• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, May 8, 2009

Companies that embrace brand reputation management best practices have a better public image than other firms and are twice as likely as average companies to increase shareholder value, according to a new report from the Aberdeen Group.

The report, "Brand Reputation Management: Using Online Monitoring to Protect the Company's Crown Jewels," is the latest in a series from Aberdeen that highlights the effect of social media monitoring on company brand intelligence, culture and financial performance. Support for the report came in part from Visible Technologies, which provides brand monitoring, management and engagement solutions.

The study, which ranks companies by best-in-class, industry average or laggard, found that the benefits of online monitoring and analysis directly reflect the brand's reputation and shareholder value. The report found that best-in-class companies are 1.5 times more likely than industry-average companies and 16 times as a likely as laggards to improve how they protect their brands.

Best-in-class companies are twice as likely as average companies and 12.5 times as likely as laggards to see a year-over-year increase in shareholder value due to brand-monitoring practices.

Among other findings, 75% of best-in-class companies indicate that it was easy making the business case for spending on social-media monitoring. Best-in-class companies are three times as likely as laggards to have a process for acting on insights from social media monitoring.

Companies that are considered best in class are nearly 2.3 times as likely as average companies and 18 times more likely than laggards to communicate brand-threatening information to key decisions quickly.

The report notes that companies in all three categories can improve positions and better protect their brands. Laggards, for example, can improve by hiring brand reputation management resources focused on social media monitoring. Industry-average companies can use social media monitoring capabilities to find and measure their impact on the key influencers. And best-in-class companies can correlate online brand protection to financial outcomes.