Sick of always manually typing in your password on Elon Musk's X? Do multiple people in your household use your devices so things like password managers aren't always the most secure?
Well, if you're an X user with an iOS device, you're in luck. The platform formerly known as Twitter just launched its passkeys login option for iPhone and iPad users.
What does this mean for you? Face ID or Touch ID can now be used to login to your X account instead of a password.
How to set up Face ID or Touch ID on X
The steps to setup Passkeys on X for iOS are fairly simple. Mashable was able to set it up in seconds. Let's run through the steps so you can access X with Face ID or Touch ID.
Open the X app and log into your account.
In the sidebar menu, tap on Settings and Support.
From the drop down menu, tap on Settings and privacy.
Tap on Security and account access.
In the new list of options that open, select Security.
On the Security page, under the Additional password protection section, tap the slider for Passkey to turn it on.
Type in your X account password and tap Confirm.
On the next screen, tap on Add a passkey
Click Continue on the iPhone pop-up prompt that asks if you want to Use Face ID to sign in.
And that's it!
Don't worry about Elon
We should note that some accounts that Mashable tested this on did not yet have the passkey option yet. According to X's FAQ, new accounts will not be able to use this feature. However, the accounts in our test were not new, so it seems like passkeys may still be rolling out to all users.
And, perhaps the most important question that some of you may be asking is: Does Passkeys provide Elon Musk with my biometric data? Your fingerprints and facial biometric data all remain on your device, according to Apple. Third-party apps, in this case Elon Musk's X, never have access to this data.
Welcome to the first edition of the Post Performance Report (PPR). A series where we compile and analyze social media posts and campaigns inspiring us, and break down what makes them so genius. We will unpack how your brand can use these examples to spark your own scroll-stopping creative ideas—while maximizing your budget and doing more with less.
We dig deeper by not just examining the flawless creative execution of every post or campaign, but the business impact, too. We help you envision how social can increase your brand’s awareness, foster community engagement and grow the bottom line.
Here’s our lineup of brands already breaking through, and takeaways you can use to follow suit this year.
Auntie Anne’s: The crown pretzel of community engagement
Auntie Anne’s, the beloved brand behind your favorite soft pretzels, is knotted up in the latest Taylor Swift conspiracy. Why? Because they identified overlap between the Swiftie fandom and their target audience, and they are community engagement experts. They posted a black and white photo with the lyrical caption “Are you ready for it?”, as a reference to speculation that Swift might be announcing the release of her re-recorded album Reputation.
When she didn’t, the brand followed up with the same image, only this time their social team drew on the pretzel to make it look like a clown to show solidarity with the fellow “clowns” in their community.
Within 24 hours, the posts racked up 2.9 million impressions, 4,200 reposts and 28,000 likes, proving how well the Auntie Anne’s team knows their audience.
For another recent example of Auntie Anne’s top-tier community engagement, when the brand noticed a video about their pretzel bucket go viral, they quickly reached out to the creator and reshared it. This unexpected boost on social correlated with an increase in sales by 2,800 units year over year.
The play: As Auntie Anne’s demonstrates, the best community engagement content costs $0. But it does require:
Giving your content a human touch.
Using tools that elevate posts your community is already sharing.
Granting the social team more creative freedom.
Independence Village Senior Living: Retirees have more fun
Racking up millions of views and hundreds of thousands of likes is not unusual for Independence Village senior living communities. With many viral videos and a late 2023 TikTok advertising campaign under their belt, their team and residents have fun putting their own spin on the latest trends.
Like this recent video of residents interacting with the maintenance team. The post quickly racked up 1.2 million views, 230,000 likes and 787 comments. Like most Independence Village content, this video is wholesome, fun and illustrates the life-enriching culture of their communities.
By showcasing the high quality care residents receive, Independence Village is more likely to recruit top talent and give future residents and their loved ones peace of mind. When you consider the rates of loneliness and negative experiences at senior living facilities and nursing homes, joy-filled videos like these are powerful tools.
The play: Independence Village turns the popular adage “go where your audience is” on its head. In cases where traditional channels are hyper-saturated, go where other companies like yours aren’t, even if it means trying something unexpected.
