Brand reputation management. Online brand reputation management

There are many different concepts in the world of online marketing, one of which we can get acquainted with in this article, namely (ORM). This abbreviation hides the term Online Reputation Management or online reputation management. And you've probably heard of this, you just didn't know the correct name.

The work of ORM is to form the reputation of an object or person on the Internet. By reputation we mean an assessment in society assigned to someone or something. To put it simply, this is precisely the idea of ​​us in society. Public opinion is the opinion of potential customers, buyers, reviewers and other persons on whom our future profits depend.

Description of the concept of ORM

ORM is a whole range of necessary measures aimed at eliminating negative signals regarding a company, website, product, personality or brand. This is a general technology that includes such a large concept as SERM (Search Engine Reputation Management).

It is worth defining the difference between SERM and ORM, and here it is important to understand that the first term is narrower, since it concerns only the delivery of search results, and the second applies to all networking capabilities of the Internet, that is, blogs, comments on websites, social networks, reviews , forums, and other things. All this together also has a significant impact on reputation.

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Who might need reputation management and why?

On the Internet, reputation management is relevant for: specific products, entire brands, websites, companies or individuals who are public figures. In this case, we can give the most common example from SERM. You are the owner of an online business that generates good income from online activities. You are developing quite intensively, actively investing in various tools: SEO, SMO, SMM, crowd marketing, using promotion with high-quality content, contextual advertising. All this allows you to “cross the road” of all competitors. No one likes this, so they look for a solution, wanting to put you in your place. And here the question concerns reputation, because it is easier to ruin it than to try to outdo all your investments in promotion.

Free reputation analysis

Marketing research of mentions of your brand on the Internet and development of a strategy to improve your reputation in the event of negative ones.

How to ruin your online reputation?

Damaging a reputation is not a complicated process. This requires a number of specific actions:

  • you need to create a group of high-quality articles that are dedicated to a product, brand, website, person or company. The content of the article should be indirectly “gray” or “black” depending on the wishes of competitors. In the eyes of potential clients, such a context will discredit the victim indirectly or directly;
  • articles will be posted on various resources, and will also be optimized according to search requirements;
  • further, promotion of articles is required to get into the TOP for a specific request. This could be the name of a company or brand, or something even more specific.

Sites will be displayed in search results as usual, only those where the reputation of a brand or product has been discredited will be displayed in the first positions. In this case, ORM begins with preliminary removal of the negative. It is necessary to monitor resources in order to find those where the company’s reputation is openly discredited, and then remove reviews or displace these sites from the first pages of the search, replacing them with positive information. And after that, carefully monitor the company’s image.

The need for ORM

The need for ORM should be clearly understood. A few examples of why you need an ORM:

  • Sales depend on the company's online image;
  • Reputation influences how a brand is perceived in society, as well as sales in the long term;
  • Reputation can increase sales through a set of tips from users who have already made a purchase.

ORM is an ongoing process that is vital if you want to be recognized in the current competitive environment.

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Press:

"Commercial Director"

Recently, the market for services aimed at creating a positive image of a company or an individual product has grown significantly. Such services include reputation management. The service is aimed at improving reputation and eliminating negative comments or reviews about the company and its products. This requires a set of measures and tools. The service is called ORM. Translated, the abbreviation means online reputation management. The service requires an integrated approach. To do this, promotion and whitening of reputation is carried out using numerous social networks, review sites, blogs, forums, etc. Thus, it is possible to remove negative reviews once left by competitors or dissatisfied customers, increase awareness of a brand or a specific product, influence public opinion and, as a result, increase sales. At the same time, it is important not only to create a reputation, but to maintain it. Only professionals can do this.

"Money"

The volume of sales and the number of customers directly depend on public opinion. It just so happens that before ordering any services from a company, a person wants to get to know it through reviews. And it’s good if only good things are written about you, but what to do if there is negativity? Today, online reputation management or ORM is an important nuance in forming the right opinion about a company. You can resort to such a solution by contacting a specialized agency. Its specialists carry out a full range of work to create the desired opinion of a potential audience about a brand, company, services or person. If earlier reputation management was not possible, today, with a number of certain measures: posting positive content on various platforms, interacting with the audience and displacing negativity, it is possible.

"Director"

Online reputation management is a new effective service aimed at creating a positive image of the company. It consists of a number of steps and methods, including removing negative reviews online. The service is also called ORM. In this case, an integrated, competent approach is important. It is almost impossible to cope with the task on your own, especially without extensive experience and knowledge of all the intricacies. It is better to entrust this to specialized companies that will most effectively apply their knowledge in practice. Thanks to certain mechanisms, any negativity that negatively affects the company’s reputation and, as a result, its profitability is removed or shifted from a leading position. This increases the recognition of a product or company and increases sales. The work does not stop even after achieving the result. The image must not only be created, but also preserved, and this is not an easy task that only a specialist can handle.

"Power"

ORM is comprehensive online reputation management. This service is provided by large PR companies that have a full-fledged staff of specialists capable of creating a positive image of a business or person in all areas. The concept of ORM or Online Reputation Management really includes a lot. This includes search engine optimization of correctly presented information about your business, which is needed so that customers see only positive characteristics about you on the first pages of search engine results. This includes removing slander and negative reviews using absolutely legal methods. This includes the development of your website and pages on social networks - direct platforms for live communication with customers, answers to their questions and complaints. Thus, comprehensive online reputation management is the best way to achieve a high level of customer trust in your business.

"Profile"

The presence of negative reviews online plays a very important role for modern companies. After all, before contacting a particular company, the client must make sure that his choice is correct, so he must study both positive and negative reviews. They form an opinion about the work of the company. But it is worth noting that not all reviews are reliable - often negative ones can put the organization in a bad light, which means that the number of potential clients will decrease significantly. To avoid such a situation, you need to manage your reputation on the Internet. You can do this yourself, but for those who do not have free time, there is an excellent alternative - contact an agency that will carry out reputation management at the highest level. ORM specialists will constantly monitor the appearance of negative statements and immediately remove them. You should not risk your reputation in order not to lose business and not lose customers.

"Marketing"

Online reputation management (ORM) is a multi-stage but very effective process of increasing consumer trust in a brand or service. Public opinion, which is expressed in the form of reviews, comments on social networks, articles on various websites, directly affects the company’s competitiveness and profit. If for some reason a lot of negativity appears on the Internet, consumers react to it by refusing the services or goods of the “defamed” company owner. And it is useless to explain to them the true reasons for the appearance of custom reviews - sales can plummet in a matter of days. Reputation management restores the image of an individual or company by working with social networks, review sites, SEO content and introducing the necessary information about the client to various sites. If all the negativity cannot be removed, it is simply “squeezed out” from the first pages of search results, replacing it with new optimized content.

