{"id":10972,"date":"2016-12-07T09:49:32","date_gmt":"2016-12-07T15:49:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/?p=10972"},"modified":"2016-12-05T10:00:29","modified_gmt":"2016-12-05T16:00:29","slug":"monitor-your-small-business-reputation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/2016\/12\/monitor-your-small-business-reputation.html","title":{"rendered":"Monitor Your Small-business Reputation"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"online

Online Tools (CC) by Greyweed, Flickr<\/p><\/div>\n

What\u2019s being said about your small business online?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Many small business owners have made the decision to not get involved in the growing social media trend. Their reasons include: the time or money it takes; don\u2019t understand it; doesn\u2019t seem necessary; or their customers aren\u2019t using it.<\/p>\n

Avoiding the online world \u00a0is the wrong path to take for two reasons.<\/strong><\/p>\n

First, your business is being put on the map without you doing a thing.<\/strong> This happens when various companies and services just do it. It also occurs when people, such as myself, identify you through Yelp, Trip Advisor or being a Google Local Guide. (I put one on and corrected one before coming to work this morning.)<\/p>\n

When your business is identified and mapped, you have the opportunity to \u201cclaim your business.\u201d<\/strong> This means you can provide basic information about your business including physical address, phone number, web site, and store hours. This information is what the mobile world, well over 50% of the U.S. population, uses as their business data base.<\/p>\n

It also allows you to correct information that someone else may have already posted. I did a workshop on having an online presence. During the event I searched for several businesses present that day. The physical location for one of them, a restaurant, showed up as being in the parking lot over six blocks away. As a consumer, if I can\u2019t find you immediately I will probably just go somewhere else.<\/p>\n

When claiming your bubble, you also will find reviews already posted. \u00a0Thank people for offering testimonials.<\/p>\n

For negative reviews, engage them to see how you can resolve the problem. If it is a major issue, take the conversation out of the public channel. The important thing though is to show you are responsive. And it\u2019s important that others see you are concerned.<\/p>\n

There is an underlying caveat to responding to reviews, negative and positive. It assumes you are being timely in your response. A response six months after the fact doesn\u2019t help.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Second, outside of the business mapping service, people are more and more likely to use a social media channel for a testimonial or, more likely, a complaint.<\/strong> It\u2019s crucial that you have one or more alert systems in place to monitor what is being said about you and your business.<\/p>\n

In the area where I live, there is a controversial issue. Without their knowledge, businesses are being mentioned as being supportive or non-supportive. In the cases I am aware of, they are neither. However, this does not stop social media from spreading the story.<\/p>\n

Responding to this stories is crucial for small-business owners. Yet in three of the cases I know about, the owner was not aware of the stories. Thus, my big push as to why you need to be online.<\/p>\n

The chances are that, at some level, your business is being mentioned online. Even if it is your local paper\u2019s online edition, you are there.<\/p>\n

So accept the fact your business is online. Make plans to use it for building your business.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What\u2019s being said about your small business online? Many small business owners have made the decision to not get involved in the growing social media trend. Their reasons include: the time or money it takes; don\u2019t understand it; doesn\u2019t seem necessary; or their customers aren\u2019t using it. Avoiding the online world \u00a0is the wrong path […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","filesize_raw":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,11],"tags":[170,261,153,224,48,158],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10972"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10972"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10972\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10974,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10972\/revisions\/10974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smallbizsurvival.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}