What is Online Reputation Management

ONLINE REPUTATION MANAGEMENT

Just a few years back, the way businesses maintain their reputation was different than today. The growing popularity of the Internet and social media has increased the need for having online reputation management for the success of individuals and corporates.

Reputation has been a matter of concern for everyone- be it a celebrity or a businessman. Rumors, speculations, fake content doesn’t take much time to spread on the Internet.

Once it goes online and becomes viral, it is hard to control the negative consequences of it. Many public figures, brands, and businesses have experienced damage to their reputation in the past.

For example, ITC Aashirvaad Atta, one of the leading brands in India, became a victim of false propaganda against it on social media sites in 2018. A malicious video was circulated, which showed that the Aashirvaad atta (wheat flour) contains plastic and not safe for consumption. The sales of the product were affected in several states, following which the brand filed an FIR and released a TV advertisement explaining the ingredients of the Atta and claiming that Aashirvaad Atta is 100% Safe Does NOT contain plastic.

Similarly, brands like Johnson & Johnson, Coca-Cola, KFC, McDonald’s have received a vast amount of strange gossip about their products. Rumors like Johnson & Johnson contain asbestos in baby powder, Coca-Cola uses cocaine, KFC uses mutant chickens, Mc Donald’s uses dubious meat and fillers were targeted to damage their reputation..

So, it’s really essential to take care of your image more today than ever. What you look and how you look is important because people judge you based on the reputation that you hold.

If your reputation is good, you appear, HERO, if not, you are more like a CRIMINAL, especially in the online world. Obviously, reputation was, reputation is, and reputation will always remain important. Businesses are able to do good business and survive because of their status.

Obviously, reputation was, reputation is, and reputation will always remain important. Businesses are able to do good business and survive because of their status.

97% of business owners say online reputation management is vital to their business. Customers search for information online to make purchase decisions. When they see bad reviews, negative posts, and bad ratings, they get influence and change their purchase decisions.

When they see bad reviews, negative posts, and bad ratings, they get influence and change their purchase decisions.

Businesses should understand online reputation is their image on the Internet. It needs to be handled with care.

How the city of Rome was not built in a day, similarly reputation can’t be made in a day. It takes time, effort, and planning to build a reputation that you want people to trust and respect.

You must be wondering how companies can build, protect, and fortify their online reputation?

The answer is – Online Reputation Management (ORM).

Yes, ORM should be part of an overall digital strategy for the success of any company, business, and brand. The reputation you hold is what makes you or breaks you. Your online reputation is indeed your image on the Internet.

What is Online Reputation Management?

It is all about using specific techniques and strategies to monitor, address, respond to reviews, ratings, and customer questions across different online platforms. It is all about crafting the right things about your company to tell everyone – who you are and what you do.

After all, in the digital world where everyone is digitally connected, how you look online can have a significant impact on your growth.

When done well, online reputation management
helps to mitigate harmful content and promote positive aspects that help you look great online.

Why do businesses care so much about online reputation management?

Believe it or not, et very day, more than a billion searches happen in Google. People are continually looking for information online. Moreover, customers are looking for reviews and ratings to form an opinion about your brand, products, and services.

Nearly 3 out of 4 consumers trust a company more if the reviews are positive.

Undoubtedly, ratings and reviews have become crucial to customers before making final purchase decisions. The greater the number of good reviews, the higher the chances of gaining their confidence and generate business.

Negative, slanderous or unflattering reviews and comments can be a severe problem for brands because it can damage the reputation.

With ORM, a company can monitor conversations that are happening on social networking sites- whether good or bad.

Either it’s a manufacturing or food processing companies, energy or IT firms, financial or media organizations, they all have a reputation to uphold to their clients, their sponsors, and the public.

Every year, we come across news about a major firm suffer a serious test to its reputation. Some fare better than others, while others fail so poorly resulting them to lose customer, business partners, and market share.

For example, the Cambridge Analytics Scandal in early 2018 put the reputation of Facebook under the scanner. The scandal made devastating revelations of data misuse over 87million of Facebook users to influence the 2016 U.S Presidential Election. Questions were raised over Facebook’s policies and procedures around data privacy and protection.

The stock market value of Facebook dropped nearly $120 billion, and Mark Zuckerberg lost an estimated $17 billion and also faced a huge backlash from a reputational point of view. Since then, Facebook has been trying to stem the damage by laying out a slew of the new policy and procedures changes to restrict access to user data..

The difference between losing and gaining business against overwhelming odds depends on having a good reputational strategy in place and on time. From small to bigger companies, all are putting an ample amount of time, money, and energy to protect and build a positive online presence.

Your online reputation is your online identity, so make your identity powerful and credible.

Short History Of Online Reputation Management

One may wonder before the internet age, how companies managed their reputation?

How businesses expanded their reach? How businesses reach out to people?

The answer is through public relations activities.

Since there were no search engines or social media, public relations activities were mostly limited to conventional print publications, radio, television, press conference, interview events, and other networking campaigns.

Public relations were used to control the flow of information between a business and the public. And, to a great extent, such PR activities helped companies to grow their business by making it easy for them to communicate with people and shaped brand image in to people minds. No doubt, PR was and still is, about relationships.

When the Internet arrived, the flow of information and communication changed dramatically.

In 1998, Google was founded for search queries. When Google came, it made the search so easy and convenient. People got the power to search for anything, anytime. Soon, businesses felt the need to introduced new marketing and branding opportunities.

Over the last 15-20 years, the focus has shifted to build an online reputation. It is not wrong to say that every brand is entering into the world of online reviews and reputation management. If you don’t keep up, you’ll be left behind in today’s dynamic business environment.

Consumer decision making and buying process has changed.
Is it, ‘Boon or Bane’?

Unlike the past, consumers today are not a passive audience who will take anything thrown to them. Now, they are active and like to do their research work before making the final purchase decisions.

Don’t you want to win their trust and confidence?

Does it make you feel good when people Google you and come across with 5-star ratings and great reviews?

Reviews, Ratings, Responses – all contribute significantly to build an online image of a company among the millions of people who are online. A customer sharing their experience is worth ten times than what you write or say about yourself.

The majority of businesses are taking care of their reputation, nurturing it, and are very cautious about it. They understand that a single negative comment can do much harm to their business. Accordingly, digital marketing strategies are planned to attract positive comments.

