By AMSCO

A brand is only as strong as its public perception and reputation amongst both its competition and its customers. This straightforward principle rings true throughout all industries, especially the aesthetic and wellness space. In the past, small or independent businesses could focus their marketing efforts and brand-building initiatives on more traditional means such as billboards, pamphlets, or even good old-fashioned word-of-mouth. However, today's world is a little different. Although many of these means of engaging with customers are still relevant in the modern business environment, building a strong reputation, online reputation management (ORM) has become paramount to the success of any small business. While a less established method of brand-building than many of the classic examples listed above, ORM has developed into being the primary strategy for brands looking to grow and improve their reputation, both nationally and locally, among consumers. So, what exactly does this entail?

ORM overview

ORM is more than just a fancy way to say marketing or advertising. The scope of ORM involves monitoring the information field, addressing online mentions of the brand, social media marketing, search engine reputation management (SERM), public relations, influencer marketing and removing unwanted information from your digital space. In its pure essence, ORM focuses on and prioritizes the process of actively managing the public perception of a business.

While this may sound like public relations (PR), there are key differences between the two philosophies. As defined by the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), "The primary purpose of public relations is influencing, engaging and building relationships with key stakeholders across numerous platforms to shape and frame the public perception of an organization." In contrast, ORM strategies don't involve the public-facing aspect of PR, instead concentrating on behind-the-scenes strategies such as search engine optimization (SEO), content creation and online review management.

ORM differentiates itself by focusing primarily on your brand’s online content and search results related to your company, while PR concentrates on building relationships and securing positive media coverage. According to Chad Angle, Forbes Business Council contributor and head of ReputationDefender at Gen Digital, "Online reputation management is about crafting and controlling how you're perceived online. With how we use social media, review sites and digital news platforms changing rapidly, proactively implementing effective ORM strategies is one of the most important ways to ensure you are characterized accurately online." In short, implementing the proper ORM strategy for your business can help shape how customers perceive your brand, influence their buying decisions and impact your med spa's overall success. Of course, while this all sounds great based on textbook definitions, by now you are probably wondering, "How do I actually implement and apply these strategies to my business?" Well, it's a little more complicated than what you may think.

Implementing a successful ORM strategy

Creating a valuable ORM strategy that works towards building and maintaining your brand's image is a multi-faceted process. It involves monitoring your digital footprint, engaging with your customers/audience online by sharing insights and information they find useful, handling customer feedback, implementing basic SEO practices, and thought leadership via educational content to increase your credibility. While that all may sound overwhelming, each of these principles can be broken down into small, actionable tasks. 

For example, monitoring your brand’s digital footprint can be done by googling your business and implementing tools such as Google Alerts, social media monitoring platforms and investing in professional ORM services. According to experts at Forbes Business Council, "Tools like Hootsuite and Mention can track mentions and conversations about you and your brand across multiple social networks." This makes monitoring what your clients are saying about your business a less daunting task.

Building an online community

When it comes to engaging with your customers/audience online, your brand can do this in several ways. One of the best ways is through personalization, which involves figuring out your customers’ needs, anticipating them and understanding their preferences to show them you are paying attention to what they are looking for. This helps your brand build an online community full of existing customers as well as potential customers. According to research conducted by the University of Michigan, "Members of brand communities spend 19% more money compared to ordinary customers." This can be through loyalty programs, offering promos for products/services that go well with their most frequently purchased items, or even making helpful suggestions about additional services or products they should be using based on that specific customer purchasing habits at your spa.

Additionally, creating content that is aimed at educating your customers instead of simply trying to get them to buy services/products from you can be another great way to help engage with them, since it makes people feel like you’re providing more value to their lives without creating pressure to buy.

Engaging with customer feedback

In today's digital-driven world, many customers seek interaction with their favorite brands and businesses online. Unfortunately, this can lead to late responses and miscommunication when not handled in a timely fashion. According to HubSpot research, "63% of social media users expect a response from a brand within one hour. If they don't receive a response within this time frame, they may leave negative reviews, refuse to purchase products in the future, or not recommend the brand/business to their friends and family." In contrast with that, quick responses to customer feedback or questions encouraged roughly 34% of users to make additional purchases based on current data. This demonstrates just how valuable timely and useful communication can be when you are looking to improve your business’s online reputation. 

