Online presence management

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Online presence management is the process of creating and promoting traffic to a personal or professional brand online. This process combines web design, and development, blogging, search engine optimization, pay-per-click marketing, reputation management, directory listings, social media, link sharing, and other avenues to create a long-term positive presence for a person, organization, or product in search engines and on the web in general.

Contents

Online presence management is distinct from web presence management in that the former is generally a marketing and messaging discipline while the latter is Governance, risk management, and compliance operational and security discipline.

Theory of Online Presence Management

Due to the evolving nature of Internet use, the Theory of Online Presence Management considers a website to be insufficient to promote most brands. To maintain a web presence and brand recognition, individuals and companies need to use a variety of digital platforms such as Google Maps, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, [1] Flickr, YouTube, and Pinterest, as well as cultivating a brand presence on mobile apps and other online databases.

The online presence management process starts by determining goals that will define an online strategy. Once this strategy is put in place, an ongoing and constant process of evaluating and fine-tuning is necessary to drive online presence towards the identified goals.[ citation needed ]

An online presence management strategy consists of several components. Generally, these will include search engine placement (making sure the brand appears high in search engine results when the end-user has a relevant query), monitoring online discussion around the brand, and analysing the brand's overall web presence.

Elements of Online Presence Management

An online profile or reputation is a product of multiple activities and platforms. It includes the following:

Web Portfolio Management

The online portfolio helps to build the visibility of a brand or individual. It works as a centralized hub for all the activities related to the brand and includes the contact info of the brand, what the brand is about (history, vision etc.) and a product showcase. The Web Portfolio comes in different forms. The most common form of a portfolio is the website. A website, usually built on the same domain as the brand's name, represents the business/person throughout the web.

Brands and companies prefer to use websites to establish themselves and gain higher brand awareness levels because it is very important for the company to maintain relevance over time, and promoting a product online makes it much easier to keep up with the times. [2] Businesses need to keep online visibility high as well as their performance compared to their competitors. [2] Online reputation management should be tracked to see how consumers react and feel towards a company's brand. [2]

Blog

A blog provides a brand with a way to express itself. It allows the brand to talk and get their voice/opinion heard on any topic they choose. Blogging can promote a brand through consistent, interesting content generation associated with a particular brand or the market said the brand caters to. Blogs can be created on the website or third-party platforms such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Quora, WordPress, Blogger.com and Medium, etc. Apart from conventional blogging, social media has enabled Microblogging (through services such as Twitter and Tumblr) which is particularly effective in establishing a brand name and building the brand's recognition through interaction with the masses. It is also a quick way to respond to brand-related complaints and queries.

Corporate blogging is a powerful tool when attempting to communicate an idea important to the firm's identity. However, there are a few rules to keep in mind when utilizing corporate blogs:

  1. Blogs can be both internal and external - This means that they can be effective to communicate new products or ideas to customers or make sure everyone inside the firm is on the same page.
  2. Blogs are personal - Blogs are meant to be written from a first-person perspective.
  3. Blogs need a good author to be successful, but it does not have to be the chief executive officer - Some believe that chief executive officers are too busy running the rest of the firm to also write a blog. Companies like Boeing and General Motors, for example, have successful blogs that are not written by their chief executive officers.
  4. Blogs are targeted - Value the audience and write for them.
  5. Blogs can be short-lived - Corporate blogs should not last long. They are created for a purpose, used, and then shut down. They are not meant to go on forever.
  6. Blogs should not be used as feedback devices - Blogs are not meant to have personal dialect within them. They are not for conversation between employees. [3]

Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the most popular techniques to build traction and turn a web page into a revenue-generation machine. Search Engine Optimization allows companies or individuals to:

  1. Identify keywords that are likely to bring potential customers or audiences to their website
  2. Embed those keywords into the web content, naturally and in a value-added way
  3. Allow search engines to crawl the web page and index all the content

Search engines use a spider or a crawler to gather listings by automatically "crawling" the web. The spider follows links to web pages, makes copies of the pages, and stores them in the search engine's index. Based on this data, the search engines then index the pages and rank the websites accordingly. Major search engines that index pages using spiders are Google, Yahoo, Bing, AOL, and Lycos.

