WebProNews

Tag: reputation

  • Yelp Tells Businesses How To Respond To Reviews

    Businesses have a tricky relationship with Yelp. On the one hand, it can be a great way for customers to find a business, and a positive Yelp presence can encourage the customer to actually visit. On the flipside, negative reviews can be very damaging, and have led to plenty of defamation suits.

    Do you interact with negative reviews of your business? What approach do you take? Let us know in the comments.

    Yelp is now giving some advice to business owner about how they should response to reviews. Senior manager of local business outreach at the company wrote a blog post as a “how-to guide”. Within this are “two important things you should know about responding to reviews on Yelp”. Remmers writes:

    Always respond to reviews in a diplomatic, polite way. You can respond to both your negative and positive reviews on Yelp. You’re also able to respond to each review either privately or publicly. A private message is rather like a personal email and is only visible to that individual reviewer and you. It’s ideal for thanking patrons and also a good first step to find out more information from a dissatisfied customer. The other option is a public message which is visible to everyone. Make sure when posting a public response, that you thank the reviewer for their feedback, state your policies and address any of their concerns.

    Negative review? Although around 80% of the reviews on Yelp are 3 stars or higher, there is a chance you may get a negative review at some point. For starters, don’t send the reviewer a defensive private message or post something publicly accusing the reviewer of being a fraud. It’s viewed negatively by other consumers that encounter it and ends up only drawing more attention to the review. Instead, send the reviewer a private message to determine if they’re willing to connect with you privately to provide more details of what may have transpired.

    Last year, as one defamation suit was making headlines, Yelp told users not to be afraid to leave negative reviews.

    “It’s important to keep in mind that the First Amendment guarantees the rights of consumers to express their opinion about a business and honestly describe their experience,” wrote Yelp Senior Director of Litigation Aaron Schur. “These strong protections are why these suits are unlikely, especially when a reviewer has thoughtfully shared their views (Yelp provides guidance on how to do this in our Content Guidelines). We find the most useful reviews include a rich narrative, a wealth of detail and perhaps a helpful tip for others who are looking to spend their hard-earned money at that local business.”

    It’s in Yelp’s best interest that negative reviews exist, because who would trust a site where all reviews are positive? You’re going to get negative reviews. Addressing them the right way, however, could help you save a significant amount of space and help you avoid the Streisand effect.

    About six months ago, Yelp launched the Yelp for Business Owners app to make it easier for businesses to keep up with reviews. Available on Android and iOS, it notifies business owners in real time of new Yelp messages and reviews so businesses can respond in a timely fashion.

    “Since launching in June of 2014, consumers are now sending an average of 55,000 messages each month to businesses through our free Message the Business tool,” Yelp said at the time. . “With more than 64% percent of Yelp searches done on mobile and 73 million monthly unique visitors using Yelp via their mobile device as of Q3 2014, it’s clear there’s a demand to conduct these conversations on the go.”

    Business owners can also use the new app to view their business page activity, such as the number of user views and customer leads they have generated over the past 30 days. They can respond to reviews by private message or public comment, and respond to customer inquiries from the Message the Business feature. Advertisers can also use the app to view reports on ad clicks from Yelp users.

    Earlier this month, Yelp put out a call for small business owners to volunteer for its Small Biz Advisory Council. Specifically, they’re looking for Yelp aficionados who wish to act as representatives for business owners around the world and share insights with Yelp execs.

    According to the company, those selected will be able to make connections with small business leaders from around the world, travel to San Francisco for a summit at the Yelp headquarters, provide input on products in development, brainstorm new ideas for the company to consider, and be a resource for other business owners who have questions about Yelp’s products.

    Do agree with Yelp about how businesses should respond to reviews? Tell us what you think.

    Image via Yelp (Flickr)

  • What Does Google’s New Tweet Section Mean For You?

    What Does Google’s New Tweet Section Mean For You?

    Google and Twitter have been teasing us with a new integration of tweets into Google search results for months, but this week they finally made the official announcement. Real-time tweets are now showing in Google search results on mobile devices with desktop integration to come soon.

    What do you think of the new feature? Do you see any opportunities to help your site or online presence? Share your thoughts in the comments.

    The integration takes the form of a carousel that appears in search results, which lets you swipe sideways to see various tweets. It only appears on some searches, and it’s unclear how and when exactly Google decides to show them. The examples we’ve seen have been for Twitter profile searches, celebrity searches, and newsy/trendy topic searches.

    The placement of the tweets in search results varies. I assume it’s based on now relevant Google feels those tweets are to a particular search. If the search is related to an event, perhaps Google will be more likely to show them toward the top while it’s actually happening. I’m only speculating.

    Google isn’t saying much of anything about how it determines what tweets to show or how it shows them. It’s refusing to answer questions about this, and the blog posts from both Twitter and Google on the integration are pretty short and vague. It’s easy to understand why this would be the case. They don’t want people to game the system and abuse the feature.

    It’s entirely possible that we’re only seeing the very beginning of what Google will ultimately do with its newfound tweet access. We spoke with Stone Temple Consulting’s Eric Enge about the new integration, and he believes Google will be doing a lot of experimenting and potentially evolving its use of the tweets.

