If you were to think of words that, if mentioned in relation to your brand, regardless of context, would be a cause for concern you would be thinking of words that Repskan's High Risk Keyword Alerts can be used to track and send automatic instant alerts to you and your team. Examples could be a child services brand being mentioned in the same context as child abuse terms, a football team in the same context as match fixing or a CEO alongside insider trading. The example are endless but for most businesses there will be at least a few words for which you will want to know whenever they are mentioned in context with your brand. Repskan monitors all publicly published online text for your brand keyword and subsequently analyses…

The internet, especially blogs and forums are often referred to as the wild west; where there are few controls on the content that is created. On top of that most print-based publications now have online readerships that match or even exceed their printed circulation. Unlike the wild west however the internet is relatively transparent and the vast majority of content is freely accessible not only to readers but to brand monitoring systems.

There are of course costs involved with monitoring everything people say about you even if you are using systems to reduce the time required to do it effectively, nevertheless the reasons for monitoring are very strong strategic moves.

Here are our top 5 reasons:

1.    Understand how people feel about you You do not define your brand; people who have experience of it do and it doesn’t necessarily need to be first-hand experience. Understanding what people already think about your brand is a pretty good place to start when planning communication strategies; understanding why they think what they think is even more useful. 2.    Having systems and relationships already in place in the event of a crisis When things go wrong you can count on it being reported in full throughout the various Social Media channels; if you already have pre-existing systems in place to respond to negative news it can stop an issue escalating in to a PR nightmare. Building relationships with trusted sources of information will help you to put things straight or communicate your messages quickly and precisely to those who need to hear them. 3.    Improve customer retention An unhappy customer is not a lost customer and with an appropriate response you can convert a complaint into a compliment; in a public forum like the internet this is not only seen by the customer you have helped but by others who can marvel at your excellent customer support. 4.    Discover worrying trends before they become a problem Using tools like Repskan Trends can provide you with a heads-up before a problem that you might not …