Some methods that help optimize a web page for the search engine include:

Internet Advertising

Internet advertising is a form of broadcasting and promotion of products, ideas, or services using the Internet to attract customers. This idea is very similar to that of social media marketing. Internet advertising has overtaken other traditional advertising media such as newspapers, magazines, and radio. Internet advertising targets users interested in relevant keywords and displays a text or image ad next to search results or within social media. While searching to these specific keywords, firms can target their advertisements for specific audiences. The advertisements will more than likely pop up on social media, but can also show up just on websites that customers would visit. This increases the firm's online presence and makes their products or services more visible to potential consumers. [2]

In today's digital age, internet advertising has become an integral part of marketing strategies for businesses of all sizes. With the rise of e-commerce, social media, and search engines, companies have been able to reach a much wider audience than ever before. The ability to target specific demographics and interests through online advertising has made it a cost-effective alternative to traditional advertising channels. As a result, more and more businesses are turning to internet advertising to promote their products and services. With the continued growth of the internet, it is safe to say that this trend is only going to continue.

Reputation Management

Reputation management is a critical part of online presence management. A company's reputation is based on consumer trust and is often dependent on information that is found on social networks and the internet. Having a good reputation has a significant impact on a company's survival. But having no reputation can be as critical as having a bad reputation. No reputation means you don't exist in the eyes of a consumer. [4]

The first steps in developing and managing a company's reputation require the business to define their image, identify a target market and develop a core message. Next, the company should plan a detailed media strategy emphasizing issues management, message development and media preparation. [5] Once these aspects are defined, the company can build effective communication strategies on how and where to get these messages across. These strategies should include how to address and involve the customer in all the firm's activities. This will impact reputation because engaged customers can contribute to the long term relationship of a firm by creating and disseminating information. [6]

Management of a company's online reputation should include maintaining a social platform. Four main objectives for creating a positive reputation on a social web platform are building trust, promoting quality, facilitating member matching and sustaining loyalty. [7] Ideally, this platform should emphasize a company's culture, industry news and valuable company information. Companies should consider what the consumer finds valuable when developing this platform. Finding the right combination of information and how to present it will require research into the target markets.

Managing a firm's reputation requires constant oversight to stay on top of current topics or news, and to update online sites and manage content as needed. It is difficult to control how someone might view a company, product or service and negative opinions are bound to happen. With the internet and multiple social media outlets, information is everywhere and is hard to control. It is how managers react and oversee these opinions or reviews that is critical. Digital media offers the possibility to monitor customer opinions almost in real time. It is imperative that businesses constantly track what their customers think of them and work proactively to ensure the conversation remains positive toward them. [4]

Reputation management is the process of tracking actions and opinions, looking for positive and negative reviews that reflect the opinion of the users about any particular service or product, removing negative opinions (if any) and converting them into positive ones. It is important, however, not to attack or try to obscure negative opinions through devious means, as this is likely to have an overall negative effect on the brand. A better strategy is to respond to complaints with information and an apologetic attitude, cultivating later positive reviews. Managers can take some control by planning ahead and developing strategies to communicate valuable information and address any negative reviews. Competence, cooperation and compassion should be the guiding principles when responding to media and other constituents in a crisis. [5] Corporate managers must work together to understand and govern communications provided through social media. Several things managers can do to safeguard and enhance reputation with the use of social media include:

In today's business environment, consumers have unlimited accessible information about a company, product or service on social network sites. How a company is perceived or their reputation can make or break a business. For these reasons, businesses cannot afford not to monitor, communicate and maintain their online reputation.

Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing uses social media platforms to create and foster communities and relationships among people and businesses. Social media is one of the most prevalent forms of communication and marketing today and businesses reach massive amounts of potential customers through it. Social media marketing is focused on creating content that attracts attention and encourages readers to share content with their social networks. Social messages are often effective because they usually come from a trusted, third-party source, rather than the brand itself. However, a brand having their own specific voice through social media can also be very effective for keeping loyal customers close and attracting new ones.

