Stay proactive when it comes to your online reputation.

What is online reputation management?

Online reputation management, or ORM, is essentially the process to ensure a positive, accurate & sustainable image about your brand (organization or person) is available online.

Why online reputation management should be in your top 5 priorities?

We live online more than we live in the real world these days, so it should come as no surprise that online reputation management forms an important part of your overall reputation. But if you are still not sure, have a look below at what the numbers are saying.

• 85% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations
• 49% of consumers need at least a four-star rating before they choose to use a business
• Consumers read an average of 7 reviews before trusting a business – up from 6 last year

(as seen on Brightlocal consumer review survey)

These stats don’t just show us how important online reputation management is but also how important it is to stay proactive & continuously work on improving the quality of your online presence. Many organizations or people think of online reputation management as a reactive mechanism that they should implement in case of some bad publicity or crisis situation. However, having online reputation management as an integral part of marketing planning will decrease the probability of a crisis situation considerably.

Key strategies for online reputation management

• Social listening

Be a fly on the wall everywhere on the internet. Constantly monitor all channels to monitor what is being said about your brand; social media comments, posts, and tweets; reviews on platforms like Google, Trustpilot, etc. This way you can be quick on your toes if something negative happens & this will also allow you to have a clear baseline of where your brand stands at each point & what you should be improving on to ensure your customers stay happy. Another benefit is that you will be able to identify your brand evangelists and reward them.

• Stay on top

Everyone understands the importance of SEO, however, for the purpose of ORM, your SEO strategy needs to encompass more than just ranking for important keywords. It is important that you focus primarily on brand-related queries, get brand mentions on other high authority websites (the authority of the third-party websites is very important as having brand mentions on low authority websites can lead to penalties from Google), and last but not the least improve your website’s domain authority.

• Acknowledge & respond to negative reviews/comments

Check your reviews & comments regularly, & respond to them in a respectful & empathetic way. It is not easy to read bad reviews about your brand, but in those moments it is important to stay humble and respond to them in a way that makes your users feel heard.

These are just some of the ways in which you can manage your online reputation, if you need professional help, don’t forget to get in touch with our consultants. Exillium has more than 10 years of experience in managing the online reputation of organizations and high-net-worth individuals.