Today's Question
What small-business owners think.
Last week, The Times published a conversation with Michael Fertik, who founded Reputation.com, a reputation management company that helps businesses and people play down their negative search results, protect their personal information, gather positive reviews for their businesses and in general buff their images online.
At the time, we asked “You’re the Boss” readers if they had any related questions, situations or strategies they’d like to run by Mr. Fertik. Readers responded with enthusiasm, offering a wide very of specific situations that had been confounding them. Mr. Fertik’s responses are below. The questions and answers have been condensed and edited.
A savvy friend suggested I do more content marketing. But what exactly is it?
It’s curating or creating relevant content for your customers. It generally broadens what qualifies as content you should be publishing. Instead of just saying we’re selling pepperoni slices at discount, you can talk about the pleasure of trying new marinara sauces as a chef or the regional tastes of pizza in Italy.
It’s very powerful for small-business owners. Differentiating yourself from other small businesses is often about location, but it’s also the sense of taste and knowledge you bring to the table.
Aside from encouraging customers to leave reviews, what are the most important things I can do to develop a more compelling reputation than my competitors?
One very inexpensive thing is to really listen to the feedback. If you have a shipping franchise that also does photocopies, and you’re getting consistent positive feedback on the copiers, that’s good to take note of and put the copiers in the front of your store. Similarly, if you are getting feedback saying you open five minutes late every day? Easiest thing to fix.
Also, you should have a very simple mobile-friendly website. This is who we are, this is where we are, this is what we do, here is a sample of our products or services, and here are photographs of our store or products. People really react to photographs — “Yes, I like the look and feel of this place.”
Sometimes a company becomes entangled in a very uncomfortable public debate that it can’t win. How would you advise a client to minimize the negative impact to its reputation in a sensitive public situation without appearing aloof?
If you’re being sympathetically criticized by a sympathetic person, and if the thing you’re being asked to do is low cost and feasible, then it might just be a good thing to do. A lot of companies get customer goodwill by offering refunds or rebates proactively: “Our dessert was late so we’re going to give it to you for free.”
If it becomes more expensive or even destructive, you can’t afford to handicap your company. You can’t kill the village to save it. You might have to just explain the best you can and point to other examples and turn the discussion to the good you are doing.
How can small businesses better localize their online reputation strategies, i.e. offer a different response to a customer living in Kentucky than to one in Brussels? Are locally targeted approaches more effective?
If you have enough business or potential business in a market, it can certainly make sense to hire a virtual contractor to promote you there. But you have to have a very clear style guide and establish clear parameters to make sure the message stays consistent. You might say, “This sauce goes very well with the fish available in the Gulf” versus “with the fish available in the Pacific.” That makes sense. But you don’t want to say it’s low sodium if it’s not.
One of my fears is that one of my namesakes will do something bad and people will see it when they Google me. Do you have any advice for the John Smith problem?
First, as a small-business owner, you want to make sure no one is deliberately doing you harm. If they are, you may have to refer it to a law enforcement person or a lawyer. Second, the most powerful thing is to draw the attention to your true acts and who you are. You want people to find you first. That’s a combination of old school search engine optimization and reputation services.
What advice would you give to someone on the brink of a major career change who has a significant web presence in his/her current profession but needs to shift the landscape?
The first thing is to start by changing your home base. Your home page, LinkedIn page, blog, Twitter. When people look you up, they will find your home bases. And your statement about yourself is the first indicator of what you’re doing. The second is to emphasize the new work. If there are pieces of information about your prior career but less about your new one, you want to start to publish content about your new work.
As a mental health professional, I am not allowed to openly discuss my relationship with a patient. What am I to do when a mentally ill patient writes a scathing review on Yelp when he is off his medications and out of control?
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act has rules. Sometimes your hands are so tied in the medical field you can’t do anything. This a good place to collect real reviews from real people. Most mental health professionals have someone who is willing to go on the record anonymously and say, “I’ve worked with this person for five years. This person has done a very good job. Thanks for all you’ve done.”
Any suggestions on how to handle an Internet bully who follows you around, comments on articles, trashes Facebook and posts multiple reviews across the web?
We call that the dedicated enemy. Unfortunately, it’s way more common than you’d imagine. The Internet is architected to favor the attacker. It takes no time to publish content. Who has time to compete with it? So you really need to consider the heavy artillery of a professional service.