Your online reputation is crucial in today’s digital age. Within seconds, users can form an opinion about your brand based on what they find online. However, managing your online reputation comes with its own set of challenges, especially in the era of artificial intelligence (AI). In this article, we will explore common obstacles in online reputation management and effective strategies for overcoming them.
One of the biggest challenges in online reputation management is the rise of generative AI. Generative AI has become a significant topic for brands worldwide, and the growing number of users researching AI-powered platforms indicates the magnitude of the issue. Non-marketers are even using chatbots linked to platforms like OpenAI to ask everyday questions, thanks to chatbot platforms like Botpress or Messagebird. This changing landscape has a significant impact on online reputation management.
To protect your brand from generative AI issues, it is essential to control the input. Language models, often used by AI systems, rely on various sources on the web to feed their algorithms and understand the facts. By triggering a knowledge panel on Google, your brand is more likely to be in a good place when it comes to the semantic part of online reputation management. Generative AI will use its internal knowledge management systems to produce more accurate answers based on real and understood facts.
To proactively control the narrative, it is crucial to connect your brand to appropriate semantic fields. This means tying your brand’s context to descriptive terminology around your expertise, target audience, and products or services. For example, online courses can talk about the applications of their courses and different levels of experience, while ecommerce sites can specify their target audience. By controlling the narrative on your website and other sites about your brand, you increase the chances that language models pick up the right information and reproduce it accurately in generative answers.
Another obstacle in online reputation management is ambiguous semantics. Semantics aren’t always clear, and it takes multiple semantic entities presented in the right context for AI engines to comprehend the text accurately. Tools like the Kalicube Copywriting Analyzer can help you understand how well Google’s NLP engine understands your sample text. To ensure clear comprehension, make sure your content is tied to enough context to be unambiguous. Pay attention to different spellings, synonyms, uppercase and lowercase versions, etc.
User-generated content (UGC) and Reddit also play a significant role in online reputation management. UGC accounts for a major share of online attention, and Google’s partnership with Reddit has made it a critical priority for ORM. Many branded and product-related searches trigger Reddit threads, and Google’s Gemini leverages Reddit’s content as training data for its language models. To control the narrative, actively monitor Reddit, participate in discussions related to your brand, and maintain a positive and helpful attitude to minimize damage.
Lack of proper monitoring is another challenge in online reputation management. Tools like Google Alerts can help monitor mentions of your brand, but they are limited to indexed pages only. Effective brand mentions monitoring requires using third-party tools that search through various platforms and consolidate all mentions in a user-friendly report. However, monitoring mentions goes beyond social media and indexed pages. It is essential to query platforms manually or use integrations with third-party tools to understand how your brand is being portrayed across different platforms.
Google reviews have a significant impact on online reputation management. Negative reviews directly affect the experience of search users, and search engines often use review data to train their language models. To manage negative reviews, it is crucial to respond promptly and constructively. Additionally, proactively build up positive and context-rich Google reviews from real, happy customers. Responding to every review and providing more contextual information can help balance negative sentiments and prevent customers from venting their frustration on other platforms.
Competitors and affiliates can also pose challenges in online reputation management. When potential customers search for your brand, they might come across competing domains and affiliate sites near the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs). To dominate the top of the SERPs, your brand must appear in brand websites, product websites, and social media networks. This ensures that potential customers find your official site and prevents competitors from capitalizing on your brand awareness efforts.
Competing ads showing for your brand name is another obstacle to online reputation management. Competitors can run ads on your brand name, diverting potential customers away from your website. Running ads for your brand name, product names, and founders’ names can help you appear as the official site behind the brand and get a larger portion of the clicks for lower costs.
Maintaining active social media profiles is crucial for managing your online reputation. While certain platforms might be more trendy, neglecting others can negatively impact your brand’s image. It is essential to answer comments, update header images, publish frequently, and trigger engagement on all leading platforms. Each platform may require different levels of dedication and resources, but they should all represent your brand positively.
Balancing pages’ sentiment is another challenge in online reputation management. Unhappy users, clients, and employees often vent on review sites like TrustPilot, Glassdoor, or Google Reviews. AI platforms consider these reviews when training their language models and analyzing sentiment. Regularly monitor your websites and social networks for brand and product mentions to balance out negative impressions and highlight positive ones.
Finally, responsibility and the lack of defined processes can hinder effective online reputation management. Establishing clear roles and processes is crucial to prevent issues and manage reputational crises appropriately. Define responsibilities for monitoring and reporting on brand mentions, protocol for reacting to positive and negative mentions, content creation support, monitoring AI tools, stimulating positive reviews, tracking customer happiness, and establishing protocols for data breaches.
In conclusion, managing your online reputation requires an overall strategic approach. Overcoming obstacles like generative AI, ambiguous semantics, user-generated content, lack of proper monitoring, Google reviews, competitors and affiliates, competing ads, social media maintenance, sentiment balance, and responsibility can help protect your brand and simplify defending against potential problems. By implementing effective strategies, you can ensure a positive online reputation for your brand.
