via Horia Varlan (Creative Commons 2.0)

We think that Q&A is a natural extension of social search and will become a permanent part of the social media landscape. We think Q&A is particularly relevant to social shopping. The process that now begins with a shopper’s review or recommendation can just as easily begin with another shopper’s request for information. Like writing reviews, answering questions is a way for shoppers to provide value, demonstrate expertise and gain influence. Of course, we at Zavee are continuing to develop and refine our own social search capabilities, so you can look forward to exciting new features over the next several months.

The Zavee takeaway:

• Social Q&A is suddenly hot, but that doesn’t make it a fad.
• Q&A is a natural extension of the social shopping feature set.
• Look for exciting new social search features coming soon from Zavee.

HootSuite logo

The key to making Twitter easier and more efficient is to use one of the free third party Twitter management tools instead of Twitter’s own site. HootSuite and TweetDeck let you do two things that can save a lot of time: manage multiple searches and cross-post into multiple Social Media streams.

In a previous post we blogged about four ways that local businesses can use Twitter. Some involve more time and attention than others. First, we suggested using Twitter as a listening post, gathering information from other users. The net you cast can be as wide or narrow as you want. Use your Twitter manager to set up searches for your industry, competitors, community, etc. If you can’t do all of these, establish some priorities and set up fewer searches. Checking them should only take a few minutes a day.

Second, we discussed using Twitter to build your brand. This is the most time-consuming aspect of making Twitter work, and while we think it’s worth the time not everyone will agree. This is where cross-posting can come in handy. You can use your Twitter manager to publish your Facebook posts as tweets – same content, two streams. You can do the same with blog posts (every Zavee Thinking post is automatically tweeted as soon as it’s published). Cross-posting isn’t a substitute for frequent tweeting, but it’s a reasonable compromise between committing to a major brand-building campaign on Twitter and ignoring your brand altogether.

Third, we pointed out how Twitter can generate leads. There is a passive and an active component to using Twitter this way. The passive part involves setting up searches for keywords that potential customers are likely to use when tweeting. The active part involves tweeting with those same keywords. Not enough time to do both? Just set up and monitor the searches and see how that works. You may need to adjust the search terms but that still should take less time than actively tweeting to gain leads. As you get better at finding potential customers on Twitter, however, don’t be surprised if you find yourself spending more time building those relationships online.

Finally, we recommended using Twitter as a customer service channel. At a minimum, you should use your Twitter manager to display mentions of your business on Twitter. Whether and how you respond to tweets that mention your business is up to you, but there is no reason not to see what people tweet about you.

We think that this minimalist approach to Twitter is a good way to start, especially if you don’t think you have a lot of time for Twitter. We also think it’s likely that you will ramp up your Twitter strategy as you gain experience with the medium. Take an hour or two on a weekend afternoon to get familiar with one of the Twitter management applications and play around with both searches and cross-posting. Let the technology do some of the work and you can get value out of Twitter without putting in more time than you want.

The Zavee takeaway:

• Use a third party Twitter manager for multiple searches and to publish Facebook posts on Twitter (and vice versa).
• An active tweeting strategy takes more time than reading relevant tweets, so if time is an issue focus on using Twitter passively – at least for now.
• Don’t be surprised if you find yourself spending more time on Twitter than you expected – not because it wastes your time but because it builds your business.

The consensus choice seems to be Facebook, and it’s easy to see why. This post will discuss some of Facebook’s advantages for business. Next week we will talk about how businesses that use Facebook can add Twitter to the mix without a major incremental time commitment.

Michael Stelzner of Social Media Examiner provides three big reasons for committing to Facebook: Facebook is communal in ways other Social Media are not; Facebook pulls people to its site often – Stelzner says it’s getting to be as frequent as checking email; and Facebook has tools that reveal “social proof”. Each of this points deserves some explanation.

