Aleh Barysevich October 23, 2020 The Information Age brought about many things, one of them being, we can’t purchase anything without doing the online research first. Whether you’re buying something as solid as a car, or as temporary as a single-use facial mask, you’ll google the brand first. Prior to that, you’ll gather information from online resources regarding the products you’re interested in. You’ll keep a note of the masks a beauty influencer or a random Internet user on Reddit has suggested, and you’ll go through the long and detailed reviews of cars. Same goes for all kinds of entertainment, education, and, indeed, all or most of the products or services.
Here are some stats:
- 88 percent of buyers research products online before making a purchase (both online and in-store);
- 86 percent will hesitate to purchase from a business that has negative reviews.
And don’t forget, there are social media crises. Spike your prices at the wrong time or create a wrong marketing campaign, and social media users will urge everyone around to delete your app or to stop buying your products.
Today, it’s the Internet that dictates your reputation. And it’s the Internet that can make or break your sales.
What is online reputation management?
Online reputation management is the process of emphasizing positive content about your brand online and deemphasizing negative content.
Online reputation management or ORM tools are the tools that do that for you. They monitor the sentiment around your brand, report what it depends on, help you take care of negative messages and encourage positive ones.
This is a list of such tools.
Awario is a social listening tool. Once you specify your keywords, which is usually the name of your brand, the tool crawls social media networks, news, blogs, forums, and the web to find mentions of your keyword. You get all complaints, questions, reviews, listings, and blog posts in one place. Most mentions are returned in real time, so you can reply immediately – react to compliments, questions, and complaints, and possibly, even prevent a social media crisis.
But that’s not all. Awario analyzes the data it gathers to show you big data trends. It performs sentiment analysis that breaks down mentions into positive, negative, and neutral user feedback, and shows how this sentiment changes over time. It shows topics discussed most often alongside your brand name, the brand’s biggest influencers and most influential mentions.
All of this allows companies to observe their online reputation, figure out what it depends on (which marketing campaigns, product launches, etc. affect the reputation), and spot social media crises in time (when the negative sentiment goes up).
Pricing: $ 29/mo for the Starter plan, $ 89/mo for Pro, and $ 299/mo for Enterprise. Saves you 2 months with a yearly plan. Offers a free 7-day trial.
Reputology is a tool that prioritizes online reviews, so it’s most suited for businesses who wish to collect Google, Facebook, Yelp, etc. reviews in one place. Reputology tracks reviews of your products and services, and collects them in one dashboard. It’s also location specific, which is especially important for local markets.
You can reply to reviews directly from the platform, noticing and taking care of problems as soon as they arise. You get email notifications with every new review.
Reputology also performs sentiment analysis of the data it collects, and turns unstructured content from reviews and feedback into actionable information.
Pricing: $ 29 – $ 49/mo per every location. A free trial is available.
Mention is another social media monitoring tool that looks for mentions of your brand (or any other keyword) on major social media platforms, news, blogs, and the web in real time. You can observe your reputation changes on the dashboard at any time, or let the tool email you when there’s a spike in mentions, which might signal that something is happening and requires your attention.
You can also set up alerts to monitor the reputation of your competitors and adjust your tactics according to their successes and failures.
Pricing: $ 29/mo for the Solo plan, $ 99/mo for Pro, and $ 450+/mo for Enterprise. Saves you 2 months with a yearly plan. Offers a free 7-day trial.
Brandwatch is an enterprise-level social listening tool. This means that it covers more data – not just major social media networks, but also niche, local, and rare ones. So if sources such as Tumblr, Goodreads, or VK are important for your online reputation management, Brandwatch might be the way to go. Sentiment analysis and growth analysis are just a couple of the many ways Brandwatch shows you data insights. Negative mentioners are broken down by gender, showing you which complaints and criticism are popular with each gender.
Meanwhile, Brandwatch’s Signals detect patterns in your data and notify you about them.
Pricing: available upon request.
Talkwalker is another analytics tool that monitors mentions of your brand on any social network, as well as on news sites, review sites, blogs, forums, and the web. Additionally, the tool monitors the pictures featuring your logo. If it’s used somewhere illegally or unfavourably, Talkwalker will find it, and you’ll be able to take action.
To better understand your online reputation, you can filter the results by country, language, type of services (e.g., for a hotel chain, you can filter results to identify messages related to the food, to the room, to the amenities, to the overall price of the experience, etc.), products, and controversial topics within the industry.
Pricing: starts at €6000 per year. Other pricing options are available upon request.
ReviewTrackers tracks online reviews and collects them in one dashboard. The tool covers more than a hundred review sites, including Google Reviews, Facebook Reviews, TripAdvisor, Grubhub, Foursquare, etc. The tool analyzes review texts for positive and negative keywords, revealing popular compliments and complaints.
You can perform the same analysis for your competitors, and get a momentary understanding of their strengths and weaknesses.
Pricing: available upon request.
ReviewPush is another online review monitoring and management tool that collects all online reviews in one place. The tool covers top review sites and, whenever there is a new review, it notifies the user via email. It lets the user respond to reviews straight from the email.
A custom dashboard makes it easy to manage reviews from different locations. In addition to that, you can compare how your stores rank against each other with the custom store-by-store ranking system.
Pricing: $ 89/mo per location. Free 21-day trial is available.
Reputation.com is an online reputation management tool designed for large businesses and enterprises. It offers multiple services that all play important roles in managing online reputation. The tool tracks online reviews and lets the user respond to them easily. It manages directories and listings by identifying discrepancies and missing data, and correcting mistakes. Besides, it allows the user to make surveys, collect customer feedback, and manage social media accounts.
With the data it collects, Reputation.com identifies emerging issues, strengths, and weaknesses of the brand.
Pricing: $ 3000/mo for the Basic plan, $ 5000/mo for Professional, and $ 8000/mo for Enterprise.
Yotpo aims to improve your reputation online. It collects reviews, ratings, and Q&As; motivates customers to write reviews; moderates content and analyzes results. It also builds customized rewards and referral programs to engage existing customers and reach new ones.
Pricing: available upon request. Free trial available.
GatherUp, previously known as GetFiveStars, is all about getting positive reviews and improving online reputation. As people are more likely to complain than to praise online, especially when it comes to large brands, this service is more than useful for many companies.
GatherUp engages with customers via email or text, requesting them to make a review of your product. The tool also monitors over 30 review sites, such as Google, Facebook, Trip Advisor, and the BBB. It captures Net Promoter Scores, survey questions, and customer feedback.
Whenever you get new feedback, the tool sends you an email.
Pricing: $ 75/mo per location for the Pro plan, $ 99/mo per location for Pro Plus, and $ 199/mo per location for Executive.
Final words
Managing online reputation, especially for the large brands, can be a huge and time-consuming task. It’s also a task that’s impossible to ignore: everything that has ever been said online could have a very direct effect on your sales. The range of ORM tools shows that there is a wide choice of ways you can approach reputation management. The approach will surely depend on the type and size of your business, on its budget, and on your own goals and priorities. Hopefully, this list is enough to get you started.
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