Positive comments create a positive image; Positive image creates potential customers.Ultimately, it all contributes to the success of your business.

Why Is Online Reputation Management Important?

Beware! This is a digital age, and your reputation could be at stake.

An American business tycoon, Warren Buffett famously said that a reputation takes twenty years to build and five minutes to ruin. This notion is truer today than ever before.

Today, every customer lives online 24/7.And, it seriously matters what shows up when someone Googles about you and your company. If you don’t have an online reputation at all or you don’t appear good, you’re losing a lot of business opportunities.

People are not only searching for you; they are also researching about you. They are trying to figure out who you are, what you do, and how you do.

Your online reputation is determined by not only what you post or share, but also what others post or share about you. The Internet gives people a platform to raise their opinions in a way they’ve never had.

But what does this have to do with online reputation?

Well, essentially, ratings and online reviews can put your business in a positive or negative light.

Sales are driven by great customer experience, and online reviews are digital referrals. Positive reviews enhance the reputation and boost sales, while negative reviews harm the reputation and affect sales.

Do you have any control over reviews?

Yes, you do!

You need to learn about online reputation management strategies for your business growth. It is insanely important to have an online reputation that works for you.

Why is online reputation management important?

It takes control of the online conversations and ensures that people find the right information when they look for you on the Internet. Online reputation management is essential to increased sales, to build credibility, to build brand image, to recruit talents, and reveal your best side.

Increase in Sales

Internet is the first-place people reach out to when they are looking for information about any company, business, brand, product, and service. In fact, the Internet has become a popular tool for search and research.

Before making any purchasing decisions online, customers read reviews and comments. Good reviews about you and your company would leave a good impression on their minds.

Companies with high star-ratings and reviews tend to get more business, more sales. So, it’s essential to have lots of new, relevant reviews for your business online.

According to a Harvard Business School Working Paper, every positive rating causes an increase in business revenue as high as 9%. It clearly indicates that online reputation management can pull extra income for the business.

Build Credibility

Having customer trust is of great importance for a business to succeed. People trust a company or brand with a good reputation. It is because people form their perception based on what they see or read online from others.

When more people are saying good things about the company, ultimately, it appears trustworthy.

There is no doubt, brands with a good online reputation are trusted more. It is because people perception depends on the opinion of the other.

Research shows 90% of people take the time to read online reviews before visiting a business and 85% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.

A strong online reputation increases trust. It means that there is a higher chance of cold visitors turning into prospects and customers.

A negative statement about your brand will spread much faster on the Internet than a positive one. With online reputation management, you can turn a negative review to neutral or to a positive one if addressed on time.

You can build your credibility as a brand who cares about its customers and wants to improve the quality of the service. And, a good ORM service can help you connect and design your communication regarding the same.

Build a Brand Image

Rumors, gossip, and speculation spread like wildfire on the Internet. They are known to ruin the reputation of a brand.

Many brands have lost the trust of their customers in the past. In most cases, this mainly happens due to all the false information floating in the market.

Having online reputation management can help you to deal with an online crisis effectively. You can cut down the effect of such poisonous content on your brand and business.

With online reputation management, you can take timely action and immediately publish information about all the wrong doings that are targeted to harm your image.

Constantly monitoring the responses, reviews, and ratings online can help to build an image that your company desires. You can put a social media post and keep an eye on how your customers are reacting to the same. This will give you an idea to make the next post, which may elicit a more positive reaction.

One can go right as well as wrong while going online. The key is to get your act straight.

Recruiting Talents Tell me, who doesn’t want to work for a company with a 5-star rating? ;

Who wouldn’t want to work for a company that employees love to talk about? ;

In fact, many of you dreamt of being part of big corporate for your professional as well as personal growth.

Good reviews shared by past employees and current employees paint the picture of the company’s work culture. People like to work at a company that shares the same core values and beliefs as them, one that they can trust.
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For example, companies like Microsoft, Google, Apple, Godrej, Amazon, Flipkart, to name a few, are considered as the best companies to work for. Reputed companies tend to attract better talents.

Did you know 69% of job seekers would decline a job offer from a company with reputation problems?

There is an excessive amount of information to be found on employee review platforms like Glassdoor, Indeed, LinkedIn, Comparably, Career Bliss and Fairy god boss, to name a few.

It’s no secret that job seekers will do their research online before applying to your company or even accepting an interview call.

The company’s online reputation can be the deciding factor for the candidate saying yes and accepting a job offer.

Ensure to have your employees review on the happier side to guide the decisions of job seekers. Companies that are known for leadership, great benefits, career advancement, and good working culture will attract the best talent. Best talents want to work for great companies.

When better talents work for your company, they increase productivity, give better results, and drive more success.

Along with employee’s reviews, publish positive content in the form of success stories, case studies, and positive news articles that elevates the standard of your company.

Reveal Your Best Side

Many businesses have business partners to accelerate their growth. Before taking any decision, future investors are going to look up to the Internet to know more about your business.

Every investor would want to associate themselves with a business that has a good reputation. Therefore, it again becomes important for you to maintain a good reputation online through reviews or ratings.

We can say, companies or brands with a good reputation has less risk of losing business opportunities. In today’s highly competitive business environment, people want to work with well-reputed companies who are having a good reputation in the market.

10 Online Reputation Management Commandments

No doubt the Internet has brought huge benefits to small and large businesses. Today customers can easily reach you searching for you online.

Customers look online to find out what to eat, what to buy, where to travel, where to stay, even which doctor to meet. They read comments and reviews online to make a buying decision.

Reviews and ratings on Google, Glassdoor even on social media such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn make it extremely easy to tell the world how good and how bad, your service is.

Online reviews are no jokes. Good or bad, every review speaks something.

Managing your online reputation has become more critical to stay ahead of your competitors.

Take a look at these Ten Commandments to build a positive image. The world of online reputation is in a constant shift, but following these simple commandments definitely will benefit you and allow you to put your best foot forward.

Treat your Google page 1 as your business card

People use Google to find you.

What will happen if the words “fraud,” “scam,” “swindle” is associated with your brand? Admittedly, it will leave a negative impression.

In fact, businesses risk losing 22% of business when potential customers find one negative article on the first page of their search results.

