Online reputation management

Success today is often measured by likes, shares, and followers—and it’s easy for brands to become fixated on primary Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). While these metrics are undeniably crucial, adopting a holistic approach demands a delicate balance. This is where Counter KPIs come into play, serving as invaluable safeguards against…
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In today’s digital age, where brand reputation can either make or break a company, marketers are facing an increasingly complex challenge. The rise of social media has given consumers an unprecedented voice, and a single tweet or post can have a profound impact on a brand’s reputation. In this comprehensive…
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Who knew pricing something for $8 could get so completely out of hand?
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This is part two of our Employee Advocacy series. For part one, click here: https://immediatefuture.co.uk/blog/employee-advocacy-how-did-we-get-here/ We recently covered our initial findings from our Employee Advocacy webinar, sharing the insights gained from our expert panel on why there has been such a sudden rise in Employee Advocacy, and what…
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Employee advocacy has moved centre stage in social marketing. It is accelerating as a program, pushing out its messaging in all new ways and putting employees at the forefront of business promotions and campaigns. What is driving this rapid increase in employee advocacy across social media, and what…
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Why isn’t anyone advocating storytelling reporting to your own boardroom? As we emerge from COVID-19, boardrooms are scrutinising their post-COVID recovery plans. Budgets and ROIs are being assessed to determine if they’re investing in the right areas to deliver the required business impact, at the speed needed. There…
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If you need some practical tips about community engagement on social, you’ve come to the right place! Audiences, whether in B2B or B2C are very unforgiving when it comes to how brands engage with them – more than ever, we want brands to be fast, human, clear and…
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Since McDonalds and AutoTrader talked about being bold with content, it has been front of mind for me. I cannot stop thinking about the minutiae of being brave with social comms.  It matters. Social is so noisy, you need bold content to grab attention. But it is a…
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Social is a very visual medium, so why are brands still doing a bad job at communication through design? Whether it’s a boring, wallpaper image, or a message which doesn’t translate from print to social (we’re looking at you, Burger King), there’s no reason brands can’t take the…
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On social, its crucial for brands and identities to sometimes stand out from the crowd, to create content that engages users and makes an impact.   Making the same content as others can appear stale and overdone, so there is a lot of pressure to create content that can…
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Entrepreneurs rightly state that employees are our biggest and most valuable resource. Yet many businesses are not unlocking the potent potential presented by social media. As business leaders start to scale the upper echelons of industry, they understand the importance of having an inside-out voice. Thought leadership or opinion…
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2020 has led to countless changes across the board – and for marketers, one big pivot has been with events and in-person activations. With new restrictions announced just this week, it looks like events will continue to happen online for the foreseeable future. Here are…
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Our purpose at IF is to break the social boring – what does that take? Bravery. Courage. AND preparation. The campaigns you see out in social which tackle taboos or hit a topic head-on – and then succeed – they’ve taken time to prepare, to look at what…
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The B2B landscape is an interesting one. There’s a common misconception that B2B organisations are low on usable content, but it’s simply not true. The landscape is actually flush with more information and eye-catching, challenging content than perhaps a lot of businesses realise. What do I have right now? Think…
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If you, like us, find yourself suddenly working from home, figuring out new technology and ways of staying connected and bonded to your team on one hand, as well as navigating the current landscape in marketing on the other, we’re here for you. Rapid change and uncertainly can…
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The UK events industry is worth £42.3 billion – and it’s still growing. Gone are the days of cold calls, handshakes and flyers. Today’s event marketers are reaching you when you’re walking, talking, surfing or just casually browsing your favourite job listings site. When you…
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If the last week few weeks in the world of social media x politics have taught us anything, it’s that the public does “give a toss” about the cut and thrust of social – even if this politician doesn’t think so. In October 2019, Twitter…
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The expertise, guidance and knowledge that CEO’s have to offer is invaluable! Tap into your CEO’s brain by putting them forward as ‘thought leaders’ on social media. Raising awareness for your business, attracting new potential customers and creating a community is the start of a long list of…
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At IF, we pride ourselves on evolving. Curiosity is one of our brand values, championed daily by our fabulous staff. Our event format has been well received for many years but it was time to evolve. After a few months of planning and tinkering,…
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For many brands using social media to generate sales, the priority list often consists of lead generation, brand awareness, content creation, campaign management and customer service. Whilst all of these can play a major role in creating sales, one important item is missing from that list – online reviews.
