Leveraging Social Chatter: Online Brand Reputation Monitoring and Management A Wakeup Call Gary Levine WSI Brand Reputation Expert

Agenda Why the wakeup call now? – Problems & opportunities What do you do about it? – Research & Monitor – Improve your visibility – Engage – Tools you can use Checklist of Next Steps

Ok, so I heard… Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, its all over the news. But they’re for kids, right? Source: Weber Shadwick, Reputations Online  Despite overwhelming shifts in media behavior, most executives still put more weight on mainstream media channel messaging than online communities.  Fewer than 40% have Googled their own name.

The Impact of Social Networks Half of survey respondents said they considered information seen on their social networks when making a decision 65% in the age demographic 25% posted links to company, product or service Source: Bereford Research

Why a wakeup call? 1. Marketers used to control the conversation: Radio, TV and print advertising was expensive and we listened because it paid for our entertainment. 2. Customer Controls the conversation : Before blogging and online social media gave every internet user a platform to publicly broadcast their observations and opinions in an instant.

The Bottom Line: Its time to turn the megaphone around (ref. Tara Hunt, The Whuffie Factor) 3. Learn to listen or proceed at great risk

For example Venerable brands like Pepsi and Domino’s Pizza were exposed to near-immediate criticisms on a worldwide basis. When they listen, they can respond.

Doesn’t it work both ways? “It” does, if you do! AlpacaDirect.com implemented an independent review service on their site, and “saw sales climb 23% on products that had reviews.” Internet shoppers rank reviews as the most desired feature of a Web site, according to a recent survey by Forrester Research.

Learning from this Example No PR is bad PR – Transparency is Key Customer is King – Develop and Foster the culture of Trust Conversation Engagement

WHERE DO YOU START

3 Things that you can do 1.Research and monitor communications about your brand 2.Build up your brand visibility 3.Engage with customers and clients

1. RESEARCH & MONITOR

A: Check Your Name Research and protect your brand and trade names Don’t let someone else become “Facebook/YourCompany” KnowEm.com – free or paid

B: See where you are being found Do Proactive Searches: – Google – Twitter – Technorati

C: Setup monitors Google Alerts, RSS Feeds Search.Twitter.com/advanced

More Sophisticated Monitoring Tools Monitter Filtrbox

Now You Know Where You Are…. What Next?

2. BUILD BRAND VISIBILITY

A: Search Engine Optimize (SEO) Your Website – Is your brand name prominent on your site? – Is it the HTML Title of a page about you? – Does the Description of your About page contain the brand name? – Are your key employees or reps included on the site?

B: Local listings, profiles & social pages – Google.com/profiles – Facebook.com/pages/create.php – LinkedIn.com – ShowMeLocal

C: Publish – Blog – Press releases – YouTube video or Flickr images

3. ENGAGE WITH CUSTOMERS AND CLIENTS: Social Chatter

A: Respond to what you hear – Respond to what you hear

B: Invite feedback – Use a 3 rd Party Review Service “Reviews” are different from “Testimonials” – Impact of Reviews on Buying: Marketing Experiments Journal study found the conversion rate increased from 0.47% to 0.88%, an increase of 87% when customer reviews were present

C: Allocate resources In house or outside service Daily monitoring Daily responding Alerting and reporting

The Checklist  Survey clients and develop your responses  Check your Google search engine result rankings for industry keywords  Setup daily Google Alerts  Start or add to your blog: top 10 things you have to explain over and over  Pick a social media site and engage  Assign someone to monitor the feedback

Summary Research and Monitor Build Brand Visibility Engage with Clients

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