Category: Reputation Management

Have you ever Googled your business and were taken a back?Digital trust is critical for any business. A single negative search result can impact customer, investor, or stakeholder decisions.

9 Reasons Why Influencer Marketing is Effective
Apart from celebrities, an influencer refers to anyone who has an influence over their established follower base on social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook or Snapchat, etc. Sure, a post from a celebrity can help you get better reach; but only an influencer can help you capture your target audience efficiently.

Here’s a list of 9 reasons why influencer marketing is effective:
Direct Hit on Target Audience: While brand image plays a significant role, a marketing strategy involves identifying and reaching out to the target audience with proper research. So, an influencer with authentic engagement is just the right fit for your brand to reach out to the target audience because of their vast followers.

Boosts your SEO: Search engine optimization improves the reach of the brand. A direct link to your brand’s website on an influencer’s blog can help drive traffic and boost your ranking online.

Improved Credibility: Influencers are generally viewed as 3^rd party, unbiased sources; hence their followers trust their advice. So, collaborating with relevant influencers not only strengthens brand reputation but also improves credibility. This helps brands build loyal brand advocates.

Adds Value: Since people search for information with facts, online reviews are a great source to fuel your marketing strategy. Hence, Influencer marketing is a great way to assure your audience that your product will add value to their lives.
Faster Customer Acquisition: As influencer marketing is inbound in nature, it can reach out to the target audience directly. So, the conversion rate is higher and hence it is an effective strategy.

Helps in Building Content Strategy: Getting fresh ideas every day is not an easy task but with the help of influencers, brands can create engaging content that resonates with the audience to stay relevant.

Bridges the Generation Gap: Brands can reach out to millennials and gen Z through influencer marketing.

You are in for the long haul: Influencer have earned the trust of their followers over a period of time and when these influencers endorse your brand the audience trust them. Influencer marketing is a brand building exercise that makes your audience believe in your brand.

Become a Trend Setter: When influencers feature brands and their products, other bloggers and sites make it popular by spreading the news. Thus, this helps influencers in setting trends.
Conclusion

To build long-term relationships with influencers, brands need to ensure that they pick influencers that match their values. Because the success of influencer marketing depends on the type of influencer a brand chooses to associate with.
November 3, 2021
5 Things to Look Out for While Searching For an Influencer

Finding the right influencer is not an easy task, and brands just cannot finalize an influencer based on the number of followers they have. It is important that marketers choose influencers that are brand-safe, productive, and engaging.

Here are the five key factors brands should consider while choosing influencers for their Influencer Marketing Campaigns:

What is their Reach?

Simple metrics like followers, subscribers, and views on influencers’ posts and videos can help brands determine their popularity. But brands need to be aware of bots and pods to eliminate fake accounts.

What is their Engagement?

Engagement is an important factor because it helps marketers determine how active an influencer’s audience is based on the likes, comments, and shares their content receives. It helps them understand how active an influencer’s audience is and how the audience reacts to their content.

How can they help lift the Brand?

People tend to trust and believe influencers they like. So, when brands make use of big influencers, they can significantly help boost their brand awareness.

On what platforms are they available?

There are several platforms where influencers post their content. Since each platform has its advantages and disadvantages, it is important for brands to consider influencers based on the brand’s business goals and objectives.

That being said, influencer marketing on Instagram is a $1 billion industry. While Facebook has a larger user base it’s not as popular for influencer marketing. Data like this should be considered before choosing the platform for your campaign.

What is their Reputation?

All public figures have different reputations based on how they project themselves to the world. Influencers with a good reputation will provide a boost in brand awareness, whereas influencers with a bad reputation can be unfavorable for your brand image. Hence brands need to be careful while choosing influencers.

Before choosing an influencer, brands need to research their target audience and ensure that the values of influencers match their brand values.

November 1, 2021
Top Podcast Directories That Can Increase Your Listener Base
You’ve got all the podcast equipment, you’ve chosen a platform, and you’ve even uploaded a few episodes with the hope of dominating the airwaves. But now you’re wondering why you have only a few listeners? Well, to increase your listener base; you need to expand your reach and this can be achieved by distributing your creations on podcast directories.

What is a Podcast Directory?

