According to BrightLocal, 88% of consumers trust online reviews from other customers just as much as they would recommendations from peers. Reviews are but one facet of your social media reputation.

Its no secret that in the digitally connected, socially savvy world of social media today's consumer trust their friends and peer groups ahead of the corporate message, and that's mainly because is so easy today to be able access 'opinion' which in turn helps to form our view of your company, product or service.

One of the key pillars of our skill based 'Social Selling' training program is to start with what is essentially your online footprint, this is what people who don't yet know who you are will perceive you as being, we call it your personal brand, and it used to be whats known as your reputation. The same thing goes for your company brand, and its reputation, and today they are inextricably connected whether you like it or not.

We often see and hear the same paranoia from companies and brands we work with that they 'have no control' in the social media space, and to a certain extent this paranoia does have some degree of relevancy. 

This is often seen when brands don't look to get involved, or initiate conversations, and worse still are not seen to be listening by consumers. What they choose to do is simply move the 'advertise and promote' mentality into the social media space because the focus is on reach, not engagement.

"Although consumers are lodging complaints, asking questions and providing feedback on social media, they don’t necessarily tag the brands they’re talking about. In fact, only 3 percent of customer service messages actually tag the companies.”

We recognise that for many companies being on 'social' is a scary place to be, but as the saying goes 'if you want to influence the conversation, you have to be in the conversation'

There are a few perks of managing your social media presence. The least of which is an enhanced image of your brand on social networks. It’s also a good way for other people to learn about you.

You can even leverage social media to set yourself apart from the competition by directly interacting with your followers. Further, good social media management often results in higher rankings on search engines.

Finally, it’s also a great place to source instant and insightful feedback about your brand. By taking into account what people are saying about you online, you can improve your social media presence. It’s a constant cycle — seeking feedback and improving upon it.

At DLA Ignite we specialise in helping companies and the internal 'Change Makers' deliver on all these points, and I'm pretty sure we can help you as well. We have a tried and tested methodology, we hold you and your colleagues hand throughout, ensuring we not only 'teach' you what to do, we also make sure its firmly embedded into your firms DNA.

We don't do retainers, we are not an agency that creates and produces copy/content or sells ads for you.

We are active 'practitioners' of what we do, we already know and can evidence the ROI of a robust and internally aligned 'Social' strategy.

Part of that evidence it that you are reading this blog, just like many others - including your competitor!

We also don't do outbound pushy, salesy marketing, so if you would like to explore more, please contact the author of this blog.