Every month there are more than 10.3 billion Google searches. When searching for news or information, 94% of people only look at the first page of Google results, and 64% of consumers trust search engine results the most.

Visitor’s traffic comes on Google’s first page, so get on the business of improving your ranking on Google search.

Ensure the first page, and also the second and third page that appear in Google says good things about you. Make sure a search for your company or name doesn’t show negative information.

Work on your SERP- search engine result pages for your positive image. Also, apply an effective SEO strategy to increase your search engine ranking and overall online presence for brand visibility.

Earn Trust & Respect

Earning trust and respect is hard. But, building trust doesn’t happen in a vacuum.

Then, how can you make people trust and respect your company?

The best way to earn trust is to be transparent, be consistent, deliver on your promises, and be a problem solver.

Be consistent and provide valuable content, engage customers in two-way communication, host live video events, encourage user-generated content, share trustworthy links, encourage users’ reviews, and act responsibly.

Be Transparent

How in life, there are good and bad days. Likewise, even in business, you encounter good and bad reviews.

People appreciate transparency rather than hiding from criticism. Some might purposely put negative comments to defame you.

Avoiding a question related to your brand, that’s on everyone’s mind, won’t get you too far. Don’t hesitate to respond to such negative comments. Be open about your motives and goals. It will not only show complete transparency but also enhances trust in the company.

Discourage Negative or False Information

If you see egregious accusations about your company unreasonably with a purpose to defame you, make sure to suppress it. Show a prove to the search engine, and it will remove it.

It is essential to maintain a good reputation. Because if wrong defaming information goes viral, it would be tough to win the confidence of people again.

Monitor Customers Feedback

Whether you are a small entrepreneur or big corporate business, it is crucial to closely monitor customers feedback posted on social media sites and other digital platforms. Because people see the feedback and rating before deciding to buy products or services.

The fact is, 90 % of consumers read online reviews before visiting a business.

If you don’t care about feedback, don’t expect them to care about your services or products. Keep an eye on the quality of service you provide to the customer.Customer satisfaction is an essential factor that helps you stand out of the competition.

For example, when customers share their story how using your products their life transforms, it gives a reason to others to trust your products and services with confidence.

Good or bad, keep an eye on customers feedback. Don’t get hesitant or ignore to answer negative customers’ reviews promptly. Assure them you’ve considered the comment, and that necessary measures will be taken to improvise things.

For example, a prompt and simple “We are aware of the problem. We are working on it and will get back to you as soon as possible.” is better than a late reply or no reply.

Attack Your Illegitimate Critics

Malicious criticism and envious troll are unpleasant and bitter. Any comment that is made to harm the company and its reputation needs to deal with seriousness. If people are damaging your brand’s reputation using false information, then take legal action against them.

If you don’t sue them for their malicious intent, they might do it again to harm you.Instead of ignoring, sometimes we have to fight illegal behaviour.

For example, in 2009, Domino’s Pizza employees who posted disgusting video of themselves playing with food were fired and arrested.

Similarly, Food ordering giant Zomato in 2018 fired its delivery boy after a video of the person eating out of boxed orders went viral.

Google Alerts

If you want to stay alert on what your customers, the media, and others are saying about you, then use Google Alerts.

It is a free service that makes it easy for you to sign up through your standard Google account. Simply put the words that you want Google to notify you.

When someone mentions your brand and industry, it will automatically alert you with an email, and you will be able to respond accordingly.

Do a Manual Search Online for Yourself

The best way towards managing your reputation is first to check online what is being said about you and your business.

Search for your name, your business, and other information. See what comes up in social media, forums, review sites, and other digital platforms. It will make you aware and prompt you to take the necessary measures on time.

Learn from Mistakes

We all make mistakes. What is important is to learn from mistakes, not to repeat it.

Be courageous to accept the fault and solve the problem as soon as possible. Better you learn lessons from past mistakes to avoid such circumstances in the future.

Seek Professional Help

If you feel your online reputation management efforts are inefficient to protect or restore brand reputation, then you should turn to professionals for guidance and help.

Hiring the best reputation management company can save you a lot of time and money.They are the professionals, and they are the expert. They can monitor, control, and suppress harmful or defamatory information online for you at its best.

Why Are Online Reviews Important To Local Business?

Today consumers are increasingly relying on online resources for their purchase decisions.

Whether it is about selecting a new smartphone or deciding what restaurant to eat at, online reviews can provide the key tipping point towards choosing a business.

Nothing is more important to consumers today than seeing positive reviews about your company, products, or services online.

97% of consumers read online reviews for local businesses.

Consumers trust online reviews. And, they take reviews as a referral or recommendations.

For example, you are searching for a local doctor in your area, and three doctors show up in Google Maps, one has 5-star ratings, one has 2-star ratings, and the other has no reviews at all.

Who are you going to contact first?

Probably like most people, the doctor with the 5-star ratings. The example illustrates how important reviews are.

Do you want to build customers trust and improve your online business reputation?

Then better start paying attention to reviews and ratings.

The feedback customers leave online for your business and brand can dramatically affect your online reputation. What people are saying about the quality of your business can either make or break you.

Reviews and ratings are now considered so important that major search engines review and rank each business higher and lower in their search results based on overall rating score.

With all scams out there these days, a high rating and positive review give a sense of peace and confirmation that they are making the right decision. Having only a few reviews or non eat all can even be perceived negatively.

So, the more positive reviews and ratings local businesses have, the higher they are likely to appear in search results. And of course, the more positive ratings and reviews a local business have, the more trustworthy they appear.

6 Reasons why online reviews are essential for your local businesses.

• Create social proofs to drive purchases
• Lead to increased revenue
• Make your brand more visible
• Make your brand more trustworthy
• Helps customer in the decision-making process
• Expand conversations about the brand

So, what is the opportunity?

Today business owners are losing money.

This is because right now, virtually every business on the planet, including yours is ignoring this one very important part of their business.

They are ignoring something that is in high demand by customers across almost every industry.

And that is catering to customers reviews online. A recent survey found less than 2% of businesses respond to five-star reviews. Think about it for a minute.

These are paying customers who were thrilled with the service. Then went online and left the highest rating possible. And the businesses ignored the rating by not replying.

On the Internet, everyone looks up reviews online for companies before hiring them or calling them.