Topicals: Skincare in the club
Skincare brand Topicals has done something most brands fail to do: centered the experience of Black consumers through celebrating Black creators and culture. In their recent brand trip to Ghana, the brand captured (and had creators and influencers capture) content they’ve been repurposing across social. The response has been overwhelmingly positive.
As TikTok creator @ashathemuseologist puts it, “Topicals…is employing brand strategies that have never been before—have never touched this Earth. Organizing a brand trip with Black influencers across the diaspora to go to Ghana during Detty December has to be, could only be, the brainchild of a young Black woman…I’m the demographic.”
The content they captured on the trip delivered 80,000 likes across Instagram and TikTok, like this video of someone putting their skincare eye patches on in the club.
According to Sprout Social Listening data from December 5th, 2023, to January 5th, 2024, consumer sentiment of Topicals was 91% positive, gradually increasing toward the end of December when the brand trip to Ghana started. The brand trip also coincided with a 614% increase in engagements across social channels, compared to the previous 30-day period. Already the fastest-growing skincare brand at Sephora, this boost to their brand awareness will only propel the brand to new heights in 2024.
The play: You might not have the budget to send creators from across the globe on a brand trip, but what you should have is people on your team who reflect your target audience and understand what matters to them. Don’t be afraid to pitch ideas that haven’t been done before just because you’re afraid you won’t secure buy-in. Even partnering with influencers offline can fuel social buzz, as Topicals demonstrated. Trust that you are the ultimate expert of your community.
Calvin Klein: The “Yes, Chef” heard around the world
Not just another celebrity heartthrob, Jeremy Allen White is lovingly referred to as the internet’s boyfriend. In the first week of 2024, Calvin Klein unveiled a campaign featuring the popular actor in their iconic underwear. Though it’s not revolutionary for a clothing brand to feature celebrities in their campaigns, what was so brilliant about this strategy was how right it was for Calvin Klein to drop right before the Golden Globes, where Allen White took home the top prize. It’s clear they understand internet culture, their audience and how to reinforce their brand image.
The campaign’s first five Instagram posts nearly broke the internet, receiving 1.5 million likes and 22,000 comments the day after the posts were published. The campaign’s YouTube video received 282,000 views and their TikTok post received over 3.3 million views at time of this article publishing. Previous Calvin Klein social posts achieved only a small fraction of this performance, even those that feature notable A-list celebrities.
Sprout Listening data from December 5, 2023, to January 5, 2024, reveals mentions of Calvin Klein spiked from 2,747 to 37,190 and mentions of Jeremy Allen White increased from 537 to 32,958 on X (formerly known as Twitter) the day the campaign launched.
The play: Even if you don’t have a Hollywood budget, finding the right spokespeople, influencers and creators is critical. Invest where it counts with your audience (and when) to maximize your ROI.
UPS: Making drivers the star of the holiday show
UPS drivers are the heroes of the holiday season, often working overtime to deliver gifts across the country. This year, UPS spotlighted their hardworking drivers on social, orienting their holiday strategy around the people behind their business. Like in this video, where a member of their communications team interviews Quincy, a UPS driver. The interview is mostly full of rapid fire holiday questions, but also reveals Qunicy’s impressive daily delivery rate.
Get to know your UPS driver behind the wheel! Delivering the #holiday cheer and working hard to make sure your gifts arrive ahead of Santa’s visit, that’s what #UPSer Quincy does every year! 🎁🎅
Fans of the brand responded enthusiastically, sharing their love for the UPS team in the comments section.
In another post, UPS reshared a user-generated video where a customer posted a sign asking their UPS driver to hide packages from their husband. In the video, the customer can be seen finding UPS-delivered packages hidden in their outdoor decor, with the text overlay “Best UPS driver ever!” hovering in frame.
Highlighting their drivers paid off for UPS. According to Sprout Listening data from December 11, 2023, to January 10, 2024, mentions of UPS spiked on X on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Day, key dates for last-minute package deliveries and returns. Yet, despite inevitable customer service inquiries, the brand maintained a healthy 83% positive sentiment.
The play: Frontline employees who interact with customers, members, patients or students are what make companies so great. Allow them to shine in your social content.
Creator spotlight: Mychal at the Sonoma County Library
As a bonus addition to our roundup, I highly recommend following @mychal3ts. Though not technically a brand or influencer, I wanted to end this list with a reminder of the positivity and connection social makes possible. Mychal is a librarian at the Solano County Library who shares uplifting stories about working with “library kids” and “library grown-ups.”
