Online Reputation Management

The Best Defense is a Good Offense

Today more than ever word of mouth matters, the spoken word is more powerful than the written word.

Spoken -vs- Written

• The Spoken Word is “The voice of the consumer, what they think, how they feel.”

• The Written Word is “The marketing or sales message that we professionals publish about a product.”

What Is ORM ? Online Reputation Management, is the art & science concerning everything about your company’s brand on the World Wide Web. Online Reputation Management include …

• search engines,

• blogs, news sites,

• forums,

• social sites,

• video channels

(Step 1) Know What is Being Said?

• Do you know what’s happening to your business online?

• Do you know what the latest news is about your business?

• Do you know what people think about your business?

• Do you know what consumers are saying about your business?

• Do you know all these about your competitor?

3 Great Monitoring Tools

- Set up - Step 1

• Have you set up a Google Alert for your Business? If not, you can do this by going to your Google account..

Google Alert - Step 2

Google Alert - Step 3

• Click on Tab with your account name

• Click on “Account”

Google Alert - Step 4

• Click on Products

Google Alert - Step 5

• Click on Alerts

Google Alert - Step 6

• Click CREATE ALERT button

What You Get

Get Best Only

Get All Mentions

Alerts.yahoo.com

How to Set up - Yahoo Alerts

• Choose “My Alerts”

Log in

Create Account

Fill Out Application

.COM

Social Mention

Now That We Are Listening, What Is Next?

Formulate a simple plan of action to maximize / utilize each of the following web - social applications.

• search engines,

• blogs,

• news sites,

• forums,

• social sites,

• video channels

Think Smart • As a Lifeguard you are taught to, 1-Throw 2-Row 3-Go. The last

place you ever want to be; is in the water with a drowning victim.

• When it comes to Online Reputation Management, the stakes are

just as high. 1-Create, 2-Publish, 3-Defend.

• It’s called a “Last Option” for a reason, you can get hurt.

Influencing Search Engines 3-Things that Search Engines are looking for.

1. Content (Documents - Videos - Social Posts)

2. Keywords (Consumer Used Terms)

3. Links

• Online Reputation Management is not a reaction. It is an action, you MUST become an online content publishing machine.

• Content – Content - Content

Blogs Feed Fresh Content to Search Engines

• Art- writing / creating an inviting literary environment (Creative Content). Website & Social Media Marketing is an environment that is filled with options and possibilities.

• Caveat… People will not intentionally read useless content; they will not follow the mediocre.

• Social Media allows each person, product or service the opportunity to truly shine. To sum up the goal of any content creation program in one word , Inspiration!

Blogging TIP

• TIP- Change your perspective. To find customers online you must forget "yourself," and change your paradigm. You've got to think like a person who has never seen your product.

• "Product Pride" can be poison to creativity; step out of your shoes and become a stranger to your product. For example, a vacation is not about the hotel, or the attraction, or the restaurant. It's about the total experience. Think along these lines and you can lead customers to your door.

Link Blog to Social Sites

Hoot Suite • Command Center for broadcasting your

content to various channels, you must target or pair content & consumer your information is not for everyone.

• Hoot Suite is also another great tool for Managing your Online Reputation

Great Example Content for FB Where Should I Stay on Vacation in Gatlinburg TN?

Lead people where you want them to go! Open a conversation, ask your fans a question they will tell you exactly what they think.

Why Care About

o50 Million Monthly Visitors across 18 Travel Brands

oHosts 6 Million Candid Photos

oProperties with More Than 20 Photos Get 150% More Engagement

oVast Majority of Traveler Comments are Positive

o65% of People Surveyed State a Management Response would Sway Travel Decisions.

They Don’t Like Me

Get the Truth??? It may be a version of the Truth.

You are insulted, count to 10.

Don’t be Don Quixote, be calm think strategic.

The Defensive Offense

•Step #1 Ask Trip Advisor to Remove it.

•Step #2 Have a Plan (B) with a goal in mind.

Plan “B” • Assess - the situation, think strategically

• Isolate - the problem or issues –

• Formulate - a plan of action count to 10- never react or respond in anger.

• Remove - the discussion from Public view Invite them to respond to you directly,

• Respond - to a bad review as you would a good review Turn the tables Kill them with kindness, be forewarned that you will need to provide a solution.

RB&A – Tip & Tactics

• I always copy the comment from Trip Advisor into a Word doc, so that a response can be drafted in a clear and concise manner. Addressing each point and lead the visitor to where I ultimately want them to go.

