SEO

What Is Online Reputation Management (ORM)?

Published

1 year ago

December 13, 2022

What Is Online Reputation Management (ORM)?

Every brand wants to make a good impression online, but having a standout website or social media presence isn’t enough.

These days, everyone has an opinion on just about everything, and customers are savvy enough to know when a brand is being genuine, and when it’s hiding an ugly truth.

If your business is hit by a negative review or unfavorable media attention, it can feel like the end of the road.

But turning around perceptions of your brand is possible, especially when you have safeguards to limit the damage and deal with problems before they occur.

Managing your brand’s reputation online isn’t a once-and-done process, but investing in it as soon as possible can save you plenty of future headaches.

What Is Online Reputation Management?

The key focus of online reputation management, or ORM, is to create a positive perception of a brand or business.

Every activity a brand takes part in should be monitored and managed to help shape the opinions of existing and future customers, ultimately making the business appear reliable and trustworthy.

The Connection Between ORM And SEO

We all know that customers are increasingly turning to search engines as they research new products to buy or services to invest in.

So ensuring that, when your brand is searched, the best and most positive results are the ones that show up first is an essential part of any ORM strategy.

What appears in those top searches heavily influences how people think about your brand.

That’s why you need to be in control of those results as much as possible, and take ownership of what message is being shown to your audience.

ORM is a multi-channel approach to prevent and resolve any issues that could damage your brand’s reputation.

Factors That Contribute To ORM

While the mix that each business uses to maintain its online reputation will differ, ORM should involve a combination of the following:

Owned media – Employee and customer stories, user-generated content (UGC), reviews, webinars, and brand-created content.
Paid media – Sponsored social posts, lead generation, affiliate programs, and native advertising.
Earned media – Media relations, influencer marketing, and PR.
Shared media – Community service and partnerships, co-branding campaigns, and organic social media posts.

Why Is Online Reputation Management Important?

Although reputation management should be part of an ongoing approach to building a healthy brand online, many companies don’t act until the damage has already been done.

Changing The Narrative

Recovering your online reputation is incredibly challenging.

A bad experience with your business can not only put a single customer off from returning to your brand again, but if they choose to leave a negative review on Google, Facebook, or elsewhere, you could quickly see sales dropping.

When you’re not actively monitoring your brand mentions and reviews circulating online about your company, you could quickly miss out on an opportunity to change the narrative before long-lasting negative perceptions take hold.

A 2022 report by Khoros found that 83% of customers say they feel more loyal to brands that respond to and resolve their complaints.

So, not only can swift action prevent turning off new customers, but you may even be able to retain unhappy existing customers too.

Understanding Your Customers

If you don’t have a finger on the pulse of chatter about your brand online, you could be spending thousands of dollars on new marketing campaigns that will fall flat at the first hurdle because you didn’t deal with bigger issues sooner.

Messaging could be in stark contrast to issues being raised by customers, coming across as insensitive and possibly insulting, rather than making the positive impact you were hoping for.

Getting Ahead Of Issues

Remember, your online reputation lasts forever.

Countless businesses and individuals have learned this the hard way.

Remember the viral interview with then-BP CEO, Tony Hayward, days after the tragedy that saw 11 deaths after the explosion on Deepwater Horizon? His statement of, “I just want my life back” did not land well, when actual loss of life had occurred.

A mountain of backlash quickly swept over the BP online properties, going so far as former President Barack Obama saying that he “wishes he could fire him.”

Without online reputation management, you can quickly end up in a lose-lose situation.

With proactive measures, though, you can keep control of your brand’s story in search results and plan ahead for any possible problems.

Screenshot from Google, December 2022 What Is Online Reputation Management (ORM)?

How Is Online Reputation Management Different From PR?

While the phrases “reputation management” and “public relations” are often used interchangeably, what they actually involve are very different.

Both can be used effectively as part of your brand’s overarching only strategy, but it’s important to understand the differences before investing in one or both options.

Where ORM is solely focused on the needs of the brand and maintaining a positive image online, PR plays a more mutually beneficial role between a brand and other organizations, particularly the media.

PR efforts can and should aim to improve the reputation of a brand in the eyes of the public.

But typically, the goal is to provide information about something more specific, like a new product or service.

Like other forms of advertising, PR is another direct marketing channel that brands can use to increase their visibility, both on and offline.

Although ORM and PR can work independently of each other, pairing both will help a business cover behind-the-scenes brand building (ORM) and public-facing marketing (PR).

When your brand faces negativity online, even with a solid ORM program in place, PR can also be used to roll out important updates or comments via the media to help address the problem.

