I’ve always wanted to try text marketing for entertainment facilities. Many, many people came to me with proposals but they were all too expensive, costing hundreds of dollars a month.

Now, we have an in-house tool that’s simple and inexpensive. The tool allows you to use a local number to build lists of users you can text to. You can text monthly coupons, events or other news to your list(s). You can have up to 10 lists based on different keywords to help separate the interests of your customers.

Or, you can use a keyword for an immediate auto-responder, for a coupon or information.

Here’s the basic package.

-500 outgoing messages
-Unlimited incoming messages
-Unlimited contacts
-Up to 10 lists or keywords
-Simple interface
-No setup charge
-Local contact number
-Call-in, web or text to subscribe
-Month-to-month contract

all this for only $25 a month!

We’ll be building larger plans for heavy users, but this basic starter works great for most of our current clients.

If you’ve always wanted to try out text marketing, contact Jason or Alex today!

After the laser tag conference, we discussed search engine optimization in our LinkedIn forum. One of guys did some research on one of the equipment manufacturer’s links.

They had obviously paid a firm to generate links for the site. Generate they did.

Many of the links were on porn web sites. Not exactly where you want to get your links for a family business.

The moral of the story is this: make sure you know who is getting links for you and how they’re doing it.

Ouch!

Reviews on these sites are critical to small business. Thousands of web users (increasingly on their phones right before making a purchase decision) head to review web sites to pick a restaurant, store or service provider. Web site reviews may help with search engine optimization in minor ways.

For many businesses, Google places your star rating right underneath your web site in a search. This part of your reputation is critical to your businesses.

We’re helping a few clients by contacting their biggest and best customers and asking them to write reviews. Our system is to ask a few clients a week. Google may watch for too many positive reviews all at once. Even if they don’t, it looks better to have reviews trickle in.

In addition to helping past customers write reviews, we also provide signage and information to encourage customers in the store or place of business to write a positive review.

Be warned there are a couple of things you don’t want to do. First, make sure it’s actual customers writing reviews. All of the review web sites require an actual customer to write the review. You can’t write it for them or even reword a letter or email for a review.

Some Reputation Management firms offer to post reviews on behalf of customer or write completely bogus reviews. This is an example of Black Hat tactics that could get your web site and company in big trouble. In addition to being against the rules of the review sites, this is potentially advertising fraud.

You also shouldn’t give your customers a reward for a positive review. This is also potentially fraudulent. Strive to earn your reviews the old fashioned way- with great service and a great product.

If you want to set up a positive review system for your small business, give Alex a call at 716-200-3815.

I said paid advertising didn’t look good. People are generally distrustful of the truthfulness of paid advertising.

But, it got me thinking about whether you should respond to negative reviews. In a nutshell, you should respond to reviews where you can.

Responding to a negative review is a micro-sized public relations campaign to tell your side of the story and to help ease the worry of future customers who might read the review.

Take this simple 5 step approach:

1. Take a step back. Don’t respond immediately when you’re angry over what the customer wrote or did. Wait until you calm down and show your response to someone else before you post it.
2. Empathize with the Customer. Look at the situation from their point-of-view, not yours.
3. Realize the Reviewer Has the Upper Hand. Look, the customer is not always right. We know that. But, whether it’s fair or not, an on-line reviewer has the upper hand. They are perceived as sympathetic.
4. Be Honest and Humble. No business can give 100% perfect service every time. If you respond with “something like that couldn’t have happened at my place,” you’ll look egotistical or foolish.

Offer to Make It Right Off-Line. There is no reasons to discuss the exact resolution of the negative review on-line. You don’t want to set a precedent for future problems.

This certification means that Alex and Jason are able to handle online reputation problems large and small in a safe, systematic way.

He gave sessions on add-on sales for laser tag and a long session on web search engine optimization (SEO) and reputation management for small businesses.

He has been working in and around the laser tag and entertainment industry for over 25 years. Currently, he is an operator of mobile laser tag through Madd Matt’s Entertainment his mobile entertainment company.

Jason’s presentation included a discussion of the various review and scam web sites which are critical for small entertainment businesses to understand. He also demystified SEO, explaining the basic time-consuming tactics used by white hat SEO firms.

The presentation concluded with a discussion of the importance of mobile web sites for entertainment facilities like laser tag operations. Over 50% of local searches already occurs on smart phones. Entertainment facilities typically create elaborate web sites that translate poorly on small screens.

The 4-day Laser Tag Conference 2012 was a meeting of over 53 operators who use outdoor style laser tag equipment for fixed outdoor, fixed indoor or mobile sites. The event was sponsored by Adventure Sports HQ Laser Tag and hosted at CMP Tactical Laser Tag.

