Social gives brands the control they crave online

If you search Google for "are brands losing control online" you will get over 1.9 million results. Search "the issue of brands 'losing control' of their reputation and image" and you get over 4 million results.

Social still scares many brands. Many believe that you lose control when customers interact and leave comments. This is discussed by the "new" traditional model Zero moment of Truth (ZMOT) from Google. The premise is that people use borrowed experience, written online to influence their purchase.

 

  

ZMOT says these shared experiences are representative of a brand's essence. Are people's reviews and comments the brands proof points? Have brands lost control of the reasons to believe? No, absolutely not.

Secondly, is this data available on Google? The answer is mostly No! By Google's own admission most sharing and commenting occurs in Facebook and Twitter and Google cannot access this data. For consumers to access this data would take an effort by the brand itself to get the data into the search engines.

This is why brands have the control they crave.

The control comes from the ability to integrate moderated Facebook and Twitter feeds into index-able content. Index the good stuff that will provide people the reasons to believe they seek.

Take control.