• In short I address their concern and open the door for a solution if they wish to follow up.

• Knowing that 65% of people on Trip Adviser are looking for management responses, I always restate their concern and pick it apart in the most pleasant way possible.

• Potential visitors want to know we care, by addressing the concerns and pointing out options they could have taken is my strategy.

Trip Advisor Complaint

Evereadi

The trip itself was great.......of course there is a but!!!! Our guide was not very friendly and seemed to be ready to get trip over as soon as possible. Of course since you are rafting you cannot take pictures; but the company (Rafting in the Smokies) takes pictures just like most of the attractions in Gatlinburg do. However the cost to purchase ONE picture was $25 and in order to get all of the pictures which was only about 5 or 6 additional shots (good ones to say the least) it would have cost $45. Keep in mind that these are not printed pictures they are digital pictures that are put on a disk. At other tours the cost for the disk of all of your photos was about $22.

Visited September 2011

(1) Introduce Yourself – Defuse.. Dear Everadi:

Thank you for your recent comment of our facility we value every comment; you help us provide a better service to our guests. I see by your posting that your experience was less than you had hoped for, it appears that you had visited our facility in September of 2011 and the guide was not friendly? I would very much like

for you to call me at (888) 000-0000. I would like to hear all

the details of your visit. As the General Manager, I speak for myself and the Ownership team when I say that our company strives to provide an unforgettable experience.

(2) Address Issues - Discredit • I understand that this may be tough since it has been

4 months since you visited our facility, but if you could recall your guide’s name that would be very helpful to me in coaching the correct guide as to experience expectations. We handle every situation immediately upon notification and again I thank you for bringing this to my attention.

• To address your second issue about cameras and photos, many of our guests do take cameras with them on their trips. For those guests who do not have water proof housing for their camera, we offer water proof disposable cameras in our gift shop.

(3) Kill Them With Kindness

• We suggest all cameras be in water proof housing. We would hate to see someone ruin or possibly lose an expensive camera in the river. In recent years, we have also seen many of our guests filming their experience with Go- Pro action cameras.

• The souvenir photos that we supply are through a third party vendor who is a professional photographer. We do supply these for a fee, but you are given a disk of your photo and or photos that the professional photographer has released all rights.

(4) Lead Them Where You Want Them To Go • This is done so that you can copy the photos as

many times as you wish, send them to family and friends over the internet, share them on Facebook and other social sites and finally print as many copies as you wish. We try to be as price conscious as possible in providing souvenir photos and being able to pay a professional to provide the best product possible.

• I do hope that this note finds you well and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely

Trip Advisor Comment (Removed) • It is possible to get comments removed

• You must go through the Owners Center to dispute validity of claim.

• I disputed the following complaint because the patron never knocked the product , he was upset about parking in Gatlinburg. He did mention, all he saw was roof tops as a view.

• I first responded and then asked it to be removed

• Trip Advisor Removed Comment & Bad Rating

• Dear : Yetanother Roadtrip,

• Please allow me to introduce myself, My name is (Name) I am the owner of the Gatlinburg Space Needle. I would like to thank you for taking the time to place a review on Trip Advisor. From your review, it appears that you did not have a good time at our facility. I would like to point out that unfortunately The Gatlinburg Space Needle has nothing to do with parking; In fact I do not believe that any attraction in downtown Gatlinburg has a parking lot of their own. Parking is and has always been an issue in our city; if I may I would like to offer some helpful advice for any future visit that you may make to our fine city. There are several parking lots located near the Space Needle, ranging in price from $5.00-$8.00 for all day parking. The City of Gatlinburg has come up with an additional FREE Trolley route that has been added to its Pay Trolley service. This has been done to help visitors move from one end of Gatlinburg to the other during these financially challenging times.

• Regarding the view from Gatlinburg Space Needle observation deck, we are very proud of the unobstructed 360 degree view of Gatlinburg and the surrounding mountains. Our facility is a land mark in Gatlinburg it was built in (Date), we regularly update our attraction, and in fact the interior cabins of the Glass Elevators were just reconditioned on July 2nd of this year. It sounds as if you only rode the Glass elevator to the observation deck one time.

• With any full price admission, you should have received the Gatlinburg Night & Day Double Play incentive; this gives a patron an added value at our attraction. The view of Gatlinburg during the day and the view at night are extremely unique. If you would please let me know whether or not you were informed of the Double Play special, please also include the date and approximate time of your visit to our facility.

