What makes you head to Starbucks or Dunkin and pay a premium price for a cup of coffee? Is it due to the many options or the high-quality service they offer? Perhaps, someone whose opinion you value recommended it to you once. According to a study by Reputation Dividend, 80% of purchase decisions fall to the brands’ reputation or direct recommendations.
When it comes to online sales, the same general rule of thumb applies to digital brands as modern check online reviews, videos, product descriptions, and other social commentary sources before deciding. As a result, online reputation management has become a core aspect of branding.
Unfortunately, many startups and small businesses overlook negative publicity or lack the tools and expertise to do anything about it. This is where ORM services help brands suppress negative content and repair or enhance their online image. The only problem is that not all agencies are created equal.
Therefore, in this post, we’ll share how to choose an online reputation management service to get the best out of your investment and avoid scams or time wastage.
What to Look for in an ORM Service
Here are three things to look for before in an ORM agency:
1. Capabilities
When hiring an ORM agency, the first thing you need to look for is their expertise. Repairing or building an online reputation requires extensive PR and marketing tools, expertise, and strategies. Thus, any service you opt for should specialize in:
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
A crucial aspect of online reputation enhancement is improving the rank of positive, relevant content about your brand while suppressing negative, inappropriate, or misleading content. Using different SEO strategies, such as scholarship link-building, SEO teams can bring good information to the top of search results and build a positive first impression of your brand.
Content Development
Any agency you choose should have a team of talented writers and content strategists to help improve and create blogs, articles, videos, and other types of content that interest your audience.
Social Media Management
Another important aspect of online reputation involves constant interaction with your audience on social media. Thus, any service you choose should provide a dedicated social media manager to tune into social commentary and respond where necessary to solve queries and moderate your community.
Review and Rating Management
You need experts who can create profiles on several popular third-party sites to remove unwanted links or reviews and foster a positive rating.
Brand Mentions Monitoring
Negative comments on the internet can sabotage your relationships, kill traffic on your sites, and lead to gossip on social media pages. Therefore, you need experts who can monitor all brand mentions and respond promptly. Any ORM service should have a team of social listeners to discover consumer pain points and needs so brands can make necessary adjustments.
2. Reputation
Once you’ve established that a particular agency has the required expertise and solutions, you need to ensure they have a perfect online image. You can read customer reviews on their sites or social media pages. Remember, no company is perfect, and even the best agencies can have a few negative comments.
You have to pay attention to their overall rating, the quality of the content they publish, and engagement on social media.
3. Transparency
Many ORM services don’t share their strategies or results openly with their clients. You need to steer clear of such agencies. So, whenever you consult with different services, look for the ones providing you with a detailed audit of your current reputation and a strategy for improvement. You can also ask them what tools and solutions they’re using and do your research before signing anything.
Get Started With RMG Digital Solutions
So, there you have it – 3 things to look for in an online reputation management service. Of course, you’ll have to other factors, such as pricing, timeline, and additional perks. However, ultimately, it’ll fall to their capabilities, reputation, and quality of communication.
RMG Digital Solutions is a global ORM service that has helped hundreds of brands repair and enhance their online reputation. We’ve made a name in the industry by using the best tools and innovative strategies. Moreover, we’re advocates for fair digital practices and don’t engage in black hat tactics like astroturfing, fake website creation, keyword stuffing, spamming, etc.
Feel free to get in touch with us for more information.