Dec
17th

How Negative Experiences Can Lead To Positive Outcomes

Posted by admin on December 17, 2009 at 11:36 am

Picture, if you will, a man taking a well-earned vacation to Las Vegas, ready to enjoy a few days away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. After carefully planning out his trip, booking travel arrangements and hotel accommodations, slogging through TSA security and several airport terminals, he finally arrives at his destination: Planet Hollywood. After a full day of enjoying all that the city has to offer, he comes back to his room to sit down and have a nice, relaxing smoke only to discover that there is no ashtray! After calling down to the front desk to complain about the distinct lack of ash-receptacles in the room, he is told that he is in a non-smoking room and that smoking in there would be a bad idea. Luckily, there was an unoccupied smoking room available and he was able to switch rooms with little hassle. But during all of this, there was no apology, no offer to move his bags, no anything other than the room switch.

Irked, our intrepid vacationer set out to let the world know of this grave injustice. Having signed up as a Facebook fan of Planet Hollywood previously, he logged on and left this comment on their wall:

“Here now. Wow, bad customer service.“

He had been wronged, and it would not go unnoticed! Little did he know how true that was because shortly thereafter, Planet Hollywood dropped off a cart of various fruits, chocolates, cheeses, crackers and wine with a note reading,

“Hope this makes up for the problems. Our sincere apologies, your Planet Hollywood Facebook friends.“

With the explosive growth of social media, people are able to communicate their experiences, both good and bad, to a much larger audience quicker than ever before. Whereas previously, this person may have told one or two people once he got back from his trip that Planet Hollywood messed up his room assignment, he now has the ability to let thousands of potential Planet Hollywood customers know about his negative experience within seconds of it happening. More importantly, this affords companies the ability to fix problems quickly and efficiently, turning a dissatisfied vacationer into a potential lifelong customer—all for the cost of some cheese and crackers.

Establishing a positive social media presence isn’t as simple as setting up a Twitter account or a Facebook page and calling it a day. It requires daily maintenance, monitoring and attention, all things that Oneupweb can do for you. Our reputation management specialists will monitor your social media accounts for feedback, both positive and negative, and relay that information to you in near real-time so that you can ensure that your clients and customers have the best experience possible.

And honestly, when the cost of brand loyalty is an occasional fruit basket or bottle of wine, can you really afford not to?

Thanks to Consumerist for the story.

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Dec
2nd

Tigers and Golf Clubs and Trees, Oh My!

Posted by Christopher on December 2, 2009 at 3:46 pm

Ironic Facebook post of the year—October 14th, 2009: “I’m often asked why people don’t often see me and Elin in gossip magazines or tabloids. I think we’ve avoided a lot of media attention because we’re kind of boring …” -Tiger Woods

Not anymore, Pal.

The recent imbroglio starring Tiger Woods, his wife, his golf clubs, his car and a tree in his neighbor’s yard would, were he a typical person, be very few people’s business. His family, his neighbors and the cops. Eventually a mechanic. Potentially a marriage counselor and/or divorce lawyer, but that’s it. Trouble is, Tiger Woods is a celebrity. And a celebrity who’s seemingly prided himself on being “boring.” A nice family guy who sometimes swears when he misses putts, but that’s about it. An inspiration, with a billion dollars in sponsorships and his own logo, who, until a couple days ago, enjoyed an enviably sterling reputation.

Beyond being a celebrity “offline” (Is there such a thing anymore?), Tiger has not, until recently, shied away from maintaining an online presence. Besides the aforementioned Facebook HQ, he has his own impressively robust website: www.TigerWoods.com. No way he keeps all that going on his own, but he does occasionally respond to fan letters and he blogs with relative regularity. The comments to Tiger’s last blog post, which mentions nothing about this incident (and couldn’t, as it was written in the halcyon days of early October), are so full of goodwill, support and best wishes you’d think he was freaking Santa Claus. Even a cynic as burnt up and bitter as I can’t read them without thinking, “Awwwwww!” I swear, my heart grew three sizes this morning.

Unfortunately, while leaving those folks hanging, Tiger issued an imperative but somewhat anemic statement about the incident saying, essentially, “Whoops!” and “Leave us alone.” The reaction, as one could imagine, is mixed. He absolutely has his hardcore fans who darn the heck out of the media (they sure seem to be a well-mannered group) and advise him to hang in there, but there are a certain number of detractors as well. The anti-affair contingent is in full force (funny, their comments haven’t generated too many pro-affair responses), and there are a couple “My kids look up to you, Man” and “Don’t let us down” type pleas. My guess is that, as the clock ticks, the latter will increase in volume while the former begin to doubt their hero.

Once you’ve developed an online presence, it’s there. You’ve begun the conversation. You’ve maintained the conversation. Like it or not, you can’t just stop. Silence only creates more questions. In addition, there’s no way that darn media is going to shut up. TMZ still tries to shock us with Lindsay Lohan, for Pete’s sake you know they’re not going to let up once they have Tiger by the tail. (My apologies.)

You’re fresh meat.

Some conversations are uncomfortable. Some you’d much rather avoid. But when you suddenly stop talking, other people are going to fill in the blanks. In order to maintain your online reputation, you’re going to have to respond. Shakespeare said it: “Truth will out.” The advantage to having an online presence is that you can control how truth, um, outs. The best case scenario is, if you made a mistake, admit it. Apologize to your fans. Silence your detractors—what can they say after you say either “Yeah, I did it, and I’m sorry” or “Nope, you’re wrong, and here’s the proof?” Follow the motto Oneupweb has followed since our inception: Be humble, honest, and professional. (The latter is key—this is a situation in which one could easily over-share. I’d recommend you consult with your friendly online reputation professional to develop, among other things, a go-to list of red flag topics.)

