Consumers are regularly crowdsourcing for the scoop on products and services, in particular reading online reviews. According to quarter three data from 2014, Yelp averaged 139 million monthly visitors.

And consumers are increasingly relying upon these reviews. According to Nielsen’s 2012 Global Trust in Advertising survey, featuring responses from more than 28,000 people globally, online consumer reviews are the second most-trusted form of advertising.

But the information contained in online reviews is often not factual or a business’s review page may simply not be representative of actual customer satisfaction – whether overly negative or even inflated positively.

Thus businesses cannot turn a blind eye to online reviews, as these reviews are often quite influential and can impact the success of any business, fair or not.

Generating positive reviews

In today’s world, it would be difficult to find a thriving business that has a negative online reputation. First impressions are frequently based on what is on the internet, not only among consumers but also other parties including job seekers, investors, and other businesses seeking to establish meaningful business-to-business relationships.

Further, no business is immune from negative reviews, and businesses often suffer from a sampling bias: for many, reviews tend to be disproportionately negative, but an increase in reviews leads to a better balance of positive and negative comments.

Accordingly, businesses should consider implementing a content-neutral program to generate additional reviews – that is, without providing any incentives (e.g. cash, gift cards or discounts). Not only do websites such as Yelp and TripAdvisor prohibit businesses from unfairly influencing reviews, but government agencies have gradually started to crackdown on false and deceptive reviews.

The best mechanism for neutrally generating reviews may be to establish a program – perhaps utilizing a third-party review platform – that involves sending a professional email soliciting feedback from customers within 24 hours after they leave. The email should ask customers about their experiences, encouraging them to submit a review and take a brief survey to help the business improve.

Verified customer reviews will provide helpful feedback for businesses while simultaneously contributing to an aggregate profile of the business which would likely appear highly in search engines (and ultimately help generate more business leads). Even, say, a five percent participation rate among customers will substantially increase a business’s reviews.

Alternatively, a business may try to circulate a URL to the desired review website or platform, whether through an in-store card or flyer or by placing it on their website. Similarly, businesses will want to avoid asking for positive reviews.

Monitoring for negative reviews, posts 

Notwithstanding having an effective content-neutral program in place to generate more reviews, it is inevitable that a business will receive negative reviews on websites such as Yelp. Thus, a business cannot stand idly by and hope that these negative reviews go unseen.

Businesses should consider implementing a real-time monitoring system that makes it easy for the appropriate persons to become aware of negative online comments and prepare responses. The sooner negative reviews (or even reputation attacks) are detected and can be addressed, the greater the opportunity a business has of mitigating the harm and potentially getting the reviews removed.

For most businesses, monitoring involves keeping a watchful eye out for anything that could impact them including: bad reviews, reports on complaint websites, and social media posts. The designated person or team should routinely keep an eye out for negative reviews or other threats, the frequency of which will depend on the size of the business.

Responding to negative reviews

Once a business becomes aware of a negative online review, a trained customer representative should contact the author of the review within 72 hours if his or her contact information is known. Otherwise, the representative should send a response asking them to contact the representative offline (through a private message when possible). For example:

Thank you for your review and I’m sorry to hear that you feel the blades are not lasting as long as previously. We have numerous quality checks throughout our manufacturing process, so this is not something we would expect. It may be helpful to know that the item fading is just a guideline and we recommend changing the cartridge when it begins to feel dull… If you would like, give us a call at 1-800-_________.

If a business is able to get the reviewer to contact them offline, the trained representative likely should try to resolve the situation by offering a refund, replacement, or some other concession to make the reviewer happy. If a business is able to resolve a situation with a customer, it should then kindly ask him or her to remove their negative review.

While a negative review is not ideal, if it is honest criticism and not false, the business should not threaten any legal action. On the other hand, if there might be a basis for legal action (e.g. defamation), the business should contact an attorney.

Why focusing on reviews is important

As consumers continue to read and rely upon online reviews, businesses can ill-afford to let their online reputations rest completely in the hands of third parties – including potential disgruntled customers wishing to harm the businesses.

As an aside, last year, Google rolled out an updated search algorithm – dubbed “Google Pigeon” by Search Engine Land – which modified local search results. These changes are largely internal, but various websites reported that the updated algorithm was supposed to impact how local businesses rank in Google.

Considering online reviews generally can have a substantial impact on local businesses, smaller businesses will want to ensure business listings on third-party websites are not filled with negative reviews should these review pages appear higher in Google search results – now or down the road.

Today, first impressions of most businesses are frequently made by what meets the eye when the businesses are searched online. Thus, businesses must be proactive and work to achieve positive ratings to the extent that they can legally and ethically.

The post Strategies for Legally Generating and Monitoring Online Reviews appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

Yes, starting your reputation management program by “listening” is important, but if you don’t take the time to understand what you’ve found and you don’t take appropriate and timely action, then listening is pretty much a waste of time.

So, in this post, I’m going to discuss the two other critical and inter-related components to an effective reputation management program; understanding and acting on what you’ve discovered.

Who’s Listening & Responding To What’s Being Said?

If you’re a small business – a local retailer, a restauranteur, a bed & breakfast owner, a financial advisor, a medical practitioner, etc. etc. you’re probably extremely busy and may not be all that savvy when it comes to social media tools and best practices. The tendency will be for you to delegate these responsibilities to a young employee who enjoys social media and seems to know what they are doing.

Of course this strategy could work, but it could also be a recipe for disaster.  Using social media for business is totally different than using it for personal enjoyment.  For businesses, being social online should be all about getting, keeping and growing customers; and doing this successfully requires knowledge, experience and skills that often only social media professionals or people who’ve stayed at a Holiday Inn have.