• Group discussions. Stelzner says that Twitter doesn’t lend itself to group discussions – it’s mostly a one-to-many medium. He’s right that Facebook has more sophisticated tools for leveraging groups, but Twitter users have figured out how to manage group discussions. These discussions happen in real time, so they can be very fast, lively and loose. I have participated in a weekly discussion relating to bargains and discounts called “#dealchat” that has been a useful branding opportunity for Zavee and a lot of fun for me. Facebook is communal in a different way: communities are stickier, while they tend to be more ad hoc on Twitter.
• Frequency. Facebook keeps coming up with new features that keep users coming back. And with both instant message (chat) and direct message (mail) features, users don’t even need email to connect with other Facebook users. However, some Twitter users post very frequently, and if your followers include these very active users Facebook’s frequency advantage isn’t quite as overwhelming.
• Social proof. Social proof is a term coined by the psychologist Robert Cialdini to describe the tendency of people to conform their behavior to the behavior of others. Facebook’s concept of “liking” leverages this principle to enable businesses to influence current and prospective customers. If you “like” Zavee (and I hope you do) your Facebook friends will see that and will tend to follow your lead. When we decided to push for more fans on Facebook this principle helped us grow from fewer than 100 fans to more than 600 in about a month. On Twitter social proof is structured very differently. Influence is determined in part by the number of followers a user has and by the number of tweets. Facebook is more egalitarian.

There is no question that Facebook requires time, both initially and ongoing. Consultants can help you establish your Facebook presence and can guide you in maintaining and growing it – this is a good one based in Delray Beach – but Social Media is never “fire and forget”.  If you want to use Facebook as a sales channel it’s vital to grow your fan base. This means updating frequently with new content and responding to fan posts promptly. There are also some more technical aspects of Facebook that are worth learning about – reading the All Facebook blog is a good way to do that. Poke around Facebook to see what other companies are doing. But the first step, of course, is to make the commitment.

The Zavee takeaway:

• You don’t really have to choose – see next week’s post – but if you want to choose choose Facebook.
• Some of Facebook’s features, such as “liking”, are ideal for businesses. Twitter is very different but also is great for business.
• Social Media only works if you make the commitment and invest the time and effort.

via Noah Scalin

BP itself is providing a real-time video feed from a dozen cameras of the oil spewing out of the wellhead. This feed is becoming the defining imagery of the disaster, the constant flow representing for many the helplessness of the “experts” on the surface a mile above. BP also maintains a YouTube channel. BP has supplied its wellhead video feed to the web site of the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, which has maintained a steady flow of press releases focusing on BP. In addition to video, BP’s own site contains maps, claims forms (in English, Spanish and Vietnamese) and, of course, press releases.

BP is also trying to participate in the conversation on Social Media, but does not appear to be having much success in overcoming anti-BP sentiment. The “Boycott BP” page on Facebook is liked by more than 450,000 users, although it is unclear whether this movement will be able to affect BP’s business. On Twitter, an anti-BP impostor has amassed almost 140,000 followers while BP’s own Twitter feed is hovering at about 12,000 followers.

Much like Toyota several months ago, BP cannot expect to be portrayed other than as the villain. All BP can do is communicate openly and actively, and if its mea culpas come off as somewhat self-serving, at least the company isn’t stonewalling. The difference between the recall and the oil spill is, of course, scale. Toyota fixed the problems with its cars relatively quickly and was able to begin to rebuild its reputation. BP faces a much greater challenge, because the spill has not been contained quickly, the environmental impact may be enormous, and as an oil company BP did not start out with the kind of reputation Toyota had among the public.

So far, BP has demonstrated a certain sophistication in not trying to shut down the parody Twitter feed or the flow of satirical treatments of the company’s logo. In March, the environmental activist group Greenpeace provoked Nestle into overreacting to critical videos and Facebook postings that included modified versions of the Nestle logo. BP hasn’t fallen into that trap. Nor has it attempted to co-opt the fake Twitter account. This is a wise choice, since if trying to shut down the account would be bullying, trying to fold it into the company’s own communication strategy would seem, um, slimy.

The Zavee takeaway:

• In a bad situation, openness and honesty really are the best policies.
• The better you do at solving the problem, the easier it will be to rebuild your reputation.
• Frustrated people need to express their frustration. Don’t try to stop them.

One of the recent changes to Facebook has been a great expansion of the “Like” concept which, among other things, replaces the “Fan” concept.  Yelp and other social networks have followed suit.  At least for now, Zavee is still inviting shoppers to become “Fans” of merchants they haven’t yet shopped at and not just “Like” them.  Why?  Because we think that, on some perhaps subtle level, being a “Fan” implies a higher degree of emotional engagement than merely “Liking” someone or something.  How substantial is that difference? It’s hard to tell.  If you follow sports you might agree that there is a difference between liking a team and being a fan.  If you follow the New York Mets or the Miami Dolphins you almost certainly do.  At Zavee we are considering changing the “Fan” concept to something completely different – something that retains a high level of engagement but provides greater flexibility.  More news to follow on that new feature.