A podcast directory is an app that consists of various podcast shows where the audience can download, share, listen, and subscribe. Similar to search engines; listeners can access new entries by searching for titles and descriptions.

So, now you must be wondering to which directory should you submit your podcast? Well to make it easier for you, we’ve compiled a list of the best directories which can fetch you some new listeners.
iTunes / Apple Podcasts: Apple podcast, the Godfather of podcast directories makes up 75% of the global digital music market. The word out there is that if you want to be found at all you’ve got to be on apple podcasts; It’s that crucial. To get listed – you’ll need an iTunes account, then you’ve to undergo a registration process that involves meeting certain requirements. Finally, the approval process takes only a couple of weeks. Once your podcast is published, ensure to put relevant tags to increase your reach.

Spotify: Being the number 2 destination for podcast listening, it has more than 230 million monthly active users. Signing up on Spotify has other benefits such as – it provides an analysis of activities on your podcast. It shows which episodes are streamed the most, where people start and stop the episode, etc. This data can help you create more engaging content.
Stitcher: Stitcher was the alternative podcast especially for android users until google podcasts came along. It has over 7 million registered users and more than 60,000 podcasts. Stitcher also offers analytical tools that measure the monthly active users, listening time, stitcher rank, number of listens, etc., of the podcasts.

TuneIn: TuneIn is a famous platform amongst audiences who prefer listening to the news or sports content. It rose to popularity only because it could be accessed through almost all platforms and devices. It’s worth being on this podcast directory not just because it’s a radio platform but because it’s also the place from where Alexa accesses audio content. Through the TuneIn podcast submission form, it’s very easy and simple to get listed.
While there are many options out there, it’s imperative to choose the platform that suits your specific goals and KPIs.
October 23, 2021
How Short Video Formats Altered The Music Industry?
Digitization in the music industry has empowered new-generation singers to rise to popularity by enabling them to skip the common struggles involved in the process of becoming popular.

Applications like TikTok gave singers like Tai Verdes traction to gain the number one spot on Spotify for his song, “Stuck in the Middle,” when the stalwarts chose to ignore his talent. The features of these short video formats helped amateurs become overnight singing sensations.

While TikTok garnered 1 billion downloads in 2019, its growth was short-lived because of its ban, which was a blow – not to TikTok but to the underdogs of the music industry.

Nevertheless, other applications stepped in to fill the void with their short video features:
Instagram Reels: Probably the best bae of new millennials – Instagram, never disappointed its users. It was the first application to snatch the limelight with its Reels in 2020. The short video feature of Instagram comes with a robust music library and an array of cool effects for creating sensational, short, funny, and musical reels.

Firework: Maybe not as popular as Instagram but Firework stands out from its competitors in many ways. It can embed all your short video clips onto your website with a specially designed web player. This allows website visitors to directly interact with your Firework videos, bringing more traffic to your website.
Dubsmash: Who can forget Dubmash? Before TikTok made an entrance, Dubsmash was already ruling the world with 50 million downloads across 192 countries. Here, users can easily record videos of themselves lip-syncing to various audio clippings of their choice.

Chingari – We call it the ‘desi-version’ of TikTok. This original Indian short video app has all the features that TikTok had and many more. Chingari is gaining traction steadily, with over 2.5 million downloads in 2020.
How Short Videos Changed the Music Industry

The proverbial 15 seconds of fame initiated by TikTok showed the world how easy it is to become a virtual sensation overnight. Creators tapped into the opportunity to demonstrate their best musical talent online. Moreover, these apps resonate well with the stakeholders of the Indian Music Industry and others across the globe. The stakeholders are finding pools of raw talents and an opportunity to reach out to the global audience with their music.

These apps became their arsenals for promotion and revenue generation. Also, the fact that musical fame is no longer restricted to a chosen few in the industry is undeniable. Singers like Ranu Mondal and Sahdev are living examples.

It is undeniable that there are so many untamed talents in India and across the globe. But opportunities to make it big in the music industry always come with a price. However short video apps have made it possible for undiscovered talents to gain attention. This change has opened doors for raw talents to find quick fame for their music online.

