Top 4 Reasons Why You Should Monitor Online Mentions
As a business owner or vested employee, you should know that customer feedback and online mentions are imperative to the overall success of your business. Quick response time can make the difference between a brand crisis and a great opportunity for your marketing efforts.
In 2019 it may come as no surprise that online brands and business must work rigorously to procure positive online reviews for potential no customers to see.
This all starts with properly monitoring your brand online and ensuring your online reputation remains positive and out of harm’s way.
Track Your Competition
There are a plethora of free tools online to assist your efforts in monitoring not only online mentions but also specific search terms and social network posts referencing your business.
The most popular monitoring tool online is Google Alerts. Why? Because it is free and extremely effective.
Think about it, what a better way to track your search engine results than with a search engine tool provided by none other than Google! Keep an eye on brand competitors, your brand on social media and results within each search tool.
Start by heading over to Google Alerts (click here). You may be asked to log in with your respective email address you would like the notifications to be sent to. Next, you are asked to input specific keywords to track.
Track the following to the best results:
- Name of brand or business
- Name of owner(s) (as well as top-level management)
- Your industry (this will help with trends and staying up-to-date on your competition)
- Names of competitors (to see what is working for them giving you potential opportunities)
Coming in second is Talkwalker, this is an alternative to Google Alerts. Talkwalker Alerts is an extremely powerful tool used to track social media.
View insights and analytics on where and how you can improve your existing efforts.
Generate Feedback From Existing Customers
In this day and age consumers turn to the internet for answers to all their problems. As a business owner, it should be your main priority to generate as many positive reviews as possible.
There are various ways you can go about requesting reviews from past customers:
- Gift cards in exchange for a 5-star review
- Discounts off their next purchase
- Exclusive deals & promotions for existing customers
In 2019, customers want to feel a sense of trust and by giving away free merchandise or large discounts is the best way to generate positive reviews.
Start by sending daily emails to recent purchasers asking for feedback on their experience. It is important to keep in contact and remain relevant as this can lead to repeat customers and an increase in brand trust and consumer loyalty.
Promote Your Brand With Third-Party Influencers
Social media has been a way many large businesses were started. Head over to Facebook, Instagram, and even a Twitter search to find prominent influencers in your prospective industry or niche.
Send them an email or direct message asking how you can help them and in return if they will promote your product/service on their profile. Although there is a nominal fee with something like this, it is a great way to gain fast exposure and potentially fans along the way.
As tempting as it is to reach out to Instagram profiles with over a million followers we tend to keep it smaller. Contact accounts that have a follower count in between 100k and 500k. This is typically profiles that are still growing and are willing to work with other people. Accounts that have over a million followers has already “made it” in a sense and may decline your proposal unless you pay them thousands of dollars to do so.
Social mentions are a fantastic way to generate new leads. Once others see people are liking and engaging with the content you publish they will be more inclined to check your page out and see what you are all about.
Another viable option would be to join as many Facebook groups as possible and interact with the group on a regular basis. After you have built a rapport you can start promoting yourself to that group or prospective page.
Capitalize On New Trends in Industry
Next, one of the most effective ways to generate brand mentions or social mentions is to be the first to publish an article on a trending topic. You can do this by utilizing Google Trends or Facebook Audience Insights to see what consumers are most interested in nowadays.
So, as we write this article today you can see all the trending topics people are interested in:
To maximize your efforts at generating social shares and online mentions you must be privy to social listening. Once you know exactly what your customers are looking for you can produce content that aligns with those topics.
Once an article has been written. Use Facebook (with a small daily budget) to promote that article across the nation via a “sponsored ad”.
As individuals share and like your content you can see who specifically shared/liked and invite them to “like” your page.
As simple as most think online reputation management (ORM) is. It takes time to restructure and redefine how your brand looks online. Monitoring your online mentions is a perfect way to start. Routinely check your analytics to see what pages are the most popular and why.
In addition, online mentions can give you free marketing ideas from customers who are hoping you will start something new.
Furthermore, contact us today if you wish to learn more about generating more consumer feedback (positive reviews). Or how to grow your brand online as a whole. Our experts are here to help, give us a call today.