In their videos, Mychal reminds social media users why libraries are so essential to our communities and that everyone is welcome, even those who might have felt excluded in the past.
You never have to ask if you can keep coming to the library! We want you in the library! Library long for you to feel that you belong in your library, that you feel safe in your library (even it means being a bit “too loud” sometimes ☺️) #BookTok#LibraryTikTok#Storytime
The play: No one knows the darkness of social firsthand like social media teams. But there are many pros of social media, too. On the days when the cons seem too hard to grapple with, remember how much joy, levity and connection social can bring.
Be a social media innovator in 2024
That wraps up our first installment of the Post Performance Report franchise. Stay tuned for next month’s edition where we’ll be focusing on brands who are transforming social customer care. In the meantime, remember these key takeaways:
Post Performance Report Takeaways
Trust you know your audience best and lean into unconventional ideas.
Invest in community engagement efforts by humanizing your brand on social.
Spokespeople and influencers must fit your brand and audience.
Social is a place to spread joy.
Can’t wait until next month? Sign up to have the latest resources from the Insights blog sent to your inbox every week.
And if you see a social post or campaign that deserves to be highlighted, tag us @sproutsocial and use #PostPerformanceReport to have your idea included in a future article.
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Think Pink your way to savings on the perfect water bottle for you. The 20-ounce All Around Tumbler in the camellia colorway will keep you hydrated on the go, and if you prefer the security of a screw-on lid, go for the 24-ounce Standard Mouth with Flex Straw Cap in grapefruit. With the Think Pink discount code, the bottle comes out to $25.17, marked down from the normal price of $44.95. That's a 44% discount.
If you're already in the pink mindset, the Hydroflask Think Pink sale could be your opportunity to get a great deal on a Valentine's Day present. Alternatively, it's a great way to score an insulated pink water bottle without fighting crowds at Target. But you'll want to hurry — the Hydroflask Think Pink sale ends at 11:59 p.m. on Jan. 23.
We asked 1,623 consumers who they wanted to see reflected more in brands’ social content. Their top answer: frontline employees. Not executive leadership, corporate employees, other customers or even social teams. According to Sprout Q4 2023 Pulse Survey data, 48% of respondents want to see the people behind businesses, not just those who run the brand account.
What’s driving the interest in frontline employee content? The demand for more authentic marketing from brands. According to the latest edition of The Sprout Social Index™, consumers believe they don’t see brands sharing enough authentic, non-promotional content or transparency about business practices and values. Fill this gap by tapping into frontline employee engagement on social media.
When brands make frontline employees the stars of their posts and campaigns, it spurs greater audience engagement and strengthens your brand reputation. In this article, we share examples of brands that have mastered getting frontline workers involved in social content, and break down how to build your own strategy.
What does frontline employee engagement on social media look like?
Aside from being relatable, frontline employee content can look different depending on your brand, audience and, most importantly, employees. Here are different ways to approach employee engagement on social, and real brand examples to inspire your strategy.
Experiment with lo-fi production
For followers craving employee realness, lo-fi content is exactly what the doctor ordered. Like in this video from Mayo Clinic nursing. The video features nurses responding with contempt when someone off-camera describes the room as “quiet.” The “q-word” is bad luck in the nursing field—an omen that chaos is just around the corner.
The eight-second video appears to be shot on a phone, probably requiring minimal production lift. Yet, it received over 5 million views, nearly 750,000 likes and over 5,300 comments. Response to the video was overwhelmingly positive, with fellow medical professionals and frontline employees in other fields affirming the “q-word” phenomenon.
Why it works: Lo-fi content alone might not give you these performance results. The magic comes from tapping into the universal truths known by your employees on the front lines, and asking them to take the reins and capture content. Lo-fi content from the field gives customers and potential employees a realistic view of what your company culture is really like.
Lean into heartfelt moments
Every frontline employee has a story, and weaving their stories together creates the tapestry of your company culture. Lean into the emotional, inspiring stories unique to your team. In American Airlines’ series, GenAIRations, the airline shares stories of families who have built multi-generation careers at the company. Like in this video about the “Rodriguez Five,” siblings who followed in their father’s aviation footsteps.
