What is the best form of advertisement for a product or service? If you said word of mouth you obviously understand the importance of providing both great service and fantastic products. There was a time when word of mouth was limited to a particular neighborhood or city, but thanks to the internet this type of advertising can be around the globe in 24-hours or less! This, my friend, is precisely why any business should be interested in learning more about Online Reputation Management advantages.
In days past public relations was a much different animal, today it is largely about the search engines. When potential customers search your company, products or even you, what will they find? This is the heart of online reputation marketing. This is particularly important to up and coming businesses, the big boys like Wal-Mart, T-Mobil and many others have little to fear from a little bad press on the internet, but if you are running a young company this is probably not the case.
Management
What are a few of the online reputation management advantages? When you hire an individual or company to monitor and work on your “public relations” you will constantly have an ear to the ground for potential issues, and even unfair attacks from your competition. To say doing business has changed in the last decade or so, would be an understatement. Online reputation marketing will work to keep the search results about your company or product positive in a variety of ways.
Caution
You should know that many aspects of online reputation marketing are regulated by the Federal Trade Commission. Take for instance Astroturfing, a public relations campaign that seeks to mask the financial backing of participants. For example:
A popular tech blogger is approached by the widget company and offered free use of a particular product in exchange for a review on their site. Now, the review gives the appearance of a disinterested third party opinion when in truth the blogger was rewarded with free product and or compensation. This is a big no-no and the FTC insists that compensated reviews or testimonials be noted. (Somewhere it will be noted that this is a paid or compensated reviewer)
Conclusion
A good online reputation marketing company can do wonders for your company or product, provided they operate within the acceptable practices mandates of the FTC, and many do. You have your hands full running a company, working on budges, managing employees and much more so why not leave your online reputation to the professionals? The online reputation management advantages are numerous, and the risk to your company without it are many!
