Facebook recenly released a guidebook for businesses titled: Facebook Insider’s Guide to Viral Marketing. Don’t get too excited about the title, just because you set up a Fan Page for your business and buy a few social ads does not mean you’ll unleash a profit-virus, or even make a ripple in the pond. But the guide does help you understand what Facebook has made available for you and how to get a Page all set up.

Considering the price (free) it certainly isn’t a bad idea to put one up. Especially since any of your fans can set up a page on your behalf without anyone knowing it wasn’t you, so it’s a good idea to be the first out of the gate so there’s no confusion and you can control your introductory message and the way your Page functions yourself. Other users of Facebook could still set up unauthorized Pages, but at least the early fans won’t be usurped by the unofficial Page.

Get Reviewed on Facebook

Unlike Facebook Groups and Sponsored Groups, Facebook Pages are like people — they can add applications. One application that is useful for online retailers and other businesses is Reviews. Reviews can only be added to Pages, not individual profiles, so you won’t find it in your regular applications search, but you can view the application page through the link.

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Get Your E-Store Reviewed on Facebook »

According to a recent study by the Society for New Communications Research, 59% of consumers use social media to vent their frustrations about customer service experience, and research other companies’ customer service before dealing with them.

• 74% choose companies/brands based on others’ customer-care experiences shared online

• 72% research companies’ customer care online prior to purchasing products and services at least sometimes
• 84% consider the quality of customer care at least sometimes in their decision to do business with a company
• 81% say blogs, online rating systems and discussion forums can give consumers a greater voice regarding customer care, but less than 33% say they believe that businesses take customers’ opinions seriously
• Search engines are the most valuable online tools for this research. Those rated of no value include micro-blogging sites like Twitter or Pownce (39%), YouTube (27%) and social-networking sites like Facebook and MySpace (22%)

Via: Consumers Using Social Media to ‘Vent’ about, Research Customer Service

Do you know what consumers are saying about you?

More than ever I strongly believe each online retailer needs a dedicated social media representative who can perform reputation management by monitoring the conversation on the Web and responding to each concern as effectively as possible. This could be handled internally or by a consultant.

ReadWriteWeb has a great roundup of (free and paid) tools you can use to monitor your online reputation, including Google Alerts, Trackur, Naymz and Monitor This.

Can You Clear Search Results from Negative Word of Mouth?

Because negative comments on popular social networks, review sites, blogs and forums can rank top 10 in search engines for your company name, it can be very easy for customers to find this information on you. Although you cannot demand, beg or bribe search engines from removing these pages from their indexes for you - you can often join the conversation yourself and speak to customer concerns directly.

You can also contact the owners of the websites and negotiate removal or modification of the content. Some will co-operate, others won’t. Some will ask for money. You may think wiping out the content is the preferred approach, but remember that the community is watching you. It’s possible that the thread starters will be notified of their threads’ removal and warned about mentioning your company negatively in the future. These posters can just as easily move their rant to another website, recruiting other members to repeat your company’s keywords and link to each others’ threads and posts to take you down. I’ve seen this happen.

Turn It Into a Crisitunity

I learned from the Simpsons that the Chinese use the same word for crisis as they do for opportunity. Homer coined the term “crisitunity.” I would say the same thing for online reputation management - the seeming crisis is actually an opportunity to show that you listen to your customers and are willing to make good on bad experiences.

You can boast about your commitment to customer service in your marketing all you want, but until you have a chance to demonstrate your service, it’s all hype. So I wouldn’t get too hung up that some people had a bad experience with you, but I would certainly do everything possible to make it right with the customer. When consumers click to read the dirt on your company and read how you handle problems, it gives them more confidence that should something go wrong, they can expect you to fix it.

Glen Allsopp has good advice on how to respond to negative blog posts and how to deal with a RipOff Report listing. Glen also does reputation management consulting for a living.

