What You Must Ask when Hiring an Online Reputation Management Service

There are many things that you’ll want to ask a marketing consultant; but when you’re focusing in on online reputation management practices, or if you’re hiring a consultant for this task alone, there are a few very important questions you want to ask.

The answer to these might tell you more than just about anything else you could find out about the consultant or their firm.

• How do you monitor brand mentions?

Again, you can only know what people are saying about you and your company if you have a way to track it, and that’s exactly what monitoring brand mentions means. Google Alerts, Yahoo Alerts, feed readers, any of the tools discussed previously in this report are fine.
Just make sure that your consultant is using at least three of them.

• Will you report on your tracking results; and can I see a sample report?

You want to know that after all the ORM practices are put into place and starting to work, that you’ll have a report in writing from the consultant to show the exact results. Making sure that you see a sample report ahead of time will ensure that the consultant actually does provide them; and that you like the way they’re done.

• How often will I receive a report?

You want to be kept in the loop of what’s happening with your ORM, but you’re also hiring a marketing consultant so that you don’t have to deal with it all the time. Typically, once a month is fine for a general report if the consultant is taking over responding to bad reviews and general comments. Otherwise, you’ll need to be notified of those right away.

• • • What is your approach to responding to positive and negative reviews?

The last thing you want to hear is that they’d do nothing. The best thing you could hear is that they’d handle it exactly the way you would.

• • • • How do you respond in comments to reviews?

Again, you want to get a feel for the consultant’s thought process and whether or not it will properly represent you and your company. If you truly don’t feel comfortable letting a consultant handle the actual response to comments, handle this part yourself.

If however, you really are just looking to unload as many ORM responsibilities as possible, make sure that courtesy and respect is their priority. From there, it should be all about making the customer or visitor happy.

• • • • • What is your process when handling reviews and comments?

This is different than asking how the consultant will respond to comments because it deals with the order of events – and those could be important.

Will the consultant respond, and then send you both the initial concern as well as the reply? Or will the consultant send you the comment and a pending reply first, and wait for approval? Either are fine, as long as you’re comfortable with it.

• • • • • • Do you simply monitor existing reviews and comments; or will you help us build new, positive ones as well?

This is an important one. Remember, ORM is all about building up the good and taking down the bad. Continuously adding new, positive reviews is an essential practice in effective ORM.

• • • • • • • What services do you provide as part of an ORM campaign?

Will they simply provide the initial analysis, to tell you where you currently stand? Or will they do the analysis, as well as help eliminate and reduce negative reviews? Will they write blog and website content for you, or will you have to hire someone else for that?

Simply ask this one question, and you’ll get the answers to all the rest – and know if that consultant can provide what you need.

• • • • • • • • What information will you need from us before we get started?

This one is really just a timesaver more than anything. The consultant may need your Facebook login information, your Twitter username and password, and a number of other details so they can work on your online reputation for you. Knowing what they’ll need will help the process get started that much quicker.

Conclusion

Managing your online reputation may seem overwhelming at first, but it is important.

If you’re not already managing what people are saying about you, the chances are that someone already is.

Not everything that’s being said might be the true reflection of the company that you’d like to see and hear. If you have to correct any issues when you first start managing your online reputation, it can seem like an even more arduous task.

However over time, you will develop a routine, and managing what people are saying about you online will become as natural and systematic as closing out the cash registers at the end of the day.

When you know how important Reputation Marketing is, and wish that you had the time it took to dedicate to a little bit of online reputation management every day – but still know that you just don’t? That’s when you need a good reputation marketing consultant. When you find the one that’s right for your business, it will be just as though you’re doing it all yourself. You’ll just have more time to manage your business.

We hope you enjoyed our 6 part series and has given you the best advice on Reputation Marketing.
Whether you decide to go it alone, hire someone or would like us to manage your online reputation we wish you the very best in your business. If you would like help with your Reputation Marketing then contact us today. We will be delighted to discuss your requirements.