Jun
3
2010
Kudos to Moe and the team at SOHO
Author: Inside Stuart's head...Being a small business owner and working in our vibrant Calgary market is truly exciting. I can’t think of any other market that I would want to own a business in. My friends at SOHO came through Calgary on June 2nd for their annual trade show and conference. The Small Office, Home Office event is one of the must attends for Calgary and area small business. Ulistic had the pleasure of sponsoring this year’s event, sharing our story as an exhibitor and also being the closing speaker.
It was great to be the closing speaker. jokingly we said that Ulistic was the headliner for the 2010 SOHO event. I spoke on “The New CRM – Managing Your Reputation Online Is CRUCIAL“. It was a talk on what small business can do to monitor their reputation online. Reputation Management is very important for business especially when it is so easy for business to fall victim to a malicious person or an upset customer who turns to the web to voice their frustration or seek their attention they crave. For a great example, see what happened to a friend of mine recently on LinkedIn.
There are a number of key reputation management tips that small business in Calgary must do in aiding to help keep on top of their reputation online. During my presentation I really only scratched the surface simply because online reputation management can be such a deep subject. Only so much a guy can cover in 40 minutes! Here are a few immediate things your small business can do to watch what is being said about your business and many of them are FREE!
- Check Yelp.com or Yelp.ca daily. Yelp is a service that allows reviews to be posted online about your business. It is very easy for a customer to offer their praise about your business on Yelp. I would check Yelp daily and engage when required.
- Take ownership of your business on the Google Local Business Directory. Google’s business directory is an online directory of businesses across the world. Check to ensure you own your listing and when you do take ownership ensure you fill it out completely.
- Setup alerts on Google Alerts and Social Oomph and monitor your company name, trademarks, brand names, key employees, competitors and anything else you wish to monitor.
It is too late if a prospect informs you about some negative talk online about your business.
Now is the time you take ownership on your online presence.
One of the folks in my session sent me this email…
Aside from gold medalist Carla Macleod you were the best public speaker of the bunch!
About SOHO
SOHO is an organization that empowers small business owners from all across Canada. Moe and his crew come to Calgary annually to share their message to small business owners. They are truly unique in what they do. I can’t really think of any other organizations who have national coverage and also approach our vibrant community with integrity and service. Kudos Moe…great job. To learn more about SOHO visit their website at http://www.soho.ca.
