We all know, that reputation is everything, but with the internet years of reputation building can be ruined in just a few clicks– by virtually anyone. The free and transparent nature of the internet fosters an environment that is favorable to the consumer but not so much to businesses and corporations which are often targets of internet trolling. This begs the question: How can brands manage reputation in the digital space?

Social Listening Is Key

Social listening is a proactive way for marketers to view what people are saying about their brand online. It presents an opportunity for brands to measure performance while simultaneously managing their reputation online. There are software applications, like Google Alerts, that allow a brand to be notified when they are mentioned online to track internet conversation in a timely, direct and strategic way.

Knowing When/How To Respond

Responding to negative feedback online can be tricky, but the motto “the customer is always right” is a good way attitude to embody in your response. You should address customer concerns and make them feel that they are important and their concerns are valid. The way you respond to negative feedback can influence the future of a relationship with the customer in question and others who view the response. Taking responsibility and being transparent are always going to be viewed more highly than being defensive or trying to remove negative feedback all together. It is also ideal to move these conversations to more private outlets than social media by prompting other communication outlets such as: email, phone call and direct message.

Positive Content Is Your Friend

Content that is positive in nature can be used to prevent negative, or potentially harmful search results from appearing at the top of a SERP. For instance, corporate blogs can be used to create an additional (positive) SERP result, thus pushing less optimized results lower on SERP results. Positive content is most likely to rank above negative content if it holds extensive links to reputable sites that also use brand keywords.

Emergency Responses

In times of a crisis brands will need to move forward with an emergency response to the situation. For large companies this usually involves a press release addressing the situation and providing solutions to remedy the problem, helping to rectify the brand’s reputation. In any case, emergency responses should revolve around timeliness, transparency and future training. Nonetheless, situations meriting emergency response can often be avoided by championing quality products and engaging in proactive customer service practices.

While negative content is never what we hope for, there are ways to largely prevent it. One way is to consider having a social media account or handle (often Twitter is used for this) dedicated to providing timely support to customers in need. This allows you to filter negative responses to one channel and respond to them quickly, hopefully nullifying the situation before it spirals into a larger public relations disaster. In addition, response to negative feedback can actually foster a stronger relationship between the brand and the customer than they had before the complaint was filed. Lastly, other current and potential customers often see interactions between support accounts and users filing complaints, so responding to them in the appropriate manner is crucial.

Sources:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/tompopomaronis/2018/02/02/the-age-of-online-reputation-management-how-consumers-now-own-brands/#31238f965d5

https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/online-reputation-management-guide-for-social-media-marketers/

All About Hubspot’s Social Media Certification Program

I recently completed the Social Media Certification through Hubspot and I am here to share my review of the process with you. I found the certification to be relatively easy, the videos while cumbersome, were informative and reinforced a lot of what I have learned already in other digital marketing courses. Someone could easily finish the certification in a day, I had originally planned to complete it piece by piece but I actually forgot about it and ended up doing it over two evenings.

The Pros and Cons

I liked that the videos allowed me to choose the speed for playing time because they were a little slow for me to follow without increasing the speed. In addition, I liked how in Hubspot’s video lessons they integrated both lecture style and powerpoint images with definitions, key facts and important information to write down. I did not like how some of their “quiz yourself” questions were phrased because I got some of the questions wrong, despite understanding the material, due to discrepancies in verbiage. Further, in their video lessons Hubspot relied on examples that were internal in nature and thus harder to understand than, perhaps, broader examples that would be more easily identifiable within the audience. Lastly, I found Hubspot’s video lessons to be highly repetitive (throughout the certification process), which could be unattractive to some.

What I Learned

Most of what I learned was in terms of application rather than theory, I felt that I was already familiar with most of the marketing theories and concepts discussed, but I liked hearing about real-world application and how that can vary from theory. For instance, I learned that for Facebook the best posting time is between 1-4pm on weekdays and 12-1pm on weekends. Whereas on Instagram, posts do the best on Mondays and Thursdays anytime except 3-4pm. One term that Hubspot’s lesson coined was “social listening,” which they defined as observing conversations relevant to or about the brand. Data gained from social listening is used to gauge consumer perceptions, as well as provide an understanding on brand reputation and how to move forward with next steps. In addition I liked how Hubspot defined Google advertisements as “intent” based, whereas Facebook advertisements as grounded in consumer “interests.” Finally, I learned the term “life time value” which is measured by average yearly revenue x average lifespan of customer subtract the cost.