    Earlier this year, after Google’s deal with Twitter was announced, we had a conversation with Enge about some studies his company had conducted, including one that analyzed Google’s use of tweets at the time. There were a lot of interesting findings in those, which you can learn more about here. Now that the new integration is live, we wanted to see what Enge thought about it, and if he can see any validations or contradictions to what the study found. Here’s what he told us:

    Right now the integration between Google and Twitter is quite light. Currently, it’s only visible from Smartphone devices. In addition, it’s clear that they are experimenting. For example, when you search on a name, such as “Taylor Swift”, you see tweets that she has put out there. Yet, the initial release showed tweets that mentioned her. This is typical of Google, where they experiment with different implementations to see what works best, before settling on one for the longer term. I expect this experimentation to continue.

    What this means for visibility in the short term is not much at all. This process is in the very early stages. Think of this as Google proving that they can access, process, and leverage the data from the Twitter firehose. I’d expect more substantial integration sometime soon. The whole process may take months to play out.

    What I’d love to see is Google do something involving personalization related to Twitter. I.e., if you share a link in a tweet, and then later search on a related topic, that particular article might rank higher in the search results. I have no way to know if they are getting enough info to implement something like this, but it would be a very cool feature for them to be able to add.

    As you know, our two most well-known studies on Twitter evaluated how Google Indexes tweets, and how to maximize Twitter engagement. The current integration tests between Google and Twitter don’t really feature anything that would dramatically change the conclusions of either of those studies. I think the real story is yet to come.

    Frankly, I expect both studies to change. Twitter indexing could well skyrocket, as our indexing study showed indexation rates for Tweets of just over 7%. Imagine if this jumps to 50% or more. This could be a huge deal!

    In addition, the simple act of rendering tweets in search results will not create a new source of engagement, which is whether or not you are able to get displayed. In particular, how timely are you with Tweeting our news. If you are fast with this, your tweet will get far more attention than ever before.

    Overall, I think this initial integration is big news because it’s the start of a process. I can’t wait to see how the rest of the story unfolds!

    It does seem like Google may use hashtag searches as an indication of when users might want to see tweets. While not all hashtag searches yield twitter results, others mainly related to things that are being talked about a lot at the time do.

    Under Google’s previous Twitter deal, it had a realtime search feature, which included tweets in addition to content from other services. It would be cool if they could bring content from other sources like Instagram, Facebook, etc. into the carousel, at least for hashtag searches as hashtags extend well beyond the Twittervese these days. Either way, Google’s approach seems like all the more reason to include hashtags in tweets for visibility purposes. It is unclear how often people are actually searching Google for hashtags however.

    As you can see in the screenshots, the tweet section displays media (images/gifs/videos) from tweets. This seems like a greater incentive to include media in tweets, as they are more eye catching on the Google results page.

    In terms of which tweets Google chooses to show, it could be taking any variety of factors into account. It does say “Popular on Twitter,” on some carousel results, but it sometimes shows tweets that are only seconds old and haven’t had much time to become too popular, so it’s likely taking other popularity signals into account. Possibly follower count or popularity of shared links, for example.

    In its initial blog post, Google showed an example of a search for Malcolm X, and included a tweet from Stacy Parker LeMelle, who has 10.5K followers. The tweet was just 12 seconds old. Google is likely using the popularity of the actual link being shared as a signal as well. That same tweet included a link from the New York Times, which was no doubt shared plenty of times.

    Ahead of the actual integration launched, we also talked with Conversocial CEO Joshua March about how it might impact the reputations of Twitter users and businesses. It may be early in Google’s integration, but as it stands now, it does make the tweets quite prominent, particularly when they appear at the top of the page. The lessons from that discussion pretty much still apply to what Google has already rolled out.

    “Tweets from customers about issues or bad service experiences could be on the front page,” said March. “If businesses have a social first approach to customer service then they can tackle these quickly and head on, creating positive engagements that will show up instead. This deal has the potential to accelerate the kind of service-related Twitter crises many brands have already experienced.”

    If nothing else, the feature could net some who show up in search results some new Twitter followers.

    What are your initial impressions of the rollout? Do you like Google’s approach? How would you like to see them change it? Share your thoughts in the comments.

  • What Happens When You Charge People For Negative Yelp Reviews

    Historic hotel Union Street Guest House learned a harsh lesson this week, which should serve as a cautionary tale to those worrying about their Yelp reviews a little too much. Reviews on Yelp and other sites are controversial for a variety of reasons, but businesses going to extreme lengths to keep negative reviews away are bound to only draw more of them.

    How far would you go to maintain a positive Yelp presence? Let us know in the comments.

    In case you missed it, the hotel in question had posted a policy on its website indicating that it would charge guests $500 for not only negative online reviews of its establishment, but for such reviews by other people. I’ll allow the text of said policy to explain:

    Please know that despite the fact that wedding couples love Hudson and our Inn, your friends and families may not. This is due to the fact that your guests may not understand what we offer – therefore we expect you to explain that to them. USGH & Hudson are historic. The buildings here are old (but restored). Our bathrooms and kitchens are designed to look old in an artistic “vintage” way. Our furniture is mostly hip, period furniture that you would see in many design magazines. (although comfortable and functional – obviously all beds are brand new) If your guests are looking for a Marriott type hotel they may not like it here.

