Alphabet Soup: ORM and UGC

On this episode of 1000 Ways to Market Your Business, Samantha Scott, APR, is joined by Ellie Marchiori, Digital Marketing Coordinator at PTE. The two discuss ORM and UGC—not alphabet soup, but two important ways to improve your brand and maintain a strong reputation and presence online.

The episode dives into what online reputation management and user-generated content are, and strategic ways to use both to help your business.

Have a question or feedback to share? Visit www.getpushing.com or one of our many social media channels. We look forward to hearing from you.

#marketing #business #communication #strategy

Transcript

Samantha: 0:05

Hi, I'm Samantha Scott, APR. Welcome to 1000 Ways to Market Your Business episode three. Today we're talking about user generated content and online reputation management. I know UGC ORM sounds like alphabet soup. We're going to explain all of it. And today I'm joined by Ellie Marchiori.

Ellie: 0:21

Hi, I am the Digital Marketing Coordinator for Pushing the Envelope and I specialize in social media, email marketing, and online reputation for our partners.

Samantha: 0:31

So, really great expert on this topic and why these two things are so, so important. Very different, but really, really important to improving your brand and keeping a strong reputation and just presence in general online, which we all know we spend a ton of time online and that's where we look for businesses and try to find resources. So first, if you're not familiar with what we're talking about, let's explain and start at the beginning. So online reputation management. What is that? How would you define that?

Ellie: 0:57

The most simple way to explain online reputation management is it's basically monitoring the online presence for your business. So going in and checking reviews, responding to reviews, both positive and negative, which we'll get a little more into, and just interacting with your guests and letting them know that you appreciate their feedback and that you are actively monitoring your online presence.

Samantha: 1:21

So this is the kind of earned coverage, so to speak, if we're to use that term. You don't own these spaces. You can own your channel. So for example, you can set up your own Yelp or TripAdvisor, Google, etc., depending on your business or industry. But what we're talking about is other people's opinions and the reviews they're leaving, positive, neutral, or negative. And we'll go into how can you use that because not all bad feedback is bad, but it's definitely other people's opinions and, and content about your business and how do we use it.

Ellie: 1:52

Yeah. So one of the really important things about online reputation management is that it builds trust and authenticity for your brand. So it's showing people that you really care about what they're saying and that you want to make their experience as good as possible. So if someone, you know, if you have a restaurant and someone comments about their bad experience, you're going on there and apologizing and, you know, seeing what you can do to make it better or letting them know that you actually care and you're going to pass along that feedback to the rest of the team.

Samantha: 2:18

We have a lot of really useful tools we'll share with you and tips on how to leverage online reputation management. But let's move into user generated content. So this, I feel like it was kind of a buzzword that started years ago. There's lots of other terms that are used for it. But user generated content is content that your customers, clients, etc. take and publish on your behalf. So you better hope that they know how to use their camera well. All jokes aside, this is like somebody shares a photo, a selfie, and they tag you because they're at your restaurant, or they're showcasing different products that you have, things like that. And there's lots of ways to use that creatively, but you should ask permission first.

Ellie: 2:59

Yes, absolutely. As Samantha said, there's a lot of uses for user generated content. It can be as simple as sharing someone's post to your story if they're visiting your restaurant or highlighting an online review that someone has left you. You can take that, put it into a nicely branded template and use that in your monthly content.

Samantha: 3:16

User generated content, online reputation management, two different things, both live in the digital space, both can really impact your brand. And unfortunately, you don't have full control of either one of them. So let's talk a little bit about how you can leverage what you're getting from your guests and what they're publishing online, and some ways that you can proactively generate more so you can have a little bit of directional control on the content that's being published about your business. So first, Ellie, let's talk about online reputation management we'll go in alphabetical order. So, what are some proactive ways that businesses can leverage online reviews for their business?

Ellie: 3:54

I would recommend asking some of your customers to leave reviews. If you know they've had a good experience, you can always add that into your email messaging or social media posts.

Samantha: 4:04

You want to avoid being pushy, right? I've had that experience. I had that at car dealership where, you know, you're done with your purchase and the salesperson goes, I need you to write a review and don't give me five stars, then I'm gonna get in trouble. Don't go that route. The pressure tactic does not work.

Ellie: 4:18

Yeah so you definitely don't want to be pushy when you're asking your customers or your guests to leave a review. So some strategies when it comes to online reputation management in your business. If you establish a process, setting up daily tasks to check your accounts online and making sure that you respond to those reviews in a timely manner is really going to make a big difference for your customers and just leaving them with an overall positive experience. Also learning from the feedback, using that feedback from the customer, relaying that to the rest of your team. So if you have a restaurant, you know, and you keep hearing over and over about the same service or the same dish, that's something that, yes, that's something that you really want to show your customers that you're listening and relay that feedback to the rest of the team.

