You knew that was coming, didn’t you? But there are ways to push the complaint farther away from your site and out of your search results.

The first thing I would do. Go after that customer, face to face, and see if you can correct what happened. Now some people would say that there are people who are never going to be happy, no matter what you do.

I would disagree and say, “You really don’t know that until you are face-to-face with that person.”

Too many times I’ve seen emails and comments start flaming because when it comes to digital communication it is easy to forget there is another human being on the other end of that discussion. It’s almost like we are flipping mad at our computer and just letting them have it. But once they are in person or on the phone, the anger settles and people can talk in the right TONE to one another.

The other thing to do is to go to those sites that have your complaint and explain your side of things. Tell them how you’ve tried to work this situation out.

But if you can’t fix it, you can out-content them on search results.

If you have only one website on the internet (your singular web presense) on the internet, this is going to be very hard. Because you essentially have only one link or two links that will come up when there is a search for your company.

But if you have multiple web presences…say a YouTube Channel, a Flickr account, a Twitter account, an outside blog or multiple blogs, a facebook page, a myspace page, then you have a chance.

Now what I would do is start pushing lots and lots of content out on the web through these different channels – and there are a heck of a lot of more of them than I mentioned.

Also, don’t do it all at once. Space it out. Get stuff up there at least once a week.

Other things you can do is change your static site frequently. I don’t care if it costs you money because you built a site without a CMS. By not changing your content, it just sits there and Google has no reason to re-index your site.

Get involved in other people’s conversations on their sites. If you are scared of the internet, then talk to someone who understands it and can help you.

The bottom line is get more active on the internet and you can drive them down on the search results.

This is also not a great idea in theory – I’ve done this before with companies. It does work. But make sure you understand this. The same rules that apply to you, also apply to the consumer and that’s why when you step it up – they can as well. So it’s better to just work it out together and not go through this mess.

Good luck. And if anyone else has some ideas on how to do it, let me know. I would love to hear them.

While animal activists and environmental groups have taken advantage of these tools, most family farmers are just becoming aware of them.  Because rural areas lag behind urban areas with their internet connectivity, broadband is not as prevalent for many farm families.  Not surprisingly, this has placed them at a disadvantage with far more content being produced by those with agendas at odds with the average farmer.  A simple search of YouTube or Google with phrases like “hog facility”, “pork farm”, and “factory farms” can verify this.

During my presentation, someone suggested I search for the YouTube video entitled “Truth about Modern Pork Production”, which was produced by Chris Chinn, a former national president of Young Farmers.  She and her husband made the video themselves to tell their side of the story.  With over 3,100 views, it came up second when I searched “pork farm” on YouTube.

What I love about the video is how Chris presents the family farmers’ perspective with a highly authentic production.  No cue cards, no fancy editing, no fancy graphics.  Just a real person talking with real passion about how her family and she take great care of their animals and farm.  

In searching YouTube, you can also find videos made by the Ohio Pork Producers Council on the Ohio Pork Tour channel.  These are most definitely professional productions and feature real people talking mostly from scripts.  While they have an air of authenticity, I didn’t find them to be as engaging of the home production.  You can see their website that contains the hi-res videos and other information. 

As we continued with my presentation, we found a number of great blogs written by farm families shedding light on daily life on a farm.  I recommend checking out Nature’s Harmony Farm, “a family owned, pasture-based, local-market sustainable farm.”  Also, you can work up a good appetite drooling over the recipes at Farmgirl Fare, as well as see plenty of cute animal photos.  Another fun one is Season Eatings Farm, which includes posts on their daily lives and has great photos.

My guess is that these blogs and videos are just the tip of the iceberg that’s possible once more family farms get rolling with the power of today’s internet.

What do you think are some good ways for family farms to tell their story using digital and social media?

In fact, they are so upset that they started a website or blog up and are actively denouncing your company. You went out and did a Google search and they are popping up on the same page as your website.

