What is online reputation management and who needs this service

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Kirill Krutov, Head of SMM & SERM Department at Kokoc Group, talks about how and why to create a positive brand image on the Internet.

Who needs an online reputation management service and why

Reputation management is a systematic impact on factors affecting the reputation of business structures or individuals. With the development of social networks, this service has become popular on the Internet and extends to the reputation of the brand, influencing the search results.

Entrepreneurs and marketers think about online reputation management in two ways:

1. When they find a lot of negative reviews about a company or its products on the Internet. Negativity can be reported by both company employees and customers. It happens that a business owner himself finds negative comments in the search results for the query "brand + reviews".
2. When a company is concerned about increasing the level of customer service and perceives revocable sites as an additional channel of communication with consumers.

Ideally, however, reputation management should be done before a company enters the market.

Regardless of the line of business, working on a reputation at the start will create a positive brand image and a manageable information field.

As a result, the company will be able to attract loyal customers, quickly identify and solve their problems and achieve its main goal - it will become profitable.

Unfortunately, most clients and agencies do not understand the essence of reputation management. For example, a common story is when a customer is offered SERM - reputation management in search results, but in fact, agency employees only monitor brand mentions and post positive reviews about it.

Many market players and customers do not know the basic terminology and do not understand the difference between hidden marketing, online reputation management (ORM) and reputation management in search results. As a result, the market does not develop, agencies offer customers the wrong services that they need.

We will tell you in more detail what these abbreviations mean and what tasks each tool should solve.

What methods of reputation management to choose

Hidden Marketing

Principle of operation

Unlike classic advertising on social networks or on forums, when influencers or influencers directly promote a product and link to a company's website, hidden marketing is not so obvious. The user compares a product or service with analogues, talks about personal experience of use or gives unobtrusive advice.

An opinion leader can be any famous person whose audience coincides with the target audience - from Yuri Dudya to Tutta Larsen. But if we talk about cooperation with an odious person, then subscribers will most likely perceive the mention of a brand as an advertisement. Agents of influence are another matter. These are ordinary users of forums and social networks, behind which employees of agencies are hiding, casually mentioning the brand.

Consider an example of promoting a furniture factory. On a forum for interior designers, an influencer asks where you can get a sofa with two opposite backs. He is supported by another site visitor who is also interested in unusual furniture. The third user writes that he knows for sure that well-known factories do not produce such models. The fourth participant in the dialogue names a company that makes sofas with two backs. The forum has four users, through whose efforts the agency is promoting the factory.

Another possible development is the creation of a discussion thread on a popular forum about renovation or with design tips. The agent of influence asks where it is better to buy the Atlanta sofa - one of the most popular models available from most manufacturers. Another user replies that he tried to buy a sofa in two stores, but one of them was unable to deliver the furniture on time. So the dialogue of agents of influence will push the audience to choose the right company.

Peculiarities

In hidden marketing, it is the sites on which brand mentions are posted, not their number, that are important. Therefore, competent agencies approach brand promotion strategically, for example, they use search engine optimization tools.

Before recommending forums for a furniture factory, agencies analyze search results for the query "which company makes kitchen furniture the fastest." A person who reads advice on specialized sites will regularly come across the brand name.

pros

• Increasing brand awareness.
• Increasing the target audience's interest in goods or services, since they are recommended by ordinary people (influencers) and stars whose opinion is trusted by the audience.
• Low cost of promotion through agents of influence in comparison with classic advertising.

Minuses

• Difficulty in assessing effectiveness. For example, the effectiveness of direct advertising from a blogger can be analyzed by the number of clicks to the site or by the number of activated promotional codes that he offered to subscribers. Covert marketing does not provide links or metrics to track its effectiveness. Part of the success of the promotion can be seen in the growth of traffic or an increase in sales. However, a surge in user activity can be attributed to hidden marketing only if other advertising campaigns are not running in parallel.
• Working exclusively with positive reviews. By using only covert marketing, the company does not learn about negative posts that can scare off potential buyers.

Who suits

New brands or products entering the B2C market. Works great for any business, especially for real estate and pharmaceuticals.

Online Reputation Management

Principle of operation

Using semantic search services such as YouScan, IQBuzz, or Brand Analytics, the agency monitors brand mentions. Every 10–20 minutes, the services review their own databases of sites and report on the appearance of new reviews.

The next stage is their analysis and processing: solving customer problems, answering questions about goods or services, and gratitude for positive reviews.

The number of positive reviews can be increased by motivating current customers to share their impressions of the company, for example, to give a discount for posted reviews. If for some reason the tool turns out to be ineffective, positive reviews are posted on behalf of agents of influence.

