Whether you participate in the online space called social media or not, you or your company can fall victim to a negative review by an unhappy customer. Maybe the review is honest and you need to get your act together, but that negative review might also be completely false. Either way, you’re probably embarrassed, and wishing it would just go away. Unfortunately, that’s just not going to happen.Your response or lack thereof can help or hinder your business reputation. What is the best way to respond and then move beyond a negative online review?

The Best Defense is a Good Offense

Larger companies with a strong web presence have an easier time pushing down negative publicity than the small business owner. Why? The key is the existing strong web presence. If as a small business owner, a search on your name only brings up the negative review, that’s ALL your potential customer will find.

The basic non-optimized information site isn’t much better off because it’s still all but invisible online.

Make Sure the Good Stuff is Visible

Let’s say you’re looking for a new restaurant for a nice meal out with your significant other. You search for local restaurants online and find one that looks promising. It’s accompanied by several five-star reviews and a few comments from happy patrons and only one negative review. How much weight would that one negative review carry?

What if you found several other mentions for that same restaurant online, but on other sites? And what if the restaurant’s website featured photos of the interior to show off the ambience, appetizing photos and descriptions of the food, maybe a few articles about anything relating to the restaurant, staff or food served? Same question … look at the whole picture and consider how much weight one negative review would carry.

Contrast these scenarios with ONLY finding a negative review of the restaurant. I wouldn’t eat there. Would you?

If Your Reputation Has Already Been Tarnished, What Can You Do?

Start with beefing up your online visibility. This isn’t the time to hide. Publish articles that show your true colors on a blog or in article directories. If you’ve messed up, make it right, and do so publicly. Set up free accounts on Yelp, MerchantCircle, Yahoo Local, Google Local, etc. and ask your satisfied customers to post a review of your services. Make sure your existing website is relevant and visible via search.

In some parts of the country, review services such as Angie’s List are very popular. More than one merchant has been burned by these services by a dishonest customer posting a negative review. Good luck trying to get that review removed! But just as in the restaurant example, that negative review will carry much less weight when accompanied by the accolades of satisfied customers.

In short, provide quality products and services. Treat your customers like you’d want to be treated. Own up to and fix any mistakes. Make sure the “good stuff” about your business is highly visible, then the rest will take care of itself.

Related Articles from Other Blogs:

For Small Companies, Blogger Relations’ Double-Edged Sword Bites Deeper

It All Comes Out In The Wash

SEO Tactics for Reputation Management

You Don’t Own Your Brand Online, But You Can Own The Search Results

When I strike out with Flickr, my next choice is Stock.XCHNG for free downloadable images. They also have premium images available for $1.

Another option is iStockphoto. Images on this site tend to be higher quality than on Stock.XCHNG, and prices start at $1 and work up. They offer a beautiful assortment of vector illustrations in the $10 range. This is my site of choice for images to use in web site layouts and for print-based work.

Regardless of where you find images for use on your blog, make sure you read their licensing agreement. Many Creative Commons photos on Flickr only require attribution to the photographer and a link back to their Flickr page, but some add additional restrictions. Likewise, some images on Stock.XCHNG require attribution, and all photographers appreciate a link.

Photo Credit: FelipeArte (Creative Commons)

Now, what if in addition to bookmarking relevant industry information for your audience, you also bookmarked your own press releases and blog articles related to them? And what if you added a specific tag to any bookmark that you could tie into a press release to promote your business?

Let’s have an example. A hair salon in Neenah, Wisconsin offers the latest hairstyles and serves the community through a variety of regular outreach projects. The salon owners place a huge priority on continuing education for their stylists and they subscribe to professional forums to stay up on the latest trends. Their regular customers love them. Of course, the owners would like to find more regular customers. They already have a great web site, send out a monthly newsletter, and have had some success with publicity efforts. How can social bookmarking on del.icio.us boost this salon’s PR efforts?

• The salon’s web site could be bookmarked and tagged with their primary keywords and local terms (Neenah, Menasha, Fox Valley, etc.).