Understanding what tools are available and how to use them effectively is key to success in social media marketing. Some of these tools include:

  1. Social media content management
  2. Social media publishing and scheduling
  3. Social media monitoring
  4. Social aggregation
  5. Social bookmarking and tagging
  6. Social analytics and reporting
  7. Automation
  8. Validation

It is also important to understand the different effects that social media marketing has on past, current, or future customers. Having a clean social media platform can increase brand loyalty among the customers who already purchase a specific product or brand. It can also affect a customer's future purchase intentions. Both of these effects have been studied and go hand in hand with one another. Although there is always more research to be done, specific studies have supported that when a business has a positive social media campaign, it influences the potential customers and their prospective purchases. All of these ideas tie back to a company having a strong sense of their online presence and managing it well. [9]

Social Media Management

Many of the tools listed above are often found in a social media management system. This is a collection of procedures used to manage workflow in a disparate social media environment. These procedures can be manual or computer-based and enable the manager (or managing team) to listen, aggregate, publish, and manage multiple social media channels from one tool. [10]

Social media management systems effectively promote businesses to prospective clients. A firm could hire one of many social media managers to oversee the operations of this are for their team. Because the social network has changed how customers are reached and how they view products, it is incredibly important to manage a firm's social media responsibly. These social media managers can research effective ways on how to market the brand through social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok, along with other social media platforms. Companies pay on average $68,000 a year for someone to perform these services for them, however, that number is expected to rise. With the ongoing improvement and need for social media, it makes sense that this number would eventually surpass 6 digits. All in all, managing a firm's social media can boost their online presence by targeting their marketing to a specific group, improving on their existing marketing tactics, and keeping the brand name organized with their prospective goals in mind. [11]

Web Presence Pyramid Model

This kind of model is widely used by smaller businesses by following certain steps and stages. These models help for a business to better represent who they are and what they are trying to sell. A stage model, for example, may consist of stages such as Promotional, Provisional and Processing. These stages are extremely important in the marketing and selling of any given product. The Promotional stage is where networking and advertising are extremely prominent. These are essential to grow brand awareness and create sales. The Provisional stage consists of adding features to the webpage for the product so that the consumers can have a better understanding of things such as price of a product. The Processing stage is the financial part of the model. This is when the product is being sold to its customers and the actual order goes through with their payment. Data visualization is used in the Web Presence Pyramid Model because it gives a more simplistic look at the companies data received from their products sales rates and web pages views. [12]

Using a step-by-step stage model is an effective way for small businesses to develop a strong online presence and showcase their products to potential customers. These models help businesses to create a clear representation of who they are and what they offer. The various stages of the model, such as Promotional, Provisional and Processing, all play crucial roles in the marketing and selling of a product. Overall, the use of a step-by-step model can help small businesses create a strong online presence and effectively market their products to a wider audience.

Related Research Articles

Personalized marketing, also known as one-to-one marketing or individual marketing, is a marketing strategy by which companies leverage data analysis and digital technology to deliver individualized messages and product offerings to current or prospective customers. Advancements in data collection methods, analytics, digital electronics, and digital economics, have enabled marketers to deploy more effective real-time and prolonged customer experience personalization tactics.

Reputation management, originally a public relations term, refers to the influencing, controlling, enhancing, or concealing of an individual's or group's reputation. The growth of the internet and social media led to growth of reputation management companies, with search results as a core part of a client's reputation. Online reputation management, sometimes abbreviated as ORM, focuses on the management of product and service search engine results.

Search engine marketing (SEM) is a form of Internet marketing that involves the promotion of websites by increasing their visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) primarily through paid advertising. SEM may incorporate search engine optimization (SEO), which adjusts or rewrites website content and site architecture to achieve a higher ranking in search engine results pages to enhance pay per click (PPC) listings and increase the Call to action (CTA) on the website.

