Effective online reputation management requires observation, speed and data selection. If you want to succeed online, you need to listen to what your customers are talking about, monitor what your competitors are doing, and predict where your industry is going. And tracking mentions is a quick way to overcome all of these challenges.
Tracking your brand mentions in particular allows you to:
- convert mentions into backlinks and gain relevant traffic
- find user generated content and benefit from using it
- prevent your brand from experiencing a reputation crisis
- evaluate your PR & marketing effectiveness
- begin partnerships with influencers and media who talk about you
Using Brand Monitoring, you can track your brand’s mentions on the web, forums, Instagram and Forums, quickly find backlinks in them and track referral traffic, automatically detect your mentioning sentiment and see the full picture of your brand reputation online.
How can this be done?
- First, go to Brand Monitoring and type in your brand keywords. Select up to 10 countries you would like to track your mentions in. You can filter a specific language anytime after the mentions are collected.
- Go to the ‘Overview’ tab to see your overall brand reputation online. Select the time period and the source of mentions - ‘Web’, ‘Forums’, ‘Instagram’, or ‘Twitter’. You’ll be able to see the total mention count, mentions with backlinks, total estimated reach, percentage and number of positive / negative / neutral mentions. You can also see the top domains / users mentioning you.
- Go to the ‘Mentions’ tab, select ‘Web’ or ‘Forums’ and filter by link absence to find backlink opportunities. Sort to domains by authority score or traffic to prioritize your mentions and identify the most important ones.
- Select ‘Twitter’, ‘Instagram’ or ‘Forums’ to find user-generated content related to your brand. For forums and Instagram use the positive mention filter.
- Filter your mentions by negative sentiment in ‘Web’, ‘Forums’ or ‘Instagram’ to spot a user’s problem with your product.
- Filter your mentions in ‘Web’ by high authority score, estimated reach and traffic to spot top domains / media that mention you. Export this list to work on future partnership opportunities later.
- Analyze users’ profiles in ‘Twitter’, ‘Forums’ and ‘Instagram’ to spot industry influencers who talk about you.
What to Do Next?
Now, when you have your mention data in one place, you can:
- Assess your brand’s current reputation and identify weak spots to work on first: growing backlinks opportunities, managing crises, using user-generated content or finding new partnership opportunities.
- Reach out to websites that mention you without a link and ask them to put a backlink to your domain to drive more relevant traffic.
- Use content created by your users in your email letters, landing pages or presentations for your clients for higher credibility. Don’t forget to ask users’ permission to use their reviews for your own goals.
- Spot and solve users’ problems in order to mitigate damage before it becomes a reputational crisis.
- Analyze and report your PR & marketing campaign effectiveness to your boss or client. If the reach and positive mentions significantly digress from your expectations, think on adding or changing your planned activities.
- Reach out to influencers that talk about you and offer partnership to them to get their audience’s attention and expand your coverage.
- Set alerts on a daily, weekly or monthly basis to receive mentions on time and manage them according to your working schedule.
Head to our blog guide to find out more details on how to track your reputation and empower your brand online using Semrush: Effective Online Reputation Management: 7 Reasons To Monitor Mention