Common Online Reputation Management Questions - Answered
Congratulations!! It’s wonderful to know that your profile has been shortlisted for Online Reputation Management Expert. Whether you are fresher, experienced or management professional it is always good to prepare yourself before going for an interview. RankKite guides your list of common ORM Interview Questions and Answers. Our purpose to help you prepare for your ORM Expert job interviews. We wish you to go fully prepared and come with the right offer letter.
Online reputation management helps manage what people see when it comes time for other people to make a decision about you, your Organisation, or your Brand. What is reputation management really? Does everyone need it? Where do I even start? Resolving online reputation management issues can be both complicated and confusing while doing first time. Because of that, I Santosh Sarangi thought it would be helpful to share some of the most common ORM interview questions asked by an interviewer and how to answer it.
Interview Trips, Tricks and Secrets
The following list of ORM Interview Questions and Answers will help you enhance your knowledge and get technically sound. Before that we also advise you to read and follow our Interview Tips, Tricks, and Secrets to impress your interviewers like:
1. Company – Research about the company profiles thoroughly
2. Interviewer – Research and know about your interviewer (search on Google, LinkedIn or social network)
3. JD- Must have a clear understanding of Job descriptions and start preparing stories.
Read more Interview Tips, Tricks and Secrets
We always working hard to keep adding more and more possible interview questions and answers so that everybody gets value from it.
Good Luck!!
Common Online Reputation Management (ORM) Questions: Answered
#1 How do you define Online Reputation Management (ORM) ?
Answer –
Online reputation is what people speak about your company or brand or how others perceive your business when searching for or pitch upon it online.
ORM is not only about managing content in search engines, though. It’s also about working negative business reviews and encouraging happy clients to contribute more positive feedback.
“Reputation management refers to the influencing and controlling or concealing of an individual’s or group’s reputation” – Wikipedia.
Online reputation management (ORM) is taking a proactive position in how you or your business is presented online to your companions, prospective clients, stakeholders, etc.
Four Steps to Online Reputation Management (ORM):
- Monitor – Monitoring for the web for “Risk”
- Claim Listings – Claim your business listings
- Respond – Respond to customer feedback
- Engage – Engagement with your customers through relevant content.
Notes:
Did you know that according to BrightLocal,
- 85% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations?
- 49% of consumers need at least a four-star rating before they choose to use a business.
- 94% of people do not look beyond page 1 of the search results, so reputation management starts with the front page of Google.
#2 Four Steps to Online Reputation Management.
Answer –
Four Steps to Online Reputation Management (ORM):
- Monitor – Monitoring for the web for “Risk”
- Claim Listings – Claim your business listings
- Respond – Respond to customer feedback
- Engage – Engagement with your customers through relevant content.
#3 What are your strongest skills as a online reputation management specialist and Why?
Answer –
My two main strengths are online reputation repair and online brand building.
A negative web reputation is resulting in a loss of trust, loss of income, or both. I love the repair process because I can see successful progress, and it’s clear when I make a positive difference in other people’s lives and businesses.
If something terrible is showing up on the first page of Google searches, that’s a problem. If it’s moved to the second or third page, I’m successful, and both the client is happy.
#4 Why does Google show the negative article in the search result?
Answer –
It is essential to understand that Google’s algorithm tries to gather a diverse collection of search results based on the specific search query entered into the search box.
If something wrong is there, they aren’t singling you out, and it has nothing to do with your brand personally; specific sites will show up on page one of the search results based on the information.
Google gathers from the website it chooses to show, including how authoritative and credible a site is, among many other indications like social shares, backlinks, etc. Google is trying to satisfy every user’s search intent, which is why you will see several remarkable results appear for a search query.
For example:
if someone were to type “any company name” into the search box, they would find an array of results. Some of those might include GFD’s social profiles for users trying to stay in touch with the brand. It could be the company website for potential clients who are looking to do business with us. You also might find a glassdoor profile for users who are looking for a career.
Google doesn’t know the specific needs of each user, so they put together the best assortment of results to satisfy as many users as possible. Which may, unfortunately, include those negative articles or those negative reviews you don’t want them to see.
#5 Why does it matter what people think or say about your company or brand?
Answer –
It matters. If you genuinely know that your company is excellent, then that should represent your online presence. Do you know how they say that you only get once chance to make a first impression? Well, often, your first impression will be what shows up in the search results when someone Google’s your name.