For example, on Trip Advisor, Google My Business, Yelp, Facebook places millions of buyers are online reading ratings and reviews. But most businesses do not reply to their customer’s feedback.

It’s time to change bad behaviour and need to think out of the box to create new business opportunities.

For example, you can create a short video featuring the best customer reviews. Then you can rank this video on page one of Google and YouTube. And, that is how you start to dominate the search results. With this simple strategy, one can increase traffic, leads, and customers.

Understand the immense power of just merely putting together a video showing off your best reviews. This idea pretty much guarantees that everyone looking up reviews on your business will become your customer. Because if someone is referred to you and looks up your reviews, they probably want to hire you.

You need to make sure you are the best choice for them. You will never get a customer easier than someone looking up your reviews.

And that is why this is so effective. The crazy thing is no one focuses on these things.

You have to turn this around for businesses of all sizes and industries.

Look at the importance of digital marketing, social media, and video, which is only going to increase. So, make sure every single person looking up reviews on your company only see your best reviews making it obvious they need to use you, hire you, contact you, or book an appointment.

Think about the lifetime value of just one new customer in the course of business with you

How you can legally steal traffic and customers from your competitors. Then you can turn this traffic into new prospects to generate leads and sales for your business.

How To Monitor Online Reviews

The Internet is the home of “digital word of mouth.” Today, customers are all connected sharing experiences every second in review sites and social media. Their feedback defines your brand and influence people perception. What you are online is what you are to most people?

What you are online is what you are to most people?

Reviews or comments – either positive or negative, establish proof for your brand.

Your customers, your followers, your associates are your social proof. Their online reviews are like referring you to others.

Do you have any idea what your customers are saying about your brand?

If you’re hoping not knowing will not make much difference. Then you’re completely wrong. Well, knowing makes all the difference between competing and quickly driving your business.

Do you know how to monitor online reviews?

Reviews are game changers. That’s why you have to monitor what customers are saying, good or bad. While a positive review adds value, a negative review can do more harm.

Monitoring online reviews is essential to protect your reputation.

Let’s know eight ways to monitor online reviews. They are easy, and they are result-oriented. If implemented correctly, they can reduce customer’s dissatisfaction rate and improve overall brand reputation. Once you manage online reviews, the process won’t seem so chaotic.

Monitor Review Sites

Keep an eye on reviews sites related to your business industry. There are different reviews sites such as Google My Business, Facebook, Amazon, Yelp, TripAdvisor, Yelp, TripAdvisor, Yellow Pages, Foursquare, Angie’s list, and many others. Read all these reviews to know what people are saying about you.

All in all, reviews help companies understand their performance and provide them an opportunity to improve themselves.

Setup Google Alerts

Those who want to stay alert on any content relevant to their business needs, Google Alerts is a great tool that allows monitoring what people are saying.

Setup Google Alerts by putting the words that you want Google to notify you. You can set up alerts for your name, your business’s name, your competitor’s name.

Anytime when new content is published online containing keywords that you choose, Google will notify you. It is an excellent tool for monitoring reviews and maintaining a vigilant eye on the competition.

With Google Alerts, it is easy to catch and resolve negative reviews and acknowledge and engage back with a positive response.

Monitor your Social Media Accounts

Although review sites are important, they aren’t the only place that customers are talking about you online. In fact, your online presence is everywhere – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Quora, YouTube, and the list could go on.

More and more customers are taking their experiences and complaints to social media. It can do two things, either winning over customers’ friends or keeping them away.

Monitoring your social media accounts is a must to hear what they’ re saying and respond to it. Check your accounts every day, even if you can’t post content every day. Set up email or mobile notifications to be aware of the post as they get published. Ensure to respond to both positive and negative reviews quickly and politely.

Check Other Social Media Accounts

Along with your social media accounts, keep in mind to monitor other profiles and posts. Stay on top of others’ mentions of your handles and uses of your custom hashtags. This will ensure that your audience is using them often and appropriately, and also that your hashtag isn’t overlapping with someone else.

Monitor Your Blog

Check your blog to find out what posts are being read more and why. Your blog is a great way to allow engagements with comments and ratings.

Reviews are valuable. Imagine negative comments are lying there in your blog which has not been responded. It will only indicate to customers that you do not bother to check your blog frequently.

No reply to negative comments creates doubt in customers minds about your brand quality and credibility. The lousy feedback will shed your business in a negative light.

Verify Your Partners

Associating with other businesses is an ideal way to promote your brand as well as well as to increase exposure in the market. But don’t forget to check the reputation of your partners too.

Are there any fraud cases against them?

Are they engage in some illegal practice?

It’s important to do background check time and again to avoid adverse consequences in the future. You need to be aware and also prepared for any potential danger of partnering with a business that already has a questionable online reputation.

Do Customer Satisfaction Surveys

Who can tell you better about your performance? Well, it is your customers and followers.

Conduct surveys or polls to get an idea of how customers are experiencing our business, products, and services. Polls and surveys provide you an easy way to collect customer feedback and improve your service quality.

Don’t make survey a tedious thing that customers would like to skip. Just be-sure to keep your survey short and convenient but relevant.

When you do good, they appreciate you. When you go wrong, they criticize.

Don’t be scared to use surveys or polls to get an idea of how users are experiencing your website and other online platforms of engagement. Ensure to keep your surveys short and convenient and not too frequent.

Keep track of your Competitors

Stay up to date what competitors are doing. Simple monitoring will help you to learn more about their tactics, activity, and customer engagement.

You can set a new business goal by enhancing your current marketing efforts.Knowing your competitors also help you to identify your strength, weakness, threat, and opportunities.

With these simple eight strategies, your online reputation can take on a life of its own. You can take charge and control how your business gets represented online.

What Are The Main Tools Of Online Reputation

As more buyers rely on online reviews, your online reputation can seriously affect your brand as well as your business. Your potential customers won’t take a moment to change their decisions if they find bad reviews, negative posts in search engines, review sites, or social media. That is why it is essential to monitor your online reputation and find out ways to deal with damaging contents.

Let’s know some valuable  online reputation management tools that enable you to protect your brand image more effectively every day.

Google Alerts

Google Alerts is a powerful tool to alert you. It sends you notifications when new content is added for keywords that you’ve specified. The service scans and pulls information whenever Google finds new mentions on the web.

