ZMOT

Aviatech – What is ZMOT – Small

CEO Heidi Ganahl

What was your inspiration for beginning Camp Bow Wow?

I love taking care of animals and I love helping others, the marriage of these two objectives resulted in the birth of my business. Camp Bow Wow not only provides safe haven for many animals nationwide, but it also creates a great business opportunity for any individual looking to open a franchise of their own.

The idea rose from the need to find great pet care for my two beloved furry friends back in 1994.  My first husband Bion and I could not find anything suitable, and wrote the business plan for what would later become Camp Bow Wow.  After finishing the business plan, Bion suddenly died in a small plane crash, leaving me with a large settlement that eventually was lost due to bad investments, loans to friends, and two failed start ups.  Five years later, my brother helped me pick up the pieces and launch Camp Bow Wow. I started this company because I was so passionate about providing great care for our animal companions. It was so important to me to that the camps create a fun and safe experience for both the animal and their parents.

Tell us more about your background before CBW.

After college, I started out in advertising account management, but then transitioned to pharmaceutical sales.

If you could name one thing that has impacted your success, what would it be and why?

It would have to be the tragic loss of my first husband. I realized then that life is too short and anything can happen. My dogs were a great source of comfort for me in the beginning. I knew that Bion would want me to follow through with our business plan and make it a reality. I didn’t want his death to be for nothing.  Camp Bow Wow was where my heart was and I was determined to make it successful.

Why are your most successful franchisees so successful?

Many of our best franchisees were originally customers.  People dream of doing something for their career that they’re passionate about, so Camp Bow Wow is a natural fit for dog lovers.  The benefit of a franchise is that Camp Bow Wow has perfected its business model along the way – someone else makes the mistakes, learns from them and the franchise owner gets the successful business model without a lot of the pain to start out with.

What are you most proud of in regards to your business?

I am most proud that hundreds of people across the nation trust Camp Bow Wow to keep their dogs safe and happy every single day. We don’t compromise on our quality of care and it shows. I knew that Camp Bow Wow was going to be a success. I just didn’t anticipate it turning into a 50M business.

What do you like to do in your non-CBW time?

I have remarried after many years and have a wonderful family. I currently reside in the Boulder, Colorado area with my husband Jason, daughters Tori and Hollie, and dogs Ray Ray and Scout. I enjoy hiking, traveling and working on various charitable causes including my board positions with the Denver Venture School (denverventure.org), the Metro State Center for Innovation (www.centerforinnovation.org) and the University of Colorado at Boulder Leed’s School of Business. My devotion to the importance of education and animal welfare issues keeps me busy! I am also the author of “Tales from the Bark Side” an inspirational guide for entrepreneurs on how to turn their life around and make the most out of a tragic loss.

Who/what is your greatest inspiration?

My mom, dad, grandparents, aunts, uncles… I grew up in a very entrepreneurial and adventurous family that instilled in me the idea that I could do anything my heart desired! They have always encouraged me (and set an example for me) to live a life of abundance and enjoy every moment to the fullest!

What is your favorite part about your “job?”

Definitely, the dogs! But, I’m also very proud to lead such a great team of passionate individuals.

What do you envision is next for Camp Bow Wow?

We will continue to grow the business and offer the best quality pet care possible. My goal is to establish 1,000 Camp Bow Wow doggy daycare camps nationwide. I’m also concentrating a lot of time and energy into the charitable arm of Camp Bow Wow, the Bow Wow Buddies Foundation; a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the lives and health of animals everywhere.

