Relevance of Online Reputation Management (ORM) Services
Entrepreneurs or marketers (in the case of large companies with their own marketer or marketing department) who are tasked with increasing sales often turn to online reputation management services. This allows them to shape the brand image and participate in search engine results.
Online reputation management is relevant in two main cases:
- When negative content about the brand accumulates. There can be several reasons for this, from ordering black PR to actually providing a low-quality product.
- When the company intends to increase loyalty and feedback from the target audience, which positively affects the brand image as a whole.
Many clients, and what surprised me even more, PR agencies themselves, do not understand the processes of HM, ORM, and SERM. Often, there is a situation where the client ordered SERM, but in the end, they only conduct brand mention monitoring and post positive reviews where they can (ORM).
Let’s take a closer look at the main types of reputation management work in the internet, namely, consider such concepts as hidden marketing (HM – abbreviation for Hidden Marketing). Let’s understand what online reputation management (ORM – abbreviation for Online Reputation Management) is and how it differs from another process that it is often confused with, namely, search engine reputation management (SERM – abbreviation for Search Engine Reputation Management).
Hidden Marketing
Hidden Marketing (HM) refers to a marketing strategy where a PR agent poses as an ordinary user and compares their product or service with those of larger and more well-known competitors.
In many cases, when a client orders hidden marketing, they may be offered the assistance of famous bloggers, celebrities, or other well-known personalities to promote their product or service. However, this is no longer considered hidden marketing but rather direct advertising.
As an example of hidden marketing (HM), consider the following scenario:
A person (who is also the PR agent) asks online where to buy a non-standard product for specific needs, such as a unique furniture shape. “Another” person responds that well-known brands do not produce such a shape. Other “several” people discuss various options, sacrificing something in return. The culmination of the situation is the appearance of an account that recommends a specific company where everything can be done as the person wants and without any compromises.
Another scenario is:
A person needs a standard product, let’s continue with the furniture theme and assume that the person needs a standard-sized and standard-equipped sofa. How can a store or factory impose their product? It’s actually easy. The person (who is also the PR agent) asks about the required item. They are provided with several options that completely suit them, and they thank everyone for their help. But in the end, the person writes that they ordered from “this” company because only they did everything exactly as required, such as finding the appropriate color or fabric material or agreeing to put two layers of felt on the springs, or only they were able to organize delivery on that particular date and time, or only they assembled the furniture for free after delivery. There are many similar scenarios, all leading the reader to choose the desired company.
Also, it is important to remember about such a powerful promotion tool as native advertising. With its help, we get the opportunity to tell the target audience about the product (service) and familiarize them with its advantages in a subtle, veiled form. At the same time, the reader receives truly useful information, and the advertising is only a small addition that does not interfere with the user and does not distract them from the main content.
Shortcoming
- It is difficult, if not impossible, to evaluate its effectiveness. In particular, the result of advertising with a blogger cannot be realistically assessed by the number of website visits using a special link or the number of promo codes used by subscribers;
- On the other hand, hidden marketing does not involve the use of links, promo codes, or other tools that could be used to track its effectiveness;
- This tool does not involve processing negative reviews. As a result, using only hidden marketing, the effectiveness of the work may be insufficiently high if there is an accumulation of unprocessed negative reviews on parallel branches (websites) that lower the brand image.
Online Reputation Management (ORM for short)
Services like Brand Analytics, YouScan, IQBuzz, Wobot, Babkee, and Kribrum allow monitoring the appearance of brand mentions on the internet. The process of processing the received result should be divided into the following types:
- Resolving problems that customers face;
- Answering questions asked about the company and its services;
- Thanking for positive opinions about the company.
Let’s consider a situation where one of the services sends a notification that a new review with a negative tone has appeared. An official representative of the company online asks the customer for the order number (invoice number) to investigate the issue in detail.
After identifying the cause of the problem, the company discusses options that are acceptable for resolving the conflict, and one of these solutions is offered to the customer.
In case of the company’s fault, it is optimal to offer one or several options for compensating for the material damage and a small bonus to compensate for the inconvenience caused. After resolving the issue, the person is asked if they consider the situation resolved and are offered to delete their negative review if possible. If removal of the review is not possible, the person is offered to write a new review stating that the issue has been resolved and they are satisfied.
There are cases when, after the problem is resolved, the person does not return to the resource. In this case, the official representative informs that the issue has been resolved and leaves it at that, while other users see that the issue has been resolved without any problems.
Often, the customer is at fault in the situation they found themselves in, but still wrote a negative review. If it does not take much effort or cost for the company to resolve such an issue, it will greatly improve the situation if the question of the dissatisfied customer is resolved in their favor. The official representative should directly point out that the customer is wrong and explain why they are wrong. At the same time, they should state that the company is willing to meet the customer halfway and resolve their problem completely or partially.
