When companies or individuals fall prey to unfair competitors, irate ex-employees or disgruntled customers, then a SERM becomes critical in the economic survival of a business.
™
Firms like SERMs are crucial in maintaining, and in some cases salvaging and restoring companies or person's reputation and good name. Online searches are one of the first things that modern day consumes do prior to spending money with a business or person, and one bad click can mean economic disaster for a business, especially in this ever growing cyber economy. Popularity for these SERMs are increasing by leaps and bounds with the realization it is not prudent to attempt to conduct business in this cyber age and not have a SERM on retainer along with your accountant and your attorney.
Businesses are also appreciating the collateral benefit of having a Reputation Management firm on-board as an integral part of their business model, its great advertising! While securing a company's good reputation and name on the Internet, it generates good press and positive exposure that ultimately adds significantly to the bottom line of a company's balance sheet, making the services to literally pay for itself in many circumstances. This tends to be a very strong selling point for companies as well as individuals, to know that they are cleansing and protecting their reputations and cyber images, while simultaneously running a very effective advertising initiative. Sometimes companies totally disregard their former advertising efforts online and opt for the benefits of Online Reputation Management. Having a SERM firm on your side is without a doubt the way to go in this cyber age.
Online reputation management involves a number of strategies including the development of positive SEO content, link building strategies, social media management and various other processes. The effectiveness of each method must be measured and monitored so that adjustments can be made if necessary and the most useful methods can be further enhanced.
In order to measure the success of each strategy used for building their client's reputation, the reputation management company will firstly benchmark the client's current online position in terms of branding. One of the most basic metrics of any reputation campaign is the monitoring of blog, social media and website visits and so the first step is to benchmark the time spent by visitors on each of these platforms, the number of visits by unique visitors and the number of fans and followers on social media sites. This will help the company to measure the progress of the strategies implemented, by checking for increases in these numbers.
The success of a particular strategy can also be quantified by the level of negative or positive discussions on discussion boards such as forums. This is where many people come to talk about their experiences with a company and so these boards can serve as great indicators of how well a reputation management strategy is going. The company will check to see if people's opinions on the business in question are changing or improving, and will be able to use the feedback to perfect their strategy. The monitoring of these areas on the internet can also help the reputation management company to nip any negative commentary in the bud by dealing with it immediately, rather than allowing word to spread.
To gain further insight into how well a brand management plan is working, the company will often evaluate the competitors of their client, as these can also affect a person's reputation. For instance, the competitor's content may be overshadowing the client's content on the search engines, leaving them with little opportunity to increase their business's visibility. In this instance, establishing what content the competitor is using for their own SEO, will help the reputation management company to adjust the content used for their client so that it can achieve a high page ranking.
When a person is considering buying something from a business they are not familiar with, one of the first things that they will normally do is type the company's name into one of the major search engines and check for reviews, feedback and discussions. If they happen to come across negative commentary on their search, this will often be enough to put them off using the company. When enough negative feedback is left on websites which are high ranking, this can spell the end for business; particularly one which has not yet established itself as a high authority in its industry.
All it takes is one unsatisfied customer, an unscrupulous competitor or a resentful employee to send a business's financial trajectory into a decline which may be impossible to recover from, if the issue is not dealt with quickly enough. Consumers today are exceptionally savvy when it comes to online shopping, and the search engine is often the first port of call before making any decision about a new service or product. A business which does not use a reputation management company is at risk for losing custom and revenues due to negative comments about their company, both online and off-line.
A reputation management company can assist both individuals and businesses who wish to take preventative measures to ensure that their reputation in 'real life' and online remains positive and untarnished by harsh criticism. The company can do this by creating a stronger presence for the person or the business online, which will translate Negative Internet Eintrage into an increased share of the market in the industry, as well as higher profits from the generated customers.
One of the sounded investments a business or an individual with an important position in their community can make is hiring a reputation management company; preserving the positive reputation and persona will ultimately lead to more success, both personally and professionally.