ab•SRD•ity Online Reputation Management

Small Businesses have always relied on Word of Mouth to get new customers. However, today, Word of Mouth has moved online and has become pervasive. A customer experiences a business’ service or product and has an emotional response: Positive, Neutral or Negative. This leads to many different dialogues and conversations going on online about a Small Business in the form of Reviews, Blogs, Mentions and Tweets.

Prospective customers to a business are listening to these conversations…these dialogues. When they find a business' website and hear what the business offers, they frequently turn to these online conversations to see what former customers have experienced.

Thus, it is important not ONLY to have a great website and ensure it is being found...but also to be fully engaged in all of the other online conversations so that you as a business owner are aware of what is being said...and more importantly...influence what is being said.

These conversations determine your business' Online Reputation. And...today a business owner needs to focus on Managing their Online Reputation.

ab•SRD•ity helps a business do that. We monitor over 8000 online conversations including review sites (like Yelp, Citysearch and Tripadvisor), Blogs, Twitter and Local Directories (like YP.com, Localeze, Dex Knows). We monitor these locations to listen to what is being said about a business and then present that information to that business owner. Then we provide them the training and tools to influence the conversation...making the results more positive.

The best position for a business to be in is LOTS of Reviews and the majority of the comments being POSITIVE. However, more businesses are not there. They either have very few reviews or they have many NEGATIVE reviews.

Click the image to the left for a sample screen shot.

We recommend three steps:
1. Perform an Initial Online Reputation Management Assessment
2. Based on the Initial Assessment, Perform the Steps to Repair/Improve a Business' Online Reputation
3. Engage Frequently (Daily/Monthly) in Online Conversations with your Customers

Assess….Fix….Maintain

An Online Reputation Management Assessment would inform you of many things including:

a) Is your Business showing up and showing up correctly in various Review Sites?
b) Is your Business showing up and showing up correctly in the various Local Online Directories?
c) Is your Facebook information correct?
d) What is the current state of the Online Conversations about your business on the Review Sites?
        - Positive?
        - Negative?
e) Is there any conversation at all (no conversation can indicate to prospective customers that your business is irrelevant)?

 

After an initial assessment, a business should then take the appropriate ongoing steps to work with ab•SRD•ity and Repair their Online Reputation.

1. Take ownership of the Online Venues where the conversations are occurring
2. Respond to Negative Reviews
3. Change Processes to receive more Positive Reviews

 

Lastly, this is not something to be done once, but instead, must be done on an ongoing basis. ab•SRD•ity recommends a Monthly Online Reputation Management effort.

1. Being aware of all new reviews, mentions, blogs, tweets
2. Responding to Negative information, sharing Positive information

 

ab•SRD•ity can help Businesses with all three steps….

Assess….Fix….Maintain

Visit the ab•SRD•ity web site now.


Continue reading more about "What is Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing?"

Request your FREE Consultation!