Online Reputation Monitoring

With the Internet at our fingertips, people are searching online to learn more about a brand, product, service prior to making a purchase. They go to their favorite search engine, type in a few keywords and click on the first few links that appear.

Though consumers will likely visit your site for general information (if your site is ranked), they are more likely to view third party, review sites (discussions, forums, blogs) to formulate an opinion. So what type of content are these third party sites publishing about your brand? What are people saying about you on the social networks? What is the overall “rating” of your company online? Paying attention to social conversations will help you find out.

What is Online Reputation Monitoring?

The abbreviation ORM is becoming widely used among online marketers today. It stands for Online Reputation Management, which will be discussed in thorough detail shortly. But before we deep dive into this concept, let’s first define the difference between reputation monitoring and reputation management and how the two relate to each other.

These two terms are often used interchangeably even though they have very different meanings. Online reputation monitoring is the act of listening to online conversations. It involves using programs and setting up alerts to stay aware of when your company, brand, slogan, product/service or company spokesperson are mentioned online.

Reputation monitoring is important because customers are becoming more vocal about their questions, comments and dissatisfaction with products and services, and social media gives them a channel to share their opinions with the world. Reputation monitoring, the act of listening to brand mentions online, is only a small component of reputation management.

What is Online Reputation Management?

Online reputation management is a much more complex strategy than just monitoring online conversations. Not only does it involve listening to social conversations, but it includes responding to comments and interacting with your online audience to influence their opinions about your brand. Reputation monitoring is about listening whereas reputation management is about participating.

Simply put, Online Reputation Management (ORM) combines traditional marketing and public relations with search engine marketing; it involves managing the search engine results to protect your company’s brand reputation from negative exposure online. Keep in mind that online searchers rarely view more than 2 pages of search engine results.

So high rankings for good publicity are the ultimate goals, which will in turn push any bad publicity down the search engine listings and out of public view. Here are some benefits to implementing an ORM strategy in your business:

• Improve customer satisfaction by communicating directly with dissatisfied customers
• Salvage customer relationships by implementing service recovery to those who are unhappy
• Increase your brand awareness by engaging in dialogue with your customers
• Reduce marketing costs by interacting with customers directly
• Learn more about your customers’ expectations and how you can better meet them

Find out more about Online Reputation Monitoring for Your Business with Emarkable’s Social Media Services.

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