Online reputation management (ORM) is one of the most important public relations roles in e-commerce. When someone googles your brand name, you want everything your customers see to be positive. If something negative does come up, you want it to be obvious your company has addressed the issue. ORM requires a certain amount of web savvy. You have to understand search engines, understand social media and also have top notch customer service skills. Some of the most important skills for an ORM analyst to include:
Social media knowledge is probably the most basic skill to have as an online reputation management analyst because so much of ORM happens on social media. You have to know the ins and outs of every platform – Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn, and more. You have to understand the nuances of each method of communication, right down to word counts. Time to download some apps and brush up on what the kids are up to these days.
Don’t forget that online reputation management is primarily a customer service role. It involves dealing with customers online – many of whom are unsatisfied, angry, or just plain hostile. All those conversational nuances and the honest helpful attitude you learned at that grocery store job in high school? Be prepared to bring it all back when dealing with ORM. This style of customer service has some extra pressure because everything you say will be laid out in public for everyone to see. You have to appease not only the customer you are dealing with but make sure your answer sounds great and useful to everyone around so that you can show off what a wonderful company yours is to deal with.
Another important part of ORM is understanding search engines and search engine results. After all, the most important things your customers see are what pops up on the first few pages when searching your brand or product. Therefore, those are the results you have to concentrate on. If you understand search engines and search engine optimization, then you will be able to make the results you most want your customers to see to pop to the top of the page.