Put yourself in the customer’s shoes if you’re choosing between many companies to work with, you do all sorts of research to find the very best organization. Although you may have a great thing going, many customers could blind by any negative articles or reviews you have and turn to another company, which is why it matters what people say about your brand online.
#6 How do you respond to a negative review?
Answer –
You can’t just ignore a negative or critical review until it goes away. The best thing to do when you receive a poor review is to react quickly and strategically.
Here is how your business should respond to negative reviews and make the most out of a less-than-pleasant situation.
- Apologize and sympathize with your response to the negative review.
- Insert a little marketing in your response to the poor review.
- Move the conversation offline from online.
- Keep your response simple, short, and sweet.
- Ignore the business name or relevant search keywords. (This is because you will not wish this review showing up in search results!)
#7 How much time needed to fix a negative review or customer's problem?
Answer –
The answer no one wants to hear: it depends.
It depends on where the problem area is, how big of an issue it is, and what the objective is.
Completely changing the Google search results does take time because many details go into changing what Google sees as the ‘perfect assortment’ in the works.
Google doesn’t change the search results very quickly anymore; we used to shake up the search results in 3 months thoroughly, then we had to change that to 6 months, and now it takes around nine months to make a significant impact on Google search results.
We see many incremental changes along the way, but Google is hesitant to shift away from the status quo.
For improving Yelp or Google review scores, we’ve enhanced scores by 2-points in a month, and we’ve also had projects extend over a year when they are particularly tricky.
Every ORM project is unique, so, unfortunately, there is no easy answer to this question.
#8 How to remove a negative review?
Answer –
The answer is there is no short cut to remove any review.
But there are ways to minimize the harm to your company reputation and your website’s SEO. It will help assure customer satisfaction and keep your reputation up.
A bad review isn’t the end of the world. Some research indicated that bad reviews increase sales. It’s like that no publicity is bad publicity. It’s time to take necessary action through the right channel with a very calm and composed manner.
Each review site has its own rules for reviews and rating management system. Whenever you get a negative review, I would recommend practicing some basics action plans.
- No need for panic, be calm and compose.
- Analyze the review, source, and situation.
- It would help if you had quick action and respond quickly within 24 hours.
- Keep your response brief but short and very polite.
- If the review is fake, flag it for removal.
- Rectify the situation
- Stay on top of it
- Avoid using any keyword or your brand name anywhere in your response because you would not like this review to rank.
Note:
With Yelp, the well-defined rules over their many years of collecting online reviews. If a reviewer breaks a rule, the review can be removed. Please watch this video from Daniel Russell, goes in-depth on how we go about flagging and removing reviews on Yelp.
Google Reviews are a little more wild west. Unless a review shares highly personal information (SSN, for example), the likelihood of it being taken down from your flagging is very low.
Angie’s List, Glassdoor, Houzz, BBB, and others all have their own rules, so if you are worried about reviews on those platforms, it is essential to understand what do and don’t in a review management website.
#9 What is the best way to change a negative conversation?
Answer –
Many companies believe that changing the conversation about their brand is the way to go because we want to start something new, positive, and fresh for people to talk. But have you ever thought what’s wrong with the current conversation?
Instead of changing it, why not get involved with the current conversation that influencers are already having and maybe work on changing how you involve your brand in that conversation.
Here are seven best ways to change a negative conversation to a positive:
1. Empathize – Apologies and say Sorry
2. Compliment – Thank you for your valuable feedback.
3. Commiserate – Sorry to hear the experience had with you
4. Repeat Back – We want to understand in detail and invest your issue.
5. Help to Offer – We wish to help you. Share your contact or email id.
6. Change the Subject line – Sorry for the inconvenience you had. We are here to serve you again soon.
7. Refuse to Engage in the same review or comment
Far too often, companies want to show off all of their assets, brag about what they can do, and show that they have improved upon something different before, instead of listening to their customer needs and wants.
Asking questions and being a legitimate resource for customers is a far less pushy way to connect and engage.
Every customer has not a similar mindset of posting a review. Becoming involved with the talk around your brand will not only help the customer to express their needs but can change their perspective on your brand overall.
Who wants to lead the conversation when no one listening? Getting engaged in the current discussion and listening to others will set a foundation for loyal, happy customers and establish your brand identity on the web and in reality.