Consider a situation when an automatic monitoring service notifies you of a negative review about a laundry. A user complains about poor coat cleaning. An agency employee communicating on behalf of the brand asks him to clarify the order number, finds out the cause of the problem in the laundry and communicates the solution - suggests a second cleaning. After the conflict is resolved, the customer is asked to remove the negative review because the issue has been resolved.

In the case of working with positive reviews, the agency can use email newsletters. If a person goes to the laundry more than once, most likely he was satisfied with the quality of the service. In this case, he receives an email asking him to leave a review on the laundry website or on a popular review resource.

To a greater extent, ORM is an additional channel of communication with current customers at sites convenient for them, to a lesser extent - a tool for attracting a new audience.

Peculiarities

Some companies relax and publish positive posts of the same type on different platforms, which negatively affects the brand as a result. Otzoviks easily detect fraudsters by IP addresses or location and tag the accounts of unscrupulous companies.

For example, one of the reviewing resources conducts a regular anti-rating of brands that often post inaccurate reviews. You can avoid problems if you competently approach the writing of reviews and use automatic services that replace the location and IP addresses of accounts.

pros

• An additional channel for customer service and communication with the target audience.
• Search and leveling of negative reviews.
• Increase in the number of positive publications.
• Identification of problems in the quality of goods, services or services during the systematic use of the tool.

Minuses

• Automatic monitoring of recall sites does not show posts without mentioning the brand. On some sites where reviews are posted on the pages of companies, the user can write: "They threw me." And automated services will not see this post. You can solve the problem with additional manual monitoring.
• A limited number of sites that crawl automated services. Some agencies offering ORM service claim to analyze the entire internet. In fact, automatic services index only popular social networks and forums, which make up less than 5% of the Runet.
• One-sided performance assessment. On the one hand, most agencies report to the customer on the number of positive reviews published. On the other hand, few people think about how these publications influence the decision to purchase or order services. It's a common story when an agency posts reviews on some sites, and most potential buyers read completely different resources.

Who suits

Any brands that are already on the market and have a customer pool. ORM is suitable for any business in the B2C segment and shows good results in the medical and auto business. The tool can also be useful for B2B companies, with the exception of extremely narrow markets with a limited number of players and consumers.

Search Engine Reputation Management

Principle of operation

When users want to leave a review about a company, they open a search engine, write a brand + reviews query, and visit sites from the first page of search results. Therefore, the main task of SERM is to bring sites that can be controlled to the first pages of search engines, that is, remove the spent negative.

Consider an example of how SERM works on a network of medical clinics. Agency staff constantly monitor search results for the query "clinics [name] + reviews." You can do this manually by looking at each site, but it will be faster to solve the problem if you connect automatic services. For example, you can use SERMometer, which collects search results every day and generates a heatmap of the brand's reputation environment.

At the same time, agency staff are working to remove negative posts where the problem has already been resolved. The reputation of the network of clinics is becoming positive. It is these sites that the agency promotes to the top of the search results using SEO tools. At the same time, the agency initiates managed threads on forums and creates brand pages on popular sites that are well indexed by search engines.

At the same time, it is worth creating from scratch or actively developing a reviews section on the company's own website, which is highly ranked for “brand + reviews” queries. As a result, managed sites will appear on the first page of search results.

The effectiveness of the tool is assessed on the basis of comparison of the reputation background in the SERP according to the “past / new” type.

Considering that users looking for brand reviews are in the final stages of the sales funnel, and the company has already invested a lot in attracting them, it is important to motivate potential customers to become real. SERM can play a pivotal role in monetizing ad spend because it allows you to control what the user sees in the SERM.

Peculiarities

Some brands, finding negative reviews in search results, hide them with a stream of positive publications. As a result, sites remain in the top of search engines that cannot be managed.

It is better to solve problems on all sites and publish positive reviews on managed resources, promoting them in search engines. The sooner the company connects SERM, the easier it will be to bring controlled review sites to the top.

pros

• Formation of a positive brand image in search results.
• Interaction with users who are at the last stage of the sales funnel.
• Influence on the decision to purchase goods or order services.
• The ability to see a product, service or brand through the eyes of potential customers.
• Search and neutralization of negative reviews.
• Identification of problems with the quality of goods or services and customer service.

Minuses

Reputation management in SERPs without ORM is not effective enough. Promotion of managed sites to the top of the search results without working out negative reviews and motivating current customers to share their opinion about the quality of goods and the level of service is a half-measure. Therefore, competent agencies combine two tools.

Who suits

Any business and public figures. SERM works well in the furniture and finance industry.