To Recommend or Not Recommend?

In conclusion, I believe that this certification would be most useful for entry-level marketers who do not already have a lot of education within the discipline. Nonetheless, on a scale of 1-5 I would by at a level 5 in my likeliness to recommend this program to others. Despite my frustrations, the program is completely free which makes it very accessible for pretty much anyone and a valuable resource for those who do not have access to formal higher education or training.

Greetings Blogosphere,

Is your webpage awesome design and content wise but still not ranking well with Google search optimization? Ranking is everything on Google because let’s be honest here, no one goes past the first page of Google anymore.

Don’t worry, there are easy ways to improve your site’s ranking based on targeted search words. Below I have provided multiple manageable ways to improve your sites Google search ranking.

1. Avoid search words that withstand heavy competition:

One of the most sure fire ways to improve your target search ranking is to avoid using search words that are out of reach competition wise for you. Using words that are niche and uniquely relevant to your site (especially if these words are also used in your marketing campaign efforts), will result in a higher ranking than if you were to use vague and broadly applicable words.

1. Maximize on-page optimization:

Google ranks based on relevance, which is based on the topic of your page and approval which is evaluated by user popularity. Improving your page through indicators like page titles, title tags, image tags and meta descriptions can increase your ‘relevance factor’ for your page in relation to your targeted search words. If you use one of your targeted search words in your title tags, description tags and H1, H2 and H3 tags you are bound to rank higher based on the relevance of your page to your targeted search word.

1. Provide quality content:

This seems like a basic but if you improve the quality of your site’s content, Google will boost your approval rating. It is simple really, if your site provides great content users will naturally share your site link with others. You can improve site content by making posts more lengthy or detailed and using powerful subheadings to organize your site.

1. Use more links:

The more links (especially inbound links), and the greater the provided links are that your website gives users, the more relevant Google will find your site. For me, one way to understand the importance of links is in the sense of any typical academic works cited you would accompany a paper with; it shows that you have done your research and are informed. If you have multiple related sites, this is a great and subtle way to self-promote and direct site traffic through the use of relevant links.

1. Identify any possible ‘red flags’ from Google:

Sometimes Google will flag a page under the search traffic and manual actions tabs in the Google Search Console. This is usually due to association with paid spam links or hacked links and yes Google does keep track of what they deem ‘bad’ links. If all else fails and your website is still ranking poorly, you should consider checking your manual actions tab in your Google Search Console in order to make sure that there are not any other underlying reasons why Google may have deemed your site poor in regards to your targeted search words.

Referenced Articles:

https://buildfire.com/reasons-google-doesnt-rank-site-and-fix-it/

https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/en-us/blog/5-reasons-your-website-isnt-ranking-and-how-to-fix-them

Word Count: 507

Landing pages are essential to inbound marketing efforts; these destination pages are how any e-commerce platform can convert site visitors into purchasing customers. This begs the question, if you have a landing page and it is not working successfully, how can you improve your page? A large part of landing pages are concerned with obtaining email addresses. Often when you “land” a pop up will request an address, this allows the seller to customize marketing tactics and deliver them to each customer directly. According to Whittemore, this allows the marketer to “lead nurture,” which converts an interested and qualified lead into a customer. Whittemore argues that successful landing pages have an offer presented to potential buyers which entices them to provide their email address for an email list. Lowery advocates that there are two essential types of landing pages, “click-through” landing pages and “lead generation” landing pages. Lowery claims that click-through pages ultimately send the customer to the product page, whereas lead generation  pages function to support email marketing campaigns. In addition, Lowery pushes for landing pages with powerful text use to optimize effectiveness. I agree with these proposed ideas because the landing page is the first thing a customer sees when the encounter a site, therefore it is going to leave a lasting impression with the customer and serve a great purpose within the marketing funnel as we studied last week. 

Articles mentioned:

Whittemore https://www.simplemarketingnow.com/content-talks-business-blog/bid/158884/what-is-a-landing-page-and-how-does-it-work?hs_amp=true

Lowery https://www.google.com/amp/s/blog.bufferapp.com/the-ultimate-guide-to-creating-effective-landing-pages/amp