The StyleSheet - For businesses that use the internet

Tips & Tools for Managing your Online Reputation

Posted January 23, 2012 By Andrea Richeson |

Step One: Commit to Iterative Change

It’s easy to look at a complex problem like online reputation management, get intimidated, and put off addressing it until later. My advice: just jump in and realize that you will probably need to fail some, in order to grow. Once you take the initial leap, you’ll find that there are many small tactical issues you can address, as well as larger strategic efforts, both of which have great benefit in the long run.  The real secret to success in managing your online reputation is to above all things, listen to your audience. Then, try out new ways to continue the conversation, learn quickly from your mistakes, and make adjustments based on your experience.

Step Two: Take an Inventory, Set Realistic Goals, & Make a Plan

Take an inventory of what social media efforts you have going on, the resources devoted to them, and then set realistic goals about managing content and conversations.   There’s no need to take on every social media platform at first. Before you decide what direction to go, check out  Carly Smith’s previous Stylesheet article to see examples of effective Social Media Efforts & resources.

After you’ve inventoried your social media efforts, make goals that are practical and match your business objectives. Ask yourself:

• Where are your key customers active online and how many of those social media channels can you feasibly address?
• What’s the timeline for fully participating in these channels?
• How often are the channels monitored and how often is the content updated?

After setting some reasonable goals, it’s time to figure out how to get there. Leonard Bernstein said, “To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time.”  We all have limited time, so a plan is a way to give some structure to the chaos. Note that the plan shouldn’t ever be considered complete. A good plan is flexible; it keeps up with changes in resources, knowledge, and available staff time and toolset. The plan should include some very clear policies about:

• What the expectations are regarding acceptable tone, language, and topic, both for in-house staff and for the audience.
• Who in your organization is in charge of conversations with your audience.  Social media efforts should be managed with as much care as traditional avenues of communication. The speed with which social media can spread good and bad feedback is shockingly fast. Be sure to place your social media efforts with  people who are well-versed in customer care.
• How to address both positive and negative feedback. Both positive and negative feedback offer an important way to communicate with your audience and let them know you’re listening. This piece of the policy should address not just the approach one takes with language and customer care, but also the speed with which questions and complaints will be addressed.

Step Three: Monitor Your Efforts

There are a lot of complex tools available to monitor your social media efforts, but at first it’s probably best to keep it simple.  See the examples below for free, easy-to-use tools that will get you started:

• Google Alerts – http://www.google.com/alerts
  It’s free and easy to use. Simply enter sets of search terms, tweak a few settings, and use a RSS reader like iGoogle to monitor the RSS feeds. You can have the results emailed to you, but managing your inbox might get tricky fast.
• Also, use iGoogle to view the RSSfeeds from your social media channels, and those of your competitors.
• Twitter advanced search – https://twitter.com/#!/search-advanced
  After completing a simple search on Twitter, you’ll see the link for advanced search. The advanced search tool allows you to set up complex searches and save them.
• Facebook Insights – http://www.facebook.com/help/search/?q=insights
  A free metrics dashboard from Facebook that helps you analyze trends within user growth and demographics, use of content, and creation of content.

Step Four:  Learn & Iterate

Everyone can benefit from a little survey of best practices, a little research into what other organizations are doing and what lessons they’ve learned.  I’ve included below a few of the places I go for inspiration.

Resources for Further Reading:

• Jeff Levy of the EPA is a smart, funny, down-to-earth leader in the federal government’s social media efforts. Check out his twitter feed, @levyj413, and the EPA’s social media policies at: http://www.epa.gov/epahome/socialmedia.html
• HowTo.gov – http://www.howto.gov/social-media
  Advice and overviews from social media experts in the federal government
• Whole Foods Market, Inc. has very successful global and also store-level social media efforts. They are a great example of using social media channels to provide excellent customer service. See how the engage their audiences; check out their twitter and facebook accounts at: http://wholefoodsmarket.com/twitter and http://wholefoodsmarket.com/facebook/
• Social Media Examiner is a one-stop shop for current, thoughtful information: http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com
• The Harvard Business Review Blog Network – http://blogs.hbr.org/samuel/2011/11/social-media-fail-airline-style.html
  The HBR Blog Network offers several short, smart, birds-eye views in to social media best practices, with several excellent examples of organizations doing it well, and some spectacular failures. Search for “social media” on this site to see several though-provoking articles.

The Takeaway

Everyone is learning about social media on the fly. The tools and the approaches are in rapid flux. To succeed in building great conversations with your audience, you’ll need to keep an eye on your primary business goals and key audiences, and remain flexible and adaptable in your approaches.

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4 Responses to “Tips & Tools for Managing your Online Reputation”

1. Posted January 27th, 2012 at 10:46 am , by Rich

   Andrea – very useful and insightful article. Thanks!

2. Posted January 27th, 2012 at 11:23 am , by Andrea

   Thanks Rich! Let us know if you have other topics you’d like us to address or further questions or comments about this one. –Andrea

3. Posted February 16th, 2012 at 2:52 pm , by Laura

   Good stuff, Andrea! Thanks for passing this article along and for putting all of this info in one place; I’ll definitely be doing some further reading in the near future.

4. Posted February 17th, 2012 at 10:24 am , by Andrea

   Thanks Laura. I look forward to talking through the issues with you and the CTD team. Let me know if there are other topics that would be helpful for us to address in person or through The Stylesheet.

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