saidWot bottling the noise

If you are interested in joining our sizzling team, take a look at the new positions available below:

Reputation Brand Analyst

Internship: Social Media/Brand Reputation Strategy

by admin Comments
 

There are many tips I can give out this week, but I guess they have more to do with the soccer than with ORM and saidWot.

Then again, I am sure that everybody feels that way at the moment.

On a more serious note….

Whilst a lot of development has taken place in the past couple of weeks with great outcomes such as the RSS Feeds, the iPhone app and the Desktop Widget, this week has been filled mainly with maintenance work as well as some new development work on the dashboard and the raw hits pages.

The results of this work will be coming out soon!

In the meantime though, I would like to make sure that all the current features are working smoothly and effectively for you. Therefore, if there is anything that you are having trouble with or need assistance with the installation or application, please do not hesitate to contact us!

We can always come through to your offices to help with the installation of the desktop widget, or to present to the team the various benefits of ORM.

I would like to furthermore share the following articles with you, as they are related to both the World Cup and ORM and provide you with some great insights in the dos and don’ts online:

FIFA’s true nature

Kulula’s ambush marketing 

Hope you have a great week.

by admin Comments
 

Over the past couple of weeks, everybody has heard about the BP Oil Spill at the Gulf Coast and has seen images or video footage of the devastation this has caused to the environment.

Many stories have come out about the long term effects this spill will have on the animal and plant life in the Gulf Coast and environmental organisations fear that dozens of species might become extinct due to this accident. Due to the nature of the images produced, many people were left feeling horrified.

Online, people were able to share their thoughts about this event with anybody and everybody, no matter how far away from the Gulf Coast you are. And they were able to show the world how they feel about BP and what action they will personally take to make sure that BP will feel the effects of this.

Whilst for some people this means not using BP for petrol and other services or conveniences anymore, other people have taken it a step further.

One great example of this is the persona ‘Leroy Stick’, who decided to register the Twitter profile ‘BP Global PR’, which BP had not registered themselves.

With this Twitter Profile set up, Leroy Stick, as BP Global PR, started tweeting about BP and the oil spill and made sure that every message came out with #bpcares, #bpspends, etc.

Although not all messages are about BP, Leroy manages to turn every statement made by the Oil Company into a laugh and mockery and hereby damages the BP brand online.

So far, he has over 138,000 followers, of which 3800 listed and has sent out 225 tweets, mostly about BP.

He has managed to turn a very bad PR situation for BP, into an even worse one. And he was not the only one!

This is just one case study of what can happen when you do not protect your brand online, especially on social media platforms.

One vital step that we recommend you take in your/client strategies is to register all domain names and associated variations, not only domains but also on social media profiles.

Have a great weekend and enjoy the World Cup!

by admin Comments
 

I came across the following post this morning, and it just highlighted for me exactly why we are in the business of ORM again and how it actually affects business worldwide:

This gentleman posted a negative article online expressing his frustration and anger regarding a particular Standard Bank Branch.

This negative mention was seen by many of his followers online and therefore affected the online reputation of the brand in a negative way.

However, due to ORM, Standard Bank was notified of the mention and responded immediately. Their quick response and the fact that they personally contacted him twice telephonically, left the man with a positive feeling about the bank. So much, that he even decided to blog about it again and add a compliment to his previous complaint.

In addition, the fact that Standard Bank has a Twitter profile and uses this to handle complaints on the site, gave him an immediate feeling that ‘the bank cares and listens to its customers’.

This is such a great example of how Online Reputation Management could and should be used:

• Monitor and track all the mentions regarding your brand / product / employees online and categorise according to the sentiment of the mention.
• Receive feedback from your existing and potential customer base in the online world
• Make sure that when crisis mentions come through, these are escalated to the correct person within the company immediately.
• Respond to negative as well as positive feedback immediately and provide the writer of the mention with the feeling that ‘the brand / company listens to what you have to say and cares about what you have to say‘. This can be done in the form of a company or ‘personal’ Twitter account, a Facebook Profile, a Facebook Fan Page, etc. Furthermore show the rest of the online community that you care as a brand and that you are online to engage and communicate with.
• In the case of a negative mention or complaint, follow up with a personal call, email or other form of communication to resolve the issue at hand.
• Make sure that the person that follows up on the complaint is aware of all the aspects of the complaint and can assist immediately. (Having a call centre agent call the customer and not being able to assist with the actual complaint will only result in more frustration and therefore more complaints online. Making the situation even worse)
• Leave the customer with a ‘warm and fuzzy‘ feeling that will often generate a positive mention from the customer online.
• Learn from the mistakes made and make sure that they do not occur again.

In addition, other factors play a role such as:

• Learn from your competitors and see how they (do not) engage online
• Build an online relationship with your target market and be available to them in the online space
• Identify the channels used by your target market and make sure to be present on these channels.
• Engage…engage…and engage some more

by Carla Jones Comments
 

The Nestle Company is finding themselves in a bit of a mess all due to a parody video created by environmental protection group Greenpeace. The video suggests that the production of a key ingredient, palm oil, helps further the destruction of rainforests, which in turn threatens endangered species such as the Orangutang. Various social media platforms have caught on to this story and overnight created a Reputation nightmare for Nestle. It will be interesting to see how they proceed in trying to undo the damage that has been done over the last couple of days.

More on this:

The Facebook Nestle Mess: When Social Media Goes Anti-Social

Facebook Nestle fan page

Nestle mess shows sticky side of Facebook pages

Nestlé Makes a Mess on Facebook

by Sandra Olivier Comments