Simple strategies for monitoring your brand online

Be On the Lookout

What are your customers saying about your brand after they do business with you? One easy way to find out is by monitoring online postings. By paying attention to customer perceptions about your brand, you can learn what you're doing right (or wrong), what you might want to change about your business moving forward, and what your customers really want from you. Here are some simple ways to keep an eye on customer comments in cyberspace and build buzz for your brand:

1. Sign up for Google Alerts. This free monitoring serviceautomatically notifies you via email every time your business is mentioned in content posted on the web, as detected by Google's search engine. You can sign up using your own name, your company name, and your website URL as keywords. Of particular importance, the service allows you to head off any repercussions from erroneous or negative comments before they get too entrenched in the search engine databases.
2. Create your own search results. Keeping an active presence on LinkedIn, a business-oriented social networking site, can help generate positive search results for your brand. Also, consider contributing to other websites using your company's name. For example, write product reviews on Amazon.com, post comments on professional blogs, or write interesting articles on topics you know a lot about for online publications.
3. Encourage positive online buzz. Once you know where your customers are posting comments about your brand online, ask customers to post there, too. For example, if you own a restaurant and find that many of your customers have reviewed your location on Yelp.com, ask customers to post their reviews at that site. You can remind them to do this at your website, in your online newsletter, and on your takeout menus. The more positive posts there are about your business, the stronger your brand will be for those who seek you out.