"Business magazine"

It is difficult to overestimate the power of public opinion on the Internet; according to one research company, the number of Internet users in 2016 was 84 million people; it is not for nothing that the Internet is called the fifth power. ORM or online reputation management is an effective tool for creating added value. Opinion about a company online affects the overall image and reputation of the organization. The key feature of reviews as an online marketing tool is their high level of trust, which competitors actively take advantage of. Indeed, when a partner reads a comment that the company with which he is determined to work does not live up to its obligations, the thought of the atrocities of competitors will not come to him immediately, if at all. First of all, a person will want to protect himself even at the stage of making a decision on cooperation. Therefore, control of the company’s information field on the Internet and reputation management is one of the company’s priorities. Responsibility for its implementation can be assigned to both employees and specialists of specialized agencies.

"Business Quarter"

A company's image on the Internet is no less important than its reputation in everyday life. According to statistics, from 30 to 70% of clients find a company via the Internet. Based on this, competent managers understand that a decrease in the level of trust in the online sphere will necessarily lead to a decrease in sales. To prevent this unpleasant outcome, it is necessary to promptly manage reputation, monitor and edit emerging negativity. A set of measures to correct an existing image or create a new image is called SERM. It involves creating a positive attitude among clients, partners and robots. Additional measures that include online reputation management include monitoring sites with negative information posted on them and promotion on social networks. Save your time, contact a professional with good experience in the field of ORM.

There are many misconceptions about online reputation management. Many people think that this is just social media monitoring and have no idea how it can affect business and sales. Online reputation management means control over a company's online image by monitoring all web resources and creating conditions for increasing rankings. Online reputation management ORM represents a set of methods and modern technologies for attracting the attention of potential customers by creating a positive method, bringing the company's website to the first page of search queries. Constant monitoring of Internet resources allows you to track negative comments and remove them using legal methods. Regardless of the size of your business, reputation management allows you to make your company visible in a positive way to consumers.

Brand Reputation- this is a set of fixed judgments about him based on criteria that are significant for the target audience (honesty, responsibility, decency). Reputation requires an analytical approach when forming an opinion and is based on reliable knowledge and assessments. Most often, this is supported by the consumer’s own experience.

Reputation is a dynamic process in which strategic objectives of the company, designed for the long term. Reputation depends on how and by what methods the company’s business activities are carried out. It reflects the deep economic and social characteristics of the brand.

Why is reputation important?

Reputation is equally important for every socialized object - from a person to an international company.

According to research, more than 60% of investors consider a brand’s reputation as one of the main factors in determining its value. Reputation can provide 20 to 80% of the company's shareholder value, representing a real asset of the company. Reputation is slowly formed, but, unlike tangible assets, it is relatively stable and not subject to price fluctuations in the market.

Reputation is significant influences the effectiveness of sales of brand products. 87% of people who shop online are always interested in reviews about a company before purchasing a product. 73% of consumers are more likely to trust a company if the majority of reviews about it are positive. 80% of online shoppers cancel their order after reading a negative review about a brand. Reputation is sometimes called “credibility” - 62% of consumers believe that a company with a good reputation will not produce poor quality products.

At the same time, reputation is important for the company when hiring employees. Potential employees are always looking for information about their future employer. 67% of professionals turn down a job offer due to poor corporate brand reputation.

A company's good reputation helps attract new consumers and retain existing ones, increase investment and sales efficiency. Long term reputation supports the company when economic difficulties arise at the expense of loyal customers.

Brand reputation and image

Quite often, consumers and even brand managers equate the concepts of “image” and “reputation.” In fact, image is a component of reputation and has other prerequisites for its formation.

The consumer's acquaintance with the brand begins with interaction with the components of the corporate identity - this is a means of objective positioning. When these elements are perceived, an image is formed in a person’s mind - this is an ideal image that is created by a brand to create a certain impression about the company in the minds of the target audience. Thus, image is an artificially created opinion among a certain group of people. Its task is to create a positive brand image among the audience.

Unlike the image a reputation cannot be created - it need to earn. Reputation can be considered the response or reaction of the public to a company's policies. Reputation building occurs throughout the entire activity of the brand and works for the long term. If image depends on external characteristics, then reputation depends on a holistic perception of both internal and external qualities of the brand.

What is reputation management

To effectively manage brand reputation, we are developing reputation strategy. This program defines a set of measures to create a positive reputation and mechanisms for their implementation.

Who manages brand reputation?

Brand reputation management is carried out brand managers. A company may have its own or hired specialists who are engaged in developing a comprehensive strategy for building a reputation. The main officials of the company should take part in the creation of a reputation strategy and its direct implementation.

Brand Reputation Management Strategies

Building a reputation through top officials and top managers of the company

In many cases reputation of the company's leader is inextricably linked to brand reputation. A public leader commands the respect of potential clients and consumers, as well as partners and employees. A recognizable person inspires trust in the company, confidence in its professionalism and respect. Such a leader will serve as a strong motivation for other employees, who will also work to improve the brand’s reputation.

Read more about personal branding read our article.

A strong team as the basis for building a reputation

This aspect of reputation management is most important for those organizations that provide various expert services or technology solutions. For example, in branding agencyKoloro Several specialists are working on creating a brand - a project manager, a designer, a marketer, a copywriter. They are all responsible for different aspects of the work. Productivity and quality of work are supported by effective communication between all responsible employees.

Careful study of the company's mission and philosophy

A brand philosophy based on core virtues helps shape the image responsible, decent or honest company. Over time, if you reinforce your image with appropriate activities, it will turn into a positive brand reputation.

Emphasis on the company's strengths

The easiest way to manage reputation is through such brand advantages as quality(products or services). This effectively increases the loyalty of existing customers and attracts new ones. In addition, the quality is easy to check (by trying or having it analyzed) or tested (by ordering a service).

You can use it as a company advantage many years of experience in the provision of services and indicators of successful implementation projects. A big plus in favor of building a positive reputation will be confirmation of the quality of work with certificates and participation in international competitions or exhibitions.

Financial stability can also be used as one of the components of a reputation strategy. This will help gain the trust of investors and partners, potential employees.

Corporate social responsibility of the company

It is important to take into account not only the interests of the company, but also society - from suppliers to ordinary workers. Careful attitude and concern of the company about its employees plays an important role in shaping the brand's reputation. By voluntarily taking responsibility for improving the quality of life of its employees and society as a whole, the brand gains additional advantages, especially against the backdrop of inactive competitors.

Better results can be achieved by simultaneously integrating at least two or three strategies in the company. Special attention should be paid corporate identity development, which is closely related to brand reputation. Specialists of the Koloro branding agency are engaged in developing a name, slogan, creating a logo and other elements of corporate identity.

Reputation management technologies

To achieve the above strategies, the following technologies can and should be used.

Organization of special events and promotions

This is a powerful tool for attracting public attention. This includes organizing exhibitions, presentations, fairs, participating in conferences or seminars, competitions, and holding social events.

This helps to implement several reputation management strategies at once. A public leader who confidently talks about the benefits of a brand at a conference will attract new partners and clients. A strong team of employees represented at the competition will demonstrate the professionalism of the company.

