1) DO YOU HAVE A REPUTATION?

If you aren’t showing up, it’s like you don’t exist.

Traditionally, you should assume that people online won’t go past the first couple of pages of search results, and now we are hearing that unless someone is highly engaged, they aren’t likely to go past the first 3-5 results.

With this in mind, where do you stand? Do you find results about your company with simple searches like your name, company, brand, products, and industry + area.

If not, think of your online reputation as Non-Existent. It’s time to start building one!

2) DO YOU OWN YOUR LISTINGS?

If you don’t control your brand online, someone else will.

Another issue with search results. Going back to the last topic, if you did the simple searches and results about you appear, but you don’t have control of the pages that show up, this is another issue. If you don’t claim ownership of listings from sites like Google Places and Yelp, then other people can update your information as they please. Not only will you be able to ensure more accuracy about your company by owning your listings, you will also be able to gain insights into how people find your online listings and be more aware of reviews people write about you.

This also applies to social media sites. Claim your name on Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, etc. Someone else could have already or may soon take the name you would want to use and it can cause discrepancies in your branding strategies. In a worst case scenario, someone who is upset with you could register your name or be squatting on your name hoping to make you buy it from them.

Each of the sites mentioned above, and many others that may be appropriate places to list your business have guides on how to take control of your listings or profiles. Use their Help or FAQ sections.

If you don’t offer a positive opportunity for people to communicate with you, they can become discouraged and try to interact through less desirable channels.

3) DO YOU RESPOND TO ONLINE FEEDBACK?

People expect accessibility online.

Now, assuming that you have taken control of your online presence, how do you manage it?

Positive Feedback:

Do you have positive reviews out there? Note the good things people are saying about you and keep them in mind as important aspects of your efforts moving forward. If people’s reviews say they appreciate your cheerful customer service, then taking on a snobby demeanor in your ads or other copywriting could estrange some of your most loyal customers.

Negative Feedback:

Are there negative reviews out there?

Own up to the reviews: If someone has a valid complaint, or if a group has similar or “me too!” complaints, do what you can to address the issue and make things right. People want to know that you care about their perception of you and that you take their concerns to heart.

Inaccurate reviews? Did someone say something like- you rescinded on an offer or your service didn’t work as promised, but the issue they are calling out doesn’t match your promotions or service descriptions? Politely let them know the facts. Perhaps they are mistaking you for someone else or didn’t review the terms of your service thoroughly.

Hateful but empty: Is someone saying something mean or angry with no real substance? If there is no real issue to address either let it go, or in the case of places like your Facebook wall, delete it. If you plan to do this, you should have a terms of use tab on your page outlining types of content that are not allowed, such as profane or hateful comments. Never delete a comment about a real issue! This will feel like you just hung up on a customer who called you with a concern. We’re sure you can imagine the negative word of mouth that follows this sort of action.

4) DO YOU HAVE A STRATEGY?

Be cognizant of the impact of anything you post online. Keep your marketing goals in mind and never say anything that conflicts with your brand image. This means you must do things like: avoid petty reactions to others, fact check your information, and include end dates on promotions that you don’t want to offer FOREVER. Mistakes in these areas can cost you dearly.

5)  ARE YOU BEING DILIGENT?

It’s not enough to set things up, you need to monitor them. Make a routine effort to check on your listings, engage through social media, and read your reviews. There are tools to help with this: Google Alerts, Yahoo Alerts, Facebook Alerts and Insights, etc.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:

Want to read more on this topic? Here are some articles:

http://mashable.com/2011/10/15/protect-small-business-reputation-online/

http://outspokenmedia.com/guides/orm-guide/

http://www.visibilitymagazine.com/location3-media/tarla-cummings/online-reputation-management#

http://www.anvilmediainc.com/search-engine-marketing-resources/search-engine-marketing-articles/online-reputation-management-article

1 ) TAKE THEM FOR GRANTED

Your customers are coming to you and giving you their business. It is important to treat them as individuals, value them, and show your genuine appreciation. This can be as simple as including everyone involved in your e-mails, or sending them a thank you note.

2 ) DON’T COMMUNICATE

It can be easy to get caught up in what you are doing and let communication fall to the back burner, but if you think about how you would want to be treated, good communication becomes very important. This means many things:

- Give updates on the status of the work you are doing, whether it is a milestone or you run into an issue.

- If your customer prefers e-mail and you prefer the phone. Do your best to accommodate them. Little things like that are perfectly reasonable, try to be flexible.

- Don’t make assumptions about what your customer is thinking (you know what they say about assumptions). Ask for feedback!

- Your customers are individuals, not numbers, get to know them. If you are working with more than one person, include all of them as appropriate in your communications, and don’t belittle someone just because that aren’t your “key” contact.

3 ) DON’T FOLLOW BILLING ETIQUETTE

Be clear about costs up front and stay aware of the budget as you work.

Bill on time. Not unexpectedly or later than planned, your customers have a cash flow, and that must be respected. In the case of some agencies, if you miss the timeline for a bill, their hands are tied and they can’t pay you!

