Why You Should Hire a Reputation Management Firm

 

Although based on the same fundamental marketing knowledge, Marketing and Reputation Management are both so resource intensive for a company that it takes two separate departments. Like separating finance from accounting, the former looks to advance future business directly and the latter is mainly concerned with monitoring the existing online “conversation” around a given brand.

 

It is likely that your firm has a website and some social media pages, in which you can promote your product and/or service, monitor the conversation and respond to questions, comments and concerns.

 

If you’ve grown to a certain size, it is likely that you have a marketing team in place to continuously come up with new and exciting ways to engage your existing customers, follow trends and acquire new business. This is essential to the proper functioning of your business and is resource intensive.

 

But beware, there is the content which is on your social media pages and/or website which is directly within your grasp, and then there is the content which is not. That is: social media posts not directly on your managed Facebook page, tweets directed at your page, posts on review sites such as Yelp and many more.

 

These posts appear in search results just as much as your own marketing does, and what they say about your company matters. They can be dangerous. While many of these services give an important voice to consumers, they are not foolproof. In other words they may be used by trolls, disgruntled employees, competitors or anyone with a purposeful motive to harm your company can misuse them. One example is the rise of digital extortion, where crime syndicates call businesses with the threat of promoting negative publicly-available information about a business.

 

 

Reputation Management In-House VS Outsourced

 

So should you establish an in-house online reputation management team or hire an external one? The benefits of enlisting ORM as a managed service might surprise you.

 

Reputation as a Managed Service

 

The case for hiring an online-reputation management firm can be made on the merits of simplicity and cost-savings. The primary benefit of enlisting an ORM as a managed service is accounting simplicity. By outsourcing your ORM, your company is billed a single operating expense by the reputation-management firm. This saves you time in the accounting process since there are no additional capital expenditures to worry about. Not only do you not have to worry about the infrastructure, you also experience less volatility in the expense. Should you try to do this internally, your resource needs today may not be the same tomorrow. Hiring an experienced, resourceful external team for a fixed monthly cost allows you to budget more accurately and avoid budgetary “uh-ohs” when you need to deal with reputational events. Done right, hiring an external team can also create savings.

Moreover, outsourcing your ORM frees up your valuable time to work on what matters most: growing the business.

 

Picking the Best ORM Company

 

It is important that you hire a well-known, established company such as InternetReputation.services.

 

The best way to qualify which ORM Company is best for you, you must look at factors such as:

 

  • Is it proven and established?
  • Does it have an expert team?
  • Does it have a strong customer base?
  • It is up-to-date on market technologies and trends?
  • Does it have experience in your particular industry?

 

Please share in the comments below about your experience with ORM agencies and who you found to be the most qualified and best fit for your needs!