It goes without saying that any successful enterprise is only as good as its “good” reputation. If someone write’s a negative article in your local or state newspaper about your personal injury law firm, you wouldn’t sit by and just let it be. You would take some action to correct the error or misrepresentation. You wouldn’t just sit idly by.
The same is true about protecting your social media reputation. On this relatively new technical stage of information dissemination, your reputation is extremely important. In order to protect your business online, you need to understand the importance of social media reputation management and how it fits into your marketing strategy.
The importance of social media reputation management
Social media platforms, review sites and other online sites give people a place to voice their opinion about your business. If you ignore what is being said about you, good or bad, your reputation and your business can suffer. You have to be attentive and committed and you have to monitor, engage and listen to your past, present and potential clients. It’s called “social listening.”
BrightLocal reports that 72% of consumers come to trust a brand after reading a positive comment or review. An SDL survey found that 58% of consumers share their positive experiences and those that read them trust them more than they trust anything you have to say about yourself.
Timeliness is a real factor as well. Online customers expect a response time of four hours. On average, a company’s response time is 10 hours. How do you stack up to these figures?
According to the 2018 ReviewTrackers Online Review Survey, Google is the number 1 site for distribution of online reviews and Facebook is second. Google is also the online review site where consumers are reading the most reviews: 63.6 percent of consumers read online reviews on Google before visiting a business.
What is social media reputation management?
Social media reputation management is the process of tracking, monitoring and hopefully eliminating negative social media material about your law firm while improving your standing and credibility.
What do you need to monitor?
You need to ask yourself what exactly you need and/or want to monitor online that you think will help improve your reputation and grow your practice.
Things to monitor include:
- Your firm’s (brand) name
- The general and specific services you provide
- Any high-profile member of your staff
- Your greatest competitors
DIY social reputation management tools
You will need specific social reputation management solutions to accomplish social monitoring. There are several DIY online tools that can help you do this.
- IFTTT: This tool automatically provides information based on “If this happens, then do that.” You set up the trigger channel (the “if this happens” part) and the action channel (the “then do this” part). You input what to monitor, such as what people are saying about your firm, where you want the tool to look, and then you will receive a daily email alert with your results.
- Me on the Web: To use this tool, you will need an existing Google account. This tool, on your Google dashboard, notifies you when information about you shows up on the internet.
- Ice Rocket: This tool allows you to instantly search blogs, Twitter and Facebook for specific terms. It lets you know what people are talking about and what terms they are using to discuss specific topics
- Social Mention: This tool allows you to monitor multiple websites and find out which words people are using to talk about your law firm.
Many companies use marketing firms to monitor their social media reputation because it can be very time consuming. As busy as you are taking care of your personal injury law practice, it’s doubtful you have the time to do this.
If you need help with social media reputation management, give us a call. We can help you build trust with your potential clients through the management process, which is essential in the competitive business of personal injury law.
-By Sharon Bowles
