Many companies in South Africa employ what I call the 'Ostriching' strategy, which follows the theory that if you stick your head in the ground (ignore what is being said), it will just disappear after which you can carry on as if nothing has happened. Unfortunately this strategy is inherently flawed and now with the channels of communication being easy to access and even easier to spread, you want to make sure that you are informed about who is saying what about you and then take the appropriate actions to deal with it – unlike There is a mixture of paid for and free reputation management tools, I am going to discuss the ways which are free and then just list the paid ones. As I've mentioned in previous blog posts, Twitter , for some, is a source of fear and loathing, BUT if the only thing you use it for is reputation management, then you can pat yourself on the back for facing the beast and conquering it…
Basically you need to set up a search within Twitter for your company name and any relevant keywords which you are optimizing for. This will enable you to see who is speaking about you on Twitter and then who your competition is regarding your products and services (keywords). If you are using Hootsuite, which I would recommend you do, you create another column and click on 'Add Stream' and then on the 'Keyword' tab. Once you have put your keywords and company name in, all you need to do is monitor these tweets for any negative comments. If one comes up, you will need to deal with it appropriately – I'd suggest sending the person complaining a direct message for more details and then following up via email or calling them. There will be people who complain for the sake of it, but in terms of customer service, you will need to address all complaints – bearing in mind that the way you deal with these can have an impact on your brand.
Now Hootsuite will only search within Twitter but you can also set up a search using Google Alerts which will search the web, including blogs, for any mentions of your company name, your name or your keywords.
These alerts will come through to your email so that you can keep an eye on what is being said. I'd suggest setting up a filter or a separate email account for these alerts, which you should check regularly for mentions and respond to immediately.
The free tools work a charm however if you have a large corporation or if you have the budget to spend on a paid reputation management tool, then here they are: Either way you need to have some kind of Reputation Management tool in place so that you aren't left out of the conversation…
