The Importance of Proactively Protecting Your Image on the Internet
In the practice of law, there’s simply nothing more important than your reputation. It’s a profession built on trust and your success will ultimately be tied to whether prospective clients have faith in your skills, knowledge, and abilities.
In the days before the internet, it was relatively easier to protect your reputation—that has changed significantly. With the vast number of online media for customer reviews— social media platforms, websites, search engines—one review by a disgruntled former client has the potential to reach a huge audience. When you consider that more than 8 of every 10 persons say they trust an online review as much as they trust a recommendation from a friend, the importance of a favorable online reputation comes quickly into focus.
Fortunately, there are tools available to help you with online reputation management (ORM).
Understanding Online Reputation Management
In this series, we’ll look at three aspects of ORM. First, we’ll carefully explain what it is and how it will benefit you and your firm. Next, we’ll look at why your practice needs ORM. Finally, we’ll take you through a step-by-step process to ensure that your good name gets out to prospective clients on the internet.
ORM typically has two components. The first component involves tools and strategies to monitor, track, or identify feedback/reviews about your and/or your practice. Once feedback has been observed, the ORM tools have the capability to influence that feedback. Your ORM tool should have the ability to flag review on a wide range of online platforms, including:
- Search engines, such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, Ask.com, and AOL.com
- Social media networks, from Facebook and Twitter to LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Reddit
- Review sites, including Google My Business, Avvo, Yelp, and Angie’s List
How Does Reputation Management Work?
ORM integrates a number of functions to help present your practice favorably on the internet:
- The tool actively monitors content across the web, looking for any reviews or feedback where you or your firm is named. If the review is positive, the reputation management tool will typically distribute the review to other online channels, so that the positive feedback becomes more prevalent online. The better ORM products allow you to collect and see all of your reviews on a single page. You can also collect all positive reviews on a single site, which can be indexed by Google and other search engines.
- The ORM tool typically flags unfavorable or spam reviews. With the right ORM tool, you can quickly challenge a negative review and may even be able to keep misleading, false, or intentionally harmful posts from being seen on your website or on some social medial platforms.
- ORM also provides a means for soliciting or encouraging positive reviews from satisfied clients. Typically, that involves either an automatic request that goes to your clients or the opportunity to collect e-mail addresses for periodic requests for reviews. Many ORM products allow you to obtain feedback from a mobile device, making it easy to get real-time endorsements from satisfied clients.
GetLegal Offers Comprehensive Online Reputation Management for Attorneys
At GetLegal, we have provided comprehensive online marketing services to lawyers and law firms for more than a decade. Our powerful Catalyst reputation management product helps ensure that prospective clients have exposure to positive reviews of your practice. To learn more about how we can help you maintain a good reputation online, call us at 817-359-7077 or use our convenient online form.