The prevalence of social media has not just grown but exploded. Millions of conversations are taking place online. Company reputations are being made or
harmed hourly…and all in 140 characters. Want to find value hidden in the millions of Twitter and Facebook conversations taking place every day? While
the micro blogging and social media network may have started as a way to stay connected with friends, its ability to connect you with the public is proving
invaluable for Public Relations (PR) professionals.
The social media buzz continues to grow as people see the legitimate business impact of the medium. Do you want to know what people think of your
brands? Want to join the conversation? Learn from industry leaders and provide valuable information to your peers? Organizations can no longer afford to
ignore Twitter and Facebook, chalking them up to the latest fad. As a public relations professional, you need to be prepared to monitor and analyze your
organization’s online reputation in the social media landscape.
While social media has opened organizations up to public criticism it has, more importantly, also created a direct line between your customer and prospect
base. Carefully monitoring headlines and reading industry articles has always been an integral part of everyday public relations activities. Today, by
integrating traditional and social media monitoring, the value to the company is much greater.
This article will offer tips and techniques to both monitor and analyze the social media conversation to get a clear understanding of your online corporate
reputation, interact directly with your customers and uncover potential sales opportunities for your company.
Understanding Your Online Reputation
With media moving online, PR professionals need to not only monitor what traditional journalists have to say but also what online journalists, bloggers and
customers are saying. While PR professionals are beginning to understand the impact of their online corporate identity, they are also beginning to see its
power. Suddenly, monitoring news can not only be used to gain perspective but also to help create that image and uncover potential business
opportunities.
According to the institute of Public Relation’s recent study, “An Analysis of the Increasing Impact of Social and Other New Media on Public Relations
Practice,” the new medium is impacting the profession:
• 88% of respondents believe blogs and social media have made communications more instantaneous because they encourage organizations to
respond more quickly to criticism.
• 73% of respondents believed the emergence of blogs and social media had changed the way their organizations (or their client organizations)
communicate.
• More than 90% of respondents encourage the use of research to measure how blogs and social media are impacting their organizations, but only
about one-third (39%) say their companies actually are conducting this measurement.
As companies put solid social media monitoring strategies in place, they will find the information necessary to help define their online corporate brand
identity and to develop a strategy to ensure these new platforms are helping them strengthen their image and communities with their customers.
Ignoring it won’t make it Go Away
The most important thing to understand about Twitter, Facebook and other social media networks is that the conversations are taking place with or without
your participation. As a PR professional, you can’t miss the opportunity to keep your organization’s voice in the discussion.
With company perceptions flooding the Internet, it is now possible to get insight into all aspects of an organization through monitoring both online and
offline media. Reputation management has grown in importance as one single post or comment has gained the ability to either boost or collapse company
perception. The rise in consumer-generated media in blogs and other social media forums has added insight into customer service problems and other
corporate perception issues.
With frustrated consumers turning to Twitter and Facebook to share their bad customer experiences, companies are watching their online reputation
change rapidly. Through monitoring, savvy companies have been able to use the information on these sites and turn around perceptions just as quickly.
Comcast, for example, has found a way to not only to get in front of the customer complaints to change their opinions, but also help out the customers in
the process. With dedicated Twitters that monitor and respond to customer issues, the organization has been able to stay one step ahead of the
Twitterverse and balance any negative tweets with positive outcomes. By responding, they have established a presence in social media that allows them to
control the company’s perceived value to its customers. With so many social media networks, blogs and communities swirling around the Internet, PR
professionals are challenged to identify a jumping off point and to find the time. Many organizations are overwhelmed trying to track social media, not
knowing where to begin or how to get started.
Uncovering Opportunities
As with traditional media monitoring, many key areas need to be taken into consideration to develop a sound strategy to utilize the information PR
professionals are able to gather. It is important to establish an understanding of the landscape itself to see what information will be most influential to the
company’s future direction.
• Competitive Analysis – Monitoring both your company and the competition will help create a fair evaluation of where the organization falls within the
industry. As important as what the public says about your own company is what they reveal about your competition. Monitoring the information shared by
both your competitors and their customers can help you gain a better understanding of their product’s advantages and disadvantages. That knowledge
can not only help strengthen your own business strategy but also provide insight into your customer’s needs.
• Industry Experts – Monitoring the industry as a whole can accomplish two goals: to see how the industry is shifting and what trends are emerging.
With industry leaders establishing an online presence, you now have the opportunity to communicate with the experts and gain a better understanding of
emerging trends. Additionally, you are able to see the upcoming turns and chances as they happen.
• Message and Reach – Traditionally, news coverage was monitored to see the number of clips and resonates. Social media and online publication
allow key messages to reach even further and to permeate throughout the industry. Monitoring messages about your company will allow the organization to
qualitatively evaluate its online perception.