    Therefore: If you have booked the Inn for a wedding or other type of event anywhere in the region and given us a deposit of any kind for guests to stay at USGH there will be a $500 fine that will be deducted from your deposit for every negative review of USGH placed on any internet site by anyone in your party and/or attending your wedding or event If you stay here to attend a wedding anywhere in the area and leave us a negative review on any internet site you agree to a $500. fine for each negative review. (Please NOTE we will not charge this fee &/or will refund this fee once the review is taken down). Also, please note that we only request this of wedding parties and for the reasons explained above.

    As you can imagine, once the media (including reddit) caught wind of this, all hell broke loose. The negative reviews came pouring in both from people claiming to have stayed at the hotel, and those admitting they hadn’t. There was a common theme: these people suck because they charge people fees for negative reviews – a worrisome business practice indeed.

    Yelp agreed that the business practice was not a good one, but also said it wouldn’t allow reviews from people who hadn’t actually been to the hotel.

    A spokesperson for the company told us, “For 10 years, Yelp has existed as a platform to alert consumers of bad business behavior such as this. Reviews that are found to be in violation of Yelp’s Terms of Service or Content Guidelines, including those that are not based on a first-hand experience, may be removed from the site.”

    Another Yelp representative told us, “For ten years (this month), Yelp has provided a platform for people to exercise free speech and warn consumers about bad business behavior such as this. Yelp fights to protect free speech for consumers and against efforts to intimidate or stifle it. Trying to prevent your customers from talking about their experiences is bad policy and, in this case, likely unenforceable anyway.”

    “We encourage people to share their first-hand experiences; reviews that are contributed as a result of media attention and do not reflect first-hand experiences run counter to Yelp’s Terms of Service and will be removed from the site,” they added.

    A day later, it would appear that some of those reviews have been removed, and the hotel’s rating has gone up to one and a half stars (it was at one-star on Monday).

    Still, the questionable reviews continue to roll in. The top one right now is five-stars, and comes from Hitler:

    Union Street Guest House appears to have removed the practice from its policy – at least on the website. The part about charging people for negative reviews has disappeared. It’s unclear whether it’s still in the contract. The establishment has not been talking to the media.

    The moral of the story is that no matter how much you may hate Yelp and online reviews in general, the last thing you should do is try to actually charge people who post negative ones. It will absolutely destroy your online reputation.

    The flood of reviews may die down as the story fades from memory, and Union Street Guest House may be able to work its way up to a more positive Yelp presence, but getting rid of all the articles written about this incident may not be so easy – unless, of course, the “right to be forgotten” becomes a thing here in the U.S.

    The hotel is lucky it hasn’t faced any apparent repercussions from Yelp, especially since Yelp is supposed to be alerting consumers about businesses who cheat on reviews. I don’t see a warning on Union Street Guest House’s page.

    Do you think Yelp should have taken down reviews related to this? Should the hotel’s page have a consumer alert? Given the above Hitler example, is Yelp even effective at policing its policies? Let us know what you think in the comments.

  • Xbox One Reputation System Gets Teeth This Month

    During the last generation of console gaming, Microsoft took a huge lead in multiplayer gaming, providing gamers with a large community of players linked by a robutst, well-designed infrastructure. Unfortunately, as the generation wore on Xbox Live became notorious for younger, immature gamers who use racist and homophobic language while screaming into their headsets.

    To combat this blight on the community, Microsoft last year introduced a new reputation system that would be central to online interactions on the new Xbox One console. The system seems similar to the Xbox 360’s star-powered rating system for users, but with a few key differences. An Xbox Live subscriber’s reputation will be more heavily influenced by community reporting and users with a poor reputation will, in theory, find their online Xbox One experiences degrade due to bad behavior.

    Today Microsoft detailed the Xbox One’s reputation system and gave gamers a head-up on when bad sports will begin to see consequences for their actions.

    The reputation system is currently split into three categories: “good players,” “needs work,” and “avoid me.” Players start off in the “good players” category and an algorithm will be used to determine whether negative reports on a player will kick them down to lower rankings.

    Players with the green-colored “good players” reputation ranking will be able to have regular online interactions through the Xbox One. According to Microsoft the majority of Xbox Live users will fall into this category, as most user do not receive much negative feedback.

    From there players descend to “needs work,” the yellow- or orange-colored category that indicates players who may be receiving negative reports from the community. According to Microsoft, players in this category will begin receiving “reputation warnings” sometime this month. The warnings will be issued based on feedback from players obtained since the launch of the Xbox One.

    The bottom category is the red-colored “avoid me.” Players in this category have passed through the “needs work” category without altering their behavior or paying attention to warnings. “Avoid me” players will have their matchmaking priority reduced and will no longer be able to use features such as Twitch streaming.

    For those who worry that the system might be used to punish players who are more skilled, Microsoft claims that its algorithm corrects for false reports and griefing.

  • Katherine Heigl Reputation on the Rocks

    With the Fall pilot season underway, there has been lots of chatter and reviews about NBC’s new “CIA agent” actress Katherine Heigl. However, the reviews she’s been receiving aren’t hardly plausible for her onscreen performances. Her attitude is the crux of the problem. The old saying, “All publicity is good publicity”, doesn’t quite ring true where Heigl is concerned these days. According to Hollywood Reporter, Katherine Heigl has been labeled as one of the most difficult actresses to work with. Then, to top it off, not only are there mounting claims of her tyrannical disposition, but her ‘momager’, Nancy Heigl, is just as uncompromising.

