From an SEO standpoint, the blogosphere is a goldmine. It provides the opportunity for marketers to build targeted natural "in-content" links which are not only great for increasing search engine rankings, but also can drive significant amounts of targeted traffic...
You always think these kind of things won't happen to you. Social media can effect any kind of business: big, small, corporate, artistic. Look what has happened to Skylight Opera Theater. They are getting schooled in the powers of social media... big time!...
United Airlines is learning about the power of consumers and how quickly bad service can turn into a PR embarrassment....
Wow - I am completely shocked how businesses in today's "quick to the web world" can still cross the line. Don't they understand that everyone they do work for has the power to say the good, the bad and the ugly. This is what I would consider an ugly situation....
A recent study by eMarketer forcasted the next five years of blog readership, and creation. The findings weren't surprising, as eMarketer expects the number of people that read blogs, and those that blog themselves, to continue to grow dramatically. What this means for your business is that increasingly, your customers are going to be reading blogs, and writing them.
Marketing Pilgrim provides a good perspective on when to jump on these potentially devastating social media flare ups....
It's enough to make the average business owner break out in a cold sweat; the thought of bloggers ripping them. But while many businesses and companies are fearful of posts that shine a negative light on their business, these instances are in fact a wonderful opportunity.
If you think your customers aren't talking about you, better rethink your position. You can no longer bury your head in the sand without suffering the consequences. The story reported in the New York Times last week is a classic example of what Not To Do. It outraged folks and drew over eighty comments. Every company, small medium or large should be listening, and taking action. The world is different today, take heed, grasp and embrace this space we call Social Media.
For as long as there have been web sites, people have posted their thoughts, opinions and rants about people and companies and for as long as there have been search engines, consumers have found and read those thoughts. While it's been several years since companies began to realize the value of tracking and managing their reputations online, the explosion of social media has made online reputation management more complex and necessary than it's ever been before.
There's been a power shift and the first mistake many companies make is believing that they do and can control the brand experience. That's no longer the case. It's the people on the other end of that experience that control it. Today, customers sharing brand experiences happen every day, everywhere without being edited or seeking a company's approval....
Failing to get the memo that it's 2008, Wal-Mart has decided to get even more aggressive in battling the 'pre-mature' leakage of their Black Friday circular ads. The Bentonville, AR retailer is not only going after the sites that post the circulars, but the search engines that link to and index the sites....
I've written about the need to understand how "public" our thoughts, ideas and conversations are these days. Hundreds, no thousands of others have issued the same warnings. I think most people still figure we're talking about what you post online, but if you think about it, it's really not the case.
When I started a blog on my website a few months ago I felt overwhelmed by the sudden responsibility to post fresh content often. It was as if the minute I created a section on my website called "Blog" I was inaugurated into a writer's hell where I felt both stumped and compelled to write all at the same time, all of the time. Then I realized that I was missing the point of blogging, which is to keep a lively conversation going (even if it's sometimes only between you and the WordPress Dashboard). And if you're a decent conversationalist,...
As online conversations grow and spread, there's a good chance people are "talking" about your brand using the tools of social media. But how can you find out what they're saying...and how should you be responding? In this workshop, Christina Kerley ("CK") of ckEpiphany Marketing educates and empowers you by connecting the dots of how to monitor what people are saying about your brand, how to leverage their talk to grow relationships and revenues and which techniques to use in responding to positive and negative feedback--as well as tips for engaging brand advocates. All this talk = a lot of...
When I finally did get on the micro blogging bandwagon (and no, I don't count Facebook, not even the "new" one), I put my profile on pretty much all of the Twitter-ish sites I could find. Hey, why not? It's sort of like one of those drinking games where you do a bunch of different shooters in about half an hour, realize most of them just make you want to throw up and go back to your favourite beer the following Saturday....
Sage uses Scoble of Scobleizer.com as an example of a revolutionary approach to brand management. Scoble launched a fairly scathing review of all the DEMOfall '08 start up companies, stating how much they sucked and how he couldn't believe they won $18,000. Scoble's readers did not like this, so they launched they're own attack on Scoble himself....
While many small businesses are curious about blogging, few understand the steps necessary to get a solid effort off the ground. Here's the steps you should consider to create the perfect blog for your small business....