• Given this information I can follow with our staff to make sure that each person who visits The Gatlinburg Space Needle receives the full experience.

• There is no place in Gatlinburg or on any mountain that you can stand and see downtown Gatlinburg and the mountains in a 360 degree view. If you are looking for a 360 degree view of the beautiful Smoky Mountains, I suggest Clingmans Dome, it has a spectacular view of the mountains, but lacks the view of Downtown Gatlinburg.

• I hope that the rest of your visit to our area was more agreeable and I hope that I have provided you with some useful tips of travel if you return to the Gatlinburg Smoky Mountain area.

• Please contact me at (Phone # ) regarding whether or not you were informed the Double Play incentive.

• Kindest Regards

Lodging Challange

• “Customer Service was completely unfair”

Reviewed January 16, 2012

My husband and went for summer vacation. We had booked three nights. After our first night stay our daughter went into pre-term labor and we had to leave unexpectedly. The owner refused to give us a refund. She gave us a rain check, but it was only good for 6mo. and we couldn't go back during that time so we lost our money. The rooms were too pricey and the staff was unfriendly. Would not recommend.

(A+) Lodging Response

Lee Mellor, Owner at Buckhorn Inn, responded to this review

February 15, 2012

I am very distressed to learn that this guest found our customer service to be unfair and that he felt he was treated rudely. All our employees are trained to be courteous in their interaction with guests especially when communicating policies. Because we are a small inn not located on a busy highway, we have a 10 day notice of cancellation which guests are advised of on our website, verbally and in a written letter of confirmation. This guest had booked with us at a busy time when we completed booked and turning away folks who wanted to stay with us. Because we were sympathetic with this guest, we waived our usual policy and gave them a gift certificate for another stay. At the time we issued the certificate they seemed pleased and we are sorry that later it did not seem to be sufficient. If this guest had contacted me, I would have been happy to consider extending the use date.

Practice Time

Restaurant Challenge • “Disappointing” • Reviewed August 7, 2011

• Read the reviews on Trip advisor and thought it would be the perfect place to stop and eat lunch while shopping along the Arts & Craft trail. Unfortunately, my husband and 12 year old daughter thought differently after waiting 40 minutes for a table, being seated and viewing the menu. The porch area of the restaurant was extremely hot and uncomfortable - much like sitting outside. that might be fine in the fall..but in mid 90 degree heat it was not. As I said, the menu was extremely limited and my daughter didn't like anything on the menu who typically not hard to feed and ended up ordering the cheese and fruit tray which was fine. My husband and I ordered the chicken salad which they are known for. Ok, but disappointing to be honest. The chicken salad couldn't even be ordered as a sandwich and had to be ordered as a salad on top of lettuce perhaps because the pieces of chicken were so big it almost had to be cut with a knife. I am so not cheap, but thought the lunch was also expensive for what you got - we all left hungry and wish we had gone to the Cabin cafe which was right around the corner for lunch and had also tried earlier in the week. if you go- bring your own bread! Visited July 2011

Attraction Challenge

• “Cattle Call”

• Reviewed April 9, 2011

• The exhibit itself would have been fun if it wouldn't have been so cramped in such a small place. I went about midday, dropped the family off at the front door and went to park. Parking garage was full, drove around town, 4-5 of the other parking areas close by also full. After about 90 minutes of parking headache, arrived at the aquarium. Literally took 20 minutes to round the first corner after entering. Wall to wall people, no possible way to enjoy the exhibits. Was ready to go after a clostrauphobic 45 minutes. In the future would skip this and plan a trip to Sea World in San Antonio, or even Newport Aquarium, much more aquatic things to do/see, with an appropriately sized venue for the amount of people.

• Visited April 2011

Review - Plan (A)

1. The Best Defense is a Good Offense

2. Setup Alerts – Become Informed

3. Monitor Comments & Sentiment

4. Formulate a Plan to Publish

5. Content - Content – Content

6. 1-Create, 2-Publish, 3-Defend.

Plan (B) If you have to Defend

1. Assess - the situation

2. Isolate - the problem

3. Formulate - a plan

4. Remove - the discussion from Public View

5. Respond - to a bad review as you would a good review.

Thank You for Your Time

I Invite you to Follow Me

rich@therichestweb.com (865) 242-1700

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