#10 How to Improve Your Online Reputation Management (ORM)?
Ideal steps you can change and improve your reputation online.
- Be Transparent with your customers including employees and business partners.
- Increase in Communication and Engagement – Involve with your employees or customers.
- Be real – Publically respond to customer’s complaints. Automatic responses never a good idea. Be authentics and quick while responding.
- Expand your presence and gain trust – Improve your digital presence to build social trust. Even your employees and customers because this will help to build your credibility online.
- Do Something New and Great – Company picnic or donating to a charity, positive work culture in your organization, press or media release, and organize any event.
- Encourage Customers – As your customers to write review and comment on your blogs or twit on social platforms. Encourage customers to upload their photos.
- Improve your website experience – SEO friendly and remove Ads from your website.
- Prioritize your blog and share user-generated content related to your business or industry.
- Take advantage of smart tools to track your reputation.
- Partner with social influencers
- Showcase customer testimonial on your website.
#11 How Your Online Reputation Impact Organic Rankings?
Answer –
As we all know, Google’s statements, ranking algorithms haven’t been consistent. Google drives a mix of results to satisfy user intent.
It is difficult to say whether online reputation, positive reviews, or the negative review has any direct or indirect impact on Google ranking.
Instead, I would like to say online reputation may increase your organic conversation ratio because customers rely on your reputation or feedback received from your old customers before making any buying decision.
I am not entirely clear answering this question; I know that if Google does have a moral motive to give updated and correct information to searchers. So it is essential to observe a good reputation online.
I would advise keep up to date with Google search algorithms and stay positive reputation management. But I understand, you can help your search ranking stay positive, even if you have negative reviews.
#12 How do I check my online reputation?
Answer –
It is essential to monitor and protect your online reputation. There are numerous ORM Tools available and many other ways to monitor the online reputation of your company. Few of them are like;
- Monitor Review Sites
- Setup Google Alerts
- Monitor Social Media comments and engagement ratio.
- Monitor blog page review, comments
- Verify your partners.
- Ask your customer for feedback.
- Use any ORM Tool for smart trackings like G-Alerts, SocialMention, MeltWater, and others
#13 What are the top Consumer or Business Review sites?
Answer –
- Google My Business
- Amazon
- Social Media (Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin)
- Yelp
- BBB – Better Business Bureau)
- Glassdoor
- Trip Advisor ( related to food, restaurant and travel)
- Yellow Pages
- Mouthshut
- Trustpilot
- Trustspot
- Bazaarvoice
- G2 Crowd
- Yahoo! Local Listings
- Angie’s List
For more details, Best Customer Review Sites
#14 What are the benefits of Customer reviews?
Answer –
For any business, customer reviews are essential because;
- Negative or neutral reviews provide your company with an opportunity to learn and develop.
- Create Social proof or trust drives traffic, sales, and increase the organic conversation rate.
- Build more brand identity, impressions, and visibility online.
- Encourage new consumers to review your company is an easy way, and it expands your brand reputation and reaches.
- Increase the opportunity to share your blog or post with potential customers.
- Positive reviews are powerful as customer testimonials on your website during lead acquisition.
- 92% of consumers are more likely to purchase a product after reading a positive online review.
- Indirect free advertising.
- Reduce customer complaints and negative reviews too.
- Increase the percentage of lifetime value (LTV) customer base and increase your blog or post share.
#15 What are the best online reputation monitoring tools?
Answer –
Top online reputation monitoring tools are like;
Brand 24, YouScan, BrandMentions, BuzzSumo, Mention, Your Web Browser, Google Alerts, The Brand Grader, SimilarWeb, SocialMention, Review Push, Reputology, GatherUp, Reputation.com, Brand Yourself
Read more about ORM tools: Best Online Reputation Monitoring Tools
#16 Where do you see the reputation management industry headed into the future?
Answer –
I believe online reputation management awareness is going to be a big trend in the future. Specifically, if you want to run a long term sustainable business, then you must need ORM along with SEO.
It would be best if you created a robust online presence that accurately represents you or your business and builds privilege against future reputation threats.
Over the next several years, I imagine as a future possibility reputation management growing beyond a “quick fix” for lousy content to an ongoing brand management process. We’ve already been enduring this.
#17 What is the first piece of advice that you would give someone when beginning to consider their online reputation?
