Brands 'should use social media to gauge public opinion'

Firms have been advised to use social media to get an idea of what people are saying about their brand online.

Jason
Falls, a social media consultant and blogger on
socialmediaexplorer.com, said internet users are starting to look for
referrals for companies and service providers from like-minded people
on the web.

He stated that it is "not just important but imperative" for organisations to know what is being said about them.

Companies should also try to have a say in these conversations wherever possible, he added.

"You
certainly can't control the conversations, but you should at least have
a participatory role in them or you're dead in the water," Mr Falls
commented.

The expert said there are a variety of different
tools for monitoring online conversations, such as Google Alerts,
searches on Technorati, Bing and Google Blogsearch.

Using these, companies can "blanket the web with ears at no cost", he added.

This
comes after the 2009 Survey of Online Consumer Behaviour by Harris
Interactive, which was commissioned by Tealeaf, found that 13 per cent
of people posted negative news about firms on a blog or social
networking site - twice the number that did so in 2008.