One thing we didn’t think about when we were debating “Fan” versus “Like” was whether a lower level of engagement might make it easier for users to be less than candid about what they say they “Like”.  Would people really do this?  And why?

Starbucks Barista Badge from Foursquare (via pbende)

Like much about social media, behavioral targeting presents legitimate privacy issues, and they need to be worked out. However, if advertisers lose faith in the accuracy of consumers’ self-descriptions the effectiveness of social media for marketers is likely to decrease. For small marketers who are drawn to social media marketing by, among other things, its low cost and high effectiveness, this could be a very unfortunate result.

It’s probably true, as Scoble says, that advertisers have ways to verify, at least in part, the accuracy of the things we claim we like.  But the deeper point is that the value of social media as a communications tool for users in the network depends in large part on the credibility of other users.  A user who creates a false or misleading social persona may only lose personal credibility within the network, but if enough users do the same thing the credibility of the network as a whole may suffer. A recent paper about dating sites reports that deception in profiles is rampant. The paper suggests that one reason is that users understand what makes them desirable to potential mates, and create profiles to reflect those expectations. Dating sites like to advertise their successes, but they may have become just one more system to game.

Whether Zavee stays with “Fan”, changes to “Like” or goes in a different direction altogether, the principal means by which Zavee shoppers communicate the quality of their shopping experience is by writing reviews. It takes more effort (and commitment) to write a review than to click on a button, but that very fact gives proportionately more weight to the reviews and less to a simple “Fan” designation. One safeguard we put in place expressly to improve the accuracy, timeliness and fairness of reviews is for the system to accept a review of a merchant only if the reviewer has made a Zavee purchase at that merchant within 30 days.

We hope that social networks and their users develop means to limit the influence of false social personsas, not to protect advertisers but to protect the networks themselves and to permit them to continue to deliver valuable, relevant experiences to their users.

The Zavee takeaway:

• Once it becomes trivially easy to create a social persona, that persona may itself become trivial. The problem is that those personas are taken seriously, both by advertisers and by other users.
• It’s natural to present ourselves as we’d like to be seen, but invented personas can make the the network as a whole less valuable to users who rely on other users for timely and accurate information and opinions.
• Local businesses will suffer disproportionately if social media marketing loses credibility, because it’s a particularly attractive tool for them in an environment where conventional alternatives aren’t nearly as cost-effective.

Mark Zuckerberg at f8 2010 (Washington Post photo)

In his op-ed Zuckerberg admits only to “mov[ing] too fast” to introduce privacy tools that “were too complex”. Zuckerberg goes on to say that Facebook’s intention was to provide “lots of granular [privacy] controls; but that may not have been what many of you wanted.” The ability to fine-tune privacy settings seems like a good idea given the wide variety of content available on and through Facebook. However, the risk of missing something significant and inadvertently setting a control incorrectly may well outweigh the value of granular controls.

However, Facebook’s recent history of introducing, then modifying, changes to the platform, along with its enormous size and influence in the social media space, has created an environment in which not everyone is willing to take the company’s statements at face value (the comments on almost any post on the allfacebook blog are instructive). We believe that it is in the interest of everyone in the space – users as well as networks – for Facebook to get a better handle on how to develop, introduce, explain and refine significant changes to its platform.

It is axiomatic that users should control the amount of personal information they share, and with whom. I’m not sure there is one best way to ensure this, and granularity versus ease of use for privacy controls seems to me a debate worth having. Zavee is oriented toward the ease of use end of the spectrum. We provide very clear but fairly granular choices about who gets to see what information. Furthermore, all of our privacy settings default to the most limited distribution, which minimizes the downside risk for the user.

In addition to receiving credible assurances about the privacy of their personal information, users of social networks – especially social shopping networks – need to be completely comfortable that any financial information they provide will be maintained and transmitted with the utmost security. Platforms such as Mint ask for a wide range of personal financial information since Mint’s model is to aggregate that information and make it easier for the member to use. Blippy and some other sites require registration of a credit card, as their model involves sharing purchases over a social network. Zavee also requires registration of a credit card, although unlike Blippy Zavee does not share purchase details over the network.