1. Google Places Account Login: When creating your Google Places account, use a login directly related to the name of your business. Google recommends this process as a way to ensure that the person creating the listing works for the company. For example if you are creating a listing for Aviatech, the email address being used to create the listing should be name@aviatech.com
2. 100% Complete: Make sure to fill out each listing completely, this gives your places listing better ability to rank as well as have as much information available to your customers.
3. Title/headline: Only add the true business name in the title of the listing. Do not add any additional information including location or services. This goes against Google guidelines and your listing can eventually be taken down if not meeting these requirements.
4. Contact information: Show your true address and contact phone numbers. Also add servicing areas where applicable to give customers a better idea of the areas you service.
5. URL:  Make sure to add the proper URL destination most relevant to your business.
6. Description: Make sure to create an enticing and informative description of your business. Also make sure to add rich content containing related business keywords.
7. Categories: Add as many categories as possible (5) to your listing. Make sure to add the relevant categories suggested as well as your own custom categories.
8. Photos/Videos: Add attractive and enticing photos and videos for your potential customers to view. As with your website, you want to showcase your best work and work to engage the customer.
9. Reviews: Promote reviews as much as possible from your customers. One of the biggest ranking factors for Google Places is the number of reviews your listing is receiving. Work to promote reviews in other ways such as adding a Google Places link to your website, email or referencing it in service follow up emails/mailers.
10. Verification process: If you have only a couple listings to verify, it is best to individually verify your listings. If you choose this option, you will receive either a postcard/phone call giving you a PIN number to verify your listing. If you have multiple listings, Google suggests doing a bulk upload/verification process.
    

    By: Kristina Gonzales

In March LinkedIn announced that it had surpassed the 100 million user benchmark – and according to their ad tool, they have surpassed the 120 million mark. In fact, they are adding one new member per second. Smart marketers shouldn’t disregard a concentrated audience of this size.

LinkedIn allows you to deliver advertising only to people with certain qualifications or titles, such as VP of Operations or Director of Marketing. LinkedIn also allows you to optimize and test different ad variations (i.e. varying the ad text, call-to-action phrases, and images).  By creating multiple ad variations, the advertising spend will be a lot more efficient and result in more impressions thus receiving more click to lead conversions. Fast movers can also take advantage of the current low prices on the platform based bidding option. Users can control how much they spend by setting a daily cap in real time, pausing campaigns at any time, and best of all there are no contracts or commitments.

When setting up your LinkedIn campaign, make sure to see if there are any relevant groups that you could use for your targeting. LinkedIn Groups draw users back for longer sessions, and this can be a great way to reach targeted individuals while they are considering business issues and topics in the group setting.  So who can you target? There are 40 million+ USA members including; 7.9M Business Decision Makers, 5.5M High Tech Managers, 1.3M Small Business Owners and 4.2M Corporate Executives.  More importantly you can target specific audiences on a granular level by; job title and function, industry and company size, seniority and age, and as stated above LinkedIn Groups.

LinkedIn also allows for an expanded audience reach through the LinkedIn Audience Network (it’s optional). The Audience Network is a collection of partner websites that display LinkedInAds on their pages. Partner websites may include website publishers in the Google Doubleclick Ad Exchange. According to LinkedInAd help center, this is how it works:

“Suppose that you are targeting LinkedIn members who are CEOs. If you choose to run your ads on the LinkedIn Audience Network, your ads will be displayed to those CEOs when they visit LinkedIn and when they visit other websites in the LinkedIn Audience Network.”

LinkedInAds best practices to follow:

Monitor your ad’s click-through rate (CTR) on a regular basis. If the CTR of your ad drops, refresh the ads with new images or ad text. A good practice is to refresh your ads at least once per month.  I found that optimizing images and ad groups on a weekly basis increased the CTR by more than .01%.

To get more impressions and clicks, break each of your campaigns into 3 smaller campaigns (i.e. targeting 300,000 members each), and write ads specifically with those smaller audiences in mind. While doing A/B testing I also included the LinkedIn Audience Network in one of my ad variations, it was a very effective approach and drastically dropped the CPC.

If your concentration is to get more leads or inquiries, make sure that your ad is relevant to what you offer and is attractive to the audience that you are targeting. Optimize your landing page to give people the information they’re looking for and make it easy to complete the action you’d like them to take. If possible, try special offers or free trials of your products or services.

