Brand Reputation Management in E-Commerce

The online PR and reputation market has evolved in the last decade tremendously. The smaller brands were less concerned about these, whereas the bigger brands sought awareness in these areas. However, digitalisation and extensive internet usage made online brand reputation management necessary for all businesses.

However, digitalisation and extensive internet usage made online brand reputation management necessary for all businesses.

Recent research by SemRush shows that 71% of consumers depend on online reviews before purchasing a product through ECommerce.

By looking into the figure, we must have understood the necessity of Online Reputation Management in the current situation.

Online Reputation Management:

Online Reputation Management or ORM is a multi-aspect concept to create a positive public awareness of a brand, a business or other person. Online Reputation management involves monitoring the reputation, opting for link removal services, the dissolution of content, and managing customer feedback.

The above components of Online reputation management may establish or damage the reputation of an entity.

To avoid such issues related to online reputation management, Your Retail Coach (YRC) has a foolproof strategy that works on managing the brand reputation online irrespective of the size and nature of the business.

In this article, we will cover the following topics:

• What is online reputation management?
• Why is managing the online reputation of your brand important?
• How to manage your brand’s reputation online?

What is online reputation management?

Any successful business today recognises the importance of brand reputation management.

Now, social media is used as a means of communication, and brands are unable to hide. E-commerce lives online in the public eye and must always be ready to address any issues that could tarnish its image.

Ecommerce brands are particularly exposed as they deal with their customers on a day-to-day basis. Most consumers who feel dissatisfied express their grievances online through their social media platforms or review sites.

The information propagates quickly, especially with Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, and Twitter, where people often find out about a product or service. These social media platforms are acting as a channel for word of mouth.

Due to this reason, eCommerce brands must formulate strong strategies to deal with negative feedback and reviews. Online reputation management works like a tool to deal with such situations.

How online reputation management works:

ORM is all about monitoring and managing your brand’s reputation throughout the web, about ensuring that your business is properly represented and that potential customers are left with a great impression of who you are and what you do.

Online Reputation Management is one of the simplest and most low-maintenance techniques because it relies on credible, genuine human interactions (similar to networking, with an added digital twist). In fact, a lot of Positive Reputation Management depends on this channel since the brands have the most control over these interactions.

They can generate a lot of traffic online to manage the brands’ online reputation. Online reputation management works in several ways, such as publicity, paid media promotion, influencer marketing, Social media handles, collaborations and partnership with well-known entities, content marketing, and incentive media handling.

Why is managing the online reputation of your brand important?

Online brand management is like telling the whole world about your brand. No brand wants to put a negative impression in front of the entire world.

Hence managing a positive image online is essential in the era of digitalisation. Let’s have a look, why is managing the online reputation necessary?

Impact on buying decision:

Lack of online presence and brand reputation can affect the customer base. A survey by “minewhat” shows that 81% of buyers do online research before making a purchase decision, and 88% of buyers go through the review before purchasing something.

The digital word of the mouth:

Word of mouth is one of the most effective marketing techniques. As per a research done by “Brightlocal”, 85% of the consumers use online reviews to make their purchase decision.

Consumers treat the reviews as a recommendation by a friend to make the purchase decision; in the era of social media, words spread like wildfire and are capable of building the brand image of a company. One negative comment can defame a brand if it is not handled properly.

Social media can be used as an excellent tool for brand reputation management.

Anything uploaded on the internet stays forever:

The negative comments or bad reviews can’t be deleted, though sometimes the delete option is there, the reality remains on the internet. Hence, handling the bad reviews appropriately is the most effective method.

As per Harvard Business Review, customers whose queries and complaints get resolved within five minutes tends to associate with the brand for a long time.

You may get valuable feedback:

Customer feedback is one of the most effective methods for primary research. The feedback helps in the improvisation of product or service and new product development.

This would help the business in the long term.

How to manage your brand’s reputation online?

You can implement the most successful online reputation management strategy. However, the strategy may vary depending upon the company, industry, market size, and target market.

But the baseline of the brand reputation remains the same. Let us have a look at the effective brand reputation management strategies:

Audit of your online reputation:

Monitoring your brands and brand’s performance regularly is the best way to audit your online reputation. It helps to know about your brand image in the font of the customers.

To monitor your brand’s performance, google search your brand’s name in incognito mode. It will show the reviews, user-generated photos, comments, and rating.

You can also audit your brand image by going through third party website reviews. Indeed, Glassdoor, mouth shut, Sikhya and Justdial etc., are the pioneers in providing brand reviews in their selected niche.

Go through the review and figure out if there is any scope for improvement on your company’s end.

Prepare an SOP to deal with bad reviews:

Prepare a Standard operating procedure , and set of guidelines to deal with bad reviews. Choose an appropriate tone to deal with such situations. Try to resolve the complaint or answer the bad review in a short span of time.

It will show the emphatic nature of your company. This strategy may help in long term customer retention.

Why YRC for your online brand reputation management:

The consultants at YRC expertise in business advisory and consulting . Your Retail Coach (YRC) is associated with more than 250 brands to help them with their growth strategy.

YRC provides standard operating procedure and recommends tools to deal with online reputation management. Your Retail Coach (YRC) can assist you in establishing a good brand image in digital platforms through tailor made services as per your needs.
PR Source: yourretailcoach-in.medium.com/brand-r…25f2147b01

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YourRetailCoach
Category: eCommerce Solutions and Developers Profile: Your Retail Coach (YRC) is a retail consulting and outsourcing company in India offering a wide range of services in retail offline, retail eCommerce, and retail omnichannel catering to a multitude of industries. Your Retail Coach (YRC) helps retailers and retail enterprises set up their eCommerce business right from planning (eCommerce business consulting) to implementation. Our experience and expertise in both offline and online retail channels will help businesses overcome challenges in adop ...