We have now covered what ORM is, what ORM tools there are and advantages and disadvantages of Online Reputation Management. Now, apart from damage control and monitoring who’s bad-mouthing your brand, you can also engage with online communities to create awareness for your brand.

This is why it is very important to assess your brand and company name before jumping onto the online wagon and wasting your money. Some brands like SABC or Vodacom (and definitely BP at the moment) need to manage and monitor their online reputation because people will always have opinions on big brands such as these. But what do you do if your brand is aimed at a very specific audience or is not well known? Do you sit back? No!

Smaller brands need to take hold of this opportunity to build brand awareness in the same places where people are taking part in relevant conversations about their product or service. Create a Twitter profile, Facebook Fan page or blog to offer platforms for your consumers to engage with you and voice their opinions.

Also, go find conversations relevant to your brand and join in! You can use existing ORM tools to do this or manually search specific keywords to find these conversations. Comment on blog posts and share interesting content. You will soon build up a following and create awareness of your cause, product or service where it is relevant.

This does not mean that big brands cannot do this as well! Any brand whose audience engages online should be right there, by their side, joining in and getting to know their consumer better!

Know that brand awareness does not happen over night and will take a lot of your time!

Check out this funny video which describes how your consumer has evolved:

Read more posts by Yolandi Janse van Rensburg

Yolandi is writer of the Heavy Chef Blog. Cutting a swath through the male dominated ranks of motor journalists, Yolandi has staked her claim with her automotive blog “Autofemme”. Our 'Heavy Chef Girl' is also a copywriter and community manager at web marketing firm, World Wide Creative. You can find Yolandi on Twitter @Yolandi_JvR

Related posts:

1. Online Reputation Management – Advantages & Disadvantages for your companyhttp://www.heavychef.com/online-reputation-management-advantages-disadvantages-for-your-company/
2. Online Reputation Management Tools: The good, the bad and the ugly
3. Ensuring Online Reputation Management isn’t a waste of time
4. Online Reputation Management – Is it worth it?
5. Snow Angels, Speedos, The Rolling Stones and Online Reputation Management