To be successful with reputation management, you’re going to need best practice processes for gathering information, identifying its relevance, understanding the sentiment and most importantly, when, if, and how to respond.

Although your chosen technology tool can help, only people who are very knowledgeable about your business, its brand promise, and social media practices and etiquette will be able to properly interpret what the data all means, answer the tough questions and (most importantly) know what the appropriate action/response is.

Real social media intelligence is the combination of technology and expert insight by knowledgeable people.

Interpreting What You Find

Analyzing and interpreting the comments you find on Facebook, Twitter, Review and Check-in web sites is a skill in itself.  The true meaning and value of what’s being said is not always obvious.

Here are some of the opportunities that might be found with your “listening” tool that can be of value to your business and/or its reputation:

* Generating New Leads – “Hi Sue, I’m heading to Denver this morning, wanna have lunch?”  This could be an opportunity for a Denver restaurant to offer a promo/invite to their establishment. Bottom line: You need to be on the look out for people who are, or might be, interested in your products and services and appropriately engage them.

* Buzz Tracking – You, or your business, get some positive local coverage in a paper, magazine, or on the radio or TV.  Tracking the spread of the social media response your business gets as result, facilitating the “virality” of this content, being able to determine what the full (buzz) life-cycle is, can all help you to take advantage of an excellent marketing opportunity.

* Brand Reputation – Comments about your business and its products and services can help you to get a handle on how it’s currently perceived and how customers rate you versus your competitors.  You may find opportunities to make improvements to your business here. Or, when the comments are positive, your response could help to create more “brand advocates”.

* Fostering Dialogue and Promoting Advocacy – Identifying and engaging key influencers could build positive spin for your business with these people.

* Crisis Management – If there’s a negative conversation swirling around about your business or brand you not only want to know about it, but you want to be able to respond, when appropriate, to prevent and mitigate any further damage to your business’s reputation.

* Customer Support – Uncovering and responding quickly and appropriately to customer service questions and issues is of course of paramount importance.

Engaging with Prospects and Customers

Engagement in social media is different for every business. And getting started can be daunting, especially after you’ve spent a lot of time listening.

There are varying ways to engage using social media depending on the source of and type of information you’ve uncovered.  As I noted above, you can answer a question, share some information, offer to be helpful to someone and show interest in the needs of your prospects and customers.

Remember, engaging successfully requires an understanding of what to do with social media intelligence once you have it, making sure the right people in your business are aware of it and finally, that each item requiring engagement is responded to appropriately and on a timely basis.

As Sebastian Cowie noted in his post, Online Reputation Management – 5 Tips To Protect Your Brand –

To do this successfully, you’ll need to have a plan in place outlining how to react to each type of comment that arises – especially negative comments. Reacting inappropriately can and will have a negative effect on your business and/or brand, so careful planning is essential.

It is usually best to have one person, or a small group of people, take charge of reacting to negative comments.  When you find a negative blog post, comment or review that warrants a response, act quickly, but make sure that you are professional and courteous at all times. Even if you don’t change the mind of the original commenter, other people will see that you are trying to resolve the situation professionally, and this can go in your favor.

It is also a good idea to react to positive mentions. When you find a positive review or simply someone announcing how much they love what you do, a quick ‘thank you’ can go a long way. It shows that you care about your customers and listen to what they are saying, and it can be a great way to improve brand loyalty.

Most importantly, engagement does not usually end with a social media response alone.  Taking meaningful action some times requires “real” change within your organization.

Meaningful customer-focused engagement often includes making changes to the way you’re doing things; changes to your policies and procedures, changes to how your employees interact with prospects and customers and changes to how you collaborate.

Responding To Negative Criticism

There’s always a chance that you may get up one morning go to your listening tool and get an unpleasant surprise… a negative comment.

The first thing you’ll need to determine is IF you should respond.  If you decide that a response is warranted, then you’ll need to figure out how to respond.

If someone is trashing you and their comments seems ridiculous and unreasonable then DO NOT respond.  Nothing good will come of it.  Keep thinking about what Kenny Rogers once sang “You got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold, em, know when to walk away and when to run.”  Don’t “gamble” with your online reputation and get into an online fight with an unreasonable person.  These type of people tend to be notoriously stubborn and vocal… so walk away.  Eventually positive comments will push a lone negative one to the side.

As Christopher Null noted in his article, How to clean up your business’s online reputation –

What if you believe that a complainer has the capability to engage in a mature debate instead of a hostile flame war? Can a measured response ever be appropriate?

Reputation.com CEO Michael Fertik thinks that it’s possible.  “Unless the person is truly nasty and it’s clear there’s no room for productive conversation, in most cases you should indicate your desire to resolve the situation as soon as possible. Let them know you’ll contact them–this protects their privacy and enables you to fix the issue without an online audience. Make sure to follow through,” he says.  And remember: If someone is griping about your business or its products, they might have a valid complaint. Consider all complaints seriously and take corrective action when it’s warranted.

So how about some discussion about how you’ve handled your online reputation — Please comment below… but be nice!

The post People Try To Put Us d-Down, Talkin’ ’bout Your Reputation – Part 2 appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

Today, it is incredibly easy for anyone to post positive or negative comments and reviews about you or your business online; and these posts by people like you and me can not only go viral very quickly, but can, and do, affect people’s behaviors.

To make matters more confusing for consumers, just as more and more of them are relying on internet-based comments and reviews to make buying decisions, new research from Gartner notes that it’s going to be more difficult to trust what you see online. Paid social media interactions are becoming a more established practice and Gartner is predicting that by 2014, some 10%-15% of all social media reviews and other forms of engagement will be fake, paid for by the companies getting endorsed. Of course Gartner isn’t predicting how many companies will unscrupulously post negative reviews and comments about their competitors, but I’m sure it happens.