Let us know what you think in the comments section below
October 23, 2021
Influencer Marketing: An Overview at Branding’s Next Big Thing
Influencer marketing has gained significance due to the high consumption of content on social media. It is known as branded content or collaborating with creators and it’s a surefire way to broaden your brand’s social media reach. When influencers take over a brand’s profile to create content, they not only attract the brand’s social media followers but also their own. By reaching out to new audiences, they increase brand awareness.
Why Brands Should Work with Influencers?

Influencers Create Engaging Content: Influencers have a huge fan base because of their interesting content. They create content that resonates with the audience and helps them in establishing a bonding of trust. This is excellent for brands because influencers create high-quality, user-generated content about their products, which the brands can re-share on their own platforms.

Influencers Know More About the Target Audience: Influencers spend years together to build a fan base of like-minded peers, so they know their audience better than anyone else. This audience knows their schedule for posting, they are aware of their perceptions and opinions, etc. So, being able to collaborate with such influencers offers a goldmine of opportunities that are too good to pass up for brands.

They Help in Building Brand Awareness and Brand Management: Influencers are great at increasing brand awareness and gaining market exposure, which is necessary for today’s oversaturated market. Using genuine and real influencers allows your product to benefit from the trust which they’ve built with the follower base.
How Influencer Marketing Can Help with Your Brand Reputation?

Enhances Your Social Media Presence: Influencers can spread a word or two about your brand throughout their social networks. They can share links to your website and social profiles with their vast numbers of followers. You may even reach a larger audience that does not follow you directly on social media.

Assists Brands in Getting New Company Leads: When hundreds and thousands of individuals hear of your brand, they may at least opt to try your products or services. They may contact you via phone or email or visit your website and book a service. In any case, you’re being exposed to an ever-growing number of eyes.

Increases Your Return on Investment: Running an ad on Facebook or Sponsoring a ‘tweet’ on Twitter may be costly, especially if you’re a startup. If you’re on a strict budget, influencer marketing is a cost-effective way to build and expand your brand’s online reputation. Your sole expense will be to pay or reward your influencers by offering exclusive discount coupons, freebies, or presents for helping your business.
Conclusion

The right channel, the right influencer, and the right strategy are just what your brand needs to help you build new and lasting relationships with your target audiences.

If you want a professional digital agency to take care of your influencer marketing campaign, drop us a line https://www.aiplexorm.com/ We will customize a campaign just for you.
October 23, 2021
5 Mistakes That Can Cost Millions to Influencers and Brands

According to GroupM INCA’s India Influencer Marketing Report, the Indian influencer marketing industry is projected to be valued at Rs. 900 crore by the end of 2021. The market is expected to grow at a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 25% till 2025 to reach a size of Rs. 2,200 crores.

Influencers are either paid in the form of money, free goods, or experiences for endorsing products or services of brands.

While it is important for brands to create memorable and successful campaigns, these are the 5 mistakes that both brands and influencers should avoid.

5 Mistakes Influencers and Brands Should Avoid

These mistakes could cost millions of rupees, brand reputation, and audience trust:

Inadequate Disclosure: According to ASCI guidelines, influencers must disclose promotional posts with hashtags: #ad, #collab, #promo, #sponsored, and #partnership; to enable viewers to distinguish between promotional and organic content. Also, filters should not be applied to posts if they are exaggerating the claims of brands like “makes skin fairer” or “teeth whiter” etc. So, it’s advisable for influencers to do their due diligence because failing to do so could result in serious consequences.

Inauthenticity: When customers trust and feel connected to the influencers, only then will they listen to their advice. Product promotions when done excessively could leave the audience doubting influencers’ authenticity. So, to create a good impression on brands and the audience, influencers should focus on growing organically. To avoid reputational damages, they should determine if the particular brand is a good fit and ensure that they share the same values.

Overemphasis: Controlling an influencer’s content, asking for excessive product mentions, and instructing influencers to follow scripts will only result in diminishing viewer enjoyment. When a product is mentioned too many times, the viewers could be left wondering – if the product is substandard. Hence, influencers should be given creative freedom to produce content their viewers will enjoy.

Brand Fatigue: When brands instruct influencers in the same community to post similar endorsements repeatedly, they end up reducing the effectiveness of the campaign. Organizations should focus on scheduling, and they should restrain from choosing influencers from the same community. This not only reduces brand fatigue but also allows influencers to create content for a variety of endorsements.

