Guide to Online Reputation Management

Guide to Online Reputation Management


Building a business’s reputation doesn’t take place overnight: You must dedicate time and effort into earning and keeping your customers’ respect. However, in the era of social networking, all that hard work can come crashing down with a few keystrokes from a dissatisfied customer, client or employee. There are steps you can take to protect your brand by using online reputation management. Learn more about how to insulate your business’s brand from lasting harm.

 
What is ORM?
Online reputation management (ORM) is the practice of proactively monitoring your business’s reputation on the Web to respond to negative comments and complaints or to address malicious attacks. Think of it as an early warning system for protecting your brand.

Depending on your time and needs, there are three ways to monitor what others are saying about you online: You can use the free tools on the Internet, buy software packages that take care of a lot of this or hire a company to do the work. Prices for ORM services vary from as little as $9.95 a month to $300 a month.

Practicing ORM
Before you put ORM in place, have protocols in place that will allow you to respond quickly and effectively. Outline who will be responsible for the components of ORM that matter the most: monitoring and responding.

Monitoring
Consistently monitoring for mentions of your business is essential because a quick response is critical. You can use a variety of ORM tools to create keyword searches for your brand or company. Free services include SiteMention and Backtype. If you really want to be vigilant, use a service like Monitor This to search across multiple search engines and then filter all the results into a single RSS Reader such as Pluck.com.

Paid ORM services offer customized search results and tracking tools that may be easier to review and control. Some paid services include Trackur and Brands Eye, which offers a small-business package. Blog-focused services include coComment or Blogpulse. For Twitter there’s Monitter or TweetBeep to track mentions.

You have to tailor your efforts to where you think your business will be talked about. A small, local clothing boutique may just need to monitor Yelp and Twitter. But if you’re a design firm with national clients, you may need to cover more ground.

Evaluate and respond
The most important part of ORM is responding to the comments posted online. As you respond to comments, make sure your response is appropriate and proportional. Don’t treat every criticism as if it’s a fatal blow.

Customer complaints: It’s never easy reading about poor service or defective products, but that’s no excuse to get antagonistic or to play dumb. Instead, take the opportunity to turn a negative experience into a positive one. If you provided lousy service, own up to it. Engage the user openly, let them know who you are and communicate how you’re trying to solve the problem.

Inaccurate statements: Contact the author of the blog, forum or social media site and ask them to retract the statement. Provide a correction in the comments if you can. Post information regarding the inaccurate material on your website, as well as all your other online channels such as LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.

Forums: Join forums and discussion groups for your industry and contribute regularly to build trust with the community. If anything negative or disparaging pops up, you can jump in and nip it in the bud. You could also gain support of allies you’ve made within the community.

Blogs: Respond to criticisms with cogent posts or comments. If the author has called you on something, admit to it but provide your side of the story and show how you’re dealing with the situation. Respond to inaccuracies as described above.

Ultimately, ORM allows you to protect the integrity of your business. Just remember that, as in the real world, people will always have an opinion about your business and there’s not much you can do about that. Instead, focus on tackling comments and publicity that could affect your reputation and your revenue and you’ll stay out of the crosshairs of a crisis.

Ashir Badami is a senior editor at Business.com, the web’s largest business-to-business searchable directory and home to more than 35,000 how-to guides.

Find providers of online reputation management at Business.com, the internet's largest business-to-business website. Business.com reaches 40+ million users monthly online and is home to more than 35,000 how-to guides that help small business owners solve problems and find opportunities.