Are You Monitoring Your Online Reputation?

Less than a decade ago business’s listened to their customers primarily through email and phone communications while occasionally using surveys and focus groups for getting customer feedback. But as social media exploded, Social Media Monitoring technology tools like Radian 6, Attensity, Lithium and many others came on the market to the meet the social media listening, analysis and engagement needs of larger enterprises.

Today it is of paramount importance that businesses of every size, including small, local retailers, restauranteurs, bed & breakfasts, financial advisors, medical practitioners and other professionals and mom & pops get on board with online reputation management.

Quite frankly, I simply can’t believe how many small businesses are burying their heads in the sand when it comes to managing their online reputation; risking their livelihood on the hope that disgruntled ex-employees, competitors, or unreasonable customers will not destroy the reputation that they have, in many cases, taken years to build.

Get Started By “Listening”

There are three inter-related components to an effective reputation management process; listening, analyzing and engaging. This post will focus on listening, while Part 2 will focus on analyzing and engaging.

As a colleague of mine once said, “If you want to be successful in your business and with social media in particular, you’ve got to start by listening.”

You simply must be scouring the web for (at a minimum) the following:

• Who’s saying what about my business (or brand) and how influential are they?
• Is what’s being said about my business good, bad or indifferent?
• What appears to be triggering negative comments or reviews?
• Where are my customers posting things about my business (what Apps and websites)
• How complete and accurate are my listings in the various online directories and review Apps?
• What’s being said about my competitors (how does my business compare or rank against others?)

Successful listening programs will uncover how your customers and others perceive your brand and could help you to identify the extent to which you’re delivering on your promises.

When customer experiences are out of line with customer expectations — either positively or negatively, they become increasingly likely to opine than when expectations are simply met.  So be sure to listen for compliments, complaints, problems and unmet needs. As you implement your listening program, you just may also uncover suggestions for making improvements to your business, products and services.

Listening Technology Tools

My favorite tools for listening to what’s being said on the web (web pages, blogs posts and comments, news, forum conversations, press releases, videos, pictures, etc.) is a combination of Google Alerts and Google Reader.

Set up Google Alerts to search for any mentions of your business, your products and services, your competitors, your industry and any other content that might be of interest to you and your customers. But, instead of getting daily emails from your Alerts, set them up to direct the found content to a Google Reader account you’ve specifically set up to manage your online listening program. Then each day, all you need to do is peruse the content delivered to your Google Reader for items that are in need of further review or action.

But how about all of the other websites and Apps? For example, social media sites like Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn and Twitter; online directories like 411.com, DexKnows, MerchantCircle and Superpages; check-in Apps like Foursquare; review and comment sites like Yelp, Trip Advisor; and industry-specific review sites such as Wellness.com and Doctoroogle.com for doctors and dentists, DealerRater and Edmunds.com for car dealers and Houzz where consumers gather to talk about remodeling and other hobbies but liberally sprinkle vendor recommendations.

There’s not enough time in the day to go to all of these sites, (and the hundreds of others), to see if there are any mentions of your business, brand or products. That’s where a good “listening” tool will help. It will make the listening process not only more effective but much more efficient.

Of course if you’re a mid to large enterprise you should consider one of the social media monitoring tools I mentioned earlier. But if you’re a small, local business these products will have way more functionality than you need and will probably be too expensive for you, as well.

Here’s some listening/reputation management tools for small businesses:

• Vendasta
• Trackur
• Local Reputation
• Chatmeter

Closing Comments 

Reputation management has taken hold at many mid to large-sized enterprises whom recognize the need to track what people are saying about their company, brands and products. It’s the small business community that still represents a largely untapped market for reputation management tools.

So why hasn’t reputation management become a de facto part of every small business marketing plan? Many experts, including me, thought it would have happened by now.

Please share your thoughts and ideas in the comments below; and stay-tuned for part 2 of this post which will cover how to analyze what you find and engage the people who have commented about or reviewed your business.

The post People Try To Put Us d-Down, Talkin’ ’bout Your Reputation – Part 1 appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

Reputation management is not only an important thing to monitor on social networks, but for SEO rankings as well.  User experience across all channels of interactions, whether online, on the phone, or in-person, will have an impact on how people react to your brand.  If you are providing poor customer experience or sub-par content that is  irrelevant to your target customers, chances are they will talk about you negatively online.  Companies should have a handle on all of the terms they are ranking for and proactively address any causes of negative keywords.  Be sure to include SEO in your typical  reputation management process.

The post Reputation Management and SEO Rankings [CARTOON] appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

And so it comes to bear on the Internet. Protecting your reputation is an activity all people and organizations should participate in. Companies are especially keen to this practice because the liberation of publishing has led to the simple fact that anyone can post anything about anything online, regardless of motive or motivation, with little recourse in the offing. Sure, libel and slander online are still libel and slander, but there’s a whole lot of reputation-sensitive content that won’t fall under the guise of legal precedent.

Anyone can jump online and say, “You suck, company!” That’s not libel. That’s opinion.

Unfortunately, many sites, especially those in the business of aggregating ratings and reviews, take a company or an individual’s power to protect their reputation away from them. Allegations abound from Yelp to ResellerRatings.com and more. Heck, even RipOffReport.com — the site you’re supposed to be able to go to and report ripoffs, has been alleged to trade payment for positive reviews or removal of bad ones.

If these sites are allowing anyone to post reviews of businesses and individuals, there’s no issue. However, many of the sites have been caught or alleged to have filtered out positive reviews only to tell the businesses in question they’ll post the positive ones, or perhaps have a writer from the website produce a positive story about the business, in exchange for money. No pay, no positive reviews. That’s not only not fair, it leaves the businesses powerless.

