How to use Social Media for Reputation Management
The majority of modern businesses have at least some form of presence on a social network, be it a Facebook company page or a legion of Twitter accounts manned by social media marketers looking for opportunities to offer advice and promote the company. Either way, a social media presence always provides opportunities for organisations to interact with their clients, build brand strength and reputation manage.
Reputation management, as a concept, is quite hard to define. In layman's terms, it's making sure that the public's interpretation of remains positive and it can be achieved through several different methods. Social media reputation management is like a form of digital PR, and whereas most big corporations have a PR representative, they now also have a team of social media marketers. This social media presence means they can be searching for reviews or feedback given directly by their customers and respond accordingly. This will help build trust within the client-base and in-turn, build brand strength – these are all features of reputation management.
Here are a few simple strategies and tactics so for your social media marketing campaigns:
Listen
To have a fully optimised social media campaign, you need to understand what your customers are saying about your business (positive or negative), why they are they saying those things, where they are saying them and how you can respond.
Twitter, for example, has a built in search bar located at the top of every profile page:
Using this you can search for key words or phrases you feel relate to your industry as well as your own specific brand name. This way you might find an opportunity to provide advice to someone or contribute to an industry relevant debate. By utilising this tool you are able to manage your reputation by showing you’re a trustworthy, knowledgeable source of information and are likely to impress any potential clients.
Bigger businesses with a social media outreach that extends further than Twitter will obviously have to use a broader tool to locate further social media opportunities. One such free tool is called Social Mention:
This tool is great because it quickly scours the internet finding mentions of your brand allowing you to monitor the strength and online presence as well allowing you the opportunity to respond to those mentions if necessary. Topsy is another tool that does this effectively:
Topsy is perhaps a bit more detailed that Social Mention because it allows you to view statistics such as quantity of Tweets and it also lets you know if your brand has been mentioned by influential Tweeters. Although it is perhaps a bit Twitter-centric, it's great for helping you keep your ear firmly planted to the ground in case anything crops up that might damage your company's reputation.
Communicate
After you have located talk of your brand using the aforementioned tools, it's time to start interacting with them. Find out if they are saying something positive or constructive, thank them for their opinion, and acknowledge that you will be taking it on board. If they are posing a question that you think your business has the expertise has the answer, then try and help out – but importantly, don't try and use this interaction to sell something. Displaying knowledge will sell itself.
Another important tip is not to be disheartened when you find someone who has taken issue with one of your services or is reporting a negative experience of some kind. Use it as a platform to build a dialogue and show that you care about each and every one of your customers. It might turn out that they have a valid point and there is a great opportunity for your organisation to benefit from it.
Content
This is another point that is similar to 'communication'. However, the communication point focused you communicating with you clients, but content offers you the opportunity to have your clients interact with you. By producing excellent and engaging content that gets the online community talking, you will win links that have great SEO value and you will also build online brand visibility.
Hopefully these tips will benefit your businesses social media presence, but if you have any further questions about any of our internet marketing or social media optimisation services, please don't hesitate to get in touch.
