Online reputation management-Changing the consumer mindset

Online reputation management entails a transitional shift from the bad to the good. Let us understand from the perspective of the consumer how online reputation management (ORM) can affect his decision making process. A consumer who is searching for buying something online or wants to read a review before making a purchase at a nearby store will log on to the net and check for some information.

Quite reflexively, I must say, many latch onto Google or Yahoo to type in a few key terms or key phrases that give information about a product. A website gives only limited amount of reviews. So in order to make the most of information intake, the consumer goes to a search engine and puts the name of a particular brand, product or service to find relevant information in the form of reviews, blogs or forum sites. The consumer is most likely (84 percent to be on the safe side of percentages) to look at the first two pages of a search engine. Can you imagine, if the search engine results on the very first page gives not so flattering views and reviews about a product or service. The very first page of Google or such other search engine will have done the damage and the consumer will change his mind and go to some other product or service, mostly the one belonging to the competitor.

Online reputation management is an exercise to make sure such negative things about your product or service does not crop up in the first two search results pages of Google or any other search engine. While doing so, the online reputation management team uses the best optimization skills at their disposal to make sure that only good and positive information about your product or service appears in the first two pages of a search engine. Imagine if the same customer who uses the same key terms for a product or service finds relevant, useful, positive information about your product or service, what will his line of thought be? Will he go ahead and buy the product/service? Of course he will. Will he recommend about your product or service to others? Of course, he will. This proves that online reputation management is quite crucial for your business to grow exponentially and also to make sure that your business enjoys a substantial amount of goodwill in the market.

Using online reputation management to market your business online

The post mentioned below talks about the power of online reputation management and writing effective content to make good amount of information and positive news about your company feature on the first two pages of Google or any other search engine.

Apart from writing good content and providing back links, there are many other steps that can help in online reputation management. Discussed below are some of the ideal methods to increase the presence of your business online:

• Social networking sites: You can make the most use of social networking sites for spreading awareness and a virtual 'fan club' for your product or service. Setting up online communities and making them interactive is a good idea. You can also make the most of social bookmarking sites like Del.icio.us and Technorati and tagging them to certain associating tags. In fact, these social book marking sites have a huge number of visitors who will tag your content to their website or online business if they find something interesting. Social bookmarking sites and video uploading sites like YouTube etc give a chance to make your online businss come 'alive' Make sure you use effective tags while bookmarking for your social bookmarking site. For instance if your company's name is Horseshoe, then make sure you tag terms like: shoes, footwear, horse, etc.

• If it a new concept you are promoting or if you want to build content for a company that is famous, you can write in wikipedia or even use the ‘edit’ option of Wikipedia.
• 
  

• A lot of positive reviews or feeback can be written on specialized siters like www.consumerrview.com. If you are marketing a product, you can use shopping search sites like shopping.com.

• · You can set up a tracking system like Google alerts for free which monitor any of the search results that comes up with the terms that are related to your product or service.

These are some of the common ways that can be used to boost your search engine rankings apart from writing effective search engine friendly content.

Online reputation management and the power of effective content

Online reputation management is antidote to negative publicity online. A negative post or piece of information that comes on the first page of a search engine page like Google can be bad news to your online business. It is now easy for an customer or a lay man with even limited use of computers to post their views online in forum sites, blogs and other web 2.0 platforms.

You may not be able to obliterate negative results disappear completely from a search engine. However, you can definitely impact the search engine results in such a way that only positive and relevant information about your product or service features in the ‘first two’ pages of a search engine. As we know online reputation management is a healthy amalgamation of PR skills and search engine optimization. You can definitely use ORM to your best advantage by marketing your product or service in the right manner.

Writing effective content is one of the best ways to exercise wise online reputation management. Good amount of interesting, original content is the right way to thrust online reputation management effectively. In fact, not only will effective content will win you a lot of support and patronage, it will also make many sites or blogs ‘link back’ to you. With the help of valuable backlinks and your expert knowledge about the product, you can increase the positioning of your business to such a measure that it can feature in the first two pages of a search engine.

You can also submit various articles to famous article directories online. These article directories have a resource box at the end, where you can include your company name that will link back the readers back to your website or blog. There are certain specialist sites or article directories that specially deal with the product or service you are dealing with. In this case, you can put in a keyword or two about your industry along with the phrase ‘article directory’ or ‘submit articles.’ For instance, if your company deals in home loans, you can write home loans article directory.