Social media optimization (SMO) is the use of a number of outlets and communities to generate publicity to increase the awareness of a product, service brand or event. Types of social media involved include RSS feeds, social news, bookmarking sites, and social networking sites such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, video sharing websites, and blogging sites. SMO is similar to search engine optimization (SEO) in that the goal is to generate web traffic and increase awareness for a website. SMO's focal point is on gaining organic links to social media content. In contrast, SEO's core is about reaching the top of the search engine hierarchy. In general, social media optimization refers to optimizing a website and its content to encourage more users to use and share links to the website across social media and networking sites.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digital marketing</span> Marketing of products or services using digital technologies or digital tools

Digital marketing is the component of marketing that uses the Internet and online-based digital technologies such as desktop computers, mobile phones, and other digital media and platforms to promote products and services. Its development during the 1990s and 2000s changed the way brands and businesses use technology for marketing. As digital platforms became increasingly incorporated into marketing plans and everyday life, and as people increasingly used digital devices instead of visiting physical shops, digital marketing campaigns have become prevalent, employing combinations of search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), content marketing, influencer marketing, content automation, campaign marketing, data-driven marketing, e-commerce marketing, social media marketing, social media optimization, e-mail direct marketing, display advertising, e-books, and optical disks and games have become commonplace. Digital marketing extends to non-Internet channels that provide digital media, such as television, mobile phones, callbacks, and on-hold mobile ringtones. The extension to non-Internet channels differentiates digital marketing from online marketing.

A touchpoint can be defined as any way consumers can interact with a business organization, whether person-to-person, through a website, an app or any form of communication. When consumers connect with these touchpoints they can consider their perceptions of the business and form an opinion.

Online identity management (OIM), also known as online image management, online personal branding, or personal reputation management (PRM), is a set of methods for generating a distinguished web presence of a person on the Internet. Online identity management also refers to identity exposure and identity disclosure, and has particularly developed in the management on online identity in social network services or online dating services.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Content marketing</span> Form of marketing focused on creating content for a targeted audience online

Content marketing is a form of marketing focused on creating, publishing, and distributing content for a targeted audience online. It is often used by businesses in order to achieve the following goals: attract attention and generate leads, expand their customer base, generate or increase online sales, increase brand awareness or credibility, and engage an online community of users. Content marketing attracts new customers by creating and sharing valuable free content as well as by helping companies create sustainable brand loyalty, providing valuable information to consumers, and creating a willingness to purchase products from the company in the future.

Social network advertising, also known as social media targeting, is a group of terms used to describe forms of online advertising and digital marketing focusing on social networking services. A significant aspect of this type of advertising is that advertisers can take advantage of users' demographic information, psychographics, and other data points to target their ads.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Social media marketing</span> Promotion of products or services on social media

Social media marketing is the use of social media platforms and websites to promote a product or service. Although the terms e-marketing and digital marketing are still dominant in academia, social media marketing is becoming more popular for both practitioners and researchers.

Internet branding is a brand management technique that uses the World Wide Web & Social Media Channels as a medium for positioning a brand in the marketplace. Branding is increasingly important with the advancements of the internet. Most businesses are exploring various online channels, which include search engine, social media, online press releases, online marketplace, to establish strong relationships with consumers and to build their brands awareness.

Virtual engagement is a metric to determine the level of affinity between a company and its customers.

Digital branding is a brand management technique that uses a combination of internet branding and digital marketing to develop a brand over a range of digital venues, including internet-based relationships, device-based applications or media content.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Corporate social media</span>

Corporate social media is the use of social media platforms, social media communications and social media marketing techniques by and within corporations, ranging from small businesses and tiny entrepreneurial startups to mid-size businesses and huge multinational firms. Within the definition of social media, there are different ways corporations utilize it. Although there is no systematic way in which social media applications can be categorized, there are various methods and approaches to having a strong social media presence.

Native advertising, also called sponsored content, partner content, and branded journalism, is a type of paid advertising that appears in the style and format of the content near the advertisement's placement. It manifests as a post, image, video, article or editorial piece of content. In some cases it functions like an advertorial. The word native refers to this coherence of the content with the other media that appear on the platform.

The reputation marketing field has evolved from the marriage of the fields reputation management and brand marketing, and involves a brand's reputation being vetted online in real-time by consumers leaving online reviews and citing experiences on social networking sites. With the popularity of social media in the new millennium reputation, vetting has turned from word-of-mouth to the digital platform, forcing businesses to take active measures to stay competitive and profitable.