What to watch for:

The reporting in the LinkedIn Ad interface is weak at best. They don’t provide any visibility into how your ads perform within their network or the audience network. However, the Audience Network does increase click volume.

If you’re not receiving as many impressions and clicks as you’d like, this could be because your daily budget is too low. If your campaign is constrained by budget, they may show your ads evenly across the day, so that you don’t receive all impressions and clicks in the morning. Check to see if you are budget constrained by calculating the average total spend per day for a recent time period (last 7 days) and comparing that amount to your daily budget. If your total spend per day is equal or close to your daily budget and you’d like to receive more impressions and clicks, increase your daily budget.  Be careful increasing your daily budget, depending on what type of campaign you’re running (i.e. Branding vs. Lead Generation) this could increase your CPL above and beyond what your benchmark goals are.

There are a few kinks in the armor, the platform is self service and to reach a representative is almost impossible.  Testing is key, as in any type of advertising, but with optimizations this advertising platform is here to stay.

by Steve Bastien

By Ryan Vaspra

It was late 2010; early December in fact, and a new romance was afire in the world of Search Engine Marketing.  The industry of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) was courting Social Media, as its new partner in the game of Digital Marketing.  But before I give you the juicy details on this new hot romance, let’s discuss how SEO got here in the first place.

Not so long ago, a little company known as Google introduced a mathematical based formula to decide how to rank websites on the Internet on their search engine.  One of the major components to this formula was the existence of links.  Links are the URLs that point from one website to another website.  Google considered these links pointing back to a website a vote of confidence for that website’s popularity and authority.  Thus, the more links a webpage has, the more popular it must be, the more people can locate it, the more credible it becomes.

Thus, the new romance of SEO and Link Building was truly SEO’s first love affair.  This relationship has lasted from 1998 until today, but as we explore the ever-changing landscape of SEO, we discover that a new romance is brewing.

In December 2010, SEOmoz’s Rand Fishkin and his team began doing some interesting tests.  What they discovered was a direct correlation between a web page’s Keyword Rankings and how many Tweets on Twitter existed that mentioned those keywords and had a link back to the website.  For example, one of the tests I ran on my own was to create a Tweet about “Business Cleaning”, a Keyword for one of our clients.  At the time of my test, that keyword had our client at the 12^th position.  That’s page 2, result 2 of Google.  Here is that Tweet.

“Research shows that in 30 seconds a new customer forms an immediate impression of your business. Business cleaning is key! http://goo.gl/IF0lC”.  What we saw was that within about a 4-day time span, our 12^th position shot up to 9^th position on Page 1 of Google.

This was quite a sign that Google’s offspring, SEO might be fooling around.  This test showed that social signals had joined the fray of ranking factors that Google uses to identify popularity and authority.  Then in April 2011 another test was done by SEOmoz that showed something even more remarkable.  That Facebook Shares, Likes and Comments has leapfrogged traditional Links as the primary signal of popularity and authority.

As you can see highlighted in red, Links are still a part of this new bizarre love triangle but, Social Signals has captured the heart of SEO in a way that has businesses and agencies addressing how to merge the two together to form an effective alliance.  But why you ask?  Think about it, if a Link is a Vote for popularity or authority, Social Signals provide a much more real-time, measurable set of metrics that show how popular a piece of content is on the web.  Plus, it’s a lot harder to cheat the system in Social Media than it is with Links.  As we know, entire industries have popped up around this need and Google has discouraged this but it happens regardless.

Essentially, how this is done is to continue focusing on what Social Media and the Social Networks have hoped for; keep publishing all forms of content in the best interest of your community and business goals.  Commit to having open conversations within your community, and offer content that has links to your website’s pages that are the most helpful, useful or relevant to your consumer’s needs.  Plus, it should be noted to sprinkle in those keywords whenever logically possible.