With that being said, not all communication is built equally. Using automated chatbots to fulfill this key part of ORM and addressing customer feedback often backfires and makes clients feel more disconnected from your brand. Nikita Prokhorov, online reputation and communication expert and partner in Arctic Ventures, recommends that brands "Take an individual approach to communication with customers." According to her and her firm’s experience, brands should instead seek to create a response map or matrix to help guide a business’s employees when communicating with clientele. This includes creating guidelines regarding tone of voice, answer templates for frequently asked questions and general tips for communicating with customers. Doing this gives your staff an easy-to-follow roadmap of how they should address customer feedback without sounding like they're reading directly off a script, giving customers a sense of personalization while still being able to address any concerns in a timely manner.

Boosting your business’s SEO

As previously mentioned, implementing good SEO practices can ensure your positive content ranks well in search results. The essential goal of any good SEO strategy is to elevate your business’s visibility and drive organic traffic to your website. This is accomplished by making sure your website has relevant keywords targeted towards local consumers (“Botox near me,” “aesthetic,” “spa,” etc.), optimizing your website speed, optimizing organic search results and creating backlinks from other relevant websites that lead to yours. Perhaps the most important components of this are your organic search results, which help your business appear as a top result when search engine users are typing words relevant to what your aesthetic center specializes in. Further demonstrating the importance of organic search results, research from BrightEdge, a top enterprise SEO platform, suggests that "Organic search accounts for 53% of all online traffic and contributes 44% of revenue share."

So, how exactly do you implement a successful SEO strategy? Here are some common tips to get you started according to Brian Kessell, digital marketing manager and SEO specialist at Salesforce:

• SEO is not only for Google: While, of course, your site should look good on Google, depending on your audience, other sites may be equally as valuable (or more so), including sites such as Amazon, Reddit, Yelp, YouTube, Instagram, etc. Figuring out which sites you should focus on is a great start.
• SEO effects are not instant: If you are in the early stages of building your SEO strategy, expect to wait at least six months before seeing results. Laying a strong foundation in the first few months and being consistent with your SEO efforts will make the process easier down the line.
• Target the right keywords: Plan your online content with keywords specific to your business. Keyword research tools such as Ahrefs, SEMRush, AnswerThePublic or BuzzSumo can help you choose the best keywords to use to help your audience find you.
• Write for humans first, search engines second: Engaging and relevant content that incorporates the targeted keyword will entice people to stay on your website and interact with more content. Consider answering popular questions relevant to your business while avoiding irrelevant keywords or content that is stuffed with the same keyword.
• Utilize local search to your advantage: According to Sagapixel data, almost half of all the searches on Google are for local businesses. When doing local search optimization, be sure to claim your Google Business page. This will help you show up on Google Maps and "near me" searches.

Thought leadership

Tying into these principles is the last aspect of ORM: thought leadership. This involves educating your customers in your industry or company, creating a personal brand based on your values, establishing social proof behind your brand, creating and publishing content, and having a point of view on issues concerning your industry. Candice Georgiadis, social media influencer and founder of Digital Day Inc., suggests, "Business owners can become a thought leader in their industry by being an expert on a particular topic or subject. You can do this by sharing your knowledge and experiences with others, creating content that is easy to share and having a point of view that is unique from others in your field." While it may be difficult to develop a unique point of view regarding your industry, a good starting point is to aim for topics/opinions that may be considered controversial. Of course, this doesn't refer to offensive opinions, but rather stances on hot-button issues within your industry that are contrary to the consensus belief. This can be accomplished by looking at solutions the industry currently offers consumers and asking the daring question, "Is there a better solution to this problem?" 

While ORM is a never-ending and continuous process, it is certainly one worth starting. Utilizing each of the components discussed in this article will help you and your brand not only manage your online reputation, but ultimately grow and become something beautiful for the aesthetic industry to admire.

Works Cited:

Brian Kessell, search engine optimization marketing manager at Salesforce. (2025, January 29). 5 tips to maximize your small business SEO. Salesforce. https://www.salesforce.com/blog/small-business-seo-potential/

Nance-Sons, J. (2024, August 13). Embracing the power of SEO and marketing. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbesbusinesscouncil/2023/09/13/embracing-the-power-of-seo-and-marketing/

Miller, S. (2024, May 29). How small businesses can create stronger connections with customers. Entrepreneur. https://www.entrepreneur.com/growing-a-business/how-small-businesses-can-create-stronger-connections-with/474546

Prokhorov, N. (2024, August 13). Six online reputation management trends in 2024. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbesbusinesscouncil/2024/07/19/six-online-reputation-management-trends-in-2024/

Reputation, N. (2024a, February 13). Pr Vs Reputation Management: What’s the difference? NetReputation. https://www.netreputation.com/pr-vs-reputation-management-whats-the-difference/