Zavee has a number of safeguards in place to protect users’ credit card data. First, we use Secure Sockets Layer technology from industry leader Verisign to provide secure access to the platform for every Zavee user. That’s why our URL starts with “https://” and has a distinctive green band in the address window. You can see the Verisign seal in the footer of our site and can click on it to learn more about Secure Sockets Layer technology.

Second, we only collect the minimum card data necessary for the Zavee platform to function. Anyone who has ever made a purchase online, or even over the phone, knows that the merchant is required to collect not just the the card number, but also its expiration date and security code, and sometimes the zip code for the billing address. Zavee only needs the card number, so that’s all we ask for. Anyone who improperly obtained that information would still be unable to use the card for an unauthorized transaction.

Third, Zavee itself never collects or stores any credit card information. The card registration page may look the same as other pages on the Zavee site, but it isn’t actually on our site at all. When a user registers a credit card the card number is automatically encrypted and sent directly to our data provider, a company called TSYS. TSYS is one of the largest credit card processors in the world and maintains secure credit card databases for, among others, VISA itself. Once TSYS receives and registers the card number it sends a secure, unique identifier back to Zavee. Our system is set up to use only this identifier when we process shopper transactions, so the actual card number remains within TSYS’s secure environment. Our databases are stored in a secure facility in the US, but if anything happened to the card identifiers we would simply get a copy of the relevant database from TSYS.

The Zavee takeaway:

• Overly complex privacy settings may have the effect of inadvertently decreasing actual privacy. No one should find that acceptable.
• Zavee is a simple platform from a privacy standpoint and has simple, intuitive privacy controls that are designed to minimize user risk.
• No one should ever be in doubt about the security of their financial data. Zavee uses industry best practices to protect the credit card numbers that members provide.

Foursquare @SXSW

Location-based social networks such as Foursquare and Gowalla make use of the GPS capabilities of smartphones to let users communicate in real time not just what they are doing, as with Twitter, but where they are. They are growing rapidly, and for businesses they are well worth checking out.

Both networks are about two years old but have entered the mainstream only recently. Users of Foursquare “check in” at different locations to tell their friends where they are and what they are doing. Foursquare also has an element of game play that lets users collect “badges” for certain activities, such as earning a “barista” badge for checking into five Starbucks. Foursquare has a large user base that skews young and lives in cities, and has attracted a certain amount of backlash (note: strong language at link), although it has its defenders. Gowalla doesn’t depend quite as much on its game mechanics, but supports media files, such as photos, and claims to be looking for a broader (and perhaps older) demographic.

Businesses seem to have less of a “wait and see” attitude toward location-based social networks than they did toward Facebook and Twitter. It may be that, having been through this before with other Social Media outlets they simply need less persuading when it comes to location-based networks. It may also be that the business case for location-based networks is more obvious than with, say, Twitter. Another possibility is that the networks themselves have become business-friendly faster. Foursquare already has the ability to serve merchant offers based on location, although it is still refining its analytics dashboard. In any event, marketers are not sitting on the sidelines. Recently, Pepsico announced a “geo-based loyalty program” in partnership with Foursquare that will reward consumers who check in via iPhone at businesses that serve Pepsi products. The History Channel also is using Foursquare to promote its show, “America, The Story of Us.”

Do networks like Foursquare and Gowalla have relevance for small businesses? We think they do. Even basic data on who has visited a business, how frequently, etc. adds to the merchant’s knowledge of the customer base. Serving offers and other content to those customers has obvious benefits, although it still isn’t clear how the merchant can get a full picture of the return on investment from that content (merchants will know how many people used (and, presumably, saw) the offer, but won’t necessarily know how many of those transactions were made by customers who would have purchased anyway). Checking in to a business from a location-based network also can provide extended word of mouth for the merchant. It’s going to take time to figure out how to use these services for business, but that was true with Facebook and Twitter. And, as with Facebook and Twitter, there is a lot of potential and no real downside for businesses that experiment.

At Zavee we are currently exploring the fit with location-based networks, but we fully anticipate using this technology to add value to the Zavee experience for both merchants and shoppers. With both cash back offers by merchants and reviews by shoppers, Zavee provides a great deal of content whose value can only be enhanced by becoming location-aware.