Forcing a business to pay to add positive or remove negative reviews is nothing less than blackmail

Yelp even has gone so far as to discourage businesses from encouraging their customers to post reviews on the site. As we’ve discussed before, while their terms of service don’t explicitly state so, an answer on their FAQs in as much says Yelp doesn’t think businesses will solicit reviews in and of themselves, but will only solicit positive ones, thus biasing the content. They assume businesses will exchange discounts for reviews as well, not considering that a business owner may just say to their customers, “Good or bad, review us on Yelp. It will help us get better and/or look better.”

From the review site’s perspective, I can see second-guessing the transparency of the random business owner. I stopped counting the number of clients who have asked me to take down negative reviews or delete negative posts on their Facebook page without even addressing the situation first. So there may be a need for a policy against pushing positive reviews.

But from the business’s perspective, if the only way to combat negative reviews is to pay the site to allow them to solicit or produce positive ones, you’re biasing the information just as badly.

We’d like to assume that every business would solicit reviews — good and bad — and respond to each accordingly. But the honest truth is that most business owners would only solicit positive ones and would just as soon sweep the negative ones under the rug. Still, holding positive reviews hostage and forcing the business to pay is simply put: blackmail.

Is There A Solution?

While a perfect resolution for the great ratings and reviews quandary probably isn’t in the offing, if I were made King of Ratings and Review sites tomorrow and could write policies for them all, I would construct something like this:

It is our intent to offer our site visitors organically posted reviews of every business listed, both positive and negative, that are not solicited from any interested party. However, we understand that businesses may want to use our platform to host customer reviews and ratings for all to see. As such, here are some basic guidelines for businesses on doing so:

• If you ask your customers to post ratings or reviews to this site, please only ask them to do so honestly and refrain from asking only for positive reviews
• Do not offer customers a discount or incentive for posting ratings or reviews to this site
• Should we discover evidence that any business has or is soliciting only positive reviews, or is incenting people to post reviews, we will remove any reviews (positive or negative) we determine to be produced during the timeframe of such encouragement or solicitation and temporarily suspend the businesses ability to mange its page and content on the site
• Repeat violators of our policies will permanently lose the ability to manage their brand page, access brand page analytics or receive any benefits of premium or advertising partner relationships with our company
• Actively respond and participate in discussions about your ratings and reviews on the site, but do so in a fair and professional manner with the spirit of serving your customers — good, bad or indifferent — with excellence in mind

Upon request, we will supply your business with point-of-sale and on-premise signage to encourage customers to use the site. For those wishing to, we also offer both advertising and premium business subscriptions which provide more exposure and brand page management benefits. We reserve the right to suspend any of those paid or premium activities for businesses violating the terms above.

Call me romantic if you like, but I can’t see much wrong with that kind of approach. It’s fair to the business that doesn’t want to fork over money to the site, to the business that does and to the financial prospects of the site itself. It’s also infinitely more useful to the site visitor, whom one would assume is the top priority for all parties in question.

So, Yelp, ResellerRatings.com, RipOffReport.com or any of the others that might fall into the pay-to-play review sites, you’re welcome to the above. We’d be tickled if you used that approach. We don’t even need credit for it. All the payback we need is the knowledge there’s a better way to do business here and someone is following it.

Did I miss anything? What would you add? Are you being held hostage by one of these sites? Share your story in the comments. (But please remember to report your situation as honestly and fairly as possible. Libel and slander online are still libel and slander.)

The post The Complicated Ethics of Reviews & Ratings appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

We consumers may have high expectations, but we readily reward companies which hit the mark. Conversely, we often revile those which miss it.  And why not?  We’re talking about our hard-earned money here.

Get Your Groubal On

There’s a relatively new way for customers to get their injured voices heard loud and clear.  Groubal, a free “complaint as a petition” platform, acts as a repository for customer grievances against any company, large or small.  Groubal may also facilitate dialogue between the customer and the company against which the petition is lodged.  It’s a sort-of cousin to the local review site Yelp and the social support site Get Satisfaction.

How Groubal Works:

• A complainant lodges a petition on Groubal, then shares it via social media to solicit his/her network support.
• Groubal vets the petition; verified petitions become live and indexable via search engines.
• After petition signatures begin stacking up, Groubal notifies the company a petition has been lodged.  Seeks answers to petitioner’s allegations.
• Reps from companies which wish to respond to petitions are verified (must hold a position with compensatory capacity).  No CSRs, only persons in authority roles can respond.
• Representatives may respond in the comment stream with official statements and/or offers of restitution.
• The petition remains open/idexable in order to maintain a historical accounting of events.
• The Groubal can be re-activated if others add themselves to the petition later down the line (think chronic incidences).

“The average citizen is disadvantaged in many ways by big business,” said Groubal CEO Robert Donner during our recent interview.  “They can’t cut through the red tape and the apathy.  Groubal helps level the playing field.”  Since its launch in June of last year, Groubal has received over 1,500 petitions.  Of those, 552 are live.

Looking For Satisfaction In All The Wrong Places

In the past, aggrieved customers may have looked for recourse through the Better Business Bureau or made an attempt to claw up the chain of command alone.  These inherently slow-moving avenues keep customers feeling isolated and even ineffectual, without much influence over outcomes.  It’s David against Goliath, and often times the big guy wins, further adding insult to our injury.

Social media and platforms like Groubal change things.  Customers can project their voices online and be heard across the four corners of the universe through Twitter, Facebook, Yelp, blogs and other outposts.  We’ve all experienced/committed Random Acts of Rant within our streams.  Cathartic as it may feel, those outbursts are a little like shouting into the wind.  Few people – maybe not even the right people – hear them.