So, in the end, let’s shed no tears for Links because they are still very much a part of the picture in SEO, but it must be a real concerted effort of all SEO and Social Media marketing people to incorporate the two marketing tactics, or watch their competition pass them by.

By Fernanda Gamarski

Have you noticed a small icon served on or near banner ads with the text “AdChoices” lately? That icon is designed to provide consumers with enhanced information and choices about how and when data is collected or used to serve ads targeted to them based on their likely interests.

It’s no secret that online advertising has become more reliant on consumer data collected from any number of sources, including the tracking of a consumer’s activities online – the searches the consumer has conducted, the websites visited, and the content viewed – in order to deliver advertising targeted to the individual consumer’s interests. That’s also known as online behavioral advertising. Based on this data advertisers can tell a lot about what anonymous web users like and dislike and what products and services they might be in the market for.

There have been increased calls for federal government legislation and regulation of online behavioral advertising based on the claim that consumers aren’t sufficiently aware of data collection and that it’s too hard to opt out of interest-based ads. Since last year, ad organizations in the U.S. have been running a campaign meant to regulate and demonstrate that media and marketing companies can provide consumers with more effective tools for notice and choice, so that government action is not needed. Major companies in the industry have committed to the program and added the Advertising Option Icon on all advertisements.

The “Ad Option Icon” placed in some ads click through to more information about the Advertiser, Agency, Ad Network and other companies that collect or use their data for interest-based ads.  It also gives consumers a choice to opt out if they want.

While industry compliance is important, ultimately it’ll be up to consumers to choose whether to turn off behavioral targeting by pushing a button on their browsers or leave it on. To date it has received relatively low response. According to DoubleVerify, which recently won a contract from the industry trade group to license the icon for ad clients, the click-through rate is just 0.002% and of those people who do follow the link, only 10% opt out of the ads. Two other companies, Evidon and TRUSTe, also provide the service. Evidon, which has the longest set of data, is seeing click-through of 0.005% with only 2% opting out from 30 billion impressions.

In my opinion, it is important that consumers are aware of the data being collected, but they should also consider that these technologies allow them to get more relevant ads, improving their online experience, and also more free content and services. They also allow publishers to get greater revenue, which helps their websites to provide diverse and better quality to consumers for free. If you think about it, there is no transfer of personally identifiable data, and consumers can easily clear their cookies. So, is it really that concerning? What do you think?

The first draft of this article contained a lot statistics in support of Google+, but as it continues to grow at an astronomical pace, my numbers were quickly outdated (to date they stand at around 20 million active users).  Although it is a valid question to wonder if Google+ is here to stay, it may be more applicable to consider – at its one month anniversary (believe it or not!) – how, why and what about it fits into today’s social networking landscape rather than question its survival.

It has been detailed in just about every major news outlet, but overall, the look and feel is quite similar to Facebook.  Users are first introduced to the Stream – similar to the Facebook News Feed.  Where Google+ begins to differ is their Circles feature which allows users to drag-and-drop friends into different social groups such as Friends, Co-workers, Family, etc.  You then have the ability to only share information with a Stream from a specific group depending on your preference.  This targeted sharing is a nice shift from Facebook where although there are privacy settings to remove certain friends from viewing your posts, there is no simple way to target specific groups through the News Feed.

In a recent article with Technology Review, they wrote that others have considered Google+ as “somewhat of a reset on Facebook, allowing them to escape from Facebook members they’ve friended over the years but don’t really want to interact with – and can’t quite bring themselves to defriend”.  The way that Circles is designed, it entirely removes the uncomfortable act of a Facebook friend request altogether, as users can be added and removed from Circles without ever being revealed to the other user.