Awario

Awario makes reputation management easy. The tool monitor what people are saying about your brand  across social media networks and the web in real-time. It let you respond to reviews or comments with ease.

It offers sentiment analysis and powerful analytics help you to spot mentions that require your immediate attention. It shows you the share of positive and negative mentions of your business, letting you locate spikes you need to address.

Moreover, Awario helps to  spot copyright infringements and find people stealing your content. The real power of this tool relies on its competitor analysis capabilities. Just create monitoring alerts for your competition, and it will show what their customers are experiencing. Are they happy or unhappy? Customer’s comments will tell everything, and you can learn a good lesson from your rival’s mistakes.

Reputology

Reputology helps local businesses to monitor and manage their online reviews in real time. This tool is ideal for tracking  industry-specific review sites- be it real estate, automobile, hotel, healthcare, or fitness. It let you get automated email notifications to stay on top of new reviews.

Reputology is great for multi-location businesses that want to keep reviews of each of their locations in one place. It lets you find out why certain locations are doing good or not doing good, and measure your brand’s overall reputation across areas.

Fish Digital Complaint Search

Fish Digital Complaint Search is an easy way to check the health and fitness of your brand. Interestingly, this online reputation management tool performs searches on over 40 websites for negative reviews of your business.

Imagine the power that you have to catch negative reviews through a simple search over 40 complaint websites. You can take immediate action on negative and harmful comments before they damage your online reputation.

Use this tool to make sure nothing defaming appears related to your business and brand. It allows to remove bad reviews if they don’t reflect the reality. Withthis handy tool, you can see the reviews, understand your brand’s ratings, and respond to complaints on most websites.

SEO Spy Glass

SEO Spy Glass is different from other tools. Because it’s not explicitly designed to track an overall reputation of brands, but it’s designed to monitor and manage your reputation through SEO. The tool helps to check your backlink profile and prevent spammy, low-quality links from ruining your rankings.

Do you agree or not that links that lead to spamming can be poisonous for your online reputation?

This tool is focused on improvising the overall reputation of any organization via streamlining their website’s backlinks. It allows you to analyze the authority of each of your links and measure the penalty risk of your backlinks. The tool has the most up-to-date link index in the market.

On top of that, the tool allows you to compare the link profile of any website with its competitors. This comparison helps you to see which aspects of off-page SEO you’re rocking, and which ones you need to work onto catch up.

The tool helps you to outrank the competition on search engines with the most effective link-building techniques.

Grade.us

Grade.us is a super easy tool to manage reviews. It provides an easy way to ask and remind customers to review your business on the sites that matter to you.

The tool is designed to convert happy customers into reviewers and prevent unhappy customers from bad-mouthing a business in public.

It lets you capture and amplifies positive reviews to reach a broader audience by automating web and social media content.

The tool is very flexible, especially for companies that want to use their white label version. The tool beautifully demonstrates ROI and show reputational improvement.

Brandwatch

Brandwatch performs in-depth brand reputation analysis and creates powerful, data-rich reports. It is known for detailed reporting that offers a demographic analysis of the people who’re discussing your products or services online. The demographic analysis includes gender, interests, occupation, and location.

If you’re searching for premium enterprise based online reputation management tools, then this is the right tool to solve your purpose without any doubt. In case you run a digital marketing company, its compatibility with digital marketing tools, including Hootsuite, Buzz sumo, and Google Analytics, add value to your online reputation management services.

Brandwatch is a powerful social listening analytics platform that’s a great fit for marketing analysts at big brands and agencies.

The tool boosts your social ROI by targeting the right people with pinpoint precision and give instant results.

Review Trackers

Review Trackers does exactly what the name implies. It monitors online reviews of your business or brands across 100+ sites and encourages happy customers to review your business.

It puts every online review in one place so you can see what consumers are saying about your business. The tool makes it easy to take control of your company’s reputation.

Furthermore, Review Trackers aggregate your customers’ feedback and show which aspects of your business customers tend to mention the most so that you have strong ratings and reputation anywhere consumers are searching for your business.

You can set up email alerts to get instant notification about critical reviews and build powerful custom reports tailored to your needs. With the use of this tool, you can take a step towards making sure your reputation keeps growing.

Visible

Visible is considered as one of the best online reputation management tools for brands that want to stay pertinent. The tool is designed to open feedbacks, give administration to their clients, and message in new and intriguing ways that resound with clients and help them utilize visible intelligence to both inform and enhance their business.

This web-based social networking tool has features like listening, tracking brand buzz, accessing consumer sentiments, and it is an all-in-one platform and interface.

Social Mention

Social Mention monitors the web and picks up real-time social media search and analysis. It can monitor more than 80 social media sites, including Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

It also summarizes the customers’ sentiment into positive, negative, and neutral mentions, as well as lists your top keywords, hashtags, users, and sources.

Social Mention gives overall statistics about you, with scores for strength, sentiment, passion, and reach.

Gather Up

As our name implies, Gather Up gathers your customer feedback, reviews, data, surveys, and everything in one place.

Any business that faces competition knows the value of five-star reviews. The more five-star reviews you receive, the more trustworthy you appear.

No matter how excellent your service is, businesses find it harder to get good reviews. People are more inclined to go online to complain rather than compliment.

Gather Up is designed to let a business to understand customer experience through reviews and feedback and provides a solution to online review management.

The tool automatically requests and monitors customer feedback, prevents negative reviews, and encourages happy customers to leave online reviews across the Internet.

Similar Web

Similar Web provides a comprehensive analysis of any website or app. It is created for companies of any size and type and can be used by any company that wants to see traffic statistics for the website.

It also provides you an easy way to compare your website with your competitors. It shows you insights into your industry, which indicate how well your brand is respected within your niche. It is a useful tool that gives complete analytics data of any specific site, such as user engagement metrics including monthly visits, page views, bounce rate, and visit duration along with audience interests and geographic traffic details.

Overall, Similar Web helps to keep an eye on your complete business health so you can track opportunities and make smarter business decisions. With this tool, you can make appropriate changes to your website to make it more user-friendly and to maintain a good name for your brand.

Your online reputation is everything in today’s digital world.

Those mentioned above, 12 online reputation management tools are a great way to manage your online presence and improve your online business in a highly sustainable manner.

Apart from these, there are many other tools available online. You can choose any of these tools based on your business needs and marketing goals.