There’s your company and then right below it, bam. It’s that customer…the one that is really, really mad.

Well, how do you fix it so this guy isn’t second on the list behind your good name?

Unfortunately, most of the business people I talk to think that the customer is in the wrong. That it isn’t their fault and that they did the right thing. But it isn’t really about right or wrong when it comes to the damage a customer can cause to your online presence.

It’s about turning that customer into someone who loves you no matter the initial cost.

That’s crazy talk. No, not for a small business or even a large one.

I believe all you have is customer service. Today almost anyone can do what you do for your customers. The biggest difference between you and your competitors is how you treat them before, during and after they do business with you.

Everyone knows it’s 5x, 7x, 10x more expensive to get a new customer than it is to keep an old one.

And you believe that then you’ll do what it is to keep that customer happy no matter how insane you may think they are. But believe me, they aren’t insane in their own head. Make it right.

I’ll give you two examples that happened to me this weekend. One was at a sushi restaurant. I won’t mention the name because I didn’t feel that slighted but my wife sure did.

We had never been there before and had a coupon from a mailer. We walk in and there was no hostess. We waited and waited and waited. At least three or four minutes.

A large crowd of five or six came in behind us. They passed us, went to the bar. The hostess then came out from around the bar, greeted those people then came up to the hostess stand, grabbed some menus, gave us an apologizing look and said, “I’ll be right with you.”

She sat those people and then came back to us.

She greeted us. My wife said, “Did you know those people? Do they own the restaurant?”

The young girl said no. My wife said, “We were here before them. Why did they get seated before us?”

She didn’t have an answer. My wife likes things to be fair. This tainted the entire experience. We left and the people behind us who had just walked in left as well. So the very young hostess (who is your first impression for a new restaurant) just cost the owner $100 from us and probably $200 from the four top behind us.

Plus we’ll never go back. You only get one chance with my wife.

The next place we went to was brand new. A burger place with brew. I was excited. We walked in to a mop bucket unattended next to the front door. Yeah, we didn’t even look at the menu.

Two small businesses. Lost revenue. And we’ll never go back. And my wife who is at WOM machine will be very happy to pass her complaints along any time anyone mentions those two new restaurants.

So the fact that you have a customer that is unhappy and willing to talk about it online is both a very good thing and a very dangerous thing. Good because at least they are talking in an environment where you could deal with it. Like those restaurants will probably never know that my wife is hurting their business.

But onine is more dangerous than you can imagine because there are plenty places to talk (social media) outside of your site – especially if your site doesn’t even allow for that type of interaction. You know because you don’t want people talking bad about you on your site.

Here’s what one of our creative directors said about people talking negatively on your company’s site. Leigh Marino (awesome smart creative) likened those upset customers to her new puppy. This puppy liked to dig. Every time they were outside in the yard, the puppy tore up her flowers and her garden. After a couple of times at this, Leigh decided to make a space in the yard for the puppy to go to town on. A spot to rip her yard to shreds. Now the puppy was happy because he was going to rip something to shreds anyway and Leigh was happy because it wasn’t her flowers.

The idea behind this is that you are not going to make every customer completely happy. But when they do have a complaint, let them come to you and tell you about it. Let it be on your website for others to see. Then do what you can to contact this customer and make them happy. When you finally do, they will retract or if they don’t, you can let others see how you responded to the complaint and how you made amends.

But if you don’t do anything and you let that person have a voice out there on the internet without any response, the damage can be desvastating to a business.

Consumers are starting to understand this more and more. They know that their opinion of you counts more than just who they can reach in their small network of face to face friends. They can reach every single one of your customers searching for you on the net if they are smart enough about it.

Here’s some places they can do it.