Plays an important role carrying out social events- they best show the company's responsibility.

Every day, thousands of workers came from South Asia to Dubai to find work to support their families. The cost of calling abroad is $0.91/minute, while the average salary is $6/day. Workers were unable to regularly contact their families. In 2014, Coca-Cola launched a promotion HelloHappinessPhoneBooth. A special machine accepted caps from cola bottles (can cost $0.68) and provided 3 free minutes for calls abroad, allowing workers to save money.

Strengthening internal corporate relations

Patriotism of workers towards your company also helps to strengthen your reputation. The following activities will help you create a strong team:

  • association of employees for achieving one goal: formation of common values;
  • support high level of professionalism: employee development through trainings, seminars;
  • employee motivation and formation of corporate culture;
  • support favorable atmosphere for the work of all specialists;
  • understanding between employees;
  • implementation elementscorporate identity .

Business-to-business communications (B2B)

Interaction with partners should be based on integrity implementation of agreements and transparency cooperation goals. Strengthening reputation in the business environment depends on rational brand leaders and their thoughtful decisions.

Media Relations

Well-built press relations significantly influence the public's attitude towards the brand. From time to time it is worth holding press conferences, inviting several media representatives to them. Good relations with the press are not as important for building a positive reputation as they are for preventing negative press towards a company. Therefore, journalists should be provided with the necessary information about the company’s activities in a timely manner.

Would you like to know more about creating an ideal image and building a reputation? Subscribe to our newsletter at the bottom of the page and call us - we will be happy to advise you on all your questions! Don’t forget to order corporate identity development from us - this is the foundation for building your brand’s reputation!

A brand's reputation is considered to be a set of certain judgments, opinions and impressions of a company's products. All this adds up to a kind of assessment of society, its attitude towards the brand, formed on the basis of many parameters. The development of these parameters is the work of brand managers, marketers and PR managers. Any product or service of a company can become a household name (brand) and improve business performance, its profits and profitability. Examples of successful brands: Microsoft, Coca-Cola and many others.

You will learn:

  • How does brand reputation differ from image?
  • Why monitor your brand's reputation?
  • How to evaluate a brand's reputation.
  • How to maintain a brand's reputation on the Internet.
  • How one mistake can ruin a brand's reputation.

How a brand's reputation is created

The target audience makes its judgment about the brand’s reputation based on criteria that are significant to it, such as honesty, responsibility, and integrity. Reputation should be managed, the formation of the consumer’s opinion should be analyzed, which is most often based on his reliable knowledge and his own experience of communicating with the brand.

Previously, such a concept did not exist on the market. Around the 80s of the 20th century, it became obvious that it was not enough to simply sell products or services, but that it was necessary to promote the product to the market. There was a need to differentiate from competing firms. The brand made it possible to advantageously differentiate from them by announcing a set of product attributes that are valuable to the buyer and the reasons why it is better than others. This largely determined its position in the market. Thus, brand reputation is a positive or negative assessment of this brand already formed in the market (in the minds of consumers).

In order for a brand to gain a high reputation coefficient, it must be endowed with some positive values ​​for the consumer. Already closer to the 90s of the 20th century, analysts, brand managers, and marketers began to research the target audience, study their needs and expectations from each product.

It all starts with internal and external audit. For example, for shampoo, significant consumer criteria are the quality of hair cleansing, adding strength, softness, shine and thickness, and, of course, a reasonable price.

You should strive to reduce to zero (ideally) the difference between the ideal image of the brand presented by the company itself and the already formed assessment of it by customers. The determining factors here are the components of brand reputation and methods for increasing this reputation.

The company's strategic long-term objectives also include reputation management. The dynamics of its development depend on the company’s business practices. Therefore, reputation is partly an economic and social characteristic of a brand.

Failure to manage several variables can render attempts to increase brand reputation futile or even provoke its spontaneous formation. These are the main components of reputation:

  • the degree of emotional appeal of the brand, how much the consumer likes the brand, whether he has confidence in the company;
  • evaluation of the product or service itself (it is important to form an attitude towards the product as a quality product, the need to highlight the company as a priority when purchasing a product or ordering a service);
  • financial indicators (to ensure that the fact of purchasing brand products is perceived as a profitable financial investment);
  • social position (it is important for the consumer that the company’s activities do not harm the environment, do not test products on animals, etc.);
  • market leadership and company scale (preference is given to large firms at the head of networks and corporations by 78% of consumers).

Thus, brand reputation is a complex of internal (within the company) and external (working with consumers and business partners) factors that require management.

Brand image and reputation: what's the difference?

It happens that the concept of “image” is equated with the concept of “reputation” even by brand owners themselves. But they are not identical: image is a component of reputation, and the prerequisites for their formation are different.

Corporate identity and its elements are the beginning of the consumer’s acquaintance with the brand. They form an impression in the human mind that forms the ideal image of the brand, its image among the target audience. Therefore, image is an opinion created about a brand among a separate group of people. It's good if it's positive.

But a reputation is earned over years; it cannot be created artificially. It represents the reaction of public opinion to the company's activities. A brand's reputation is built throughout its entire life cycle. It always works for the long term and depends on people’s vision of the internal and external qualities of the brand, as opposed to the image with its purely external characteristics.

What is the importance of brand reputation for a company?

Reputation is a balanced aspect, both for a person and for a company. Research shows that more than 60% of investors consider reputation to be one of the main factors of brand value. After all, reputation provides from 20% to 80% of share capital. This is a real asset of the company, little susceptible to fluctuations in market price, unlike tangible assets.

Product sales success is highly influenced by brand reputation. Research shows that 78% of people look at reviews of the company offering the product before purchasing it online. If the reviews are positive, then 73% of consumers are more likely to trust it. And after reading a negative review, 80% of online shoppers abandon their order. This is a kind of “credit of trust”, because approximately 62% of buyers are confident that a company with a strong reputation will never release bad products. This is why effective online brand reputation management is so important.

Reputation also plays an important role when searching for employees, because they are also interested in a potential employer, and most often on the Internet. The company's dubious reputation is the reason why 67% of professional workers refuse employment offers.

A positive reputation attracts and retains customers, stimulates investment in business, and increases sales. In economically difficult times, loyal customers support the company, which means reputation is extremely important in the long term.

Brand Reputation Management: 5 Strategies

Strategy 1. Formation of reputation by top officials and top management of the company.

Of course, the reputation of a company is linked to the reputation of its leader. The first person - a public leader - deserves the respect of his clients, partners and employees. It is a recognizable face and a strong leader that inspires trust in the brand, respect for the professionalism of the company and the quality of the product. It serves as a motivating factor for its employees to enhance the positive reputation of the brand.

Strategy 2. A strong team as the basis for building a reputation.

