Everybody needs to manage their reputation online. We live in a world where anyone can say anything they want online, and there is little doubt that someone will eventually say something negative about your company. It’s up to you to be able to monitor this so you can react as needed.
For obvious reasons, large companies will need to spend a lot more time monitoring brand mentions than smaller companies, but nobody is immune. [inlinetweet prefix=”” tweeter=”” suffix=””]Every company, regardless of size, needs to be aware of what people are saying about them.[/inlinetweet]
Whether you are actively engaging in social media marketing or not, you need to know whenever you or your company is mentioned online, good or bad. Posts and tweets that mention you in a positive light should be responded to positively while posts and tweets that mention you in a negative light should be responded to, well, positively too.
[inlinetweet prefix=”null” tweeter=”” suffix=””]How you respond to what people say about you online will be a bright shining light for any readers.[/inlinetweet] These interactions alone can tell someone whether or not they would ever want to do business with you. Your goal: turn every negative mention into a positive.
Always be looking for opportunities to engage with your audience. If and when there is a problem, fix it as quickly as possible. If someone is disgruntled, seek to understand the issue and then find a remedy that turns an unhappy customer into, at very least, a satisfied one.
Customers often tweet problems hoping someone from the company will acknowledge it. Ignoring it won’t make it go away. Acknowledging it, even just to say you understand and will see if you can find a solution for future customers, goes a long, long way.
If you don’t reply quickly to negative brand mentions, the perception of your brand will take a hit. A negative comment that gets responded to and resolved quickly will usually win more points than that which was lost due to the negative comment in the first place.