• Each press release could be bookmarked and tagged “salonpr” or something similar along with other appropriate keywords.

• They could capitalize on the industry information and trends that they’re already tracking by bookmarking these articles and tagging each with the name of the source and “trends” or something similar. Add commentary in the notes section of the “add bookmark” window.

• When it comes time to write the next press release, they would review salon bookmarks on del.icio.us., decide what tags to include, right-click on the RSS button underneath the page’s results, select “copy link location” and paste the link into the body or boilerplate of the press release. Don’t misunderstand. This doesn’t replace the copy in your press release. It adds value to your story by providing more information that a reporter doesn’t have to hunt for, while offering your insight and opinion on industry trends.

This is just the beginning of a PR 2.0. SHIFT Communications pioneered the idea, sharing it on their PR Squared blog. In fact they’ve taken it several steps further and have designed a template for a social media press release and a social media newsroom. These incorporate not only a thoughtful del.icio.us bookmarking strategy, but also links to online social media profiles, such as LinkedIn and Facebook, and a Flickr photo stream.

How can you apply this idea to your company’s PR efforts?

Photo credit: puptoes74

I use del.icio.us to keep track of web pages about copywriting, search engine optimization resources, and web site development, to name just a few. Up until a few months ago, that meant only bookmarking sites that I wanted to find again. But then I discovered that in addition to browsing my own bookmarks, I could search the bookmarks of other del.icio.us users. I learned that dazzlindonna posted top notch resources on web site development, and that finnstone’s bookmarks about advertising were really interesting. So I joined their networks, and now I have access to all of their public bookmarks. How’s that for a sweet deal?

Subscriptions

Another useful tool is the del.icio.us subscription feature. By subscribing to a tag, you’ll be able to see and keep track of all new bookmarks saved with that tag.

You may have noticed that I have a natural interest in local search. Well, I was curious as to what was being bookmarked in and around my hometown, so I searched for and subscribed to tags for each nearby locale. Voila! A snapshot of local business sites that people (possibly customers) wanted to be sure to find again.

Thought leadership

As you bookmark sites, keep an eye out for those you’d like to share with your site’s visitors. Tag sites that you’d like your customers to see with at least one easily remembered and unique keyword. Provide a short note as commentary that explains why you’re sharing the site. (What’s in it for your site visitor?)

Now here comes the fun part: Go to your bookmarks. Click on that tag you want to share. Notice there’s an RSS icon at the bottom of the page holding all of your entries for this tag. You can subscribe and receive this feed in a feed reader or burn the feed with Feedburner, copy a bit of HTML to your web site, and share highlights from that feed on your web site. Use this technique to share relevant industry news or anything you deem important to your audience. By the way, I’m using this same principle to post the title and first few words of each of my blog posts to my main web site’s home page.

Next up on this topic

Using del.icio.us as a public relations resource

Related articles:

Are your business bookmarks del.icio.us?

What is local search?

On the other hand, if you’re quite familiar with del.icio.us, I have something for you too. I thought I knew all the ins and outs of using this service since I’ve been using it for years. But apparently in all that time, I’ve only scratched the surface. Suffice it to say that there’s a world of information at your fingertips and practically limitless ways to put it to use. More on that in a future post.

Social bookmarking with del.icio.us

Your browser’s bookmarks folder can only take you so far. If you work between two or more computers, you deal with two entirely different sets of bookmarks or deal with what can be a cumbersome sync process. Social bookmarking solves this problem and offers the bonus of easily sharing your bookmarks with others.

A button for every browser

Two del.icio.us bookmark buttons simplify the process of saving and viewing your bookmarks. If you use Firefox as your browser, you’ll need to install the del.icio.us extension. There’s a similar process for Internet Explorer. After a quick and easy installation, two buttons will appear on your browser’s toolbar, one for saving, the other for viewing and working with your bookmarks.

How can social bookmarking benefit your business?

