Truthfulness on the Internet

The Do’s and Don’ts of Managing Customer Comments

Many companies are now using social media, open review forms and other public-facing forums to collect feedback from their customers. This can be a good thing and it impacts consumer opinions. I have often referred to others' comments when making a purchase.

Good customer feedback always has a positive effect, as long as it's believable. I have to believe the testimonials or comments are from real customers or I'll just discount them. That's true for most users, and most people are savvy enough to tell the difference between actual customer comments and made-up testimonials.

Negative feedback can sometimes be a deterrent and can cause a loss of business, but it doesn't have to be that way. For one, there is always someone with a negative comment. Everyone knows that and most people will take such comments with a grain of salt. Additionally, a few negative comments can add to your credibility. Users know you're not managing every comment and it can make the positive comments look more believable.

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How Brands Fit Into Facebook's Future

A lot of brands were hoping that Facebook's recent announcements at the F8 Developers Conference would have more to do with increasing the ability for brands to interact with Facebook users, but Facebook's focus was entirely on the user experience. In this blog post, we look at how Facebook's changes affect brands and discuss what brands need to do in order to continue their Facebook marketing efforts.

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Social Media: Advertising vs. Marketing

When people ask me why their Facebook Pages or Twitter accounts are failing, most of the time it is because these channels are not being used correctly.

A few weeks ago I was mentioned in a Twitter post by a local food manufacturer. They were tweeting their followers – one at a time – and asking them to go to the website to shop for food online. When I looked at the company's recent tweets, they had done this about 30 times before they tagged me in the post. This company was using Twitter as an advertising channel to push ad-like messages to followers. I've seen it before and I've seen it since.

Tactics like this just are not meant for social media channels.

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Google+ For Brand Marketers

During the past few weeks I've had a chance to play around with Google's new social network, and so far it looks like they've created something that has a chance at sticking around for a while. Since the death of MySpace a few years back we've seen Facebook continue to grow into the social networking giant it is today. But, as with Friendster and MySpace, something new always comes along.

As of right now, Google+ has managed to attract early adopters of social media, tech junkies, Facebook haters and a few other groups, but the masses can't jump on board yet because the social network is still in beta. It remains to be seen if consumers will see enough of a difference to move their social presence to Google+. Only time will really tell.

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Blog World NYC 2011: Day 2 Recap

Blog World was a great conference. If you missed my recap of day one, you can read it here. There is definitely something gained by actually being at the conference that you wouldn't get by just following the hashtag on Twitter or viewing the slides on Slideshare. Spending the full session time completely focused on a particular topic, in addition to the in-person conversations, really allowed me to get a clear idea as to where things are going.

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