Today, customers are more dependent on search engines to decide what to wear, where to go, which doctor to choose, what laptop to buy, which network to opt, etc. Hence, online reputation has become more important than ever before.
Similar to Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Online Reputation Management trends change from time to time. As a business owner, it is your duty to track these trends and keep your ORM strategy up to date. Therefore, in this blog post, we are going to list the top 7 trends for online reputation management.
1. Videos on the rise
It is not a hidden fact that internet users love videos compared to other forms of content such as text, image, GIF, infographics and audio. Do you know why internet users like to watch videos? It is the most effortless way to consume content. All you need to do is sit back and watch the content playing before your eyes. Here are some interesting points you need to know:
- More than 100 million hours of video is played daily on Facebook.
- ORM experts say videos improve the conversion rate by 80%.
- Videos bring more engagement.
- Helps in spreading the right message with maximum efficiency.
Therefore it makes sense to create more and more videos. If you have not started making videos yet, you can convert the existing content in the video format. Make sure the quality of the videos, the content of the videos, and the presentation is high. Your content reflects who you are. Poor quality content can spoil your online reputation.
There is one more thing you can do. That is, ask your customers to send a video of them using your products and services. Pick the ones which are best and use it for social media marketing or any other form of digital marketing. Do not forget to give incentives to encourage customers.
2. Social media is going to help new business owners
Social media marketing is digital marketers’ best friend. In addition to that, it is also the best friend of online reputation management. It helps the business owners to establish a good online reputation.
Most of the business owners solely focus on online review. Yes, online reviews are important. It is fine to try to remove Google reviews that are unpleasant and make attempts to gain positive Google reviews. To be true, it is only one side of the coin. The other side is social media. Review platforms are not the only place where customers express their business experience. They can do the same on social media too.
Social media and review platforms have different roles to play in establishing your online reputation. People go to review platforms when they have made up their mind to buy your product or services. Whereas social media introduces your products and services to your potential customers, who have never searched or found your products and services online.
For this reason, digital marketers and ORM experts believe social media to be one of the most powerful mediums for digital marketing. In 2019, social media is all set to help business owners, especially new business owners.
3. Tools on the rise
Online reputation management is no longer as it was a decade ago. A lot of things have changed and the industry has grown big. Today, just searching your brand name on search engines and putting some social media efforts are not going to work. Therefore, we are seeing a rise in the usage of ORM tools.
There are various free and paid tools available on the internet. Different online reputation management tools servers different purposes. Below are the things you can do with these tools.
- Monitor web: Google Alerts is the best tools to do this job. The good news is that it is absolutely free. You can use it to monitor certain keywords such as your brand, product or service name.
- Social media monitoring: Use tools such as Zoho social and Sprout monitor your brand on social media.
- Email automation: MailChimp and Constant Contact are two extraordinary tools to save your time spent on requesting reviews, thanking customers, sending follow up emails.
- Testimonial gathering: Boast is an awesome tool for this job. It helps you to organize text, image or video testimonial all in one place so that you can display them on Facebook, Youtube, or on your business website.
4. SEO is going to be reinvented
Traditional SEO tactics are no longer going to help you to rank your website on Google’s first page. Google algorithms are changing. Quantity of the keywords is no longer playing any role. In fact, Google is punishing the websites that do keyword stuffing.
To rank your website into Google’s local 3 pack, you have to focus more on online reputation. That is the quality of your online reputation is more important than the number of keywords planted in your content. In simple words, user-generated reviews are going to weigh more in search engine ranking.
Therefore it makes sense to focus on achieving more and more positive reviews. Here are some of the best practices you need to follow.
- Provide exceptional customer service.
- Convert bad Google reviews into good.
- Send follow-up emails and SMS with a link to review page.
- Get rid of fake Google reviews.
- Encourage your satisfied customer to leave a review.
- Offer incentives for writing reviews.
- Collect feedback from consumers.
- Remove negative Google My Business reviews.
5. Posting good content will continue to be crucial for online reputation
Content is the soul of digital marketing, including online reputation management. Without quality content, your online marketing will not succeed. So, posting good content will continue to be crucial for your online reputation. In fact, the quality of online reputation is directly proportional to the quality of your content. Here are some tips to create quality content.
- Create content in various forms such as text, images, infographics, videos.
- You can also combine two or more forms. For instance text, images and infographics is the ideal combination.
- Do not create content for the sake of keywords. Do it to provide value to the customers.
- Write compelling headings and subheadings.
- Maintain optimum keyword density. Keyword stuffing can cause a Google penalty.
- If you are adding images or videos, optimize them.
- Write content only for your target audience.
- Do the research and avoid copy-pasting as well as article spinning.
- Last but not least, tell a story.
6. Mobile responsiveness will be more important than ever
Mobile responsive design is a quality of a website, where it automatically adjusts its sizing, layout, and proportions to display in a legible manner on a particular device. If your websites lack this quality, it is time to redesign your website.
You already know why mobile responsive sites are important for search engine optimization or digital marketing. However, not many business owners are aware that mobile responsiveness is an important factor to consider in online reputation management. Let us understand why it is so.
If your site is not mobile friendly, Google will not rank it higher on the search engine results page. And when your website is on the second page of search engine results pages, it is invisible to your customers. And when your website is invisible, how will you establish a reputation?
7. More trolling by competitors
The Internet has done wonders for mankind. However, it has also created some problems. One such problem is trolling. People on the internet are more likely to troll. You might have noticed how people troll celebrities on Facebook and Twitter. For this reason, negative content is more likely to spread quicker than positive content.
Your competitors are going to take advantage of this fact. All they need to do is create a fake social media ID and troll you. This can also be done by angry customers, ex-workers, and cunny business partners.
This kind of trolling can take the form of negative reviews, fake websites, false complaints and unpleasant blog comments. There is nothing much you can do here. Ignore trolls. Never ever get into an argument. One thing you can do is build a strong customer relationship. This customer relationship will help you fight trolls. Let us explain this with an example.
Recently, “Avengers: End Game” was released. As usual, some people tried to troll. Guess what happens next? Hardcore “Avengers” fans came to the rescue and trolled back the trollers. Here is an important tip, never troll your trollers. Leave that job to your loyal customers. However, you can give some classy response.
These were the top seven trends for online reputation management in 2019. Craft your ORM strategy keeping these things in mind. In addition to that, keep track of future trends. It’s all about evolving to be smarter, stronger and quicker.
