What is online reputation management?(ORM) by sagarganatra

Online Reputation Management (ORM) is the process of monitoring and protecting your personal or business brand reputation from negative exposure online. ORM is becoming more crucial since buying decisions can be directly influenced by what is being said about you online. A dedicated ORM strategy usually combines various digital marketing, social media marketing, PR, and traditional marketing techniques.
To get high rankings on the SERP’s (search engine result pages) and more visibility for your brand are the ultimate goals, which will help push down bad publicity and listings on the search engines. Most people using the search engines doesn’t go beyond page 2 of the search listings for any search and with Google instant, it is now not even necessary to go beyond the first page.
ORM enables you to manage and protect your reputation and brand online from negative publicity.

Why is Online Reputation Management so important?

People are using the search engines to find information and answers to their questions. When they search for your brand or company name, your hope is that your own website will be at the top of the search results. If your company appears in most of the top listings, hopefully your clients will not be distracted by the other listings.
People searching for your company name will most often look at all the results provided including blogs, review sites, forums and various other social media channels and profiles. What stands out about your company name online? Is it all relevant and is the information up to date? Are there any negative listings saying bad things about your company and brand? Do you see any websites with outdated information about your company or brand? What are people talking about you on industry related blogs and forums? All this information will be scanned on the search listings.

Negative comments can affect sales

People from most walks of life uses the search engines and social media channels to gather information and research so that they can make the best decisions. If the information presented to them about you are negative, it will affect the decisions they make. Negative information about you online can ultimately lead to problems and many areas including investor relations, sales, financials, recruitment and the overall image of your company. In simpler words – it can damage your brand.
Even though this post is only describing the impact of ORM on the search engines regarding your company or brand name, ORM plays a much bigger role in the world of social media. In the follow-up post, ORM and social media will be discussed.