What Does Online Reputation Management Include?

Since more and more business is going online, online reputation management is something that will never end.

In the dynamic digital world, there is every possibility that someone may try to attack your business due to the reason of competition, envy, and other intentions. Spammers will find out new ways to assault, an angry consumer or ex-employee may decide to make things really ugly on you.Online reputation management is something that helps your business from sinking.

It doesn’t matter whether you are into a small business or running a big organization with 5-10 thousand employees. Having positive online reputation management is vital that encourages awareness, credibility, and trust.

Modern customers are always doing their research online and looking at what others are saying. Having a poor reputation can result in a loss of relationships, a lack of opportunities, and even business failure. Companies that develop a strong reputation experience an increase in sales and revenue.

Reputation Monitoring, Reputation Repair, and Reputation Building- all are pro active elements of reputation management.

Reputation Monitoring

Checking what people say about you online will help you maintain a good reputation.

Reputation monitoring is a practice of keeping a vigilant track of your online presence. Your online presence is everywhere on the internet. Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and the list could go on.

Your customers and followers are online 24/7. They see you, and they like to hear and talk about you.

Are they talking good or bad? How are they rating you? How people comments affect your business?

For all these questions, reputation monitoring is essential.

Reputation monitoring is focused around, continually assessing the way you are perceived online. The monitoring can include routine evaluations of social media platforms, examining search result rankings, and tracking relevant information.

Reputation Repair

Repairing your online reputation yield only positive results of your business.

Reputation repair is the act of suppressing harmful content that can damage the company’s reputation severely. Reputation repairing can include removing harmful content in online search results and adding positive content related to your business, products, or services. The right reputation repair strategy can save you from many unpleasant experiences. Go through all existing reviews, making sure to flag inappropriate or spam reviews and respond to any negative feedback.

Research shows that websites on the first page or results receive almost 95% of traffic.

No matter how good you’re, you cannot please everyone. There is still a possibility to get negative comments which may come from an angry customer, follower, or hater.Maybe a competitor seed false negative reviews or articles about your company with the only motive to damage your reputation and will leave no stone unturned to insult you.

If you want to repair your online reputation, you must take action quickly to fix your reputation. You should focus on deleting any harmful or defaming content.

Don’t let harmful content pollute your image. Doing these simple things helps to suppress harmful content and push it down in Google search results.

Reputation Repair

Building your reputation makes your business appear more trustworthy.

Reputation building is the practice of creating positive content to build your reputation. Reputation repair alone won’t develop a strong online reputation. You need to take an effort to create new positive and useful content that high lights you. Come up with the contents that define you, content that describe your business goals. Ask yourself, what is the image you would like to portray to people?

What is the thing you would like people to say about you?

Well, continually creating content that matches your brand can prevent negative materials from rising to the top of Google search results.

When you create content that reflects your brand, you are building a line of defense against any new negative information that may surface and affect you.

Digital Marketing Strategies For Online Reputation

You may not be Apple or Adidas, but who you are and how you come across is really important to achieve success in your business.

Are you putting your best foot forward?

Maybe it is time for some digital marketing strategies so you can be in the spotlight every day for everyone to see online.

Let’s get familiar with these digital marketing strategies towards building and managing a strong online reputation for our business.

Decide What You Want Your Online Reputation to Be

The first thing you need is to decide what you want your online reputation to be.

Do you want to be a market leader?
Do you want to be recognized for excellent service?
Do you want to be known for innovation?

Take the time to do some soul searching and determine who you are and what makes up your brand. Be clear with what kind of image you want to build because people will perceive what you want them to understand.

Check your existing Online Reputation

Make an effort to check your existing online reputation. Go online, check what people are talking about your company, business, products, and services. It will give you an insight into your position, performance, and preferability among the customers.

Think about what comes to people minds when they hear the name of your company. Is ita good image or a bad image?

If you know this, you can plan your online reputation management strategies effectively for long – term success.

Enhance Your Reputation with the first page of Google

People search online for you. They simply go to Google and type your company name and search. Make sure the first page and a few pages that appear in Google search results don’t reflect negative things about you.

Ensure negative and insulting words like ‘fraud,’ ‘scam’ are not associated with you and your brand; otherwise, you will lose the trust before it gets to build.

The Google search result pages should tell what you want to tell others about you. It should generate additional traffic with high engagement.

You need to implement the SEO (search engine optimization) technique also increase your brand visibility and improve ranking.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

For most company’s websites, organic search is the first way people encounter a brand online. The organic search usually comes through Google. A careful examination of what shows up on the first page of Google search results is really an important step in evaluating your online reputation.

Keep yourself updated about the new SEO trends. The recent Google’s algorithm update suggest that the best approach is to create quality content that is useful to people and provide solution to their problem.

One can match people expectation by offering content that meet their desire to do something, know something, or become something. Make an effort to write amazing content consistently.

Meeting the people expectations with the most relevant search results page, businesses can develop their strong online presence.

Craft Digital strategies For Your Reputation Goals

Your online reputation is your persona. It is better that you enhance your personality to leave a lasting impression on people.

Harmful, defaming, fake contents are a threat to your reputation. You need to take timely action against such harmful materials.

In the digital world, rumors spread faster, and many a time get viral. Once wrong information goes viral, it’s hard to regain people trust and confidence.

No one would like the reputation that they have built over the years with their hard work, get tarnished in one day by malicious content or malicious intention.

Better you use online reputation management tools to keep yourself alert about harmful content- in the form of reviews, comments, articles, blog, post. It will help you to find negative opinions before they ruin your reputation.

Reserve the right to edit or delete potentially harmful content. And, revert to negative criticism. An impressive online reputation is all about professionalism.

Use Social Media to Promote Your Desired Reputation

Online reputation is not only about monitoring, but it also demands to design your status. Take advantage of social media, which is one of the most influential business tools on the internet today.

The first benefit of social media is that it gives you big opportunity to tell your brand’s story to millions of people. Make a strategy to tie all your social media efforts to create a brand personality that you want people to perceived online.

Make an effort to be active in social media and publish relevant content that goes well with your brand. Make sure you post often enough to gain people attention and interest.

Your social media contents, including posts, pictures, videos should speak and sell good things about you. You can share even your success stories, achievements, and awards. It will make you more trustworthy.