Or this video of a single father whose hard work empowered his daughter to become one of the youngest Latina pilots in the airline’s history.
It’s hard to watch those videos without getting misty-eyed. The emotional narrative builds up to a key conclusion: The sky’s the limit for people (and families) who choose to build careers at American. The compelling series has been watched by 14,000 people on YouTube, and videos repurposing the content on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn gained nearly 9,000 engagements.
Why it works: A meet the team series like GenAIRations highlights the frontline employees who are crucial to shaping your brand and customer experience. Tapping into heartfelt stories like these can reinforce your people-first culture, demonstrate how much your company cares about its team members and humanize your brand.
Find levity and humor
It’s equally possible to highlight your frontline employees with light-hearted content. When Lyft rolled out their Women+ feature, a new program that matches women and non-binary drivers and riders, they promoted the launch with whimsical videos of what Women+ rides would look like.
In this video, Dana, who is a real Lyft driver, picks up two passengers. During the ride the trio listens to daily affirmations, experiments with gemstones and picks up milkshakes.
We’ve got a new feature that matches more women and nonbinary drivers and riders – Women+ Connect – and we’re expanding to 50+ new cities around the country. Is yours on the list? Let’s make more of these moments happen! Check out the link in our bio.
The TikTok video received an astonishing 24 million views, 117,000 likes and 653 comments (as of the date of publishing). Users were quick to praise the video and celebrate the new feature in the comments section, sharing their enthusiasm and eagerness to use it.
Why it works: The issue of women and non-binary people’s safety using rideshare services is serious. But by centering the experiences of women and non-binary drivers and passengers, Lyft was able to approach the topic with relatability, optimism and care. Frontline employee content enables brands to show their customers they understand their needs and concerns, and they can play a major role in new product promotions.
Let employees shine
Some of the best employee content comes from companies elevating the day-to-day work of their frontline team members. When the Chicago Cubs baseball team posted a video of their hot dog vendors demonstrating their signature calls for National Hotdog Day, the video was a viral homerun, scoring over 42,000 likes, 900 comments and almost 5,500 shares on TikTok. The video even outperformed content featuring the team’s players.
Baseball aficionados and casual fans were quick to sound off in the comments with their love for the franchise and the vendors, and to vote for who had the best call.
Why it works: Wrigley Field is famous for its food and beverage vendors’ unique calls, but these frontline employees are often overlooked by mainstream media in favor of the players and coaches. By shining a spotlight on these hardworking employees, the Cubs reinforced why the work they do is critical to the park’s success. Which team members are the unsung heroes of your business? Elevate them in your social content.
How to encourage frontline employee participation in social content
Frontline employee engagement on social media starts with support from all levels of leadership. Some employees might shy away from the camera—afraid they don’t have enough training or media savvy. Others might not have enough time to prepare or capture content, and will worry about the time commitment of getting involved.
Here are actionable ways you can encourage frontline employees to participate in your brand’s social content, and reassure them you have their back.
Give your social and content teams freedom to spend time on the front line
There’s only so much you can capture from the corporate office. You need footage in-store, in your restaurant, on the factory floor, from the hospital, etc. For example, a majority of San Diego Zoo’s content is produced on site.
By sending your content and social teams to “the trenches,” it will make it easier to document the front lines, and build relationships and establish trust with frontline employees.
Create a feedback loop
By deepening these connections, you can pave the way for frontline employees to capture their own content, like this example provided by an aquatic conservationist for the Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation’s #GarWeek.
When your frontline employees do have content ideas to share, make sure they know where and how to surface them. This will reassure them that you see value in their ideas, and create an open dialogue where you surface customer insights revealed in day-to-day operations.
Take recommendations
Finding the right people to spotlight can be a huge challenge in larger orgs, especially multi-location brands (like restaurant chains, airlines, retail, etc.) Marketing execs need to tap into their internal networks to generate excitement around this kind of effort and recruit “talent.”
Ask frontline managers and other leaders which employees they’d recommend be featured. They can help you identify team members who would represent your brand exceptionally well and be most comfortable in the spotlight.
With their input, you can pull off something like Flock Freight’s series “Humans of Trucking,” where they feature and interview professional truck drivers who have a strong relationship to their brand.
