What is online reputation management?

Online reputation management takes brand monitoring to a higher level. In this process, you combine traditional PR tactics with search engine marketing strategy to ensure your brand consistently receives high, positive rankings in search engine results. It’s hard work that, if done well, will give you an incredible return on your efforts.

All search engines work essentially the same way. First, each one continually searches the Internet based on key words. Next, they track those key words in an index that includes information on where they found them. Finally, they allow their users to search for those same key words (or combinations of those words) that are in their index, and return search results based on how close their indexed words match the user’s search engine query.

Why worry about search engine results? Research shows that consumers rarely look at the second page of search engine results. The more your brand is mentioned in any online channel, the higher the search engine result will be. Unfortunately, if your brand is mentioned in a negative way, people will see those results, and make decisions based on that negative information.

Countering this negative information is where online reputation management comes in.

Online reputation management is much more than search engine optimization. It’s PR on “online” steroids: you are actively monitoring all social media channels—blogs, Facebook pages, online forums, and others—to see what consumers, competitors, and others are saying about you, and then generating your own content in these same channels to ensure you are represented the way you want to be in these online channels. The result? You improve your search engine rankings and have peace of mind that those results are a true reflection of your brand.

Online reputation management has other benefits as well. By actively listening to these conversations and engaging with the people who started them, you’ll be able to take action to solve problems you didn’t even knew you had. You’ll also use this knowledge to create marketing and online media campaigns of your own—blog posts, more detailed content development, advertising campaigns, product development—to promote your products and brand management strategies.