What is reputation management and when should it be performed?

The network operates with greater transparency than before regarding various everyday situations. It documents the failures, problems, behaviors and even verbal emissions of different people, in what sometimes becomes a process of "public shock": the issue rises to the digital agenda and denounces that person or organization for a certain period, sometimes permanently. The other disadvantage is the fact that the network files the case and keeps it forever.

"And suddenly in one moment, the whole network turns on you"

Moshe (pseudonym) is a plumber who became famous on the show "Yatzaata Tzadik" and not in a positive way: he was unknowingly filmed taking care of a plumbing problem and ultimately charged a price for it which, according to the show's production expert, was unjustified. In a short time, Moshe's name, like many other professionals, began to have negative connotations throughout the network. Blogs, talkbacks and also mentions of various kinds caused him business silence - a death blow to those whose good name is essential to their continued livelihood and life in general.

Business owners, organization managers, social activists, artists, public figures, opinion leaders, organizations, companies and a wide variety of other stakeholders are harmed by negative mentions of their names in the web spaces. Like Moshe, they also suffer from unwanted business and social labeling that remains on the net forever and harms a huge variety of areas of life.

It is important to understand: today, every person who is looking for something simply finds it on Google. Only 2-3 negative reviews, one comprehensive and negative opinion, even the leaking of details that go out of context and spread like wildfire, are enough to shut down a person's business activity and create a hostile image towards him. Therefore, in order to overcome this over time, it will be necessary to perform reputation management.

What is reputation management actually?

Reputation management (ORM - Online Reputation Management) is considered one of the most interesting and challenging niches that organic promotion refers to. It is about the ability to push old negative mentions in the network, through positive and new mentions, which will eventually appear in the first results.

In order to properly suppress the negative expressions, a successful optimization must be carried out that involves a series of possible actions: strengthening the positive digital presence through new and flattering publications, establishing new and good profiles on social media, creating a business page for positive reviews and curbing negative ones, publishing resume pages, PR interview, Professional articles on the website's blog, hosting on blogs from other websites, etc. It is important that reputation management actions match the type of platform on which they are implemented, for example, more experiential content on Instagram versus more professional and formal content on LinkedIn.

Developing an effective strategy for reputation management

Every move in digital involves a strategy, so even this time it is necessary to formulate conclusions, goals and methods of action in a wise and informed manner, in order to reap desired results. In reputation management, there is a clear division between a private profile and the profile of companies and organizations, in the sense of options and methods of operation, seeing competitors in the market, managing new campaigns and more.

If it is a company, it is possible to create new promotional videos for it that will be uploaded to YouTube or even Wikipedia entries if this is possible. These actions strengthen the company's credibility and nurture the attitude towards it accordingly. If it is a private person, you can create a series of articles for him that include his personal and benevolent work.Either way, it is desirable that the process takes place from a clear strategy in which there is a vision of the final result and that all the actions performed should properly lead to it.

Effective tools and techniques in reputation management

Whether you specialize in website promotion and want to understand reputation management, or whether you need it personally, it is important that you know, at least in a basic sense, a number of techniques and tools that support each strategy:

Google Alerts is the first tool that should be considered. This tool sends an instant alert on defined phrases you entered, whenever someone uploaded something with that phrase. This will allow you to stay on top of any future mentions from here on out. Another tool is trackur which monitors mentions in the same way, only on all social networks at the same time. Another relevant tool is review ninja, which shows a follow-up of your business in terms of the reviews that arise about it, data about the customer experience, the results of the organic promotion and more.

Apart from all these, it is impossible to ignore the obvious need for quality and uncompromising PR management: contacting reporters in online portals and magazines so that they write flattering articles about you that gain prominence and public interest. To the extent that the reviews are positive, even if they are presented as marketing content, they are expected to create a very good overall image.

Bottom line

In an era where digital marketing for businesses is a clear need in the image sense, it is important to also deal with the series of scenarios in which this image is damaged and even crashes. Reputation management helps that brand to deal more effectively with its negative mentions on the web, to remove, suppress and worsen them as much as possible by creating new, good and flattering mentions from here on out.