• http://www.ripoffreport.com/
• http://consumerist.com/
• http://www.complaints.com/
• http://www.pissedconsumer.com/
• http://www.thesqueakywheel.com/

If it were me, I would start a free blog on blogger or wordpress to talk about what happened. I would use a URL that had their name in it. I would use the company’s name over and over to make sure the keywords were there. I would link my blog to all the sites above and anything else I could find. I would contact the local media and pitch my story to them. This stuff would probably take me a week but I’ll bet you I’d be showing up really close to their direct searches in Google. Heck, I might even buy a few adwords to make sure I did.

Sending me a cease and desist or taking me to court would be the wrong thing to do here. That would cause me to flame even louder on the net. Then my fellow bloggers would get wind of “the man” coming down on someone who is just trying to right a wrong. Then it would spread like wild fire.

Hopefully, you are seeing my point about how effective this type of consumer complaint can be and how you should be prepared to deal with it. I’m going to say it again. Make it right. And make sure everyone they talked to knows you made it right.

Next time, I’m going to write about how you can get that consumer complaint website off certain search results for your company. It takes some time and some effort but you can do it.

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I’ve been on the net working professionally for almost ten years now so this just screams BS. But you never know, so I spent a couple of minutes just to make sure.

Google search…ouch. The first entry isn’t even them. It’s a Yahoo Answers questioning who they are. But the answer isn’t that good so I go back to Google and check out the other links.

The official site is the second link. You never, ever want that to happen. I go to the site. It’s not that professional and looks like a scam.

Then I go back to Google and start checking out the blog entries. There are plenty of them and finally I get to one where they actually dive deep into the site and find out it costs $100 to join and you don’t get the money back if you are unsatisfied with the results. I really appreciate the time I saved by reading instead of filling in the blanks.

Now, this example is easy to show how consumers like myself can find out what is legitimate online pretty easily.

But what if this happened to your small company? What if an upset customer blogged about you and their entry was showing up before yours in a Google search? It’s like your worst customer sitting outside your doorstep telling everyone that you suck and they should not do business with you.

That’s the number one thing I hear about social media and opening your company up to it? What if a customer complains? What if they write bad things about me on the site?

Well, next blog I’ll explain why I see it as a good thing and how to try and drive a bad entry off a Google search.

I’m very proud of my oldest daughter. She has finally learned to swim (after this summer of swimming lessons). But she’s very particular about her nose. She has to have nose plugs on or she can’t go underwater. So be it. Nose plugs it is. No matter how silly she looks.

After being in the water for an hour or so, I decided to start pitching the kids in the air. They love it and it’s some exercise for me. They swim over, I count 1-2-3 then heave them in the air. There’s a big splash and a lot of laughter.

We did this for fifteen minutes or so and I was about done. So the last one is always a doozie. I threw my daughter up as far as I could and she came down with a huge splash. When she came up, her nose plugs were gone.

Aw, man. Now I’m pretty sure you all know lake water. It’s definitely not swimming pool or Hawaiian Island clear. Visibility is like six inches. And even that is questionable.

She was really upset. Now how was she going to swim?

I started feeling the rocky bottom as best as I could in the 36 inches of water. Nothing just a lot of little rocks.

After ten minutes, my brain was telling me this was a lost cause.

You are not going to find them. Just tell her you’ll buy her some more. What are they? 5 bucks or so. Is it worth it?

Maybe not? But I didn’t stop. I prayed a bit and I kept searching with my hands on the surface of the bottom.

Because of the depth of the water, it was a stretch and I couldn’t really go over a big area of the bottom. I was by inching myself along.

Finally, I thought, just go under and do a quick large scan of the immediate area.

I went under, forced myself to the bottom and reached out.

It only took three tries and I had them. I couldn’t believe how fast I found them. It was same area that I had gone across a couple of times but here they were.

My daughter was smiling and swimming again – funny-looking nose plugs and all.

So what’s the moral of this story – what did I learn?

That once I changed how I was searching, once I dove deep into that dark water – the thing I was looking for came right away.

I believe consumer insights are like those nose plugs. Often insights are hard to come by but they are extremely important.

