What is Online Reputation Management?

Glen Allsopp / 8 Comments / May 12th, 2008 / Subscribe via RSS

With quite a company “shift” from ViperChill in the direction of Reputation Management, and the new eBook on the subject, I think it’s only right that I explain what exactly online reputation management is.

What is ORM?

Online Reputation Management or ORM is, in simple terms - The process of monitoring a brand online, knowing how to deal with any negativity and understanding how you can pro-actively protect your brand via conversation channels.

Quick Scenario

You see an ad on TV for some cleaning detergent that is great for toilets; “Just what I need” you think. The next day you head out to the store and straight to the detergents aisle and look for the product. You overhear a women talking to one of the sales representatives.

“I would like to return this detergent; it smells horrible and doesn’t even keep my toilet clean. I would like a refund please“. Now, are you still going to pick up that product and purchase it? Probably not.

That is a form of offline ‘brand bashing’ that has stopped you from doing something, but what about online. Instead, say that you “Google” the product, and the 1st result is the official product page. However, the 2nd result has text along the following lines:

“Don’t believe the TV ads, XX detergent sucks and definitely doesn’t do what it should“. Once again, would you still purchase the product?

Everyday, thousands of people are going online and criticising companies, products and services in numerous ways. There’s a good chance they could be criticising something to do with you, and you need to know about that and how to deal with it.

How to Implement it

Sadly, most people look at ORM in the following way: Monitor their brand, react to any negativity and then feel like they are managing the situation:

However, this is certainly not the best approach to take. The best way would be by already ‘managing’ the situation e.g. positive search results and utilising conversation channels such as a blog or even social networks. From there, any issues you find whilst monitoring will not affect you as badly as it would if you had no strategy in place, and you can deal with any issues directly that you need too, as follows:

3 Core Components

In the eBook these are referred too as the 3 slices of the ORM “pie” so I’ll keep to that theme here; the three core components that make up reputation management as a strategy or service are:

Monitoring - the name of this slice really sums it up, but this involves:

• Why you should be monitoring your brand online
• What you should be monitoring (keywords / key-phrases)
• How you should be monitoring (tools)

For specifics, read our posts on Reputation Monitoring

Repair - once again, the name gives a lot away but this mostly includes:

• Knowing the reasons that people write what they do online
• Dealing with issues in the right manner (being professional, don’t threaten people etc)
• Being proactive (owning search results)

More posts on this will come under our Reputation Repair category

Management - the kind of ’shell’ that holds everything together and in my mind covers:

• Having a strategy to monitor your brand in place (monitoring)
• Having a solid understanding of how to deal with issues (repair)
• Having multiple conversation channels available when needed
• Actively building your brand in a positive light

The main posts on Reputation Management

What Now?

Well, if this is all new to you or you want to brush up on your knowledge you may be interested in the following blog posts (in order):

1. Step by Step Guide to Monitoring Feeds for Reputation Management
2. 5 Feeds We Monitor for Clients
3. Reputation Management Ethics
4. How to Deal with Negative Search Engine Results
5. 38 Must Reads on Online Reputation Management

P.S. We also have a 75 page eBook on the subject you can pick-up quite cheaply

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