Benefits of brand reputation monitoring

Brand reputation monitoring has come up repeatedly on this blog. You already know what brand reputation monitoring is and what the best tools for monitoring are. We still have to answer one essential question — what are the benefits of brand reputation monitoring?

You have to justify your every business decision. Is brand reputation monitoring worth the effort and money? Will it add value to the company?

In the long run, brand reputation monitoring will be beneficial to your organisation.

You just have to remember that building a positive brand reputation will take time, and you won’t see the effects right away. Nevertheless, it’s an investment worth your time and effort.

If you’re still on the fence when it comes to brand reputation monitoring, I hope this article will help to convince you that the benefits outweigh the costs!

Here’s our itinerary for today:

A quick recap of brand reputation monitoring

What are the benefits of brand reputation monitoring?

Solid brand reputation can help your business thrive

A quick recap of brand reputation monitoring

Before we dive into the benefits of brand reputation monitoring, let’s make sure we’re all on the same page when it comes to the brand reputation basics.

Brand reputation is closely associated with feelings — how do your customers feel about your brand? What’s the first thing that comes to mind when they think about your product?

I know it sounds a bit far-fetched — how can you measure feelings?

It’s not an exact science, but it’s doable, and especially important online — where your customers have a number of platforms where they can share their experiences and feelings about your brand with the public.

Here’s a video that shows you 10 extra important places to monitor to protect your business reputation online: 

A positive brand reputation can help you fight a crisis or win your customers over from your competitors.

Even if you hit a rock in your online presence, a well-established and managed brand reputation will help you limit the damage.

What is brand reputation monitoring all about?

Brand reputation is often considered a reactive process — you receive a positive or negative mention, and you have to reply.

Many businesses think that the touchpoint where brand reputation management should kick in, is the moment of receiving a negative comment.

But building brand reputation starts much earlier and is much more complicated process.

Of course, responding to reviews is a part of brand reputation management. That’s only one element of the story.

Brand reputation management is about building a reputation that goes in line with the core values of your company and the needs of your audience.

The development of social media channels set new challenges to building an online brand reputation monitoring strategy.

You have to be aware of every online mention regarding your brand. Your existing and potential customers will talk about you online.

You don’t have to respond to all online mentions about your brand, but, at least, you have to be aware of them. Otherwise, your potential customers will be talking behind your back.

A successful brand reputation strategy will help you thrive in both offline and online world.

What are the benefits of brand reputation monitoring?

You know a lot about the importance of brand reputation monitoring and the technical aspects of the process.

There is still one additional aspect we need to establish — why should you monitor your brand’s reputation? What are the benefits of brand reputation monitoring?

Building trust

We buy products or services from the brands we trust.

Monitoring brand reputation will help build trust in your company.

By responding to positive and negative comments quickly and resolving any issues that may arise, you will show your customers that:

1. you value their opinion;
2. you are willing to go the extra mile for your customers;
3. you can prevent an escalation of social media crisis or even turn the tables around and keep your clients happy despite initial problems.

The problem with building trust is that you have to be available to your current and potential customers on the channels they choose. In the world of constant change, it might be problematic.

That’s where media monitoring comes in handy.

Brand24, according to Buffer one of the most robust, yet affordable, tools on the market, will gather all the mentions containing your predefined keyword.

Let’s start with setting up a project.

It’s a four-step process in our new wizard which seems like a lot. But if you spend a bit more time creating your project, you will get more relevant results.

And the whole process is a piece of cake.

I would advise to set up at least two different projects — one to monitor the online talk around your brand and one to keep a close eye on your competitors.

In the first step of the project, enter the keywords you’d like to monitor.

Think about phrases such as:

1. the name of your company
2. the name of a specific product or service
3. your motto
4. your branded hashtags
5. campaign-specific hashtags
6. your brand handle

That should cover the basics!

From now on, Brand24 will start gathering all online mentions containing your predefined keywords.

The mobile app, email notifications, and Slack integration will make sure you’ll never miss a new mention of your brand.

There’s one more feature that might be interesting for you.