The Zavee takeaway:

• You heard it about Facebook, you heard it about Twitter. Well, location-based social networks aren’t fads either.
• Businesses have wised up and caught up, and are right on the heels of consumers in discovering how to make these services useful, relevant and rewarding.
• If you were sitting on the sidelines while Facebook and Twitter were becoming huge, don’t let it happen again!

The Greater Delray Beach (FL) Chamber of Commerce has been kind enough to ask me to speak about how businesses can use Twitter – and why they should. My presentation, which is part of a “Tech Talk and Coffee” about Social Media for Business, is scheduled for Tuesday, May 18 at 7:30am. Other speakers will cover Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn. The session is open to the public as well as to Chamber members and every local business should find it useful, even businesses that haven’t considered adding Social Media to their marketing mix.

By now most people have heard of Twitter. Oprah uses it. So does the White House. It’s a free micro-blogging service that lets users publish short notes (called “tweets”) of up to 140 characters in real time. There are smartphone applications for Twitter, so it is a fully mobile service. Users can “follow” other users and see their tweets in their Twitter stream. Following and being followed is how users build a community on Twitter. Users also can search by keywords or topics to find relevant tweets. Users can reply to tweets, forward (“retweet”) them, and include links to web sites or other media. Engaging in these conversations is a good way to attract followers.

Broadly speaking, there are at least four ways businesses can use Twitter.

Listening Post. Twitter’s most significant benefit to business is its immediacy. When US Airways Flight 1549 landed in the Hudson River in January 2009 there were posts, including photos, on Twitter within minutes. If you want to know what your customers, competitors, vendors, etc. are thinking right now, Twitter is a great way to find out. Listening on Twitter is also a great source of ideas and information. Using Twitter’s search functions can widen any business’ horizons.

Brand Builder. Tweeting regularly with timely, relevant information creates interest in you and your brand. This works best when most of the tweets are on a subject that relates to your business but does not overtly promote the business itself. For example, if your restaurant wants to be known for its fresh produce, you could tweet about sustainable farming, its local purveyors, and even the weather. You will attract followers on Twitter who might become customers themselves or retweet your posts to others. Media outlets have become big Twitter users and you could find your restaurant covered in the newspaper just by using Twitter adeptly.

Lead Generator. Twitter lets users form, and join, communities. Twitter’s search functions make it easy to identify other users with similar interests or in similar businesses. Mutual following puts a business’ tweets in its followers’ streams and vice versa. You can get leads from Twitter communities built on common interests both by reading relevant tweets and simply by asking for help.

Help Desk. Twitter is an outstanding platform for providing customer service. Responding in near real time to a tweet that asks for assistance – or jumping in to solve a problem you see on a tweet from a customer even if it isn’t directed to you – not only helps your customer, it helps cement (or improve) your reputation as a business that cares about its customers. One of the earliest business adopters of Twitter was Comcast, a company not known for the quality of its customer service. Comcast now has a full-time staff that monitors Twitter for customer complaints and responds almost immediately. When you ask your customers to follow you on Twitter you are not just gaining access to them, you are providing access to yourself. Since all of your followers will see these interactions the potential benefits of using Twitter to help your customers quickly are huge.

At Zavee we try to use Twitter for all of these functions, and we continue to learn as we go. Here are a few suggestions for getting started with Twitter:

• If you don’t feel comfortable putting your business name out there right away, start with a personal Twitter account.
• Listen first, then start asking questions, make suggestions, and in no time you will be part of the action.
• Pass along stuff, including links and retweets, that’s timely, relevant and interesting, but don’t overdo it. Original material is more useful and will result in more followers.
• Most important of all, be yourself.

That’s almost a rhetorical question, because there many marketing research techniques available; Bill skewers discusses them in his post. Bill’s really fascinating question is, “How can we re-engineer our methods of collecting attitudinal data from consumers?” Bill proposes some ways in which Social Media can be part of the answer, and I’d like to suggest some others.

Some very quick background: Researchers use both quantitative and qualitative measures to figure out what consumers want and what makes them buy. Quantitative tools, such as telephone surveys, use statistical principles to draw inferences about a large group from the responses of a random sample of that group. However, they are subject to all sorts of bias (usually unintentional) that can affect the validity of the data. Online surveys are particularly tricky, since their self-selected sampling can never be truly random, which means they aren’t as quantitative as they might appear.

