We have been helping a large telecoms company manage their online reputation using Twitter and blogging. Even though most of their customers are really happy with their service, there is also a disgruntled lot who are making their opinions known, loud and clear, on Twitter. Sure, some of these customers are only followed by a small group of people. But others are followed by hundreds, even thousands of people, so these people are often highly influential individuals. And in this age of user generated reviews, other people's opinions matter - a lot!
By setting up a new, fresh Twitter account that is dedicated to addressing customers' complaints, comments and questions we are slowly but surely improving the reputation of the company.

It's really quite simple. By searching regularly for brand, product and service names, we can see what people are saying about our client. Then, we can respond accordingly, expressing disappointment if they say they are unhappy - and more importantly, seeing how we can help. If we notice that one topic or theme is occurring, then we respond in more detail on the blog.

We've had an amazing response. People are thrilled that this company, after seemingly ignoring them for quite some time, is now listening intently to what they think about their products and services.

For every customer that we convert back into a happy, smiling one from an aggrieved, angry one, we are not only managing the reputation of the company, but we are also saving them money as some of these customers would undoubtedly have moved elsewhere in the long term, such was their complaint.

Social media engagement with customers can be very impactful and meaningful, and we are confident we have helped this company retain lots of customers through managing their reputation on Twitter.

Many technology companies face a problem when creating social media friendly content (blogs, Twitter updates and so on): how do they make it chatty, fun, interesting and useful when frequently the subject matter is very technical (and the majority of the audience may necessarily not be) and therefore potentially complicated.

The problem is mainly a B2C one, but also it can be a problem with B2B audiences; just because a person is operating in a business to business capacity doesn't necessarily mean that they are technically minded, even if they are interested in or already use your products or services.

In my opinion social media is actually an opportunity to make potentially complicated subject material easier to understand. You can do this in a number of ways:

- Encourage your online community to help each other understand stuff

Use Twitter for example to grow your community, then encourage peer to peer communication in that space. This has been one of the greatest achievements of Twitter; the facility for individuals who are all following a certain company or brand to help each other. Just because you are the instigator of the group doesn't mean that the members aren't better than you at helping someone understand a product or service or iron out a problem.

Wikis are also a great way for a community to define their own terminology and also shape their own way of expressing meaning - and avoiding jargon. Encourage people in the community to get involved and create their own glossary of terms - created by the customers for the customers!

- Speak more informally (and avoid using jargon)

Social media provides an opportunity for you to talk informally, in a more chatty way about sometimes very complicated or technical products or services. It is easier to describe what something does or why it exists when you write in this way as it frees you from tone of voice, terminology and sales-led speak - and a limit in characters or words. Allow yourself to become conversational when blogging about stuff that is hard to understand; this will be a big help for people who sometimes struggle to understand your offering.

- Use other media to communicate

One of the best things about social media is that there are lots of different mediums you can choose from. Why stick to words when you can create an animation, or a video, an audio recording, or make a slideshow? Use YouTube, SlideShare, and podcasts to illustrate your offering in a more 3 dimensional way.

Twitter and Facebook are compared all the time; yet essentially they are two very different beasts. Twitter is a microblogging site where posts are 140 characters long; whereas Facebook is a multifaceted social network which allows status updates, photo upload, event posting and much more.

The main comparison between them as far as I can see is that they are probably the two most popular social media sites. But how do they compare in terms of using them for buzz monitoring?
Because of Facebook's privacy settings, it isn't possible to search for mentions of your business and see all the users that have mentioned you recently; you will only see the ones that have their settings as such that anyone can see their wall postings and updates. However most fan pages will not be set to private so you will be able to see any updates from these.

On Twitter you can see everyone's updates so in this sense it is better for searching for mentions of your brand. However, it isn't as popular or widely used as Facebook, so despite the Twitter results yielding more mentions in the same time frame, this alone won't give you a very accurate representation of the type of people talking about your brand.

Nike created a great campaign recently surrounding the Tour de France. People submitted messages of hope and inspiration to a website before the race. Then a so called 'Chalkbot', a huge machine not dissimilar to one they use to spray paint roads, wrote these messages onto the roads so the participants could read them as they raced.