There’s a good book by Phil Dunsenberry, “One Great Insight is Worth A Thousand Ideas” in which he goes into why an insight is much more powerful than an idea.

To find an insight in the past, we did surveys, focus groups, product testing, and/or relied on the engineers or service people to come up ways to make things better. Sometimes this works – sometimes it doesn’t. And it’s amazing how many companies bet the farm on a good idea but not an insight.

But with Social Media, you can find consumer insights. They are right there waiting to be picked like ripe fruit

If you are new to Social Media (blogs, forums, community networks), I’ll bet it looks a lot like dark lake water. There’s too much noise. You can’t spreadsheet the answers as easily as you can with organized and self-generated research.

But here’s the deal. If you dive in, dive deep and put your hands out, you going to find the answers you are looking for.

People (and this system is entirely made up of real people) will give you honest feedback if you act like a person and not a marketer.

It takes some time – but all good things do take time.

The good thing is that you can start now and catch up pretty quick. We are at the foundation level of this digital social media thing. You can cut your social teeth along with everyone else.

For all of you that think social media is Facebook and Facebook is fad, you are sort of right. Facebook is a fad but it is a pretty darn popular fad right now. Some other network might overtake it but it’s not going to be overnight. And it’s going to do a lot of the same things that Facebook is going right now.

BTW, Social Media is not Facebook. If you want a list of what Social Media is not, click here.

If you are still timid about social media, stop by MediaSauce or give us a call at 317.218.0500. We would be happy to help you. We have presentations and clinics you can attend. Most are free.

I believe after you’ve been swimming in social media for a while, consumer insights won’t be lost under lake water anymore. They will be floating in the clear blue.

Joe’s jist was that ad agencies need to change – that they aren’t prepared for the future of advertising within social media. Here’s what he says,

“In the end, social media is nothing more than a mirror of people’s real-world behavior (albeit amplified and with extreme ADD). If you’re taking steps to make your brand relevant to people in the real world (which I sure hope you are), then it’s not that big of a leap to figuring out how to make your brand relevant to people in a social media context. Social media should be a valuable tool for helping you answer that billion-dollar question of what will make your brand relevant to people, as well as the platform spreading your brand’s message as you achieve greater relevance. It’s listening and talking, instead of just talking.

Agencies certainly have the talent to listen. Some of the best and brightest are hungry to take on the challenge of building the iconic brands that shape our lives, and would love the opportunity to feed back the voice of the people they are talking to. But the current brand-agency relationship isn’t set up for this task – and, more importantly, isn’t compensated for it. Are agencies set up to have a conversation for your brand, or has a mandate to only be the brand’s mouthpiece crippled agencies from truly activating your brand in social media?

It’s this question that has led many to wonder if brands should be handling the activation of social media in-house. It is a valid point. If it’s true that brands’ participation in social media means much more than simply buying media and blasting the “big idea,” can agencies fill this role?

I believe not only that agencies can, but that they must. Because unless agencies participate in social media, their role as stewards of brands will eventually end — and their greatest fear, a future where their services are nothing more than a commoditized function performed by Google and Microsoft, (http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/06/22/business/ad23.php), will come true. If your function can be performed by a computer, it will be. Fighting this, rather than focusing on the areas that cannot be done even by the mighty Google’s algorithms, is a losing battle. The future of agencies lies in more than knowing how to get in front of the right people, but also in knowing how to talk and listen to those people to shape a brand and its message.”

While I’m an advocate of what Joe is saying about social media and the commitment to it by companies, I’m confused about how an agency would change to deal with this. This is a fundamental shift in thinking.

Is an agency really set up to change from push to pull? From messaging to conversating? Why must an agency deal with this at all? It’s not like advertising is going to go away. To add a social media department within the agency (essentially buying your way into social media) isn’t the answer because then you’ve got competing factions within the agency. One that pushes messages out and one that participates in the message.

On the outside, it may seem like a good idea but as soon as one of them starts making more money than the other, agencies tend to be biased in that direction so neither the message nor the conversation works.

