ORM stands for Online Reputation Management. It is a theory which is related to the monitoring and improvement of business from an online point of view. The main function and role of ORM includes observing and analyzing what a potential customer, partner or reporter will extract about the brand, people or the product or service offered by a particular company. It is specifically related to an online perspective. Thus, observations and analyzations are only preferred when done through Google search.
Role of ORM is the maintenance of a standard due to which customers look for a website or try to contact them. For a good reputation, it is important to know whether the online presence of any company is working well for them or not. This is the pillar of online reputation management.
Impact and Role of ORM on digital marketing
When searched through Google, the first impression made of a website creates a big impact on what customers find on Google. As per statistics, more than 90% of the total consumers read online about a particular service or product before buying or visiting a business. By simply searching about the company on the Internet, users can get a lot of information, reviews, statistics about almost every aspect of that company. These may include what type of product they offer, is it suitable for the consumer or not, reviews of their customer relations and many more.
An online presence which is not positive or having no presence at all can affect the success of any company in exponential measures. Even if it is an individual business or a team, an online presence has become a must nowadays. Apart from building customer relations and enhancing customer experience, it is also very useful in business to business processes like the development of a business partnership, having a talk with reporters or presenting the idea of business to others.
Processes to know the online reputation
Before starting the process of making improvements, the initial step is to analyze the online life of the individual or company. There are several measures to adopt through which this examination can be done. Below are some of the mentioned measures:
- Search
The easiest way to know the online reputation is by searching about the business, or the product the company is offering. Google search is the most reliable method of searching. When search results appear, close observations should be done in the first five listings.
- If the company/person/product appears in the first five listings, then the online presence can be marked as good. Otherwise, it is an urgent need to work on ORM. As it is well known that people do not go further than the first five Google searches, it is important to list the company on this list.
- It is important for every organization to make a positive impact as well as to gain positive reviews from the customer. Gaining negative or degrading reviews and making up to the list of top five will be of no use.
- There exists another important factor which is thought leadership or industry expertise. It is mandatory to have a thought about it to get clear marketing skills.
- There must be a significant number of ORM fires that need to be addressed at regular intervals.
- Google My Business listing is another way through which ORM can be done. First of all, it is important to have one. Secondly, the information must be accurate as it is directly connected with consumers all around the world at various operational levels.
- Presence of social channels
With the course of time, the impact of social media is growing continuously. The company should check their brand’s social channels. There are some points through which the social media presence can be evaluated.
- The primary thing is the number of followers the brand has. It is evident that more is the number of followers, higher will be the popularity. It will be easier to pitch new ideas and create an impact with the help of a large audience. While on the other hand, if the number of followers is less, the impact will be less automatically.
- Maintaining the frequency of social media posts is a tough task to do. But with regular posting and interaction with the audience, it becomes easy to engage customers and improve brand reputation.
- In every post done, many curious people like and comment. Replying to those comments increases engagement and people feel more connected to the company. The same rule applies to messages. If any interested customer messages and does not get a suitable response, then there are chances that he/she might not come back into the same page ever again. In this era of competition, it is important to make the customers feel connected and secured about their choice.
- Even if the company replies to each and every customer, but the average response time is more, the chances of losing interest increases. Therefore, the average response time must be less but not too less otherwise the customer will suspect the page as a scam.
- The posts that the company upload should represent the idea of the brand or the product/service they are offering. If not, followers will not be able to know what the page serves.
Another thing is to maintain a record of what is trending on social media. Usage of hashtags and other social media tools can be of great use. One must keep a close eye on comments to examine whether followers are getting some benefits out of the company or not.
- Ratings and reviews
There are various review sites available on the internet. Google reviews are one of the most reliable ones. It is important to have Google reviews which are honest. Also, keeping an eye on how many stars the company is getting on an average is an important factor. Another tool is the Facebook reviews. The company must know whether the customers are leaving reviews on Facebook or not.
It is a proven fact that people go through reviews before using any product or service. Healthy maintenance can add marketing stars to the company. A good strategy needs to be followed so that there is no tampering of original data and people only get to know the genuine ones. Other review sites are also there such as TrustPilot, Angie’s List, etc. There are also various other third party websites that review products and services in almost all industries. There is an urgency to check how they rate the company so that new improvement points should be discovered.
Final Thought on role of ORM
At last, it is important to work on online presence as it is the only key to improve the online presence. There are many ways to improve this such as claiming the business on almost every business search engine such as Yahoo.com, Facebook and so on. Another way is to set up a reputation that can be done by monitoring and protecting the business by empowering the team by providing several tools.
Search engine ranking should be maintained and coordination must be maintained to improve public relations events. A social media manager and role of ORM manager can also be hired which can take the business to new levels.