Qualitative tools, such as focus groups, don’t provide the comfort of statistics, but instead are intended to produce insights by probing more deeply into the motivations of consumers. This can get marketers to think in new and different directions. Although our experience with focus groups and other qualitative tools was very successful, they can be compromised by the small number of participants, the group leader’s personality, bias and skill, and by personalities within the group. Whether quantitative or qualitative, however, the data never “speaks for itself.” It’s always subject to interpretation, and sometimes to wishful thinking and oversimplification.

Social Media opens up a world of possibilities for marketing researchers, agencies and marketers. Several characteristics of Social Media tools make them ideal for provoking creative thinking and producing insight:

1. Penetration. Although it is not equally dispersed across age, education and income cohorts, access to Social Media is extensive and growing, even among older consumers.
2. Speed. Social Media can be used quickly – almost in real time on mobile devices.
3. Opt-in. Social Media is inherently permission-based. This may not make it easier to find a random sample for an online survey, but it does make it easier to find consumers who will share their opinions, insights and experiences because they want to rather than because – as in the case of focus groups – they are being paid and fed.
4. Location-based. Social Media is increasingly being integrated with location-based applications. Location is a variable that does not exist for most focus groups, which usually take place in dedicated facilities.
5. Interactivity. Social Media is … social. The interactions among participants in a focus group frequently are the most valuable part of the group. Social Media facilitates similar interactions on a vast scale.

How could researchers leverage these attributes? Here are a couple of ideas, all of which are qualitative in nature:

• Discussions on Facebook pages. Marketers could start conversations on issues that range from very concrete questions, such as opinions on new packaging ideas, to strategic issues such as potential line extensions. Consumers also would be able to launch their own discussions, which the company could either moderate or simply monitor.
• Scheduled conversations on Twitter. Marketers could use Twitter as an extension of the conventional focus group. Many more voices could be heard over the same period of time than with a typical group.
• Location-based feedback. Suppose a large restaurant chain wanted a snapshot of server performance during the lunch rush, or a retailer wanted to evaluate restocking at every mall-based store. Consumers could check in at each location and provide real time feedback, including photos and video. This would provide data from a much larger, more varied and possibly more knowledgeable group than mystery shoppers, at a fraction of the cost.
• Consumer-generated video. Focus groups rarely depart from a conversational model. But it might be very useful for consumers to shoot videos in response to specific solicitations by the marketer. “Make your own commercial” campaigns are a start in this direction, although to be valuable the campaign should encourage consumers not to be constrained by the company’s current marketing.
• Meetups/Tweetups. Marketers could use Social Media as the nexus for live meetings with consumers. Moderators could ask questions of the group, which could be responded to with live Tweets.

I am sure that others can come up with further – and doubtless better – ideas. These techniques are likely to be low in cost, but they definitely have some kinks or at least raise some issues. For one thing, all research involving Social Media takes place in the open. This is not always a problem but if keeping the subject of the research away from competitors is a priority, the research is not a good candidate for Social Media. Second, there is no way to control – or even verify – the composition of the participants. A marketer who wants specific cohorts represented in a focus group will not be satisfied with Twitter-based groups. However, this lack of control doesn’t have to be a bad thing, if it’s dealt with creatively. For example, a marketer of adult diapers might be tempted to decide against using a Twitter-based focus group because Twitter users are too young; but men in their 20s may have valuable insights into a product that is marketed to women over 60. They have grandparents, after all, and their perspective on their grandparents’ experience with the product might be very valuable.

The discussion above involves using Social Media qualitatively. However, it may be possible to use Social Media for quantitative purposes. According to the Los Angeles Times, a team of researchers at HP Labs has developed a computational model that uses the volume of tweets about a movie and their overall sentiment about the film to predict its box office performance over its first two weeks of release better than any other standard measure. The rationale for this result is completely beyond me, but if the methodology stands up, and the results can be replicated in other areas, we may have to rethink what we mean when we say we are looking for statistically significant results.

The Zavee takeaway:

• Marketing research is both art and science, and it influences decisions that affect all of us.
• Social Media is expanding the range of marketing research techniques, usually while reducing costs.
• If you think marketing research might be right for your business but the expense has kept you away, try to find a research firm that uses Social Media. You might have to make some compromises on methodology, but you may learn a lot more than you expect.

