The Role of Social Listening in Reputation Management
Reputation management has changed over the years. From protecting your brand in the real-world, you now have to keep an eye on what others say about your business online, especially on social media. The social media world is highly connected, where so much is happening on numerous platforms throughout the day.
As you may have realised by now, living in such a hyper-connected world, means one bad review can spread like wildfire in the blink of an eye. Even if you are doing everything right, is it enough?
Measuring your reputation isn't simply tracking marketing metrics, it's about social listening.
Social listening is tracking and analysing social media mentions, conversations, and trends, that impact your business.
Social listening tools enable you to continuously analyse social media, identifying every time there is an opportunity to build a positive reputation. It helps you track negative comments, alerting you against potential threats. It offers a birds eye view of everything going on on social media.
Social listening is beneficial to monitoring and improving your reputation management:
Your published content is the first impression most of your audience have with your business. Social listening enables you to identify what your audience, industry, and competitors are up to, helping you with content creation ideas based on what they are talking about, sharing, and engaging with on social media.
Social listening also helps you identify the best content format your users prefer and how they share it. Maybe your audience prefers videos or blogs. The data you gain through social listening can help you decide on the best format for your content.
Influencers have become a big deal in the marketing world. They play a big part of your reputation management. Influencers are mediums where new audiences hear about your business. Studies show that eighty percent of consumers have purchased something thanks to an influencers recommendation.
At the same time, over twenty percent of businesses find it difficult to find the right influencers, which is where social listening comes into play. It helps you discover users who like your business, identifying positive online conversations abut your brand, along with finding who started them. It helps you identify which influencers resonate with your audience.
Your reputation will flourish when you create a strong emotional bond with your customers. This involves understanding your audiences sentiments surrounding your business at all times. Social listening tools help you identify when users make positive comments.
At the same time, it also helps you quickly identify any negativity surrounding your business from an unhappy customer. As soon as your social listening tool alerts there is a negative comment, you need to address the issue immediately, avoiding the risk of it escalating.
While you may not think competitor analysis is part of your reputation management, they do play a role. When you measure your engagement and exposure against your competitors, you have an idea of the strengths, weaknesses, and work you need to focus on to improve your reputation, gaining a competitive edge.
Measure your success against your competitors by measuring campaign performance, brand and product sentiment, and social media engagement.
As you can see social listening in reputation management is essential, helping you identify how your audience perceives your business, while ensuring any negativity is managed quickly, professionally, and effectively to improve your online reputation. If you need help with your online reputation management, the Genie Crawl team are here to assist. With over ten years experience, we have the social listening tools and expertise needed to push your business forward in a positive light. Contact us today to find out more.
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