Recognize employees internally
Ensure employees get the recognition they deserve for taking part in your social content. Share frontline employee social content and performance metrics internally. Send via email, Slack or your employee advocacy platform. If frontline employees don’t have a company computer, you could also feature it on screens around your facilities.
Finally, thank frontline employees for their time, and explain how their contribution impacts your company’s business objectives.
Bring frontline employees to the forefront of your strategy
Frontline employees offer a rare authenticity that can help your brand stand out and propel your social media performance to new heights. Audiences are eager to see them in your content and, like the posts in this article demonstrate, that can translate to major engagement wins.
Looking for more insight into consumers’ evolving expectations of brand content? Read The 2023 Sprout Social Index™ to stay up to date on what consumers want from your brand.
MrBeast, the most popular creator on YouTube, uploaded his latest YouTube video to Elon Musk's X for the first time. According to MrBeast, he was "curious" about "how much ad revenue" he would make from the upload, so he uploaded the video directly to the platform as a "test."
Now, X users are reporting that MrBeast's post containing the video upload is being forced into their feed multiple times a day as an unlabeled advertisement.
"This has shown up in my feed maybe 7 times now," posted one X user, referring to the MrBeast video. "It is both missing the post time next to the username (indicative of a normal user post) and the Ad indicator on the top right."
The user is referring to the proliferation of apparently unlabeled ads, a fairly recent phenomenon on X that began after Musk acquired the company in October 2022. It is one that Mashable has previously reported on.
X has served some of its users unlabeled advertisements since September of last year. These ads appear in a users' feed without any "ad" or "promoted" label that the platform usually affixes to paid posts. However, users can tell that these are unlabeled ads and not organic posts because they are missing the date the post was published, which are shown on posts but not ads. In addition, as Mashable previously reported and as the quoted X user also discovered, users can still find an option to tell X that they are "not interested in this ad" in the dropdown ellipsis icon menu on unlabeled ads. This option does not appear for organic posts.
Adtech watchdog Check My Ads has already previously filed a complaint against X with the FTC over the company's lack of transparency regarding this labeling issue.
An X employee claimed to Ryan Broderick of the Garbage Day newsletter in a recent report that because there's a labeled pre-roll video ad that plays before MrBeast's video, the company considers that to be the disclosure. This, according to the X employee, explains why there's no "ad" or "promoted" label affixed to the actual Mr Beast post itself.
That doesn't make any sense. The pre-roll video ad is a completely different advertisement. If viewers are being served MrBeast's post in their feed and it isn't organically showing up — and the aforementioned attributes point to it being served via X's advertising platform — then MrBeast's post containing the video is a completely separate advertisement, and needs to be labeled as such.
In fact, as some other X users have pointed out, older versions of the X app indeed show MrBeast's post with the "promoted" label which means it is being served to users via X's advertising platform.
We should note here that it's possible that some users are being served MrBeast's post organically. Many ads on X are published as regular posts and then later boosted through its ad platform. The instances mentioned in this piece, however, are promoted posts being served through X's ad platform.
So, it appears that X is juicing MrBeast's impressions via unlabeled ads. One can certainly argue whether this lack of transparency is intentional or not, but this does seem to be what's happening.
Why does it matter?
Musk's vision for X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, depends heavily on video content. X CEO Linda Yaccarino's big announcement at this year's CES, for example, was that the company signed former CNN host Don Lemon, sports radio host Jim Rome, and Fox News contributor Tulsi Gabbard to exclusive video deals.
Musk has been known to drop into creators, influencers, and other media figures' replies and urge them to upload their content directly to X. In fact, he did this very thing to MrBeast on a few occasions.
MrBeast, whose real name is Jimmy Donaldson, previously voiced opposition to uploading to X. According to MrBeast, his videos cost too much to produce, and YouTube was the only platform that could compensate him fairly for the amount of views his content receives. But MrBeast was apparently convinced to try uploading directly to X at least once as a "test."
If Musk wins over MrBeast entirely with a big payday based on how his video upload performs, then the X owner just secured the most popular content creator on the internet for his multimedia vision for the future of X.
What's next for X and MrBeast?
MrBeast has commented on his "test" just a few times since posting the video earlier this week.