    Due to the irrational demands and aloof behavior the infamous duo has become known for, the “Life As We Know It” star has been branded as ‘difficult to work with’ among several industry insiders.

    The defaming claims on Heigl’s unfavorable manners –or lack there of– are endless. But, the issue has been apparent for quite some time, although her attitude may not have been as transparent. In 2008, Heigl indirectly criticized the caliber of the roles she had been allotted, withdrawing her name from all potential Emmy nominations. She said,

    “I did not feel that I was given the material this season to warrant an Emmy nomination. I did not want to potentially take away an opportunity from an actress who was given such materials.” The statement equates an evasive, cryptic insult to her professional counterparts, which actually supports the “diva” persona she’s been dubbed with.

    From wasting time with frivolous complaints of wardrobe malfunctions and not having anything to eat to demeaning multiple scripts, several film insiders and co-stars have even went so far as to say that casting Heigl just “isn’t worth it.” According to Grey’s Anatomy’s creator Shonda Rimes, the notable cliché’ “Time is Money” also doesn’t apply to Heigl either. In 2010, Rimes reported that the “Knocked Up” actress had developed a reputation of ‘missing in action’ with several absences during taping.

    Hopefully her return to primetime television can shift her career in a new direction. However, we can only hope that Heigl doesn’t ruffle any feathers behind the scenes that can cause even more flair-ups that just may ruin her career permanently.

    Image Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

     

  • 5 Tips for Protecting Your Online Presence

    There are a few commonsense ways to help protect your reputation online. Some companies offer such a service for a fee, but you can do a lot yourself to keep your reputation sterling.

    The first step for anyone should be reviewing their own social media accounts. Embarrassing photos, status updates, or even the use of foul language can reflect negatively on a person looking for employment, promotion, or business partners. In certain situations, a photo or comment could even cost someone the job he already has. Everyone should be aware of what their social media accounts say about them, and take action to correct anything that could reflect negatively upon them.

    The next step is to familiarize yourself with the various privacy policies of social media websites. These vary from one site to another, and while avoiding having embarrassing material show up online should be the top priority, it is also a good idea to be aware of who can see what sections of a person’s pages. Adjusting settings to allow certain things only to be seen by certain people would be a wise step for those who don’t want to revamp their pages completely.

    The third and final step relating to social media is speaking with friends and family privately about appropriate uses for social media. Photos that may be funny with friends may not be so funny when current or potential employers see them. While avoiding cameras completely may not be possible, most people will respect a person’s wishes not to be tagged in photos that they would not want business associates to see.

    When protecting your online presence, you must also be aware of search engine results. A fourth step that people can take in this area is posting a lot of information that they don’t mind having people see online. This could be anything from regularly updating a website or blog, posting on popular forums, or even writing product reviews under their own names on sites that place high in search engines, like Amazon and Ebay. It’s not possible to avoid having people post negative information online, but it is possible in most cases to dominate the search engines so that such negative information shows up lower in results and is less likely to cause a problem.

    A final step toward protecting your online presence is always respond to negative information that shows up high in search engine rankings. Most people will understand that nobody will have completely positive interactions with others, and some negative information will show up on just about anybody online. The best way to address this is to respond honestly to criticism, telling the other side of a story without insulting the original poster. Under the best scenarios, that person may even respond in a positive way. This approach will demonstrate that an individual is concerned with his reputation and his honor, and will go a long way toward mitigating the effects of negative information online.

  • Amazon Beats Apple in Corporate Reputation Poll

    Today, Amazon beats Apple in a way that doesn’t specifically pertain to tablets, ebooks, digital music, streaming content, or any other area in which the two routinely do battle. Today’s victory is all about the consumers and their views on the companies as a whole.

    We’re talking Harris Interactive’s annual Harris Poll RQ, which measures the perceived reputations of the sixty most-visible companies in the United States.

    And this year, it’s Amazon that takes top honors.

    Last year’s winner, Apple, falls to second place in the 2013 poll.

    Google also had a strong placement, coming in 4th. Rounding out the top 5 were The Walt Disney Company and Johnson & Johnson.

    The RQ looks at 6 different dimensions to corporate reputation. Amazon ranked in the top five in five of the six dimensions.

    “Amazon had a five point advantage over any other company in the study in the dimension of Emotional Appeal, despite an entirely virtual relationship with the public. Amazon also achieved the top rating in the dimension of Products & Services,” says Harris.

    “Our results show that Amazon has managed to build an intimate relationship with the public without being perceived as intrusive,” said Harris Interactive VP of Reputation Management Robert Fronk. “And as the company that is so widely known for its personal recommendations, more than nine in ten members of the public would recommend Amazon to friends and family.”

    Here are the winners in each of the six different categories. You can see that five are tech companies.

    Unsurprisingly, AIG and Goldman Sachs logged the two worst RQ scores.

    [All Images via Harris Interactive]

  • A Few Best Practices for Managing Your Business Online

    As the competitive landscape for small businesses continues to be challenging, it has become increasingly important for small business owners to regularly examine their marketing efforts to evaluate what is working and what is not.

