At Cube Creative, we get questions about websites, reviews, content marketing, and social media. In this post, I want to attempt to answer five of the more popular ones.
Our five most asked questions:
1. What is “Google My Business,” and should I be on it?
Yes, everyone who owns a business should be utilizing Google My Business (GMB). Your GMB listing is often the gateway to everything digitally about your business. With Google owning nearly 93.76% of the search market across all their platforms, ensuring your GMB listing is correct and active is critical. I often tell people that the GMB listing is the keystone to everything we do; without it, everything falls apart.
2. How do you handle a negative review?
We get inquiries all the time from clients about negative reviews. More often, it’s review spam. Review spam? Yes, it’s becoming a massive problem across the web, and as of the time of writing this, very little is being done to combat it from the big players. However, there are a couple of things you can do to combat it.
- Report it as spam, but don’t be upset if you don’t see it being resolved.
- The best would be to respond to the post, in a positive and non-combative way, explain that you have no record of them being a client of yours and that you would like to rectify the problem that caused the negative review. In most of these cases, it’s just a negative rating with no explanation.
Here is an example response you could use:
Fred,
We have been going through our records, and we can’t find any records of you, nor do we recognize any of the details of the project. While we hate that you had an issue, we want to make sure you have a pleasurable experience. If you would like to contact us directly, we would like an opportunity to make this right.
Signed,
Your name and title
The example does two things: 1. It shows you are actively monitoring your social channels, and 2. it indicates that you are proactive in making sure you provide excellent customer service.
If you want to know more take a look at these posts:
- How to Deal with Fake Negative Reviews on Google, by Joy Hawkins
- Responding to Negative Reviews – Your Prospects are the Real Audience, by Mike Blumenthal
- How To Manage & Respond To Online Reviews, by Adam Bennett
3. I am super busy right now, should I still be marketing?
When times are good, people tend to think they don’t need to focus on generating new business. When I get this question I always ask, what would you do if the economy dropped out like it did in ‘08. What if all these projects you have booked out for the next few weeks or months suddenly called and cancelled?
When you are in the “times of feasting,” it's the best time to store and invest for “times of famine.” By investing a little right now in your marketing efforts, you will be ready if we hit another recession.
If you are doing these and you have more work than you can handle, then be upfront and tell the prospective person or company that:
“I can get to you in <timeframe>. If you are willing to wait on the start date, I would like to schedule a time to speak with you and discuss your project, so when we are both ready, we can hit the ground running.
What this does is show that you are in demand and that if they don’t want to wait for you, they can find somebody else. Don’t be afraid to “lose that person” chances are they might not have been an ideal fit anyhow. If they are willing to wait, then it says this is important, and they want the best!
4. I have a Facebook page. Do I really need a website?
The short answer is, yes, you really need a website.
We like to explain it this way, would you rather own your home or rent it? I care to guess that you would prefer to own it. Social media is like renting the space where your website is like owning it. Yes, you have hosting, and your domain name are fees associated with owning it, but just think of those as routine maintenance on your home, like mowing the lawn.
Also, think about this, what happens when you have invested all this time and effort, and the platform goes away or changes how they present information to users. Use social media to your advantage and as part of your marketing efforts. Build the audience and use it to drive traffic to your website.
5. What social platform should I be on?
This is a question that I have with almost every prospect or just in casual conversation when I am talking with people. The short answer is you should be on the platform where your prospects, customers/clients, and audiences are.
In our opinion, and from what we have seen from our audiences, Facebook works well in more rural areas and skews more to Gen X to Baby Boomers. Instagram has high usage across the board, but it is a strong visual medium, so it may be more difficult to get engagement if your business doesn’t lend itself to pictures. Twitter is excellent in more urban areas, and when you need to get the news out quickly. LinkedIn has the reputation of “where to go to find a job,” but the platform is much more than that. If you are a business to business (B2B), then you need to think seriously about increasing your presence and activity on the platform.
Take a look at these to help you determine which platform may be right for you.
I often tell clients to claim your name on every social platform you can, but only be active on the ones where your target audiences are and what you can effectively manage. Nothing is worse than not catering to the individual nuances of the individual platforms.
Hopefully, these questions will help you in determining what you should be focusing on in the coming weeks, months, or years. As always Cube Creative is here to help you with your content marketing and digital marketing needs, feel free to reach out if we can help!