The creator appeared shocked that his post had over 100 million views. (As of publication, Mr Beast's post has 128 million views.) However, on X, views aren't counted like they are on video platforms like YouTube. On the contrary, those "views" are actually just impressions on the post itself, not the number of people who played MrBeast's video. In May 2023, Musk had X remove the public video view count from the platform, so it's unclear now how many actual views a video gets on X.
In his latest post, MrBeast has asked his followers to vote on just how much they think X will pay him as part of the ad revenue share program: $10, $10,000, $100,000, or $1 million.
It's almost impossible to tell how much MrBeast will rake in due to how X's creator monetization program works. X users can only participate in the monetization program if they are paying subscribers to X's monthly subscription programs like X Premium or X Premium+. In addition, X only pays creators for ads that appear in the replies to their posts. Furthermore, only impressions from other paying X Premium subscribers count towards monetization.
As Mashable has previously reported, X's payout amounts to each creator seems completely arbitrary. X employees have shared that users can't really calculate how much they'll actually make as pay isn't determined by a set number of views like they are on other platforms. Those who have made the most on X appear to mostly consist of Musk's personal favorite political commentators, Tesla fans, and meme accounts.
And, of course, we've yet to mention that Musk himself promoted MrBeast's video to his 169 million followers.
MrBeast has promised to share just how much he makes from X's monetization program from this test. So, we'll soon find out the answer to that question. Whatever MrBeast makes though, it seems clear that X put its fingers heavily on the scale to make sure circumstances favored a massive view count.
The feature works exactly as it sounds. Users can make audio or video calls to other X users from within the app. But, there is one big drawback. Users need to be subscribers to X Premium, which costs $8 per month — or Premium+, which will set users back $16 per month — if they'd like to make a call.
However, any user can receive audio and video calls on X. Only the user placing the call has to pay.
Is this really what X users want?
Elon Musk wants to turn X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, into an "everything app." Based on these features, private audio and video communication seems to play a role in Musk's vision just as much as public posts, audio chats via Spaces, and video livestreaming.
X previously launched the audio and video call feature for iOS back in October 2023. It's unclear, however, just how much it's being used. The feature hasn't caused much of a stir online when it comes to public chatter from X users.
Being able to call an X user from the app itself may sound interesting, and perhaps it could be useful if you know the user and just don't have their contact information readily available. However, it also seems potentially rife for abuse from spammers and scammers. After all, if someone you urgently want to communicate with hasn't provided you with their phone number or email address, there's probably a good reason why.
Currently, X users can utilize the feature through their iOS and Android devices only.
X users can control who calls them – whether any Premium subscriber can give them a ring or if it's limited to only users they follow or are in their phone's address book – by going to their Settings in app and toggling the options in the Messaging section. These controls will likely come in handy in the event that the worst users on X decide to actually start fully utilizing audio and video calls.
Reputation management is more important than ever. From the value of your products to the quality of your customer service, people are likely already posting, talking and commenting about you. And businesses today can’t afford to ignore conversations related to their reputation.
Literally: The Sprout Social Index™ found 51% of consumers agree responding to customers on social media makes brands the most memorable. Despite popular belief, your online reputation isn’t something that’s totally beyond your control.
If you want more positive reviews and glowing praise from your customers, you need an actual reputation management strategy. In this guide, we’ll show you how to put together your own.
What is social media reputation management?
Social media reputation management refers to the process of monitoring social networks to shape and maintain a positive perception online. Along with monitoring social networks, it can include reviewing online reviews on channels like Yelp and Google Reviews. Building a social media reputation requires frequent observation because your audience’s perception of your brand fluctuates over time.
It involves posting content, responding to feedback, conducting performance audits and using social listening data to uncover how your audience views your brand. Overall, social media reputation management aims to build and nurture trustworthy, long-standing relationships with your audience.
Why do you need a social media reputation management strategy?
We get it: some businesses might be skeptical of why ratings, reviews and positive comments hold so much weight.
Because if you know that you’re doing good business, who cares what other people are saying?
And besides, it’s easier to put on blinders and ignore your haters than it is to face your critics head-on. However, consider the following trends that highlight the importance of managing social media reputation:
Consumers are increasingly dependent on third-party reviews
It’s not a stretch to say that businesses live and die based on customer feedback.
People overwhelmingly rely on reviews when it comes to purchasing decisions. A survey from BrightLocal shows 76% of consumers regularly read online reviews when browsing for local businesses. And 46% of consumers feel that online business reviews are as trustworthy as personal recommendations from friends or family.