Overindulgence: Influencers who make endorsements of free merchandise or luxury holidays – they received, could be perceived as less trustworthy. Hence, brands should also focus on giveaways to other communities through competitions or other activities. Also, the expensive influencer incentives can result in increasing the cost price of these brands’ products and thus reduce the number of returning customers.

Brands and influencers should carefully consider what they’re getting into before saying yes to the first thing on their table.

October 23, 2021
Why Brand Intelligence Is Critical to Your Reputation
Your brand is “the promise” you make to keep your customer’s loyalty and build their trust. Currently, the threat landscape in the digital space is vast with cybercriminals attacking your brand through typosquatting websites, command-and-control attacks, and data leaks. The consequences of these attacks are not just limited to financial losses but a widespread distrust and loss of credibility amongst the customers.

The security professionals are blindsided and they do not know when or how these cybercriminals plan on launching their next attack. This is because they have zero visibility on the network outside their organization. An effective brand protection solution should prevent cyberattacks altogether instead of trying to locate the ones that have already damaged the brand’s integrity.

Monitoring Isn’t Enough: Just looking out for brand mentions isn’t sufficient to protect your brand from cyberattacks. While brand monitoring is a great tool to identify brand mentions, it is unlike brand intelligence which can shield you from cybercriminals.

The Brand Intelligence Solution

Brand intelligence is an upgrade of brand monitoring because its focuses on surfacing those mentions that are relevant and actionable. Simply put, it strategically highlights those mentions of your products and organization which point out that your brand is potentially vulnerable. This includes leaked data, phishing, and copycat domains. Brand intelligence allows the cybersecurity team to take measures against threats in real-time before they can cause harm to the business.

Features Of Brand Intelligence Module

Business Intelligence provides visibility on threats by collecting data through various open and closed sources. It helps brands take down malicious content online and proactively provides context to safeguard against cyberthreats. Further, it helps brands take actions against the following:
- Domain Abuse: Business intelligence provides alerts about typo squatting and copycat websites as soon as they are registered. Brands can dig deeper into these IDs or domains based on the information provided through the software and initiate a takedown immediately.
- Data & Credential Leaks: The software processes information from various sites; even from the ones that sell sensitive information. Then it provides instant alerts on any leakages involving your brand.
- Infrastructure Risk: It helps secure your network by providing alerts on threats concerning your domains and IP addresses.
- Industry Threats: It helps you safeguard your brand and infrastructure by alerting you about the emerging threats in your industry or on an organization that is similar to yours. This can help you take measures to defend against cybercriminals when you become their next target.
While risk assessment tools like security certificate verifications and financial audits are crucial, they aren’t timely and lack context. But with brand intelligence software, organizations can take preemptive measures to protects themselves against such threats.
September 20, 2021
Business Success with Personal Branding

Each of us is unique and has a brand in ourselves. Your brand is what people think of you when they hear your name or what they talk about you. Online personal branding goes a little beyond that. It is what pops up in search results when people look for you and what your presence across social media looks like.

For any brand, it can be challenging to stand out from the crowd. There are multiple platforms across the web and finding an apt and relevant way to connect with your audience is not easy. Your personal brand is not just about you, it’s your chance to narrate your story. It goes beyond fancy logos, stylish fonts, or the products and services you sell. Branding is also about the customer experience you provide, your business ethics, and your culture. A brand relates to the feelings it can evoke in a consumer. Unique, authentic, trustworthy, and professional is what you need to be.

How do you build a brand that is exquisite, popular, and trusted all at the same time?

Just like Rome wasn’t built in a day, building your personal brand also requires time and effort to be invested in it to ensure it is successful and different from the clutter.

Here’s how you can easily and effectively build your personal brand.

Understand, explain and define your brand.

The first step to progress is figuring out who you are and what your goals are. Your personal brand is a reflection of who you are and what you do. Hence, it’s important to determine information regarding your expertise, your positives, what holds you back, what you want to accomplish, and what change you want to bring about around you. Once you have answers to these, it is easy to embark on a journey of personal branding and success.

