The Social Web, a tool to monitor

This text is a public forum for World Economy and Business and can be read in pdf here

The phenomenon of Social Media has come like a whirlwind and it has to stay, and the business world is no exception. Companies tend to pay greater attention to the use of blogs and social networks, a phenomenon previously despised. The social web has empowered the user and often this can generate a headache for our own company, employees infidels, filtration and poisoning information, hoaxes that OurProducts environment and / or services can traverse the network and, if not quick to tackle, be a huge problem we have to face. The Internet has become in a few years in the media.

Anarchy and freedom of the system, the aura of anonymity that is enjoyed and the speed with which information flows, which circulates from user to user in seconds, makes it necessary to be especially attentive to what happens around our brand . Commercially or image damage may be serious if not addressed the problem, if minimized or neglected. In this regard we note the case of a Spanish company: Ikea, which surely have happened to any other company in another country. For several years, a post in one of the blogs of reference in Spain within the field of web 2.0, Microserfs, was the first result on Google when searching for Ikea, above the firm's Web. That post was a bitter criticism of the company based on the experience of a single user under the title "Ikea, and lie to customers."

Even today if you Google comes in the top search results. In recent years this has been a headache for the Swedish firm and the negative comments of other users participating in that article have been going non-stop, receives feedback from each other. Just a few dates, the company finally achieved the least position your propiaweb above harmful content. A partial solution, a battle won. But a single user, proficient in the use of Web 2.0 tools, had put at risk the Ikea communication strategy for over a year. This erosion continues today. In the world there are millions of Internet users, a negative perception in the network affects us and isa direct blow to our water line. Positive information is a trickle, but the refusal, even wrong, it is viral in nature.

Therefore, in recent months they begin to flower companies devoted to listening and managing the buzz, rumors and echoes of the Internet in forums, social networks, blogs, and Twitter. It aims to capture positive and negative trends (what better focus group than this?), To find problems and leaks of information and even disloyal employees. We have to take care of our image and this can only start to listen and monitor what happens, very fast and scalable address problems internally, however small they may seem, and never underestimate the media.

Tags: IKEA , Social Networks , social media , galleries , social web