These days a lot of companies are using this trick of content to increase customer retention towards their brand. Companies are managing their online reputation across social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, and websites with engaging content that provides value and solve customers’ problems. Of course, this will help you with your online reputation.

Get Feedback

Try to get feedback from your clients and customers. The reputation that others hold of you in their hearts and minds is what makes your online reputation.

Ask them about your attributes and core strengths. If they can quickly tell you your qualities, then you’ve succeeded in branding you. You can also conduct surveys or online polls to get reviews and ratings.

Make use of positive reviews and ratings as testimonials, which can be social proof for your brand. Think innovative and run positive comments on your website and across the social media platforms. Definitely, it will help to create brand awareness quickly.

If you don’t bother to brand yourself, someone else will surely do it. And, the out come might not be so favourable. Branding yourself not only keeps you current in your field, but at the same time opens doors of opportunities, and creates a lasting impression on potential and existing clients.

By developing your brand, you’ll have control over the initial perception people have of you.

Frequently Asked Questions

How Do I Brand Myself?

Well, you can make yourself a brand. You just require to do some simple things.Create relevant and engaging content in the form of pictures, video, blog, articles, and other materials. Published content frequently on social media platforms where the majority of people are spending their most of the time. Be active on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn to connect with customers. The more they see you, the more they will get to know your business.

How do you create a good online reputation?

1. Monitor your online presence

The first step towards making a good online reputation is to monitor your online presence. Are people talking about you or not? And, if they do what are they talking.

If you don’t know what people are talking about, it’s tough to figure out which are those areas that you need to improvise. Monitor review sites, forums, and social media sites to track all kinds of conversations related to your brand, products, and services.

2. Have an Online Review Strategy

Have a solid online review strategy to attract positive reviews and defense for negative reviews. When people Googling your business, they also read reviews and ratings.

Develop a strategy that would encourage people to share positive reviews about your brand. For positive reviews, be sure to thank people.

Don’t get panic over negative comments; it will come whether you like it or not. For the negative ones, be sure to respond promptly, politely, and professionally.

Ensure you deliver on your promises and give customers a great experience.

3. Work with influencers with great online reputation

There are social media influencers in every industry and niche. A social media influencer is a user on social media who influences others and has the power to affect purchase decisions of others. Collaborating and connecting with right influencers in your niche can help to boost your online reputation.

Working with influencers provides you three benefits. Firstly, it expands your reach. Secondly, it gives you credibility and thirdly it helps for cross promotion.

Influencers can connect you to their followers through content about you or your brand, and people trust influencers and follow their recommendations. Nurture strong relationships with social media influencers to reach your target audience, build trust, and drive engagements.

4. Monitor your competitor’s online reputation management strategies

Don’t forget to track your competitor’s online presence and reputation.Monitoring your competitors is important for two reasons. Firstly, it helps you to improve your reputation. Secondly, you can avoid a lot of mistakes.

Look at their websites, social media profiles, ad campaigns, email marketing, media coverages. You will get familiar with their strategies and learn new things to improvise your online reputation management for better results.

How do I clean up my online reputation?

You can have a clean online reputation by burying the bad contents with the good.It means to mitigate negative comments and come up with positive content.

First, find out what kind of damaging contents are living online against you.

Are they malicious, rumors, or speculations?

Decide on what kind of prompt action you can take to deal with such poisonous content. No company has the authority to remove negative materials from theInternet about them directly — contact websites when you encounter false or vindictive reviews and request them to remove.

If you come across customer complaints, don’t be hesitant to answer it. It always better to respond rather than keeping that complaint unanswered. If you don’t reply, it will only create doubt and raise questions on your credibility. Be apologetic and polite and present your side of the story. It will only reflect your commitment towards solving a problem and fostering healthy relationships with your customers.

In case of negative reviews and comments, deal it with cautiousness.

Never post fake reviews to hype about your business. If you are found guilty, you will not only lose customer respect but also invite legal trouble.

What is the online reputation management score?

The online reputation score is the measurement to check the overall performance of your online presence. It is one of the best ways to know your ranking in the search engines. Your reputation score tells you whether your online reputation is helping you or harming you.

Every business who are online they must check their online reputation score. It is like your progress report card informing you about your online performance.

Knowing what and where your business or brand name stand in the search results is your key to protect your good name.

Individuals, companies, and corporates all are now considering online reputation scores to analyse how people perceive them online.

How do I protect my online reputation management?

1. Check Search Engines Once a Month

Believe it or not, customers are having conversations about companies on online review sites, social media, and blogs. Search yourself at least once a month on search engines to find what people are saying about you.

Don’t search yourself only on Google. Also, check other search engines like Yahoo, Bing, AOL, to name a few.

Consider setting up an  RSS feed or Google alert with the name of your business. You will get a notification immediately when anything associated with your name comes up on search engines. 

2. Claim Your Business Profile

There are a lot of freaks on the internet who can create a fake account using your name to damage your reputation. It’s better to claim your business profile across the web and on every social media site to prevent brand identity theft. Even if you’re not interested in using  Twitter for business purposes, handle your Twitter account using your company name to stop the misuse of your business profile.

3. Have a Policy and Make Someone Responsible

Since gossip is always constant online, you should have a consistent process and policy to manage your online reputation. Regulate what customer service actions require to be taken across the different digital channels and make monitoring of those  channels a part of your company policy.

You can designate a person to take charge of monitoring online for your company mentions and also to respond to people feedback according to the company policy.Ensure the one who will be monitoring is skilled and has a strong knowledge of social networking sites.

4. Distribute Content

Make sure to provide relevant content on your website, social network accounts, and other digital platforms for spreading the word about your brand. Not sharing any information may decrease the  online visibility of your brand.

Use the power of social media and get started creating content that could be shared easily. Make sure you have an adequate amount of positive content online.

Answer questions on  Quora, Twitter, and participate in an industry-specific group discussion to promote yourself as an expert in your industry.

5. Use a Professional Software Solution to Help

Use professional software that provides a solution to the problem of managing an online reputation. You can monitor, clean up your online presence as well as to measure your business’s performance against competitors. Conduct regular searches on your business name to keep an eye on harmful information.

How can I improve my personal online reputation?

1. Provide Excellent Customer Experiences

The best way to improve your online reputation is to take charge of providing excellent service and experiences to your customers. Customers appreciate businesses that respect them and make efforts to solve their problems quickly.

