A trustworthy brand can live up to its full potential and tap into the market effectively. Traditionally, reputation management was more of an art than a science. A PR guru would lift a wet finger in the air to judge the mood and suggest strategies to improve or sustain a brand’s reputation. Now, with the advent of the information age, these traditional techniques are being swiftly replaced with big data and predictive analytics.

There’s no need to guess what people think about a brand anymore. With millions of social posts, online interactions, and specific mentions, the data on people’s thoughts and opinions is all readily available.

With fine-tuned algorithms that that can sift through petabytes of relevant data and guide corporate decision-making, online reputation management has been transformed into a nearly exact science.

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Here’s how big data can make a difference:

Protecting and monitoring

Trillions of pieces of data get uploaded to the internet every second. Keeping a track of it all is nearly impossible. Even worse, the internet almost never forgets.

Services like ReputationDefender have helped people clear up their online reputation in the past with the help of big data. Now this technology is being widely adopted by corporate and institutional clients too.

Social conversations

Social media is the most prominent platform for any public discussion. While private conversations and messages will remain unavailable for obvious reasons, people are often open about expressing their views on certain businesses and the experience they have had with their products or services. A visitor will quickly complain about the lack of service at a new restaurant or the bugs on a newly launched app.

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Social media has helped drive regular conversations to global scale. This is a double-edged sword for most businesses. With better scale marketing becomes more effective but the brand is also exposed to a wider variety of reputational risks.

Big data can help companies dive deep into social posts and public mentions to see if their online reputation is being protected.

Key influencers

Reaching out to key influencers in a niche market is the ultimate form of branding and reputation management. However, understanding and discovering the right influencers has always been a tedious task. Big data can now be applied to dig deeper than follower numbers and likes to figure out if a certain person’s voice truly cuts above the rest. Guiding the conversation is a lot easier when you work with the right partners.

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Niche review sites

When it comes to businesses, the conversation isn’t just happening on social media. Niche review sites like Yelp, Tripadvisor, Booking.com, and others can make or break a client-facing brand. Even a shoddy Wikipedia page can have an impact on the company’s reputation.

By its definition, big data encompasses posts on review sites and niche blogs to make sure no stone is left unturned while preserving a brand’s reputation. To sum up, big data may be the perfect tool for modern corporate reputation management.