Protecting Your Online Reputation: 3 Key Tasks Your Business Must Complete

Fake Internet reviews and attack websites are becoming more and more common.  For example, John Wender, a Manhattan architect, recently filed a $1.25 million defamation lawsuit against his ex-lover who he claims created a web posting stating that “he sleeps with anything that moves.”  These kind of “ex-file” attacks are appearing on websites ranging from ripoffreport.com, thedirty.com, Yelp.com, to Google Places, let alone the standard customer service rantings on Twitter or Facebook. There are literally thousands of websites appearing that make it seemingly appropriate and legal to trash a business or individual’s reputation online.

In a recent project, Cyber Investigation Services performed a study on dentists in a variety of local markets. They found the average dentist had an average of only four reviews of their business, but the website on which the reviews appeared ranked very highly when you Google searched the dentists’ company names.  The chart below shows the number of top 30 dentists in the Gainesville, Florida market, indicates that most dental practices have very few reviews.

The downside of having only a few reviews is that a single bad review, whether from a legitimate customer or a disgruntled attacker, can have a profound impact on a potential client’s perception when they are doing their online homework about the services they intend to use.

I recently spoke with Dr. Chris Anderson of Cyber Investigation Services (CIS) about this problem. CIS was founded in 2010 to help clients who come under attack on the Internet. Today they receive more than 5,000 requests for help every year.

Dr. Anderson shared an example of a physician he helped to deal with an unfair attack against him on Yelp.  The doctor was being falsely accused of sexual misconduct in three different prominent reviews, all submitted by anonymous parties. The reviews were written in a way to make it appear as though they were coming from three separate people who were chiming in with their comments. Unfortunately, like many professional practices the doctor’s office had only one positive review online outside of this issue.

It’s easy to understand that having only four reviews, three of which are not only bad but accuse you of sexual misconduct, would be the kiss of death for a business. Fortunately, Anderson’s company was able to determine it was a disgruntled ex-employee had posted the phony reviews. The problem was quickly resolved and the antagonist now faces a lawsuit.

The best steps a business owner can take to protect their brand from these types issues, Anderson says, boils down to three steps: Protection, Monitoring and Defense.

1. Protection. First, businesses need a program to regularly encourage satisfied customers to write reviews. From there they need to build out additional content on the Internet so that positive material eventually occupies their first page results on Google.  As I have pointed out in previous articles as well, Anderson notes that is much more effective to focus attention on prevention than on trying to fix the situation entirely after a negative situation occurs. Anderson also notes that these actions of protection also serve as positive marketing and substantially helps a business’ credibility when potential customers “Google” their brand. He also notes there are additional advanced protective techniques available that small-mid companies should consider such as requiring employees and sometimes even customers to sign contracts ensuring that they won’t post detrimental materials to the web.

2. Monitoring. On the topic of monitoring, Anderson stresses the importance of uncovering online problems quickly. Entrepreneurs can frequently solve problems easily if they find the issue right away, but issues become much more difficult or even impossible to deal with as time goes by. In his practice, Anderson has seen businesses sometimes wait until they’ve lost 50% or more of revenues before they come in to seek professional help.  At that point there is much less remedy available because of the age of the material. Anderson recommends doing a complete scan of your brand name weekly to include first page results and review sites. I would suggest going further still by putting a Google search in place that brings forward new mentions of your company’s name instantly, as quick as the new items appear.

3. Defense. According to Anderson, the hardest issue of all lies in defending your brand when you come under attack. Suppose you wake up tomorrow and find something negative online about you or your business. It is sticking out like a sore thumb and the material is 100% fictitious. What do you do?

Anderson suggests the first step is to take a deep breath. The moment you become aware of an online problem is invariably scary. You will feel helpless but will also feel a strong need to act quickly. This is a scenario where PR and reputation management counsel is necessary, but in short, you need to rationally assess your ability to handle the issue.

According to Anderson, your options include the following:

• Doing nothing
• Crafting a polished written response
• Trying to resolve the issue with the poster
• Asking the website to step in
• Identifying an anonymous poster
• Using legal letters to threaten the poster
• Filing a lawsuit to seek damages and force removal

If you (or your team) react badly, you can quickly make matters worse. Your decision may feel a bit like a high-stakes game of poker.

