Ever since the first merchant opened their doors to customers, reputation management has been a priority for entrepreneurs. A good reputation means more business, and a bad reputation means the opposite. But in today’s business world — with websites, search engine optimization, online reviews, and more — reputation management has never been more important.
Fortunately, taking a smart, proactive approach to reputation management can help you get ahead of potential issues and elevate your business. You can leverage the powerful tools of reputation management to maximize the potential of your business and enjoy all the benefits that come from such success.
Online Reputation Management — What Is It?
ORM is the modern version of managing your brand or business image. You want to keep people thinking the best of your business, which means heading online and doing what you can to help to shape your business image.
ORM has some similarities to public relations, and they often overlap. With PR, businesses take advantage of relationships to get positive coverage of their business both on and offline. ORM attempts to achieve a similar objective, but does so by monitoring and managing online interactions, including media and customer reviews.
There are four main channels that make up ORM.
- Paid Media: Search ads, social media ads, paid influencer content, and paid blog post content.
- Earned Media: Coverage by publications, such as newspapers and blogs.
- Owned Media: Your blog, website, and other content you produce, like videos.
- Shared Media: Instagram, Facebook, and other social media.
Most entrepreneurs are already practicing some form of ORM, even if it’s just posting to Facebook about their latest offerings. However, it’s worthwhile to learn the full scope and potential of ORM as an entrepreneur, because using it well can do great things for your business.
How To Use ORM To Improve Your Business
There are a few basic things you can do to make ORM work well for you.
Conduct an ORM Audit
Before you dive into action, it’s always a good idea to get a clear picture of where you are at this moment. Otherwise, you could wind up doing things that hurt more than they help.
A quick way to audit your ORM is to use your browser’s incognito mode, which lets you get search results that are not influenced by your search history. Put your business name into the search bar and check out the results. You can view your Google Business Profile, which includes things like comments, reviews, and ratings. And you can see where you appear in the search results, which gives you insights about your SEO.
Create an ORM Strategy
During your audit, you probably noticed just how many different areas can be involved in managing your reputation online: social media sites, review sites, influencers, bloggers, and more. To keep track of it all and make sure you don’t miss anything, you need a plan. That’s what your strategy documentation is for.
Write out all the tasks that you can think of that are important for managing your online reputation. That includes things like responding to negative reviews on each site, communicating with potential influencers and reviewers, and so on.
Once you have a list, categorize each task according to its difficulty and potential impact. Your goal is to identify things you can do that will accomplish a lot for your business.
Besides potential tasks for ORM, your strategy can also include:
- Your preferred tone of voice.
- Defining who is responsible for specific channels.
- Response templates that can be easily personalized.
- A plan for monitoring brand mentions (Google Alerts or specific apps).
- Crisis management guidelines (such as a plan for how to respond to negative reviews from celebrities).
Encourage Customers To Post Reviews
You have likely seen some businesses take steps to get more reviews. They might ask the customer to leave a review at the checkout or send an automated email asking for a review after they make a purchase.
Respond to Negative Reviews
Ideally, you should respond to every review — but particularly negative reviews. A good response can turn an unhappy customer into a lifelong advocate for your business.
Everyone Can Improve at ORM
ORM can be overwhelming at first, but take heart. No one is a master at ORM when they first start. But with time and persistence, you can make ORM work for you. There is plenty of information about ORM out there, and there are even companies like Status Labs that can take care of ORM for you.
Whether you do it yourself or hire someone, remember that ORM is foundational to building a successful business today.
