Is Reputation Management Worth the Online Investment?
The thing that stands in the way of most small businesses and professional online reputation management (ORM) is cash flow. Even if you do understand the value of the investment, it may be difficult to come up with the money required. While you can do some of your own work toward improving your online reputation, the reality is it takes far more than you are capable of as an individual (rather than a team of experts) to get results.
Whether you’re an individual employee in a high profile industry like finance and you need to look good to prospective employers, or you are a company who wants to make sure they look good to customers, online reputation management can help.
The cost will vary greatly based on the amount of “cyber scrubbing” that needs to be done. If you already have a decent reputation and you need monitoring, you will pay less than if you have a huge mess of negative press to clean up after. You could spend up to $1,000 a month on these services depending on the extent of the damage to be repaired.
Can I afford not to?
Even though what you’re quoted may vary from this amount, it may seem like it is too expensive for you to invest in. If you don’t have a lot of money to work with, that is understandable.
However, if you suspect your negative online reputation is the reason why your customers are going to your competitors, spending the time and money to clean it up is well worth the investment. With an improved online reputation comes more customers, and with more customers, comes more money.
If you can’t come up with the money, ask about smaller, part time options until you find something more affordable. If you have any kind of capital backing you, this is a good place to use it.
DIY Local Search Marketing Video
How ORM helps
ORM helps you and/or your business by:
- Utilizing search engine optimization (SEO) techniques by helping your website appear higher in the search engines results page.
- Finding where the negative reviews are, so you can address them personally. Even if you cannot get them removed, you can show you care about your customers by reaching out to those who have had a bad experience.
- Establishing a social media policy to help you address any issues over social media channels.
- Using new, positive content to push the negative further into the search engine results pages. Typically, your customers won’t look past the end of the second page.
DIY Options
Yes, there are plenty of DIY options out there on the market today. While you can do some of the work, unless you’re knowledgeable about Internet marketing, SEO, and social media, then you’re at a distinct disadvantage.
You’re also at a disadvantage in the sense that you’re only one person who has a finite amount of time and a lot of tasks to handle. Your time is better spent doing things that fall within your expertise.
When you hire a professional ORM team, you’ve got their collective expertise working for you. Oftentimes, you’ll have a single person, or a small group of people that spend all of their time working on your account, so you will get better results overall and in a shorter amount of time than you would compared to doing all the work yourself.
