Saw this cartoon on Ranked Hard  - but of course we think 'who needs the Yellow Pages when you have HelpHound'.

Engage: The Complete Guide for Brands and Businesses to Build, Cultivate, and Measure Success in the New Web

Have you been wondering how using 'Twitter' could enhance your business?  You may want to start by reading the following abbreviated excerpt from Engage, a new book that helps businesses build, cultivate, and measure success in social media :

 

 Last year, Forbes magazine assembled a visual list for its Top 21 Twitter Tips to showcase business examples on how to use Twitter for marketing, service, sales, and ideation. The original compilation served as inspiration for a new list, one that helps businesses of all shapes, sizes, and focus embrace not only Twitter, but all social networks of relevance.

While many of the examples and quotes remain the same, the list is modified based on my observations and personal experiences.

Unhappy Customers Gain Google Ranking

This article highlights how just one 'negative' review can quickly go viral, damaging the reputation of a company almost overnight, if a unhappy customer doesn't get a satisfactory response to their complaint within a reasonable time frame.  

What have ‘Kwik Fit complaints’ and ‘Kwik Fit Managing Director’ got in common? 

 

Answer? Try these phrase searches on Google, and you’ll be brought here.

The ongoing blog post about the Kwik Fit deathtrap car blog (another popular Google search phrase at the moment) has reached great heights – more than 100 hits per day, with numerous comments on the blog post itself and the anti-fan page on Facebook.

ChannelAdvisor Catalyst: 10 real life consumers

 It is interesting to read in this article on tamebay.com that 6 of the 10 consumers on this particular panel used review sites but none of them had written a review.

 One of my favourite sessions at ChannelAdvisor Catalyst is the consumer panel. 10 real life consumers who are chosen at random are given no briefing on the Catalyst event tell where they buy online, what makes them use a particular site, and answer questions from retailers attending the conference. In no particular order other than as they were raised here’s some of the comments from the panel.

Your Brand in their Hands

Was reading Simon Mainwaring's blog on his 'Top Ten Digital Trends for 2010" and found number ten of particular interest as it shows the importance of keeping a careful watch on what your customers are saying about you on line and responding to both positive and negative comments:

10. YOUR BRAND IN THEIR HANDS
Combine the trends of social media, real time search, location sharing services and augmented reality, and it’s easy to see how digital marketing is increasingly being exercised in partnership with consumers. With data, tools and networks being accessible everywhere, consumers can interact with each other in ways of their choosing that can make or break a brand. As such the most effective digital marketing with invite contribution and celebrate participation by consumers.

Tim Norman on ‘What the customer wants’

Good article on 'ReputationOnline' by Tim Norman, sales director of Northern Europe at SDL Web Content Management Solutions, on how bands are embracing social networking to engage with their customers:

"Online customer engagement has become one of the hottest topics of the last 12 months for marketing departments of all businesses, while social media and web 2.0 tools have been heralded as the gateway for attracting and retaining customers.  These multiple channels of customer engagement are seen as the holy grail of successful business.

Yet online marketing strategies and techniques still seem to be falling short of consumer expectations.

Rating A Place Of Worship: Is It The Pious Thing To Do?

This story by Jessica Alpert on www.npr.org caught my attention and I am wondering whether our members would recommend their places of worship on HelpHound?  Let us know.....

"When I told a few friends that I was working on a piece about online church reviews, they looked at me blankly.  Yeah?  At least for some people, reviewing a sermon or a congregation online seems perfectly reasonable.  But as I started talking to people around the country, I found a significant percentage who could not be more horrified by the trend.