In this week’s Six Pixels of Separation podcast, digital marketing maven Mitch Joel took a look at the clunky launch of alleged Google-slayer, cuil.com, and offered up six questions to ask yourself before you launch a new product or service or company.
[A "heads up": I've been thinking hard about how these six questions can be applied to the restaurant industry, and I'm aiming to post about that soon.]
Of the six questions, the first, “Is it really better?” has formed a mental sticking point for me. I’m paraphrasing, but in the podcast Mitch says something like, “If you can’t do something better, what’s the point of doing it?”
That idea was still echoing around my brain when I came across this article, Five ways negative reviews help your online reputation. Dang it all! This was the very article I intended to write, and post here, today! But you know … Marketing Pilgrim has already done a fantastic job of summarizing everything I’d have to say on the topic, so rather than reinventing the wheel, I’ll recommend that you check out their post on the topic.
Here’s a taste of what you could learn: Negative reviews give you an opportunity to educate yourself, build credibility, fix the problem and show you care. And even if you’re blessed to have few negative reviews yourself, you can still learn from your competitors’ mistakes.
Tomorrow I’ll be posting a list of some of the more popular review sites that allow customers, culinary trend watchers and fans of food to post their reactions and reviews. These are the sites you’ll want to visit often if you’re curious about how your restaurant’s reputation is being bolstered or bashed online.
