A Portland, OR business had received negative backlash on a local opinion blog when one of the employees responded “anonymously” to a post about the company’s product. The employee’s response impacted brand awareness immediately. Potential customers who had been interested in visiting the business responded online that they were now going to shun the establishment.
The Nereus team came to the rescue. First, the team recommended that the business talk directly to the community, owning up to the fact that an employee had tried to appear as an anonymous blogger on the site. Next, Nereus suggested holding a focus group to give the bloggers an opportunity to try their product for free and provide honest feedback. Nereus also worked with the owners to set up a company blog account which would allow them to interact openly in the online community.
Response to the online interaction with the owners was immediate and positive and several bloggers signed up to join the focus group. The focus group included volunteers, college students and bloggers all from the local community. The attendees even had the opportunity to test the product for themselves. This effort resulted in loads of positive local blogger response and the client was thrilled with the efforts by Nereus to engage the blogging community: “You really hit this one out of the ballpark!! You have made my day, week, and month.”