What is Online Reputation Management (ORM)?

Online Reputation Management (ORM) is a strategy and process of monitoring, identifying, and influencing your digital reputation and credibility online.

There is a relatively new industry burgeoning on the internet. It is called Online Reputation Management. Search engine results are never always positive.

Online Reputation Management (ORM) is a practice of monitoring the conversation going on about you or your brand. It can be via various forms of social media.

This can be blogs, instant messages, social networks, forums, ranking, and review sites. It can be anywhere else people have the opportunity to express their opinion.

It can be attained by countering, weakening, and eliminating the negative material found on the internet. You should be thwarting it with positive material to improve your credibility and customer’s trust in you.

Reasons to Consider Online Reputation Management –

# Increase sales – Many people are researching brands, services, and products online before making a final purchase decision.

# Build trust and credibility – Having the trust of your clients is a major component of success. The internet makes everyone a citizen journalist.  You should now worry about negative content spreading like wildfire online.

# Online insights – It is very common to see a celebrity or business with an associated scandal to simply vanish. In the past, gossip, speculation, and rumors have destroyed great names and businesses have lost their confidence.

It is very important that you search and find negative reviews on the internet about your brand. You can proceed to plan your strategy only by understanding them.

A complete reputation management strategy involves three components:-

1. Maximizing the appearance of positive online references for a person or company
2. Building an online identity in the event the web presence is minimal or nonexistent
3. Solving online reputation problems

Monitoring the conversation that’s taking place is a fundamental part of this discipline. There are primarily two ways to do this:-

• Outsource the task to a specialized Online Reputation Management (ORM) agency
• Do it Yourself

Outsourced Reputation Monitoring – A number of companies have been established whose business model is built around reputation management. You can’t probably afford them, as high consulting fees.

Do It Yourself Approach – The task of reputation monitoring is not difficult, but it can be time-consuming. It’s all tied to RSS feed consumption.

If your budget allows, a number of affordable software applications are available to help you monitor online reputation.

Famous Online Reputation Management (ORM) Tools –

# Google Alerts – One of the easiest and most effective ORM services. It helps in updating and keeping you informed about the mentions on the web once you have registered.

By tracking down the conversation that’s going on related to three areas of concern:-

1. 1. The Share of voice – How much big or how little is being said about me or my company.
   2. The Tone of voice – Is conversation largely positive or negative?
   3. Trends over time –  How share or tone of voice changes over the course of monthly, quarterly, or yearly?

# Tweet Alarm –You can search the tweets that are about you via Twitter Search and create an automatic monitoring system.

It will send you email alerts whenever someone tweets about your brand. You can also use the Twitter advanced search to monitor tweets about your brand.

# Social Mention – This is an easy tool to use which searches content from across the universe. It can analyze data from several sources to understand their sentiment and origin.

It aggregates information from more than 80 websites including Twitter, Facebook, Friendfeed, YouTube, Digg, and Google.

# Hootsuite – It focused only on the social media part.  It helps the company to manage activities. Hootsuite makes your life easier as you won’t have to keep logging on and off different browsers, tabs, and channels.

Hootsuite allows you to manage multiple social networks, schedule messages and tweets, and track brand mentions.

# HyperAlert, Pin Alerts, Topsy – Pin Alerts for Pinterest, Hyper Alert for Facebook & Twitter, and Topsy for Twitter, all are reliable tools. Modern generation cannot think about past Facebook.

If you have a business, you must have a Facebook page. This is the most important requirement of the social media presence.

# Trackur – Trackur tracks – Facebook, Twitter, Google +, Tumblr, Instagram, Flickr, YouTube, news, blogs, forums as well as online reviews.

It brings you all the mentions your brand is receiving. It is a social media monitoring tool that includes reputation monitoring and reporting capabilities.

# Image Raider – This tool can perform an automated reverse image search. It can discover websites talking about you without mentioning your name and people stealing or distorting your pictures.

# Getlisted.org – It is a simple and easy to use tool for checking to see if you are listed in major local directory sites. It shows your brand is listed in Google, Yelp, Bing, and Yahoo indicates whether the listing has been claimed.

# Embed Reviews in your Website – Embedding third-party reviews on your website can improve your customer experience, showing them your reviews without having them leave your page. It also helps to control which reviews your customers see first.

# Search Engine Optimization – You can use Search Engine Optimization to improve your online reputation.

1. 1. Setting up accounts with hosted blog sites like WordPress and Blogger.
   2. Defining keywords sensibly and creating your own searches.
   3. Being active with your online community by posting positive content on forums and blogs.

# Image & Videos – Usage of images and videos in your content and blogs can help you in Online Reputation Management (ORM) efforts. If you give a brief about you, your service, and business can go a long way in a blog.

# Social Media Presence – By being active on social media, share positive and niche things so that people say about your brand can work in creating a positive perspective. Make sure people are taking notice of your good work.

Conclusion – If social media gives power to the people; it also gives numerous opportunities for brands to build positive brand perception. Online reputation management is not a simple buzz. It’s a reality. If you are not serious about protecting your reputation online; then why are you still in business?