When, for example, a team is working on creating a brand - a project manager, a marketing specialist, a designer, a writer - cohesion and efficiency depend on the quality of communications between responsible specialists, especially in organizations providing expert services or high-tech solutions.

Strategy 3. Careful study of the company's mission and philosophy.

To link strategy and mission (goals and declarations), to build a reputation as an honest and socially responsible company, it is necessary to adhere to the brand philosophy and its main virtues. Over time, all this will turn into a good brand reputation.

Strategy 4. Emphasis on the company's strengths.

The quality of a product or service is the strength of a brand to manage its reputation. Existing and new customers become loyal to the brand due to the quality of the company's products. It is easy to verify the properties of a product by trying it or testing the service.

To confirm quality, they use the fact of many years of experience in providing services or many successfully implemented company projects. Certificates received for quality work and diplomas from international competitions and exhibitions will also benefit your good reputation.

Financial stability is also one of the components of a reputation strategy. It increases confidence in the company among investors, business representatives and its future employees.

Strategy 5. Corporate social responsibility of the company.

To build a positive reputation, companies need to know the interests of society. These can be suppliers and ordinary workers. Caring for them, attentive attention to their interests, responsibility for the quality of their life and society gives the brand new advantages over inactive competitors.

So, by integrating two or three, or even all of the listed strategies at the same time, you can achieve better results, create and strengthen a positive brand reputation. Visually, it is closely related to the company’s reputation, and it also needs to be worked on.

Monitoring and assessing brand reputation on the Internet using the example of Tesla

Often reputation is assessed only at the emotional level, solely on the basis of marketing slogans. But the situation can get out of control, and this is what it means:

  • consumer risks – suspicious attitude of buyers towards products and brands;
  • underestimation of the value of the company's shares on the securities market;
  • the press pays attention from the worst side, not believing even obvious successes;
  • government agencies do not trust a company with a faulty reputation;
  • comparison with competitors is not in favor of such a company, intensification of unfair advertising by competitors;
  • corporate conflicts are not in favor of a company with a weakened reputational position;
  • negative impact on the motivation of your own employees.

Since business speaks the language of numbers, assessing risks by reducing the number of zeros in financial indicators, we will provide evidence in numerical form.

For example, if Internet users see just one page with a negative mention of a brand on it, then, according to MOZ research from 2015, such a business is at risk of losing up to one quarter of all its customers.

If three pages with negative information appear, the percentage of lost customers will be 59.2%. And more than 70% will leave when four or more pages with such content are displayed.

99% of Russian residents, Internet users, are interested in online reviews before making a purchase or ordering a service, according to a study conducted in 2016 by the Center for Internet Technologies.

There are special review sites. 37% of users access them, the remaining 63% of consumers use search engines for this purpose.

Therefore, analyzing the results in search engine results is the first step in managing a brand’s reputation on the Internet.

You should filter out “positive”, “negative” and “neutral” pages in search engine results upon request, assign them certain labels, and then calculate their ratio if there is a task to analyze and protect the company’s reputation and brand.

For example, a search page with a product catalog and dry information about the brand is classified as “neutral”.

Sites that provide reviews of the pros and cons of products or pages with reviews are more difficult to evaluate. In this case, methods are used to determine positive/neutral/negative materials according to the “Net Promoter Score” (NPS) customer loyalty assessment method. This technique was first announced in the article “The One Number You Need to Grow” by its author Frederick Reichheld and published in December 2003 in the Harvard Business Review. It is still relevant today.

The probability of purchasing a product or service by a user who has studied the information on the search results page, depending on its tone, is assessed on a ten-point scale:

  • a rating of 7–10 is assigned to a “positive” or “neutral” page;
  • a rating from 0 to 6 corresponds to a “negative” page.

We propose to analyze the reputation of the Tesla brand for the brand query “Tesla cars” when issued in the search engines Yandex and Google. This is an example illustration. Current searches may differ from the most popular searches.

a) look at the organic results of Yandex: in the first position there is a page with a blog about Tesla cars;

The information contains news, prices, Tesla brand history, model characteristics, release prospects. The emotional coloring of the information is neutral.

However, it also contains a message about the accident of a Tesla car that was moving using autopilot. How will this note affect Tesla brand loyalty? Most likely, it will not be affected, because the blog information makes it clear that the company's reputation - advanced technology, continuous improvement and modernization of models - makes this organization attractive. However, the accident story cannot be completely discounted.

b) in second place in the Yandex search results is a page from Wikipedia;

Interestingly, Tesla and Apple have similar business models. The page contains the history of the company, the history of the brand name, a list of models, awards. In 2007, the company received The Crunchies Award for Best Green Business.

Despite the fact that here the Tesla brand is perceived positively, Wikipedia also points to its technical problems. But these are isolated cases, and the company, protecting the reputation of the brand, was ready to recall the entire batch of cars because of them and eliminate the defects for free.

c) a well-known car sales portal in Russia took the third level of issuance;

There are no reviews or any ratings here (not provided), but only photographs, model characteristics, costs and a list of dealer addresses.

d) review articles – fourth and fifth places in search results;

There is a review here and the comments are generally good. However, one of them contains the commentator's doubts about the reliability of the Tesla battery. And although there is some disagreement with this statement in the comments, there may well be a lack of trust in the reputation of the Tesla brand.

Yandex and Youtube videos are displayed in addition to the standard 10 pages on the screen. It should be noted that the remark: “Tesla makes you happy even at a temperature of -38 in Barnaul!” - makes their tone very positive.

f) in sixth place in the search results was the article “Tesla: a phenomenon or a scam”;

The article is informational, but the title contains some provocation. In it, representatives of world-famous brands argue about the prospects of electric vehicles. Doubt about the idea of ​​mission and innovation, as well as the reputation of the Tesla brand, may arise after reading a few comments. This project was called “adventurous” because of cases of spontaneous combustion of cars.

g) an information article came in seventh place;

“Perfection in details, continuous growth of consumer interest, excellent technical characteristics of the car, a positive forecast regarding the construction of electric gas stations in Moscow,” her tone is more than positive. However, in the comments to the article, the authors doubt the positive sentiments of society. Arguments: weak charging and, in their opinion, overpriced.

h) another information article in the eighth place of issue;

The article describes the excellent crash test results and the best characteristics in terms of speed and battery capacity of Tesla cars in comparison with other electric cars. In addition, they are well equipped technically. It is also interesting that Tesla announced a gradual reduction in price with each new model, and its statement that a budget model costing only $30,000 will soon see the light of day.

However, the comments are not so optimistic. Severe Russian winters may make Tesla vehicles unsuitable for use in Russia. And this comes at a high price and insufficient battery capacity. Below is the video about Barnaul mentioned above.

