Concerned about what your customers say about you online? Well, you should be.
You probably think you have your bases covered by allowing product reviews and client testimonials through your Web site, but the truth is that the blogosphere can make (or break) you as a company if Google includes a customer's blog post in the SERPs (search engine results pages).
Prominently positioned customer blog posts in the SERPs that either love you or hate you can be more powerful than product reviews for several reasons, the most obvious one being that many blogs act as word-of-mouth advertising when things go right--and when they go wrong.
While some bloggers may have a reputation for always pointing out things that are wrong with the world, make no mistake about it: "acts of kindness" do get talked about, in a big way! You may have already overheard some of the positive buzz about Zappos, a fashion retailer of shoes and handbags, probably due in part to its free overnight shipping, very liberal return policy, and enthusiastic customer reviews. Here's a blog post you may not have heard about, "I Heart Zappos."
We all understand that sometimes bad things happen to good people, and Zaz LaMarr (the writer of the post) could be any one of us. In her post, she described how she purchased several pairs of shoes for her ill mother. Some didn't fit, but she didn't get around to returning them. Shortly afterward, her mom passed away and LaMarr still hadn't gotten around to mailing them.
When Zappos followed up on the shoes, LaMarr wrote back and explained the situation, ending with: "I'd send the shoes as soon as I could." Not only did Zappos arrange for UPS to pick up the shoes, but the company also sent a floral arrangement with condolences.
The result of Zappos' kindness? The customer that it treated like gold also happened to be a blogger with readership. Word of this good deed is spreading around the Web faster than the speed of a T-1 line, and her post is currently in position No. 12 in Google for "Zappos," and in position No. 9 in Yahoo.
Still not a believer that blogs are powerful? One commenter to her post declared, "I am going to go buy something from them and refer them to this post as the reason for my purchase. If only more companies acted this human."
What better way to build your reputation than to get back to basics and be nice to people?
On the flip side, some companies are earning their reputation as unfeeling, corporate giants. I can't think of another industry that has more problems with that image than the airlines. Search Google for "Spirit Airlines" and the No. 3 ranked result is a blog post headline that reads, "Do Not Fly Spirit Airlines."
What started out as a complaint over a $5 fee attracted a blogstorm; not only were several other horror stories relayed in the blog post's comments, but other posts like this one about the "Spirit Airlines Story" have attracted attention outside of the blogosphere in places like The Chicago Tribune, consumer complaint groups and more.
What was so bad?
Spirit CEO Ben Baldanza reacted to a well-written customer complaint letter by saying "Please respond, Pasquale, but we owe him nothing as far as I'm concerned. Let him tell the world how bad we are. He's never flown us before anyway and will be back when we save him a penny." The customer got ahold of the comment because Baldanza hit the "Reply to All" button.
Instead of apologizing or trying to deal with the situation in a better manner, Spirit Airlines blew off its customers and people reacted. While airline execs could have done something to resolve the issue, blogs don't seem to be important to them. Company spokeswoman Alison Russell was quoted as saying, "We wouldn't respond to a blog post. She goes on to say: "This goes back to the larger question of the veracity of everything you read on Internet blogs. Our customer service is great."
I'm sure you've heard the saying, "De Nile is a river in Egypt." How many travelers do you think are going to steer clear of Spirit Airlines after they read that damning post (in a No. 3 Google position)?
The lesson here, folks, is that the cliches you've heard about being kind to one another holds true--even (or especially) on the Internet.
Reputation monitoring and management have become hot topics and will only continue to grow. These are becoming important areas for all businesses, large and small, to focus on as more and more people turn to the Web to communicate through blogs, their own Web sites, as well as the ever-growing opportunities for online consumer reviews and ratings.
Here is a quick Reputation Management 101 rundown of five tips in each of five different areas to get you started:
Pre-emptive measures are best
The old adage of prevention being the best cure carries a lot of weight here.
- Always strive to view your site through the eyes of your visitors
- Make sure that contact information is available, easy to find, and working
- Respond to messages in a timely manner
- When issues do start to crop up, fix them before they become widespread
- Strive to achieve that level at which customers, clients and visitors are singing your praises publicly for you
Places to monitor
Start creating bookmarks of specific sites to monitor.
