ORM is an abbreviation for Online Reputation Management. ORM is a mere combination of traditional marketing, search engine marketing, and public relations. Businesses, while creating a business, have a determining motive and perspective.
How Does ORM Impact Digital Marketing?
It’s very easy for someone to judge you and your company by what they find on Google. In fact, about 90% of consumers read online reviews before visiting a business. By simply searching for you on the internet, they can come up with different feelings about your company and what you offer, good or bad.
A negative online presence, or having no presence at all, can severely impact the success of your company (or you as an individual). Whether you’re closing a business deal, developing a business partnership, or talking to reporters, your online reputation counts.
How Do I Know What My Reputation Is?
Before you can start to make improvements, you have to first analyze your online life. Gauge your online presence by using our checklist below.
Search
Google your business, your people, or product name, and look at the first five listings.
- Are you in the first five listings? If not, you’ve got work to do on your search ranking.
- Are the links you’re seeing positive? Hey, not everyone’s a happy customer. Just make sure that the first impression you show on Google is as positive as possible.
- Is there evidence of thought leadership or industry expertise?
- Are there any outright ORM fires that need to be addressed? Anything that would make Papa John CEO John Schnatter feel better about his day?
Check your Google My Business listing.
- Does one exist?
- Is the information accurate?
Social
Check your brand’s social channels.
- How many followers do you have?
- When was the last time you posted?
- Do you respond to comments?
- How about messages?
- What’s the average response time?
- Does what you’re posting represent and reflect your brand?
Check what’s being said on social.
- Search your hashtags, location, and your brand name. Are people talking about you and your business? If so, is it positive commentary? If there are negative mentions, are others hopping on board or do your social fans come to your defense?
Reviews
Check review sites.
- Check out your Google reviews. Do you have any? How many stars do you have? Are you responding to reviews? Do you have a strategy for doing so?
- Check out your Facebook reviews. Are customers leaving reviews on your Facebook page? Is your team responding to them?
- Check out other review sites like Angie’s List, Yelp, and TrustPilot.
Check other online reviews/ recommendation websites.
- Check out Glassdoor.com. While this isn’t a review site per se, many people searching for you online will check out what your reputation is according to your past and present employees.
- Check out comparison sites by third-party companies that review products and services in your industry. How do you rank against your competitors’ products and services?