There’s a chance that Groubal may help redirect the wind to get customer voices unified and flowing in the right direction.  While the success of any single petition relies in part upon the groundswell of support it receives through signatures and comments (more voices = more pressure), larger implications emerge when you consider how Groubal centralizes customer sentiment and brings visibility to the issues.

What Groubal Means For Business

If Groubal gains enough attention to become a widespread vehicle for lodging complaints, businesses with frequent manufacturing issues, apathetic staff or unfriendly operational policies (to name a few issues) may find themselves in deep image doo-doo. Remember, the petition stays searchable on the Groubal site and indexable by the search engines regardless of how the business responds.  Offer up a pathetic reply like this social media manager from Lenovo and your business may feel it for some time to come.

Instead of the random online rant creating limited brand exposure to target audiences (in the big scheme), a Groubal petition has the potential to gain real traction as people stand up to say “That happened to me, too!  I just didn’t know what to do about it.”

What Groubal Gets When You Suffer

Groubal is a for-profit enterprise comprised of the petition site and a CSI site.  Their model doesn’t involve PPC or site sponsorships. Instead, they plan to license sentiment intelligence gathered through their customer satisfaction index and broker group buying alliances between customers and businesses. They’re working to make Groubal a single repository (destination site) for lodging complaints and facilitating resolutions in an effort to narrow the consumer search process.   Looking for a new camera, laptop, satellite provider or more? Don’t scour pages of SERPs.  Hit up Groubal to learn what real customers are saying about Brand X.  In version 3.0 (due out in February), Donner says the software will populate petitions with data culled from Facebook updates, Twitter, blogs, and the ‘net at large.  Groubal is aiming for a 360 degree view of businesses and claims its CSI can derive sentiment from a tweet/status update/etc. within 90% of accuracy.

If Donner and his team are successful, consumers will go to Groubal to complain and research companies.  Businesses will go to Groubal to avert crisis and generate civility. It’s possible Groubal could own the virtual meeting ground.

Ways Groubal Can Improve

The petition platform hasn’t been out of beta very long.  It’s gotten some coverage in Mashable and TechCrunch, but user numbers still aren’t large.  Browsing the site in search of petitions to review, I think they’d benefit from improvements like these:

• A “search by category” or “search by brand name” function would improve usability.
• The signature section of petitions could use a date/time stamp.
• Separate private signatures (no comments, only a thumbs up) from public signatures which provide comments.  Maybe just quantify the private ones somewhere else on the page to ease the flow of the comments.
• Petition titles lack a unified naming method.  Appears to pull first few words from the body of a petition, or something equally confusing.  Needs information design improvements to aid readability and filter out subjective (non-additive) text.
• The company could do a better job at communicating what it hopes to accomplish for each petitioner.
• Some use of design thinking:  petition–>signators–>response–>resolution.

In my opinion, both the CSI site and the petition site use less-than-neutral language.  The copy doesn’t encourage dispassionate, fact-based recitation of grievances.  The impartiality plus the “socialized” nature of an online petition may make the grievance easy for some businesses to dismiss as having little merit. That determination may be hasty and at the businesses’ own peril, but Groubal and its petitioners would be better served if more depth of purpose and desired outcomes were clearer.

Can A Social Complaint Platform Solve Anything?

Have you heard of Groubal?  Do you think it will do a good job of connecting businesses with customers who have legitimate complaints but are frustrated by using the often ineffective, traditional channels to solve issues?  Can it help facilitate resolutions faster, easier and to a greater degree of satisfaction (the public eye sometimes has that effect)?  Could being seen giving customer voices real attention potentially lead to higher levels of loyalty?

Or is Groubal muddying the waters – adding little value to an imperfect process yet attempting to gain financially?

Related articles

• Does social media affect consumer complaints? (smartblogs.com)
• Turn a Bad Customer Experience into a Good One (blogs.constantcontact.com)
• infographic by Get Satisfaction – The Fastest Way to Lose Customers (socialwayne.com)

The post Customer Service Goes Social With Groubal appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

Here’s the really stupid thing about all of this, though: some people who look profoundly stupid turn out to be incredibly successful. And trust me, it’s not because of their incredible physical attributes. Well, not all of the time.

Here are some of the ways that successful people look stupid in social media:

Asking questions

As a professional you are supposed to have all of the answers. After all, that’s why you get paid the big bucks, right? You’re smarter than the average schmoe and you are supposed to know it all. Therefore, asking questions will only betray your stupidity to paying clients.

Well … wait a moment. None of us are telepathic, right? We need to get information somehow and, let’s face it, people don’t always volunteer the information right away. So, OK, I guess you do have to ask a few questions because you’re not omniscient.

Come to think of it: people do like to be asked questions and they do like to respond in public if looks like it’s a win-win scenario to do so. Another thought: there is that technique known as the “leading question,” when you ask a question because you know what the answer will and you want a bunch of people to know. Sometimes that’s uncomfortable in the court room, but it can be a valuable learning tool.

Is it always appropriate to ask questions in public forums? It depends on the question, of course, but maybe there’s more to be gained by letting the conversation happen in public view.

Maybe asking questions in social media isn’t so stupid after all.

Giving your opinion

Rants never helped anyone; criticism didn’t either. A number of smart people have remarked that social media exists for complaining. It provides a global platform to virtually everyone to moan about the things that bother them. It’s stupid to rant in public; it just makes you look like a jerk. (Right, Jason? Heh.)

Well … except when it doesn’t. The public stage is not the most graceful forum to give feedback at times, but sometimes it’s effective. No matter what you may think of the infamous “DELL HELL” incident from a few years back, that experience helped bring some positive change in the way Dell deals with their customers. Was it stupid for Jeff Jarvis to complain so loudly and so persistently? It sure doesn’t look like it was stupid if it did have a positive impact.

