Why Social Media Review and Monitoring Matters for your Brand

“Sticks and stones may break my bones but names can never hurt me.” This child proverb may have worked for moms and dads before the digital age, but all has changed now. WWW = World Wild Web and all things are possible. Anyone, with a mere click of a thumbs up or down, is a critic and, like it or not, any patron has the power to help make or break your business. Who cares what people say about your business? You should! Research shows that engaging on social media sites helps to boost customer engagement and satisfaction. Your reputation is on the line, take heed.

Do you use Twitter, Facebook, comment or search for reviews on websites? If the answer is yes, what you and your employees say online can and does make a difference. Creating and managing an online reputation is an essential part of creating and protecting your company’s brand and image and empowering your relationships with your client base. You do a great job for your customers and people who know you professionally and personally know that you run an outstanding company, right? Engaging in these social media avenues is all part of business in the 21^st Century.

Here are some tips for creating and managing your businesse brand and your reputation:

• MONITOR what people are saying about your company. Staff, products and competitors can give you great insights into things you are doing well, things you are doing badly, and things that you can do and say differently. Suppose you do not know that people are speaking negatively about you or your company? What if it were the employees who work down the hall bad mouthing their employer? Whether good or bad, you need to have knowledge and connect with these people to help solve issues?

• SET-UP up listening software, such as Google Alerts www.google.com/alerts. This software program will e-mail you a notice when someone mentions your name or company. Google Alerts is free and easy to use. Additionally, check your employees and competitors’ Facebook pages and Twitter posts from time to time. This can be an invaluable tool and unfortunately, you might not always like what you see. If you personally don’t have time, have a trusted employee monitor and deliver reports to you.

• CREATE social media profiles on LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter that include your company’s name. Those social network websites rank well in Google, so when someone searches for your company, they see content that you have written and that you control. Secondly, if existing customers, potential customers, and the media research your company, they will see your online communities and recognize that you care enough about your customers to engage with them directly.

• FOLLOW-UP and make certain that your accounts are maintained at least one time a day. If you ignore comments, it shows you don’t care and your interaction or lack thereof will go noticed. If a user takes the time to write your company, they expect a response. If not, they might start reacting negatively.

A couple examples: Recently, I opened a box of pasta and there was one piece of dried pasta that looked like a child drew a black magic marker line across the top. I decided to connect with the brand via Twitter and Facebook writing “@barilla my box of pasta had a strip of pasta with a line on it that looked like a magic marker on it? Help pls.... Thank you CITYPEEK Patti.” Barilla wrote me back and followed up by sending me coupons for free pasta.

Another was, I had a problem with a food delivery recently. I spoke numerous times to the restaurant on the telephone. The business went over the top to make sure I was satisfied and to thank them, I wrote a most positive review on Yelp.

I needed help returning shoes, headed straight to twitter, complimented the great service and wrote @zappos. They responded and helped me immediately.

You can keep up your customer service and review monitoring and comments by hiring a social media consultant or manager. They will check any social media avenues applicable to your business and crawl the web daily monitoring and responding to comments on. Along with the guidance of a part of the businesses executive team. this will help your overall business success in customer engagement and guest satisfaction.

CITYPEEK Social Media Solutions

providing Social Media & Digital Marketing Consultation

for Business.

SPECIAL to CITYPEEK Readers-

Receive a free review of your social media and 50% off a future month consulting partnership. mailto:Contact CEO@citypeek.com and mention this blog.

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Patti Neumann is Publisher/Founder of CITYPEEK.com & an award-winning 21 C Social Media Publicist/Influencer on food, drinks, hospitality & the good life.

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