All of us know how important it is to make a great first impression and maintain a good reputation. This is true for any type of business.
Modern businesses and customers rely on the internet – mainly online platforms and websites – to find the products that they need, making internet reputation management essential for your business to succeed.
Studies show that nearly 75 percent of people mention that they trust the information that strangers put up online, while 80 percent of consumers had a change of mind about purchasing after reading a negative online review. This shows that, in order to avoid possible problems along the way, you should be proactive at managing your online presence.
Regardless of the nature of your business or the target audience that you have in mind, you have the power to manage how your brand is perceived online – with online reputation management (ORM).
What Is Reputation Management?
Digital reputation management is simply defined as managing how people view your company online. This concept involves two things: maintaining and influencing your business’s or brand’s reputation and properly addressing negative reviews online.
There are three different types of online management, which are:
- Building – If you have a newly established business and are planning to build a reliable brand for yourself, it’s necessary for you to establish an online presence even before launching your brand.
- Maintenance – If you have already established a good reputation online, it’s imperative that you maintain it.
- Recovery – If your business has received bad reviews online, you need to carry out this type of reputation management. Recovery involves self-promotion and good marketing – both of which aim to help you recover.
What Are the Common Mistakes in ORM?
As a business owner, you should avoid the following mistakes in managing your online presence:
1. Assuming that online reputation management is unnecessary
A common mistake that business owners make is disregarding the importance of implementing an online reputation management strategy. This is true when companies receive largely positive reviews. Some of them fail to recognize that those positive comments may completely change in an instant.
Prevent this from happening by setting up a good ORM strategy. The more effort you put into establishing this, the more that you can manage what appears on your platform as your business grows.
2. Not knowing when or how to deal with negative reviews
If you encounter a dissatisfied client or customer online, it’s important to deal with their concerns professionally. Your response should be objective and should target the problem, so you need to separate it from your subjective feelings about the comment that was given. Take situations like these as opportunities to improve your services and products.
Ignoring negative comments will not solve the problem, and at times, may even lead to bigger issues with customers and clients. It implies that you do not take customer feedback seriously, and this may even reflect as complaints on different platforms that you may not have control over. To avoid these problems, it’s important to reply in a timely and professional manner.
3. Criticizing your competition
Another digital reputation management mistake is to attempt to ruin your competitor’s reputation by posting negative reviews on their site. Apart from being ethically wrong, it’s a waste of time as Google algorithms detect and remove false customer feedback from websites.
It may even turn against you, and people may perceive your company as unreliable. Talking bad about your competition will only harm your business. Keep in mind that customers buy based on the quality of your products and services, so you need to focus your energy and effort on building that area instead.
4. Being inconsistent
If you want to establish a good internet reputation, you need to be consistent across all your social media platforms and websites. Constantly updating your social media accounts with regular posts and quality content is a good indication of your business progress. If possible, try to have a routine schedule and interact with your audience regularly.
More importantly, maintain visual consistency and voice branding across all your platforms. This will help your company become easily recognizable to target audiences.
Invest in Your Online Reputation Today!
Having a credible online reputation is essential to your business’s success. If you are looking to hire one of the best online reputation management companies, call Advanced Digital Media Services.
At Advanced Digital Media Services, we have experts who know how to manage your business’s online reputation. We take all the necessary steps to help you achieve success online. We don’t believe that there is one quick fix nor one strategy to build your reputation, so we will tailor-fit our ORM strategies to your specific needs.
Enhance your brand’s image with us. Contact us today to receive a free consultation quote for our online reputation management packages.
