3 Easy Steps to Build a Brand’s Online Reputation

In my previous post on online reputation, I mentioned why building and maintaining a healthy online reputation is crucial for BFSI and other organizations is in the age of social. Here, I’ll tell you how you can add credibility to your online reputation in three easy steps, and how social media analytics can help you boost your online reputation.

Step 1 – Develop and Post Great Content:

If you want your audience to say good things about your brand, then you must start a ‘good’ conversation. Say nice things (read interesting, useful and likeable social media content) and your audience will surely appreciate it and share it with their social network.

Step 2 – Engage Well With Your Audience:

Customer engagement is vital for your brand’s online reputation.  Therefore, ensure that the methods of brand engagement are ingenious too. Having posted creative, resourceful content, ask your audience to comment on it. Urge them to participate in contests, games, polls and quizzes and when they do, thank them generously for their interest and enthusiasm. Also, reward them with discount coupons and vouchers, special mentions and surprise gifts et al.

The bottom line is – go that extra mile to truly make customer engagement a pleasurable experience for both you and your audience. When your audience notices that you are making an honest effort to reach out to them, they will respect you, regard you highly, remember you and reciprocate the goodwill.

Step 3 – Take Bouquets and Brickbats Equally:

Let’s face it – in spite of your best efforts at building a good customer relationship, not all of them are going to be your loyalists or fans. For every satisfied and happy customer you would have an equal number or perhaps more unsatisfied customers. However, don’t sideline then. Instead, welcome and accept their criticism too.

When you see a complaint posted on the social media against your product/service/brand, acknowledge it and work to solve the issue at the earliest. If you are unable to resolve it, apologize.  Honesty and transparency on the social does wonders for your brand’s online reputation.

Having said that, a question still persists – how to effectively implement the above steps? The answer lies in social media analytics tools.

SMA tools like Shout Analytics effectively enhance your brand’s online reputation. Using these tools you can monitor, measure and analyze your customers’ conversations on the social and gather rich, actionable insights about your brand’s online reputation.

To learn how, write to us at info@shoutanalytics.com.

5 Easy Steps to Online Reputation Management

Do you monitor and manage your brand’s online reputation? Three cheers to you if you already do. But if you don’t, it’s high time you get started.

Why Do You Need Online Reputation Management?

In this age of social networking where everything happens faster than a tick of the clock, organizations must pay attention to their online reputation management. 

Whatever the scale of your business operations, if you have an online footprint, then it is absolutely vital that you check, monitor and manage your overall online reputation as well because what people (your customers, clients, prospects, stakeholders and even employees) say and think about your brands and products is extremely crucial to the success of your business.

5 Easy Steps to Start Online Reputation Management:

Study Your Current Standing:

Right now, how well do you fare on Google and other search engines’ rank list for your services/products/brands? What are the common and not-so-common key words that brings up (defines) your brand and products on the search engines?

Getting answers to the above question will give you a fair idea of how good or bad your online reputation is at present. List your findings, review your position and then add your thoughts or comments for the next steps.

List Changes Needed:

Based on the list of your findings of current position, identify what changes needs to be implemented and where, circle the positives and the negatives and comprehend the vibes on the social channels. Identify these crucial aspects and work on them.

Pick Your Optimal Channel:

Depending on which social channel your brand finds the most positive and favorable mentions, exploit the same further. Make it your mouthpiece for brand communication and for customer engagement.

Draft a Solid Plan:

Now that you have an idea of what you are on the digital space and also know what you specifically want, go ahead and work on a feasible, flexible, impaction strategy. Customer engagement, brand communication and information on the web, all need interesting content. So, decide what type of content you will need for improving and increasing your brand’s online reputation.

Implement It:

Starts developing the content required for your brand communication, and do it well. Chart an editorial calendar and stick to it. Let there be variety in topics but maintain consistency in periodicity.

3 Ways How Your Social Audience Can Help Your Brands Do Better Business

Your social audience is an important part of your social marketing plan. Hence, you keep them in the center

of your brand marketing design and devise plan and strategies to please them, satisfy them and retain them. But did you know that they can also be a source of critical insights for you? And that you can leverage their power (yes, your social audience is very powerful) to do better business?

By carefully listening to your audience’s likes, interests, habits and beliefs, you can glean some insightful and very critical information relating to your brands, services, products and overall business. You can use this information to:

Identify Market Changes

Your business arena is constantly evolving; new players make their foray here every other day and those already existing are diversifying and modifying their business plans. In such a scenario, for you to survive, you must be flexible enough to make changes to your product and services according to the shifts and changes in your market.

And the best person who can give you timely updates about changing market trends is your audience. Because of their genuine interest and passion for products and services that you (and others in your market) offer, your audience will be constantly tracking and responding to the market trends. Listening to their conversations will reveal a lot about what is currently happening in your market.

Measure Brand Reputation

What is the vibe that your audience are exhibiting when they talk about your brands and services? Is it positive, negative or neutral?

Sentiment Analysis can help you to critically examine the success and effectiveness of your customer service initiatives. If your brand constantly sees high negative sentiments, then it means that you need to modify your products and services whereas considerably positive sentiments indicate that all is well with your brands and services.

Revise Marketing Tactics

Social media marketing is all about interesting and useful content that your audience can like and share. If you fail to provide rich and resourceful content, your social marketing efforts will not be successful.

Keeping this in mind, examine what content your audience likes best and provide them with just that. If you find that certain content is always ignored by your audience, then it’s a lesson for you to completely do away with that type of content.

Shout Analytics can help you leverage the power of your social audience, to know how, write to info@shoutnalytics.com

The Social Media Effect on Banks and Financial Institutions

Banks and financial institutions have felt the social media effect in a big way. With the advent of social media, the banking and finance industry has seen a sea change in the way it conducts business. From being a conservative industry, it has changed into social media backed enterprise. Today because of the critical business benefits that it offers, banks and financial institutions have made social media an inevitable part of their marketing strategy.

Take a look at how social media has transformed banks and financial institutions in India and around the world.

Citi Bank’s official Twitter page for Customer Service

Yes Bank promoting its Money Monitor on Facebook

HSBC’s YouTube Channel. Note the different sections for advertising, sponsorship and ideas exchange.

Aviva India launched its Customer Centre on Facebook on May 1, 2013.

HDFC Bank’s Pinterest page

What next?

With growing data streams both structured and unstructured, increasing customers’ expectations and their seeking never like before engagement, the need of the hour for banks and financial institutions is to leverage social media for gathering actionable insights to make informed decisions. BFSIs must explore social media analytics to tap greater business intelligence.

 Using social media analytics tools, banks and financial institutions can take their social engagement to the next level; understand their customers’ exact needs and service/product/brand affinities to drive customer-driven product innovation. Social media analytics tools also aid and simplify online brand reputation and market research

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Put simply, banks and financial institutions can use social media analytics tools to not just ENGAGE but also to LISTEN, MANAGE AND MONITOR.

Have cases of social media transforming banks or financial institutions in your area? Please share with me. How do you think social media analytics tools can benefit BFSIs?  Send in your comments I’d love to hear from you.