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By FetchMarketing, on Tuesday,12:05 pm
Did you come back to work Monday only to find that all, many, most (choose your own descriptor) of your Google Plus Reviews are not showing up?
Well, you are not alone. As this post is being written we have received no official word from Google as to what is going on but the evidence is pretty clear that A LOT of businesses were impacted.
- Was it a glitch that will be fixed?
- Was it just another “purge” like the previous ones in 2012?
- Will your reviews re-appear?
Unfortunately, without guidance from Google it is difficult to know what to do. But, we’ll keep you posted if and when additional guidance from Google is forthcoming.
In the meantime as you build and market your reputation please keep these important reputation concepts in mind.
The 3Rs and 2Qs of Local Reviews and Reputation
When it comes to taking an active role in developing, building, and protecting your online reputation, you need to keep five points in mind:
- Range – While it might seem as though getting a few positive reviews on Google+ or Yelp is all that’s needed, we advocate a wide-ranging approach to online review management. Just visit this Facebook page, We Hate Yelp, or read this thread on Google, and you’ll understand why. Your business is too important to you and your loved ones to let its success be dictated by one or two companies with no vested interest.
- Real – Make sure real client reviews are getting posted. It’s tempting to game the system and pen some glowing reviews, however, it’s not only unethical, you’ll undoubtedly get caught, and that can have some unintended consequences. Encourage your customers to be as specific as possible. A hallmark of fake reviews is vagueness.
- Recent – It appears that more recent reviews weigh more heavily by the search engines in terms of ranking. For this reason alone, creating a steady stream of new, positive reviews makes sense. Additionally, the fact that more recent reviews pack more powerful social proof with potential customers than older reviews, and you simply must put systems in place to continually gather reviews.
- Quantity – Ask yourself: If one dentist has 25 reviews with a 4-star average and the next best has one 5-star review, who are you going to call? Reliability is proven with consistency, particularly where reviews are concerned.
- Quality – This one is pretty obvious: The higher your reviews, the better your status will be – within reason. A business with nothing but 5-star ratings can look suspicious but, in general, the more favorable your reviews, the better.
Building and marketing your reputation online is not easy. Google Plus Reviews Not Showing Up is just one of the many challenges you may face. As experts in reputation marketing FetchLocalCustomers can help you build your 5-Star reputation and then market it to attract more customers. Call us today at 888-505-6162.
By FetchMarketing, on Friday,11:47 am
 How are people reviewing your business?
Over the last five years with the evolution of Facebook, Twitter and other social media applications, the world has become smaller and more social. Word of mouth is more important than ever for businesses on these social sites, especially the ones where you can write a review. We have discussed how reviews could make or break a company before, and we know what the consequences are if you are caught trying to game the system on some of the review sites.
A study done by Moses & Rooth Attorneys at Law, with Mike Blumenthal proves that “the new word of mouth” is extremely important when searching for new clients. In the study, over 1200 people were surveyed all over the country and were asked three questions:
- “When you need to find a specialty lawyer how would you start your search?
- If you search for a specialty lawyer on the internet what is most important to you?
- If you searched for a specialty lawyer on Google, what would do you first?”
The results were very telling, “44% of individuals using the internet to obtain a specialty lawyer, are looking at reviews, from Google, Yelp, or endorsements from friends on Facebook”. Meaning that if your business reviews are on the negative side, it will cost you clients and maybe your business as well.
The study also shows that “when a consumer is using Google to search for a specialty lawyer 46% are reading reviews of your past work”.
What This Means to You
What this means for your business is that all of your expensive SEO marketing, pay per click, post-card, magazine and referral marketing will at best be compromised and at worst fully negated by a less than postive online reputation!
Your online reputation is your business’ biggest asset and at FetchLocalCustomers we have strategies and processes that can improve both your online reputation and your profits. If your business reputation has been tarnished FetchLocalCustomers can help. With our strategies and guidance, we can help your organization get back on its feet and make your reputation and brand shine once again. And that of course will in turn Fetch you more customers!