So then it must go in house? I don’t believe that is the right call either. What I’ve found with in-house marketing is that it isn’t strong enough or large enough to participate in the conversation. There’s too much going on for a one or two person marketing department. Even larger companies are cutting the head count.

Then what is the answer? I believe social media is an entity to itself and must be treated as such. The new kind of connection agency will emerge that will consult and participate with the brand’s messaging in mind – but they can’t be held to the same standards as a traditional agency.

In other words, you can’t punish them for finding out people think your product suck. You should reward them with finding out the insights on why the product sucks and their ideas on how you can make it better. They will keep you in the loop and connect you with your consumers and your partners.

You may think these guys and gals are just research then but research is and should be at arm’s length just observing what is happening and reporting on that. Connection agencies are knee-deep with the consumer. Consumers should know that they are part of the company – transparent and authentic – and that they can help get them an answer that maybe customer service couldn’t understand or deal with.

You are also in the long haul with this kind of company. This isn’t an RFP type of arrangement. This isn’t somebody you can throw to the curb after a couple of years – or just because you want to jump to the hottest connection company of the year. They are just as essential as your operations department.

Maybe I’m wrong about this but I think agencies aren’t the right place to put this type of communication. Let them do what they are really good at…clearly communicating your message. Let the connection agency find out if it’s working and if your products are delivering the goods.

Can you imagine the fear and trepidation that must have been flowing through these men’s minds?  They were all about to put their signatures onto a document that was going to be spread around the colonies, British Empire, and the entire world.  With this very transparent statement of independence, these men were making themselves vulnerable to the ultimate consequence – to hang as traitors to the crown.

Yet, they all did it.  They signed their names to a document that has inspired generations of people around the world to embrace freedom from tyranny.  [According to Wikipedia, the United States Declaration of Independence was the first of 62 such declarations from 1776 to the present day.]  

As I was preparing for the holiday weekend, I came to realize these men are an example that we all can follow when it comes to social media.  Judging from conversations and discussions over the past few months, I am keenly aware that many people are uncomfortable with the idea of sharing their thoughts, photos, ideas, and tidbits of their lives with a global audience.  

This discomfort usually manifests itself into statement like – “We just don’t want to open ourselves up to a law suit.” 

I don’t think anyone does really.  However, I think this statement is rooted in two different types of social fear.

Let’s explore the first one: the fear of accountability.  The assumption made is that allowing your conversations to get permanently recorded on the Internet is inherently risky.  While it is a bit disconcerting to have an I-Team from the local news channel with their microphone and video camera follow you around, it is not the same as writing a blog, posting photos, sharing videos, and joining other conversations.  

Yes, we are all human and we are bound to say or post something that can be misconstrued or that is plain wrong.  Just think of your friends and co-workers.  Over the course of weeks, months, and years, we build a pattern of behavior with them.  One mistake does not usually kill those relationships.  The good news is that people are pretty understanding and are willing to forgive you with a simple apology.  

And the better news is that you can always add to the public record by correcting false accusations, explaining previous gaffes, and staying in front of the conversation.  If you mess up on the Internet, address it head-on, apologize, and move forward.  It’s that simple.

As I said, I think this concern is rooted in two different types of social fear.  The second source is the more powerful of the two: the fear of vulnerability.  It is the vulnerability we all have when we open ourselves up to share our thoughts and feelings.  That can be a scary proposition especially when you’re living in the Interconnected Age and anyone can find the thoughts and feelings you share on the Internet (yes, I know, Big Brother is watching).

We devote large amounts of energy to making sure we look good in public.  When we operate in the physical world – we suck in our guts, color our hair, wear certain clothes, and observe the various rules of etiquette, all in the hopes of making ourselves look better.  The social vanity thing is inside us all.  