Answer –
Before jumping to advise someone, it’s important to understand that most ‘asks’ when it comes to your digital presence, are possible. Whether it’s an article that’s been plaguing your personal front page of search results, or lack of representation for your business in organic search, just know, firms (like ours) specialize in helping you curate your online image.
Advice: If you’re considering looking to professionals, do your research. There’s a lot of ‘online reputation management’ agencies out there (some very well known with massive marketing budgets) that are not sophisticated or customized in their approach to helping you. Take the time to identify a partner that has the experience and grit that it takes, day-in and day-out, to produce results.
Be on the look-out for firms with cookie-cutter solutions, SEO or PR firms that claim they also offer ‘reputation management’, and those that offer to de-index i.e., completely remove your results. Get a few quotes, ask smart questions and compare what each agency’s packages actually incorporate. You want a comprehensive solution, not a pack of web profiles. Check out our 72 Reputation Management Stats for 2019 for a little more information.
#18 How can a business or individual benefit from working with an ORM specialist?
Answer –
Given the heightened scrutiny of absolutely everything these days (thanks, internet!) and the immense amount of information available at our fingertips, a business – or individual – should be concerned with how they’re presented online. A reputation management specialist will be able to learn your goals and put you on a path to achieve them.
Do you want to become a thought leader in the financial sector? There’s a way to do it. Do you want your product or service ranking on page 1 in Google or even Amazon or YouTube search? There’s a way to do it. Do you want people to stop asking you about that forced public resignation from 2013 that solidified itself as a top result for your name? There’s a way to do it – and in most cases, you should! Whether you’re looking to promote, protect or re-brand yourself or your company, an online reputation management specialist can help.
#19 What are some online reputation management strategies?
Answer –
There are several strategies that online reputation management services employ to boost a brand’s online image, including the following:
- Search engine optimization: Reputation management companies ensure that your online content is optimized for search engines. They make sure your content has the right keywords, metadata and headlines to give it the best chance of being seen when people search for your business or businesses in your industry.
- Content creation: These firms create content for you, such as articles, blog posts, wiki sites, press releases and business profiles.
- Review management: Online reputation management services can monitor your online reviews on sites like Google, Facebook and Yelp. This gives you the chance to quickly respond to negative reviews and promote positive ones. These services can also help with the acquisition of reviews. Some companies focus specifically on these strategies. They provide a platform where you can manage every review-management task from a single location.
- Social media management: Online reputation management companies can manage all of your social media accounts. This includes setting up profiles on all relevant social channels, deciding what and when to post on those networks, and monitoring them for negative reviews.
- Third-party website monitoring: Online reputation management services can also monitor other sites to see if people are talking about your business. The companies look at review sites like Yelp and Glassdoor, as well as any other websites or blogs where your business is being discussed. This ensures that you always know when people are talking about your business online and what people are saying.
#20 How can you ensure that you have a good Internet reputation?
Answer –
There are several ways to protect or ensure that you have an excellent online reputation, as follow:
- Clean up your current situation.
- It is registering your name as a domain.
- List your business across customer review and rating sites.
- Secure your name across all social platforms.
- Publish regular content.
- Get active on social media.
- Claim and verify your Google listing.
- Manage online reviews.
#21 How to Deal with Fake Google Reviews That Affect Your Business?
Answer –
- Learn about the situation – Better you understand the situation better implemented you will be to handle it now and in the future.
2. Dispute fake reviews with Google My Business if you can prove it is fake, inappropriate, and inaccurate.
- Spam and fake content – False information and content intended to boost rankings.
- Off-topic – The content must reflect the reviewer’s experience with a business or location. Like, any irrelevant social, political, or personal comments will remove.
- Prohibited content – Any content that is derogatory, explicit, offensive, or dangerous will be removed, including hate speech.
- Conflict of business – No one can review their own business, a current or former employer, or a competitor business.
3. Respond to the Negative review asap.
4. Keep track of fake reviews.
5. Counter Negative reviews with positives.
#22 Any five Important facts and stats of online reputation management.
Answer –
The power of online reputation and online reviews is massing in today’s digital world. Below is a list of some important facts and stats of online reputation management.
- 93% of people say online reviews impact their buying decisions, which is huge!
- 90% actually take the time to read online reviews before visiting a business.
- 91% of consumers say they trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.
- 64% of people trust online search engines the most when they’re conducting research on a business.
