Understanding the New Online Brand Experience

In the past, organizations were in charge of their brand. They controlled the way that customers experienced their company and their impressions of their organization. In today’s marketing economy, the companies are no longer the ones in charge. Sure, brands can control things like their logos, their messages, their colors, all of the tangible aspects associate with their company, but they no longer have control over the emotional aspects of their brand identity, in other words, their customers’ brand experiences.

Many companies still try to (and believe that they can) completely control their customers’ experiences with their brand. Unfortunately, that is a misguided opinion. The customers are the ones in control. The web allows consumers to communicate with each other all over the world, in a matter or moments, in ways which are completely out of reach for brands. Those brand opinions, which can be both positive and negative, aren’t condoned, regulated or even accessible most of the time to companies, and that means that organizations need to adjust the way that they deal with their customers to accommodate this new level of brand experience which is completely beyond their control.

So, what does managing brand experience in this new marketing sphere entail?

1. Listen. Listen nowadays involves monitoring what people are saying about your company in a wide variety of areas on the web. Depending on your target audience, your customers could be talking about you on social media sites, through blogs, forums or social bookmarking sites, but no matter where they’re interacting, it’s important that you have a good idea of what’s being said. Understanding the way that your audience feels about your company is the first step to improving their brand experience and optimizing it for improved marketing ROI.
2.  Determine your best level of engagement. Just because you know what’s being said (whether it’s positive or negative) that doesn’t mean that you have to respond to everything.  It’s important to be engaged with your audience, but you need to have a plan for when you respond, how often you communicate, and how you handle the different situations and comments that arise. Without a strategy for engagement, you may actually do something detrimental to your customers’ brand experience unintentionally. 
3. Get involved. Now that you’ve determined how you’re going to respond, it’s time to start talking. Responding to customers’ opinions, comments and questions or getting involved in discussions surrounding your brand can help you to improve (or at least mitigate) customers’ experiences with your brand and can help you become more aware of negative and positive perceptions. 
4. Measure and analyze. Those conversations that are occurring (whether you’re taking part or not) are made up of data that you can collect, measure and analyze. When it comes to the web one of the best ways to measure brand experience is through customer insights and interaction with your brand. 
5. Improve. What should you be doing with that data you’ve collected? You should be using it to correct the areas where your brand is weak and improving your overall brand experience.

Posted by Amberlie Denny at December 22, 2010 8:30 AM

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