With blogs wielding a certain level of power (remember what happened to Dell when Jeff Jarvis started ranting about their poor customer service?), it is critical that brands understand how to manage their reputation online and if necessary take proactive steps to limit the damage which can be caused by negative word of mouth.
While blogs are awesome marketing tools the truth is that using an interactive medium like this means that talking is not the only side of the coin - listening is important too. This is where a lot of companies make mistakes, in that they do not have the knowledge, time or resources to monitor the blogosphere. Additionally, strategies need to be created on how to respond to various attacks online. This is essentially called Online Reputation Management or ORM. While it's impossible to 'control the conversation', being a part of it and influencing it, is critical.
To be aware of what is being said about your brand online you need to set up watches across the range of monitoring sites as they all pick up different things which is very time consuming but essential to a good online reputation. You can set up tracking on sites like Feedster, Blogdigger, Blogpulse, MSN Search, Google Blog Search, MSN Search News, Technorati, PubSub, and Ice Rocket - as they will all pick up different mentions it’s important that you set up tracking on all of them. We’ve developed an über nifty reputation monitoring tool, called BrandsEye, which searches every nook and cranny of the Internet monitoring it for conversations around your brand so you don’t have to. Awesome? Yes!
A Final Note On Blogging
A great thing to remember about blogs is that a blog is simply a method of publishing content on the Web. The number of people who are involved in blogging is not going to shrink any time soon. Companies need to realise this and act fast if they don’t want to be left in the dust.
Prev |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
While blogs are awesome marketing tools the truth is that using an interactive medium like this means that talking is not the only side of the coin - listening is important too. This is where a lot of companies make mistakes, in that they do not have the knowledge, time or resources to monitor the blogosphere. Additionally, strategies need to be created on how to respond to various attacks online. This is essentially called Online Reputation Management or ORM. While it's impossible to 'control the conversation', being a part of it and influencing it, is critical.
To be aware of what is being said about your brand online you need to set up watches across the range of monitoring sites as they all pick up different things which is very time consuming but essential to a good online reputation. You can set up tracking on sites like Feedster, Blogdigger, Blogpulse, MSN Search, Google Blog Search, MSN Search News, Technorati, PubSub, and Ice Rocket - as they will all pick up different mentions it’s important that you set up tracking on all of them. We’ve developed an über nifty reputation monitoring tool, called BrandsEye, which searches every nook and cranny of the Internet monitoring it for conversations around your brand so you don’t have to. Awesome? Yes!
A Final Note On Blogging
A great thing to remember about blogs is that a blog is simply a method of publishing content on the Web. The number of people who are involved in blogging is not going to shrink any time soon. Companies need to realise this and act fast if they don’t want to be left in the dust.Other Articles in the How To... Social Media Series :
- Part 1: Social Media - The down low
- Part 2: Social Networking - You can never have too many friends
- Part 3: Social Bookmarking and Aggregating - Avoiding overload
- Part 4: Content Sharing - So hot right now
- Part 5: Blogging - Starting a blog baby, starting a blog
