Category Archives: Content Marketing

Insta 2

Using Instagram to drive brand awareness and engagement

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Instagram is a mobile application that allows users to take a photo and apply a digital filter to it allowing the most amateur photographers to turn into a photography whizz in seconds. It recently grabbed the world’s attention in April when it was snapped up by social networking giant Facebook fora respectable $1bn a sure sign that it is something keep an eye on. It was originally available only on iphone but launched to Android users in 2012 which has seen its number of users grow from 15m to 80m since the beginning of the year, an increase of over 400% in just seven months.

The use of Instagram among top brands has also increased, with new data from Simply Measured showing that 40% of the brands on the Interbrand 100 now have an account on the mobile photo sharing service. Brands such as MTV, Starbucks, Burberry, Tiffany & Co. and Nike have a huge following with numbers topping or near half a million followers. This is unsurprising as it offers them the chance to generate user generated content with an edge that is far more likely to receive positive feedback. Econsultancy have highlighted some recent examples of how these brands have used it, although I would question the supposed creativity of what they have done.

Instagram should be treated like all other social channels and should be considered as an element in a holistic social media strategy. It has the means to build your brand, share news and engage in dialogues and it allows companies to engage with their peers and customers by sharing snapshots of their products, culture and people in an intimate and creative way. Pinterest has shown that image–based posting can be extremely valuable for brands, so it would be foolish to ignore such a readily available stream of content.

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One way to deal with reputation management

Online Reputation Management : Best Practice for responding to negative posts and comments.

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One way to deal with reputation management

One way to deal with reputation management

Online reputation management is never black and white and every case if different. But whether someone is posting on your company Facebook page, commenting on your blog or posting their own negative content independently from your social platforms there are a few simple things to have in mind before you respond.

Getting your response wrong could have catastrophic results. Have a read of this blog post I wrote for Speed Communications a while back on crisis management for brands. It outlines some great examples of how not to go about dealing with negative press.

The list below outlines a few of the basics. With this in mind and with some good old common sense you should in most cases be able to deal effectively with negative comments.

1. Be transparent: Honesty is always the best policy – Don’t try and counter act negative posts with fake positive ones! State who you are and that you are a representative of the company in question.

2. Fix obvious customer service problems, just as you would if a customer called your customer service line. Be honest and courteous in your reply. Doing so shows the online community that you are committed to putting the customer first, and that you clean up your mistakes. If you solve the poster’s problem quickly, you may even earn a positive follow-up post.

3. Respond individually and personally when applicable. Acknowledge their complaint and offer a public apology explaining how you are dealing with the problem.

4. Be polite and take their argument on board- Never, ever, fight fire with fire. This is only going to make matters worse and is likely to attract more attention possibly angering the community around the post.

5. Respond directly to the comment – Don’t use “bad plastic surgery” to try and cover it up. This will be detrimental and will make people more fixated in the negative comments

6. Counteract negative posts with evidence – If the person in question is in the wrong then prove it but not in a confrontational manner as this could just make things worse!

7. Build up a profile within forums where possible: If you are getting flack within forums then make sure you yourself are active in these spaces. There is no point just popping up and responding to criticism as you will have absolutely no credibility and are unlikely to be taken seriously. However, if people are used to seeing and hearing from you anyway and you are providing them with good content and advice then what you say will carry more weight.

8. Try and take the conversation offline : Do this after you have made a public response so that your initial response is visible to others who will have seen the negative post. Ask for an email address or give them yours and try to move the conversation away from the public sphere.

9. Contribute to the conversation by leaving comments, writing guest posts, or setting up a blog for your company. As in any community, members of these online hubs are more trusting of people and companies they hear from—so give them a change to get to know you.

10. Offer additional resources. If the negative post refers to a common customer service issue, leave a comment pointing the post’s author to your company’s resources surrounding the issue. If the post poses a new problem, add that issue to your company’s online support desk. Doing so will help to prevent future frustration for your customers. There’s no better way to take a proactive, positive stance on a negative blog post than to provide additional resources.

11. Consider the tone of voice for the specific platform (If someone posts on Twitter respond using the same tone of voice for that channel i.e. informal and direct)

12. Don’t respond to everything at once- If you are unfortunate to have loads of negative comments about you especially on the same website/forum then a) Think about why this many people feel the need to publicly spurn you and b) don’t just fly in and try to deal with them all at once.

13. Prioritise which posts should be responded to – With the previous point in mind, don’t respond to everything as this will be perceived as spammy and bad practise. Think about which is the most damaging and respond to this one first.

14. Back up your response with factual information – It’s always better for everyone involved that the response be substantive and informed, not hastily put together before all the facts are known and interested parties consulted.

15. If comment is false or factually incorrect, contact the blogger or webmaster and politely notify him/her that the information is incorrect. On some occasions you may be able to remove the comment.

16. When relevant link to an ‘official’ page on the site that will back up the claim, however you must be very careful when posting links, this can be viewed as spammy if done too much or if it leads to information that doesn’t directly support the comment.

What is Online reputation management?

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The advent of the digital age has made it much easier for customers to share their opinion of a brand. With an estimated 1.6 million new blog posts every day, consumers are constantly sharing their views, impressions and experiences, both positive and negative of every conceivable product or service. Whilst this is great for consumers as you can quickly and easily access unbiased product reviews, it’s having a detrimental effect on brands who are suddenly open to attack from unhappy customers whether there is truth in their claims or not. Online Reputation Management

“The actively disengaged customer is four times more likely to post to a blog or website about their poor customer service.” Ultimately, you want to avoid creating this sort of customer. Something has happened to change them from engaged, passionate customers to disengaged, irate customers.

The challenge with social media is that you have no control over what consumers say about your services, comments or accusations can be completely unfounded but get picked up and take momentum across the internet causing damage to the brand. As a result it is vital to have a strategy in place to effectively manage negative mentions.

This is known as Online Reputation Management and refers to the practice of monitoring the online reputation of a person, brand or business, with the goal of neutralising negative mentions entirely and therefore putting their reputation in better stead to change the slant and create a positive image, this is known as reactive reputation management.

Considering the vast amount of people who deal with brands online and offline it is not possible to ensure everyone has a positive experience, however if someone does voice a negative experience online it is possible to minimise the damage most of the time. This can only be achieved by responding in a manner that will address the problem, clarify the situation and put the company in a positive light without encouraging further criticism; Good crisis management requires responding with substance behind what you are saying.

The most important thing to understand and consider are the risks and do you have processes in place that you actually use, to manage with these risks should they occur.

Common ORM proactive techniques include online promotional activity through creating new content, promotion of existing positive content, as well as deeper involvement in the social web sphere through forums, blog and other high profile social networking forums such as Twitter and Facebook.

Read more about best practice for online reputation management here.