4 ) TALK BIGGER THAN YOU WALK

Never make promises you can’t keep. People have little patience for this and having a reputation for over-promising and under-delivering will follow you. Word of mouth is extremely powerful and unfortunately, the fastest way to get it is to do a bad job!

5 ) FORGET INITIATIVE

Never make your customers prod you to do your job! This means keeping your own schedule in check, and goes back to #2, keep your customer informed of your progress and any issues that may arise.

6 ) BE FLAKEY

If you schedule a meeting or service time, keep to that scheduled time! Don’t be late or unexpectedly early and don’t make a habit of canceling. This will quickly color a customer’s opinion of you and damage their faith in your competency.

7 ) JUST SAY “NO”

If your customers are making reasonable requests, do whatever you can to say yes every time.

Move the deadline up 2 days because the customer had something come up? You padded your timeline from the beginning and this fits your schedule, “Yes.”

8 ) NEVER SAY YOU’RE SORRY

Always own up to mistakes. Be humble and do what you can to make things right.

Earlier we said that word of mouth is powerful. This is your opportunity to take a potentially bad situation and turn it into something good. People appreciate it when you do the right thing, and even if they are a bit unhappy about what happened, they will feel like they can trust you. Trust is invaluable.

9 ) ALWAYS BE THE BOSS

Yes, be the boss and be accountable and ensure quality from your staff, but remember the customer. When your customers foot the bill, treat them with the respect and authority they warrant; you answer to them.

10 ) SHOW YOUR EMPLOYEES YOU DON’T CARE ABOUT THEM

It’s simple, when you treat your employees well, they will pass it on to your customers. Be sure to lead by example and offer training/guidance for your standards of customer service.

Hey “big kids,” back to school season had us thinking… are you investing time in your continual learning? To enhance your business it’s necessary to stay up to date on the latest technology, business principles, and marketing techniques. Fortunately for us, there are some great ways to continue our ongoing education without spending semesters on end in a classroom.

Here are a few of the ways to continue learning that we like best:

1) The Internet. Why not take advantage of all of the resources online for enhancing our knowledge?? If nothing more, find a couple of good sites that write or post articles related to your industry and read them. (If you use twitter you can simply follow someone who posts articles of interest to you and they’ll pick good ones for you!)

2) Webinars. Get a great presentation on a topic of interest without leaving the comforts of your home or office.

3) Entrepreneurs’ Groups. Industry groups and leads groups can be great sources for presentations on current information and technology. There are other great local resources like Chambers and Economic Development Councils. They put on events that give great information.

4) Books. This may feel like back to school on a more literal level, but there are fabulous industry related books out there. Odds are you’ll find some extremely useful books in the business or technology section of the bookstores here in town.

5) Online Groups. Whether you find a group with related interests on a major site like facebook or linkedin, or you find a site dedicated to your industry, meeting up with like-minded people online simply breeds learning.

6) The Small Business Development Center. Not only does the local small business development center offer great opportunities for learning (like short classes), if you are running a small business, they will help you make improvements to your business.

7) Publications. Business publications, both local and national, are another great source for keeping up with the ever-changing face of business. Your continuing education should focus on all of the aspects of your business whether it is specific to the goods or services you offer, or to the issues involved in running a business today.

Want to learn more? Here is the article.

-Jenny

Google+ Project is a new social media platform on which sharing and connecting with others is easier than ever. No longer will we be bogged down by irritating Spam links or Aunt Mary’s constant updates about her war against bunions. With Google+, you control which content you want to see from exactly which people. In the same sense, you also have the ability to share your own content to selected individuals. In other words, mom doesn’t need to know how interesting your Saturday night out was but she can hear about how great you think it is that the the library is open late to accommodate studious youths, such as yourself.The point being that we naturally categorize individuals in our every day, why not be able to do that with our social media. Google+ offers innovated tools like Circles, Hangouts and Sparks along with improved privacy settings that really begs the question: is Facebook a thing of the past?

Google+ Circles helps you organize everyone according to your real-life social connections. Then, you can share relevant content with the right people, and follow content posted by people you find interesting. For example, you might post an announcement about your engagement and show it only to people in your friends and family circles, or you may see a post about your favorite author in the circle you created just for your book club.You can also decide to customize your personal profile information for your circles. For example, your contact details, location, and relationship information would be visible to your friends circle, while your employment history and education would be visible to your alumni association circle. Learn more about Circles here.

Google+ Hangouts lets you tell people that you’re online and you want to hangout. You can also use live video chat to put you and your buddies in one room together plus, you also have the option of only appearing online to those people that you choose. Learn more about Hangouts here.

Google+ Sparks brings you stories on the things you love from all across the Web in one easy location. You’re able to search for a variety of interests that only pertains to you. No more hearing about the latest viral cat video when you are really a dog person. Learn more about Sparks here.

With all of that said, do I think everyone is going to jump the Facebook ship and latch onto Google+ just yet? Sorry Google, I don’t think it’s going to be that easy. Zuckerberg and his creation have dominated the social media kingdom for sometime now. Just as with anything in it’s infancy, Google+ has some evolving to do before it can get enough people to accept it is as the new social media king. The real test, especially from a marketing stand point will be how Google+ Business Pages are going to be set up. Google has said Business accounts will be available towards the end of the year, so until then I’ll keep encouraging business owners to get the conversations started by joining Facebook and Twitter. I do however think Google is brilliant for recognizing the most annoying parts about Facebook and solving those issues with new features and better privacy settings. I think Facebook finally does have a worthy contender in the ring (sorry Myspace).