By FetchMarketing, on Friday,5:30 pm
I remember when I was ten or eleven years old and got the latest CD from the biggest boy band sensation of the time. I looked inside the CD and found a note that said something along the lines of “Hey Greatest Fan Ever! Thanks for buying our CD, there is nothing more special in this world than you! Love Your Favorite Boy Band!” I felt special because I thought that they personalized it just for me. But a couple weeks later, I find out that my best friend has the same note inside her CD case, but she also got a poster, her own keychain, and a T shirt just because she was in the fan club and I was not. All of a sudden I didn’t feel so special. I felt duped and cheated because according to them I wasn’t a big enough fan to deserve all that wonderful stuff.
“What prompted these pre-teen memories and what does this have to do with local business marketing, Supriya?”, you ask.
Well, in the course of doing research on the power of reviews to positively or negatively affect a local business I came across a number of very disturbing stories about the online review site Yelp.
DISCLAIMER: Let me be clear; I personally have never had any issues with Yelp and neither has FetchLocalCustomers, I’m merely reporting what I have found.
But, according to reports all over the web from local businesses all over the country a similar game of “you’re our biggest fan” has been being played by the folks at Yelp for a number of years and may be going on right now. Instead of leaving notes in CD’s however, they leave phone calls to let you know just how special your company is.
Here are just some of the stories and reports I have found.
2009 EastBayExpress Story
According to a 2009 story on EastBayExpress, Yelp was promising to move or remove bad reviews to get businesses to advertise. Is this false advertising on Yelp’s part, whose slogan says “real people, real reviews”? The story goes on to describe how many small business owners are scared because of what Yelp can do to their business because reportedly “they were often asked to advertise soon after receiving negative reviews, many of these business owners believe Yelp employees use such reviews as sales leads”. One business owner, John, reported to EastBayExpress that a Yelp employee wrote a negative review right after he declined their advertising services.
2010 Class Action Lawsuits Filed
In 2010 multiple class action lawsuits were filed against Yelp claiming “extortion”. Techcrunch has some of the most succinct reporting and I will let you hop over there to get the details. These lawsuits have been dismissed.
2012 We Hate Yelp Facebook Groups
If the 2009 reports from business owners seem like isolated cases of paranoia and the 2010 class action lawsuits ancient history you couldn’t be faulted, that was my initial reaction as well. But then I found out that scorned business owners from all over are telling their stories every day on Facebook. It would appear that similar things may still be happening.
Checkout the stories being posted on Facebook groups like We Hate Yelp and Anti Yelp and let me know what conclusions you draw. Paranoia? Sour Grapes? Legitimate complaints?
Yelp “Outs” Businesses for Buying Reviews
In what must seem like the ultimate slap in the face to those business owners who have reported on Yelp’s extortion, Yelp has begun “outing” businesses who they catch buying positive reviews as described in this Inc. article.
Have you been the victim of a negative review on Yelp or other review site? Please let us know your story by leaving a comment below.
Your online reputation is your business’ biggest asset and at FetchLocalCustomers we have strategies and processes that can improve both your online reputation and your profits. If your business reputation has been tarnished FetchLocalCustomers can help. With our strategies and guidance, we can help your organization get back on its feet and make your reputation and brand shine once again.
About the Author
Supriya Prasad is a recent graduate from the School of Business at Cardinal Stritch University and has done a number of social media campaigns and market research for several companies, in the past. She blogs for FetchLocalCustomers and has her own blog on Tumblr. In her spare time, she likes to write poems and short stories.
By FetchMarketing, on Monday,12:45 pm
Yelp is cracking down on fake reviews, should you be too? Fake Reviews, Real Reviews and What the Future Holds for Your Business
Fake. It’s a word that gets thrown around a lot when someone wants to discredit or enhance a company when writing a review. Yelp is one of the more popular online review sites and has been go to site for reviews on businesses for years. Online reviews are very important to a brand, so if someone writes a terrible review it affects the company and the brand as a whole.
It is no surprise that in order to save face, companies will write glowing reviews about themselves. Yelp has taken action to remove fake reviews like these. According to AdAge , “Yelp stands out for its aggressiveness in trying to catch fraudsters: 20% of reviews written and submitted are never displayed”. However, the efforts might not be enough; a study done in September suggest that “the amount of fake reviews would grow to 10% to 15% by 2014 and that “at least two” Fortune 500 brands would face litigation from the Federal Trade Commission for the practice in coming years”.
