Reputation Management, Part Four: Keep Track of Who’s Saying What

Watching out for negative comments is a very important part of reputation management!

During a public relations crisis, you will need to get deep into negative content about your brand if you want to stand a chance of counteracting it. Because you may just have a few employees attempting to manage a firestorm of criticism from all sides on the web, you will have to use several techniques and strategies to monitor web and social media in a variety of locations. Keeping track of who says what about your law firm and crafting appropriate responses is a vital part of reputation management.

Tips for keeping track

• Prioritize. Certain blogs and Twitter feeds are more important than others. Do your research into the social hierarchy of your target audience and focus your efforts on high-priority online locations. Use social media tools and tags to push messaging about your firm’s attorneys or your recent cases (or another applicable topic) through several forums at once.
• Listen before you speak. Sometimes, it’s best to lurk for awhile and read past messages to get a sense for the community, culture and language of the place before replying to feedback or complaints. If you respect where someone else is coming from, they’re more likely to respect where you’re coming from.
• Choose certain keywords to monitor. The crux of your reputation monitoring strategy will likely rest on a tool like Google Alerts or Twitter Advanced Search to monitor discussion of keywords online. These keywords will likely include your law firm’s name, the names of any attorneys practicing with your firm, geo + area of practice keyword phrases (like “adoptions attorney in Knoxville” for a family law firm), competitors or marketing taglines.

Monitor the web for prevention

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure when it comes to online reputation management. Most Internet conflagrations occur because a single negative review or blog post wasn’t addressed in a proper or timely fashion. By monitoring keywords, keeping tabs on blogs related to the law in your state or your area of practice, and connecting with your customers through popular social media tools, you can address possible reputation-threatening situations before they become unmanageable. You can’t afford a negative review online, even if it seems like one unfavorable comment made in passing isn’t a big deal.