“Oh, Johnny the butcher, he’s great! He always asks about the kids and serves up the best three and a half pounds of roast that my family could ask for.”
Back in the day, word of mouth recommendations were a golden currency. Proprietors got to know the people who came to their shops – they understood who they were and what their needs were. In turn, business owners relied on their customers to spread the word to their friends and family about the services they provided or the products they sold.
Today, the web is actually taking us back in time, according to Mark Britton, CEO of Avvo.com, the largest legal- and health-related Q&A website. Just like with Johnny the butcher, people today are usually using a good or service based on a friend’s or family member’s recommendation. And sometimes, it’s not just friends and family, but the random person on Yelp that helps you decide what hair salon to go to or which Mexican restaurant to eat at downtown.
Britton, who led the second half of the seminar on How to Manage Your Online Reputation, said the web has collapsed the boundaries between business owners and consumers. Businesses and brands cannot hide behind the web.
As Britton insightfully (yet obviously) points out: If you want to know more about a company, what do you do? You Google it!
It is important for brands and organizations to be online, and to have their web assets properly optimized for search engines like Google. And, he’s pretty blunt about it: If businesses aren’t online and they don’t have a strategy behind their online presence, they will fail.
Britton calls it a “core web presence.” Not necessarily tons of bells, whistles and all of the social media platforms that exist, but rather a smart web presence that works best for your brand. He also notes that when you spend a lot of money on a website (which many companies do), you should be invested in it for the long run, updating regularly with fresh content and images.
However, your web presence needs to do more than just market your business. It also needs to be interesting to people by pointing them back to something informative or entertaining. A brand needs to contribute to the online conversation in a timely and productive way.
It really comes down to providing consumers that added value – whether it’s the friendly smile that goes along with the delicious roast from Johnny the butcher, or the strategic, informed web presence that only your brand can offer.
