Mr. Arjun is a regular trader and an investor in cryptocurrencies. Recently, the exchange he used to trade in had some issues with the app and its user interface; because of this, he lost an opportunity of making a trade that would have fetched him a huge profit. So, he leaves a negative comment about the exchange on google reviews.
The reputation management team steps in to make this review less visible to those who search about this exchange – This is called Reactive ORM
Let’s imagine that the exchange had already built a positive image online by consistently getting reviews from all its customers. And it even owns and controls most of the results on the first page of Google. So, in this case, Mr. Arjun’s negative comment wouldn’t hurt the exchange much because:
- If a prospective customer was researching the exchange, he would most likely stumble upon those pages the exchange owns rather than this comment.
- Since the exchange has already established ways to engage with its audience, they can quickly react to Mr. Arjun’s negative comment. Thus, handling the situation before the prospective customer gets a whiff of it. -This is called Proactive ORM
Some Facts that Explain Why ORM is Important for Brands:
- 25% of a company’s market value is attributed to its reputation
- 90% of people form their impressions based on the results of the first page in the search engine
- A Harvard Business Review paper revealed that the difference of a single star in online ratings brings about a 5-9% difference in revenue
- Twice as many people inform others about bad services than good
Proactive ORM Vs Reactive ORM – Which is Better?
Even the best brands are just one insane tweet or outrageous review away from getting embroiled in a reputation nightmare. While proactive reputation strategies compel you to invest early to establish a positive reputation for your brand, reactive reputation strategies just help manage the crisis after it has occurred.
When a crisis does occur, it’s much easier to use the already established positive information about your brand to your advantage rather than scrambling for last-minute quick fixes. Thus, it’s ideal for brands to adopt proactive reputation management strategies.
Let’s check out a few proactive reputation management techniques:
- Active sentiment analysis-keeping a tab on the sentiment surrounding your brand across social media platforms
- Building and maintaining a positive and credible brand image across the online space
- Developing the Wikipedia page
- Improving customer service
- Putting a crisis management team in place
Benefits of Proactive Reputation Management
- High star ratings, positive reviews and content not only help instill a sense of trust among the customers about the brand but also increases its sales
- It will help attract better talent to work for the organization
- Brands who have invested time and money in proactive reputation management recover faster from reputational crisis situations
Brand Reputation Hacks
For brands that already have a positive or a neutral reputation, here are a few tips to help strengthen them further:
Google Your Firm: As people form opinions based on the information present on the first page of google search results, ensure to evaluate the same. Use relevant keywords and phrases that you think people might use while searching for your company. This will not only provide insights into people’s perspectives about your company but will also enable you to take swift action over negative content before anyone else finds it.
Track Brand Mentions: There are various analytical tools you can use like SEMRUSH, Google Alerts, BuzzSumo, Reviewtrackers and Review Push to track and monitor the content in which your brand is referenced or mentioned on the web.
Manage Online Reviews: If your business provides good products/services – people are naturally compelled to leave positive reviews. By simply requesting your customers to provide reviews of your brand, you can easily minimize the damaging effects of negative reviews when they come up. Also, being responsive to both positive and negative reviews in a polite/humble way can help you gain a competitive advantage.
Develop Positive Content: Creating high-quality content can help your out-rank negative content from the google search result page. Therefore, develop a content marketing plan that includes a variety of content like blog articles, tweets, images, press releases, video content, etc.
Instead of being poorly equipped to recover from a crisis, consistently working towards improving your brand reputation is much easier.
We at AiPlex have been providing Proactive ORM solutions to some of the top EdTech, Fintech, Crypto companies in India. If you would like us to implement a comprehensive and proactive reputation management plan, please drop us a line.