Article curated from Forbes

How To Get More Positive Reviews

Consumers rely on online reviews when making purchasing decisions. 90% claim that reading a positive review online influenced their buying decision. A whopping 85% of consumers read online reviews for local businesses.

The Harvard Business School did a study that focused on online reviews for restaurants, and found that a one star increase in Yelp rating led to a 5 – 9 percent increase in revenue. And Cornell University found that a hotel can get away with increasing its price up to 11.2 percent with each one-point increase in its review score.

Just last week, the New York Times reported on how user reviews are making consumers smarter, helping us make better purchase decisions, but it is also making marketers more savvy. The article shared insights from a Stanford study that looked at how consumers use Amazon reviews when purchasing. Technology gives consumers power, but it gives marketers data.

Businesses, large and small, should be concerned about how they are reviewed online because consumers take reviews seriously. “One should have systems in place to ensure that a couple of negative reviews don’t harm their business,” notes Vedran Tomic, local Internet marketing expert and the co-founder of Local Ants, LLC.

It takes more than awareness and concern to tackle the complicated online review ecosystem.

Customer-Centric Culture

Of course, the best defense against negative reviews online is making sure they never happen. Easier said than done. Whether you’re a one-man-band or a big corporation, your goal should always be providing the best customer service possible. You can use tools like FreshDesk or ZenDesk to manage the customer service process.

Every customer that experiences remarkable customer service will tell their family and friends about your business. They might also provide you with a great review.

If you have employees, make sure that they know what great customer service means for your business. Put it up on walls, send emails about it – train your employees to provide remarkable customer service. I’m sure you have read about Zappos and its incredible customer satisfaction and service.

However, even if you make great customer service a pillar of your company’s culture, bad reviews are bound to happen.

The Harsh Reality – How To Deal With Negative Reviews

“There are really only two types of local businesses in this brave new world: those that have gotten a negative review and those that will. If that negative review is the only thing that potential customers see about your business there is no doubt they will choose a different one. And a business owner has two choices on how to deal with this new review reality: ignore it and face the consequences or approach it proactively and start giving all of your customers a voice in how your business is perceived,” says Mike Blumenthal, the co-founder of Get5Stars and a local search expert.

If you’ve been in business for a considerable amount of time, you will be faced with negative reviews. After great customer service, your best line of defense is to make sure your good reviews outweigh the bad. As the New York Times piece pointed out – most reasonable people are going to discount the gushing, positive accolades and the scathing negative customer who expects you to give him or her the moon.

Right after you receive a negative review, you should try to identify the customer and do everything in your power to make things right. Under no circumstances should you confront the customer publicly, even if they’re using insulting or derogatory language.
Too many small business make a mistake of defending themselves and not acknowledging their mistake, sometimes even threatening the customer with legal action. This type of behavior makes the situation much worse – without exceptions.

Are You Aware Of Your Online Reputation?

The technology to monitor and track online reviews is affordable and easily accessible. Online review monitoring tools such as ReviewTrackers.com are easy to use. I think the $29/month for Review Trackers is a bargain, but if not; you can use Google Alerts to monitor the web for mentions of their business name, products and/or key people – for free. One of my favorite tools is a site called: KnowEm which lets you search for your name or your brand across just about every social network on the planet.

How To Get More Positive Reviews

Increasing the number of positive reviews is both delicate and important. Some review platforms don’t encourage review solicitations and faking reviews can cost you more than your business reputation. The State of New York even prosecuted an SEO company that was selling fake reviews. Yelp has filed a lawsuit against a law firm for planting fake reviews on their platform.

Instead of incentivizing your customers to give you a positive review, you can take a survey-based approach to online reviews. Send surveys to your customers, asking them about their experience with your company, and use this data to improve your customer service operations.

Mr. Tomic advised that you should only occasionally ask your customers if they would like to share their experiences online. Give them plenty of options and make it extremely easy for them to leave a review.

