Magazine for the professional tire industry
Issue link: https://mtd.epubxp.com/i/148910
Business insight Facebook network for a dinner recommendation in a town you might be visiting and geting frsthand comments from your network of friends/friends of friends. How about searching that same network for a local business to fnd a place to buy new tires or auto service? Friends listen to friends. Imagine if a negative experience is posted by these users about a particular business or product. I hope you are geting the picture of how powerful this Facebook Open Graph can become. Facebook took a diferent approach than Google. Tey didn't build the entire information database. Tey taught their users how to fsh. Tey built the infrastructure and the users built the vast collection of valuable information by using Facebook as the tool. Te results are clear; it has become the most extensive site on the Internet for people communicating with people and businesses about everything. What does it mean for you? So what does all this Google goop and Facebook fodder mean to you, the business owner? It means you best pay atention. To which one, you ask? Both! With the extensive user communities in both camps, you need to establish your business presence on both. Claim your Google+ Local site and create your business Facebook page. Make sure you get positive reviews, experiences, Facebook "likes" and postings from consumers updated to both sites. You need customers to become raving fans of your business 52 Quik-Link: 800-687-1557 ext. 19120 and share their satisfaction of your company on both Google and Facebook. You may decide to ignore one or both, but the user communities won't, especially if they have a bad experience. You can almost guarantee they will post it somewhere or worse, everywhere. If you are proactive in your online reputation management, you might be able to intercept negative reviews before they post them to the world. You need to make sure you have the best possible online reputation. It's clear that Google and Facebook have declared war and are fghting it out in cyberspace for supremacy. Which one will win out? In fact, will one of them win out? Can they both continue to dominate? Only time will tell. If you want to see how far they both have come in such a short time frame, look back at my article entitled, "Claiming the top spot on social media" (MTD September 2012). So much has changed in so litle time. What will they think of next? Maybe they will invent eyeglasses that will display text messages and show Google reviews or Facebook graphs? Meanwhile, I recommend, as a business owner, you need to pay atention to both and make sure you are participating fully in both. ■ As CEO and president of WECnology LLC, Wayne Croswell is a "complimentary technology advisor" for independent tire dealers. Croswell can be reached at wcroswell@wecnology.com or (603) 249-5530. See his website at www.wecnology.com. Quik-Link: 800-687-1557 ext. 19121