The other main feature that seems to be captivating quite a large audience is “hangouts”.  If you are not familiar, this feature allows up to 10 people to talk simultaneously via video chat and seems to be a huge upgrade on Facebook’s one-on-one video chat option (although Mark Zuckerberg vehemently backs his tool as having it’s own advantages outside of group chat).  The potential for personal value seems evident but will enterprise companies adopt it for global video conferencing, celebrities take advantage by regularly speaking directly with a select group of fans, or even the President releasing information to the world?  What if it is opened to third parties, allowing people to watch movies on Netflix or sporting events in virtual groups?  The options really do seem endless especially if Google decides to expand it beyond the current 10 user limit.  Also, if I were LinkedIn, I would seriously be thinking about a way to incorporate a similar feature since the benefits seem obvious to the corporate world.

I believe more than anything else that Google+ poses the biggest fear to Twitter as they hope to retain their Twitterati.  Would you rather see a link from Tom Anderson – retired founder of MySpace – about the world’s skinniest house, or a post about how technologically savvy kids are these days followed by a cool video of a girl spinning a bicycle into a “parking space”?  I could see the argument for both sides but in either case you can follow Tom Anderson, but only Google+ provides a platform that allows interaction at a higher level.  I realize there are millions of people that like the simple things in life and are quite entertained by the 140 character tweets coming through Twitter.  There’s nothing saying you can’t do that on Google+ though, you just have the option to go much, MUCH further.  It’s also important to note that according to BrightEdge Research, the +1 buttons are already being adopted more than Twitter’s share and Instant Follow buttons – which is quite impressive given the +1 has only been around since June.

Is Google+ perfect and a full proof plan for success?  You may think so by my comparisons but the truth is that it’s far from it.  Facebook is great because it is easy to keep in touch with friends and family and see what they are up to, movies they like, places they are going to visit, etc.  Let’s say you want to search for what your friends or just the masses thought of the new Transformers movie, or you would like a recommendation on a hotel in Jamaica, there is no way to search for that in Google+ without switching over to Google.com.  Launch Blog makes a great point in that for the king of search to not have this capability is very strange, but it may just be that it will take time to implement.  Regardless, that is just one of many issues to be worked out before I can begin to consider Google+ as a major contender (although it’s quite close in a very short period of time).

For much of its existence, Google has also been seen as a one trick pony, with search being its prized possession.  As social media becomes more and more entrenched in our lives we have seen Google begin to act accordingly with social mentions now being included in the non-paid search algorithm and “likes” and “+1’s” incorporated into Google Analytics.

This begs the question of how exactly will Google integrate their Google+ product into the search world?  It has yet to be determined or at least revealed to the masses, but one thing is for sure, Google has thrown all their chips in the middle, and you have to think that with finally tying all of their products together (something many complained about over the years to no avail until now), this really has the chance to be a success.  According to Google’s Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, “The current inclination of the company is to invest heavily…we test stuff and, when it works, we put a lot more emphasis on it.  So, Google Plus – all the signs are very positive, so now the whole company is ramping up on top of it.”  Only time will tell if it can begin to snag away some of Facebook’s  and/or Twitter’s massive user bases, but if for no other reason than a nice change of pace, I for one am enjoying my “Facebook Reset”.

By: Ian Parnes

By Liberty Harper

In 1994, we hadn’t yet met Jared and five dollar footlongs were not on the menu, but Subway founder Fred DeLuca with 10,000 locations had far surpassed his original goal of 5,000 stores and was still adding more.  Little did Fred know that within just a few short years, a sixteen-year-old employee in one of his stores would become one of the top franchisees and Development Agents for Subway.

Aviatech recently had the privilege of speaking with the former sandwich artist, Raghu Marwaha.

In one Subway store owned by a family friend in the early 1990s, a young Raghu not only made sandwiches just as each customer specified, he also paid close attention to what a fantastic business opportunity it could be for his parents.  He soon talked them into purchasing a franchise in Hawthorne, California, and the Marwaha business did not end there.  Raghu and his brother Rohit went off to college a few years later, and afterward they both entered the corporate world.  Raghu excelled at his job but soon realized that his idea of success was being hindered and he was not in control of his own destiny.  Observing his parents’ franchise and the system as a whole made Raghu realize that Subway held much greater potential than his post-college corporate desk.  He approached his parents about joining them in the Subway venture, and his brother followed suit.  The Marwahas soon changed the gears of their operation from a “mom and pop” mentality to building expertise in operational systems and technology, which was necessary if they were going to compete with the giants of the restaurant industry.  Training became another key component in building the proper foundation for Subway to continue growing.