    With the proliferation of marketing opportunities across the web, reviews on social media properties including Facebook, Twitter and Yelp, and hundreds of offerings to measure how effectively your business is communicating its message, it’s easy for a small business owner to feel overwhelmed and under water. Below are several best practices that will help you streamline your small business online marketing and advertising efforts so you can spend more time focusing on your core business.

    Know your online reputation

    With the advent of citizen journalism and the popularity of sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Yelp, where people can essentially post their opinions in an unmonitored forum, it is increasingly important for small business owners to monitor customer feedback so that they can adjust strategies accordingly.

    Maximize your visibility online

    As a small business, you’ll want to ensure you are maximizing your visibility online so that you can effectively compete with other businesses, especially those who are larger and likely have more resources than you do. To do this, you’ll want to consider email marketing, as well as search engine and directory listings, which will increase the number of potential consumers who will be exposed to information about your business. Constant Contact and Orange Soda are both examples of companies that can assist in the execution and monitoring of both email and search engine marketing efforts.

    Evaluate the effectiveness of your campaigns

    You can spend massive amount of money on marketing campaigns, but if you’re not able to measure the ROI of these campaigns, you’re missing out on a key part of the process – analyzing data and understanding how to translate the analytics into actionable insights. While some might argue that it is easy enough to do your own marketing without employing third-party resources, this is less true when it comes to analytics. This is one of the areas where it is highly recommended that you look to a third-party tool to help make sense of your campaign results. Adobe is one such company that can help analyze site traffic and understand key website performance metrics.

    In order to efficiently and effectively monitor and assess your business online, it is important to have a comprehensive view of how your business is being portrayed across the web, how effective your campaigns are in reaching your target audiences, and stay abreast of new tools to help streamline what can often be a burdensome process. By using select third party resources to collect relevant information for your business, you’ll be able to create campaigns that provide a stronger ROI and propel your business forward.

  • Google Street View Image is a Real Pisser, Man Sues

    A Google Street View photo has made a man in France the joke of his village after he was caught urinating in his garden.

    While the picture was blurred, the man came from a very small town located in the Maine-et-Loire province and made him easy to identify.

    He discovered the existence of his photo after being mocked by his community and hired Jean-Noel Bouillaud to sue” Google in a court in Angers for infringement of privacy and use of his image without permission. He wants the photo taken off the site and, naturally, he wouldn’t mind about €10,000 in damages as well.”

    Google lawyer, Christophe Bigot, might claim that the site only shows people’s silhouettes but there is a good argument to support that within smaller communities like Maine-et-Loire that might be enough to destroy a reputation. As is tradition with corporate lawyers, Bigot claims that the man “is an awkward customer who hopes to make a quick buck.”

    I don’t know about you, but I feel really bad for this guy and could see something like this happening to anyone at some point.

  • Politicians Need Reputation Managers

    Politicians Need Reputation Managers

    For politicians and public figures, there are few things more embarrassing then having a name synonymous with scandal or disgrace. Former Congressman Anthony Weiner is a prime example of this, remembered now for little more than his lewd conduct on Twitter. However, one increasingly prominent national political figure has a PR problem that might stand out above all the rest. The well-documented “Google problem” of GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum involves a slang use of his last name. Those who have conducted an online search using the Republican’s name know that “Santorum” yields some crass and sometimes graphic websites, many of them ranked high atop the search results page (compare: Yahoo search, Google Search, Bing Search). While Santorum’s search engine problem is the butt of many late night comedy jokes, members of the online reputation management industry say the problem is fixable.

    In fact, the issue of Santorum’s online search results represents a new horizon in the reputation management industry. In a political election year, some of the industry’s top companies, including Reputation Changer, are broadening their services to include work on political campaigns. Justin Singletary, the Chief Executive Officer of Reputation Changer, says online reputation management is crucial for prominent media figures. “The way that most people find information is by conducting online searches, and, if a candidate’s name yields results like the ones Rick Santorum gets, that’s potentially a PR nightmare,” Singletary says. “Online reputation management begins with suppressing those negative listings.”

    Singletary is quick to note that a reputation management agency’s services to political figures don’t end with the suppression of embarrassing online search results. “With a political candidate, reputation management is about much more than just cleaning up the first page of Google,” Singletary notes. “A reputation management company also offers around-the-clock media monitoring, essentially allowing the client to assume as much control as possible over his or her national press coverage.”

    Still, Singletary acknowledges that a crucial part of any political reputation management campaign is in implementing an effective “clearing plan,” designed to suppress potentially embarrassing or negative entries on the first page of a Google search. In the case of Santorum’s search engine problem, there are several factors to combat. The chief offender is a site called SpreadingSantorum.com, currently the first site to appear on the Google search results page when a user searches for the word “Santorum.” The site combines satirical commentary on Santorum’s actual political policies with a heavy dose of lewd humor, all stemming from the slang use of the politician’s name.

    According to Singletary, the site has serious traction on Google, which is why a full-force reputation management campaign is necessary for suppressing it. Part of the site’s strength comes from the fact that it is what online reputation management professionals call an exact match domain name, meaning that the URL contains the exact search term that search engine users are likely to use—”Santorum.” This contributes greatly to the site’s perceived relevance, and therefore its high ranking, on Google.

