Local business reviews are a new kind of social media, in which customers review their experiences with brands over the internet. Business directories such as Yelp, Citysearch, and Yellowpages.com allow for customers to post what they think of the businesses that they have dealt with.

These reviews are seen by the customers who visit such sites, and can serve to gauge the public opinion people have of your brand. The ability of customers to do this has caused the business world to react in many different ways, ranging all the way from ignoring it altogether to overreacting and becoming paranoid. The important thing about this type of social media is that it is transparent. It cannot be altered or removed by the businesses that are being reviewed.

These reviews are important because they affect your brand reputation, they allow you to get feedback from your customers, and they get your brand in the search engines. Because of this, as much as is possible, businesses should respond to the negative reviews to the extent that they can. In many cases this can cause the customer to become a bigger fan of your business than if they hadn’t experienced any problems to begin with, which has a tremendous effect on word of mouth regarding your brand.

One way to do this is through the use of several programs that allow you to track these reviews, such as Cymfony, Trackur, and Marchex. In addition to responding to negative reviews, you can also use these tools to publicly thank people who have given you heartfelt, five-star, positive reviews.

Most forums allow members to insert links to their signature. So the more links to your website, the greater probability for more visitors and search engines to visit. The more links with appropriate anchor text pointing to your website, the more appealing to search engines. SEOA is a forum dedicated towards helping people discover new SEO techniques. Each forum tends to specialise in topic, making forums very productive and important for many online.

Participating in forum chats doesn’t have to be about building up links. Many people interact within online forums to build up relationships and expand their contact list. Helping people with questions or concerns they may have, could work in your favour further down the line.

Industry focused forums also encourage professionals to share their thoughts and ideas online. With valuable input, your information and suggestions could help provide future solutions for the industry and help drive business forward.

As a marketing tactic, forums propose decent productivity. However, this shouldn’t be taken as a cheap and quick marketing tool. Relationships and links take time to build up and more often than not, people give up before experiencing the true returns.

The Media Cube are digital marketing experts based in Kent, who are always surfing the web helping fellow professionals. In fact we are online right now; so why not come and find us on Twitter, @themediacube.

Do you require advice about how to build relationships online and the various forums available to meet and help people? Which forums have you found helpful and have you gained positive feedback in the process?

Drop your comments and thoughts below, or if you would prefer, you can send us an email and see how we can help each other.

 

We spent almost a whole day there on Saturday and think we filmed practically everything there was to see. I’d just like to say a big thank you to Robert and Phil Smith, as well as the rest of the team at Coulsdon Audi. We got some really good stuff, some of which you can see from my own, not so great, camera work. The final ‘professional’ version will be going up live later this week.

With the growth of social media marketing, promoting a company online has become a lot more than just popping the odd press release onto your website. Now it’s about keeping news up-to-date, relevant and interesting. As part of this process we can’t stress enough how adding in things like original video and graphics can really help. Stock images and film from big manufacturers are OK, but to really give your company that extra lift you need to look at going that little bit further.

Coulsdon Audi have done just that with this film and we hope you like seeing some of what went into getting it made. But don’t forget, we’ll be posting the finished piece later this week.

Achieving links back to your website can be a challenging experience for people trying to promote their website. Therefore The Media Cube have produced their own top ten tips on how to gain a positive outcome when searching for links.

Intriguing posts……A starting point is to write content on your site, but make it quality content. The better received the content, the more likely of attracting visitors who will link your content elsewhere.

Become a guest writer……request to become a guest writer on community sites and start contributing on their site. There will be other sites out there that generate a larger audience than yours and will encourage readers to visit your website too.

Scout forums……There are plenty of forums to suit your niche on the web. Sign up to ones related to your subject and become actively involved.

Interact with users……Forums are a great source for networking. Read other people’s posts and respond with valid comments and information so that you are involved in discussion.

Actively use social sites……Sites such as Twitter have become instrumental in attracting new visitors to your content. Regularly updating your ‘status’ with posts or promotions influences the likelihood of someone ‘re-tweeting’ your content elsewhere.

Form alliances……Create and join unique groups within forums and social networks and become a voice to be heard. By presenting yourself as a knowledgeable professional, more people will be intrigued to find out more.

Secure loyal readers……Offer incentives as an excuse for people revisiting your site. Producing content such as “Top 10 tips” on topics of interest are great methods to attract a loyal fan base.

Submit to directories……There are plenty of directories, most of which are free, that will provide links back to your site and help enhance your SEO.

Approach relevant sites…… If a website believes adding a link to their site is beneficial they will consider it. Contact sites related to your services and see whether they can offer a link back.

Appealing content……Look at alternative ways for appealing to the market. Explore other ways of exposing your content, i.e. viral content is a great way to alert the attention of visitors and lead to them linking your campaign elsewhere.

There are endless ways to help generate the links that you desire, but this list is ultimately a good starting point. Remember to actively seek links because otherwise the chances are they won’t find you!