Each evening, the group played laser tag at CMP in Milwaukee. Even Jason, a veteran laser tag player, was surprised by how much fun it was.

“I have played and worked for some of the finest laser tag operations in the world. CMP had the best referees and games anywhere. It was a blast,” commented Jason Bock.

Many of these reviews may be competitors, disgruntled employees, jokers or other non-customers. On the internet, it doesn’t matter. On almost every review site there is simply no way to control who writes an interview or leaves comments about you or your business.

While it’s not impossible to correct these often erroneous reviews (we help rebuild reputations all the time), it’s much easier to put a plan in place before you have problems. It’s also less expensive.

Reputation Management by Alex Bock is happy to put together a plan for you to manage your reputation before you have a problem. Whether we help you, or you develop your own plan, consider these three key points:

1. The Customer Is Not Always Right, But We Need to Treat Them Like They Are

Look, you and I both know that your average customer is not right all the time. Customers don’t understand things. They get confused. They are wrong a lot of the time.

We used to say “the customer is always right.” In the world of today’s internet, we have to live it.

Even a misinformed, incorrect customer can cause damage to your business. With today’s smart phones, they can do it before they leave your parking lot when they are at their angriest.

You don’t have to give in to every customer who walks in the door, but you do have to make them leave feeling like you’ve been fair or they have “won.”

2. You Can’t Ignore Online Reviews – Good or Bad

With the number of people using the internet to research products and companies, you cannot afford to ignore those review sites. Your organization must have a plan in place to capture positive reviews to protect your reputation.

One angry review doesn’t look so bad when there are 50 positive reviews surrounding it.

Capturing positive reviews isn’t as easy as it looks, but Reputation Management by Alex can help you create a program that will help build positive reviews.

3. Promote Positive Sites, Articles, Blog Posts, Videos and Press Releases

If you don’t have a program in place to promote positive mentions of your name or business, your reputation could suffer.

Like search engine optimization, this isn’t a one-time deal. In fact, Google penalizes Reputation Management companies who try and push too hard too quickly. For the best results, you need a slow drip of positive articles, mentions and press about your business.

This is our specialty. Any serious reputation management company will manage this process for you.

The Internet’s memory is long. You need to get an online reputation management program going today. Contact us now!

The types of tactics determine whether you’re a “good guy” (white hat) or “bad guy” (black hat). The team at Reputation Management Blog uses white hat tactics when we help you with your online reputation issues. The things we do are allowed by Google, Yahoo, Yelp, Bing and other review and search web engines.

What are some black hat tactics we’ve seen?

The biggest problem in reputation management is faked reviews. You may have seen fake reviews on your competitors’ web sites. Companies offer to post positive reviews to make your bad reviews drop to the bottom of the list. Faked reviews are unethical, against the Terms of Use of every review website and could create a potential legal liability.

In 2009, the State Attorney General of New York successfully sued and received a $300,000 fine from Lifestyle Lifts for faking reviews.

http://www.ag.ny.gov/media_center/2009/july/july14b_09.html

The Federal Trade Commission has pursued penalties and injunctions against other firms engaged in these deceptive fake interview tactics.

http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2010/08/reverb.shtm

http://ftc.gov/os/caselist/1023055/110610legacylearningdo.pdf

The bottom line? If you engage in black hat reputation management, or if you hire an online reputation management firm that engages in these  tactics, you could be fined heavily.

Worse, if Google discovers that you are faking reviews, they could remove your entire web site from their search engine.

At one entertainment center we consulted with, they were offered a $4000 program to generate positive reviews. The company was going to call previous customers and post reviews on their behalf.

While this isn’t faked reviews, it doesn’t matter. This is a violation of the terms of service for all the major review web sites like Google Places, Yahoo Local, and Yelp. They clearly state you cannot post a review on behalf of someone else. This is still a black hat reputation management tactic.

When you work with the team from Reputation Management Blog, you’ll get our assistance in developing legitimate positive reviews. We’re not just techies. Our team has years of experience on the front line of retail operations, especially entertainment operations.

We can help you generate legitimate positive reviews while suppressing your negative reviews in a way that Google and other search engines approve of.

If you think you need help with your reputation management, give us a call at 717-983-8699 or email alex@reputationmanagementblog.com.

Although we can help anyone with scam reports or bad reviews, our team has years of experience building web sites and marketing for family entertainment centers and facilities like go-kart tracks, mini-golf courses and laser tag.

We can help you. Contact us today at (717) 983-8699 to discuss your issue or email Jason or Alex at help@reputationmanagementblog.com.