Being vulnerable

I’m not a communications or reputation management professional, but it sure seems like it would be stupid to be vulnerable online, especially if you are a company. If your company’s private customer data got published to the public Web, it would sure make you look stupid if you admitted that publicly, right? You can just hear that share price falling right now, can’t you?

Perhaps it would seem stupid to be vulnerable, at least in the short term. However, not only is disclosure a legal and ethical requirement, sometimes it’s the first step in defending and improving a reputation. People are usually more forgiving of a mistake (even a stupid one) than they are of denial or hiding.

Sometimes letting your shields down in social media means losing a battle in the short term, but it may be the only way to win the war over the long term.

Asking for help

I think I’m fighting a losing battle here. Since I’ve gotten through all of the prior reasons, I remembered little things like crowdsourcing, partnering and collaboration. Professionals are supposed to be self-sufficient and asking for help is the worst display of weakness.

Then I remembered a clever little term called scale and I realized that asking for help isn’t stupid at all. No one gets big, meaningful work done alone. And trying to go it alone all of the time may be the stupidest thing of all.

With the broad coverage of social networks and the Internet in general, asking for help using social media may be the most efficient, effective, and smartest thing of all.

So, dear reader, what do you think? Do you think it is ever smart to be stupid in social media? The comments, as always, are yours.

Related articles

• Cup of Joe: Is Social Media Making Us Stupid? (marketingpilgrim.com)
• Social media lessons from politics (holykaw.alltop.com)

The post When It’s Smart To Be Stupid In Social Media appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

They had a reputation issue.

Enter Shashi Bellamkonda, who has been a positive, vocal touch point for Network Solutions for much of the past two years, cheerfully engaging people at conferences, on Twitter and the like. I asked Shashi, point-blank about the front-running issue. (Network Solutions reserved domains that are searched for over a four-day period if they aren’t purchased right away, preventing you from registering them elsewhere unless you call customer service to have them released. The policy was sticky because it seems to force people into buying from Network Solutions an not other registrars.) He explained it to me, told me about the automatic release when asked, that it was there way of preventing front running from others and while still don’t like the practice overall, it was their policy and I got it. They’ve since changed the policy. See below.

But Network Solutions needed more than just an explanation to win back brand enthusiasts and prove it is providing great value to its customers and others online. It needed to reconnect with the net-savvy audience and flex its muscles a bit to reinvigorate a positive reputation for the company.

Bellamkonda and crew hired Livingston Communications to develop a strategy to do just that.

(Before we go further, please know that Geoff Livingston, Livingston Communications’ consultant Kami Huyse and Bellamkonda are all people I consider friends. While that certainly might slant this review a tad, it is a nice case study of how to accomplish the said goal. But I also have some criticisms you’ll see below I think are fair as well.)

After diving into the problem, Livingston recommended reaching web-savvy developers and designers who primarily serve small businesses (a prime target for Network Solutions) who are not only instrumental in purchase recommendations, but the most likely critics of Network Solutions in the past. In order to turn these people into vocal evangelists for the company, the strategy set forth included three very simple strategies:

• Listening – Using crisis public relations engagement through monitoring on-line conversations, then addressing issues either on the site in question or on the SolutionsArePower.com blog.
• Providing Value – Using SolutionsArePower.com to address recurrent issues or provide valuable information to the online community from the company perspective.
• Community Participation – Led by Bellamkonda, Network Solutions’ team would charge forth as vocal representatives of the company, answering questions and participating in greater conversations on the Internet, pushing Network Solutions’ name to the top-of-mind of other participants.

And the measure of success? Tonality. Positive mentions versus negative mentions. This was the important outcome for Network Solutions and this was the return they would measure the investment against.

Before I share the results, allow me to comment on the simplicity of the stated strategy and measures. While “Listening, Providing Value and Participating,” and then measuring tonality are very simple strategies to develop (No offense, Geoff), they are very difficult strategies for companies to embrace and the manpower it can take to do each of them effectively is challenging as well. But your social media strategies don’t have to be complex, 100-page marketing plans. Sometimes just rolling up your sleeves and doing the little things accomplish your goals.

So did they?

Even a “math sucks” guy like me can look at the chart and see the results. The negatives are dropping, positives are rising and other analysis Livingston Communications has conducted concludes that negatives are moving toward neutrality. They’ve moved the dial.

One key tactic in the effort, which falls into the providing value bucket, was the Solutions Stars Video Conference (disclosure: I was a participant and interviewed for the program), a live event that continues to live online with video and archive content well worth seeing if you haven’t already. This program alone led to 55 percent of the positive mentions measured. Over 700 tweets (messages on Twitter) included the Solution Stars hashtag (#solutionstars) and over 60 blogs mentioned, wrote about and linked to the event.

Based on the measures of success, this reputation management effort was a success. It’s still ongoing and not finished by any means, nor is any social media effort. These are not episodic, quarterly defined campaigns. These are ongoing conversations and relationships with your customers. But as Livingston Communications and Network Solutions have proven, even those can be quantified and measured.

But what are our questions? Has six to eight months or more of hours spent engaging in the community, consulting with Livingston Communications, producing the Solution Stars Video Conference — all that time, energy and money — has it returned a measure of success that satisfies the measure of worth? Was this program worth it?

Network Solutions may say, “yes,” because the end result measures are good. Livingston Communications will back them up because they want to continue making money from them and have also done a good job of moving the metrics in favor of the client.

But do people still think of them as the front-running and subdomain hijacking company pushing the bounds of what’s acceptable?

Network Solutions vocally supported the ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) budget provision that, in effect, curbing front-running by other registrars. Once that budget provision was approved by ICANN, Network Solutions ended their four-day protection policy. While this went miles to help rectify the company reputation in light of the front-running issue, the fact the company didn’t change the policy immediately will always hold a negative connotation. Only time will change that. Changing the policy would have been cheaper and probably more effective in reversing the negative mentions.