A link is attached to the article. To summarize: for those who love high speeds and cool cars, Tesla is not suitable, despite the good reputation of the brand. The conclusion was made on the basis of a list of imperfections of the electronic control (the car lifts up when the door is open) and the car as a whole: imperfect fit of parts (there are gaps between the hood and the wing), the engine does not pull when driving fast, and at increased speed the battery capacity decreases.

i) in ninth place is an article claiming that Tesla is “a very successful attempt to compete with liquid fuel cars”;

However, the problems cited in the article, which were called “typical” for all electric cars - loss of charge during idle time and in severe frosts - reduced the rating of this page by one point.

j) the last, 10th place, in the top 10 is the main page of the Tesla website.

Neutral information in news, reviews about goals and car models does not have evaluative characteristics of brand reputation. But accidents caused by Autopilot and facts about accidents with Tesla are listed in the “Accidents” section of the main menu.

Step 2.We give an assessment of Google's top 10.

  1. First place in search results. Google and Yandex produce similar results. Page rating – 8 points.
  2. The second place in Google is occupied by a site selling cars, where their characteristics and prices are presented, but there are no reviews or ratings. Page rating – 10 points.
  3. In third place is a subdomain of a large automobile portal. In addition to car characteristics and offers for the sale of used cars, owners of Tesla cars left reviews there. These reviews spoil the impression a little because they criticize elements that do not affect the performance of the car. For example, owners believe that the seat of the Tesla X2016 car is inferior in comfort to S-class cars. Page rating – 9 points.
  4. Wikipedia and Auto.ru took fourth and fifth places. Rating – 9 and 10 points respectively.
  5. The sixth place in Google results is given to the main page of an information blog about the Tesla brand. Only one out of ten announcements contains negative material about litigation. Page rating – 8 points.
  6. Seventh place in Yandex search results is also occupied by the page teslazone.ru. Rating – 8 points.
  7. Eighth place was taken by a popular trading portal in Russia. Appeal - “Yes, a Tesla car can be bought on Avito!” There is no evaluation information. Rating – 10 points.
  8. The test drive takes ninth place in the video review of Autoportal. The comments rated him positively. Several negative comments concern other topics. Page rating – 8 points.
  9. In tenth place in Google results are images of Tesla cars. Rating – 10 points.

Step 3.We analyze search results.

  • in the top of Yandex there are three pages with a negative rating;
  • There are no negative reviews in the top Google.

It may seem that Tesla's management of the company's reputation and brand is almost flawless, and the company is not at risk of losing its position in the market. But there is not yet enough data to make such a conclusion. It’s too early to make a full assessment of the company’s and brand’s reputation.

The Bright Local Consumer Review Survey, based on its research, states that only 5% of Internet users browse more than six sites to answer their questions, only 16% visit four or five sites to do this, more than half (59%) study no more than three, and 20% of users are limited to viewing just one site.

Therefore, it is necessary to consider the correlation of the position of a page with a negative rating with the number of customers who, after reading such a page, may refuse services. This is another indicator necessary to assess a brand’s reputation on the Internet.

Step 4.We assess risks based on search results.

For this purpose, the formula is used:

Audience size = search demand × CTR,

Where search demand– this is the number of impressions of the search results,

A CTR– the clickability of the page, which determines its position in the search results.

Please note that CTR varies depending on the brand’s topic, so we recommend collecting page click-through statistics separately for each topic.

An annual study by ARTOX media on CTR queries in search results for automotive websites allowed us to use numbers when calculating reputation risks in the example given.

Based on an analysis of search results for the query “Tesla cars,” we will calculate the reputation risks of the Tesla brand. For the query “Tesla cars,” search demand in Russia is 17,046 impressions per month, according to Yandex’s Wordstat service.

From the compiled table it follows that pages with negative information in Yandex search results are located in the 6th, 7th and 8th positions, which means their CTR is 3.4%, 2.9%, 2.6%, respectively.

We calculate:

17046 × 3.4% + 17046 × 2.9% + 17046 × 2.6% = 1517

Conclusion: 1517 potential customers will see negative information about Tesla cars in Yandex results.

We recommend analyzing search engine results for both brand queries (Tesla, Tesla, Tesla cars, etc.) and reputational queries (brand name + reviews) in order to obtain an objective assessment of reputational risks. This way, the results of assessing brand reputation management on the Internet will be more reliable.

Although interest in the Tesla brand is growing in Russia, this market is not yet a priority for the company, which is confirmed by the absence of the official Tesla website for the query “Tesla cars” in Yandex search results.

The brand’s business card, a platform for effective dialogue with the buyer, is your website. An indispensable condition for promoting a brand smaller than Tesla on the Russian market is the presence of your official website for brand queries in search results.

Online brand reputation management : 4 mechanisms

In order for Internet branding to give a predictable result, in order to choose the most interesting promotion channels for your company, you need to clearly define the situation on the Internet market. Only after this can further steps be taken. The World Wide Web provides almost limitless opportunities and different ways to promote a brand to the market.

Whatever business you run, online or offline, you need to know what customers think of you. To monitor their reviews, there is no point in looking for any other channels for obtaining information other than the Internet, because 90% of the necessary information is concentrated there. That is why the basis of promotion is constant reading of publications on the Internet.

Learn to read “between the lines,” grasp the emotional tone of reviews, and be attentive to the tone of statements. Such recognition monitoring will definitely yield results - identifying key indicators of mentions of your brand and comparing them with the indicators of competitors. In this case, you will be able to use the information received to benefit the company and use resources where your company is more often mentioned in a positive way.

Next, you need to generate reports with the results of monitoring brand awareness and, based on them, build a strategy for promoting your brand online. It involves the following steps: presence on forums and social networks, increasing the number of positive reviews and refuting negative ones, creating a positive brand image in the minds of consumers, managing the brand’s reputation on the Internet.

For online promotion, they use unique tools, used only in the electronic market, and traditional tools, familiar to offline branding as well.

The company makes its choice of tools based on the findings of brand awareness monitoring. These are unique electronic market tools - a company website or an online store of goods - or banners, logos, reviews, press releases used in traditional business.

  1. Company or brand website.

The company's website serves to demonstrate the brand's mission and strategy and to convey information about the company's activities to users. You should create only a positive impression on consumers when visiting your website. Leading companies also do not forget about entertaining content for site visitors. To do this, they arrange mini-games, offer to discuss interesting topics, and listen to music. This is how the company shows the user an interest in the visitor’s hobbies, and not just a material interest in him. This is how the consumer gradually develops an attachment to the brand.

  1. Positioning on social networks.

Social networks in our time have become a platform for informal communication between people. They allow you to interact more closely with the buyer and become his friend. Stories about yourself, your dreams and plans, news, corporate events inspire trust in your target audience, in your words and advice.

  1. Hiden advertisment.

It's no secret that today the advertising around us is increasingly annoying and repulsive. Therefore, on the Internet, users are not looking for advertising, but for communication with like-minded people, looking for advice from friends. Hidden marketing is built on this, a very promising area of ​​online promotion. Its effectiveness has already been proven by many well-known companies. The main thing in it is to be natural, that is, to be yourself.