For many businesses, social media can seem to be this mysterious black box that they don't really understand. But a recent conversation with my friend Tim Jackson reminded me that social media really isn't as mysterious as many companies think....
I learned today that Google has an "unsatisfactory" record with The Better Business Bureau. How can a company voted "top global brand" in 2008 at the same time have an unsatisfactory record with the BBB? Apparently because out of 331 complaints filed against the search giant over the past three years, 2 were listed as unresolved. that's right - just 2! Despite this, Google continues to lead the way in search and nothing on the horizon seems to be able to change that. This got me thinking as to whether the BBB is still a useful resource in today's online...
Online, reputation is everything. It drives you professionally, personally and algorithmically. Have a good reputation and your efforts will be rewarded through growth and customer loyalty. Develop a bad one and you'll spend precious time and resources trying to recover lost market share. While it's impossible to monitor every venue open to public opinion, you can work to protect your reputation by registering your known brand/name with as many social media, forums, and discussion sites as you can, especially the popular ones in your niche....
More than ever, sites are popping up that let customers review everything from restaurants to daycares. And while many small businesses cringe at the thought of receiving a bad review, here's a few reasons why even a negative opinion from a customer can be a good thing!
Yesterday I spent the day at a small conference here in Columbus put on by Ohio Web Leaders. They'd asked me to come and speak about blogging for business and blog marketing to a mix of small business, PR types and in-house marketers. Now I always try to break things down into every day life examples, but thanks to an off handed comment about Nutella, I had a chance for a great object lesson.
Twitter and DirectTV go head to head this week by creating and solving customer service issues at the same time. Mack Collier's article "Worst Example of a Company Twittering?" exposes DirectTV's bumbled use of Twitter, explains the frustration that can cause, and encourages companies to use social media tools "as the rest of us do." The DirectTV/Twitter saga actually begins with Stoney deGeyter's tweet about the company's presence, is filled in with his article "Why DirectTV is Losing My Heart (and Quite Possible My Business)," and then ends with another tweet about the company's immediate response to his customer service...
I'm probably going to lose a lot of Friends with this post, but I need to get some stuff off my chest about Facebook. If you're a real Friend, you'll listen without judgment. If not, it was nice Facebooking with you. I hope there are no hard feelings left in my wake....
I admit, I've been relatively slow to catch on to Twitter. At first it just seemed like a lot of background noise with no real purpose. Silly almost. Like, um, Facebook. Except with Twitter the discussion becomes more relevant as time goes on, not less. The conversations, even inane ones, retain a degree of rawness and truth, cluttered and disorganized as they may be....
Over the past few weeks, I've seen multiple instances of companies using spite and or attacks to try and push themselves ahead of their competitors. I imagine in their minds, painting the competition in a poor light makes their own products and services look that much better. Unfortunately for them, they've missed a key lesson in both life and marketing. If you have to make someone else look bad in order to make yourself look or feel good, you've got a long way to go.
Michael Arrington from TechCrunch gets top honors this week with his article "Comcast, Twitter And The Chicken (trust me, I have a point)." After being without cable service for 36 hours, Arrington utilizes Twitter as a way of spreading his discontent and frustration. Within twenty minutes of the first tweet, a Comcast executive contacts Arrington and arranges for the problem to be fixed immediately. Sage points out and encourages everyone, not just major company executives, to utilize Twitter's Tweet Scan as a way of tracking what's being said about them and/or their brand. Not only does the article display the...
On the heels of this morning's article about the need to inject a little humanity into your small business marketing, I ran across a great post by Mike Moran over at Biznology that asks if you can handle a little professional embarrassment. After all, if you're going to inject humanity via social media experimentation, there's a good chance you're going to make a fool of yourself.
While catching up on my RSS feeds today, I came across a post at Matt McGee's Small Business SEM that's a few days old, but well worth mentioning. The post dives into the issue of Alexa rankings and explains why they should not be used as a gauge of how successful a web site is.
If you aren't, you should be! With close to one million users (according to TwitDir), businesses are beginning to realize that it's just as important to monitor what Twitter users are saying about them, as it is to monitor the blogosphere.
As the dynamic CK points out, "Your Company" + SUCKS is the new Google barometer for how well you are satisfying your customers. And sometimes, it's not very pretty.
