Garrett Smith founded ReviewU after spending over a decade working on online reputation management with startups, small businesses, and medical practices. Over the years, a lot of things have changed, but the importance of ORM is clearer than ever.
In this piece, ReviewU instructor, Nancy, sat down with Garrett to learn about how top tips to someone just getting started with online review management. Here are the top takeaways from my conversation with an online review management expert:
Start off with a Good Strategy
If you want to make sure that you’re able to manage your organization’s reviews successfully, go in with a strategy. It’s important to take a step back and start thinking about what your goals are and what it’ll take to get there.
A strategy you could go with is to automate your online review solicitation. That way, you can spend time claiming and monitoring profiles before sending out review requests en masse using software.
No matter what strategy you decide on, take your time planning out your moves. It’ll pay off in the long run, when you can manage your online reviews and waste minimal time.
Go Where Your Customers Are
It doesn’t make sense to dedicate a lot of time to working on online review profiles that are not relevant to your customers. For example, it wouldn’t make sense for a doctor’s office to spend a lot of time trying to create a profile on Zagat, a restaurant-industry review platform.
Instead, work on claiming an enhancing the biggest review profiles and work your way to more industry-specific ones. That way, when potential customers are searching on Google, they’re more likely to come across your excellent reviews on the search results page.
An easy way to determine which profiles are most important is to take a look at which profiles already have the most reviews. Those may be the most popular with your existing customers, making them great targets for management.
So, direct your energy into the right resources and go where your customers are as well!
Manage Reviews Responsibly
Once you have access to all of your most important profiles, it’s time to start managing them responsibly. If you won’t be the one who manages online reviews directly, you’ll need to assign this role to someone on your staff. Putting someone in charge of the online review strategy will ensure it gets executed upon.
Make sure your online review manager gets trained adequately on how to enhance and monitor these profiles. You can start them off by signing them up for our Online Review Management 101 course.
Part of managing your online reviews responsibly is actively asking for and responding to online reviews. Then, work with them to create a schedule for soliciting reviews and responding to new ones as they come in.
Keep Asking for New Reviews
Even if you have 100 reviews on your Google, Facebook, and Yelp profiles, you should continue to ask for online reviews.
When it comes to getting new reviews, you have two options.
- The Modern Way: using automated review management software to send email and text review solicitations in bulk.
The Old Fashioned Way: asking in person or using in-office signage to generate new reviews. - Whatever is easiest for you, go for it! Just make sure that everyone is on the same page and continue making meaningful connections with customers.
Show Off a Little
After all of this hard work, it’s time to show off a little. Make sure you’re making the most of your online reviews by displaying them on your social media.
You can pull quotes from reviews and place them onto your site or into a great social media graphic. That way, the impact of an excellent online review can work its magic across many different platforms.
Many organizations also find success from including online reviews in their advertising and marketing campaigns. Consumers love hearing from real people, and your online reviewers certainly fall into that category.
If you want more expert tips from Garrett and other online reputation management experts, join our ReviewU community and sign up for our first course: Online Review Management 101.