The user goes to the Internet for communication, an answer to a question, or a friend’s opinion. This should be used to build a good reputation for the brand and company. For example, hearing on TV: “The store has opened!” – a person will think about annoying advertising. But by going to a forum on the Internet or a social network account and reading a post from an unfamiliar girl about her impression of the same store, the user will believe in her sincere praise of the products, prices and staff. If she compared this store with others, then isn’t this good advertising for the store and anti-advertising for competitors?

Download: Factors influencing brand reputation (statistics)

The effectiveness of hidden marketing increases several times during a group discussion of a company’s product or service. Almost constant interest is generated by the news that a certain product is better than others, and several people claim this at once.

We must not forget about such a hidden marketing technique as anti-advertising. For example, you will lose the desire to buy a product if a respected regular of your favorite forum simply and sincerely writes that he bought such a product from company X, used it and regretted that he did not buy it from company Y.

The advantage of hidden advertising compared to traditional advertising is that a company can convey to the buyer the benefits of its product compared to a similar product from a competitor quite easily and without unnecessary investments. Such advertising is more credible if it comes from professional agents of influence and the work is organized competently. In this case, none of the users will call it “advertising”, and nothing will interfere with improving the brand’s reputation.

  1. Review management.

Statistics confirm that now only after studying reviews about a product, the majority of buyers make a choice. Therefore, working with reviews is a mandatory part of hidden marketing and is no different from participating in forums. To promote yourself and get ahead of competitors, you need simplicity and sincerity, naturalness in the texts, awareness of the product and the company.

You need to work with reviews carefully. For example, users will not believe that the product has no flaws at all; deliberately laudatory reviews are suspicious. Such actions online can cause a negative response and alienate a potential buyer, and the advertising will not meet your expectations. Therefore, we must not forget about properly working with online reviews.

A practitioner tells

The best reviews are real

Evgeniy Vasilkov,

Head of Development Department, Flamp

It is unlikely that the user community will be interested in uninteresting and insignificant reviews “for a gift”; they are simply ignored. How to solve the problem of rewarding customers? A recommendation is the best praise for the procedure performed, the store’s assortment you liked, or a repeat visit to your bar. Just remind clients and guests about this in simple and uncomplicated ways: put a business card in the package with the purchase, say kind words goodbye, place widgets and banners about yourself on the website, provide links on social networks to your services. Then the number of sincere customer reviews about you will increase in proportion to the frequency of your reminders about yourself. The value of honest opinions about you from consumers of your product as a source of information about problems and points of possible growth in the competitiveness of your business cannot be overestimated.

Mini-questionnaires and special question cards with ready-made answer options are placed in areas of maximum store traffic. At the checkout, for example, this way you can get dozens of customer reviews a day. To study the needs of customers, such questionnaires are added to compare the characteristics of the products of several competing companies.

9 Bad Examples of Brand Reputation Management

So what can rob a company and brand of customer trust and affection? There are a number of clear examples of poor brand reputation management.

In 2012, Oleg Tinkov’s bank decided to repay its debts using the well-known social network Odnoklassniki. Bank employees sent a message with the text about the overdue debt to the debtor’s friends after finding his account on a social network. Despite the fact that the debt was small, and the debtor himself did not hide or avoid contact with the robot informant, the bank took such an outrageous step.

The injured debtor himself spoke about this method of work on his Twitter. Later, a TKS marketing manager confirmed this incident. After this, Oleg Tinkov personally intervened in correspondence with the ToWave publication on Twitter when it tried to understand this unprecedented case and protect the bank client.

The end of this story with the sending of messages about debtors by Tinkoff Credit Systems Bank is unknown. It seems that this was the decision of the most outrageous Tinkov. But even if the bank stopped sending, it still grossly violated Russian legislation and online etiquette. Here is a rather striking example of unprofessional brand reputation management.

Example 2. “Poster. Food" and a kid in milk.

“A baby goat fits easily in a standard home oven, especially if its legs are tied,” was the caption under a nasty photo of a tied animal on Facebook’s recipe section in 2014. This entry was posted online by the company Afisha. Food".

Users' opinions were polarized: from outrage and leaving the community to a neutral attitude. But the resonance was great. Instead of removing the unpleasant post from the network, Afisha’s SMM specialists entered into an unnecessary argument with angry readers in the comments and made other mistakes in managing the brand’s reputation.

Example 3. Bledina brand on the Russian market.

The French company Danone has brought many popular brands to the market. But it didn’t work out that way with the Bledina baby food brand in Russia in the 90s. And it’s clear why – because of its name. Representatives of the Danone company refused to believe the Russian representatives that the brand would fail in Russia because of its name. They gave different arguments: in Slavic-speaking Slovakia the product is going great. The French saw the reasons for the brand's failure in Russia as insufficiently powerful brand promotion. They came up with the slogan: “Bledina is everything your child needs.”

And only Igor Ugolnikov helped remember the unsuccessful brand, which soon disappeared from the market, with the ironic phrase: “The whole world was nourished by Bledina!”

Example 4. Galaxy Note 7 on fire.

The Korean company Samsung began a program to recall new smartphones in the United States in 2016 when social media users began posting messages with attached photos about devices spontaneously combusting and their batteries exploding. These new Note 7s are a real bomb.

However, the recall campaign failed because the Korean manufacturer did not involve local regulators, but did it itself. As a result of this, users did not have access to information about a possible replacement, and there were no replacement devices themselves. The complex return and exchange schemes offered by communication shops did not suit anyone.

The campaign dragged on, new explosions occurred, so the devices were banned in many countries. They were prohibited from being used at airports. Isn't this an anti-example of brand reputation management?

Example 5. Peculiarities of the national character of a low-cost airline.

The low-cost Russian airline Pobeda also demonstrated a complete lack of understanding of the brand reputation management system, demanding payment for services that were free from other low-cost airlines.

The company ruined relations with passengers when, in the spring of 2016, its employees, when there were free seats, prohibited a married couple with an infant from sitting together and reprimanded a father for not wearing a seat belt.

It is interesting that after this incident, the fee for the right to sit next to each other was increased by 2 times by the Pobeda company. While foreign low-cost airlines offer free carry-on luggage, this Russian company costs 999 rubles. Rostransnadzor obliged the company to allow free transportation of at least small women's backpacks. Pobeda filed a lawsuit protesting against this condition, but lost the case. Moreover, in retaliation, she threatens to increase ticket prices.

You will now have to pay 3 times more for transporting goods purchased at Duty Free. The company declined to comment on such decisions. Of course, all this could not but cause indignation among the passengers of this company’s aircraft and spoil the reputation of this brand.

Example 6: Cafe Anderson and Alkaline Eggplant.

After a chemical burn from eating eggplant, a visitor to the Anderson cafe in the hospital was diagnosed with hyperemia of the mucous membranes of the tongue and lower palate. She spoke about this incident on social networks. The test showed the presence of alkali in the dish. To which a representative of the Anderson company made a statement that a high alkali content in eggplant is the norm.