Believe it or not, you don't have to be a blogger to respond to and engage bloggers. All it takes is a willingness to monitor the blogosphere and respond when appropriate. Doing so can help you convert skeptics and naysayers into fans.blog
If you are a small business and you are looking to hire an online marketer, be weary of public relations firms that claim "we can do that" or "we'll bundle that with our services". Public Relations companies that truly understand online marketing are few and far between, and the ones who really do understand it and do a good job at it, are usually swamped and not taking on new clients....
Today, I sat down and looked at approximately 1000 reviews listed in Google Maps for hospitality industry businesses. The following is the list of sources I found Google currently pulling this data from, in addition to their own Google Reviews source.
Normally the first step a business takes in exploring the blogosphere is to start blogging themselves. But instead of diving in with a new blog, is it better to first understand what bloggers are currently saying about your business?
You would think that in 2008, it would be hard for a mainstream retail outlet to ignore the potential impact of blogs. You would think that, but you would be wrong. I caught Jim Tobin's tweet about Target's decision not to interact with "non-traditional media" and found myself just shaking my head at the news.
Sage highlights an article by Search Engine Guide's Jennifer Laycock that asks vital questions of small businesses in 2008. "Would your company be missed if it closed today?" and "Is your business able to keep its promises?"
Every now and then, your company makes a decision that has a pretty big impact on your customers. Sometimes that impact is positive, sometimes it does a pretty good job of ticking those customers off. How that decision is received can make a big difference in the ongoing success of your business. If you aren't watching the Internet to gauge the reaction to these decisions, you're making a big mistake.
As we head into the new year, small businesses across the web will be looking to boost their presence by sparking conversation, attracting links and driving new sales. If you're looking for to walk the path to viral success, consider two statements made by popular marketing bloggers this week.
It's been well over a year since I first wrote about how the social networking frenzy is impacting the personal and professional reputations of Internet users. Since then, we've continued to see stories about how many companies are now running Google searches before hiring applicants. In fact, it's becoming more and more common for companies to decide not to hire someone based on what they've found in a potential hire's online profile.
Google toolbar version 5 is out. Flickr offering stats to pro users. Only 47% of Internet users check their Google reputation.
Last week at Search Engine Strategies I finally had the pleasure of meeting up with Wendy Piersall from eMoms at Home. Wendy and I have been emailing since last April when she first contacted me to interview me for a feature she was running on her site. As we sat and chatted about some of the things we've worked on together and some things that are coming up, it reminded me of just how important it is to take the time to reply to your emails.
Debra Mastaler knows and she's more than happy to tell you. Her latest column on link building over at Search Engine Land is a gold mine of information for anyone having a hard time building links a really competitive niche. Always ahead of the curve, Debra looks beyond the standard link bait and aims to help site owners learn the value of using a public relations style campaign as a link driver.
I missed a great post last week by Matt McGee, so I'm blogging it now. Titled "Eight Things the Search Industry Can Teach Small Businesses," the post offers up several great examples of how to market yourself online from people in the industry who were simply going about their business. From networking to staying visible to finding your niche, it's a great little set of tips and examples worth reading through.
It's no secret that blogs and social media sites are a great way to get coverage of your web site or your products and services. In fact, teaching small businesses how to approach and pitch bloggers is one of the things I most enjoy writing about. The archives here are full of suggestions and blog posts pointing out the right way to approach people and the wrong way to approach people. That's why I thought it was worth mentioning Wired Editor Chris Anderson's controversial post outing bad PR pitchers.
If you've heard about Facebook and understand it can help grow your business but aren't sure how to get started, read on. This article is a step-by-step outline on how to market yourself on Facebook.
One of the most common questions small businesses have when dealing with online reputation management is "how do I make bad results go away?" The bad news is you usually can't. The good news is you can often push them far enough down the search results they don't get looked at. That's why it's essential to capture as many of the top listings on your own as possible. Andy Beal over at Marketing Pilgrim offers up a great post today with information about protecting your brand and your name in Google.
It's funny how once you get in the mind set of online marketing, you find examples in the least likely places. A few weeks ago while visiting my small hometown in Northeast Ohio I was surprised to find a great example of reputation management from a small company. While the example takes place offline, the four steps they took to manage their reputation could easily (and inexpensively) be reproduced online by any small business.
David Wallace writes up a great case study today that shows how he's used social media sites and blogs to monopolize the majority of the top 30 search results at Google for his business name.
