The VOICE of your customer in the search results
The use of the search engines to evaluate products before buying them is growing rapidly. As the social media platforms and peers online have become more important to turn to for advice and feedback before buying, the importance of having happy customers is essential. The fast spread that for instance Twitter, Facebook or YouTube can offer to people means that your potential and existing customers will know of any issues and problems on products you deliver within seconds.
The VOICE of your current or past customers will drive new customers to buy or not buy your products and services and they will serve either as a negative or a positive ambassador. Sometimes they will spread facts and opinions that are true about your brand and sometimes it is all based on rumors.
The important thing to remember is that you need to listen in on the conversations online and join them. You need to engage and also make sure that they don’t control your reputation online by ranking higher than you in the search engines results pages.
Google will rank Tweets, Facebook groups, YouTube videos, blogs, press material along side with your own website and you need to be aware that the negative information brought up by others will influence the customers decision about your brand. If you have bought a paid search listing in Google and sell your products through the Ad copy you need to also spend time looking at what others in the organic listings are saying about you. A negative article about your brand along side a selling Ad is not good advertising money spent. I would still advice you to buy the keywords in Google if you see some negative articles around you, but be aware of the message you put up in your Ad copy so that you meet the customers expectations and the negative comments rather than claiming the opposite.
Working with SERM = Search Engine Reputaion Management is not an easy task, and the more facts out there that is true and negative about you, the worse it is to clean up the mess!
Some tips to help you start the process:
1. Google all your products, services and company names to listen in on what is said about you.
2. Work with a proactive plan that can push and promote the most important things about you and your products or services. Spread the information and news to your positive ambassadors and peers and make sure that they link to you for more information.
3. Have a crisis plan ready to deal with negative press around you that can appear in the search results. If there is a product failure for instance, you need to get that message across to your peers as soon as possible to avoid untrue rumors.
4. Keep listening and join the conversations to promote real facts and communicate the truth. Putting your head in the sand will not work as an online marketing strategy…
//Sara
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Posted in Search PR, social media
April 28th, 2010 at 10:08 am
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