Reputation & Social Media: Understanding the Fundamentals
Reputation is an element of what makes up a brand & can help define a brand within a particular medium.
Branding - Primarily about what you say. The message you communicate to your audience.
Reputation - Primarily about what you do. The actions you take and the activities you participate in determine your reputation.
4 elements that contribute to reputation
Identity: The way the brand wishes to be seen. AKA - Brand Identity
Image: The way the brand is perceived. AKA - Brand Image
Performance: Track-record of interactions between the brand and it’s audience.
Reputation: The evaluation of Id & Im with relation to P. Meaning, if identity & image align with a brands performance; it’ll develop a positive reputation. (or at least the reputation it wants)The better you define these elements & the clearer you communicate them to your audience; the greater your chances of achieving your ideal reputation.
Reputation Management via Social Media
Responding
There are lots of really GREAT response assessment guidelines specifically designed to help manage reputation though social media. However, many of these guidelines don’t consider which reputation element your responding to.
Although timeliness of response is an important element; the content of the response is generally more important.
Finding the Conversation
There are several great tools available to track conversations & locate conversations that are taking place outside of the channels your currently participating in.
Keeping Track of Your Conversations
Finding Other Conversations
The implications of social media on brand reputation are substantial. It’s important that brands actively participate in reputation management through social media channels. The act of not managing your reputation within the social media universe might not result in any negative conversations; but won’t help enforce your reputation.
Although lack of participation within social media probably won’t ‘break’ your reputation; it does represent a missed opportunity to substantially improve your reputation. Creating & maintaining a brands ideal reputation through traditional broadcast/ mass media marketing can be effective, but costly.
How do you manage your reputation? What tools do you use? Feel free to answer these questions, post comments, or ask questions here or on Twitter. Make sure to @ me when requesting a response - @thejordanrules.