• Foster Relationships with Current and Potential Customers – By monitoring social media, you can leverage your direct connection to the public and
your potential customers. While monitoring and addressing the concerns of current customers is extremely important. So is uncovering opportunities to
secure new customers. By tracking industry, competitor and other key terms, you can identify people looking for information or your products as well as
general information on your industry and competition. Approaching these situations very carefully, can lead to new business opportunities for the company
as well as raise your public perception.
How to Begin
1. Establish Guidelines – Controlling the messages, responses and interaction your brand is a big job. Social media has turned everyone associated
with your brand into a potential company representative. Whether you are a large or small company, the nature of social media requires specific guidelines
for conduct. Through careful monitoring, you are able to track the internal and external messages flowing through the Internet and ensure the guidelines
are being followed. While many employees are tempted to participate in conversations, monitoring helps you control the message that is being sent. While
99% of the participation is likely harmless, in same cases, it may impact company brand and reputation. Knowing what is said and by who will help you
identify any potential internal risks to your online reputation as well as identify potential organizational issues. By offering an internal social media code of
conduct, you can provide employees with messages that will help them serve to further your initiatives and steer the online conversations favorably.
2. Identify What to Monitor – With so many social media sites emerging and conversations taking place, it is important to identify what to monitor. With
thousand’s of new outlets appearing online, it is increasingly overwhelming to monitor and evaluate them all. But, managing and defining the process offers
some relief. Get started with a small subset of blogs and social media sites that are important to the company and/or industry and use them to move
forward and grow your online universe. As new online outlets are discovered in the company’s industry, determine the impact on the business and
therefore, the priority in your strategy. In addition to determining which sites to monitor, you need to keep in mind what areas to monitor. Aside from your
own company there are three key areas you should be tracking – competition, industry and messages. This will not only help you see how your company is
viewed but also provide the context and comparison you need to understand your industry as a whole. You will be able to see which messages are
resonating and how you are viewed amongst the landscape.
3. Gauge Impact – Not all online conversations will impact the company and not every mention of your company or brand will require the same
attention. While a discussion on the latest product upgrade is worth following, others may focus an area of the company which will not impact perception. In
addition to the value of the actual conversation, noting the impacted audience will also help drive your strategy. Most social media sites offer you a gauge
of the affected audience. For example, with Twitter you are able to see how many followers will see a tweet and Facebook allows you to see how many
members are within the group to view the discussion. While knowing what conversations are taking place and using the valuable insight gained through
monitoring them within the company is important, being able to set up a strategy based on impact will help you define the priority to the company.
4. Integrated Media Monitoring – Neither traditional nor social media monitoring alone will give you a solid perspective of the entire company. You need
to integrate both media within your monitoring to get a complete picture of your company’s presence. Both media offer different avenues for promoting the
company and influencing perception. By using the two to complement each other, you are able to make your message go even further. With traditional
media as a base, you are able to advance your strategy and further develop your message within the online world.
As a 24/7 source of information, understanding the information within social media and knowing what is important to the company is increasingly important.
Sifting through postings can sometimes lead to more questions than answers without clearly defined values and an understanding of what is most important
for your organization.
Evaluating Impact and Value
As with anything, value is determined by the goals of the company. While it is important to generate online buzz, the quality of the postings and impact on
the company is still the ultimate judge. Comments and discussions must be evaluated for both tone and prominence. As we know, the amount of positive
and negative tone and prominence of coverage makes all the difference. Companies need to not only track where and how often their brand is discussed
but assign a value based on the importance of the outlet to the organization and determine if the conversations are positive, negative or neutral to get an
accurate read for the company. Whether using technology to identify and evaluate articles based on set criteria or having individuals sift through the
articles to determine their value, it is important to take tone and prominence into consideration when evaluating its ultimate impact.
While today’s leading PR management solutions enable PR professionals to monitor news for the current landscape, the more advanced tools offer an
integrated media monitoring solution.
Conclusion
Many companies are still trying to determine the business value of social media and an understanding about how 140 characters can influence their brand.
Today’s technology offers PR professionals a variety of options for effectively monitoring the social media landscape:
• Searching individual sites – Searching key social media sites, such as Twitter, Facebook etc. etc. directly will help you get started. Some sites allow
you to create and save a search that you can easily run throughout the day. This is the most time consuming of the options but it will serve as an entry
point to better understanding your online reputation.
• Free online tools and applications – There are numerous free applications to help sort and monitor social media that will help you get started,
including Tweetdeck and Tweetbeep. These applications help you get a feel for the conversations taking place and will keep you updated on the latest
discussions.
• PR monitoring and management systems – PR monitoring and management solutions monitor and analyze multiple social media sites at one time to
help track your online reputation.
With social media continuing to draw in your current and potential customers, the opportunity to legitimately add value to your organization is very real.
Monitoring social media coverage helps you to connect with the online community that can influence your company’s reputation. PR professionals are able
to use the information they find to uncover opportunities, increase customer loyally and establish their brand online. The most important thing with social
media monitoring is to get started because the conversations are already happening.
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| Cover Story (Jun 2009) |
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