    Additionally, SpreadingSantorum.com benefits from its high social media profile. The site has amassed thousands of Facebook fans, but what really makes a difference is Google+. To date, SpreadingSantorum.com has received nearly 16,000 +1’s from search engine users. This Google+ innovation essentially allows users to “vote” content to the top of the search results page. +1’s have a tremendous impact on Google rankings, and for a site that goes viral, like SpreadingSantorum.com, the potential for PR damage is extreme.

    Indeed, Santorum is a prime example of how every politician or public figure ultimately trades on reputation, meaning the need for retaining an online reputation management is pervasive. Presently, there are only a small number of reputation management companies that can provide services on the scale necessary for overseeing an entire political campaign. The widely publicized search engine conundrum faced by Rick Santorum could well change that, as more and more politicians and campaign managers realize how essential the suppression of these negative listings can be for electoral success, and how beneficial an online reputation management is for shaping and controlling public opinion.

  • Groupon Deals Could Hurt the Reputation of Your Business

    The type of headline we ran here probably isn’t exactly the kind of thing Groupon wants to see circulating throughout the Blogosphere these days, considering all the negative press the company has been getting lately, but it is a conclusion drawn from some new academic research.

    That research, from computer scientists John W. Byers and Georgios Zervas of Boston University and Michael Mitzenmacher of Harvard, finds that ratings scores on Yelp for businesses running daily deals are 10% lower on average.

    Is it worth it to your business to run a Groupon? Let us know.

    It’s certainly worth noting that the researchers studied both Groupon and Living Social, which are the two biggest players in the deals space, with Groupon still in the lead (though the gap seems to be narrowing).

    “A key selling point of a daily deals site is the promise of beneficial long-term effects for merchants participating in a deal offering,” the report says. “Since discounted deals typically result in a net short-term loss to the merchant as customers redeem the coupons, a merchant is pitched on the expectation that some new customers, initially attracted by the deal, will become repeat customers, providing a long-term gain. Participating merchants should determine that these gains outweigh the costs, which include providing discounts to their existing customer base.”

    “We find that the average percentage increase in reviews across all merchants who had received at least one review in the 3 months prior to the Groupon offer is 44%,” it says. “Meanwhile, the average month-over-month growth in number of reviews for deals prior to their Groupon offers is about 5%. Similarly, the average percentage increase in reviews the month after the Groupon offer is 84%. Roughly 20% of merchants in our dataset (461 out of 2,332) had received zero reviews in the 3 months prior to the Groupon offer. Of these, 270 received at least one review within two months after the Groupon offer.”

    Yelp Ratings
    The researchers also conclude that “Yelp star ratings decline after a Groupon deal.”

    “The average drop in ratings is 0.12. This could affect any sorted order produced according to Yelp rankings significantly,” the report says. “Also, Yelp scores are reported and displayed according to discretized half-star increments. Thus, an average drop of 0.12 suggests a significant number of merchants may lose a half-star due to rounding. This could have a potentially important effect on a business; a recent study reports that for independent restaurants a one-star increase in Yelp ratings leads to a 9% increase in revenue. However, the transitory nature of Groupon-driven reviews, in addition to complexities of modeling hidden factors like weighted moving averages, cloud our ability to pinpoint the repetitional ramifications precisely.”

    That study by Michael Luca says that its findings suggest that “online consumer reviews substitute for more traditional forms of reputation,” that “consumers do not use all available information and are more responsive to quality changes that are more visible and consumers respond more strongly when a rating contains more information.”

    The new study also looked at text, and found that reviews mentioning either “Groupon” or “Coupon” are associated with star ratings that are 10% lower on average than reviews that don’t use these words. The few reviews that used both words were actually 20% lower on average, according to the report.

    One of the other findings from the study was that Groupon and deals sites in general are greatly helped by word of mouth (like Facebook “likes”). Kind of a no-brainer, but they have data to back it up. There is much more data to back all of these findings up. Detailed methodology can be found throughout the report, which you can read in its entirety here.

    While the findings may turn some businesses off of the Groupon strategy, the news isn’t all bad for Groupon these days. Another report released by Yipit finds that Groupon’s revenue increased by 13% in August, while it gained 2% market share.

    Groupon Revenue on the rise

    Key findings from Yipit’s report include:

    • Groupon’s revenue increased 13% from July to $121 million, a $1.5 billion annual run rate.
    • LivingSocial’s revenue declined 3% to $45 million, a $540 million annual run rate. August was the second consecutive month that LivingSocial experienced declining revenue in North America.
    • The North American Daily Deal industry resumed growth in August. Industry revenue and number of deals offered increased 9% from July.
    • Groupon gained market share at the expense of LivingSocial for the second consecutive month. Prior to July, LivingSocial had been gaining market share on Groupon for several months.
    • In its first full month, Groupon Getaways outperformed LivingSocial Escapes in the travel deals segment. Groupon Getaways generated 42% more revenue than LivingSocial Escapes and averaged 78% higher revenue per deal.

    This comes after a recent report from Experian Hitwise indicating that Groupon’s traffic was down 50% over the summer while LivingSocial’s was up 27%.

