The New Dimensions of Reputation Management
By Rhonda Van Pelt, July 2009
As the importance of social media increases for marketers, online reputation-management is evolving as well. As first-generation reputation-management tools are upgraded to deliver more than basic metrics, marketers are beginning to refer to them as “listening platforms.”
These listening platforms, such as our Reputation Connect Plus product, can provide more comprehensive results in several new dimensions. These dimensions can be summarized as broader support, deeper insights and higher functionality. Let’s take a brief look at each one.
Broader support
Through better data-collection and enhanced analytical capabilities, the new listening platforms simply provide more information. Their monitoring can encompasses multiple cultures and languages through natural-language processing--a must in today’s global marketplace. Increased reporting capabilities can reveal not only the top domains that mentioned targeted search terms and track the numbers and trends of mentions, but also can identify the type of medium (e.g., blog, wiki, Twitter), as well as the geographical location of the conversations.
Deeper insights
As they’re able to gather more information, the new platforms can deliver detailed, accurate analyses of consumers’ sentiments, demographics and psychographics--paying particular attention to key influencers. Data can be segmented demographically and can indicate the main ideas and common themes in an online discussion. Reports illustrate the positive and/or negative references to selected search terms, including categories such as anger, anxiety and sadness. Tracking such sentiments can furnish important, early clues about brand perception and advertising response.
Higher functionality
User interfaces are becoming more friendly, allowing agencies or clients to tailor monitoring and reporting to their specific needs. Automated reports can be run at specified intervals, allowing clients to customize the stream of information received. New reporting parameters display a variety of informative chart types. For instance, a pie chart is especially useful for displaying products’ share of the buzz, but a bar graph is more appropriate for showing popularity rankings. Line graphs with various colors representing the terms illustrate peaks of interest and activity that provide starting points for further investigation.
Obviously no one can predict how social-media usage will develop in the coming months, but it’s just as obvious that the public-relations equation has dramatically tilted in favor of the public. The new listening-platform technologies will help marketers and PR analysts collect, analyze and respond effectively to the non-stop, 24/7 conversation flow.