That’s why I think John Hancock would have love the Interconnected Age.  He would have embraced this transparency and thrown caution to the wind.  Instead of writing his signature in very large script, he’d be blogging a couple times every day, posting videos on Qik and YouTube, hosting his own social network through Ning, created a killer avatar for Second Life, and been living large posting comments on everyone else’s blogs.

So do you think I’m right?  Is it really about the fear of accountability and vulnerability? 

As I wandered around Chicago this weekend with my family, I would periodically post an update of my adventures via Twitter, send a text to someone, or check my email.  Why would I do that?  The wonders of technology allows me to stay close to a wider circle of friends and associates, while still spending quality time with my wife and son.  

In the slivers of downtime – riding in a taxi, waiting in a lobby, or sitting a bench while taking a break – I was able to find out what my connected friends were doing and let them know what was going on in my life.  We’re able to keep our conversations going in a near real-time fashion, tell about interesting experiences, and share new ideas as they happen.  In essence, we’re able to extend our conscious horizon to each person who’s connected to the conversation.

Because each of these social platforms are built with varying degrees of openness and they are being woven together by various aggregating services (FriendFeed, etc.), the content we’re sharing with some circles gets pushed out to even wider circles.  At first, I found that kinda unsettling.  Then, I became more accustomed to it.  Now, I relish it.  (Yep, I am Big Brother’s ideal citizen).

Why is it okay for me?  First, I am a pretty open person.  Second, I stay vigilant with what I’m sharing (remember: “this conversation is being recorded for training purposes”).  Third, the more I partake in the digital conversation, the more people I am seeking to attract for business reasons are finding me.   

For anyone trying to determine how much is “too much” when it comes to sharing with social media, I have found great value in the recent post by Chris Saad.  He was exploring his vision for social media and makes a great point of private thoughts vs. social content and has a great visual depiction of it.  

I also found Fred Wilson’s musings on the subject insightful on a similar experience he had with a weekend outing and social media.  Living in public isn’t for everyone, but we can all learn to do it to some degree.

How willing are you to share through social media?    

In a few recent conversations, online and real time, the topic of why companies are hesitant to engage in social media has come up.  I’ve decided to share some of my thoughts I have already shared elsewhere alongside new ideas, so that you might have a chance to join the conversation.

First, I think we can sometimes lose sight of a simple fact – companies are nothing but a bunch of people.  They are not a faceless collective or monolithic entities (although some seem to act like they are).  Rather, they are made up of individuals working together to produce a service or product.  By their very nature, companies are social entities with the same social needs as everyone else.  It’s just that this “tribe” has a logo, company letterhead, and a really tricked out tree fort.

Second, not everyone understands what social media is and why it’s important to them (i.e. how to use it to build stronger connections with potential clients, current clients, team members, and the greater community.)  If you haven’t already, take a moment to watch this excellent three minute or so illustration of social media by Common Craft.  Not only will you be craving ice cream, you’ll have a better understanding of the world after you watch it.

Third, social media pulls back the curtain and exposes the organization’s true nature.  Every company lies somewhere on the functional vs. dysfunctional continuum.  While clarity guides transformational growth, it isn’t always comfortable to find out you’re on the undesirable end of the continuum. 

Fourth, most people have a misunderstanding of how to engage in social media.  Take corporate blogging for instance.  It’s not posting lengthy white papers, stilted memorandums, and corporate speak.  Instead, it needs to be more akin to engaging coffee house/cocktail party conversation.  The savvy corporations tap people who are great minglers and conversationalists, who can host a great conversation as well as partake in the other conversations out there (i.e. visiting and posting on other blogs).

The shift toward social media and more conversational interaction is breaking down barriers between the individual and the monolithic corporation.  This fundamental shift is forcing greater authenticity and showing corporations for what they are – a group of people working together.  

Let your people shine!  Without them, you can’t produce your products and services.  I’m fortunate to be with a company that understands and embraces this philosophy.  Check out our main page to see why we’re a talent recruiters dream. 

Why do you think more organizations aren’t using social media more often?