The online conversation has become an incredibly powerful tool in influencing the reputation of any brand. The opinions, reviews, and feedback that consumers leave on social networks, discussion forums, blogs, and review websites can influence a brand’s reputation within hours.
It is vital for a brand to detect possible issues and warning signals from online conversations in order to respond and prevent a reputational crisis.
Brands can improve their relationships with clients, increase consumer trust, and prevent future crises with proper monitoring of online conversations. The article below will explain why early warning signals are crucial, how to identify them, what to track, and how to react accordingly.
What is brand tracking?
Brand tracking involves monitoring and analyzing the overall health, awareness, and perception of a brand. It enables companies to learn how people perceive the products or services of an organization, including their quality and reputation.
Brands track various metrics, including survey results, analytics, consumer feedback, and even online conversations through social listening to identify any shifts or trends in consumer behavior and attitude.
Brand tracking provides answers to the following questions regarding brand reputation and customer relationships:
- Are consumers familiar with the brand?
- What do consumers think about the company?
- How loyal are the consumers?
- Does the brand compete well against other companies?
- What motivates people to buy?
- Who are the brand ambassadors?
Ultimately, brand tracking makes it possible to detect abnormalities in consumer behavior, attitude, and online discussions about the brand.
Importance of early warning signals for businesses
The online conversation evolves at an extremely fast pace. An unsatisfied client can create and share a negative review in less than a minute, which is likely to be seen by many other users and draw considerable attention.
Early warning signals are useful because they make it possible to prevent possible negative developments before they start, thus protecting the brand’s reputation, increasing customer loyalty, reducing backlash, and addressing complaints promptly.
Early warning signals are an indispensable part of the current reputation management strategy for any brand.
Possible early warning signs
Increasing Number of Negative Mentions
If there is a growing number of complaints about a particular topic online, a warning signal should alert the business. Complaints are usually related to such aspects of products or services as:
- Quality defects
- Poor customer service
- Bills
- Delay in delivery
- Technical troubles
Abnormal Sudden Increase in Conversation Volume
Sudden increases in the conversation volume are a sign that something is becoming viral and gaining popularity. Such increases occur when:
- Customers complain online
- Advertisements raise controversy
- Products are recalled
- There are negative articles in the mass media
Brands detect such sudden increases in conversation volumes immediately to find out the reason.
Quick Shifts in Sentiment Trends
Sentiment analysis allows finding out whether online conversations are positive, neutral, or negative.
Sudden increases in negative sentiment trends usually mean that there is:
- Consumer dissatisfaction
- Public anger
- Ethical issues
- Service failure
- Issues with policy
Monitoring shifts in consumer sentiments helps brands detect warnings about abnormal conditions.
Increased Media Coverage of a Topic
If mass media start mentioning a certain issue related to a brand, chances are the discussion will grow rapidly and negatively impact the company’s reputation. Consequently, the media coverage should be considered as an early warning signal about a possible crisis.
Mentions by Influencers and Celebrities
Consumers who have popular social network accounts, influencers, and celebrities can make a topic go viral in a matter of hours.
Such mentions are associated with:
- Viral discussions
- Trending hashtags
- Mass media involvement
- Bad publicity
Thus, brands monitor these social network accounts closely.
Conversations Regarding Competitors and Industry
Sometimes, brands detect warning signs in conversations with other companies and industries.
The following are possible warning signs that should be monitored:
- Privacy and data protection
- Product safety issues
- Environmental issues
- Labor problems
Monitoring industry conversations allows for preparing for problems ahead of time.
Main focus areas for the crisis management strategy
Establishing Benchmark Values
All brands receive occasional negative mentions online. The problem is that sometimes, the level of negativity becomes unusual.
In order to detect abnormality in online conversation trends, a benchmark system is established with the help of metrics like:
- Normal daily number of mentions
- Normal number of complaints
- Normal sentiment score
- Normal engagement rate
- Normal media coverage
Whenever abnormal values emerge in online discussions, brand monitoring tools like Sprinklr Insights , Brandwatch, and Meltwater will send you notifications about that.
Monitoring System Implementation
Monitoring online conversations about a brand is crucial for detecting early warning signs. Brands monitor discussions related to:
- Brand names
- Product names
- Services
- Executives
- Competitors
- Industry terms
- Hashtags used in campaigns
- Customer complaints
Monitoring systems provide real-time information about online conversations and opinions about a brand and its products or services.
Utilizing Social Listening Platforms
Due to the incredible amount of data that is posted online every minute, businesses require customer experience software and social listening tools for monitoring purposes.
With the help of social listening platforms , businesses can:
- Monitor mentions in real time
- Analyze customers’ sentiment
- Identify trends
- Detect abnormal conversation volume
- Identify and monitor key hashtags
- Identify influential social accounts
- Set up alerts
Modern monitoring systems allow focusing only on those conversations that relate to your brand specifically.
Identifying Key Words and Phrases
Keywords are phrases and terms that are used to detect early warning signs and trends related to a brand. For example, keywords for a food delivery brand can include:
- “Late delivery”
- “Incorrect order”
- “No refund”
- Competitors’ product names
- Industry-related phrases
- Branding-related terms
Creating Alerts for Key Phrases and Mentions
Automatic alerts are the simplest and most efficient way to identify abnormal online activity and warning signs. The alerts can be configured to track the following metrics:
- Increased volume of mentions
- Increase in negative sentiment
- Virals
- Influencer mentions
- Customer complaints
- Security and privacy issues
- Products-related mentions
- Media mentions
Automatic alerts keep brands informed all the time about the current situation on social media and other platforms.
Conclusion
Today, online conversations have a great impact on the image of any brand. People expect companies to listen to them and address the raised issues.
By implementing brand tracking, monitoring, sentiment analysis, and early warning signals monitoring systems into their reputation management strategy, businesses can effectively prevent and deal with crises.
Photo: Lukas Blazek via Pexels
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