potential customers.
Closing Thoughts
Online reputation management is not a one-day affair, so you need to be patient with it. By implementing these five steps, you are bound to move in the right direction. If you need help with your ORM strategy, consider seeking help from an expert to deal with the negative blow that may be holding your brand back.
