Successful online reputation management (ORM) is much more than just social media monitoring or traditional public relations (PR) management. With the rise in popularity of social media, instant messengers, blogs, third-party review sites, video platforms, and forums, maintaining a strong online reputation has never been more important to success. Today, ORM is considered necessary even for companies that do not sell goods or offer services on the Internet.
1. Google yourself
Before you begin, assess what the world knows about you. Google your full name and look at the first five pages of search results. Get all available information about you. To create a positive online reputation, it is important to understand what you have to work with.
Google remembers everything. If you owned a different business or used a different name, do the same for them. People are relentless when looking for information on the internet – if you can find it, then so can others.
Determine in this process which sources are positive, neutral, or negative. What results can be improved and what can be improved. Imagine that you are a potential employer, colleague, or any other person who wants to quickly find information about you on the Internet, and use the best WooCommerce plugins. If you are not satisfied with the results, don’t worry. Your reputation management work is just beginning.
2. Be everywhere
At the time of launch, your business should already have official pages on Facebook, Vkontakte, and Odnoklassniki. If you are in a highly competitive market, you may need to be active on other social networks like Twitter, Instagram, Tik Tok, using Email marketing automation, and others.
Some presence platforms may be specific to your industry, such as Clerk.ru for clerks or Pravo.ru for lawyers. Others are universal for several industries, such as Executive.ru or VC.ru.
Complex and B2B businesses require the activity of leaders and key employees on LinkedIn. Whoever has something to show cannot be without Instagram, Tik Tok, and YouTube, and these are the majority of small and medium-sized businesses.
3. Work with official pages
Simply having multiple social media accounts is not enough to successfully manage your online reputation. It is important that they are up-to-date and regularly maintained in order to attract organic subscribers. Neglecting the development of social media pages can make them too weak to overcome negative posts about you on this platform.
4. Listen to your customers
There will always be negative reviews. When answering them, it is important to consider that they may have some validity. This is especially true if you often get negative feedback about a particular issue, for example, in the apps for consultants. Instead of just ignoring online complaints as you would with a bitter former client, handle all issues professionally.
Treat clients with respect and show that you value their feedback, especially since you never know how many potential clients might be reading your responses before deciding if they want to work with you. The way you respond to criticism on the Internet may well push existing and potential customers into the arms of competitors, and you will find out about it at the last moment.
5. Listen to potential customers
If you constantly monitor what other people are saying about your brand, you will be able to take action every time a good or bad comment is posted. This means more opportunities to communicate, solve problems, and reach potential customers.
Systems such as Brand Analytics, Mention.net, or the simple and free Google Alerts tool can help automate this process and increase the efficiency of the work for yoga studio software.
6. Build your personal brand
Whether you own a business or not, a personal brand will serve your purposes well online. Think about who you are professionally and how you want others to see you. Write to exemplify your brand, and choose profile pictures and topics that best represent you. Turn your brand into a template for your professional look.
Anything that doesn’t conform to it — like the Facebook account your college friends tag in their reunion day photos — should be protected by strict privacy settings. No one except close, personal friends should have access to personal information that may be stored about you on the network.
7. Tell your stories
Set up a posting schedule that will allow you to stay active on all your social networks, create positive blog content, and appear in media publications at the right time. When publishing content, tell your story through it episode by episode, involve not only the target audience in your brand but also those who can help you with this – journalists, producers, and bloggers.
Your posts, columns, and comments in the media should be primarily informative and useful. Don’t worry about spending a little money on a PR, writer, editor, blog development team, or making a quality Youtube video.
8. Be transparent
Transparency is one of the most notable trends in online reputation management in 2021. That’s the conclusion of the new Label Insight study. The survey covered more than 2,000 consumers and talked about the impact of transparency on their trust and brand loyalty. 73 percent of those surveyed say they are willing to pay more for a product that promises complete transparency. 39% said they would switch to a new brand in search of production and management transparency. Don’t lie about who you are, what your business is, or what you’ve accomplished.
9. Hire a team
If you’re feeling overwhelmed, lacking expertise, or time, pick up an ORM team to help you manage your web avatar. Find qualified specialists to whom you can entrust work with a reputation and delegate tasks about your agency tools. It will be easier for professionals to handle the technical aspects of removing negative content and creating positive content, and they will be able to cut down on the personal time that an ORM usually requires.
10. Create a long-term plan
Short-term reputation management solutions are an attempt to plug the hole in the boat with chewing gum. Even a team of highly qualified professionals cannot build or repair a reputation overnight. ORM is a lengthy process that requires months of hard work. Hold kick-off meetings, ask the specialist what the realistic deadlines are, and stick to them.
A long-term plan may include career goals, social media goals, and more, but its main goal is to get you to think realistically about the prospects for developing your reputation. You will need patience and the ability to constantly monitor what you post online.