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I’m sure that many of you are well versed in brand building in the traditional sense, but when it comes to your own personal brand, how would you rate your online brand identity? These days, everything from landing a new job to scoring a hot date can result in…
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  On the first day of Christmas, whilst the rest of us were getting excited about opening the first door of our advent calendars, powerhouse couple Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, announced the birth of their first child, Max. And if this wasn’t enough excitement for two of…
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You may have read about Essena O’Neill, the teenage online ‘influencer’ who recently deleted her social media accounts due to pressure to maintain the perfect image. Although she had hundreds of thousands of followers and various companies contacting her to market their products, the time and energy it…
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  Social Media may well be a key element in your company’s marketing mix but have you considered alternative uses for Social Media in the work place? It is entirely possible for Social Media to run much deeper than simply being another channel for your marketing communications. For…
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Welcome to part two of our Q & A with two of the industry’s leading digital marketers: Alex Ayling, Head of BBC Worldwide Digital Studios and Nick Moxham, Head of Digital, Universal Music TV. In case you missed part one which focussed on Alex, you can view that here:…
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  August is gone with the wind. With it go Notting Hill Festival, Reading 2015, V Fest, National Burger Day and summer. Relive the glory days of balmy summer evenings, sizzling barbeques and 30+ degree weather (sort of) by having a read through our top five IF blogs…
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Governments, not always naturals for open government and publicity, are hoovering up opportunities to develop their cyber presence via social media. Perhaps in defiance of what we recently discussed in this blog on a retreat among UK investor relations professionals, both private sector boardrooms and governments are starting…
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  In the unlikely event you missed Tinder’s social meltdown last week, here’s a recap of what happened: Journalist Nancy Jo Sales published an article titled Tinder and the Dawn of the ‘Dating Apocalypse’ in this months’ Vanity Fair. Tinder reacted poorly to the article,…
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Customer service – a bugbear of many consumers, and the source of much frustration. Social customer service has long been seen as the much-maligned poorer cousin of traditional channels (call centre and email). But has the tide started to turn? According to Dimension Data, 35% of…
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More often than not, when customers are frustrated about a bad service or bad product experience, they will take to social to vent their experience. In doing so, this allows others to jump on the bandwagon and start chiming in with their equally awful experience. In many cases a…
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Before the early noughties launches of Facebook, Twitter et al, news cycles were longer and managing crises was a whole lot easier. Why? Broadly speaking, you only had to worry about the media backlash. Today (as we all know), social has added another layer of complexity. The…
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Here at immediate future, we have a mantra that social media is not the be all and end all, but it has fundamentally changed the way we communicate. And having spent some time over the last few months working with a client in the hospitality industry, I think…
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  For small business owners, automation tools can be incredibly useful things. But, like all tools, relying too heavily on social media automation will end in tears. Maintaining a brand identity and personality on social media is an important part of the relationship you want to have…
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In the event of Klout’s new feature to identify expertise, and the fact that I seem to be increasingly talking more and more to clients around this subject, I thought it seemed timely to discuss influencers. Firstly, what is Klout’s new feature? Well, in a nutshell, it…
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Getting your employees to share content can be a struggle, but when they do it can pay off in ways that company posts cannot. Generating positive employee shared content is easy when you know how. These are five types of content that employees should willingly share that will boost…
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By adjusting your approach to social media during your businesses peak period, you could turn a stressful and potentially fearful time into a victorious experience delivering spadefuls of ROI. We’ve heard it before: “social can be your best friend or your worst enemy”. This is never truer than during…
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How many social networks do you have a personal account on? Now think about how many you actually use on a regular basis – those two numbers will most likely be different, and from a personal perspective that is not necessarily a negative. Now ask yourself the same…
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Research and software released this week suggests that computers can predict our personality traits with a higher accuracy rate than our friends, family or spouse. Should we be scared or excited by the prospect of computers using the data we share online to make informed…
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At the back end of last year myself and a colleague delivered a social media training session to a customer service team – slightly different audience to the marketing bods that we are used to. And what was the purpose of the session? It’s actually something that we as…
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Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year The team would like to thank you all for your continual goodwill and loyalty throughout the past year. It’s been a fantastic 2014 and your support has been amazing. Expect to see a lot more of Immediate Future in 2015 as we…
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Nestle relaunched the Rolo online brand earlier in October with the classic strapline ‘Do you love anyone enough to give them your last Rolo?’ via a series of five videos, and the immediate reaction has been largely positive. They’ve racked up over 180,000 views on YouTube in just…
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Little else has dominated UK news headlines in recent months than the impending Scottish referendum. Not satisfied by traditional media coverage, many have taken to social media to voice their beliefs. Individuals, as well as the Yes and No campaign brands themselves, have chosen social to raise awareness and support…
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DCC Ian Hopkins of Greater Manchester Police As a new report is published uncovering Police social media behaviour over the last 5 years we discover hundreds of cases of alleged Police misuse or misconduct of ‘social media’. Several cases of officers blurring the boundaries between…