    Groupon is now testing e-commerce deals in the UK. This could provide a whole new set of opportunities for business. For brick and mortars, it could lead to more online sales. For strictly online businesses, it could simply let them into the club. Getting repeat business from a consumer might be easier to achieve online. If you’re a click away, as opposed to a drive away, a customer might be more inclined to come back, given the right customer experience. ”

    It remains to be seen if the e-commerce deals will become a mainstream feature across Groupon’s markets, but it’s definitely something to watch for.

    Do you think the benefits outweigh the negatives for businesses offering deals through Groupon or similar services? Tell us what you think.

  • Netflix: Is It Worth the Price Increase?

    Netflix: Is It Worth the Price Increase?

    Before last month, Netflix was loved and praised. Although it wasn’t perfect, it was still considered a great service for a really great price. This dynamic, however, changed when the company announced some major changes to its pricing structure last month.

    In summary, the changes did away with the joint streaming and DVD subscription service and made each service its own at a rate of $7.99 apiece per month. For users that had the joint plan, they will have to pay 60 percent more if they want to keep the same services.

    Have you decided to drop Netflix or at least part of the service? Let us know.

    According to Bryan Gonzalez, the director of Social Media Labs at the Entertainment Technology Center at the University of Southern California, a lot of people are trying to determine whether or not they want to keep both the streaming and the DVD services. Other users have said that they are dropping the Netflix completely.

    It seems clear that Netflix’s action was a step toward moving away from DVDs. Although video streaming is still a very young industry, the company didn’t want to get left behind like Blockbuster did. There was also an obvious financial motivation, because, as Gonzalez explained, the company would have to have a lot of cash in order to obtain all the high quality content that it wants distribute.

    The user reaction to the news was quite loud, from what we could tell, but Netflix CEO Reed Hastings apparently thought otherwise. In the company’s recent earnings call, he said, “Believe it or not, the noise level was actually less than we expected, given a 60 percent price increase for some subscribers.”

    Gonzalez told us that he thinks Hastings was trying to be optimistic about the situation. It is, however, worth noting that a recent report from The Diffusion Group found that even though 70 percent of users were disappointed by Netflix’s price hike, only 12-15 percent would actually cancel their services.

    “The fact that there were so many Netflix users that were upset, kind of really proves to you how much Netflix is really loved, or at least used,” Gonzalez said. “Truth be told, Netflix is still a pretty good deal compared to all the other offerings out there.”

    If users do decide to jump the Netflix ship, he pointed out that there were other alternatives for them such as Amazon Prime or pay per view models like Apple iTunes or Vudu, Walmart’s new streaming service.

    “The positive news for consumers, and everyone, is that there are tons of options out there and maybe this will expose the market or the user to this great market of content,” he said.

    Gonzalez believes that there are other players that could benefit from Netflix’s move as well. For instance, any company that is trying to figure out how to distribute content could take this as a learning experience. Additionally, he thinks that consumer electronics manufacturers who have TVs with built-in apps other than Netflix will have more streaming opportunities as a result.

    “I think, ultimately, a lot of companies will benefit, not just because it will expose users to more options, but also, users will benefit because they’ll move outside of Netflix and see what else is out there,” he said.

    From the entertainment side of the business, it’s no secret that the studios are struggling to establish a business model around streaming. As a result, Gonzalex believes they are pleased to see Netflix and other players experiment with revenue models because “high quality content does demand a certain price.”

  • Should Netflix Be Worried About Losing Customers?

    During the first half of the year, things were looking really good for Netflix subscribers. The company made announcements like: “Miramax Content Deal,” “More MTV Content,” “Glee Available to Watch Instantly,” “More Anime Coming to Netflix,” “Marvel Content Coming to Netflix,” and “Netflix Launch on Android.” The company was making deals to bring users more streaming content, and making it available on more devices. It even announced forthcoming exclusive content with House of Cards, which would presumably be just the beginning.

    Is Netflix headed in the right direction? Share your thoughts in the comments.

    Their streaming catalog has certainly improved a great deal over the past year or so. No question. It’s got a long way to go to match their DVD catalog, but the company has certainly given people more reasons to use its streaming service.

    In June, the announcements were things like: “New Look and Feel for the Netflix Website,” and “Temporary Removal of Sony Movies through StarzPlay.” In July, while the company did announce expansion into Latin America, came the big announcement of price changes, where members signed up for the popular unlimited streaming and unlimited DVDs (one at a time) plan have to pay 60% more to keep the same service (which is actually turning into two separate plans).

    Backing up to June, the Netflix redesign turned into a PR nightmare on its own. Though Steve Swasey, VP of Corporate Communications was quoted as saying, “We know the vast, vast majority of people like this,” regarding the design changes, it was clear by reading comments all over the web that if that was indeed the case, the vast, vast majority wasn’t speaking up nearly as much as those that loathed or even slightly disliked the design.

    It didn’t take long for users to max out the comments section of Netflix’s original announcement, mostly with harsh criticism of the design changes. We ran several stories related to the design here at WebProNews and received hundreds more. The comments on the removal of Sony movies reached into the thousands as well, though many of them were simply more complaints about that redesign.

    Just before Netflix announced the price hike, they did cave a little bit on some of the complaints about the design. They said they’d bring sortable lists back. Then they dropped the price bomb effectively smashing what little love that may have earned back from the users who were upset about that.

    Of course when Netflix announced the price hike, the negative comments poured in again on Netflix’s blog, once again maxing out. Again, we got hundreds more on our own coverage. Any guesses as to how many comments their Facebook update about it got?

