Who's watching your online reputation?
7 June, 2009
By [ci] channelinsider |
There has been a lot of discussion about how businesses and individuals need to participate in social networks to get their messages out, but there is little discussion related to managing online reputation.
Vehicles such as Angies List, Facebook and YouTube are prime locations for your customers to share their positive or negative experiences related to your company. There are also thousands of blogs that are sharing information with customers every day on what they liked or disliked about their experiences with businesses.
If you are still not convinced that your online presence is important consider that women are nearly twice as likely to use blogs than social networking sites as a source of information (64 percent), advice and recommendations (43 percent) and opinion-sharing (55 percent), according to a recent 2009 Women and Social Media study.
From somScore, the data figures for video views from November 2008 finds more and more people are watching videos--about 146 million or 77 percent of the U.S. Internet audience. This is up over one-third year over year.
Your customers are online and not just looking at your Web site and Facebook page for information about your company. What took you years to develop in local reputation can be brought down in a day with negative commentary. Therefore, it pays to protect your brand where ever consumers are offered a degree of interaction.
It's important that either you have an employee who conducts comprehensive online reputation management to ensure that your brand attributes are protected across all social channels. Another option is to hire an outside company to regularly monitor for negative commentary and, if any is found, combat it by researching the situation, discerning if any action is required, and then engage the problem.
A good response will provide facts and ask for corrections if required. This is where your company blog or those of your employees and customers can be invaluable. Opening the conversation to as many sides as possible and broadening the discussion. |