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We’ve all been there, a relationship breaks down and you have to think about petty things such as how to share out your joint furniture, how you’ll split the DVD collection and who’ll get ownership of the cat. But in the age of social are there now…
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I have recently returned from a blissful week in the Mexican sunshine, lazing on white sandy beaches, drinking margaritas and of course, eating out lots *feeling smug*. Of course, like most holidaymakers, we logged onto trusty TripAdvisor to do our detective work into where we should go for the…
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Where would you ask a question or make a complaint about a brand? Via letter, phone call, email or social media? Customer service has rapidly progressed. Where once we would write a letter, walk it to the post office and expect a response within around 2 weeks, we now send…
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Since the introduction of social media, resolving disputes through face to face interaction seems to have become a thing of the past. There appears to be a popular trend in taking to various social platforms to vent frustration towards the situations or people we encounter in everyday life.  From that…
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Sick, twisted, immoral – just some of the words to describe people who post derogatory and sometimes disgusting comments about sensitive topics online. The rise of social media has given these people, or “trolls” as they are known, a platform to write hateful comments towards celebrities, families who have suffered…
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In Part One of this series we saw that every social media incident does not make a crisis; whilst in Part Two we explored how a true crisis causes trust, reputational and financial issues. However, can a social media incident actually lead to positive results? The…
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In part one of this series we discussed that issues shouldn’t be viewed purely through a social lens. Just because a company is affected by an incident doesn’t necessarily mean it becomes embroiled in a crisis. However, that does not mean crises don’t exist. And when a true…
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Listening to the recent Webinar: How to effectively manage a social media crisis it struck me how readily the term “crisis” is applied to just about anything that can negatively impact a brand on social media. From Twitter hackings to disgruntled employees hijacking a company Twitter, everything…
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From Findus lasagnes, Tesco burgers and Asda bolognese to Whitbread, it seems that the horsemeat scandal gets worse every day, as the saga gets even darker and more twisted and new brands become embroiled in the scandal. The questions of exactly what are we eating continue to persist and it’s…
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Yesterday saw an excellent example of when a brand’s social media goes very, very wrong. An HMV employee, who had access to the company Twitter account, began to Tweet about the mass sackings that were going on that day in wake of HMVs bankruptcy: HMV clearly had not thought…
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There is very little doubt that social media is increasingly becoming more prominent in our lives. Whether it’s following a brand or communicating with friends and family, our lives are progressively being displayed on screen more. However with so much of our personal content being shared on-line it is becoming…
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  In the past, for many organisations, the struggle to successfully incorporate social media was due to a lack of understanding and often a  downright fear from higher management. A report by Weber and Shandwick in 2010 highlighted this by revealing that 64% of CEOs from the largest companies did…
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Launching into the realm of social customer service may seem like a daunting prospect, however, failing to take the leap may actually lead to even more frightening consequences. A shocking statistic from a recent consumer survey commissioned by Conversocial, revealed that: “If confronted with unanswered customer complaints on…
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  You may notice that the internet is slightly quieter than you are used to tomorrow.  This is due to numerous internet giants protesting the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA). Opponents to the bills state that if passed into…
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So in the first blog in this series, we established that Reddit is significant online social movement, but what exactly can it offer a brand or business? Monitoring: Businesses can utilise the platform as a go-to for cutting edge news and content. Monitoring the platform for relevant…
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Are you familiar with Reddit? Is the social news site incorporated into your social media monitoring and planning? So, what is Reddit? A dark horse of the online world, Reddit is a sharing platform that businesses and brands alike should be au fait with. It’s…
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We love purple as much as the next company, but it appears Cadbury have decided to take it to the next level in a recent trademark dispute settled yesterday with Nestlé. Cadbury wanted to trademark the tint and made the case…
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An experimental scientist? A mathematician, an historian, an IT geek, a money making  economist or socially savvy psychologist? Last week we conducted a Twtpoll to discover who you would rather employ as a social media consultant for your business. The results were eye opening. To our…
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 Netflix have learnt the hard way that social media can’t be a last minute consideration when it comes to a rebrand. Marketing has to be fully integrated with social media planning. On demand video service Netflix struck upon the name Qwikster for its DVD side of the business, you can…
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Threee things we can learn from the world’s leading social businesses about how to avoid a social media crisis.
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In the last post we looked at figures from the twentieth century and the lessons that could be learned from their experiences when implementing brand social media training. In this post we’ll investigate some historical recommendations crowdsourced on Twitter over the…
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Facebook pages give brands an opportunity to build close relationships with consumers; however, they also present new challenges for online community managers. Unlike forum based communities, brands have little real ownership over the platform:  posting is instant, 24 / 7, and pre-moderating is restricted. This means that the risks are…
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Check out this great slideshare about online reputation management presented to the Online Marketing Show 2011. It's focus is on crisis and is packed full of top tips to prevent brands getting themselves into a crisis and what to do if they find themselves in the thick of it. It also includes some great case-studies including Asda, BA, Primark, Urban Outfitters.
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