Brand24 collects mentions from review sites, for example, Booking.com, Yelp, or Tripadvisor.

Your customers look for recommendations from other people online. Responding to both positive and negative reviews will help you build credibility and establish your brand reputation.

In the third step, you can add extra sources you’d like to monitor. Filling in the forms will guarantee even more accurate results. 

You can add:

• your company website
• TripAdvisor
• Booking 
• Yelp

In the final step (sorry about the whole process!), you can specify the language you’d like to monitor. 

You can test Brand24 for free! Register here for your trial – we won’t ask for your credit card number.

Benefit of brand reputation monitoring

Making people trust your brand will translate directly into higher customer engagement, increased brand awareness, and, ultimately, higher profits.

Crisis management

Sooner or later, you will receive a negative review. That’s not an end of the world!

You can turn the tables around, or, at least, reduce the impact of the review.

The first step to successful crisis management and brand reputation protection is awareness.

If you don’t know about a crisis in-the-making, you can’t do anything to prevent it.

Thankfully, a media monitoring project will help you discover both positive and negative reviews.

Now, the ball is in your court.

Let’s start with positive reviews.

You should reply to positive reviews — your customers will feel appreciated and will recommend your brand to others.

It’s a bit trickier when it comes to negative reviews.

Without a doubt, you should definitely respond to negative reviews.

Be polite and try to resolve the issue at hand promptly. Be empathetic and investigate the nature of the complaint.

If you need some more advice, my colleague Kuba wrote a whole blog post on responding to bad reviews.

Benefit of brand reputation monitoring

Turn the tables around and make the negative reviews work in your favour. That will add credibility to your brand reputation. Nobody is perfect, but you can handle social media crisis perfectly.

Audience insights

Your brand’s message is only as strong as the response of your audience.

You have to reach the right people, at the right time, and at the right channel. That’s a challenge.

Brand reputation monitoring will help you discover what your audience is saying about you, how do they feel about your brand, and on which platforms they like to chat.

You’ll find the first piece of information right in Brand24’s dashboard. The tool will divide the mentions based on the platform they come from — whether it’s a social media platform, blogs, news site, or review site.

Media monitoring tool will also tell you how your audience feels about certain products, features, or services.

All thanks to sentiment analysis.

Brand24 will analyse the online talk around your keywords and assign a positive, negative, or neutral sentiment.

A sudden rise in negative sentiment can be an indicator of a crisis.

A high number of positive mentions could mean your audience is particularly happy with one or more of the features you offer.

I’d like to be perfectly honest with — sentiment analysis doesn’t always work smoothly.

The algorithm still has a lot to learn, especially when it comes to detecting sarcasm and irony. That’s why you can assign the sentiment yourself.

Benefit of brand reputation monitoring

The more you know about your audience, the better message you can deliver. Monitoring your brand reputation across different social media platforms will provide with actionable insights.

Business optimisation

Monitoring your brand reputation can help you optimise your business strategy.

Brand reputation monitoring is partly about listening to what others have to say about your company.

Another pair of eyes could spot the strengths and weaknesses of your business right away.

There are features of your product that your customers value more than the rest, that you might not be aware of.

Monitoring what people say online will help you discover what people really think about you.

What do they like the most? What do they dislike? Which features would they like to update? Which they don’t use at all?

Brand reputation monitoring shouldn’t be your only source of customers’ insights knowledge, but it’s a great place to start.

Benefit of brand reputation monitoring

Your customers are a fountain of knowledge when it comes to your product. You should tap into it and optimise your business accordingly.

Solid brand reputation can help your business thrive

You won’t build your brand’s reputation overnight. It’s a long-term process that can, nevertheless, yield substantial benefits for your company.

There are many benefits to brand reputation monitoring, which you simply can’t overlook. Think about issues such as:

1. resolving customers’ complaints
2. providing excellent customer service
3. showing your customers you care about them by going the extra mile
4. identifying the opportunities for your company
5. helping you reach your existing and potential clients on the channels they use most often.

Is it time to start monitoring your brand reputation? If yes, then register here for your free trial.

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