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Online Reputation Management Software

Conversation topics at parties don’t usually include Online Reputation Management software unless you’re at an Online Reputation Management (ORM) conference in Cancun (which totally happens!). The software should, however, top the list of things to talk about at a business’s marketing meetings. In their business development plan, in their lead generation strategy, and, naturally, discussions about managing the company’s online reputation.

Online Reputation Management Software scours the internet for key terms about your business in an effort to organize the digital conversation going on around your brand. It prioritizes pertinent pieces of information so the business owner or reputation experts can respond to what’s most important. Often times ORM Software will also collect and analyze customer feedback.

Online Reputation Management Software gifts you the luxury of time so you can focus on other aspects of the business instead of what people are saying about you online.

 

Do You Need It?

How do you know if you need ORM Software? Well, we’ve created a short quiz to help you decide yay or nay on that question.

 

Online Reputation Management Software

Are you an entrepreneur, business owner, or in the marketing or operations space for a company?

  1. Yes
  2. No
Online Reputation Management Software

Have you heard of or do you and your business use the internet?

  1. Yes
  2. No

 

If you answered “yes” to either of the above questions, it’s likely that you could benefit from some ORM Software, which helps businesses understand what’s being said about them and guide the conversation.

The size of a company may dictate what exactly a business owner or marketer may need in terms of software. A smaller mom-and-pop store could benefit from free reputation management programming, which can easily be found online. However, a big-boy company, like a franchise with dozens to thousands of locations (or plans to get there) would benefit from a more robust software package.

Why is that? Each location has a different conversation surrounding it which is largely based on its location. And that conversation is taking place on a variety of different platforms depending on the region. The franchisor sure doesn’t have the time to scrub the internet to understand the conversation happening about each of their locations. Further, each franchise owner doesn’t have the time nor the expertise to be doing that for their own location(s).

 

What Is Online Reputation?

Let’s back up for a minute first and talk online reputation, also known as the digital conversation happening every day about your brand. People are talking about your business on public on sites like Yelp, Yellowpages, Facebook, Capterra, G2 Crowd (those last two are business software review sites), and Thumbtack and Angie’s List (service-oriented marketplaces), to name a few.

People all over the world are using this online conversation to gauge whether or not they want to work with a business or a brand. In fact, we’ve seen estimates saying as high as 92% of consumers trust online reviews when thinking about a purchase.

When was the last time you used a review to make a purchase? Take that question one step further: When was the last time you chose to buy something from a business that had a two-star rating? What about three? Would you be more inclined to use them if they had a four or five-star rating? Most likely. ORM Software also makes it easier for customers who love your services to write positive reviews about it.

Online reputation doesn’t just stop at reviews, however. It also includes how your business is showing up on say, a Google search. We found that a business could lose almost 70% of potential customers if there’s a negative article about it on the first three pages of a Google Search (learn more about that break-down here). What people are saying to each other about a brand or what they’re keeping to themselves is a whole other aspect and can be found with private surveys.

All of this ends up affecting how your brand pops up in an online search. The more negative an online reputation, the lower down on search results it will be. Conversely, the more positive the conversation, the better it will rank on a search.

 

So What?! (And What About Online Reputation Management Software?)

What’s it got to do with ORM Software? Using an automated software that prioritizes and organizes the digital conversation about your brand helps business owners and reputation experts guide the conversation about your business where they want it to go.

There are thousands of sites out there where people are talking and business owners are far too busy to be combing the internet looking for snippets of information about their brand. That’s where ORM Software comes in (queue superhero theme music!). The software is set up to register keywords about your business so you can see who is saying what and where. If it’s negative, you can chime into the conversation to get a better understanding of why a particular customer wasn’t happy with a transaction at one of your businesses. You can also see all the positive mentions from people and express your gratitude for their patronage.

 

Measuring Customer Feedback

Oftentimes, ORM Software also includes customer feedback measurements. Measuring customer feedback can mean getting an understanding of or numerical value attached to public sentiment based on a business’s detractors and promoters. It’s important for a business to get an accurate measurement so they have a baseline and can look at ways to improve their score. A customer feedback number that doesn’t hit the mark (maybe it’s higher than it really is) means the business isn’t getting an accurate view of how the public sees them and therefore may be doing more harm than good when it goes to tweak operations.

 

Cut Through the Noise

ORM Software cuts through the digital noise, straight to the conversation about your business, drowning out all the other talk so that you, the business owner, know what to focus on and what action needs to be taken to improve your online reputation.

Enlist an Online Reputation Management Software company so that you can understand what people are saying about your brand online and tackle the big issues facing your business.

 

 

Matthew Van Deventer

Matthew Van Deventer is a content creator for WebPunch. As a dealer of words he dabbles in journalism and loves a good story, whatever the medium. Matthew lives outside of Denver, CO with his wife, daughter, and pup, Chewy.