Bury the Hatchets

Another opportunity is to push negative results lower in search engines by creating content that will outrank it. From my experience helping a national retailer clear the top 3 pages of Google, Yahoo and MSN I have shared a few suggestions on how to create pages on other sites about your company that are likely to rank well. Online retailers can also take advantage of shopping comparison engines, affiliate programs, coupons and deals sites. You want to choose websites that will allow your company name to appear in the title tag of the page, and you’ll also want to link to these pages from other pages to build up their Page Ranks. You have to get creative with this.

You can research which sites to go for by Googling other retailers and see what ranks highly for their names.

Further reading

38 Must-Reads on Online Reputation Management

Many of us wonder what the Elf Yourself campaign could have been if it were a bit more focused on sales. Maybe it would have looked a bit more like Irish Spring’s Get Irish Now campaign?

(Due to annoyingness of sound, I have posted a screen shot in lieu of video. You can see the video here).

Yep, that’s me. I’ve Irishified myself - even down to an Irish accent. (Now, if only it could talk like an Irish pirate…)

Do consumers still get a kick out of this kinda thing? Or is this just another “me too” campaign? Irish Spring did do things a bit differently, which might give this a better shot at success:

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Get Your Irish On - Here Comes Another Viral »

If you recognized this was NOT an official OfficeMax Elf Yourself video, perhaps you’re one of the 26.4 million people who took part in the real OfficeMax viral campaign last Christmas. (For our non-US readers, you can read up on this campaign here).

There’s no denying that this was the biggest social media marketing success for a major retailer in 2007. Hitwise ranked ElfYourself.com as the 51st most visited website in December, and users spent a total of 2,600 years on the site. Even more remarkable, 40% of visitors to ElfYourself.com were 55 years or older - proving that social media campaigns can engage boomers successfully.

OfficeMax VP of Marketing and Advertising Bob Thacker said: “We were looking to build the brand, warm up our image. We weren’t looking for sales. We are third-place players in our industry, so we are trying to differentiate ourselves through humor and humanization.”

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Viral Marketing: Can Dancing Elves Move Product Off Shelves? »

Nielsen Online recently released some data from the top 1,000 influential blogs (determined by inbound link popularity) and discovered that gift recommendations, reviews and gift buying guides were all the buzz in the blogosphere.

As you would expect, gadgets, gaming gifts and other techie stuff was most discussed according to the press release. Which makes this leaderboard a bit of a head-scratcher:

Top Online Retailers Ranked by Buzz Growth for Week Ending December 2nd

Source: Nielsen Online

Are these really the top discussed retailers for product reviews and recommendations? Hallmark? Last time I checked, Hallmark wasn’t sellin’ no iPhones or Wiis. So I looked under the hood at Google Blog Search, and found that there were a lot of results for Hallmark on deals/coupon sharing sites, Hallmark buildings, the Hallmark Channel, and Paris Hilton suing Hallmark for cards like this:

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Most Blogged About Online Retailers - Are They Really? »

Zaz Lamarr hearts Zappos. She really does.

On her personal blog Writing, Cooking, Life, Zaz gives testimony of exceptional service from an online retailer back in July:

“One bright, extraordinary note in all of the sad stuff of the last few weeks - in May we had ordered several pairs of shoes from Zappos for my mom. She’d lost a lot of weight, and her old shoes were all too big. She had a whole new wardrobe of clothes in pretty colors, that fit, so I wanted her to have some pretty shoes that fit, too, when I took her up to Oregon to stay where her sister is. Out of seven pairs, only two fit. Not bad considering she’d never been this thin, so I was winging it, and the return shipping is free.

The rest were here waiting to be returned. Because of various circumstances - lost label, my mom being hospitalized and me being away, the shoes were never sent back. There’s a time limit on the return of 15 days. Remember this. When you do a return to them, they pay the shipping, but you have to get the shoes to UPS yourself. Remember this, also.

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Good Customer Service Still The Best Word-Of-Mouth Marketing Strategy »