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(ORM)Online Reputation Management Decoded: A Guide for Social Media Marketers

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Startups

Technology

Reviews

Apps

Online reputation management plays a very important role for social media marketers in marketing their brand. Your reputation online determines how the public looks at your business or service when they search for it or stumble upon it online. Online reputation management influences what information people will find.

You need various techniques and strategies that can help you keep damaging and harmful content away and down the result pages by ranking more desirable material above it. You might think why is this important for social media marketers? Because various studies claim that the top five listings in Google’s search results receive about two-third of the audiences.

Online Reputation Management is not just about managing the content of your website in search engines. Rather, it is about managing negative reviews and also encouraging your happy clients to contribute more positive feedback.

In this article, we will focus on the various rules of effective online reputation management that can help you to manage a healthy online reputation and social media marketing.

5 Rules of Effective Online Reputation Management

Below are the rules of online reputation management:

1. Perform An Reputation Management Audit Of Your Online Reputation

Before you put any reputation management in process, you might want to conduct an extensive online reputation audit of your site. The assessment idea of the reputation management audit has to do with uncovering how the public see you online and what kind of issues you are facing in it. 

2. Establishing an Online Reputation Management Strategy

By now we expect that it is clear to you what exactly reputation management is. So, now it is time to set up an online management strategy. But before we go ahead into the details about it, you will have to get your priorities straight to succeed.

#Online reputation management prioritization

Getting started with a reputation management strategy can be overwhelming for social media marketers. Thus, prioritization is very important, as you cannot step on every single mention. Once your audit is over, it will be easier for you to prioritize what you should focus on first. Therefore, try out a few factors that might end up impacting your decision:

  • Review how many resources you can allocate for the online reputation management project and an ongoing process. So try to be as realistic as possible in your assessment.
  • Always remember to prioritize your online reputation management by impact. There will be times when you may feel like you have to deal with everything at the same time. But try to be realistic about the scope of the job. Impact plays a huge role in your choices. As you have to try and allocate your resources with the highest stakes for your business.
  • Prioritize your tasks. There should be a plan that can handle critical and challenging tasks properly. Choosing the easier tasks to get done first is not always the best option.

3. Dominate the search engine result pages (SERPs) for Brand Searches

It is a fact that no successful online reputation management strategy takes place without the touch of search engine optimization. Your main job is to show on the top five lists of the search engine result pages for your branded keywords. The best way to get there is by getting a website that ranks highly. Focus on improving your social media channels. These social media sites typically appear within the top 10 for the branded searches.

4. Encourage the Positive Reviews Online

Whether you get positive reviews or negative reviews, online reviews will have an impact on your businesses and sales. Various research has uncovered that positive online reviews affect almost 90% of the buyer’s buying decisions. Further, having negative reviews for your brand will end up making 86% of the consumers think twice about choosing your brand. And about 49% of your brand’s consumers expect at least a four-star rating from a business they will consider buying from them.

5. Managing Negative Online Reviews About Your Brand

Bad reviews of your brand will have a direct impact on your business’s bottom line as they discourage your existing and potential customers from using your services or products. A survey from the review trackers unveils that 94% of the consumers admit that a negative online review can turn them away from choosing a particular product or even a business. Before jumping into addressing your negative reviews, assess the most problematic reviews about your brand or product. Any review that ranks highly in the search engine result pages is a great starting point.

How To Respond To The Negative Online Reviews?

Below, we have mentioned some of the tips on how to respond to a negative review or comment: 

1. Improve Your Response Time

Negative comments are sometimes very sensitive, especially concerning time. The earlier you address the theme, the less impact they convey. Work on improving the speed of your replies. At the same time, do not respond without having a plan first. Avoid saying anything if you are in a hurry or else that will hurt you in the long run.

2. Apologize if you’re wrong (with one exception)

If you are at fault, then you should extend your apologies. Tell the reviewer that you have found out where the problem came from and now you are working on a solution. You can even ask them to actively participate and provide an insight into your newly thought solution. Although, do keep in mind that some apologies could result in legal action as well. So act carefully. 

3. Make improvements to your service or product

If you find some complaints that are recurring consistently, consider making changes to your service or product. The same complaint from multiple customers indicates that there is something wrong on your side as well. Make sure everyone posted on what measures you are undertaking to get the issue resolved.

The Final Word

Your first step towards a good online reputation is deciding how you want your business perceived. For this, you will require proper implementation of online reputation management. Also do not forget to have a social media policy and content strategy in place for a successful business.

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