Looking to improve your costumer-base? Then begin with your online reputation. How do customers perceive you? The Internet has created a global platform where previous product/service users can share their opinion with prospective consumers. This creates an online reputation that will vary depending on how positive or negative the reviews are.
Whether you’re a small, medium, or large company, you need to understand online reputation management for effective operation. Although personnel is essential for efficient public relations, especially to service-providing businesses, going for effective online reputation management software is more reliable.
Here is a sneak peek of the concept behind online reputation management in this advanced technology era!
How Online Reputation Management Works
In online reputation management (ORM), a business monitors how the brand is perceived on the web and manages how the consumers view it. A reputation manager checks to see whether the product or service is well received by consumers and if they’re impressed by its features. A business should aim for a good perception to entice potential consumers.
Strategic brand promotion is critical in online reputation management as companies mostly turn to advertisements on websites and other service pages. Influencers are also a great way to boost a positive reputation towards a specific brand.
For paid media online reputation management, you can opt to use earned, owned, or shared media depending on your needs and abilities.
What is the significance of online reputation management?
Globalization has seen the internationalization of various businesses that end up reaching consumers worldwide. There’s no knowing how each customer reacts after receiving the service or getting a product until they share it. Consumer engagement gives buyers the chance to offer feedback through various online platforms like social media.
As a business or someone in the media landscape, don’t ignore the role that social media plays in marketing. With the active audience and the ever-reliable Google search, your business should be reputable and trustworthy.
Consumers today can publicly condemn a company or speak against a product if it doesn’t meet their expectations. It’s, therefore, the responsibility of the company to ensure proper consumer monitoring and public relations as effective reputation management strategies.
So, how does a company with multiple employees and serving thousands, if not millions of consumers keep track of this information? Online reputation management software is a tool that’ll monitor all the data about a specific brand from all across the Internet.
The software gathers tweets, Facebook updates, comments on blogs, and other positive/negative information available online. The software also has tools that’ll analyze all the information and filter out the negative reviews for critical analysis.
You should know that 81 percent of consumers rely on online research to form an informed buying decision. As such, don’t ignore the bad reviews or brush off the critics as they may be your downfall.
This is something Nestle knows all too well. In 2010, the company ignored Greenpeace’s caution against its harmful environmental practices. When Nestle attempted to defend itself against the social media critics, the issue received more heat and the company faced major public backlash.
For quality checks, 88 percent of buyers look for user reviews to determine how reliable the particular brand is. This goes to show the weight of online reviews in making recommendations and developing trust with the buyer.
In 2010 for instance, Dark Horse Café got a tweet from a customer regarding their lack of adequate electrical outlets for convenience. The management was defensive and clarified that they’re in the coffee industry. Such an aggressive response didn’t and can’t sit well with consumers. Several blogs and websites did feature the story and Dark Horse Café was under online attack. This points to poor public relations strategies.
The Take!
While a reputation management software will provide you with all the information regarding your online performance, how you handle the situation will impact your success/failure. Always go for creative and strategic public relations solutions to maneuver the tricky online market.