Social Media Marketing And Online Reputation Management

Online reviews are almost impossible for brands to control, and nowhere is that clearer than on social media.

Yes, dominating the search engine results pages (SERPs) with positive stories about your brand is a crucial part of ORM.

But so, too, is effectively managing and responding to comments elsewhere online.

Staying active and engaged in social conversations about your brand is essential.

There is plenty of software out there to help you stay on top of this, including tools like Mention, BrandWatch, Sprout Social, and BuzzSumo.

Many of these offer sentiment analysis functionality, where you can easily keep tabs on whether your mentions are skewing more positively or negatively.

You can also monitor branded hashtags, mentions, or any direct tagging of your brand across multiple platforms.

With extensive monitoring in place, you’ll be able to respond quickly to any comments you see come in, and refer these individuals to the right internal sources to get any issues resolved as fast as possible.

In Conclusion

Conversation around your brand is happening all the time, whether you know about it or not.

Online reputation management is one of the best ways to stay on top of this and ensure that whatever is being said accurately reflects the company image you’re looking to build and maintain.

A strategic ORM program can make a significant difference when it comes to attracting new customers to your business – and retaining existing ones.

Make a good impression and take back control of your brand’s story online.

More resources:

Featured Image: Black Salmon/Shutterstock

window.addEventListener( ‘load’, function() {
setTimeout(function(){ striggerEvent( ‘load2’ ); }, 2000);
});

window.addEventListener( ‘load2’, function() {

if( sopp != ‘yes’ && addtl_consent != ‘1~’ && !ss_u ){

!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)
{if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?
n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};
if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;
n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];
s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,document,’script’,
‘https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’);

if( typeof sopp !== “undefined” && sopp === ‘yes’ ){
fbq(‘dataProcessingOptions’, [‘LDU’], 1, 1000);
}else{
fbq(‘dataProcessingOptions’, []);
}

fbq(‘init’, ‘1321385257908563’);

fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’);

fbq(‘trackSingle’, ‘1321385257908563’, ‘ViewContent’, {
content_name: ‘what-is-online-reputation-management-orm’,
content_category: ‘digital strategy-digital’
});
}
});

Related Topics:management Online ORM Reputation seo

Up Next

Google Ads Makes It Easy To Switch To Data-Driven Attribution

Don't Miss

Twitter’s New Verification System Has Blue & Gold Checkmarks

Click to comment

You must be logged in to post a comment Login

SEO

Google Declares It The “Gemini Era” As Revenue Grows 15%

Published

18 mins ago

April 26, 2024

Max

Alphabet Inc., Google’s parent company, announced its first quarter 2024 financial results today.

While Google reported double-digit growth in key revenue areas, the focus was on its AI developments, dubbed the “Gemini era” by CEO Sundar Pichai.

The Numbers: 15% Revenue Growth, Operating Margins Expand

Alphabet reported Q1 revenues of $80.5 billion, a 15% increase year-over-year, exceeding Wall Street’s projections.

Net income was $23.7 billion, with diluted earnings per share of $1.89. Operating margins expanded to 32%, up from 25% in the prior year.

Ruth Porat, Alphabet’s President and CFO, stated:

“Our strong financial results reflect revenue strength across the company and ongoing efforts to durably reengineer our cost base.”

Google’s core advertising units, such as Search and YouTube, drove growth. Google advertising revenues hit $61.7 billion for the quarter.

The Cloud division also maintained momentum, with revenues of $9.6 billion, up 28% year-over-year.

Pichai highlighted that YouTube and Cloud are expected to exit 2024 at a combined $100 billion annual revenue run rate.

Generative AI Integration in Search

Google experimented with AI-powered features in Search Labs before recently introducing AI overviews into the main search results page.

Regarding the gradual rollout, Pichai states:

“We are being measured in how we do this, focusing on areas where gen AI can improve the Search experience, while also prioritizing traffic to websites and merchants.”

Pichai reports that Google’s generative AI features have answered over a billion queries already:

“We’ve already served billions of queries with our generative AI features. It’s enabling people to access new information, to ask questions in new ways, and to ask more complex questions.”

Google reports increased Search usage and user satisfaction among those interacting with the new AI overview results.

The company also highlighted its “Circle to Search” feature on Android, which allows users to circle objects on their screen or in videos to get instant AI-powered answers via Google Lens.

Reorganizing For The “Gemini Era”

As part of the AI roadmap, Alphabet is consolidating all teams building AI models under the Google DeepMind umbrella.