Identify and determine your unique value proposition

To stand out from the crowd, you need to leverage your differences. This is where your unique value proposition comes into play. To define your unique offerings, you simply must understand your strengths and talk about them. Highlight them effectively and efficiently across all branding platforms. To let your uniqueness help you thrive, you also need to apply it to your business to ensure you achieve great results.

Define who your audience is

While we would all like to appeal to the masses, it’s critically important to define your niche and work to appeal to your target audience. When it comes to personal branding or branding of any sort, it’s important to align your personal niche with your business. Identifying your audience and catering to them exclusively not only helps improve customer relations but helps to focus your resources and efforts on this high-value niche segment.

Develop your content strategy.

Content is not the only king but also rules the kingdom. Customers connect with brands not only for the products or services they provide but even for the content that brands curate. Valuable, helpful, and innovative content is what helps customers stay glued to a particular brand. Your content strategy should be based on research and should be flexible as per the marketing trends. Sharing a variety of content across multiple platforms improves your brand value and also increases your visibility.

Optimize your personal website, social profiles, build a community and add value to your audience.

In the world of the web and technology, everyone wants to access a profile or a brand that is easily accessible and engaging. It’s imperative to ensure your website, social profiles are all optimized and updated. Interacting with your audience, adding value through information, services, and products is the best way to retain them. Start building a community, where you interact with your audience and fellow brands. Getting to know each other and helping each other is an excellent way to differentiate yourself and also generate business.

Building a personal brand may seem like a lot of hard work but the payoff is indeed enormous. So, whether you are looking to generate leads, accelerate your career, find a job or a mentor, personal branding is your road ahead.

July 29, 2021
Tips For Schools to Manage and Succeed With Their ORM

Education is one of the key pillars of a sustainable future. It shapes children of today into the citizens of tomorrow by inculcating knowledge and societal traits into their minds in the best possible way. Parents today are very particular about the schools they choose for their kids. More than the investment they must make in terms of fees and other expenses, their focus is to give the best to their kids. Just as in any other sector, the internet is a primary source through which parents search about schools and get to know about them before deciding to make the move for admissions. Additionally, qualified teachers lookout for schools with better reviews as their potential employers.

As such maintaining an online reputation has a direct impact on the enrollment numbers, the quality of teaching staff that can be hired, and the prospects of growth for the school. However, it is not an easy task as most schools do not have the resources or know-how on how to get ahead in their online presence. But it is not an impossible task as well.

Here are a few tips to help schools manage and succeed with their online reputation:

Have a web presence

The first step in building a positive online reputation is to ensure the authentic presence of your school in the entire web landscape where parents search for information and reviews. You can begin with an SEO-optimized website, set up listings on popular review and check‑in sites like Google, Yelp, etc., and ensure information to contact the school authorities is clearly available in as few steps as possible for parents. Your website too can have a review section that allows parents to review the performance of the school and these reviews can impact decisions of future admissions.

Be active on social media

With nearly 55% of the global population active in some form of social media, it is an avenue a school cannot miss out on creating a presence. Maintain official pages of the school on popular social media such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc. It is the best place to identify sentiments about the school and one of the first areas to focus on while making announcements or responding to reviews and public comments about the school.

Engage with content

Be it your website or your social media channels, schools need to have a defined content calendar where they continuously update their web presence with new content. It could be in the form of blogs, informative news announcements, discussions on socially relevant topics where schools can take a lead in bringing about change, and much more. By constantly creating a buzz, a school can enjoy a steady stream of traffic to their websites as well as social media channels, and ultimately this traffic can translate into newer admissions in the future.

Have a response framework

Online reviews and comments on social media have the potential to wreak havoc on the reputation of any organization and schools are no different. Delays in responding to sentiments or failure to pro-actively put out statements on relevant topics of interest can result in severe backlash. To prevent this, schools need to have a responsive framework that holds a set of pre-written communication templates that they can pick and deploy as a response to online engagements. It could be a response to a comment on social media or a negative or positive review on Google Listings, an announcement for crisis management in times like the COVID 19 pandemic, and so on.

Creating a solid online reputation is important for schools to ensure sustained growth for their future. It may not be possible to have this entire activity managed in-house. This is when specialized agencies can help create the best online reputation for your school across all channels.

Get in touch with us to explore more.

July 22, 2021