To make amends for the incident, the administration of the Anderson network held a so-called flash mob on Facebook using the tag #underSonbaklazhan. However, Facebook readers considered this a mockery, despite the promises of cognac, a basket of eggplants and “improved karma.” Users reposted the girl's complaint on their pages. What did the Anderson administration do in response? She threatened the distributors of the complaint with legal action for allegedly false information. Once again we see very unprofessional brand reputation management.

Example 7: The fall of United Airlines.

The American company United Airlines had to offer Carter Wilkerson a free flight anywhere in the world when a series of fatal events occurred in 2017. The company's employees did not want to let passengers in leggings in, they used force to put their employee in the passenger's seat, and he himself was removed from the flight. In addition, a rabbit that claimed to be the largest in the world died on board the company's ship. Of course, United Airlines denies any wrongdoing.

Carter Wilkerson received the required number of retweets to eat free nuggets for a year at the fast food chain Wendy's. Within a month, Wilkerson had 3.4 million retweets. United Airlines offered him a free flight for 18 million retweets.

The action would have been a success, but Twitter users recalled the airline's unpleasant incidents that were mentioned above and said that the company would never restore its damaged reputation with such actions.

Example 8. British Petroleum and the Gulf of Mexico.

Many experts said British Petroleum, a consistent top 100 company, did not know how to manage its brand reputation when it suffered an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. In commercials produced by the organization to restore its reputation, President Tony Hayward promised taxpayers that their money would not be used by the company to clean up the disaster and the bay. This unfortunate move did not help restore the company's reputation, as the film Deepwater Horizon vividly demonstrates.

After Barack Obama's speech sharply criticizing the company, Tony Hayward was forced to apologize and resign as CEO. Here is the result of poor brand reputation management: after the oil incident, the company’s market value decreased by 2 times, and after the president’s criticism, it decreased by another $2.8 billion.

Example 9. Toyota and its problematic pedals.

In 2010, the head of the largest Japanese concern Toyota, Akio Toyoda, was not aware of complaints about the gas pedals of his company's cars that had been received for several years, but took the full blow of criticism from the US Congress. At the same time, he had to recall more than 8 million Toyota vehicles. For such a delay in responding to market challenges, the company had to pay more than $48 million to the US government and civil courts. Toyota's brand reputation would not have suffered if the company had not hidden problems from consumers.

Information about the experts

Evgeniy Vasilkov, Head of Development Department, Flamp. “Flump” is an online book of reviews and suggestions, where users leave their opinions about city establishments and rate them. These ratings are used to create a company rating that helps you choose a restaurant, gym or store. Site traffic exceeds 500 thousand users per month. Official website - http://flamp.ru

Reputation marketing is a full range of online reputation management work. An alternative designation for the service is ORM marketing (Online Reputation Management). A separate area within the service is SERM (Search Engine Reputation Management).

Why do you need to manage your reputation?

Your brand's online reputation and your sales are directly related. Reviews about a company are one of the most important factors in choosing a product or service.

Even if the percentage of defects in your work is low, there is a possibility of negative reviews from customers appearing online. Frustrated customers are more likely to talk about disappointments, so word of failure always spreads faster. Competitors are also not asleep and often fight for sales using “black” methods, posting fake reviews about other companies in their niche. As a result, the brand’s reputation suffers - information comes to light, the company loses “points” in the eyes of potential customers.

In addition, the negative reaction of real clients is feedback about your work. Managing your brand's online reputation and regularly monitoring and analyzing reviews will help you stay aware of your weaknesses, fix problems, respond promptly to reports of problems, and retain customers.

Guerrilla marketing is a relatively new and relevant strategy for promoting goods, services and brands on the Internet. This term was first used in 1984 in his book of the same name by Jay Conrad Levinson, former creative director of the American advertising agency Leo Burnett. The book was devoted to how to advertise goods and services with minimal costs. The author proposed a lot of non-standard ideas that brought real profits to the companies that used them.

SERM is a technology that allows you to build, protect and maintain the reputation of a company or brand using search engine optimization tools. It makes it possible to gain customer trust and increase competitiveness.


Who is the service suitable for?

Reputation marketing services are necessary for absolutely every company that has gone public or is about to go public.

And especially for companies with online sources of attracting customers (search, social networks, display advertising, context, etc.).

What may be included in the Reputation Marketing service?

Brand reputation management includes several main areas.

  • Monitoring the reputation environment (semantic and search) and informing about new mentions of the company/brand.
  • Search for negativity and respond to it in a timely manner.
  • Preparing positive materials and posting them on behalf of agents of influence.
  • Generating search results for queries such as “brand”, “brand reviews”, “brand employee reviews” and other managed sites.
  • Displacement of pages with negative reviews from the TOP of search results by SEO tools.

Depending on the combination of areas of reputation marketing, we offer you 5 solutions.

The first three solutions (ORM-1, ORM-2, ORM-3) are general ORM technologies with varying degrees of immersion.

ORM-1. Monitoring.

ORM-2 . Monitoring and working out negativity.

ORM-3. Monitoring and addressing negativity with the formation of a positive reputational environment.

The fourth and fifth solutions are brand reputation management + SERM technology, which is responsible for building, protecting and maintaining brand reputation in search results.

SERM-1. Formation of search results by managed sites and displacement of negative pages.

SERM-2. Formation of search results by managed sites and displacement of negative pages. With payment for results.

Features of the “Reputation Marketing” service on the website

  • We use our own unique analytical developments.
  • We have developed a client account in which you can track project work online.
  • We master the technology of promotion to the TOP perfectly, so in the SERM direction there is no equal site.
  • We have special agreements with review sites, because without them, effective ORM marketing is almost impossible.

They've already tried

Reputation marketing is a special service, so we do not have the right to disclose the names of brands and companies of our clients, and in the cases we will only reflect general results.

With all clients who order online brand reputation management, the site must sign an NDA (non-disclosure agreement). If you use our services, neither your clients nor your competitors will know about it.

Get an online reputation analysis - leave a request, our specialists will contact you.

Online reputation management is a set of works that representatives of any brand think about sooner or later. The very concept of reputation management is defined in different ways - RM, ORM, SERM, reputation marketing.

It is not so important what the brand’s marketers will call the set of works at internal planning meetings, it is important that reputation management work brings benefits to the brand.

If this is your first time facing the task of reputation management, then this material is for you. In this article, we will look at the main reputation management tools that can be launched relatively quickly and for free.

1. Monitoring system

Before you start managing the reputation of your brand, you need to understand what people generally write about it. As practice shows, users like to write about a brand on neutral platforms that are not controlled by the brand itself. If there is a spike in mentions, it could happen anywhere, but key discussions will most likely appear somewhere on user pages, on forums. Therefore, the frequent phrase from marketers “oh well, we only work in our group” is erroneous.

