This past Friday, the Kansas City Business Journal profiled some of Spiral16’s clients and the way they are using our newest social media monitoring platform, Spark.

It’s a great article because it spotlights the value that different companies are receiving from Spark.

Brand management agency Nation Ranch tracks its clients’ online brand awareness and reputation with Spark.

Notably, Nation Ranch President Bill Patterson (pictured) spoke about using Spark’s near-realtime results to aid in crisis management for a hotel client.

From the article:

• “Whether it was bad customer service or the room was not clean, we have the opportunity to work with the management of the company and get back in touch with the customer and make that situation right, and in the case of a blog, to make it right in a very public way,” Patterson says. “The flip side is for a customer who has had a pleasurable experience … it is an opportunity for us to publicly thank them or privately thank them and offer a goodie on their next stay, which makes them a more loyal customer to our brand.”

Mark Logan, vice president and director of interactive at Barkley, says the company identified a key online influencer for Build-a-Bear Workshop Inc. using Spark. A blogger (who was also a lawyer) “thought the toy retailer was harvesting personal information from children for nefarious purposes.”

Also from the article:

• “Build-a-Bear reached out to the blogger to clear up misconceptions, which resulted in a laudatory follow-up message from the blogger, diffusing what could have been a difficult situation.

  “You’ve got to be impressed with a company that responds so quickly, directly and receptively to criticism,” the blogger wrote five days after the first posting.”

To read the full text of “Survival Strategies: Staying in Touch,” click here.

Tagged as: barkley, kansas city, monitoring, nation ranch, Spark, Spiral16, Spiral16 Press, tracking