As you know, the brand has several channels of communication – more precisely, several types of channels. These are the so-called:
- owned media (own channels: website, blogs, social media);
- paid media (all types of online advertising, everything that is bought);
- earned media (discussions of users, that is, content created not by the company, but by consumers of its products or services). If before the earned media played a secondary role, now thanks to the high level of Internet penetration, they become more significant.
Discussions and feedback from users on the network about the brand and products can cause a wave of discussion. At the same time, “wave-lifted” users will not necessarily be popular media persons.
In my practice, there are a lot of cases when clients use SEO and SERM tools to correct the company’s reputation in the network. But this is just a disguise of the problem. If it’s enough for you to bring “good and loyal” resources to the top of the search engines – approx.
But if you want to listen and hear your customer where he talks about his problems, help him, make interaction with your product pleasant and useful, you need other methods of work.
So, where to start?
All work is an answer to three questions:
Where?
What?
How?
1. Where
Of course, everything starts with research. To begin with, using manual and automated monitoring, we need to find key areas in the network where discussions about our product are conducted. Classify these sites.
When analyzing sites, it is important to consider:
- as the site is represented in the issuance of search engines (on which page of search results);
- how much fresh mention of your product / company on it;
- how often there are discussions;
- how exactly here it is accepted to conduct discussions.
When the top sites are determined, it is best for each of them to make their own passport with a brief description of the main features, pitfalls, the portrait of the audience and the messages that you want to convey to these people.
2. In parallel with Where we find out What
Namely – What does your audience say about you? What problems worry her? We create top problems and together with the brand we are looking for answers to the questions that worry users.
3. How
The most important question.
We write a strategy for dealing with problems and questions of users. In social networks and on forums it is impossible to answer with press releases or on scripts of a “hot line” – will tell, what is it it is banal, all this and so understand? Unfortunately, there are brands that still make such mistakes and speak with users in the language of robots.
Key recommendations:
Pay attention to the intensity of the discussions. At each site, the speed and duration of commenting are different. Depending on these indicators, plan your work on a specific portal: if the peak of discussions passes several hours after the publication – to be included in the discussion in a day does not make any sense. If you work as a contractor – it is important to bring it to the client and work out an algorithm for working with each resource. For example, on some sites with a high speed of commenting, you can not approve each text of the response with the client, so as not to lose efficiency.
Keep up with the new comments. Do not leave the discussion after answering the first questions. If you get involved in a dialogue, it is not enough to give several answers and switch to other resources. Discussions can sometimes last for several days, and your silence can play against you.
Adapt the tone of voice (re-policy) to the accepted rules of communication on the resources. On the one hand, you must not violate brand guides. On the other hand, as I already wrote above – to communicate the language of press releases and scripts of the hot line on the earned media platforms is absolutely impossible. It is better not to go there at all. Of course, this also does not mean that the representative of the brand should communicate unceremoniously and too naturally. Look for the golden mean, become “your”, without violating the rules of brand communication.
Do not react to all critical references. But if there is an opportunity to help solve the user’s problem, specify details and let me know when you can return with an answer.
Do not forget that you can not control the dissemination of information on the network. Leaving a comment, always remember that you are in public space. Be prepared to be quoted on other resources.
Separate the opinion from the facts. And remember that you, leaving comments on behalf of the representative of the brand, associate with the audience with the entire brand as a whole.
Recommendations for working with the project team:
Immersion. Project managers should be immersed in the topic they are dealing with as much as possible, and they must constantly monitor trends and trends in the sphere of the client’s activities. The implementation of quantitative KPIs is half the battle. If the project team does not have a global vision of the situation, understanding the ultimate goal of the campaign – there will be no success.
Analysis. Without it, nowhere. Constantly answer yourself to the following questions: “What do we do – we do it one hundred percent?” Or can we better? Or it is necessary in another way? ». Many managers at the moment when the project “gets on the rails”, begin to mechanically perform their work. Without thinking about whether you can do something else, can you apply some new tools in your work.
Feedback from the brand. If you work as a contractor – talk to the client not only in the reports. Meet and discuss the current situation on the project. The client knows the product as their own five fingers, and you – you know the network audience that is discussing this product. Only having combined these two parts together (well and having executed all conditions about which we spoke in this article), you can make efficiency of your project on work with reputation in a network the maximum.
Image credit: TitanSeo