Although this is primarily a small business marketing blog, it would be a disservice to jump right into the marketing aspect of del.icio.us without first discussing the social part of social bookmarking.

Tagging

Browser-based bookmarks rely on you to organize information into folders. Del.icio.us allows you to organize your information with tags. Use multiple tags for each bookmark to create multiple ways to find the same information.

For example: This morning I bookmarked an article from Winning the Web, called How to Double the Effects of Your Promotion in Half the Time. It contains useful information that I want to be able to find again easily, so I gave the article an assortment of tags: InternetMarketing, efficiency, blogging. When I want to retrieve the article, I can type the tag name into the del.icio.us search box, or scroll through my entire list to click on the tag. Either method returns every article with that particular tag.

Social Tags

Now let’s turn that around and use tags for research. Let’s say you want to learn about applying for a US trademark. Type “trademark” (without the quotes) into the del.icio.us search box, but click the drop down menu and expand your search from your bookmarks to the entire del.icio.us network.

Many times, I find more meaningful results using del.icio.us as my search tool than using Google or another search engine. The results are from human bookmarking, rather than a search algorithm. Many times those results are accompanied by a short note about why the bookmark is relevant.

Collaboration

Through a shared del.icio.us account, users can easily build a shared database with a team or throughout an entire organization. Let’s use a web redesign project as an example. In the early stages, each member of the team can bookmark pages that he/she finds attractive and functional. They can also tag competitor sites, analyze and note their online strengths and weaknesses (while marking the entry private). Tag other sites that have a distinctive voice or style. The final result would provide a compilation of all the best ideas … easily shared with your web site developer.

This is truly just the tip of the iceberg. In future post(s), we’ll talk about how the wise use of social bookmarking can improve your online visibility and reputation.

Each of the tiny colorful buttons at the bottom of this and every post provide an easy way for you to social bookmark any of the articles you find useful. Just hover over the button to see where it links. If you’ve found this post useful, please bookmark it.

Talk back to me. Do you already use del.icio.us or other social bookmarking sites? Why or why not? What tips do you have for the social bookmarking novice?

What makes an effective product sell sheet?

Strong copywriting and eye-catching graphic design create attention and interest, the first two elements of making a sale. Let’s talk about copywriting first.

Begin with the questions, “why would anyone want this product or service?” and “who is my audience?” Use the answers to position your product or service as a solution to your market’s needs.

Now consider the features: colors, sizes, specifications, available accessories, etc. Keep it easy on your reader and use bullets, not blocks of text.

Add your call to action. What is it that you want your reader to do? Call? Visit your web site? Join your mailing list? Visit your store? Guide your reader to that next step with clear instructions and contact information.

Designing and printing your product sell sheet

Product sell sheets come in many sizes and shapes, but for today, let’s focus on the 8-1/2 x 11, letter-sized sheet. Whether printed on one-side or both, this size provides the greatest flexibility as to how it will be used because it’s equally at home in a brochure stand or folded and inserted into a standard #10 envelope.

• Design your product sell sheet to emphasize the benefits and features of your product or service.
• Use high-resolution photos of your products or find some quality stock photography to illustrate concepts.
• Base your overall color palette on the images you choose.
• Stay away from dark backgrounds with light text. This combination is hard on the eyes and performs poorly in every test of advertising response.

Use full-color printing. This is not the place to sacrifice color due to printing costs. Think about how many sheets you’ll realistically use before you’ll want or need to make changes, and consider a smaller print run on a color laser printer. Yes, you’ll pay more per sheet, but often it costs less than printing on press in the long-run, since you eliminate the waste of leftover boxes of obsolete flyers.

Finally, choose a quality, heavyweight paper such as 100# gloss or matte text stock. Photos tend to have more pop when printed on gloss stock, but fingerprints can be a problem if your product sell sheets will be handled by the public.

If you need help with copywriting, graphic design, or the whole package including printing of your product sell sheets, please use my contact page to get in touch with me.

How are you using product sell sheets to introduce your products or services? Do you have any tips to share on this topic?