Samantha: 5:01

Absolutely. And this even kind of bleeds into a function of public relations to a degree because you want to make sure that your customers having a great experience, you to make that they're recognized, but it also can go into marketing and sales because if somebody left a review, say a year ago, but maybe you have a new chef or you have completely renovated your product line or whatever the case may be. You can use that to your advantage to follow up with that lapsed customer and say, Hey, it's been a while since you've been in. We'd love to have you come. Some other ways that you can leverage online reputation management would be use those reviews as testimonials on social media. So take that quote, you don't have to, you know, give the person's whole name, it could just be by Ellie M or something like that, and share that as a meme or some kind of graphic on your social channels. You can include it in your newsletter, etcetera. There's lots of ways you can leverage this, and it's really important because this is someone else saying your business is good. It's not you saying your business is good. Everybody expects that as consumers. We understand that advertising has been around for a very long time. You know, I liken it to if you're shopping for something on Amazon, you read the reviews.

Ellie: 6:04

Yes. And how people respond to the reviews. You know, if you see a negative one and the company responds, you know, it's going to leave better taste in your mouth.

Samantha: 6:11

Absolutely. Absolutely. Much more trustworthy then. You know, I, I say like, okay, I'm shopping for a rug and I think I found the one that I want. Well, Sally Jo posted something super negative. Well, now I'm not going to buy that or I'm going to really think twice about it. So, other people's opinions matter, and it's really important, and I would touch on what you said about kind of giving that feedback to your team. We had a client a long time ago who just didn't like any of these negative reviews, and one of them, I will give him the benefit of the doubt, was kind of outlandish. It was a deep sea fishing company, and somebody complained about getting wet. It's laughable! And he was like, that's ridiculous, just delete it and remove it. And I said, no, this could be a really great learning opportunity that maybe we need to do a little bit more prep for your customers and remind them that while we would assume they would know that that they're going to get wet and they can prepare accordingly. So, not all serious, but, there's lots of ways to use online reputation management to benefit your business. So, why don't we move into user generated content? And I made the joke about hope your customers use their camera and video well, because you do not control this. This is content that other people are creating and they're doing it out of their own free will. So we really have to be grateful. That really should apply to reputation management as well because people are much more likely to leave negative reviews. Yes. So if they leave a positive one, make sure you thank them. But on user generated content, this is where people are taking pictures. You know, restaurants definitely get a ton of this. Yeah. People take pictures of their food. But there's also hospitality implications. Lots of different places where people are creating this content. So, why don't we talk about that?

Ellie: 7:39

Along with online reputation management, user generated content is going to really build authenticity and trust for your brand, so engaging with that when you can is a good practice to follow.

Samantha: 7:50

Target's a great example of that. So if you shop Target online, in the app or on their website, now if you tag Target when you take a selfie or whatever, they share that with the actual product, so you can see people wearing the clothes or using the product, and personally, I find that really valuable. But that's a really great example how a big brand is using this, but you could apply something similar.

Ellie: 8:10

Yeah, and again, it just builds that trust, you know, you see real people wearing clothes at Target you're gonna be more compelled to buy something like that and to trust that brand. So another benefit it's cost effective, so instead of always having to do heavily produced content, benefiting from using user generated content is going to go a long way and there's different ways you can use it, whether that be sharing something to your story, using a review in your social media feed, reposting a video that somebody produced, as a review, there's a lot of cost effective ways to use user generated content.

Samantha: 8:43

And there are so many talented people now, and the content they share is really beautiful, but I think you're right when you talk about the heavily produced stuff, is you're not going to do a commercial photo shoot every week, every month, even sometimes every year, so you're going to run out of content if you're the one that's solely producing it eventually. Either that, or you're going to probably have somebody on staff or a partner who's doing that regularly. So this is a way get new content easily and inexpensively or free. You should give credit though and ask permission. I've had that experience, I've tagged businesses and they've asked, Oh, can I use your content? Sure. Just make sure that you do that and you document it, that you have that person's permission if you're going to be sharing it. I don't think that necessarily applies if you're sharing to a reel or story and they're getting credit because they'll already know about it. But also be careful that if you do that and that person, you know, messages you and says, hey, can you take down? that you honor that request as well.

Ellie: 9:32

And, just a tip for asking your customers for user generated content. If you post in your monthly content engaging questions, asking people what's your favorite drink or food, show us in the comments below, putting out engaging content like that is going to encourage your customers or your guests to leave photos that you can use later on.

Samantha: 9:53

We've also done photo contests in the past, which are really fun. You can come up with something inexpensive or even free to give away and ask people share, share your best sunset photo here, share your favorite use of this product, fill in the blank, and enter for a chance to win, and there's tons of ways that you can do that. And people love getting free stuff and love showing off their things. So, that could be really successful as well.

Ellie: 10:15

Yeah. And people also really like seeing their content being published on your website or on your social channels. So that incentive is another great way to encourage people to share.

Samantha: 10:25

And think of these folks as brand ambassadors for you. You know, if they love your brand that much, or your business, your establishment so much, they want to take content and share it, that's really, really powerful. And you absolutely should leverage that and respect and honor them. And, like, think of how happy they're going to be if they love you and you've shared their stuff, then they're just going to be that much more excited to frequent your establishment. Well, I hope this has been helpful. Lots of talk about user generated content, online reputation management. Why these two digital elements are so, so important for your brand. If you've got questions, please feel free to leave a comment and tune in for the next episode of 1000 Ways to Market Your Business.