A monitoring system is used to identify brand mentions in real time. There are many monitoring systems on the market. Personally, I advise you to try the very affordable Brand Analytics Express (they give you a starting balance right away) or Youscan (they give you a trial period). In addition to them, there are several other systems on the monitoring market that you can try - IQBuzz, SemanticForce, BrandSpotter and others.

If you are interested in looking for leads in parallel with reputation management, you can try the free lead monitoring system Leadscanner. We also shouldn’t forget about the free systems Yandex.Blogs and Google Alerts.

2. Analytics

We started monitoring mentions and found mentions of our favorite brand. However, monitoring alone is not enough to manage online reputation. It is necessary to seriously analyze and correctly adapt for further work the data that is collected through monitoring.

At a minimum you need to understand:

  • where they write about the brand,
  • Who writes,
  • how much they write,
  • what coverage,
  • positive or negative,
  • what is the audience engagement,
  • similar analysis for competitors (see next section).

Some monitoring systems support automatic downloading of reports. However, sometimes it is necessary to manually double-check the monitoring settings so that tags and sentiments are determined correctly.

3. Play on competitor mentions

Recently, battles between brands like Tinkoff versus Rocketbank have become a normal occurrence.

No one forbids monitoring negative mentions of competitors and introducing your theses into discussions. Moreover, you can collect not only negative mentions of competitors, but all mentions of competitors in a specific context.

For example, two options:

  • Bank A monitors all Bank B's discussions about mortgage lending and covers it with its posts or comments. Bank B writes about a cool promotion at 12% per annum, and Bank A will publish its posts and comments everywhere that it has 9% per annum. Moreover, as indicated above, you can implement your posts in the same groups and forums, and also start guerrilla marketing directly under the posts of a competitive brand. Benefit – the brand will have a reputation for being more affordable.
  • users write negative things about cellular operator B. Marketers of cellular operator A in this case can infiltrate all discussions and offer their services to dissatisfied customers of operator B. For example, if a user complains about the frequent lack of communication in a particular area, or about the high cost of mobile Internet, then a competitive brand may offer such a user to deliver a SIM card to a convenient address with free mobile Internet included for 1 month. Benefit - the brand has a reputation as an active brand, which also offers gifts at the very beginning of cooperation.

In both cases, users will see which brand has more favorable conditions, or even a free distribution of freebies. In this case, what is happening will be seen not only by the user involved in the discussion, but also by simply observers and subscribers. Such a reputation management tool is especially useful at the stage of a brand’s entry into already competitive markets, for example, the same market of cellular operators.

4. Respond to your customers


Unfortunately, negative mentions will appear about absolutely any brand sooner or later. If there is no negativity about a brand at all, the question immediately arises: is this brand even present on the market? Therefore, working with negativity is an integral part of the work package for online reputation management.

Here are just some options for working with negativity:

  • answer on behalf of the brand, alternatively – support service;
  • work as brand advocates;
  • park the negative - let's look at it further.

It should be noted that sometimes the best decisions are either to delete the negative (if the provocateur is completely inadequate) or not to respond at all (for example, if the negative on a neutral platform is trolling).

5. Parking negative

When working on online reputation management, it is imperative to remember the difference in the concepts of reach and involvement. In short, reach is the number of users who saw a post, and engagement is the number of users who were somehow involved in the discussion. Moreover, engagement can be called both comments and likes with reposts.

The purpose of parking negativity is to minimize the development of coverage by diverting the discussion to a non-public communication channel. Offer clients to resolve a negative issue in personal correspondence, by email, or by phone. Avoid the practice of holding long discussions on “debriefing” in your brand group as much as possible.

6.SERM


A set of measures to manage reputation in search results is usually referred to as SERM - search engine reputation management. The goal of the team that deals with reputation management in this case is to squeeze out unwanted sites for brand queries like “brand”, “brand reviews”, “brand employee reviews” and the like. If we are talking about a person as a brand, then the queries can be “first name last name”, “first name last name mayor city”, “first name last name corruption”, “first name last name diploma”.

The main SERM tool is most often a change in the tonality of sites, which can be done on sites with negativity. You can increase the flow of good reviews about the brand by holding incentives among customers. Some negative sites can be removed from search results by applying the law of oblivion (there is no guarantee of success) or by correspondence with the owners of sites where negative content is posted - see the next point.

7. Digital jurisprudence

One of the actively developing trends in online reputation management is digital jurisprudence. And there are many reasons for this. It is not always possible to squeeze a negative site out of the search results using traditional tools. Owners of sites with negative content may begin to demand a lot of money to remove content that is unfavorable to you. There's no point in giving up. To solve such problems there is digital= jurisprudence. Essentially, this term refers to the work of lawyers to solve the problem of removing objectionable content through legal procedures.

Examples of work on digital jurisprudence include the following:

  • competent preparation of filing applications for the application of the law on oblivion;
  • drawing up justified claims to the owners of sites (sites);
  • pre-trial and judicial work with website owners;
  • legally sound communication with hosting companies and domain registrars - sometimes it is possible to delete a page with unwanted content at this level;
  • domain delegation – if a number of conditions are met, domain delegation can be removed.

It is difficult for ordinary marketers to work at a legally professional level; digital jurisprudence has emerged to solve such goals.

8. Industry statistics and trends

In the matter of further positioning of the brand and in assessing its prospects, it is necessary to use holistic and competent analytics on the situation in the industry as a whole. You need to know what the current trends are, what statistics are on the growth or decline of the industry. What are the success (or vice versa) stories over the past years. All this can affect the positioning of the brand, and therefore will have an impact on the work on managing brand reputation.

In fact, at this stage there is no need to assemble a separate team of analysts and order research from scratch. Every year, many studies appear in the public domain. Examples include research carried out by associations such as AKAR and RAEC. Also, studies from analytical and consulting companies like Nielsen and Deloitte regularly appear online in the public domain. You can freely find the research you need on their websites.

9. Content Islands


Content islands are sometimes called a work tool when implementing multi-channel SEO. Content islands are all those platforms that you create in addition to your official website. Content islands can be used both as an SEO strategy and as a section of SERM efforts.

In addition to the official website, most brands create official groups on social networks by default. However, for online reputation management work, you can also create cards on review sites, where you can then bring a loyal audience. Most reviewers create brand cards for free. And some brands even create their own reviews.

You can create several official websites - one large portal, one business card website about the brand owner, a separate website for collecting reviews and complaints, and so on.

In addition to review sites and additional sites, reputation management agencies often create cards for brands on various encyclopedias and company catalogs. Try this for your brand too. The same Wikipedia allows any user to try to create their own article. The direct benefit of working with islands of content for reputation management is that, as a result, you can occupy search engine results pages with controlled sites.

Conclusion

As a result, I would like to note that reputation management on the Internet is an integral element of the marketing tasks of any brand. While there are many reputation management tools out there, and we've only covered a few of them, even a novice marketer can try managing their brand's reputation using the tools described above without spending significant budgets.