It's no secret that blogs have given people an unprecedented voice in terms of sharing stories of corporate blunders. Anyone who has been online for any length of time has seen their fair share of posts about bad customer service experiences or arrogant CEO's. Thankfully, there are also plenty of examples of great service. Stories of the company employee that went the extra mile can actually spread pretty fast as well. Mack Collier covers both ends of the spectrum today in a post about how companies deal with their online reputations.
With everyone jumping on the bandwagon of niche marketing, finding the topics folks are most interested in BEFORE the rest of the world knows it is key. Matt McGee over at Small Business SEM points out what many social media marketers are already learning. Green (environmentally friendly) is the new black.
I've done a fair amount of speaking and teaching about online reputation management in the last two years. After all, you can't effectively play in the social media and search engine optimization fields without an understanding of how to respond to negative mentions. Most of the time, businesses seem to want to learn about the best way to address (or avoid) negative press. Often, I find myself reminding them they should also be focusing on how to address or respond to their competitor's negative press.
I love to study human behavior and the Internet. Social web behavior takes the cake. It's a marketers' never-ending party. Reputation management is something big business can no longer hope to control without also understanding Internet media
Marketing Sherpa recently released the second half of its two-part series on how to get your company listed on Wikipedia. This special report focuses on damage control and what you can do when incorrect information is added about your company....
Companies have been rushing to embrace social media in droves over the last year. While it's great to see companies embracing Web 2.0, I worry sometimes about the number of companies rushing in to talk rather than listen. After all, one of the greatest benefits of social media is having the ability to find out what your customers are talking about. Bill Balderaz points this out today over at The Buzz Saw.
With so many companies trying to figure out how to leverage social media and blogs to their marketing advantage, one key point often gets missed. "Just talk to them!" If more companies would spend half the time reading blog posts and responding to them that they spend obsessing about how to get more people to blog about them, they'd be way ahead of the game. In fact, Mack Collier points to a great example of a big company doing exactly that and taking the time to engage their customer evangelists in conversation.
What's Yo Gabba Gabba you ask? It's a new kids show on Nick Jr. that combines 80's style animation with oddly costumed "monsters," pop media guests and annoyingly catchy songs that will have you waking up at night to the internal sounds of "snacky snack snack snack snack, snacky snack snack SNACK SNACK!" It's apparently also the type of thing that sparks passion on both the "love it" and "hate it" side, as demonstrated by the blog storm generated by a simple post.
Last week I started looking at the branding savvyness of a handful of speakers at Search Engine Strategies, San Jose. There was no way I could go through each and every speaker so I narrowed the list down to those who spoke in sessions I attended. Here I continue through the list (alphabetically) and will provide an additional bonus: me. Yeah, I got my own set of branding issues which I uncovered once I started looking into some of the others here. But before I rip me a new one, let's continue...
It's no secret that the pack mentality that often powers social media success can also turn into an angry mob complete with virtual pitchforks at the drop of a hat. That's great when the mob is helping to bring social injustice to light, but it's a nightmare when the mob attacks the victim. Unfortunately, the murky waters of Internet gossip and the fuzzy ethics that seem to rule online behavior can make it difficult to know who the victim actually is.
While I was live blogging the search engine strategy sessions last week I was often in a hurry to find links to each presenter's website. Come to find out it wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. In some cases I was able to find a speaker's company name fairly easily with a quick Google search. But other times I was left actually guessing to make sure I got the right company....
With all the self-publishing options on the web, nothing is sacred, including control over your brand. The multiple sources of user generated content published and communicated online can dramatically affect your company's reputation....
As the world shifts more and more focus toward online research, the importance of knowing what other people are saying about your company increases exponentially....
|
|
|
Search marketing information for small business owners.
Fetching the best small business news.
A friendly place to share small business ideas and knowledge.
A different kind of small business marketing conference.
The directory of the best small business sites and tools.
Home of our network.
Copyright © 1998 - 2009 K. Clough, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Privacy
FreeFind Site Search Engine - FreeFind adds a "search this site" feature to your website, making your site easier to use. FreeFind also gives you reports showing what your visitors are searching for, enabling you to improve your site. FreeFind's advanced site search engine and automatic site map technology can be added to your website for free.
(Unpaid placement - FreeFind is a Search Engine Guide partner.)