Article curated from Forbes

Facebook echoes Twitter, launches trending topics with explanations

 

In a move that echoes Twitter, Facebook is adding a feature to its service that lets users know the topics of discussion that are trending among the site's 1.2 billion users, whether it's the death of a world leader or the Oscars.

Users in the U.S., U.K., India, Canada and Australia will begin seeing a list of trending topics on the right side of their Facebook pages in coming weeks. It will be available in more countries later on.

Trending topics won't be available on the mobile version of Facebook, but the company said it is testing the feature in its app for smartphones and tablet computers.

Facebook, which signaled last year that it would introduce trending topics at some point, said Thursday that the topics people see will be tailored to the user's interests and location. On Thursday afternoon, two users saw topics that included the Academy Awards, American Idol and Republican Sen. David Vitter from Louisiana.

Unlike Twitter, which simply lists topics, Facebook's trending section explains why a particular topic is trending. In this case, the 2014 Academy Award nominations were announced, American Idol named new judges and promised a new attitude and Vitter introduced a bill that would require people show photo IDs to make purchases with food stamps.

Chris Stuhar, a software engineer at Facebook who works on the site's news feed, said the feature is designed to uncover the most interesting content across the site and fits into the company's broader effort to make Facebook "your personal newspaper."

Facebook is already seen as a place where users go to find out what their friends and family are up to. Stuhar said learning that a friend got married or discovering what his friends are doing on a Friday night is "certainly news," but Facebook has a "much broader vision of where we want news feed to go in the future."

Facebook's new feature represents another move onto Twitter's turf. Right now, Twitter is seen as the place people go to have public conversations about events as they happen, whether that's live TV, sports or news. Mirroring Twitter, Instagram and other services, Facebook in June introduced hashtags, the number signs that identify topics being discussed and that allow users to search for them.

Article curated from Newsday

How to Attract the Right Kind of Twitter Audience

 

In his book Tweet Naked, online marketing expert and Social Media Firm CEO Scott Levy provides the critical information entrepreneurs need to craft a social media strategy that will boost their brand and their business. In this edited excerpt, the author offers tips that can help you figure out how you want the world to view your brand.
 
While some large, national companies, like McDonald's, are happy to have followers from anywhere and everywhere, smaller, niche businesses can benefit greatly from reaching people and growing a following in their own industry. A small business in a specific town, city or region, such as a spa that can only serve 50 people a week, may benefit more from a select local following than a mass following of 100,000 people from all over the world that it could never accommodate.

You need to decide whether your strategy is to build local leads, a national following, or international branding and visibility. It's important to keep a few things in mind when building a following:

• Your potential reach as a business. Are you trying to brand locally or internationally?
• Your resources. How much time and money do you have to monitor--or have your staff monitor--your social media activities and interact with followers? If you have numerous followers on Twitter but have no time (or interest) in responding to them, you'll lose them as brand supporters.
• The type of product or service you offer. If you're a software manufacturer, for example, you'll want to reach as many people as possible. But if you're selling high-end furnishings, you may be better served with a smaller following of top designers and those who can appreciate and afford your goods.

Here are 10 easy ways to build a following:

1. Have an excellent photo, bio and profile. Every form of social media lets you provide some information about yourself. Make sure your Twitter profile and bio includes a succinct mix of who you are and what you do, but do not sell! Your photo should be a nice close-up of you alone--preferably sporting a smile. Make sure the photo is clear and close; if it was taken from 50 feet away, your face will look like a dot on mobile devices. And leave the photos of family and friends to your Facebook page.

2. Cross-promote. Let people on Facebook have your Twitter handle, and people on Twitter find your Facebook page. Do the same on LinkedIn and other social media sites. A recent LinkedIn thread in a networking discussion group simply asked everyone to share their Twitter handles--and they did.

3. Put your Twitter handle everywhere. Don't be shy about letting everyone know where you can be found on social media. Some folks even have bumper stickers with their Twitter handles on them. Are personalized license plates next?

4. Reciprocate. If they like you, like them; if they follow you, follow them; and if they endorse you, endorse them.

5. Be human. Use your own identity rather than your brand or logo. On Twitter, very often the people behind the business have more followers than their businesses. Also connect with the people behind other businesses; this can help you establish a relationship and you can even talk about and cross-promote each other's companies.

