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SERM overview

In this article I want to tell how and why companies manage their reputation on the Internet. There are different ways to manage reputation, but I want to tell you about SERM, this is the most popular and effective way for small and medium-sized companies. If you spell out an abbreviation, SERM is a search engine reputation management system . SERM is a whole range of actions that aims to increase positive reviews in the top 10 (less often the top 20) in search results, as well as to work with negative reviews and publications.



In Russia, SERM is not yet as popular as in the west, but over the past 3 years business owners have begun to think about it more often, and seo specialists have introduced it as an additional service. Some people confuse SERM with ORM or crowd marketing, but these are completely different services that have different goals.

In which cases you need to attract specialists:


SERM specialists perform the following functions:


Reputation management specialists track all negatives about the company and try to get rid of it in various ways. Most often, a site with a negative review is easier to push out from the TOP 10 of the search results, but not always. Sometimes you have to negotiate with the site administration to delete the review, if there is evidence that the review is fake.

How to independently conduct a reputation audit


Any business owner can see the state of his reputation at the current time, and then decide whether you need to hire a specialist to improve his reputation.

Find in the search engine yourself using template prefixes


The easiest way to superficially see where the reviews are about you and what more, positive or negative. Simple open Yandex and Google search engine and enter the following: "company name + reviews", "company name + customer reviews", "company name + whether", also worth checking the reviews at your site: "website address + reviews".


Analyze requests in WordStat and find with them negative requests about your company


Go to the website wordstat.yandex.ru and enter the name of your company and look for requests that are negative.



Scrolling less than half of the page, I found the very requests that we need. More than 300 requests per month on the topic “Rocketbank Divorce” and if you go deeper, there will still be requests with the prefixes “catch”, “customer divorce”, “throw”, etc. For these requests, we should check what Yandex and Google give out, and then look for a solution on how to correct this situation.



If these requests will be fake reviews or articles, then you should contact the site owner with a request to remove them. If no one is going to delete them and you have evidence that these are fake reviews, then you can go to court, which in most cases stands on the side of the organization. However, the costs of lawyers start from 30 thousand rubles for such a thing and only large companies can afford to delete reviews in this way.

Use special services that look for negative information in search engines


Such services will be able to find a negative review, even if it is located far beyond the TOP 50 and posted recently. Ask why look for reviews that are not located in the TOP 10-20? Everything is very simple, it is easier to work with fresh reviews, you can give an official response from the company and if there is no subsequent answer, you can ask the moderators to remove the review, referring to the fact that the review was fake and the client has never applied for conflict resolution.

I will not recommend a specific site, it is better to choose it yourself, as they differ greatly in price and functionality.

Where to write new reviews


For each area of ​​business there will be its own platforms where you need to leave feedback or leave references to the company. Also, you should always consider linking a business to a specific region and be sure to use local portals, forums, etc. to post comments.

In spite of the fact that all the list of sites will differ, there are common ones on which it will definitely be located and create a positive image of the company there until the dissatisfied customer or competitor has done so.

The list of sites where you must necessarily accommodate any company:



The largest sites with reviews


On these sites it is worth posting reviews in the very first place, because they are quickly indexed by search engines and in just a few days can be in the TOP 3 issue.

Nuances: You can’t post too much reviews, give 5+ ratings everywhere, forget to point out flaws and post reviews with the same IP. If you ignore these rules, then your company may go to the bank as a “reputation for yourself” and your image will be damaged even more than before. Sites that are engaged in the placement of reviews have become more careful to monitor the truthfulness of reviews, therefore

Sites like "Question-answer"


Very powerful tool, thanks to which you can change the attitude to your company. You can buy upgraded accounts or order on the stock exchange to leave a specific question about your company, and then you would gradually answer them.

This method is useful to take advantage of companies that hire a huge number of employees. You can create a topic with questions about the work in your company, what are the conditions of the pipe, how to pay and whether they are not fraudsters. Then everything is simple, write the answers that will expose your company from the best side. There are a lot of “Question-Answer” type sites, but “Answers@mail.ru” is the fastest in search, so I advise you to start with it.



Organization cards:


In many search engines there are cards of organizations that contain the most important information about the company, its rating and users can leave reviews on the same cards. Some people forget to keep track of these cards, but in vain, since in almost any search query with the name of your company it will instantly appear.



Where are the negative reviews coming from?


Before hiring reputation managers, it’s best to first find out where negative reviews are coming from. If you know exactly who does this, it will be easier to deal with bad reviews.

Most negative reviews write:

Real customers you have inconvenience.


In any, even the largest and well-established business, there are situations when a client is unhappy, insulted or even deceived. It does not always depend on the business owner, as it’s not possible to keep track of everything, but thanks to negative reviews on the Internet you can find out about the shortcomings of your business or about employees who do not do their job well or even deceive you.

Competitors


We all know perfectly well that there is always at least one dishonest person out of competitors who, for profit, is ready to destroy other people's businesses by any means. Earlier they started rumors, but now they write fake reviews that can seriously harm even the most honest organization.

How to fight: Ideally, you need to find someone who does it and prove it so that the sites that have negative reviews delete them. If this does not work, then you have to spend

The life story of crime and punishment
In the neighboring town there is a very well-known hand-made hunting knives company, which is known all over Russia and at one point a competitor decided to tarnish their reputation and take fake photos, the manufacturer supposedly makes a direct marriage and buy knives there. After taking photos, he posted them on a well-known hunting forum, where the topic was quickly overgrown with negative comments in the direction of the manufacturer.



But, not so much time passed as this fake review was revealed. One of the forum users decided for some reason to look at the properties of the photo and it turned out that the photos have GPS coordinates of the place where they were taken. According to the coordinates, it became clear that there was a setup here, since the photos were taken in the same city where the knives are made.



Since the city is very small and everyone knows each other, they very quickly found out who did it. Later, the author apologized for a video that has already been deleted. The reputation of the company was restored, and on this topic they turned out good PR, as the attendance of the forum is crazy, and the topic turned out to be the hottest and most discussed.

Your employees


I learned about this from my experience that current or former employees may, because of anger, envy or any other reason, write a negative review or even make a publication in a serious publication / blog. Current employees rarely do this, but those dismissed in disgrace or deceived by the employer do so with joy. They are afraid of them, because they have serious trumps up their sleeve, they have worked for you and know all the flaws of the organization, having told about which you can not only lose clients, but also attract visits from the authorities.

How to fight

There are two ways: either to be a fair and honest person so that even the dismissed employees do not feel offended, or make great efforts to hide negative reviews and spend money on it.

How to deal with negative reviews


In fact, there are not so many ways to remove or hide negative reviews, but I will list the main ones that SERM specialists use.


How to create a positive company reputation without SERM


You can create an ideal reputation for a company without a SERM specialist, if you have enough time and you are confident in your business that it does not have serious flaws.

Getting positive feedback is not so easy, because customers who are satisfied with everything leave feedback less often than those who were disappointed in your company. But this is not a reason to write positive reviews yourself, you just need to find a way to encourage customers to leave feedback about your company. You can simply ask to leave their feedback after the purchase, or send an email newsletter, but this is not the most effective way. It is best to offer them any bonus or discount for the next purchase. For example, the online store Tehnoport gives a discount of 200 rubles the next purchase, if you leave any feedback about them on the Yandex market.

How to find a good specialist


A good SERM specialist can be easily distinguished from an amateur by several signs:

Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/414961/

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