Last week we published a guide on how to monitor Google Places reviews, Web updates, and content changes. It was well-received by our readers, so we’d like to build on the post and share info this time on tools for online reviews monitoring and management. Hopefully, this list will help you track online reviews of your brand, product, establishment, service, or business – and enhance your reputation as more customers talk about you on Google Places, Yelp, online directories, local business listings, and social media sites. Or, if you’ve used any of the online reputation management tools below, do let us know by leaving a comment below and sharing with us your experience. ReviewPush Texas-based ReviewPush markets itself as an “online review management tool for small to large businesses”. It offers a dashboard for monitoring / tracking reviews, protecting your brand and reputation, engaging with customers, and enhancing product offerings and promotions (such as coupons). ReviewPush features include: Continuous social – Read the full article
Old-fashioned PR professionals will tell you that there is no such thing as bad publicity. Well, this no longer holds true, at least not in the age and realm of the Internet. Thanks to Google, it has become so much easier to search and find customers, clients, employees, employers, readers, fans, and business partners online. It’s become so much easier to “Google” a name or a brand and find out everything there is to know about it. The downside? It’s also pretty easy to get misrepresented online. Just ask the boss who has to deal with an undiplomatically-mouthed ex-employee. Or the brand owner who’s facing an angry, dissatisfied ex-fan. Or the business owner whose troubles from many years ago have come back to haunt him. Negative search results on Google – or on any other search engine – can potentially cost companies and business organizations thousands, even millions, of dollars. A number of online reputation management companies promise to remove – Read the full article
Social media is the phenomenon of this century, and along with huge advances in mobile technology, the Internet has changed our lives beyond compare in an amazingly short time. The tipping point is approaching where more business will be done online (than offline), and companies will have to quickly adapt to these new markets or suffer the consequences. However, along with these vast new markets come some downsides. The free and almost instant communication social media brings means that good ideas can spread quickly – but conversely bad reviews can just as quickly spread and ruin a business. The anonymity it affords means that people are no longer afraid of saying what they think, or going over the top. In the leisure industry, prime examples are review sites, the biggest of which is undoubtedly TripAdvisor. There are few other sites that rely so heavily on good reviews for their continued business, so here are some interesting ideas adopted by some – Read the full article
You’ve spent a great deal of time and effort optimizing your website for the search engines. Why? Because a stellar search ranking is how you’re going to get visitors and ultimately, customers. SEO has been pegged as the most important – and only – way to cultivate traffic. Your SEO tactics have been successful, and you’re among the top results for your keywords. And then comes a curveball. Siri and Her Effect on SEO and Local Search For millions of Apple iPhone 4S users, and there are more of them every day, your SEO won’t matter. Meet Siri. She’s a clever little witch, and you’re going to have to reassess your current SEO tactics if you hope to please her. And please her you must, because iPhone users rely on her. Instead of opening a search engine and manually typing keywords, they’re just going to ask Siri to find them what they’re looking for. And Siri, being the intelligent voice – Read the full article
There are ways to monitor changes and updates to your favorite websites, blogs, social networks, classifieds, and local business listings (including Google Places pages) – without having to watch the Web 24/7 or pressing the Refresh button every minute. And while RSS is today’s most popular way of syndicating content automatically, not all websites have it. (And not all users prefer it.) That’s where this list comes in: to be able keep up with what’s happening (in real-time) on any place across the entire Web; to monitor what customers and competitors alike are doing and saying; and to listen and respond to reviews and feedback as they are generated. Here are some of today’s best tools for monitoring changes to any website. Page2RSS Page2RSS is a free service that lets you create feeds for web pages you wish to follow or monitor – pages, specifically, that are static or don’t offer any RSS/Atom feeds. Page2RSS also serves as a way – Read the full article
According to a study by Forrester Research, 71 percent of online shoppers read customer reviews before making a purchase decision. That’s close to three out of every four! Enough for us to have to seriously take this insight, one that serves as yet another proof that, when it comes to winning new customers (and bringing in new business) a satisfied customer or a loyal fan just might be your most potent sales rep. Oh, and it’s also probably a good idea to start soliciting customer reviews and testimonials. Why? More than techniques to manage your online reputation, reviews and testimonials can act as the worms that bait the fish. (Worms: a funny word to describe that which persuades shoppers to buy and mere visitors to become customers.) Need advice on soliciting – and maximizing the potency of – customer reviews and testimonials? Here’s a quick guide: Soliciting Reviews Ask for it. Your customers may never know that you want their – Read the full article
A number of business owners and brand managers use Twitter as a tool for communicating advertising and marketing messages, but the popular social media and microblogging site is also an equally powerful public relations tool. Twitter is especially effective in helping you manage your online reputation and plan your crisis communications strategy. Where before, one turned to PR firms in times of crisis and controversy, sticking to traditional media is no longer enough today. Why? Because: People are making and engaging in conversations 24/7, real-time, on social media networks. People are sharing information and opinion through the Internet now more than ever. Dissatisfied customers (or employees), competitors, and unscrupulous stealth marketers can spread false information or commit brand identity theft as easily as they can push their own agendas. So here Twitter comes to save the day! In cases of crisis that can potentially significantly damage your business or brand, you can leverage this tool to respond, interact, and manage – Read the full article
Did you know that 20 percent of all searches on the Internet are for specific locations or businesses? Search giant Google did, and that’s why they changed Google Local to Google Places and began to display – for every search query that may be locally or geographically influenced – the local information for businesses, maps, and directions in the search engine results pages (SERPs). Right now, Google displays seven Places results for every search, as well as a map on the right side of the SERP that shows exactly where these seven places are. Obviously, Google Places pages help customers search these maps for local information while finding businesses within their area that are relevant to their search. Meanwhile, for small businesses, mom-and-pops, stores, offices, and other organizations with a physical address, Google Places is a unique local search tool that can drive and direct those who are searching to those who have something to offer or sell. Leverage this – Read the full article
