CallSource^® Aim Higher

Who’s Talking About You?

by Jason Lancaster, April 20 2010

Online reputation management is the process of managing the conversation that surrounds your brand online.  It is an essential best practice for any business.  Online reviews of websites, social networks, forums and blogs – and the role they place with search engines – have given consumers the ability to share their personal experiences on a tremendous scale.  It’s never been easier for consumers to rate, review and critique your dealership online.

More importantly, because of search engines, individual business reviews and critiques are easy to find.  Consumers who have a basic understanding of the Internet can have a significant impact on what people find when they search for a business by name.  To demonstrate how to shape an online business reputation, let’s say one Internet savvy customer decides to write a complimentary blog post about a service advisor at your dealership.  Let’s also say that this customer leaves a positive review of your dealership on Yelp.com and on CitySearch.com.

Search engines, which constantly catalog the Internet, find and associate all three of these mentions with your business.  Within just a few hours, a quick Google search of your business name could show these mentions in the top ten search results.  While this scenario is hypothetical, it is completely plausible.  In the real world, online mentions aren’t always so positive.  Because of this reality, it’s important to develop an online reputation management strategy before things get negative.

Start With Tracking
The old adage “you can’t manage what you don’t measure” is applicable to your online reputation.  You must track all mentions of your brand or dealership online in order to have success.  It’s also smart to track mentions of your business phone numbers, the names of celebrity endorsers, etc.

There are automated tracking tools that will scan the Internet for specific keywords (i.e. “Jason Lancaster” or “Anytown Motors”) and then send you an email with a link to each mention.  Using these tools is the first step of the reputation management process.  Here’s a list of recommended automated keyword tracking tools:

• Google Alerts: This is one of the most effective tracking tools available and it’s completely free.  Google will scan for the keywords you designate and email you whenever a mention is found.
• Yahoo Alerts: Identical to Google Alerts, Yahoo’s system often finds mentions that Google does not.
• Filtrbox: Filtrbox is available in both a free and a paid version.  While both are excellent, the paid version offers the best performance.
• TweetBeep:  Designed for tracking mentions on Twitter, TweetBeep’s free service is adequate for most situations.  Dealers who are very active on Twitter should consider TweetBeep’s premium service.

While none of these tools are completely inclusive, each of them finds mentions that the others may miss.  Thus, it’s a good idea to use them all.  Once your tracking system is in place you can begin to shape the online conversation around your brand.

Responding Correctly
It might seem basic, but it’s important to recognize that all mentions fall into three categories:

• Positive
• Negative
• Neutral or “Informational”

Here’s some advice on how to respond to mentions from each category:

• Spontaneous, positive mentions can be leveraged to great effect.  However, before leveraging these mentions, it’s important to respond to them in the same way that you would respond to a compliment in person.  Offer a modest thank you and do your best to return the favor.  Don’t be tempted to “sell” in this situation and say something self-serving – that will only deflate the value of the mention.
• Neutral and/or informational mentions are usually directory listings and can safely be ignored.  You should consider keeping a list of these neutral mentions on a simple spreadsheet.  It’s possible to use them for link-building (an essential search engine optimization task) later.
• Negative mentions should be handled using your dealership’s standard customer satisfaction process, with the ultimate goal to convince the reviewer to amend or rewrite their review once they’re satisfied.  The online customer satisfaction process will be mostly identical to your offline process, with one critical difference: you must make personal contact with the online party before it can begin.

Personal contact is key because most of the consumers who leave a negative review of your business online aren’t looking for or expecting follow-up.  By reaching out to them and engaging them offline, you can often resolve the situation.

Fortunately, engaging upset online consumers is usually simple.  Most popular consumer review websites allow businesses to respond directly to reviewers, blog posts usually allow comments, and forums allow registered users to participate.  In situations where it’s not possible to directly respond to a negative mention or upset party, try finding the reviewer on other websites (people often use the same profile name on multiple websites).  It may take a little effort, but it’s worthwhile if it can help you remove a negative mention from the web.

You can often draw a negative reviewer or blogger into a conversation offline by requesting more information about their experience.  You can also offer to solve or revisit their problem, and when the dealership’s owner or general manager is online and available, they should leave a personal appeal for contact.  Each of these tactics usually allow you to speak to the upset party, and also shows outsiders that you are trying to do the right thing, thereby countering some of the power of the negative mention.

In cases where there’s simply no way to engage the upset party offline or, when the upset party is unreasonable, the best way to respond is to acknowledge a customer’s feelings within the online forum and express regret about the fact that your business disappointed this consumer.  This type of response won’t look like an admission of guilt nor further anger the upset customer, and it will show that you’re paying attention.

One final note on negative mentions: legal remedies aren’t the way to go.  Many businesses have tried to use lawyers to “force” bloggers or review websites to remove slanderous or misleading information.  Most of these efforts do more harm than good.

Search Results
Now that you can track and respond to mentions, it’s time to consider preventative efforts.  Search your business name on Google and Bing.  Hopefully, in addition to your dealership website, the top ten results of your search will be comprised of neutral or positive mentions.  However, if you find a negative mention of your dealership on the first or second page of results or, if you would like to prevent negative mentions from appearing in the future, the following process will help you.

1. Create a business page on Facebook: Facebook business pages usually rank high on Google.  Since you can completely control what is said on your Facebook business page, this profile can never negatively impact your online reputation.
2. Register your business name on all popular social news and social networking websites: This step “stacks” search results with social profiles while also protecting your business name from impersonators.  KnowEm.com offers a service that will register your brand or dealership name on more than 100 social networks for a nominal fee.
3. Issue press releases with your business name or brand name in the headline: Search engines often show press releases in the top ten results for a business name.  By regularly issuing press releases with your business or brand name in the headline, you can usually guarantee that one of the top ten results is your own press release.
4. Create pay-per-click ads for your business and brand name: This is a smart move for a few reasons, but in this instance it’s one more way to increase the odds that someone searching for your business or brand finds something positive.
5. Create profiles for your business in important local directories: GetListed.org is a free service that will help you create a local profile on Google, Yahoo, Bing and BOTW.  Local profiles are important because they rank high in the list and can push negative results down.
6. Encourage happy customers to review you everywhere: Encourage your happy consumers to review your business online.  If you know that one of your customers is especially active on a review website like Yelp or Citysearch, it’s a very good idea to directly ask them for a review because active reviewers are more likely to be trusted, and their reviews will carry more weight.
7. Leverage positive mentions by linking to them: When you find a positive review on a blog, forum or review website, leverage it by linking to it as much as you can.

Here are some suggestions for leveraging these positives:

• Set aside a page on your dealership website where you link out to positive mentions.
• Link to positive mentions on your Facebook business page.
• If your dealership or your dealership employees have blogs, use them to link to positive mentions.
• Tweet links to these mentions.
• Consider issuing a search-engine-optimized press release that links to the mention – especially if it’s from a blogger.

Think of these seven tasks as reputation insurance.  Take the time to stack the search results now and you will protect your dealership against customer service mistakes someone may make later.

Remember that managing the online reputation of your brand or business is an ongoing task.  It’s not enough to pay attention to this once in awhile.  If you read your email alerts every day, check out any mentions and follow the process laid out here, your dealership’s good name will be protected.

Jason Lancaster is an auto industry veteran and internet marketing expert.  As founder of Spork Marketing, he helps dealers nationwide to increase visibility and sales.  He can be reached at www.sporkmarketing.com.