PENINSULAR BUSINESS SERVICES

I think we will all agree that your brand whether personal, professional or commercial, is definitely something that should be protected.   Why would you allow it to be tarnished when you have endured blood, sweat and tears in establishing it over the years? 

You may have sacrificed a huge amount of family life in the making of your business, so protection for your brand is probably top of your list.

Have you considered how Social Media and in particular Twitter can affect your brand? 

People have the notion that if they aren’t interested in engaging in social media, and stay well away from it, then their brand is protected.   So, it’s a nasty wake-up call when they discover that actually whether they are registered on social media platforms or not, their brand, be it personal, professional or commercial, is probably being talked about in their absence.

You simply cannot prevent people from talking about things on Twitter, or even complaining, so let’s hope they aren’t complaining about your products or services?    This isn’t all bad because it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that if you are being talked about it’s better than NOT being talked about.

Here’s why it’s GOOD …..  you can make sure that the moment someone does complain publicly on Twitter that you are brand monitoring and you then nip the problem in the bud.  

You can turn it to your advantage and walk away feeling proud.  You can help someone who in the first instance expressed a negative opinion of your brand, to change that opinion.  Following your efficient response in engaging with them, you can leave them with a glowing impression instead!

This is precisely why you would want to respond efficiently and effectively to that Twitter comment:

Sue is a Broadband customer of Company A and she’s been attempting to query the low download speed through customer service.  She’s angry and frustrated and she tweets that “Company A has dreadful customer service – I can’t get anyone to appreciate my problem, they just ignore the fact that I’m paying good money for an appalling service.”

Now you are Company A’s person monitoring the brand on Twitter.  And you use various search functions to make sure that whenever anyone tweets about Company A you know about the tweet within a reasonable amount of time.

 

When you see this tweet by Sue, you immediately tweet her publicly: “@username I can help you. Call me at xxxxx and I assure you I will personally attend to your problem.”

Sue calls you, you take care of the problem, and she’s so delighted she then tweets:“Company A just took care of my problem.  That’s good customer service!”

Now imagine if you hadn’t been brand monitoring and Sue’s tweet went unanswered.  Then her complaint escalates.

For example, someone could reply to Sue: “@username I also had crappy customer service from Company A.”

Sue could then reply: “I wish I could switch to another Broadband provider.  I really dislike Company A.”

Before you know what’s happening because of the viral nature of Twitter, and the fact that it is real-time, a whole load of people – people who perhaps don’t even have a complaint with your company, but want to offer their ‘opinion’ – have jumped on the bandwagon.

It might, or it might not be, too late at this stage to undo the damage.  Without a doubt though, this is the way that a brand can suffer damage.  It could probably have been prevented if you had caught it early, taken care of the problem promptly and efficiently, and then you and the satisfied customer, could have tweeted about the successful resolution.

 

Brand monitoring can take advantage of positive comments, here’s how:

 

Track your brand on Twitter so that you can also pick up the positive comments.  Until someone can convince me otherwise I will continue to use Tweetdeck for this purpose because it meets all my needs. If, for example, someone tweets a compliment for your brand, you can re-tweet that compliment and potentially send it farther into the ether.

By tweeting worthwhile information in connection to your brand, there is also the added advantage that the perception of your brand can be emboldened in the public mind.   This will enable you to cultivate goodwill so that, should a problem arise your customers or clients will be magnanimous and likely to forgive you.

Finally I urge you to recognise that brand monitoring is a very important marketing activity in the social networking Twittersphere.

In the words of the minstrel in the light-hearted video that follows

" You might as well not have existed".

THE BALLARD OF TWITTER

Would you kindly leave a comment and tell me how Twitter has been successful in endorsing your brand, be it personal, professional or commercial?