Brilliant application of data mining: How Target Figured Out A Teen Girl Was Pregnant Before Her Father Did: http://t.co/um5qfSHn
Posted via email from David Alpern’s Perspectives | Comment »
Posted via email from David Alpern’s Perspectives | Comment »
Posted via email from David Alpern’s Perspectives | Comment »
Posted via email from David Alpern’s Perspectives | Comment »
My writings have been picked up by Examiner.com where I am now the new career management columnist for Los Angeles. My latest article is entitled “5 Tactics for Personal Brand Management Online” - http://tinyurl.com/y6uucrl
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6 Tactics for Increasing Your Business’ Online Presence in Local Reviews and Directories
By David Alpern and Greg Jordan
The role the Internet plays in having prospective customers locate and assess a business cannot be overstated. Smart Momma, a baby gear and gifts retailer, saw its site traffic increase 3X over one year due in large part to online reviews. The Internet can be gold for local businesses if they also have a plan in place for the disgruntled.
Being Found
Consumers don’t get their information from just one source. BIA/Kelsey’s User View Wave VII consumer tracking study found that consumers use 7.9 different media sources when shopping locally. Each media has an impact at every level of the purchase funnel: awareness, interest, desire along with consideration, and ultimately the most important stage – action, which is typically a purchase.
“Media sources” refers to search engines (90% reported using search), Internet Yellow Pages (48% usage), vertical industry sites (24%), and comparison shopping sites (42%).
Here are 6 tactics that harness the power of the Internet to help direct more people to a business’ front door.
Be Prolific
The BIA/Kelsey’s User View Wave VII consumer tracking study cited above also revealed that nearly all consumers (97%) now use online media to shop locally. Yet, online is a large place, and the use may be in the form of gathering product information, price comparison, reviews, coupons, look-up information. Generate content that is relevant and usable in each of these forums.
Reputation Management
As consumer-generated content proliferate, so do the problems and headaches they engender. Consumers are increasingly more likely to search online for reviews before making a purchase, and what they find may be misleading information. Be it intentional or not, it damages the perception of the brand and can quickly spread. Changing these perceptions necessitates successfully communicating accurate information to balance the viewpoint.
Have a Plan
Rather than avoid online forums, formulate an action plan to manage potential damage caused by negative conversations and reviews. A disgruntled customer is 4X more likely to convey their feelings to others than a customer that enjoyed a good experience. The ratio can rapidly multiply online and spell disaster for brands that don’t have strategies in place to combat online negative chatter.
Google Profile
Creating a custom profile on Google is an easy and effective way to make sure you appear when people are “Googling” you. What’s more, the profile information resides at Google which means it will get indexed almost immediately. Try filling out your profile, then do a vanity search and see if you pop up! http://www.google.com/profiles/me
Yelp
Yelp is a popular site that connects people with local businesses and allows consumers to share experiences. Business owners can join the conversation and put their best foot forward by posting pictures, menus, discounts, special events notifications, and proactively responding to reviewers as necessary.
Directories
The five steps that deliver the most significant positive effect on local rankings are:
1. Google/Yahoo! local business listings that include an address and business description
2. Citations from data providers, such as InfoUSA, Localeze, and Internet yellow pages sites
3. Associating your local business listing within the proper categories
4. Completing the verification steps offered for your local business listing on Google/Yahoo!
5. Including product/service keywords (i.e., “hair salon,” “attorney”) in the title of your listing
And for the ambitious, there is also Yahoo! SearchMonkey, which allows customization of the look and feel of your search result on Yahoo! This tool involves supplying Yahoo! with an XML feed and typically is prepared by an interactive vendor and not by the business itself.
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Is all the effort you put into your web presence paying off? Social media activation involves reaching beyond your immediate circle to a broader community online. You can measure the influence your actions have to see how big your brand is becoming. The Internet is littered with an innumerable roster of service offerings, so here is a compilation of 8 lesser known tools that are particularly valuable:
Keyword trends - Trendrr tracks and compares the trends of any keyword – brand names, executive officers, and can even compare them to other keywords. Trendrr produces pretty eye candy charts too.
Twitter account age – Digimantra offers a free tool that displays when an account profile launched.
Twitter importance – Tweetreach assesses how wide an impact an account has. The larger the influence an account has, the more valuable they are to have in your network.
Post to multiple accounts – Hootsuite is a web based app that is very similar to the popular TweetDeck but does not require the resource sucking Adobe Air. Hootsuite has a feature that allows posting of the same tweet to multiple Twitter accounts, which is especially useful if you facilitate multiple brand identities. Hootsuite also includes analytics that let’s you see who is clicking on your posts, who is retweeting your messages, etc.
Free conference calling – Calliflower operates a convenient platform that integrates web and phone applications and offers both USA and other countries local numbers. The web app features live chat on the site. Calliflower can save the call recording as an MP3 file and post it to iTunes for free as a podcast. Other nice features include SMS text, e-mail reminders, and various administrator features.
International VoIP calling – Truphone is a mobile VoIP service that is especially useful if your travels take you out of the country and you want to be able to call back to the USA using Wi-Fi rather than setting up your mobile phone with an international dialing plan.
Online Reputation – Online ID Calculator looks at the strength of your online Identity and reputation. When people perform a search by name for someone, they judge the results based on both volume and relevance. Quantity implies that you have something to say. Relevance is of greater important as it assesses what that quantity of posts say about you, do they back up your written and oral claims, and ultimately, are you compelling?
Online Visibility – Addictomatic instantly creates a custom page with the latest on any topic or person. It looks at how you show up across search and social media platforms such as Google, Twitter, Bing, FriendFeed (part of Facebook), Twingly YouTube, Digg, Flickr, Delicious, BlogLines, Truveo, Wikio, Yahoo, Technorati, etc.
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