ORM- A bankable proposition

The concept of online reputation management shines glaringly bright as you see banks and financial institutions facing the whack due to negative publicity. In India, for the past few days, prominent banks have faced flak and considerable negative publicity thanks to a slew of online posts and news reports which accuse these financial institutions of mentally and physically harassing their customers.

In India and many other countries, private banks outsource the work to recovery agents or companies for recovery of debt. Such banks or their recovery agents employ pressure tactics or use aggressive language to coerce people to pay their existing debt or outstanding loan amount. Many bore the brunt silently and painfully, until recently when a major tabloid laid bare the shocking news of a person driven to suicide following the coercive measures adopted by the bank.

Thanks to the sensationalism and public outcry that spanned the media, online and offline, the bank received considerable negative publicity. The bank was directed to pay a huge sum of money as compensation to the family of the deceased. The media then launched a tirade against other banks too who had adopted aggressive pressure tactics as a recovery measure. There were reports of a person getting mentally tortured to the point of insanity, another customer’s 7 year old son getting victimized due to the continuous phone calls by the bank. Many stories still float both online and in tabloids and the media is hungry for more. The law has intervened and has prescribed a norm, those banks and financial institutions have to abide by, while employing collection agents. In fact, there is a talk of a movie being made on recovery agents.

Where does it all lead to when it comes to the online reputation management of these banks and financial institutions? For one, two of the major banks are contemplating discontinuation of personal loans because they are backed without any security. They do not want to be dragged in the dragnet. Banks and financial institutions are now wary about their online reputation management because negative posts from any unsatisfied customer can only rub salt to their wounds.

It is a ‘must’ to make sure that no negative post of any kind reaches the first two pages of a search engine like Google because it can harm the company’s reputation, market share and goodwill. It is high time, companies-banks or otherwise stay focused on consumer satisfaction and be sensitive to public interest. Online reputation management is a sure-shot way to rise above negative publicity like a veritable phoenix from the ashes. Trust online reputation management to make the best use of SEO and PR to formulate intelligent and honest content that are appealing to your customers while also taking care of your company’s profitability. ORM, obviously is a bankable proposition!

Online reputation management-We take good care of you!

No matter what reputation you command in the market, the truth is that everybody cannot be pleased every time. Sometime someone or the other is bound to be unhappy or displeased. Ten years ago, the manufacturer and the marketeer was the king. He dictated the market and in times where there was a monopoly, the consumer had to grin and bear it. But in the year 2007, the consumer grins and bares it. The year 2007 has witnessed a lot of ‘so-called prestigious’ brands losing their control over the market thanks to consumer power.

Online reputation management is paramount to your business. Even one customer lost is bad news because it offsets a chain reaction which can spread its tentacles to a lot of other potential customers. It is too big a risk to take! As a responsible business, you must be dedicated and honest while dealing with your customers. You must take care that ther are no negative posts or stories being floated online about your company. This can be done by taking care of your customers’ needs and also by keeping a tab on the competition. You must be alert and smart enough to sniff competition and potential threat and act accordingly. Right from the office boy to the CEO, everyone matters and everyone has a deciding influence on the brand image that you convey.

As online reputation guardians, our intention is to act wisely and see that every negative post that can be a blotch on your brand is done away with. Online reputation management is hand-in-glove with efficient customer service. We know that it is tough to reach to the top but it is all even tougher to maintain that position. Once you are a leading brand, there are a lot of people who would like to pull you down. It gives them a sense of vengeance. Do not let that happen to your brand. Once you are at the top, maintain that position.

In the present scenario and in future, how you portray yourself online makes a difference between a good brand and the best brand. There are a huge number of blogs that can be a potential threat to your online business or even to the business that you are marketing online. There are blogs growing at 60 a minute and it is not necessary that all of them have good things to say about your brand. As a matter of fact, you need to make sure that none of these negative posts come on the first two pages of a search engine. This calls for smart online reputation management.

A lot of powerful personalities and brands have been shrouded with negative publicity which follows them wherever they are. No amount of PR can save the damage done to their reputation be it a Michael Jackson or an Enron. Online reputation management is an exercise to see that helping hand is given at the right time so that the reputation is not only salvaged but maintained too. An ORM can reach to millions of people online at a time rather than a PR exercise or a press release which cannot reach a wider scale of audience. Online reputation management separates the reality from the perception. Are you ready to be the part of the change?