- Use Google and Yahoo email alerts, as well as regular manual searches, in all major engines to search for your company name, product and brand names, or mentions of your URL
- Especially if you have a local presence, look for local Web sites to monitor
- Keep an eye on the blogosphere, and set up RSS feeds for monitoring
- Don't forget general or topical forums
- Also keep an eye on sites with consumer reviews and ratings
Dos
There are many things you should do, but here are some especially important ones to keep in mind.
- Decide whether a response is warranted
- Decide whether a response or discussions are better suited for offline, one-to-one conversations
- Take time before responding to remove any chance of emotions tainting your response
- If at all possible, have someone else read your response before posting
- Use responses as a way to reach out to your audience, even if the conversation needs to be handled offline
Don'ts
Of course, no list of dos would be complete without a list of don'ts.
- Don't get defensive
- Don't attack or get personal
- Don't shirk blame or avoid responsibility
- Don't pretend to be someone else and make posts that appear to be from "satisfied customers" coming to your defense
Reminders
And to round out our list, here are some key things to keep in mind.
- Remember that what you say privately could be made public by others
- Remember that most of the people posting negative comments are looking to express their frustrations, seek acknowledgment and be valued
- View this as an opportunity to build stronger relationships, to show goodwill and to show that you care
- People have always been able to say negative things about you or your company; now it is just easier to do it publicly, but it is also easier for people to tell everyone how great you are as well
- Set and keep a schedule for monitoring, and automate as much of it as possible
For a more detailed view, including some specific sites to look at for monitoring, you may want to check out Andy Beal's resource, Free Online Reputation Management Beginner's Guide, over at Marketing Pilgrim.
At the BlogHer 2007 Conference in Chicago last weekend, I was a proud dad, on-hand to support my daughter, Chloe, who presented her "Ultimate Neopets Cheats Blog" success story to a packed audience of bloggers, online marketers, and SEO enthusiasts attending the Professional Blogging: Ways and Means session.
Check out some highlights of Chloe's presentation at the BlogHer Conference 2007...
In early 2006, when Chloe was 15, she decided to devote a blog to Neopets, a virtual pets site popular with kids the world over. After performing some keyword research through WordTracker and Google Suggest for her blog's title and section headings, she discovered that "neopets cheats" was a hugely popular search term to target for her blog. So she settled on the name: the "Ultimate Neopets Cheats Site." She then used the free WordPress.com service to start the blog. Chloe's site was able to ride on the coattails of WordPress.com's trust and authority in the eyes of Google, thus sidestepping the "Google Sandbox" and jumping to page 1 in Google for the term "neopet cheats" within two weeks of launch.
Wanting to capitalize on her success, Chloe attempted to place Google ads on her WordPress.com blog, only to find that she was unable to monetize her blog due to WordPress.com's restrictive Terms of Service. So Chloe migrated the blog over from neopetcheats.wordpress.com to her own domain, neopetsfanatic.com, powered by the WordPress software. She then went about building links through places like Blogger Stories.
By spending just a few hours per month, Chloe earns through Google AdSense between $20 and $30 per day--and it's sometimes even as much $40. If you do the math, that's somewhere around $700 to $900 a month for very little work. If Chloe wanted to earn a similar amount of money through a part-time job--at her age, this typically means flipping burgers, babysitting or operating a paper route--she'd have to work somewhere around 25 to 30 hours per week (assuming minimum wage). And best of all, because Chloe has an income generating asset (versus working dollars-for-hours for "The Man"), Chloe can take a paid vacation whenever she wants and still earn the same amount of money.
Currently, Chloe is planning what she will do next with her blogging. By branching out into new topic areas with other blogs and adding a forum to her Neopets blog, she will expand her reach in the blogosphere. A sister project of WordPress called bbPress is Chloe's platform of choice for her upcoming discussion forums; it will be a more suitable venue to host the plethora of comments that have been posted to Chloe's blog (some of the pages on Chloe's blog have thousands of comments). Her link building efforts have also evolved to include face-to-face networking at conferences in order to build links and create invaluable contacts. Thanks to her blog's strong rankings for Neopets related terms (including a page 1 ranking for "neopets"!), Chloe watches over an ever-growing college fund.
Hopefully Chloe's story will inspire other teens to seize the opportunity to build assets, whether online or offline. Her story also teaches us that SEO is not inaccessible; in fact, it's so easy, that a child can do it!
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