6. Use photos. They can be very effective in your Twitter tweets. Photos grab people's attention. Make sure they're good quality and appropriate for your audience.

7. Pay attention. Each social media platform is trying to remain fresh, new and innovative. As a result, there are new options introduced, some of which can benefit you in your effort to build your following and grow your brand. You may not use the many features each social media platform has to offer, but it's worthwhile to stay abreast of the latest development.

8. Set up a schedule. While you may monitor social media all day long, you might not have the time to be an active participant. If this is the case, you may want to set up a schedule to carve out time for making your presence felt.

9. Review what's working and what isn't. If growing a following and building your brand is your goal, you'll want to monitor your results. If you're putting yourself out there and people aren't responding, you may need to change your approach. If many people are responding to your tweets on Twitter but ignoring you on Facebook, then focus on Twitter, or vice versa.

10. Be interesting. I can't reiterate this enough: If you're interesting and engaging, people will engage with you; if you're boring, they won't. Choose your tweets carefully.

Building a following will take some work; the good news is, you can do it from your office, your home or while sitting on the beach with your trusty tablet. Remember to tweet often.

Article curated from Entrepreneur Magazine

8 Powerful Social Media Marketing Tools for Savvy Businesses

New social media tools seem to pop up every day. Here are some definitely worth checking out.

With a seemingly endless list of social media tools out there today, you might need help sorting out the best from the rest. Here are my picks:

1. Mention: Google Alerts for the social web. Mention is one of the best tools to monitor your brand's presence across the web. It includes mentions of your brand or keywords you want to monitor on social networks, forums, blogs and more. Mention also includes social features that allow you to respond to mentions of your brand and to share industry news that you find.

2. Buffer: Social media publishing plus powerful analytics. Buffer is a powerful social media tool that sends your updates to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+ and App.net. It also has built-in analytics to help you understand why certain posts are working well, and the best times to publish updates based on your audience. Plus you can collaborate with your team to keep your accounts topped up with fresh content.

For an easy to use tool to manage your company's social media presence, check out the newly launched Buffer for Business.

3. Feedly: Content discovery. Finding great content to share with your audience is easy with Feedly. Not only can you subscribe to RSS feeds to keep on top of industry blogs or news sites, you can also use Feedly to discover new content related to your topics of interest.

4. Twitter Counter: Track Twitter progress. It can be easy to lose track of how your Twitter account is growing; that's where Twitter Counter comes in. It's a free service that tracks changes in your follower count and predicts future growth over time.

Twitter Counter can be useful in understanding how quickly your number of followers is growing, and using that information to make decisions about the content you share (like re-sharing older content that new followers would have missed.)

5. Zapier: Link favorite social services. Zapier is a connector for all of the services you use independently, connecting those services to make your workday simpler and easier. For example, if your team uses HipChat to keep in touch you can use Zapier to set up automatic notifications inside HipChat rooms for Tweets, MailChimp campaigns, or new RSS items.
And you can connect productivity apps like Trello, Asana and Evernote to social networks like Twitter or even business products like Dropbox and Github.

6. Bottlenose: Intelligence for social networks. Bottlenose now features a real time search engine that queries all public information from social networks and groups and displays it in algorithmic order of importance. The result? An awesome stream of content ranked by most to least important. Try, for example, "startup insights." I feel sure you'll find a number of great resources.

And of course you can easily share the top results. (If you come across a bunch of cool resources, add them to your Buffer so you don't forget, and don't overwhelm your followers. 

7. Followerwonk: Follower analysis for Twitter. Although you can use a tool like Twitter Counter to watch the growth of your number of Twitter followers, you may need to analyze your followers more carefully. Followerwonk breaks down your followers into demographics so you can understand them better. The best part about Followerwonk could be its analysis of what time your followers are online, helping you to know what times you should tweet to reach more people.

You can also find out when the people you follow tend to be online--just in case you're trying to start more discussions with those Twitter users.

