Reputation Management Tips: Are They Watching You?

Writing by Brick Marketing on Saturday, 16 of February , 2008 at 7:30 am

Every day you see new online gizmos and offline gadgets that put more power in the hands of consumers. A consumer can find your website this morning, subscribe, have some annoying experience which may or may not have been your fault, focus their anger in a quickie audio & video commentary, edit it, post it, bookmark it, link to it, and by tonight it could have been seen and/or read by tens of thousands of people. By tomorrow? It could go viral, and the universe will have seen it.

Today’s social networking media has created a world of Walter Cronkites. (If you’re under 30, he used to be on TV.)

What can you do to prepare for all of today’s new scrutiny? Some reputation management tips:

1. Listen to what consumers are saying. Use tools that allow you to find and recognize problems quickly, before someone uploads their investigative video. Monitor talk about your brand. Be sure to subscribe to daily newsfeeds for your brand and your keywords. A lot of sudden activity means you need to look more closely.

2. Consumer-reporters are out there 24/7 looking for material. Number one on their list is exposing bad customer service. Since it’s everywhere, bad customer service is easy to find. So improve your customer service, and let the bloodhounds sniff some other trail.

3. Make all your public communications as consumer-focused as possible. Talk about what you hear in #1 above. When people know you are listening to them, they are way less likely to attack.

They are watching you. With a few low-cost tools, anyone could be a professional spy. So guard your reputation. It’s good business sense to tweak your marketing plan to give your public the best possible experience in every area of your business. Don’t give the spies anything to talk about. Who knows? A good reputation management plan may cause some consumer/reporter to fall in love with you and upload their “good vibrations” video about your company. It does happen.

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Category: Reputation Management, Social Networking

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