Online reputation management is a strategy to influence and control the digital reputation of a brand. This strategy is similar to PR and consists of following & influencing the image of a brand. SERPs for branded searches are the main focus in ORM. The purpose of the strategy is to prevent negative content about the brand to be visible in the SERPs.
Moving forward in the year 2021, marketers need to upgrade their ORM strategy. The year 2020 has left businesses in an unprecedented and unpredictable situation. Consequently, the brands need to tweak their online reputation management strategies. ORM is critical for brands to maintain a positive reputation in the eyes of the customers and the strategy provides marketers with additional insights to improve their marketing strategies, products, and services. ORM influences positive word-of-mouth marketing (WOMM) and businesses with high star ratings and positive customer reviews acquire more sales and lead. Amidst the recovery from the 2021 pandemic, ORM is even more critical for brands and they must devote more time and energy towards monitoring their brand online.
Gradually companies are allocating more resources to online reputation management for maintaining a healthy brand reputation and pipeline. Moving ahead from the disruption of the 2020 pandemic brands need to allocate more time and financial resources to their ORM architecture.
The following statistics were disclosed by the clutch. co, recognize and emphasize the importance of ORM for digital marketers to maintain the health and success of their respective organizations:
- More than 54% of digital marketers consider ORM very necessary to the success of their company.
- 42% of the business owners monitor their online reputation management (ORM) daily which emphasizes how frequent businesses are when it comes to monitoring their online reputation.
- Brands frequently employ social listening to keep a note of what’s being said about their brands on various online platforms.
- 70% of the companies prefer the method of devoting resources to their Online Reputation Management (ORM) framework and employ in-house employees on the task.
- The biggest achievement that companies experience from investing in ORM is growth in sales (which is the case with 25% of the companies).
- Nearly, 35% of the businesses plan to allot more time & money to ORM.
Online Reputation Management (ORM) is considered to be a function of the online population and its significance has exponentially multiplied in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic. The period of the COVID pandemic has spurted more digital transformation than the last ten years and has become a mainstream method for both communications and transactions which has made online reputation management a more vital exercise in the context of brand management for individuals as well as businesses.
The up-gradation of your ORM (Online Reputation Management) Strategy in 2021 requires a lot of technological changes and innovations because of the following prime reasons:
1. User-Experience Will Be a Ranking Factor
The user experience will be a vital ranking factor for brands in the year 2021. In the light of Google's core algorithmic updates in the year 2021, the machine learning algorithms employed by Google will make website ranking a more holistic factor, and the quality-centric ranking drive of Google will make the usability of a website and users' experiences important ranking factors.
An important ORM strategy for the marketers moving ahead in the year 2021 will be promoting more positive content and supplanting negative customer comments in search rankings.
2) Social Media Profiles Should Be Linked to Search Engines
To achieve a good ranking in the search engine results, individuals, as well as brands, must employ social media marketing to build their online reputation.
Also, it will be easier for users to seek out identities of individuals or companies that are new to them. Potential employers, as well as business partners, can get an advantage to get more insight into an individual.
A good social media platform must be able to strike direct communication channels with the customers. Neglecting social media presence could be detrimental to the online reputation management (ORM) of organizations as social media is the hub for tracking happy and disappointed customers. Also, social media can be used as an excellent platform to address and resolve customer grievances.
3) Online Business Reviews Will Become Paramount
Online Reputation Management (ORM) will help customers build their perception about a company or product by seeing online reviews. No review or negative reviews turns the customers off. Review generation, review monitoring & review marketing constitute the important and indispensable parts of marketing campaigns that the marketers need to be mindful of in 2021 more than ever before.
The use of sophisticated software tools for online reputation management will allow businesses to become more accurate and less costly.
4) Conversational Marketing & the Use of Chatbots Will Help ORM Evolve
Brands such as Zomato & Netflix India are already using conversational marketing and chatbots to max jokes, memes, and puns in the brand conversations.
Advanced chatbots employ artificial intelligence and machine learning to engage customers in engrossing conversations. These techniques not only help generate more leads but also help build a positive reputation for brands across social channels.
Wrap Up
Proactive online reputation is all set to become an integral part of the business strategy in the coming days. With the emergence of new innovations and techniques that offer effective and measurable results at an optimized cost, brands can accomplish the minimum requirement for both survival and growth. This means that ORM will no longer be the exclusivity of big business houses but is going to be increasingly adopted by organizations of all sizes including big business houses, small enterprises, and even start-up companies.
Moving forward in the year 2021, ORM will be more important than ever before. This will help brands improve and monitor their digital presence. With the help of ORM, brands can analyze their potential customers and the information that they get about their product or brand whenever they use Google search or any other social media platform.
ORM helps brands create and maintain a positive online image so that any attacks on their image are easily detected and minimized in prominence. Brands can also remove personal addresses and other data from public databases, popularly known as “people search” databases.
The year 2021 is certainly an important year for businesses to stay in the competition and get more organic leads for their websites.
Hope the above post helps you understand how you should strategize your online reputation in the year 2021.