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I just finished reading an Adage article about how the car brand Mini have been working with MotiveQuest to try and understand how online buzz leads to retail sales – and what they can do about it.
MotiveQuest uses what they call ‘online anthropology’ to decipher why consumers do what they do. Among other things that can include monitoring blogs, social networking sites et al and analysing these online conversations.
Needless to say, knowing what people are saying about you and your brand online is a worthwhile effort. It can provide viable feedback, identify brand ambassadors and help mold the way you approach your Internet presence and interaction with the rest of the online world.
Unfortunately, according to AdAge at least, MotiveQuest projects start from around $30,000 – beyond the means of most small businesses.
So, what can a small business do to keep an eye on their online reputation?
- Use a service like Google Alerts to track your name or brand name online
- Take part in relevant forums
- Develop an open channel for customers to provide you with feedback online – a blog is a perfect example – and make sure you respond to comments and suggestions
- Don’t overdo it – there are literally millions of places you could promote and list your business online – if you spread yourself too thin there’s little chance you’ll be able to keep up with (and keep an eye on) how your business is being talked about
- Use Technorati to keep an eye on who’s linking to you
- Take a few minutes every week to trawl through your website’s analytics data to see how visitors are finding you – it might lead you to some interesting places and conversations
Doing the same offline might not be as easy to achieve but that’s not to say you shouldn’t be keen to keep an ear to the ground.
- Make sure you solicit feedback at every opportunity and make giving feedback as easy as possible – in fact, you should reward customers who provide feedback
- Encourage your staff to provide you with feedback – and make it confidential
- Deal with issues as they arise,
- Use mystery shoppers (friends and family can do in a pinch but try top find people who are more objective)
- Interact with your customers and be active in your industry
Needless to say they’re not exhaustive lists – can you add any ideas for keeping an eye on buzz online or offline?
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Hi Mark:
Nice post – and it is unfortunate that our work is so expensive – but it takes a LOT of resources to do the organization and analysis we do (typically a project will use millions of conversations)
I agree that there are lots of tools available and everyone should be doing whatever they can to listen in.
TO’B
Hi Tom – thanks for taking the time out to comment.
I can only guess how much time and energy goes into what you do for business and no doubt it’s money worth spending for the brands you work with.
But for small businesses and micro-enterprises I think it still a valid concept – albeit on a much smaller scale. If you ever launch a ‘micro version’ of your services make sure to let us know!
Thanks again
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