- Consumers read an average of 7 reviews before trusting a business.
- Nearly 3 out of 4 consumers trust a company more if the reviews are positive.
For more details please follow our blog.
#23 How to request review removal on Google My Business?
Answer –
Reviews that violate Google review policies can be removed from Google My Business Profiles.
Important: Before you flag a review, read the review content policy.
Guidelines to remove reviews on Google
- Only flag reviews that violate Google policies.
- Don’t flag a review just because you disagree with it or don’t like it.
- Google doesn’t get involved when businesses and customers disagree about facts, since there’s no reliable way to discern who’s right about particular customer experience.
- Be patient. It can take several days for a review to be assessed.
#24 How can I improve my social media reputation?
Answer –
The best ways to manage social media reputation:
- Response directly and professionally – Acknowledge the problem, Display empathy, and Express a willingness to actually resolve their issues
- Build a positive brand image – Posts of unique content are enough to safeguard your industry thought leadership and social media reputation.
- Share Your Brand’s Story – like, Hiring Veterans, Volunteering, Charitable donations, and organizing events
- Encourage your customers for social reviews – 73% of people trust local businesses more if they have positive reviews online.
- Respond to all social media mention be it a positive or negative review.
#25 What happens if a business has a bad reputation?
Answer –
A bad online reputation will ripple through a company, affecting far more than just sales.
Negative press impacts hiring costs and may even cause an employee retention crisis.
According to a CareerBuilder survey, 71% of U.S. workers will not apply to a company with negative press.
#26 What causes a bad reputation?
Answer –
Three leading causes of bad reputations: your attitude, behavior, or lack of professionalism.
There is no easy or short cut to fix for any of them. While improving reputation, there is no single way to set and work in every situation.
Everybody makes mistakes but needs to accept it. You need to understand the situation, clear the reason, correct your behavior, apologies, get help, and, most importantly, patience.
#27 How important is CEO's reputation to the reputation of the business itself?
Answer –
- The CEO’s reputation has a much more substantial impact on its company reputation than expected; it’s up to 70%.
- The company’s reputation strongly influences by the factors customer orientation, quality of products and services as well as its capacity for innovation.
- A CEO’s reputation depends, above all, on their strategic competence, credibility, and communication skills.
#28 What are the types of Reputation Management?
Answer –
Based on the relevance of the marketing concept, online reputation is of different types:
- Reputation Attacks – Reputations are vulnerable to digital attacks, and many kinds of attacks are possible. Attackers can be journalists, bloggers, consumers, competitor businesses, or anyone seeking to damage another entity through digital content.
- Public Relations – Press releases, news stories, and media editorials have a powerful influence on public opinion and perception. Press can serve as an originating source of a reputation problem, and it can serve as part of a solution.
- Online Reviews –Shift consumer impressions and increase overall star ratings.
- Social Media Management – Build social trust or build social proof to your prospective buyers or users.
- Search Engine Optimization – Optimizing your website, blog, and content for better visibility in SERP.
- Content Removal – Content is king but removing inappropriate content, update, and optimize website content, blogs are essential.
- Spam Bots – Spam, unsolicited marketing messages, user communications, profile creations, content posts, and website attacks. These tactics are “black hat” methods, which can harm website owners.
- Negative SEO – Like keyword stuffing, hidden content on the website, and performing black hat SEO also harmful for website ranking and reduce your brand reputation.
#29 Best online reputation management strategy.
Answer –
Ideal online reputation management strategy for any business:
- Need a website or blog page to broaden your online presence.
- Stay active and pay special attention to social media platforms.
- List and grow your brand, products, or services in other social or online business listing platforms.
- Protect and motive your key employees
- Keep tracking and acknowledge online reviews
- Start your blog and update relevant content regularly based on your industry.
- Listen to your customer’s queries and concerns.
- Make your response genuine, quick, and efficient
- Refrain from online arguments
- Invest and research online reputation regularly, respond, and followup.
#30 Top 10 Best Online Reputation Management Services in India?
Answer –
List of top reputation management agencies that specialize in Online Reputation Management Service (ORM services) in India for your reference.
- Geekschip
- Rank Evolve
- BrandYourself
- DigitalFirefly Marketing
- Gadook
- GreyBox
- Igniyte
- Local Ledge
- Netmark
- Outspoken Media