Having a good reputation is paramount to maintaining a successful business. A strong and positive digital presence not only protects your brand but also highlights your strengths and abilities.
Online reputation management (ORM) is a strategy that brands use to take control of and shape their online narrative.
This is especially important for financial service firms, where success is directly tied to reputation.
For these firms, ORM isn’t just about avoiding negative perceptions, but also amplifying strengths, showcasing thought leadership, and presenting the firm as a trusted partner in financial matters.
Entrusting someone with your family’s financial well-being to help make the most informed decisions is precious.
The Role of Online Reputation Management in the Financial Industry
In the finance industry, reputation is everything. Financial firms must proactively build and manage their online presence to ensure that their online narrative accurately represents their strengths and capabilities.
A positive online reputation is essential for growth and visibility. For instance, if an ultra-high-net-worth investor recommends a firm to a friend, the first thing the friend will do is look it up online. The days of remaining anonymous and low-key are over.
An example of a firm managing its reputation well is Nationwide Banking Society. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the company extended repayment deadlines for financially struggling customers.
This act of empathy not only strengthened the firm’s reputation but also fostered greater client loyalty and long-term relationships.
Core Components of Online Reputation Management for Financial Services
ORM has five core components: building and promoting positive digital assets, monitoring and listening, crisis management, review management, and employee advocacy.
1. Build Positive Digital Assets
Content marketing and SEO are essential to building a firm’s reputation online. By creating high-quality content that showcases expertise, thought leadership articles, press releases, and updated websites, financial firms can increase their visibility and improve their search rankings.
This is how firms can ensure that when potential clients search for their services, they find a strong, positive representation of their business.
Optimizing content marketing and SEO involves creating high-quality content that incorporates search engine optimization to improve search rankings.
Effective SEO practices amplify positive content, allowing firms to stand out in a crowded marketplace.
Many firms have a negative perception of SEO because they have worked with agencies that delivered lackluster results.
But true SEO requires in-depth strategies, including creating hundreds of directory listings, answering industry-related questions on Quora, and implementing targeted public relations campaigns to amplify positive news and social impact initiatives.
2. Monitor and Listen
Proactively monitoring and listening to online conversations helps businesses stay ahead of potential issues.
By tracking reviews, social media posts, and client feedback, firms can identify emerging concerns before they escalate into reputation crises.
This proactive approach enables companies to guide their online sentiment, ensuring they control the narrative and highlight their strengths.
3. Crisis Management
Crises can emerge in various forms: from disgruntled employees to anonymous online attacks or even mistaken identity.
For example, an individual with the same name as a Blue Ocean Global Technology client, an investment advisor, was convicted of tax evasion.
The advisor was unaware of the issue until clients began associating him with the crime. Being proactive in ORM helps firms address these types of issues before they escalate.
The first part of crisis management involves developing a crisis communication plan, which allows companies to handle reputational crises most efficiently.
Without a plan, companies waste valuable time determining what they should do in the heat of the moment.
Knowing what to do during a reputation crisis allows companies to protect their brand image in challenging times.
4. Review Management
Review management is the process of tracking, analyzing, and responding to reviews, allowing companies to understand trends and actively shape their reputation.
The first part of review management involves deciding which sites to focus on.
Due to the numerous platforms to monitor simultaneously, companies should select those most relevant to their needs.
The second part of review management involves creating strategies to encourage positive reviews.
These include providing excellent customer service and offering exemplary products and incentives for leaving reviews.
The third part of review management involves responding to negative reviews: many sites offer a space where business owners can reply to reviews.
Interacting with customers in this way shows a sense of sincerity and willingness to improve. Analyzing customer sentiment and feedback is an effective way to eliminate blind spots and provide better overall service.
5. Employee Advocacy
Using employees as brand ambassadors is a highly effective way to boost a company’s reputation. Employee advocacy involves creating positive social media posts about the brand, writing positive reviews, and discussing the brand with others.
Encouraging employee engagement on social media is important, as real stories from real people have a positive impact on a brand’s reputation.
Even though a brand-curated social media presence is effective in shaping a good reputation, customers trust real people even more.
Employees should be trained in online reputation management to promote the brand and boost its online reputation effectively.
3 Best Practices for Financial Service Firms
– Compliance and Regulation
For financial service firms, reputation is especially important because the financial service sector is highly regulated, and a bad online reputation is likely to attract unwanted scrutiny from regulatory bodies.
On the other hand, a good reputation can demonstrate that a financial service firm is committed to adhering to industry regulations and compliance standards.
Historically, compliance concerns prevented many firms from proactively managing their online reputation.
However, in today’s digital age, avoiding ORM due to compliance concerns lacks merit. Firms must embrace a structured approach to digital presence to remain competitive.
Successfully managing privacy and security concerns is also important for building a good reputation and customer trust.
A company with a history of data leaks, for example, is often deemed untrustworthy, and customers may avoid it for fear of placing their data at risk.
– Build Trust and Transparency
Transparency is an incredibly effective tool for building trust. If customers know what a company is doing and where their money is going, they trust it more than a non-transparent one
A company can also build trust by sharing expertise and knowledge with its customers. This establishes the company as a thought leader and shows that the company is not just providing a service but is also giving back to the community.
Beyond client trust, a firm’s digital presence also influences how it is perceived by investors and potential partners.
As Alex Jenkins, Vice President at Avantis Investors, explains: “In the ultra-competitive and consolidating RIA industry, firms that seek to grow through acquisition and organically are making strategic investments in their digital presence. Beyond attracting clients, a strong online reputation also plays a crucial role in negotiations with investors and potential buyers. Firms with a well-managed digital presence are perceived as lower-risk and more forward-thinking, which can lead to better valuation and smoother deal-making.“
– Measure and Improve Reputation
Measuring online reputation can seem daunting, but key metrics used include:
- Volume and quality of online reviews
- Web traffic
- Customer engagement
- SEO ranking
- Sentiment analysis
Tracking reputation over time is an important component of a successful ORM strategy, allowing companies to assess their effectiveness.
By analyzing key reputation metrics, businesses can refine their approach: negative trends indicate a failing strategy, while positive trends confirm their success.
Setting up Google Analytics and other analytics tools is essential for monitoring these trends, measuring progress, and making necessary adjustments to strengthen reputation management efforts.
Conclusion
ORM is a structured approach to shaping a firm’s digital presence. Many clients may never visit a firm’s office, but they will continually visit its online profile.
AI and emerging tools are revolutionizing ORM, offering new ways to track sentiment and engage with clients. Firms must remain adaptable and proactive in managing their online reputation, ensuring their digital narrative accurately represents their expertise and values.