Our commitment to getting reviews right stemmed from our insight that reviews were another form of Social Media and, as such, were going to be a vital component of the Zavee experience and value proposition. We also learned, based on research with merchants, that many business owners who expressed concern about potential harm from fraudulent, malicious or even accurate negative reviews also intuitively understood the benefit of hearing about issues directly from the customer affected.

As marketers are learning, people will say whatever they want to whomever they want, and merchants don’t have the power to control their customers’ conversations. They can, however, do two important things.

First, they can listen, learn and respond. Thanks to Social Media, including reviews, merchants can make necessary adjustments to their business almost in real time. This is something that every business should be doing, all the time, through every available channel. Twitter and Facebook are great listening posts, but reviews are a channel that exists solely to provide feedback about the customer experience.

Second, merchants can participate in the conversation. By actively engaging with their customers merchants can address problems quickly and publicly; they can provide perspective that helps customers evaluate reviews; and they can favorably shape perceptions about the business.

• Responding quickly is important because unresolved issues tend to fester. Responding publicly is important because it gives the merchant the chance to address at one time a concern that may be shared by many customers.
• Actively participating is the only sure way to get the merchant’s perspective into the conversation. Both the manner and the substance of the merchant’s response can help customers determine how much weight to give a negative review, while the absence of a response does nothing but add credence to the reviewer’s complaints. A measured, factual response may not erase the impact of a negative review, but at a minimum the merchant will have extended the relationship with the customer and demonstrated both interest and respect.
• Simply committing the time and effort to engage customers in conversation sends a positive message to all customers and can go a long way toward shaping perceptions of the customer experience. This can reinforce the positive experiences of current customers and build loyalty, but it also can lead non-customers to have a favorable impression of what it would be like to be a customer. In other words, an impressive response to a negative review can actually bring in new business.

Reviews (via fengergold)

In benchmarking Zavee against other sites that feature reviews we observed a wide disparity in the treatment of key issues. Some sites filter reviews while others list them all chronologically. At least one site that uses filtering algorithms has had to defend itself against allegations that it improperly manipulated the placement of reviews. We decided not to filter or change the placement of reviews, because we believed that the less we intervened in the substance of reviews, the more confidence shoppers would have in them and, ultimately, in the Zavee brand.

We also observed that some sites permitted reviews (both positive and negative) that described experiences that had occurred long before the review was written. We thought reviews that were dated were so likely to be inaccurate that it would be unfair to both merchants and shoppers to have them on our site. We also were concerned, as many merchants seemed to be, that on some review sites there there were insufficient safeguards against fake reviews or even fake merchants.

We addressed these problems by requiring that any shopper who wanted to review a merchant had to have made a purchase from that merchant within the previous 30 days and by permitting only one review per purchase. Zavee solicits a review after every transaction, and the shopper’s My Zavee page lists recent transactions and the time remaining to submit a review. Zavee automatically rejects reviews that do not meet these rules.

We also were concerned about reviews that, while perhaps not fraudulent, seemed hostile or malicious. We initially considered moderating reviews, the way we moderate comments on Zavee Thinking, but we decided not to. There is nothing wrong with having editorial standards for reviews – we are, after all, responsible for the content on our site – but we thought the better way to deal with potential problems was to let shoppers and merchants have their say but remove reviews that violated our Terms of Use.

Because we passionately believe that reviews should be a dialogue, we also made it easy for merchants to post responses to shopper reviews. Merchants are automatically notified whenever they are reviewed and have 7 days to post a response. Responses appear with the original reviews and always show up together in a search. Shoppers can respond the the merchant’s response, and the entire conversation is threaded so it can be seen by everyone who sees the original review.

The Zavee takeaway:

• You can’t control what your customers say, but you can listen, learn and respond to concerns – almost in real time.
• Use negative reviews as a conversation-starter, not a relationship-ender.
• How you handle unfavorable reviews can shape perceptions about your business, for future as well as current customers. Treat reviews as an opportunity to be impressive – you may be surprised by the results.

Update (4/14/10): MediaPost’s Marketing Daily reports that S.C. Johnson has been receiving substantial negative feedback, including reviews, about a new pet care product – and tells Marketing Daily that it is bringing the feedback to its product development team for consideration.