Monitoring Social Sites Helps Prevent Review Site Headaches

As you know, Trackur focuses on Social Media Monitoring.  People often ask us why we put more importance on the social sites than we do on the review sites.  There are several reasons.  First, many review sites don’t take kindly to monitoring.  The second reason, however, is a bit less obvious.

Less obvious, perhaps, but much more important when trying to minimize damage to your brand.  Say you’re angry about something.  Really upset.  A representative for a company was rude to you, someone charged your credit card twice and caused an overdraft on your account, or a product you purchased is not performing as expected.  What do you do in the heat of the moment?  Do you take a minute to blow off some steam on Facebook or Twitter, or do you go straight to a review site and post a well thought out review?

If  you answered Facebook or Twitter, you’re not alone.  In times of stress or frustration, most users take to the social sites first and posts short bursts or rants about their experience.  After they’ve gotten some responses from their audience and released that initial anger, they’re often “over it” and don’t proceed to the review sites to share their experience.  If they do post a review, chances are they’ve already mentioned their negative experience on at least one other social site first.

What does this mean to you as a business?  If you can catch the complaint while it is merely a blip on the social media radar – and fix the problem – you can not only prevent a more permanent (and noticeable) piece of review history, but you may also be able to salvage the relationship before the customer has moved on.

Please know that we are not discounting the importance of the review sites.  In a perfect world, you’d know everything that is being said about your company as it is being said.  We’re simply stressing that the earlier you can address a potential issue, the less likely it is to become a lasting problem.