Implementing Strategy with Online Reputation Management Tools

by Greg Schneider on 2010/07/13

As any French or Italian Football fan will tell you, predicted success on paper doesn’t guarantee results. Despite having two star-studded sides, both of these European footballing superpowers bailed out of the 2010 Football World Cup in the first round, because they simply couldn’t implement their competitive advantage.

Failure to implement the game plan is a pitfall for many marketers. Any strategy is only as successful as its implementation and, upon closer inspection, we see that Barack Obama’s successful presidential campaign relied as heavily on the roll-out as it did on the innovative strategic approach.

Obama’s use of Social Media is often credited with providing him with the competitive advantage in he race for both donations and votes. This post will highlight the lessons, and ORM’s roles in each, from the 2008 marketer of the year and now Commander and Chief of the USA.

Have a clear objectives for your campaign.

Having a clearly defined end goal and objectives ensures that your eye is kept on ball. Obama’s mission was to become President and his objective was to raise millions in donations and win the hearts and minds of the American population.

Monitoring of the online conversation can assist in informing key objectives as well as measuring the success in achieving them.
Drive action

Action is key to strategic implementation. Engaging with consumers is key to motivating them to take action on your behalf. Obama turned to the thought leaders within his target community and engaged with them. These influencers were then motivated to act on his behalf, assisting in the implementation of his objective.

ORM makes the identification of thought leaders easy. These key players can then be engaged through their social network of choice. Once equipped with the information required, these early adopters can act as your brand ambassadors. The key is to remember that engagement is vital and understanding their conversation and communicating as an equal will return greater results then simply pushing information.
Allow people to engage at all levels

While thought leaders may be the most influential it is important to offer followers the opportunity to engage at all levels. Remember, it is important to cater for various levels of engagement. Offer even the most casual of supporters an opportunity to engage. Through monitoring of online conversation, opportunities can be identified to drive engagement through offering added value.
Fish where the fish are

Online conversation tracking helps to identify where your brand is being spoken about. Understanding how and where your current target market communicates about your brand or about your industry is key. This will ensure that your brand's communication isn’t filtered out due to being sent through the wrong channel.
Be Relevant

Ensure that the tone of voice and what your brand has to say is relevant to your target audience. This will guarantee that your message resonates with your target audience. Relevant communication does not mean communicating what you want your consumers to know, but rather offering them what they want to hear, thereby providing added value and increased goodwill towards your brand.

ORM can provide valuable qualitative insight into achieving the correct tone of conversation. A quantitative approach can also offer feedback into your brands success in communicating with consumers. Continuous tracking is required to ensure that your brand communications remain relevant.
Ensure your content can be found.

With users becoming increasingly thirsty for information and impatient when looking for it, brands can ensure real added value if they facilitate the information search. Monitoring conversation and providing relevant information is a sure-fire way to increase brand loyalty. SEO and online advertising can only go so far in making your information readily available, actively pursuing interested parties, an option available through ORM, will guarantee consumers are aware of your brand while conducting pre-purchase research.
Measure everything.

“However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results”. This quote by Winston Churchill captures the importance of measuring to ensure efforts to date are in line with objectives and strategy is being effectively implemented. The measurement of one’s online reputation and the sentiment of consumers all aid in evaluating success and making timely course corrections to ensure the end goal is achieved.

These 7 key guidelines offer a firm tactical foundation to successful strategy implementation. The use of an effective ORM service ensures an increased likelihood of successful strategy implementation. These 7 steps are informed by Obama’s success - the current President of America had a unique vision and a strategy in place that appealed to American voters. It was, however, his implementation which ultimately saw him achieving success.