Move Into 2012 By Using More Customer Content

Move Into 2012 By Using More Customer Content:

It’s important for companies to start building their strategies and embracing new methods for the coming year. The next 9 months are going to bring even more changes to the social search optimization landscape, so be sure to have a firm grasp on what the most significant phenomena are going to be.

One that has been getting a lot of attention lately is customer-generated content. It might seem counter-intuitive to put important work like this in the hands of strangers and unknown entities, but it’s actually a very useful tool for organizations that want to bring even more clients into the fold. A lot of it has to do with the lowered reputation that advertising has received in the past few years.

Specifically, the rise of the internet has made it much easier for people to find facts and first-hand accounts about businesses. In the past, companies with enough money could flood the airwaves or social sphere with claims and opinions about the quality of products and services. This made it hard for undeniably good but small-scale companies to shine through and find customers.

There are quite a few websites and online resources for customers who want to learn about organizations from other people and not the marketing departments of those businesses. This is the heart of SEO campaigns and illustrates how important organic outreach is. Letting consumers add their own five cents to an organization’s online identify can be extremely helpful in convincing consumers who are increasingly willing to research potential clients to do business. Here are some ways to go about doing so.

Social media curation

A social media profile can provide a space for consumers to share information with one another or with companies. The majority of what appears on a Facebook page or Twitter feed will be made by the organization itself, but it can be helpful for businesses to show that they aren’t the only entities that are producing information. Allow people to freely post on walls and feeds, but make sure to monitor them for proper behavior and content.

Reviews and ratings

Companies that are afraid of what honest reviews on Yelp, FourSquare or CitySearch will do to their business aren’t taking the modern lessons of online media to heart. An organization is going to succeed on these sites if it is receptive to customer needs and serves clients well. It may be rough at the outset of a Yelp campaign to find people saying harsh and negative things about one’s business, but it will ultimately make an organization better. Customer outreach is a long-term affair and won’t be accomplished overnight. Remember the more reviews there are, the more likely it is that ratings will even out in a company’s favor.

Guest blogging

If there’s one phenomenon that’s come to pass in the last decade that deserves to be remarked upon, it’s the blog. Of course, most companies will understand the value that these tools provide to lead scoring and general SEO efforts. However, it should also be noted that the sharing of personal thoughts is unprecedented. Therefore, a guest blog by a consumer is a tool that has yet to fully be explored. Consider asking regular customers or repeat clients to share their thoughts in a testimonial, but give them slightly freer reign to include their thoughts. This keeps things from sounding as if they were generated solely by a company itself.

Move Into 2012 By Using More Customer Content is a post from: B2B Marketing and Lead Generation | Optify