How to ‘track’ and then ‘carve’ your Brand’s Perception Online

A brand personality and its attributes play a cardinal role in shaping consumer perceptions. Considering that the personality of a brand may range from large to discreet (and/or from efficient to misleading) exposure, it may be safe to believe that consumers thus generate self generalized stereotypes about a Brand, which many a times is on the negative side.

It is important for brand managers and owners to recognise and acknowledge the relationship between Brand Perceptions and Brand Positioning. It is their responsibility to tactically carve the Brand’s reputation to suit their Positioning. As the merciless law of consumer perception doesn’t spare the Branding Industry, it is essential for brand managers to strike out the negative perceptions of the brand, which are way stronger and powerful than positive feedbacks and perceptions. So how do you Track a Brand’s Perceptions dwelling in the consumer’s mind on the Internet.

Tracking and Carving the Brands Perceptions on the Internet
To track the brand perceptions on the Internet, managers must first evaluate where the consumers generally talk about them. But there could be any number of websites, where people might be discussing the brand and its product. How does one keep track of all those innumerable portals? The answer may lie in tools, like Google Alerts. Google Alerts is a service offered by search engine company Google which notifies its users by email (or as a feed) about the latest web and news (Wikipedia). We at Webalue.com use Google Alerts and are satisfied with the speed and accuracy of the Alerts system. All the managers have to do is, insert their brands name in the Keywords sections, which implies Google to shoot in an email to the managers whenever their Brand Name (Keyword) is mentioned on the Internet. Managers can then choose to respond to consumer’s discussions, articles or expressions on various websites to standardize and correct the perceptions the latter carries. On a longer run, the change in perception and reputation of the brand is inevitably noticeable depending on the quality and direction of responses the managers produce.

Lets’ say a brand has too many discussions going on the internet. In such a case, the managers will need to limit their participations to the most important discussions. Hire a dedicated employee for this job if they have lesser time. Ultimately it will be worth the investment and the ROI will be strong. The perceived value of the brand will be on track for a start. Such investments may not help the company directly in revenue generations but will surely play its part, though calculating the ROI is a challenge.

Nevertheless, the managers may come across certain drawbacks of their system, products or brand, unknown errors committed, etc which will obviously help them rectify and in the process improvise their services and offerings.