These stats illustrate the power of reputation management. Customers view brands with more positive reviews and recommendations as genuine and credible.
There’s massive demand for customer feedback and consumers aren’t shy about delivering it. Want evidence? Look no further than the millions of users on sites like Yelp.
Or the hundreds of categories scattered around sites like G2, a peer-to-peer review site for business software.
Or the millions of reviews on Google Reviews and Trustpilot:
You can sing your own praises all day long, but consumers are on the hunt for authentic, third-party reviews for peace of mind. The more of ’em you have, the better.
Digital word-of-mouth is crucial to growing your audience
Data from The Sprout Social Index™ found 68% of consumers say they primarily follow brands on social media to stay informed about new products or services.
Like it or not, people talk. A lot. Your own customers can do some serious legwork by marketing on your behalf, granted they’re satisfied with your service.
The takeaway here? Digital word-of-mouth marketing remains powerful because more conversations around your brand on social media represent additional opportunities to win customers and followers.
Customers hold the reins when it comes to your social media reputation
This is perhaps the biggest challenge of social media reputation management. Social media is authentic and unfiltered. That’s why it’s a great place to discover products and customer feedback—people can pretty much say whatever they want, for better or worse.
As a business, this presents a distinct challenge. Just as satisfied customers are empowered to hype you up, you can’t control your worst critics. That said, you’re still responsible for what they say–responses to reviews and using feedback to improve your products and services are essential parts of your overall reputation management process.
A 5-step social media reputation management strategy for your business
Now that we’ve acknowledged how much brand reputation management matters, let’s talk about the proactive steps you can take to improve your own. The following five step strategy is fair game for businesses both big and small.
1. Determine where your online reputation currently stands
First things first: you need to figure out how people feel about your brand right now.
Are your customers happy and satisfied? Are you struggling with naysayers? Perhaps you’re somewhere in-between?
Digging into a combination of qualitative and quantitative data can help clue you in on where your reputation stands. This includes:
Social media posts, comments and @-mentions from customers and competitors
Online reviews and star ratings from third-party review sites
Mentions from industry blogs or trade publications
Feedback gathered from actual customers (think: emails, customer surveys, contact forms on your website)
The key here is to look at the ratio of positive versus negative comments. If your customer sentiment seems to err on the positive side, that’s good! If not, you have some work to do.
The health of your social media reputation can be difficult to quantify manually. That’s where a platform like Sprout Social that offers social media reputation management tools can help.
For example, our sentiment analysis features can take mentions and turn them into a meaningful, quantifiable metric that you can track.
You can use your sentiment analysis summary as a starting point which you can monitor or strive to improve. Our platform also highlights trends in your customer sentiment (think: positive versus negative and neutral comments) over time without you having to sort them out manually.
Beyond comments are those ever-so-important reviews. Creating an online review management strategy to address feedback on third-party sites will enable your brand to maintain a full view of your customers’ opinions.
Another key feature of Sprout is the ability to wrangle all of your reviews from social media and beyond in a single platform. This gives you a more comprehensive view of your social media reputation and what your customers have to say about you without having to bounce between platforms.
2. Track your company’s mentions (the good, bad and ugly)
Social media reputation management is an ongoing process.
Once you determine where your reputation stands, you need to set up your business to be able to respond to customers swiftly in the future.
This means setting up real-time notifications and listening for the following:
Comments, tags and @-mentions of your business (e.g. @SproutSocial)
Hashtag analytics including brand-specific hashtags (e.g. #SproutSocial or #SproutChat)
Branded keywords (e.g. recognizing “Sprout Social” and “Sprout” as keywords across networks)
Having a pulse on these elements makes it easier to craft the appropriate best practices to follow when someone has a question, concern or reason to shout you out.
This once again highlights the benefit of using a platform like Sprout. With Sprout, you can consolidate all of your social messages and mentions in a single inbox. You can likewise share your various dashboard(s) among your teammates to cover more ground and speed up your social media response time.
Our Index data shows that 76% of consumers value how quickly a brand can respond to their needs. And over half (69%) expect responses from brands on social within 24 hours or less.