Your timely response to customer’s needs, queries, reviews, ratings will make them happy.

2. Fix an issue before it becomes a major problem

Even the most reputed companies receive a bad review or criticism. But, as a company, how you address bad reviews can make the difference between creating a happy customer or increasing the problem.

It is impossible to keep everyone happy. But, you can think of reaching out to your angry customers is very important. Reach out to them to offer solutions that calm them and make them feel you care about your customers. It will give the impression that your company keeps its customers first all the time.

Customers are more likely to recommend a brand to their friends and family if they have had a positive social media experience with it.

3. Display the best that your company has to offer

Many customers go online to research and rely on reviews before deciding to do business with the company. The information they receive from reviews helps them to figure out if your company is the right fit for them.

What is said online, stays online forever!

Make efforts to show your best side to customers. Thank the customers for a good review. And, in case of a poor review, try to fix it immediately and leave a response that you are taking measures to solve the issue.Take every opportunity to show your good side and create a lasting impression on the mind of customers.

Take every opportunity to show your good side and create a lasting impression on the mind of customers.

4. Be active online

Be active in social media sites where you have your customers and followers. Post content that grabs customers attention and increases loyalty towards your brand.

Keep updating your social media accounts and post regularly to create a strong online presence and engage with your customers.

5. Build Trust and Credibility by online reputation management.

Trust and credibility are the two factors that increase loyalty towards your brand.It can make or break your online reputation.

Offer excellent services and deliver on your promises. Making promises and keeping them is a great way to improve online reputation.

A happy customer would share their experiences online with others. It is more like spreading a good word about your business. Because of this, your company will earn a positive brand image that attracts new customers. How do I protect my online identity?

How do I remove myself from Internet searches?

1. Delete every social media account

Think to remove yourself from all social networks where you created your account.Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and the list could go on.

To remove these accounts, you go to your account settings and look for an option to either deactivate or delete your account.

2. Delete all other online accounts including shopping sites

Make a list of the online shopping sites and services that you’ve used for shopping, for booking and other purposes. It could be Amazon, Flipkart, Uber, Make MyTrip, Airbnb with many other services sites.

You can delete the account by going to your settings, or sometimes you may need to request the service provider. The service provider will ask for your identity verification to process further actions before making any final changes.

3. Remove yourself from data collection sites

Some companies collect your information- from everything you do online and sell that information to interested parties. Spokeo, People Finder,White pages.com, to name a few, are such companies that collect such data.

Search yourself on these data collection sites and ask each site to remove your name.Remember, if you’re removed from these data collection sites, you’re mostly removed from Google search results, making harder people to find you online.

4. Remove your info directly from websites

First and foremost, make sure with your cell provider or phone company are you listed online or not. In case you’re registered online, ask them to remove your name. Tell them the reason why you want to delete your name and they will help you.

5. Remove personal info from websites

Send a legal request to Google asking to remove all sensitive and personal information of yours from websites. The removal process can take some time, but you can ensure by checking it with Google.

6. Remove outdated search results

Remove outdated search results from the cache of Google’s servers. Submit the URL to Google so it can update its servers to delete the cached results and cut association with the page.

7. Remove your email accounts

Finally, the last step is to remove your email accounts. Make sure this one is your last step because your email address is required to complete the previous steps.

What Do I Do When the Negative Online Information About Me is True?

When negative information about you is true, you can’t escape it neither you can remove it. Once it is online, it is there and will stay there.

But don’t get disappointed. There is a solution to make things right and overcome the problem. Content strategy is your weapon to fight harmful content that damages your reputation.

Keep publishing positive, relevant, engaging, and high-quality content such as blogs, photos, video, articles, news coverages on your websites, and social media accounts that will redefine your motives and goals.

Your content is great if it is concrete, credible, unique, emotional, entertaining, inspiring, educational, relevant, and practical.

You also need to consider the SEO strategies to make content good from an SEO perspective. Content needs SEO to improve its visibility and position on search result pages. New positive content is the most effective tactic to dilute the negative contents and significantly diminishing the placement of harmful content online.

How Can I Enhance My Online Reputation Management Using Philanthropy?

Supporting charity is good for business. Making your organization a socially responsible and philanthropic member is a great way to develop a strong and positive reputation.

Philanthropy is all about doing good deeds to help communities and improve the quality of life. Prominent brands Apple, Google, Microsoft, Pepsi Co,Coca-Cola, to name a few, are providing charitable donations to support communities.

1. Philanthropy Improves Online Media Coverage

It has the power of attracting the attention of news organizations. Local media cover stories about companies demonstrating their commitment to social responsibility.When such stories are posted and shared online, it reflects a good image of an organization and helps them grow stronger.

2. Philanthropy Engages Employees

Showing your sincere efforts in community support helps you to earn the respect of employees, clients, investors, and customers. Establishing a positive perception of your organization in the people minds make you not only a hero of humanity but also receive appreciations and better reviews. It will also boost morale, create a happier and more engaged workforce.

3. Philanthropy Is a Powerful Way to Market Your Firm

Companies gained a more favourable image in public through philanthropy can make their business more successful. Increasingly, philanthropy is very much used as a form of public relations or advertising to promote the image of a company or brand through cause-related marketing strategies.

It is a way for businesses to connect with the community on a more personal level and create a meaningful relationship with people. Definitely, it is very much right thing to do to make people feel good about your business.

What is the Best Way to Use LinkedIn as a Reputation Management Tool?

Although LinkedIn is a professional networking platform, it can be used as an essential tool for online reputation management. Creating a business profile on LinkedIn helps you to enhance your reputation and connect with people in the quickest and easiest ways.

LinkedIn has several features and includes a section where you can highlight your awards and honors. It let you highlight your expertise, allow you to publish quality-rich content, follow a social influencer, and monitor who views your profile. All these features, ultimately create an opportunity for you to promote your company on the Internet, potentially win new business, and significantly change your reputation.

Do I Have to Use Social-Media to Improve my Reputation?

Most of your customers are active on social media platforms. Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, to name a few, is a favourite place where people share their experiences. In fact, a lot of conversations related to business and brand takes place on social media.

If you want to boost your online reputation, start working on your social media profiles. Stay active and post content frequently. Be engaging and encourage people to share positive reviews.

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