If you are not actively monitoring what people are saying about your company online, then how do you know you are not losing business to competitors? Everyone knows the old saying, “If a satisfied customer tells five people about their experience, then an UNHAPPY customer will tell FIFTY people about their experience.” Before the Internet, it took more time and energy for a disgruntled client to tell his take on a sour business experience. Tools like e-mail, social media, text messaging and online review sites have changed all that. All that customer has to do is share her experience with her Facebook Friends and Twitter followers and now hundreds of people know. Visit this reputation management company’s first hand account of how some one tried to discredit them online.
The good news is that there are plenty of tools and services to help monitor and manage our online reputation. One simple tool is Google Alerts. Google Alerts is simple and easy to set up. Simply log in with your Google Account, enter in the text you wish to monitor for (examples are your company name, personal name, products, etc.), how often you wish to be notified and were the notification e-mail should be sent. Once established, Google will automatically e-mail you when your company name or selected text is mentioned online. You can setup as many alerts as you wish and even use it to monitor your competitors online actions.
Some additional free tools include:
- BlogPulse – monitor blog posts and conversations. Track searches with RSS feeds.
- TweetBeep – keep track of who is mentioning you, your products and/or company on Twitter.
- Naymz – provides online reputation management. Basic version is free.
If you are interested in more hands-off management and monitoring of your online reputation, then consider some of these paid service providers:
Every business, regardless of size, should be actively monitoring their online reputation. The obvious reason is to catch and negative or false remarks and address them quickly before the become wide spread and do damage. The other reason is search engines. The higher your company ranks in the search engines, the greater the risk is that negative or false statements could rank high as well. It is no secret that prospective clients and customers research businesses online before doing making a purchase. Make reputation management a priority for your business today.