    Just shy of 80,000.

    Of course Netflix knew there would be plenty of backlash. According to CNET, they had extra customer service reps working when they announced it. “We knew what the reaction would be,” Swasey told the publication. “We are not surprised. We knew that there would be some people upset by the service and with the price being adjusted.”

    Since then, Netflix has just been pushing on, likely hoping the fury would die down.

    This past week, Netflix announced that its Android app could support more devices, as previously it had only supported a few. Now it supports 22. The reviews for the app are overwhelmingly positive. At the time of this writing, it has 32,072 five-star ratings and 6,921 four-star ratings. Only 4,882 gave it a one-star rating, and you have to wonder how many of those are just bitter about recent events. Some of them were simply rated low because of the app’s incompatibility with some devices.

    NetflixAndroid abound! You can now instantly stream movies & TV shows from Netflix on-the-go using your HTC Evo 3D, Droid 3, Galaxy S, HTC Thunderbolt, or Motorola Atrix phone — plus many others that are now supported. Check it out in the Android Market http://bit.ly/nfxandroid, and more info on our blog: http://bit.ly/NfxAdrd 1 day ago · 1,482 likes · 1,765 comments

    Of course if you look at the comments on Netflix’s announcement about this, you’ll quickly find more jabs at the company’s decision to raise prices. “Perhaps you should spend more time on keeping current services working instead of setting up new services,” said Mitch Snyder, commenting on the Netflix Facebook post.

    In afternoon trading on the day before the price hike was announced, Netflix stock was priced at 290.15. At the time of this writing, though up from yesterday, is still down at 277.30.

    Many users have said they’d quit the service. They were saying that before the price hikes even – just because of the redesign. Many more indicated they would do so after the price announcement. An outage last weekend probably didn’t help too much, though Netflix is crediting 3% of users’ bill for the inconvenience.

    “Netflix’s July 12th price change announcement hammered the company’s consumer perception down below its competitors where it still remains today,” a representative for YouGov BrandIndex tells WebProNews. “Two weeks after the Netflix price structure notice on DVD rentals and streaming, the Los Gatos-based company saw its consumer perception with adults sink rapidly below competitors Redbox, DirecTV and even bottom-score dweller Blockbuster, which resides in widely-held negative opinion territory.”

    “The brand which seems to have benefited the most appears to be kiosk-based rental chain Redbox, whose perception has moved from a virtual tie with DirecTV to pulling away to higher positive score numbers.”

    YouGov BrandIndex Data

    What should Netflix do to help its brand perception? Tell us what you think.

  • Google Most Reputable in Harris’ Annual RQ Poll

    Harris Interactive has just released its annual Reputation Quotient Report, the survey that ranks top “visible” companies based on the U.S. general public’s impressions of the company’s reputation.  This year, we have a new most reputable company in America – Google.

    This year marks the 12th consecutive year that Harris has released the RQ poll.  This years’ poll looked at 60 top companies.  The poll took an online format and involved 30,104 people.  The “Reputation Quotient” is a number score out of 100 that is based on six categories of review – social responsibility, emotional appeal, products & services, workplace environment, financial performance and vision & leadership.  Scores are broken into rankings – 80+ being excellent, 75-80 very good, 70-75 good and 65-70 fair.

    Google topped the poll with a combined score of 84.05, which is excellent.  Google ranked in the top 5 on all but one of the previously named categories of review.  The one from which they fell out of the top 5? Emotional appeal.  Johnson & Johnson placed second for the second year in a row with a score of 83.13.  3M rounded out the top 3 with a score of 82.56.

    Last year’s winner Berkshire Hathaway fell to fourth place and with recent location tracking issues not a factor in the survey, Apple made a big move from 12th to 5th.

    The bottom three on the list of 60 are Goldman Sachs, BP, and AIG – three companies who have had their share of bad press in the past few years.  AIG’s score was a meager 47.77, almost 20 points away from just a fair rating.

    Here are the rankings for each category:

    An interesting find within the survey is that overall reputation rankings of all industry are up from last year.  Is it possible that people are at least attempting to restore trust for some maligned sectors?  Financial services sector positive rankings jumped up 6 percent from 2010.  No industry declined.  Even the Tobacco Industry held firm at 11% positive ratings.

    The most positively viewed sector is Tech, with a 75% positive rating.  The biggest jump in approval ratings was within the automotive sector, improving 15 points over the course of the year.

    So what characteristics makes a company fall into that good-excellent reputation rating?  Here is Harris’ observation:

    Companies that receive good-excellent reputation ratings are those that can be characterized as companies that “support the infrastructure” of the lives of the American public, both personally and professionally.  These infrastructure companies fall into two camps.
    –    Those that are so solidly reliable that they let me perform my personal and work tasks without having to think about them
    •    This is particularly true of those that are part of the long-term elite reputation companies

    –    Those that delight me or enrich my life
    •    With minor exception, this is true of those companies that are on the path to join the long-term reputation elite

    What is the long term reputation elite that they refer to?  It describes companies that have received a 75+ rating for the past 10 years.  These companies include Johnson & Johnson, Sony, 3M, Coca-Cola, Microsoft, UPS and FedEx.

    Wonder if Google can become one of these long term elite companies?