Content writing services is a category of work that first surfaced in the early 1990s, due to an exponential rise in online activities. With the increasing importance of online presence for businesses, the demand for high-quality content has grown significantly. Content writing services are firms, companies or group of writers that provide services such as blog writing for websites, web content writing, marketing material content, white papers, research articles, proof reading services, infographic content, social media content, press releases, product descriptions, copywriting services, proofreading and editing and many more.

As of 2010, the largest internet enterprises in China were Baidu, Tencent, and Alibaba followed by Soso, Sogou, Bing, and Yahoo. In March 2010, Google which had been in the list from 2000, was forced to pull out from China because of a heated dispute with the Chinese Government regarding the censoring of search engine results.

Lead validation is the process by which sales leads generated by internet marketing campaigns are separated from other types of conversions. Lead validation is crucial for effective internet marketing management; without it, companies can neither accurately evaluate the results of, nor efficiently improve, their SEO, PPC, display advertising, email, content marketing and social media campaigns.

Social media use by businesses includes a range of applications. Although social media accessed via desktop computers offer a variety of opportunities for companies in a wide range of business sectors, mobile social media, which users can access when they are "on the go" via tablet computers or smartphones, benefit companies because of the location- and time-sensitive awareness of their users. Mobile social media tools can be used for marketing research, communication, sales promotions/discounts, informal employee learning/organizational development, relationship development/loyalty programs, and e-commerce.

References

  1. ↑ Tasker, Sara (2019). Hashtag Authentic: Be your best creative self via your Instagram online presence. White Lion Publishing.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Cioppi, Marco; Curina, Ilaria; Forlani, Fabio; Pencarelli, Tonino (20 November 2019). "Online presence, visibility and reputation: a systematic literature review in management studies". Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing. 13 (4): 547–577. doi:10.1108/JRIM-11-2018-0139. hdl:11576/2671593. S2CID   204365920. ProQuest   2314264686.
  3. ↑ Hanson, Kim (February–March 2006). "Should the Boss Be Blogging?". Strategic Communication Management. 10 (2).
  4. 1 2 Gandini, Alessandro (2020). "Reaching for the Stars: The Role and Value of Digital Reputation". NIM Marketing Intelligence Review. 12 (2): 18–21. doi: 10.2478/nimmir-2020-0012 . hdl: 2434/815746 .
  5. 1 2 Schmid, Ron. "Successful Communication Strategies for Reputation Management" (PDF). www.ashtontweed.com.
  6. ↑ van Doorn, Jenny; Lemon, Katherine N.; Mittal, Vikas; Nass, Stephan; Pick, Doreén; Pirner, Peter; Verhoef, Peter C. (August 2010). "Customer Engagement Behavior: Theoretical Foundations and Research Directions". Journal of Service Research. 13 (3): 253–266. CiteSeerX   10.1.1.848.769 . doi:10.1177/1094670510375599. S2CID   167862911. SSRN   2340164.
  7. ↑ Dellarocas, C (2010). "Online Reputation Systems: How to Design One That Does What You Need". MIT Sloan Management Review. 51 (3): 33-37. Retrieved 3 December 2020.
  8. ↑ Floreddu, Paola Barbara; Cabiddu, Francesca; Evaristo, Roberto (November 2014). "Inside your social media ring: How to optimize online corporate reputation". Business Horizons. 57 (6): 737–745. doi:10.1016/j.bushor.2014.07.007.
  9. ↑ Almohaimmeed, Bader M. A. (15 July 2019). "The Effects of Social Media Marketing Antecedents on Social Media Marketing, Brand Loyalty and Purchase Intention: A Customer Perspective". Journal of Business & Retail Management Research. 13 (4). doi: 10.24052/JBRMR/V13IS04/ART-13 .
  10. ↑ "List of Social Media Management Systems (SMMS) | Web Strategy by Jeremiah Owyang | Digital Business". web-strategist.com. 19 March 2010. Retrieved 9 August 2015.
  11. ↑ Dembosky, April (28 July 2011). "Social media management groups target top spot". Financial Times. Retrieved 13 November 2020.
  12. ↑ Burgess, Stephen (March 2016). "Representing small business web presence content: the web presence pyramid model". European Journal of Information Systems. 25 (2): 110–130. doi:10.1057/ejis.2015.4. S2CID   34295738.
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