Uncover the missing formula in your web design and marketing | exceler8 the web

Up until now, if you’ve received a complaint in a Google review (legitimate or not) there hasn’t been any way to respond to that review.

Today Google announced via their Lat Long Blog in their post Respond to reviews for your business on Google Place Page that those days are over. As long as you have claimed your Google Place Page you can now log in and reply to the bad review.

Example: Google Place Page Review and Owner Response (from Google Lat Long Blog)

At times, responding to a customer through a review is the only way to reach them if you don’t have their contact information. Perhaps just as importantly, it gives you the opportunity to let potential customers who are reading your reviews know your side of the story. While bad reviews are often earned, there are those that are inaccurate.

There’s another opportunity here that I want to call your attention too.

While most business owners will take the opportunity to respond to negative reviews, very few will take the time to respond to the positive reviews. But why not? We appreciate it when people acknowledge us, even if it’s a small thing. Showing readers of the review that you’re actively paying attention to your customers (good or bad) will go a long way to demonstrating your dedication to great customer service. Plus, the person that you acknowledge will feel even better about having done business with you, paving the way for repeat business and even more referrals. You may even consider going a step further and offering your customer a small thank you offer (like a free dessert on a future visit if you’re a restaurant). Nothing that someone would consider coercive, just a small gesture of your appreciation for their business.

Take advantage of the opportunity that two-way reviews give you and make it a part of your overall social media strategy today.

If you haven’t read my related post have a quick gander – it will tie some things together for this post. – Julian

The Evolving Engagement Model

The Broadcasting Model

It would be an understatement to say that communications models are changing. Old marketing and communications practices followed a we speak/you listen model. This worked out pretty well for marketers when people used to have more attention to spare or we could rely on the novelty of an advertising medium to break through the clutter. Unfortunately, the expiration date these days on novelty expires in months and not decades.

The issue now is that people don’t have the time or interest in listening. Before they expend their time and attention on your company or product an exchange of value has to take place. For today I’ll call that exchange of value, engagement.

The old model looked something like this.

Ye Old Marketing and Communications Model

The Interaction Model

Interactive online tools like blogs ushered in today’s interaction model and extends today in webinars, livestreams, chat rooms, virtual worlds and social networks. Clearly we have a lot of tools that make it possible to better listen. The influence of these tools has grown and today companies are starting to see the value in listening more. But listening skills aren’t enough and far too many organizations are still stuck in the broadcast model.

The interaction model looked something like this.

The transitional model - think web 2.0

The Evolving Engagement Model

With today’s tools we have what we need to move towards a new engagement model that focuses more heavily on listening, processing, interacting, and broadcasting. Ideally, the net result is tangible engagement and then a lift in your brand.

It probably resembles a formula like this.

Listening 30% / Processing 20% / Interacting 30% / Broadcasting 20% = Engagement

The evolving engagement model

In my next post I’m going to dive into the engagement model in more detail and perhaps in another post or two we’ll bring it all together with an actionable process.

Let me know if you’ve thrown up in your hat yet or if any of this is making sense.

- Julian

Julian co-authors EXCELER8ion with his better half Shannon Seery Gude. EXCELER8ion is a blog about digital engagement.

Most of his time Julian works on behalf of his clients at exceler8 and LOCAL Na8ion. Julian is launching an evolving digital engagement practice called Brand Trampoline where his first client is John Sumser of HRExaminer.com.

Where you are is where it’s at, The new interaction engagement model

One of our sister practices at exceler8 is called LOCAL Na8ion where we help small businesses harness the web to get more customers from their local city. Our slogan at LOCAL Na8ion is where you are is where it’s at. The slogan hints at how our physical and virtual worlds have become intertwined. At times, where we are is a state of mind, such as when we’re contributing to an online community, while at others we are grounded in the context of our physical location and needs like when we go out to dinner or look for a plumber on Google.

Where your people are at has changed

The slogan is apt for our new service Brand Trampoline because where you are and where your people are (be they job seekers, consumers or buyers of your product or service) has radically changed…if you want your company to be where it’s at you have to participate.

Every aspect of life is converging and connecting

Connections are now happening in multiple contexts and dimensions including our physical proximity and shared interests to our social networks of friends and associates on Facebook, Twitter, email and blogs, and yes offline too. Perhaps the ultimate mashup of all these interactions is  TCFKAP – The computer in your pocket formerly known as a phone. Wait, did I just make a Prince reference?

Facebook is becoming the web’s top source of traffic

The web today is pretty search centric (that’s spelled G-O-O-G-L-E) but times are changing quickly, Facebook is fast becoming the web’s top source of traffic. Real time search results and social search are replacing the way we interact almost overnight. We have new interaction touch points, tools, and communication vehicles and in almost all cases consumers, job seekers, and local buyers are way out head of the typical enterprise - be they the mom and pop variety or the Fortune 500.

Companies of all sizes are making one of three mistakes

1. They’re failing to engage at all.
2. They not keeping pace with where people are moving due to budgets, expertise or red tape.
3. They’re failing to engage in a meaningful way, often in the form of broadcasting their information rather than following an interaction model (what we refer to as digital engagement)

We all need to let go of the paradigm where our company website is where it’s at. Not that we don’t need one, it’s just that your website has already become a spoke in the wheel as far as people are concerned while your business operations, marketing and PR are still treating it like sun that your customers all orbit around.

The new interaction engagement model

We’re going to take up the case of the new interaction engagement model in the coming week but you might not be surprised to learn that success in our new world is based not in technological expertise or marketing gimmicks but old fashioned common sense applied in a contextually thoughtful way. Not to sound smug but it’s called listening. Have you noticed how little room there is today for listening? It’s hard when everyone is an expert and all of us posses some fantasmic skill or solution for becoming wealthy, skinny or successful overnight. Listening and understanding are more important today than in any time in our history.

Rather than rushing to establish an online reputation it’s useful for us all to recognize that we already have one, just like we already have a company culture even if you HR team or CEO failed to launch a multi-million dollar culture initiative in the 90′s.

I look forward to picking up the conversation about the new engagement model (er, old) in the coming week. In the mean time we’ll be out there looking for threads of knowledge in this and other conversations and looking to engage in more understanding.

-Julian

Julian co-authors EXCELER8ion with his better half Shannon Seery Gude. EXCELER8ion is a blog about digital engagement.

Most of his time Julian works on behalf of his clients at exceler8 and LOCAL Na8ion. Julian is launching an evolving digital engagement practice called Brand Trampoline where his first client is John Sumser of HRExaminer.com.