- Carly

1. Monitor  your levels of complaints, hard bounces and spam rates. If you’re emailing in large volumes, it is critical that your complaint, hard bounce and spam rates remain low.  A complaint occurs when a recipients hits the ‘report spam button’ at the end of the email. Your Internet Service Provider (ISP) will assume that you are a spammer based upon the amount of recipients hitting that button.

2. Don’t hesitate to pull any emails. Hard bounces are the amount of emails that are being sent back to a sender. This can occur when you are emailing to unknown or non-existent email addresses.

3. Make sure your Internet Provider knows who you are. You can authenticate your emails through Sender Policy Framework, Sender ID or Domain Keys. Just know that you should not rely on authentication alone, since spammers are known for also authenticating their IP addresses.

If you do find yourself with a bad reputation, no need to panic, it can be fixed. It’s just a matter of taking the time to assess your levels of complaints and making sure you are emailing to real addresses.

Our Mommies-to-be

Aunt Courtney

It’s hard in this day & age not to see or hear something about Facebook. It is everywhere from the silver screen to your grandmother commenting on your pictures from 2,000 miles away. Facebook has become a part of our daily routine, so it’s not surprising that in a recent survey of digital-media habits from Ad Age/Ipsos Observer: 41% respondents said they want to receive communications from marketers on Facebook- more than double any digital platform. Even more astounding, one in three said it was their “preferred” platform.

What are consumers looking for specifically online? Coupons, coupons and more coupons. With the option to vote more than once, an astonishing 65% of respondents wanted brands to offer them discounts online. But it’s not all about the discounts that respondents wanted: 42% want better customer service, 28% sought branded game and only 22% wanted company news.

What does this mean for you as a business owner? You NEED a Facebook presence. And not just a presence, but also clever social media tactics that give your consumers reasons to keep coming back to your page, time and time again. Facebook is great for top of mind awareness, public relations and directing traffic to your website. All in all, there’s a huge consumer demand out there for brands to be on Facebook. Let GCI help you meet those demands head on! Give me a call & let’s chat about it!

Happy Facebooking!

- Carly 360.786.9657 ext. 104

Top-Of-Mind-Awareness (TOMA) is a big, abstract concept with entire books written on the subject. For this modest (yet longest ever blog post) we’ll stick to the basics which go something like this…

Certain businesses occupy a special part of our brains for various categories. When you need a new pair of running shoes you may think of Nike first. More often than not a transaction is decided before any advertisement has a chance to sway a customer. This is why TOMA is so important, and should be considered in any outreach campaigns you undertake.

If you prioritize TOMA as a goal for your outreach efforts you need to start thinking about branding and overall message to evangalize and what mix of platforms and advertising vehicles will reach your audience and connect with them most effectively.

Your “Brick & Mortar” Presence & Website - These two go hand-in-hand because nowadays they’re equally important. Achieve TOMA by building brand-charisma in your store, and online. Surprise and delight your visitors while communicating your unique selling points and you’ll be sure to stick in their heads.

Social Media - Having a strong presence here is great for TOMA. Statistics show that timespend on facebook and twitter is a growing percentage of people’s total time spent weekly on the Internet. Think of these social networks as semi-gated communities. You can get in if you don’t live there, but people will give you funny looks. You’ll reap all the rewards if you’re a resident within in them and If you are interesting or entertaining you will draw daily, repeat visitors and spark discussions.

The immediacy, almost daily nature of these platforms means they’re excellent for letting people know about new products, sales, deals or news about your company. Paid advertising on these platforms is also highly targetable, allowing you to reach out to only the groups of people you’ve identified as high-potential prospects.

Print Advertising - Great for targeting niché audiences aligned by common interests. Magazines or periodicals that cater to specific audiences usually offer a large-regional or national reach. Print casts a wide net with a medium amount of targeting. A clever TOMA-oriented message can really boost recognition and recall of your brand among a large audience.

Outdoor Advertising - A no-brainer for local, impulse-buy businesses. Gas, food, lodging and entertainment being advertised on major traffic routs can see an immediate return from a billboard or other type of outdoor ad (TOMA for those crucial 5 minutes can make all the difference). For other types of businesses outdoor can be a useful tool for driving traffic back to a website. This is where a short, memorable URL really comes in handy. Few people will take the time to write down a phone number and even fewer will actually call after they’ve gotten to their destination. However a clever outdoor message and excellent website can convert motorists into customers, while increasing TOMA for all passers-by.

Broadcast TV & Radio - The only platforms where you basically have a captive audience and get the chance to tell a story for 30-60 seconds. Here you have a real chance to convince them that you’re the one they need to buy from. Broadcast is often the most expensive form of advertising so the risk / reward analysis is on a bigger scale. However a properly-placed, well-crafted and executed message can bring about immediate TOMA and generate huge buzz around your business.