There are a few tools every company should use to monitor what people are saying.
Google Alerts – This is a Google service that sends you an alert based on the keywords you set up.
OneRiot or Twitter search– OneRiot is a real-time search engine that captures keywords on Twitter and social bookmarking sites. Search OneRiot for keywords about your company and respond to complaints or concerns about your product or service, or if your company is focused specifically on Twitter, Twitter has its own real-time search engine for just tweets.
Using these tools with the appropriate keywords will catch 99-100% of everything people are saying about your company, so you can respond appropriately and protect the brand.
Dealing withBad Publicity
There are always situations where an experiment goes awry or someone just doesn‟t like your company, product, or service and wants to complain about it in a public forum. There are a few ways your company can deal with bad publicity on social media: calmly dispel it if the information is false, put a positive spin on it if the information is true, or ignore it if the information is purely opinion. Sometimes drawing attention to a dissenter is worse than allowing them to have and speak their opinions.
Here are some tips for responding to bad publicity:
Respond quickly to help control the message Response should be short and to the point
Response should seem impromptu, but not unprofessional Response must be warm, genuine, and authentic
Response must be in the right medium – don‟t use social media to respond to shareholders or mainstream media
It helps to have a relationship with your customer prior to the incident
Use the right person in your company to respond to the incident – your company‟s CEO is not always the best or most appropriate choice
Here are some tips specifically for the video medium:
Use Vimeo instead of YouTube for branding purposes Memorize what you want to say and look directly at the camera
Don‟t let the ubiquity of the medium allow the video to look unprofessional – use good lighting, appropriate attire, and production makeup
Don‟t overproduce – professional videos look inauthentic
The shorter the better – viewers form impressions in the first 12 seconds
Don‟t become fodder for a junior comedian – people who know how to use video editing tools can remix the message to make fun of the entire video
Case Study on Reputation Management: Domino’s Pizza
In March 2009, two Domino‟s Pizza employees released a YouTube video of themselves coughing and sneezing on a customer‟s food. Within one day the video had over 1 million hits on YouTube.
In Chicago, Domino‟s local operating partner, going by Twitter handle @dpzramon, tweeted reassurances about the cleanliness and employee training standards of his Chicago stores within hours of the video gaining publicity. He also sent individual messages to all of his Chicago friends on Twitter with the same information, and asked them to retweet the information to all of their followers.
A day later, Domino‟s CEO released a three minute response video via YouTube. He used strong language, calling what his employees did a felony, and saying he was sickened by their actions. He also was not looking at the camera directly, which made viewers question whether he was reading cue cards.
As you might be guessing, one of these approaches worked extremely well, and one of them didn‟t. Chicagoans who had received messages from @dpzramon came away with the feeling that the situation was handled appropriately and that their Domino‟s
Pizza stores were well taken care of. In fact, Chicagoans wanted to buy pizza to support their friend @dpzramon.
The response to the Domino‟s CEO video was much different. People felt the video was too long, used too strong of language, did not seem genuine, and that the video seemed unprofessional. Viewers also criticized Domino‟s for not responding to the incident for
several days, and for using the wrong media to put out a message that was more aimed
at shareholders and the media than at Domino‟s Pizza customers.
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