You should be tracking the word of mouth about your company. You should know what is being said about you in blogs, reviews, and social media.
If you’re a big company, you should hire one of the great monitoring firms out there. If you’re a small company, you can do it yourself.
Either way, it’s important to get a personal feel for what people are saying.
Debbie Curtis-Magley of UPS has come up with the best solution ever: Receptionists and admins in her department help follow the online word of mouth. Each one is assigned a topic, and keeps a sharp eye and human perspective on what is being said. I love how Debbie has taken the participatory nature of social media and extended it to the research side.
P.S. Favorite factoid: UPS started doing this because it’s really hard to use automation when your brand is a common word. They were flooded with information on push-ups, sit-ups, pull-ups, and screw-ups.