When we asked Raghu about recognition and what he is the most proud of, he responded by modestly explaining that just one year into their new, but very significant role of selling and supporting Subway franchises in Southern California, he and his brother won the 2001 Franchisee of the Year award in Los Angeles. And in 2005, Raghu won the Development Agent of the Year award for all of North America.  These accolades are just two of about 25 which the brothers have earned in the system, in addition to earning the respect of Subway associates who consider the Marwahas a huge component of the franchise’s growth in the last ten years.

With such rapid expansion and clearly a full schedule, Raghu still finds time to improve his golf game, travel, and make it to the gym nearly every day.  When asked about future goals, Raghu quickly responded that his focus is on internal systems to continue learning more about traits of customers and even more about employees, which will continue to improve the Subway brand overall.  “We want to make sure Subway is the winner and front-runner of our industry,” states Raghu confidently, “Our eyes are on some non-traditional marketing tactics, without of course risking quality.” The next question to Raghu was one likely on most readers’ minds when they learn about his family’s accomplishments, “What do you attribute your success to?”  His answer is simple and a great reminder to those who are achieving success. “Focus on what is coming ahead,” advises Raghu. “Many business owners are too busy pouring the champagne when they reach a goal or milestone…they take their focus off of the next step.  The reality is you have to always be a fireman in your own business.  My attitude has always been to conquer something else.”

When asked about how he learned so much at such a young age to lead his Southern California Subway business in the right direction, Raghu responded, “Look for who is doing what you do successfully, understand the top ten percent performers and then add one to it.  Get creative, ask how you can do it better.  Do not be afraid of trial and error.”

by Margaret St. Martin

Search engines love organized sites (so do users!).

Sustainability for websites means ensuring that when people arrive on your site, they will want to return again.  The purpose of SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is to generate sustainable business. Optimizing websites for search engine spiders is critical, as is creating a website that engages “real people”—those who feel real emotions when they read or watch something that has an effect on them.

Ranking your website pages within search engines is only the initial challenge. Engaging the click is the next challenge.  With ten search engine rankings to choose from on the first page of every search, you want potential customers to click on your website.  A unique headline that is also optimized for search engines will increase the chance of that listing being clicked. Content headlines need to include both SEO and uniqueness.  A well written, intriguing headline will without a doubt get more clicks than one that is optimized merely from a robotic perspective.

Keyword rich content that is also highly engaging and stimulating will increase the chance of people blogging and linking back to that piece of content. Natural link building is the best form of inbound links and is an essential facet of SEO.  Note, updating content frequently must be done for maximum impact.

Going overboard with heavy usage of keywords is likely to detract from the quality of the content, causing it to miss the point of what you are trying to achieve. Keeping the zest that makes a piece of content go viral is an important consideration.

The overall goal of course, is to generate qualified traffic that converts into an action such as wanting to learn more about your products and services, buying a product, subscribing to an email newsletter, and generating repeat usage through brand engagement. Your customers will only want to establish a longer term relationship with a brand should it be engaging and strike home with what is of interest to them.

At Aviatech, our approach begins with creating a content marketing strategy that includes developing a clear understanding of what our customers need to know and then delivering it to them in a compelling way to maintain a behavior. It’s important to distinguish the content strategy as part of the overall integrated marketing strategy, as developing a content strategy will force you to think more like a publisher than a marketer.

The role content strategy plays in the SEO effort is simple: if your content can be ranked high in the search engines for your keyword phrases, you will attract more prospects, media attention and industry interest at a faster rate. The two go hand in hand.  It’s all about conveying a constant message that is valuable and relevant.

