I honestly believe that every company needs some sort of presence online, with Internet penetration ever increasing in South Africa, there is no better time to establish your company or brand online.

I would consider myself a bit of a “twitterholic”, I really find twitter a highly informative and endless learning resource, so you can say I’m a big fan. Whilst in the world of Twitter this past weekend I began to really dig deep into my followers updates to get an understanding of what they actually were stating, and it came to me that most (65%) of the time, they were all complaining about something, and I’m also 100% sure that most of the brand, products or companies they were talking about, had absolutely no idea of what was being said.

Working in the world of Online Reputation Management I began to think to myself, which companies really need to monitor what’s being said? I myself would say all and if people are not talking about you, engage and ignite conversation, but this is not the mindset of the average Marketing/PR manager.

So I have decided to compile a list of companies/industries that I think should not even operate without knowing what is being said about them online, in the end of the day it’s that average guy “John” who only has a 100 followers reading his updates everyday, who has the influence, not the big billboard on Rivonia road!

My list of industries that I think should definitely adopt an ORM strategy now, or it will be too late:

• All the cellphone networks : MTN, Vodacom, Cell C, Virgin Mobile
• Banks
• Airlines
• Famous retailers, where excellent customer service is a core value
• Cell phone manufacturers
• Car manufacturers
• Rental services

These are but a few of the many industries that surround us but I do think that it is vital for the above to have some sort of ORM strategy in place, as most of the above industries involve a high degree of customer interaction, so therefore customer service play a huge role, and we all know how far a “service complaint” can go.

Listen, learn and conquer!

Just as soon as you get comfortable in your corner office, with your laptop and view (does anybody still have a corner office these days?)  the world of digital has a way of literally pulling the mat from underneath your feet. A couple of announcements over the last couple of months have once again changed the way search and social media will be affecting our lives going forward.

On the 21st October 2009 during the Web 2.0 Summit, Bing officially confirmed partnerships with Twitter and Facebook to integrate public tweets and Facebook updates into its search results. A few hours later Google also announced a partnership with Twitter at the Web 2.0 Summit.

These two announcements have far reaching implications, the most important one is in relation to how this will affect Online Reputation Management. With the explosion of Social Media the power has gradually shifted from advertisers and brand custodians that control the message to consumers through advertising to the citizen journalist that are able to comment, talk to each other, post pictures, post videos about your brand or company that you have no control over. This has effected brands all around and created a new awareness of the importance of managing your reputation online. However the changes announced by Google and Bing have now added another layer onto this already complex area. Not only does a person have the power of changing and influencing perceptions about your brand but this will also now be available in real time on the search engines.

So think of it like this, you are on your way to a favourite restaurant and as you are about to leave you do a quick search on Google or Bing only to find that somebody posted two minutes ago about the bad service and food they have just experienced at this restaurant. Will this make you think twice about going?

The reality is as the world of digital keeps on changing so will peoples priorities on how they manage their brands. You can no longer consider reputation management as a nice to have for the future. With the real time changes in search you have to take action and be proactive otherwise it will affect your bottom-line.

I was sitting in a client meeting last week and while they were debating around Social Media I found it refreshing that although these guys see the importance of Social Media they weren’t ready to just jump in without a proper thought-out plan and strategy. I spend my time monitoring conversations online and I know that as much as Social Media has an important role to play, you have to allow for a certain level of caution and planning.

I’ve seen too many brands trying to participate in social media because they think it’s the cool new thing to do. That is not enough anymore you have to participate because it’s effective, otherwise what’s the point?

To help clients with this idea of being effective, Josh Bernoff invented a little acronym called POST which I gladly share:

• P is People. Don’t start a social strategy until you know the capabilities of your audience. If you’re targeting college students, use social networks. If you’re reaching out business travelers, consider ratings and reviews.
• O is objectives. Pick one. Are you starting an application to listen to your customers, or to talk with them? To support them, or to energize your best customers to evangelize others? Or are you trying to collaborate with them? Decide on your objective before you decide on a technology. Then figure out how you will measure it.
• S is Strategy. Strategy here means figuring out what will be different after you’re done. Do you want a closer, two-way relationship with your best customers? Do you want to get people talking about your products? Do you want a permanent focus group for testing product ideas and generating new ones? Imagine you succeed. How will things be different afterwards? Imagine the endpoint and you’ll know where to begin.
• T is Technology. A community. A wiki. A blog or a hundred blogs. Once you know your people, objectives, and strategy, then you can decide with confidence.

So before you jump in boots and all consider these point, they will definately help you move in the right direction!

Ingrid Rubin will be lecturing at AAA School of Advertising on Reputation Management

* Hellopeter Crawler added
* Ability to delete sentiments from sentiments page
* New filtering options on the results page