3. Be proactive and positive as you respond to your social mentions
Whether it’s a concern or a compliment, social mentions represent prime opportunities to make a positive impression on customers and improve your social media reputation.
Doing so comes down to having a strategy for social customer service. Some key tips for responding to customers include:
Personalizing each reply rather than just using a generic one
Always give yourself the last word by saying “thanks”
Moving questions or concerns off of social media to avoid unnecessary conflict or back-and-forth
It might sound cheesy, but a positive, proactive attitude goes a long way in social media reputation management. This rings true whether it’s answering a customer question or simply responding to shout-outs like in the example below:
4. Take control of your company’s narrative (and make it positive)
As noted, the key challenge of social media reputation management is that online comments are pretty much a free-for-all.
Arguably the best approach to combat the negative is by encouraging your own positive praise.
And yes, there are ways to do so beyond begging (which you definitely shouldn’t do).
For example, you might consider publishing success stories and existing positive reviews from your satisfied customers. This can help highlight positive experiences to your social prospects who might not have checked out any third-party reviews yet.
Beyond customer comments, employee advocacy and mentions from your own team can also create more positive sentiment. Don’t be shy about re-posting your customers’ positive responses or shout-outs, either. This includes asking for permission to republish user-generated content to use in your future marketing.
5. Take action based on comments, criticism and analytics
Finally, consider the power of listening to what your customers have to say.
Maybe they’re glowing over your recent customer service initiatives. Perhaps they’re unhappy about recent pricing changes.
Either way, don’t just take those comments in stride. Instead, listen to such feedback and make changes to your business accordingly.
And yet again, this is where Sprout can help. Digging into your listening data, you can uncover specific terms that pop up in your customer conversations to help you understand what you’re doing right and where you can improve.
The same applies to your third-party ratings, reviews and mentions. Being a business today means having a thick skin, but it also means taking criticism where it’s due.
Based on all of the above, you can circle back to square one to understand how your reputation management efforts are paying off and whether you’re moving the needle in a positive direction.
Top social media reputation management tools
As we mentioned earlier, manually monitoring and reviewing customer feedback is time-consuming. Using a for business can make a huge difference. Here’s a quick round-up of five tools so you can find the best review management software for your brand:
Sprout Social
Choosing the best social media reputation management software will depend on your business’s unique needs, but Sprout Social integrates with many top review networks to fit various needs. These networks include Facebook Pages, Google Reviews, TripAdvisor, Yelp and Glassdoor, which are the most popular in terms of volume and reach. We also offer integrations for the app stores (Google Play and Apple App Store).
With the Reviews Overview report, view a summary of your customer feedback. It includes vital metrics like reply rate and review volume. The report is part of Sprout’s larger customer care solution. Sprout creates a seamless experience across channels by enabling users to monitor multiple conversations, all the while providing priority metrics and automated reports so you can ensure your social customer service strategy is effective and efficient.
Brand24
Brand24 is another helpful tool for social media reputation management. Users can create projects to track online conversations about your brand and industry peers. You can also explore by searching mentions by campaign, analyze sentiment and create reports.
Mention
Mention is a social media management tool that offers a variety of features you can use to manage your reputation. Mention offers the ability to track specific keywords and various filtering options so you can narrow down the @-mentions and feedback that is most relevant and meaningful for your brand.
Birdeye
Birdeye is another leading platform for social media reputation management. Birdeye collects reviews from review sites and 150+ different platforms, giving users a comprehensive view of their business’ online reputation. You can organize feedback by filtering (rating number, region, product, etc.) them into custom fields. Similar to the other social media reputation management software, it centralizes reviews in a singular platform.
Broadly
Supporting over 3,000 local businesses, Broadly is a great option for small businesses looking to maintain a positive online reputation. Users have the option to automate review requests from customers. Broadly offers the ability to monitor and respond to reviews from Google, Facebook and more within a central platform as well.
Is online reputation management a top priority for your business?
Listen: Your brand’s reputation matters.
Rather than treat it as something beyond your control, you should take steps to secure and boost your social media reputation sooner rather than later.
This means both listening and reacting to conversations related to your business. With social media management tools like Sprout Social, you can roll out a more effective and efficient strategy on social media and beyond.
And if you haven’t already, take a test-drive of Sprout’s full suite of social listening and reputation management features today by signing up for a personalized demo.