This created excitement for the audience as they felt included in the event. It also generated buzz, and positioned Nike as a caring and forward thinking brand that is heavily involved with the best sporting events.

What we liked about this is the idea of an activity online that had physical, real world impact. It is a great idea to generate excitement and encourage participation online for an activity that will become apparent at an event. We think it could work really well for technology and telecommunication brands. One idea we had was for event delegates to have a conversation online via Twitter on related subject prior to or during an event (as is happening all the time), the difference being that this could be projected onto a building in which the event is taking place. This type of crowd interactivity can really enhance an event.

If you're interested in finding out more about our bright ideas to bring interactivity to events contact the team.

I know I am going to regret saying this but AudioBoo just makes me want to cry. After 10 minutes listening and adopting a ‘I really must try to get into this’ attitude all I can say is that I now hugely appreciate the talent of even the worst radio DJ. I know we live in a brave new world where everyone is a publisher, video maker, commentator.... but ‘blah blah blah’ is all that springs to mind after the AudioBoo experience. But maybe that is because the booers I listened to just aren’t interesting enough and that is maybe not the fault of the format itself. Twitter is an excellent means of broadcasting ‘news’ snippets and thoughts to people with vaguely similar interests to you. But I can’t imagine a situation where I would want to listen to what is in effect is a very short podcast from either my nearest and dearest or people in the industry I highly respect unless they seriously master the art of wit and can keep it brief.... and think about whether anyone is really interested in the cat or the fact your girlfriend has detoured into Karen Millen whilst you sit in your car! If you want to waste time listening to what sounds like a bunch of abstract, boring answer phone messages ... take a look www.audioboo.fm ...

Social media has become part of many people's everyday lives: Facebook-ing friends when we’re supposed to be working; watching YouTube instead of Coronation Street; and Twitter-ing - if you’re not now, you soon will be - with people we’ve never even met. But what about social media as part of a corporate marketing strategy? Can companies be social in this sense?

The answer is yes, most definitely! Here are a few things to consider as you embark on your campaign...

Marketing managers need consider what they want to achieve with a social media strategy. If clear objectives aren't set the campaign will easily lose focus (like any good marketing campaign you will need to set out metrics to measure your success).

Next, think about your audience. Are they active in social media, even Internet literate? If not this doesn’t necessarily mean they never will be, but keep in mind the channels within social media that will be most appropriate. You should not rule any demographic out. If you are certain that your end customers aren’t active within social media now and never will be, consider communicating with their key influencers: children, friends, and colleagues.

Now consider that well-known brands are often perceived as monolithic, impenetrable presences: a ‘thing’ rather than a ‘them’. With social media comes an opportunity for brands to communicate with customers on a more personal level, literally human to human. The human face of a brand is its employees, and it is important that brands empower (and trust) their employees to represent them online. Forrester Analyst Josh Bernhoff asserts that brands are wasting their time if they are not prepared to let their employees, rather than the brand, do the talking:

“Your customers and your prospects are connecting and talking about your products and your company right now... You need to be part of this conversation... You might start a blog... a Facebook group... But until you start connecting as a corporate employee, you won’t understand what is going on out there.”

Another way of putting it is: companies don’t blog, people do. It is difficult for brands to move away from wanting to control all corporate communication with the utmost diligence. But social media is about the moment; brevity is its defining feature. Status updates are changed hourly, blogs are hurriedly published with typos, comments left breathlessly without hesitation - the next day yesterday’s activity is on page 7, no longer important. In short, there simply isn't time for all comms to go through the usual sign off channels - so try and loosen the reins a little.

Authenticity is a key concept to be mindful of when it comes to brand engagement with your customers within the social media environment. People don’t want to hear ‘risk-avoidant lingoism’ (as one commenter recently put it), but instead real opinions and helpful advice from the experts, the employees! Be careful to keep alive the inherent spirit of authenticity and informality, or else your efforts will be less successful.

Lastly, remember that participation isn’t limited to ‘speaking’. Josh Bernhoff cites four other ways for companies to get involved with the conversations happening in social media: listening (finding out what your customers are really saying); energising (getting your best customers to evangelise your products); supporting (helping customers solve their own and each other's problems); and finally, embracing (working with your customers to make products better).