The subdomain hijacking issue popped up in April when TechCrunch reported that NetSol was using unclaimed or parked subdomains on customer’s accounts (for instance, news.socialmediaexp.wpengine.com rather than the root of the domain) and filling these pages with paid links to drive more revenue. While Bellamkonda responded, elevated the issue to executive management and, according to a comment he posted on the TechCrunch article, the practice is no longer being employed, there is no other statement from the company about the policy after a search of both the blog or the website. If they’ve changed their behavior and the reputation tarnish still lingers, why not make these responses easily found on your website for those looking for them?

Network Solutions has done a good job of addressing front-running, but may not have adequately addressed the subdomain hijacking yet (though in their defense, the issue has died off as they’ve changed the practice). While the reputation management program has done a good job of delivering on said metrics, I may have recommended starting with clearly visible, easily found statements on the top issues that spark negativity in the marketplace.

That said, reversing negative trends in reputation isn’t as simple as throwing up a statement and moving on. Network Solutions knows that. Livingston Communications knows that. What you have do to is prove that you’re willing to listen, participate in the conversations about your company and provide value to prove you’re in the game to play fair and be respected.

And I don’t need Radian6 analysis (what they used) to prove to me that Network Solutions has done and is doing all of that consistently.

What are your thoughts? Has this program turned the tide for NetSol? Are their other issues they need to be addressing? It’s a pretty safe bet they’ll be watching the comments here, so let them know, good or bad. Please be fair and polite, but know they are listening.

The comments, as always, are yours.

Related articles by Zemanta and Jason Falls

• Society For New Communications Research Dubs Network Solutions 2008 Social Media Program Best For Online Reputation Management
  
• Network Solutions; Closer Scrutiny or More Poor Decisions?

The post Brand Reputation Case Study: Network Solutions appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

Today, that discussion continues and expands on WFPL, Louisville’s NPR affiliate and public radio station on the talk show, “State of Affairs.” I’ll join host Julie Kredens and two area attorneys, Jeff Calabrese and Michale Losavio, to cover the topic, “Employers, Privacy and Social Media.” I can’t imagine me and two lawyers going back and forth not being entertaining. In Louisville, you can hear us live at 11 a.m. ET/10 a.m. CT on 89.3 FM. You can also listen to the stream on WFPL’s website and access the archived podcast of the show on the site whenever you like, as well.

There has been a lot of recent talk about personal branding and because a year ago no one in social media or, for that matter, public relations beyond Louisville, knew who I was, my name pops up. I love the discussion going on over on Paul Chaney’s Conversational Media Marketing blog about the emergence of personal brands that overshadow corporate ones. The social web is dependent upon human connection and interaction. As such, the personal brand is more engaging and compelling than the company one. I can speak to, relate to and interact with Bob Lutz (theoretically). I can’t do any of those with General Motors. Or at least I don’t want to.

Participating in personal branding, whether it be strategic and purposeful or social and accidental, is certainly a good idea. I hadn’t done this in some time, but last night I Googled my name. Not only are 27 of the top 30 results pointing to my social media profiles, blog posts or things written in blogs about me, but I finally pushed that stupid YouTube video of Jason Newsted of Metallica falling down to page three of the results. (The video is entitled “Metallica Jason Falls On Stage.”)

Google your name. Do you like what comes up? Is it you or can a potential employer mistake that risque blog post for you when it was written by someone with the same name but a different interpretation of the term, “decorum?”

Today’s talk show dives into the notion that while we live a certain portion of our lives online, particularly those of us active in social media, there are some privacy concerns and legal issues worth considering when participating there. Your employer can sometimes see the photos you upload, videos you’ve posted or even favorited, Tweets you’ve uttered that may not be the most tasteful and so on. Can they use that against you? Should they be able to?

For those of you in need of my stance, I’ll simply say anything you put online you should consider public. If it’s public, anyone can see it, including your boss or potential employer. If you are uncomfortable with them seeing your beer bong pictures from the beach, don’t post them.

From the legal perspective, it’s not that clearly defined which is why we’ll be chatting about it. Please do join. You can call in and ask questions or send one in via email at soa — at — wfpl.org.

On a somewhat related note at least relative to reputation management, we had great fun at SMC Louisville last night. Terry Boyd, a reporter from Business First , a weekly business publication in Louisville, called me out and said I hadn’t offered any empirical evidence that social media in the newsroom effects the bottom line or business of journalism. That was a fair assessment and to ensure my reputation isn’t spoiled by the whole thing, I’m digging up some examples and will respond to him more fully. He’ll probably write about it and I’ll share that when it happens.

Two guests at last night’s meeting were Bill Sledzik of Tough Sledding/Kent State University and Andy Currens of the University of Cincinnati. It was an honor having the esteemed professors there. The two are doing a video interview series on social media and public relations for their classes which I’m sure you’ll see online at some point in the future. I was honored to be asked to participate.

And just in case my ego is still hungry, Chaney and his co-horts at Bizzuka have asked me to join them on Blog Talk Radio Friday at 1 p.m. ET on the User Friendly Thinking program (formerly called Bizzuka Buzz). We’ll talk about social media, the advertising industry and I’m sure personal branding will weed its way in there, too.

Enough of my self-serving promotional obligations. I’m sorry for the pimpitude, but when I do these things, I’d much rather you know, come participate, etc. Still …

Please tell me in the comments what you think about your profile information online, how current and potential employers should use that information when considering you for a job and whether or not you think it’s fair to expect you to keep those profiles free of potential job status-altering materials. If able, I may refer to some of the comments during today’s show.