8. Quintly: Social analytics for brands. Quintly is a powerful tool for in-depth social media analytics, helping you track your business's social media performance on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google+, LinkedIn and Instagram. Quintly also has benchmarking features that help you understand how your performance compares to competitors and industry averages.

Plus the quintly dashboard is easy to customize so you can focus on the stats that matter most to your business.

Article curated from Inc. Magazine

How to Handle Negative Online Reviews

Q: How should small businesses respond to negative reviews through social media and on sites like Yelp? - Dara Khautisen
Chicago

A: Negative social media reviews, especially those that are potentially malicious, are near the top of the list of nightmare scenarios for small business owners and entrepreneurs. But don’t panic. The last thing you want is to become the next Amy’s Baking Company, the restaurant that became famous for lashing out at customers.



As a business owner putting your heart and soul into pursuing your passion, it’s all too easy to act first in the face of negativity and have regrets later. Hold your tongue.

Before you formulate a strategy for addressing criticism, you need to determine if the comment or review is true. Investigate before taking action. Could this be a competitor spreading a rumour or something that has happened that nobody’s told you about? Once you figure out the basis of the comment, follow the below steps: 

The statement is factually incorrect: If a statement made is untrue (not just an opinion you disagree with), you have the right to ask for the comment to be removed or retracted. While in theory that seems simple, in reality getting a comment removed can be a tricky. 
It can only be successful if you are able to provide conclusive supporting evidence which shows, without a doubt, the comment is factually incorrect. If you can't provide proof, the sad truth is you won't get anywhere asking for removal. 

If you do have factual evidence and the site doesn't take down the negative statement or review, you should consider correcting the post in the comments section. Lay out the conclusive facts in a professional manner and don't make it personal. 

If a comment is factually true, but negative: Make sure you present your side of the story, and be honest. If you can, add a comment to the post explaining your rational in a non-hostile way and how you plan on addressing the situation. 

If you sense a protracted back-and-forth could occur, it’s a good idea to try and take the conversation offline. State your willingness to receive any questions or comments through email. Make sure you, or a senior-level staff member, personally addresses the complaint. 
One tactic you need to avoid is creating new “personas,” or fake accounts, to support your position in blogs, forums and message boards, as you’ll likely be caught.

Remember prevention is better than a cure. This situation can often be avoided (or at least substantially mitigated) by ensuring you are tuned into social media at all times, not just when there's an emergency. Cultivate your business’s fans to proactively share their experiences and recommendations online. Consumers are smart enough to sniff out and ignore one odd-ball negative review in a sea of positive ones.


Article curated from Entrepreneur

Facebook to roll out video advertising in test

 

Facebook has confirmed it is testing video advertising, following media reports that it will roll out video commercials later this week.

The social networking website said on Tuesday that it would be promoting a series of videos for the upcoming film "Divergent" this week -- but stressed it was only a test run. 

It comes after the Wall Street Journal reported that video ads would begin appearing in Facebook users' feeds on Thursday. 

"As this is a test, we don't have additional details to share at this time, but rest assured we'll continue to refine this new way for brands to tell stories on Facebook," a company spokesperson told CNBC in an email. 

The videos will run automatically in Facebook users' news feeds without sound; users will be able click on the video to hear the audio.

If the test is judged to be successful, Facebook will be in a good position to capture a share of the lucrative U.S. television ad space -- which is expected to hit $81.6 billion in 2017, according to PwC.
Earlier this year speculation that Facebook would introduce 15-second video ads surfaced, but it is unclear how long the "Divergent" commercials will be. 

Facebook is looking to further increase its advertising revenue which saw a 66 percent rise in the third quarter of 2013 compared with the same quarter last year, with mobile advertising representing almost half of that figure. 

But earlier this year, it struck a cautious note about advertising amid fears that an increased number of commercials would push users away.

The social networking giant must balance its drive for revenue with the user experience, according to Ian Maude, an online media analyst at Enders Analysis. 

"So far there hasn't been a negative reaction from Facebook users and video advertising will really reinvigorated Facebook's business. The tricky part is getting balance between maximizing revenue and not annoying users to the point they leave Facebook," Maude told CNBC. 

Article curated from CNBC