case studies

case studies — No Comments
24
Nov 08

Bartercard reputation: good, bad but mostly interesting

So far, there are good and bad comments about Bartercard – but what does it mean for their reputation?

This blog is about online reputation. The underlying idea about online reputation is that – whether you like it or not – people will talk about you; and what people say about you will inform prospects decisions to buy or not to buy. And this will, increasingly, be outside of your control.

So there are comments here about Bartercard. Some passionately in favour of it, some dead against.

Interesting.

The people who are dead against are out there persuading prospects not to join Bartercard. Those all for it are out there acting as advocates for Bartercard.

The fact that people have arrived here and commented means that they are (whatever their motivation) looking to see what other people are saying about Bartercard.

If they’re Bartercard employees, they’re checking their online reputation to gauge how their customers feel.

If they’re not Bartercard people, they’re either Bartercard customers or Bartercard prospects.

Here’s the bit that interests us – and why we blogged about this in the first place: if this site is top of Google for the search phrases “is bartercard any good?” and “bartercard reputation” and P1 for “bartercard” then Bartercard are missing an online reputation opportunity.

What opportunity? The opportunity to be seen (at the top of Google) to be inviting and responding to the same kinds of comments that we’re inviting and responding to.

That’s a pro-active approach to online reputation. It’s not about leaving it to regional Bartercard brokers to defend Bartercard. It could be about strategically owning this feedback online and being seen to listen and respond to it from a corporate perspective.

case studies — 3 Comments
12
Jun 08

Online reputation management – case study #1

ORM principle: If you create an information vaccuum, Google will fill it!

A couple of weeks ago I attempted to install the e-commerce plugin for Wordpress, developed by Instinct Entertainment.

I found it hard to understand, let alone implement it and got stuck. Like a lot of current software development and social media sites, there was a distinct shortage of simple ‘how-to’ documentation. It’s as if you’re supposed to just use Google and piece it together from the shards of information you find there.

So, I went to Google.

The first thing I learned was that there was no guide to installing and using this plugin. The plugin had loads of mentions but they fell into one of the following three camps:

1) Highly specific, technical discussions (useless to a beginner like me)

2) Requests from beginners for some kind of guidance!

3) Angry people complaining about the lack of support for the product!

Of course, none of this information solved my problem and I ended up as one of the 3rd category, blowing off steam on somebody else’s blog out of frustration. I posted in a thread where several people had made comments about the lack of support for this plugin – and in which Dan Milward, the plugin’s developer, had commented also.

The blog’s owner gave me a telling off for using her blog as a sounding board (understandably!). On the plus side, Dan came back to me as result of that posting and offered some help which, it turns out, was the solution to the problem.

But the real issue is the fact that I ended up there in the first place.

The point of this case study isn’t to be critical of Instinct. They’ve made a great plugin which I finally got working and which I recommend to anyone. However, by not documenting it they created an information vacuum that Google was only too happy to fill with stuff that was never likely to do them any favours.