The post Personal Branding And Reputation Management, The Topic And The Action appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

I’ve met Robert. I’m digital friends with him on several social networks like a lot of people. We have exchanged messages on Twitter a few times, but I don’t know that he would consider me a friend in the off-line context. We might be fast friends if we lived in the same area and hung out together, but the ‘Ville and the Valley are a fair bit apart.

This Google Blog Search result of a Friend Feed post of mine, which incidentally had nothing to do with Robert, but was a question I posed on the Social Media Club’s Friend Feed room, seems to indicate, however, that I am Robert’s friend.

How comfortable is he of that? How comfortable am I? Why does the search result spit back a friend association in the first place?

Realistically, Robert and I are both very active in the social media world. We get the differences in on-line and off-line friends, understand the context of the search result (even if we don’t understand how the content was chosen) and are familiar with each other’s digital selves well enough to not think much about it. But what happens when someone I don’t know or wouldn’t knowingly want to be associated with pops up on a search result like, “Jeffrey Dahmer (friend of Jason Falls)?”

What happens if Google (or FriendFeed) insists on telling the world somebody is your friend when they really aren’t? Do we know and trust our on-line friends enough to be comfortable with off-line association?

As we live our lives more openly and with unrequited transparency, we will face awkward and even disturbing realities. No, Robert Scoble is not going to lose sleep over me being listed somewhere as his friend (or at least I hope not).

But where do we draw the line?

Or do we have the power to draw it at all?

The post Do You Know Who Your Friends Are? Google Does. appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

[slideshare id=450483&doc=icanseeyourprofile-1212716292338193-8&w=425]

While my post from Monday stirred some interesting discussion in the comments, I want to stress that the point of the presentation was not to say that human resources pros and hiring managers are out there snooping through your Facebook photo albums and MySpace profiles looking for something for which to disqualify you from job searches. Rather, many are looking for the good — are you active in communities in your industry? Do you have a blog or comment on blogs? Have you established an expertise or at least a professional reputation online? If they find the good, it helps your chances.

Anecdotally, I would also say that PowerPoint decks, as we call them in the ad business, are generally vague and useless to me. (One of my pet peeves about my industry.) So, if you have questions or would like some background on what we said to accompany the presentation, fire them off in the comments. I promise we’ll both keep an eye on them and answer any you might have

Thanks to Robin Miller from the AdFed and the folks at Glassworks for hosting the event, as well as Central Bank (disclosure: A Doe-Anderson client) for sponsoring the Career Construction Series for the organization.

The post Your On-Line Life Has Windows appeared first on Social Media Explorer.

[flickr style=”float: left”]photo:2543641452[/flickr]Certainly, we’ll explore the story of Kevin Colvin, who called in sick at an Irish bank only to be photographed dressed as a fairy on the day in question (at a Halloween party). We’ll also pump out the pictures of the infamous Facebook group, “30 Reasons Girls Should Call It A Night,” which features real photos uploaded by Facebook users, believe it or not. I also found a great shot of a not-soon-to-be-employed dude smoking a joint. Frankly, I was speechless.

Since I have a few days more to prepare, I thought I’d ask all of you to offer thoughts and ideas, particularly if you have some outstanding pictures to go along with an example. (I can’t put my finger on the crack-pipe smoking co-eds I saw on someone’s blog about six months ago. If you have it or know where it is, hit me with a comment and a link!)

Searching around for examples over the weekend, I immediately became thankful image uploading and sharing wasn’t online when I was in college. To my knowledge, all of the images of toga parties, panty raids and bathing in tubs full of Jell-O shots are either burned or hidden away. (I’m kidding … I hate Jell-O.)

Having served the role of potential employer recently, I proved the theory true – I not only Googled everyone I was interested in for the social media manager‘s position at Doe-Anderson, but I randomly browsed through MySpaces and Facebooks to see what information I could find. Fortunately, outside of some typical college spring break type pictures of a couple of folks, there was nothing too gratuitous. However, there were a few images that a more conservative manager might have balked at.

Then I started going through the pictures of some of my Facebook friends to see if they had anything bad there. Keep in mind, I used to work as a public relations professional in the athletic departments of several colleges and universities. A good number of my Facebook friends are between the ages of 21-25 — the wheelhouse for flaws in pic posting decorum.

I found two particular individuals (who I’ve reached out to privately) who had what I determined to be fairly inappropriate images for a potential employer to see. One was the said individual drinking a beer – not entirely awful, but again, some folks aren’t as socially liberal as me. The other had a picture of two young ladies, rather scantily clad, dancing with one spanking the other. Again, not horrendous, but not appropriate, either. (And yes, it was a very difficult time reviewing all those spring break pictures. Heh.)

What my adventures browsing told me was that we all need to help educate one another, particularly those of the new generation of professionals, as to what is appropriate and what is not. Sure, we can also just teach people how to privatize their pictures so potential employers can’t see them, but having them there in the first place is the problem. Besides, what’s to prevent one of their friends from allowing people in to see the same picture in their photo stream or even tagging a person in a picture they have nothing to do with?

So if you or someone you know is right out of college or even still a young, 20- or 30-something with an active night life, remind them that their employer or potential employers can probably find a way to see the images, wall posts and public comments or blogs they might have on MySpace, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube or more. The best approach is to parse those profiles of questionable images now and keep tabs on our own reputation from here forward (start off with Google Alerts of your name) to ensure anything posted about you anywhere is cool for those hiring to see.

Please pass on your thoughts and suggestions in the comments. Crystal and I will review them as we prepare Thursday’s presentation. And though it won’t be slide heavy, I’ll post it on Slideshare for all to see.

IMAGE: “Shadow” by d-faith-k on Flickr.

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