Note
When a company tries to write several positive reviews about itself, usually the employee who does this is not fully competent in this area and makes a number of mistakes. For the administration of review and forum websites, it is usually not difficult to recognize fake reviews by many parameters, which leads to various unpleasant consequences. In the best case, the website administration will give a warning to the company, and in case of a repeated violation, the company’s card will be removed from the website or blocked for publishing new reviews. In the worst case, the administration will attach a label or symbol with a bright inscription to the client’s card stating that this brand cannot be trusted because it inflates its rating and writes reviews about itself.
Result
- Processing reviews and comments that can have a negative impact on the brand image;
- Increasing the number of publications on sites that have a positive effect on reputation;
- With prolonged use of this tool, you can find out which products (services) the company has problems with.
Disadvantages:
- Monitoring reviews with robots is not perfect. For example, if a person writes, “this company has problems,” the robot will not be able to understand who exactly is being talked about, since there was no direct mention of the brand name. As a result, no notification will come, which means that you will not receive the necessary notification and will not process the negative. Most people write reviews like this – without mentioning the brand name or distorting it;
- Another disadvantage of these systems is that they work on a specific database. If any platform is not included in the monitoring service database, you will not receive a notification even if this review directly mentions the company and tops the search engine. It is known that the database of such services includes up to 10% of known sites. It turns out that 90% of sites have not been included in the monitoring database;
- ORM is effective only when used in conjunction with SERM.
Reputation management in search engine results (SERM – abbreviation for Search Engine Reputation Management)
SERM and ORM share a common process – writing and placing reviews on websites that allow it. Because of this, they are often confused with each other. The difference lies in the fact that the goal pursued by each process is fundamentally different.
ORM involves working on platforms regardless of its position in search engine results. Overall, ORM is not interested in the situation in the top search results. The main goal of ORM is to create a positive image on all types of internet resources (social networks, blog posts, comments on reviews and forums, and much more), which can somehow affect the growth of business reputation.
The task of SERM is to promote the desired websites to the top of search results, thereby displacing those that are undesirable in the top. It does not matter how popular the platform is; the main thing is whether it can enter the top of the search results and maintain its position there.
When a person is interested in a particular brand’s product or service, they are likely to open one of the search engines and type in the query “brand + reviews.” Then, they visit several sites from the first page of search results and study their content. The person is also likely to click on the second and third pages of the search results. Not many people search for information on the 4th and 5th pages, and those who go beyond the 5th page are usually exceptions.
That is precisely why the main goal of SERM is to promote websites in the top of the search results, where negative feedback can be controlled or where comments are limited.
If there is an opportunity to create a page on the company’s website where everyone can leave their feedback, it must be done! Such a page on the website usually always occupies one of the top positions in the search results for the main popular queries that contain the brand name. Also, on this page, you can always control the appearance of negativity and process it in a timely manner.
SERM helps potential customers make the right decision who are in the final stages of the sales funnel. Reputation management helps transition these people from potential clients to actual clients.
Note
By covering negative reviews with neutral and positive ones, these platforms are unintentionally pushed to the top. On the one hand, leaving a negative review open is not an option, on the other hand, on such sites, it is necessary to constantly work to cover up the negative. Therefore, when covering up the negative, it is important not to forget about parallel promotion of managed sites to the top of search engines, displacing unmanaged sites with negative content.
Result
- Neutralizing reviews and comments that have a negative impact on the brand image;
- Positive brand image on the first pages of search engine results;
- Interaction with potential customers who are inclined to place an order;
- Influencing the final decision of the buyer;
- Identification of problems leading to an increase in the volume of negative reviews.
Disadvantages
- SERM alone is only a partial solution. It is extremely desirable to involve ORM in parallel. It is precisely in combination that these tools give the maximum effect in reputation management.
Conclusion
HM, ORM, SERM are online reputation management tools that use the same process, namely, writing reviews and comments. The difference between them lies in the principle of content creation, whether it is hidden marketing, direct feedback with a recommendation, an article about the company, native advertising, and so on.
Another distinguishing feature of these processes is the principle of selecting platforms. In one case, these are platforms with negative content that needs to be covered up. In another case, these are managed sites that we want to see at the top of search engine results. In the third case, these are popular platforms where there is no negativity, they do not occupy the top of the search results, but a significant percentage of the target audience is present there.
I hope this article helped to understand the difference between HM, ORM, and SERM. And also helped to understand why it is the combination of these processes that gives the maximum effect of promotion.
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