The public persona is never the whole person, but you can’t deny its existence. Your online conversations provide a perfect venue for thoughtful response. Don’t abandon them.

The age of keeping a secret is dead. And silence, in this case, isn’t the answer.

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Nov
16th

Catching the Buzz About Your Brand

Posted by admin on November 16, 2009 at 6:02 pm

Snickers, Nike, Coke, Pepsi. Those names all have one big thing in common—brand recognition. Everyone knows the nougat, caramel, peanut deliciousness they are going to experience when biting into a Snickers, or the amped up athleticism they are going to supposedly get when slipping into a pair of Nikes. Having an established brand presence on and offline can help your business in more ways than one.

But what happens when negative press and/or bad reviews surface, and you find yourself struggling at the bottom of the brand barrel—potential customers drawn away from your brand because a few bad comments crept up into your online space? I’m sure you’re all well aware of how quickly a brand can go sour thanks to the recent Domino’s scandal that involved employees placing some (literally) distasteful videos online.

Or what if, simply, nobody knows about your brand. With hundreds, thousands, and sometimes millions of companies competing within the same space, it can be difficult to push your brand up above the rest. That’s where having an effective brand strategy can help.

Today, with the economy in the state that it is, and the roll out of Google’s Vince update in February 2009 (a “minor change” to their algorithms that put more emphasis on bigger brand names), getting your brand recognized and/or back in a better light is important. Especially with the holiday season nipping at our heels.

When starting any marketing campaign it is imperative to consider the current state of your brand, no matter how well known, to ensure that it doesn’t slip through the cracks. By developing a successful online reputation management campaign, you can do just that.

There are certain steps that you can take in order to build, maintain or resurface your brand from the dead. These include bolstering and building brand awareness through different online and social media channels, providing useful, relevant content to your customers and optimizing releases and articles to amplify the “buzz” around your brand name.

Not only should you be actively promoting your brand correctly and efficiently, you should also be monitoring it. Be aware of what people are saying, explore different channels and learn to leverage the chatter about your brand, good or bad.

Whether you’re a big brand trying to recover, or a small business just looking to get noticed, be aware of your brand, how it’s promoted, where it’s promoted and start taking an active part in your conversational marketplace.

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Sep
10th

Social Media Marketing: Ignorance Is Not Bliss

Posted by Leah Singer on September 10, 2009 at 9:49 am

Many people research products, services and businesses online before they make the decision to buy. You’ve probably done it yourself; logged onto that thing called the World Wide Web and searched for the product or service you’re thinking of buying. That being said, it’s crucial to have favorable results about your company when users look for your products in search engines – especially in social media networks like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

In fact, social media marketing should be a crucial part of your brand’s reputation management, which in turn should be a key element in your overall online marketing strategy. Having a good reputation online is key. According to MarketingSherpa’s 2009 Social Media Marketing and PR Benchmark Guide, “At least two-thirds of consumers agree that recommendations and information from other people online are valuable, relevant and influence their purchase decision.”

Let’s put this into perspective. Say you buy a product from Company123 at the brick and mortar store, and you had a negative experience with the customer service. You’re miffed, in a huff, you can’t believe that guy behind the counter said that to your face! You’re so annoyed you decide to tell your friends about it on Twitter, on Facebook, and while you’re at it, on your blog!

Now Company123 has negative commentary that could very well show-up in Twitter search results, search engine search results, and now the Facebook community is getting wind of Company123’s crappy customer service. Unfortunately, Company123’s marketing department falls into the statistic where “62 percent of marketers neglect to join the conversation either by not monitoring social media or not responding to negative commentary.”

Unlike the image above, ignorance is not bliss in the case of online reputation management. Just because you don’t monitor your business’s online reputation doesn’t mean people aren’t talking about it. Piece of advice: monitor your company’s reputation online. Monitor not only in search engines, but in social media networks. Because those one or two negative comments a potential customer saw on Twitter could sway her from a purchase.

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Jul
17th

Google While You Sleep – The Power of News Alerts

Posted by Duncan on July 17, 2008 at 1:37 pm

Did you know you can Google while sleeping? You can. I am not talking about some type of bio-electronic shunt that plugs into your brain while you dream, rather a simple service called Google News Alerts. Google News Alerts are a powerful tool for both business and personal use.

On the business side you can use News alerts to track your reputation, your company’s reputation, news about your industry, news about your clients, and news about your competitors. It is really easy. Just go to the interface and setup it up for the keywords you want to track. Choose the type of media you want to track. Choices include News, Blogs, Web, Groups, Video and Comprehensive. Make sure you use wise keyword choices and use several keywords if necessary. For instance you may want to list your company’s name, its domain name, and product names as keywords. Do the same for anything else you want to keep up with.

For personal search there are no limits. Perhaps you are going to take a trip and want to receive alerts on the happenings in the town or city you are going to. Maybe you want alerts for the university you plan to attend, or perhaps the one you graduated from. Perhaps you are eyeing a new car, or other major purchase and want to see if the product is making news for a few days before you buy. Alerts can be very handy for fantasy sports junkies.

Choose a reasonable time frame for Google to send you the results. You can choose from Once a Day, Weekly, or As it Happens. Make sure you set it up so that the alerts are manageable. Timing the delivery right is your key to avoiding in box overload. You may even want to schedule different times for different topics. For instance, you should track your company’s name on an As it Happens basis.

You can turn the alerts off and on easily, so do not feel like you are stuck with this information push forever.

In the summary, this is a great service and saves you the time of manually searching for things on a daily basis. That’s about all you need to know on Google News Alerts. Have fun with them.

By the way I am going to setup an alert for bio-electronic data shunt (so I can insert a USB cable behind my left ear). I’ll set it to As it Happens. Surely it will be the right thing to do.

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