Whether you are a small and local business or a giant corporation, reviews are vital. A few bad reviews from a credible source can mean a loss in revenue. But, from what we see, real, positive reviews from clients are just as likely to get wrongly treated as “spam” as fake reviews.
So, What’s a Local Business to Do?
Good question. We here at FetchLocalCustomers are seeing a rapid convergence of local rankings, mobile search and social proof surrounding online reviews. In 2013 and 2014 having a positive online brand reputation will no longer be a “nice to have” but a requirement for all local businesses. As the old saying goes, the best defense is a good offense so…
With that in mind, here are the essential elements you should be getting in place NOW:
1. A system/culture that encourages your customers leave reviews online for you
2. A monitoring system that keeps your finger on the pulse of what is being said about your Company on the social media and review sites
3. Complete, verified and optimized profiles on Google, Bing and Yahoo pages. These remain the most visible “scores” on line and how well you build these out combined with your reviews will largely determine where your business will rank in the local “map” listings.
We Can Help!
As the recognized experts in all things Local, Mobile and Social, FetchLocalCustomers can professionally and cost effectively take care of the 3 essential elements above and a whole lot more. Please give us a call at 888.505.6162 and one of our specialists will gladly discuss your situation and get you positioned for success!
By Scott, on Friday,2:28 pm
Whenever I’m speaking to groups some of the more frequently asked questions I get surround word-of-mouth referrals vs. online reviews and how the influence of each is changing.
The Golden Age of Family and Friends
10 or 20 years ago you were far more likely to ask your friends and family for product and service recommendations early on in your buying continuum, frequently before you even cracked open the Yellow Pages. Let’s face it – calling a friend or family member was easier than anything else you could do. You might remember that back then, people actually answered their phones. There was no Caller ID, no Voicemail and few answering machines.
Plus, short of calling the businesses and having a lengthy discussion (if you even knew where to begin your discussion) there was no way to gain valuable decision making information.
The Golden Age of Collective Experience and Information
Today, with the wired and mobile web accessible 24X7, things have changed. Sure, if you can get your brother to return your call in a timely fashion you would probably still highly regard his recommendation and insight but… there are a whole lot of other folks out there who are ready to assist you right this instant and you don’t even have to talk to them.
Of course, I’m talking about marketplace sites like Amazon and review sites such as Google Places, Yelp, UrbanSpoon, Kudzu and so on and so on.
Add to this on-demand collective experience the on-demand research that the mobile and wired web provides and it becomes pretty clear that you really don’t need your brother’s input anymore!
What the Research Shows
I’ve been following this trend for a long time now and it comes as no surprise to me that the trend shows no sign of changing. Back in 2007 a study by comScore and The Kelsey Group showed that online reviews were already playing a significant role in the purchase of offline products and services.
 Source: MarketingCharts.com More recently eConsultancy.com conducted a retail focused study that showed that people are roughly 40% more likely to use online reviews than speak to a friend or family member regarding an upcoming purchase. (Frankly I’m surprised the differential isn’t far greater and I wonder how many of the respondents just didn’t want to be seen as not valuing their family’s input and so threw them a bone!)
 Source: eConsultancy.com Now Add Smartphones
So it’s clear that review sites and easy access to decision making information has changed the purchasing game significantly. Now add Smartphones into the mix and what you get is a much shorter purchasing cycle than ever before in history. What took days, if not weeks and months previously can transpire in days or even hours.
Is Your Business Ready to Win or Poised to Lose?
Businesses that have recognized these shifts in consumer behavior are the ones that are being most successful today. They understand that we are living in a consumer driven purchasing environment.
- Your business has to be found when your prospects are seeking assistance
- You must provide valuable decision making information
- You should be fostering reviews and social sharing
- You much be mobile friendly
Need some help? Don’t worry, most business owners and executives do and that’s why we’re here. At FetchLocalCustomers we have the people, process and systems to turn your advertising and marketing investment into new customers. Give us a call at 888 - 505 - 6162 for a no pressure, enjoyable conversation about your business.
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