By Ryan Vaspra

Already in 2011, the online world is buzzing away about the top trends for internet marketing services.  As the prevailing opinions focus on important forward-looking aspects such as Customer Engagement, Social Media Optimization and Local Search Optimization, one area that every organization, regardless of size, should consider is a rather backwards-looking aspect, your online reputation.

As in most situations in life, there are two sides to every story.  In this case, I’m not only referring to the customer and business sides of organizations, but also the two sides of reputation management, the reactionary side and the proactive side.

Assessing your company’s current reputation does not have to be complicated.  Simply typing your brand name into Google will give you a good idea of what type of sentiment is following your business.  First, from the Google Auto-Complete (aka Google Suggest) you can see if your brand name is associated with the usual suspects such as “Scam”, “Complaints”, “Rip Off” and “Reviews”.

Secondly, after completing the search of your brand name, what do the Search Results look like?  Is Page 1 and Page 2 of Google filled with negative and defaming claims?  If so, how far back do these claims go?  And of these claims, which of them hold some truth?

Understanding the nature of your reputation online will lead to the next step, which is what to do about it?  Before we move to answer that question, here are some very interesting statistics to consider.

• Research shows that 44% of people conduct search engine research for peer reviews prior to retaining business services, personal services, professional services, and making purchases online. (Ketchum Research Inc, 2009)
• If a company web site has a negative result directly below it, then up to 70% of surfers will click on the negative result first rather than the company web site. (Wikipedia, 2010)
• A staggering 90% of consumers online trust recommendations from people they know; 70% trust opinions of unknown users. (Econsultancy, July 2009)
• Studies show 74% are influenced by the opinions of others in their decision to buy the product or service. (Manage Smarter, September 2009)
• Studies show 61% of people rely on user reviews for information or research before a purchase decision is finalized. (Razorfish, 2008)

Now that I have your attention, let’s discuss best practices to resolve and improve a company’s online reputation, using either a reactive or a proactive approach.

Reactive measures will focus on the existing problem, the search results, the claims made by consumers, and Google Auto-Complete.

Now, since no one besides the Search Engines control what results are returned, the primary strategy is to influence the actual Search Results.  This entails a combination of Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Optimization, and Content Publishing.  If done correctly, over time, what used to be two pages of Google filled with negative content can be transformed to two pages of neutral or positive content.  Research has shown that 92% of consumers researching your company will never look past the first page; of the remaining 8%, only 2% will look past the second page.  This fact gives every company a manageable objective when beginning a reputation management program.

Next, the existing claims about your business take a bit more of a communications policy approach.  We do not recommend racing out to all of the Blogs and Websites where you find negative and respond.  In fact, negative information can sometimes require a “Do Nothing” approach.  This is based upon where the post lives, such as gripe websites, and the nature of the complaint.  If it’s just a conversation or a rant, those can either be ignored or addressed once and then left alone.  Each scenario requires that type of decision-making based upon the facts of the situation.

Also under the reactive category is Google Auto-Complete.  This is a very difficult problem to resolve because the results differ in Google, depending on your location, content, analytics, and search volume.  However, with strategic public relations, content development, and a commitment to the issue, we have seen Google Auto-Complete change for the benefit of our clients over time.  A major win by any criteria.

Lastly, we’ll discuss the proactive measures that are also critical to reputation management.  Customer Reviews are spread across dozens of listing directories, social networks, and opinion websites, and it’s important to know how to influence customers to give positive reviews on your company’s behalf.  It’s never advisable to fabricate a positive review.  Influencing your customers can be accomplished through several channels, including Email Marketing, Social Media, and Customer Callback Programs.

In summary, reputation management cannot be accomplished with a single tactic that is executed once and then forgotten.  It must become a core component of a company’s integrated marketing strategy and be focused on the long term.  Combining the tactics described above with ongoing branding and lead generation efforts can produce the type of results wanted by all stakeholders: Improved reputation and more business.