The Internet is a bit of a jungle, really. Anyone can write stuff about your business and post it on Facebook or Twitter, or on any of thousands of other free websites. They can leave reviews – good or bad – on sites like HelloPeter.com or Yowzit.com, or on your Google Place page.

Nearly 70% of consumers check online reviews before they decide to buy a product or use a supplier. These days, it's getting even easier – just search for a business with your smartphone, and you have access to dozens of real people's experiences. Sites like the ones I mentioned above get thousands of visitors every month.

Good reviews on these sites can do amazing things for your business. People trust them – at least the ones that seem authentic. If you're getting great reviews, you can relax. But if you're not on the ball, one scathing review can put potential customers off for years to come.

The key is to be aware of what people are posting about you, and where. If you know what they're saying, you can respond, and try tofix the damage. At the very least, you can build trust by showing potential customers that you are a real person, that you care about your customers and that you want to sort out problems. The alternative is to hide your head in the sand and lose customers without even knowing about it.

Let's face it, people are talking about you, whether you know about it or not. If you know about it, you can respond.

The review below was posted on a restaurant's Google Place page in 2010 – who knows how many customers have been put off since then.

One bad review may be excusable, but when there are two…

And the interesting thing is that the restaurant owner is probably unaware of these reviews, or if they are aware, they haven't taken the most basic steps towards counteracting their effects.

You can see that they haven't claimed their Google Place page. Claiming your Place page gives you the option of responding to reviews, both good and bad.

And here's where they appear in a Google.co.za search for "restaurant sandton"…

What can you do to limit the effects of a poor review? There are a number of steps you can take.

First prize is to reach an agreement with the person who left the review, to get them to take it down or change it. This is not always possible – some sites don't allow reviews to be edited once they're posted. But most sites, including Google, will allow a response by the business owner. In order to do this on Google Places, you'll need to claim your listing.

It's important to maintain a professional attitude when responding to negative criticism. You should not writing to relieve your frustration with the reviewer. You should be writing with the future in mind – the dozens, maybe hundreds of potential customers who may see the discussion over the next years. You need to make an earnest attempt to sort out the reviewer's problem, so that potential future customers can see that you are responsive, that you care, and that you are prepared to make an effort to protect the reputation of your business.

Another effective way to counteract poor reviews is to smother them with love. Make a concerted effort to get happy customers to leave positive reviews, so that the negative ones are pushed down. Google Place pages only show the first 5 reviews, so you many only need 5 to push a negative review onto the second page, where hardly anyone will see it.

Whatever you do, DO NOT post fake reviews. Google is smart enough to know when a bunch of positive reviews are all coming from one computer, and fake reviews tend to sound fake. If you post 15 "5-star" reviews on the same day, it looks a bit obvious. (Having said that, Google hasn't done anything about the ones below – but if I were a competitor, I might point it out and spoil their nice 5 star rating!)

Rather, concentrate on giving your customers an awesome experience, and make it as easy as possible for them to post their reviews.

These days, most of your customers have smartphones. The easy solution to getting reviews posted is to get them to use their phones, and give them an incentive to post a review while they're still in your restaurant. Offer a small incentive, like a free coffee or desert, in exchange for an honest review.

Check out our Voice Of The Customer package, which gives you a head start towards collecting those vital positive customer reviews.

Using the Power Of Online Reviews To Market Your Business is a post from: IdealMedia.co.za

Business networking groups and online forums can be an effective way to get your marketing message out to other small business owners. In South Africa, there are a number of groups which meet regularly.

All of the groups have some form of online presence. They generally require you to create a user profile so that you can post text and images to the site.

Here are the ones I have personal experience with:

Networking Groups

Inner Circle
Inner Circle meetings are held regularly in Johannesburg, Midrand and Pretoria. They focus on finding synergies between businesses, and help to set up strategic alliances or joint ventures between business owners. Meetings generally attract 20 to 30 people. There is a R100 charge per meeting. The online presence is a Ning social media site, with around 900 members. Highly recommended.

MyGenius
A national business owners membership site, which claims to have 13,000 members. Paid membership is R95 p.m. There is a free membership option. MyGenius members meet in small groups, usually 10 or fewer. There is no charge for meetings. The online system is a sort of social network, running with quirky home-grown software.

SA Business Hub/Majestic Coffee Groups
Majestic, in association with SA Business Hub, coordinates regular coffee group meetings throughout the country, where business owners meet to discuss their challenges and work together to become financially sustainable. Attendance is free. There are usually between 6 and 12 people at a meeting. There is a sort of online presence at MajesticInteractive, but all it lets you do is publish “informative and educational” articles, without links. Why bother?

Networking Johannesburg Meetup Group
This group meets twice a month at Cresta Shopping Mall. It’s free, and the membership is steadily increasing. Sign up on the Meetup.com website, or go to http://www.facebook.com/NetworkingJohannesburg. IdealMedia sponsors this group.

Online Forums
TheForumSA
TheForum is a free forum for business owners. Fairly active, with 297 signed-up members. You need to be a member to post, but you can read most of the forums without signing up.

BusinessWarriors
Business Warriors is Peter Carruthers’ paid membership site. The forum is lively and interesting. The paid structure means that people are more willing to speak their minds.

Social Networking sites
ecademy
A high traffic international social network for small business owners. Plenty of South Africans here. There is a 3-tier membership structure – free, Power Networker and Blackstar.

Collabor-Eight
Another South African Ning-based social networking site. 143 members.

Business Network Online
I’ve just joined this network. It’s a social networking site, with around 330 members.

Other resources:
Of course, the ‘traditional’ social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn etc let you contact people based on their location. A new entry is GatorPeeps, which is Afrigator’s ‘Twitter-like’ microblogging platform.

If you are in any kind of B2B enterprise, you should at the very least visit the websites I’ve listed above. The contacts you make can be invaluable.

Top Business Networking Groups is a post from: IdealMedia.co.za

The $64,000 turntable from Angelis Labor

Seeing CNN’s report on “The best turntable $64,000 can buy?” made me think of Seth Godin’s recent book, All Marketers Are Liars – The Power of Telling Authentic Stories In A Low-Trust World.

Seth points out that most consumers these days are motivated by irrational wants rather than objective needs. Presenting factual information about a product is no longer effective.

What works is to tell a great story about your product – and what could be a greater story than the most expensive turntable in the world?

The price is the story is a post from: IdealMedia.co.za