Liz Pratt is the Marketing Communications Manager for SearchPro Systems.
The internet is a fantastic way to find out how to please customers and increase sales. Sites like Yelp, Facebook, and Twitter help you rank high on the Universal Search page and provide forums for users to tell others about great experiences they’ve had. This online wealth of opportunity, however, comes with a drawback: people will also tell others about their negative experiences, and there is no way to stop them.
Some forums will give businesses an option to delete negative messages, as on Facebook, and others do not. If someone has left a bad review on Yelp, you certainly can’t just tell Yelp to take it down. If we could take down every bad thing anyone ever said, who could trust any of the reviews online, good or bad? The open structure of the internet is what makes it so useful.
So if it can’t just be deleted, how do you deal with negative press online?
Work it into your video SEO strategy! You should already be working hard to make the most out of VSEO, so when you need to find a way to respond to unhappy users, do it in a way that will also help your Universal Search rankings.
First of all, recognize the problem, and offer a solution. If you can find the user’s email address, contact them and see if you can remedy the problem so that they won’t continue the badmouthing. Then publicly acknowledge the issue. You don’t need to say “someone complained, here is why they’re wrong,” just create VSEO content that focuses on your strengths. If someone is complaining that your product is difficult to use, make an instructional video to make it easy to understand. If the problem is that someone from the company was rude to the customer, create a behind-the-scenes introductory video including happy employees, or include shots of smiling customers (and, of course, deal with that employee.) Interview people who have had good experiences and post it online. Prove yourself to the user and gain their trust back.
These videos can be optimized and promoted just like any other VSEO content, and once you’ve done right by the customer, they’ll start telling their friends about how well you handled the issue. Don’t pass up any opportunity to strengthen your VSEO strategy and climb up the Universal Search rankings!
SearchPro Systems is a leading New England based national digital marketing firm offering complete end-to-end Universal Search marketing solutions, specializing in video SEO.
SearchPro Systems
2024