Pichai revealed that, through hardware and software improvements, the company has reduced machine costs associated with its generative AI search results by 80% over the past year.

He states:

“Our data centers are some of the most high-performing, secure, reliable and efficient in the world. We’ve developed new AI models and algorithms that are more than one hundred times more efficient than they were 18 months ago.

How Will Google Make Money With AI?

Alphabet sees opportunities to monetize AI through its advertising products, Cloud offerings, and subscription services.

Google is integrating Gemini into ad products like Performance Max. The company’s Cloud division is bringing “the best of Google AI” to enterprise customers worldwide.

Google One, the company’s subscription service, surpassed 100 million paid subscribers in Q1 and introduced a new premium plan featuring advanced generative AI capabilities powered by Gemini models.

Future Outlook

Pichai outlined six key advantages positioning Alphabet to lead the “next wave of AI innovation”:

Research leadership in AI breakthroughs like the multimodal Gemini model
Robust AI infrastructure and custom TPU chips
Integrating generative AI into Search to enhance the user experience
A global product footprint reaching billions
Streamlined teams and improved execution velocity
Multiple revenue streams to monetize AI through advertising and cloud

With upcoming events like Google I/O and Google Marketing Live, the company is expected to share further updates on its AI initiatives and product roadmap.

Featured Image: Sergei Elagin/Shutterstock

SEO

brightonSEO Live Blog

Published

17 hours ago

April 25, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

Hello everyone. It’s April again, so I’m back in Brighton for another two days of ~~sun~~, sea, and SEO!

Being the introvert I am, my idea of fun isn’t hanging around our booth all day explaining we’ve run out of t-shirts (seriously, you need to be fast if you want swag!). So I decided to do something useful and live-blog the event instead.

Follow below for talk takeaways and (very) mildly humorous commentary.

SEO

Google Further Postpones Third-Party Cookie Deprecation In Chrome

Published

20 hours ago

April 25, 2024

Max

Close-up of a document with a grid and a red stamp that reads "delayed" over the word "status" due to Chrome's deprecation of third-party cookies.

Google has again delayed its plan to phase out third-party cookies in the Chrome web browser. The latest postponement comes after ongoing challenges in reconciling feedback from industry stakeholders and regulators.

The announcement was made in Google and the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) joint quarterly report on the Privacy Sandbox initiative, scheduled for release on April 26.

Chrome’s Third-Party Cookie Phaseout Pushed To 2025

Google states it “will not complete third-party cookie deprecation during the second half of Q4” this year as planned.

Instead, the tech giant aims to begin deprecating third-party cookies in Chrome “starting early next year,” assuming an agreement can be reached with the CMA and the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

The statement reads:

“We recognize that there are ongoing challenges related to reconciling divergent feedback from the industry, regulators and developers, and will continue to engage closely with the entire ecosystem. It’s also critical that the CMA has sufficient time to review all evidence, including results from industry tests, which the CMA has asked market participants to provide by the end of June.”

Continued Engagement With Regulators

Google reiterated its commitment to “engaging closely with the CMA and ICO” throughout the process and hopes to conclude discussions this year.

This marks the third delay to Google’s plan to deprecate third-party cookies, initially aiming for a Q3 2023 phaseout before pushing it back to late 2024.

The postponements reflect the challenges in transitioning away from cross-site user tracking while balancing privacy and advertiser interests.

Transition Period & Impact

In January, Chrome began restricting third-party cookie access for 1% of users globally. This percentage was expected to gradually increase until 100% of users were covered by Q3 2024.

However, the latest delay gives websites and services more time to migrate away from third-party cookie dependencies through Google’s limited “deprecation trials” program.

The trials offer temporary cookie access extensions until December 27, 2024, for non-advertising use cases that can demonstrate direct user impact and functional breakage.

While easing the transition, the trials have strict eligibility rules. Advertising-related services are ineligible, and origins matching known ad-related domains are rejected.

Google states the program aims to address functional issues rather than relieve general data collection inconveniences.

Publisher & Advertiser Implications

The repeated delays highlight the potential disruption for digital publishers and advertisers relying on third-party cookie tracking.

Industry groups have raised concerns that restricting cross-site tracking could push websites toward more opaque privacy-invasive practices.

However, privacy advocates view the phaseout as crucial in preventing covert user profiling across the web.

With the latest postponement, all parties have more time to prepare for the eventual loss of third-party cookies and adopt Google’s proposed Privacy Sandbox APIs as replacements.

Featured Image: Novikov Aleksey/Shutterstock