ORM FAQs: 8 Common Online Reputation Management Questions

More and more brands are paying attention to their online reputation and how it can impact their business. In our ORM interview questions and answers, we answer the most common questions about online reputation management.

1. What businesses need reputation management?

If your company is present on the Internet, then it requires reputation management, regardless of the niche. The areas most dependent on image include e-commerce, service companies (hotels, restaurants, salons), banks, and pharmaceuticals. It is here that the trust and loyalty of customers plays the greatest role.

BrightLoсal conducted a study to answer the question, “What is ORM in digital marketing?” and presented a list of industries that are most dependent on the availability of online reviews.

list of industries that are most dependent on the availability of online reviews according to BrightLoсal

Hotels, restaurants, cafes, beauty salons and other service industries top the list. A customer’s first impression is essential, as is the quality of their experience with the business. People are therefore more inclined to read reviews from others than just what the business has to say about itself in order to make a decision.

Next, businesses whose quality of service impacts the health and safety of customers, such as medical and insurance services. In pharmaceuticals, for example, direct advertising is very limited. Guerrilla marketing helps sell services and improve ratings.

Children’s products and services are also impacted greatly by the opinion of their audience. Mothers, as a group, are very specific and demanding. Therefore, brands need to infiltrate the community, build trust, then natively and accurately inspire the target audience to purchase products. They must also continue to offer support and assistance at every stage of interaction.

ORM tools also help new brands enter the market, businesses restart their brands, and new product announcements. Because if you are not spoken about on the Internet, you do not exist.

2. What is a company’s “reputation background”?

A company's reputation is the aggregate of all brand mentions on the Internet. Depending on their sentiment — negative or positive — potential customers build a first impression of the business. Don’t assume your image is formed solely by customer reviews or employee comments. Media publications, comments on social networks, and the quality of your own brand content also have a big influence as well.

Constantly monitoring your reputation helps optimize products and improve conversion rates. Tracking feedback allows you to identify consumer insights, strengthen the weaknesses of your business, and increase your rating.

Addressing negative feedback promptly helps improve your online reputation, avoids scandals growing, and reduces financial losses. For example, a Cox Media Group study says that 50% of consumers don’t order services from companies with a dubious reputation. Bad press costs your business audience and profits.

3. How do I know the brand’s reputation?

First, analyze search results for brand and reputation queries. For example: "brand name + reviews."

Then create a list with the number of posts and links by sentiment. This will give you the percentage of negative versus positive reviews and the company’s online rating.

To monitor all channels, including social media, it is better to use special services. They will help to collect the maximum amount of information and constantly keep up to date, not missing a single mention. On your own, you can use free tools such as Google Trends, or paid tools like Brandwatch.

4. How to create a company image from scratch?

When a brand enters the market, consumers know nothing about it. Your task is to provide maximum information about yourself. To do this, you need to develop your social media presence and register in popular directories:

Monitor your ratings, keep in touch with your audience, and motivate customers to leave feedback. Respond to all comments, especially negative ones, within 24 hours (faster is better). This is why it’s important to constantly monitor brand mentions.

Use guerrilla marketing to promote your company. Get involved in discussions on popular blogs and social networks. Recommend your services gently, as it’s important that your posts aren’t considered spam.

In this case, trust the professionals. SERM (search engine reputation management) agencies employ specialists who know how to neutralize negative comments, promote a company so that it does not look like direct advertising, and use automated tools to monitor mentions. Ask the agency to conduct a preliminary reputation audit and develop a strategy for improving your online image.

Contact Topface Media for Online Reputation Management

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5. What’s the best way to respond to negativity?

Example of how to respond to negative reviews

No business is immune from negative reviews. It’s important to process consumer complaints so as not to undermine audience trust. The worst thing you can do is ignore bad feedback, even if it’s fake. You risk losing potential and regular customers.

Always remain polite, even if a person is openly rude. Show your participation and desire to help.

Address the individual by name and thank them for taking the time to write a review, even if it is negative.

Don’t use form responses

Also, avoid redirecting the client to another department, as this looks like an excuse or “passing the buck.”
Personalize your response

This increases loyalty and sets a dissatisfied customer up for a positive reaction
Consider hiring a community manager who can communicate competently with your audience

respond to negative feedback in a way that placates dissatisfied customers, and strengthen your positive online reputation.

6. Is it possible to delete a negative review?

Sometimes. This mainly depends on the rules of the site where the negative information is posted. For example, on Glassdoor, you can contact the administration and ask to delete the comment if it violates the rules. For more details on what removal methods you can use, read our other article.

Each popular review site has its own publishing requirements. Before writing to the administration, familiarize yourself with them. However, deleting negative reviews is not always the best option. It’s better to level it with positive content. Take the time to develop a content strategy and, using SEO tools, push negative content out of the top search results. Negativity will remain, but won’t show up on the first page of Google.

To remove feedback from Google results entirely, contact the website’s administrator or technical support for the search engine. If the information is fake, discloses personal data or corporate secrets, or contains pornographic materials, then the content can be deleted.

7. How does reputation affect company profits?

According to a Moz study, 67% of consumers won’t work with a company because of negative reviews online. It’s clear how much profit is at risk if you ignore customer complaints. Consider the example of the restaurant chain "BB burgers".

These ratings are rather disappointing.
Losses can be calculated with the formula: X = A * B * C, where:

Indicator A is the number of search results returned for the brand, in this case 3,444.

example of a search result for the query "BB burgers" in Wordstat Yandex

Indicator B is the percentage of customers who won’t work with the brand due to their negative reputation, which is 67.

Indicator C is the average restaurant check, $ 7.18.

Indicator X is the profit lost due to negativity

So 3444 * 67% * 7.18 = $ 165,677

You can reduce the percentage of customer attrition based on the number of negative links in the search results, in this case two. Indicator B becomes 29.9%.

Total: 3444 * 29.9% * 7.18 = $ 73,936.

The company could earn this money if it had more positive search results.

8. How long will it take to restore a reputation?

It all depends on the initial situation.

To assess the current state of a brand’s reputation, a SERM agency will conduct an audit and develop a strategy for restoring brand image.

Details of the strategy will be discussed during initial meetings with the client. Some sample timeframes might look like:

Removal of negative reviews: from one day to a month;

ORM / SERM services: from 3 months to a year.

Conclusion

All companies need to work on building a good reputation on the Internet, regardless of the business niche. If the brand is new to the market, then the main task is to declare oneself and provoke discussions. To do this, a content strategy is developed to include motivating customers and employees to leave feedback on review sites or social networks.

Any negative feedback needs to be addressed. It is necessary to respond to customer complaints within 24 hours (preferably faster). In any situation, remain professional and always respond politely and directly. Hire a community manager who will interact with your audience, opinion leaders, and any disgruntled consumers.

In the case of major scandals triggering a wave of negative articles in online media, it is better to contact professionals at a SERM agency for anti-crisis measures.