15 Content Delivery Tools To Speed Up Your Website

When a business website is running slow, customers often decide to leave and look elsewhere. In addition, you lose search engine priority if your website has long load times. Why lose customers over something that is easily remedied Business owners in need of speed for their website can find content delivery networks (CDNs) that will have pages loading fast.

Content delivery networks work by providing nodes that are close to your customers with the stored, fixed content loaded into them. When your website information is offered through a nearby node, it causes that data to travel over shorter distances, creating quicker loads. If you work in WordPress or other shared environments, there are plugins to combine with a CDN to meet your needs, as well.

Note: Remember, the data storage and bandwidth rates mentioned in here are for your website content only - not what’s on your computer hard drive. So you would have to have an extremely large website to exceed most of these. Of course, each of these will have a next level tier to accommodate your needs.

MaxCDN is a content delivery network that has hundreds of servers. The $39.95/year plan should suit most small businesses for those with less than 1TB of data per year.

CloudFlare CDN will keep a copy of minimum content, so your website is available even when the server is down. It also claims to work with other CDNs to increase speed. Although it does not charge for bandwidth and its limited basic service is free, its paid plans run from $20 to $3,000 per month.

CacheFly is used by some of the bigger name companies and is known for its reliability. They offer custom plans (with rates as low as $0.03 per GB) but their Plus Plan is $99 per month (256GB with $0.37/GB above that and limited services). There is a 30-day free trial.

CloudLayer has tools that help with content monetization and digital rights management. Its pricing is solely based on bandwidth, SSL (Secure Socket Layer), and storage needs. These prices range from $0.12 to $0.75 per GB on a pay-as-you-go basis.

Flexihostings is an Australian company that focuses on large content files, audio and video streaming and content caching. But they appear to service companies anywhere with 21 nodes around the world. All prices in Australian Dollars (AU$) Setup fee is $60 and a $200 security deposit. Then, plans start at 250 GB for $76.95/month.

Value CDN provides “fast and low cost” CDN service, and the website definitely looks the part. The site explains the basics and that’s it. However prices range from $120 to $700 per month, with low per GB pricing, but nodes are only located in Europe and North America.

ProCDN says that it works with both large and small content websites. The basic plan is $20 per month for 200 GB. After that it charges $0.15 for each GB up to 10 TB and then $0.10 per GB over 10 TB. I like that they have a short list right on the home page that shows where the servers/nodes are located.

For extra speed with WordPress on a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) level, try these plug-ins:

W3 Total Cache has to be one of the grandfathers in the content speed world. It comes recommended by many of the top bloggers out there.

WP Minify will speed up WordPress and other shared environment sites by compressing JS and CSS files. It can be used in conjunction with a CPN. It is free.

W3Edge is a top-rated plugin that caches, compresses, and is compatible with shared hosting. You can download it from their website for free.

Head JS compresses JavaScript. However, it is recommended you test it first because it can also cause problems if it is not done right. The plugin is free from WordPress.

Plugin Organizer is a WordPress plugin that helps you put your plugins in order and disable ones that you do not need on certain posts. It is free from WordPress.

If you have been searching for a way to host a fast WordPress site without having to do these speed things yourself, then I would recommend you try what is known as Managed WordPress Hosting.

The following three companies are ones where I have spoken to the founder(s) and can vouch for their relentless focus on the customer. There are many others in this growing category, however.

Page.ly was one of the first to offer managed hosting focused on WordPress users. The basic plan starts at $24/month and is ideal for the small business site or blog. Your site is constantly backed up as well, so that’s a nice “peace of mind” feature. I like this short page that explains managed hosting.

Synthesis comes from Copyblogger Media, owner of Scribe Content Marketing software which I just reviewed. It comes with that same - “educational content” that you have come to expect from any Copyblogger product. Plans start at $27/month.

WPEngine is well known for its lightning fast WordPress hosting. Plans start at $29/month and all plans come with a 60 Day money back guarantee. The two founders, Jason Cohen and Ben Metcalfe, are heavy hitters that you can bank on.

What tools are you using to keep your site fast â€" for your customers and for Google

Chris Bucholtz of CRM Outsiders: A Tragic Case of Customer Relationship Mismanagement

Everyone has a voice and these days, everyone has valuable tool to broadcast their voice and that tool is the Internet. Tune in as Chris Bucholtz, Editor-in-Chief of CRM Outsiders, joins Brent Leary to explore customer relationship and online reputation management, and one case in particular, the Casey Movers threat on Yelp.

* * * * *

Small Business Trends: Chris, can you tell us a little bit about the case of the  Casey Movers Yelp threat

Chris Bucholtz: I wrote a piece on CRM Outsiders about Yelp and about how customers are getting more sophisticated about what they see in terms of comments.

Customers are learning to use it better. But for some reason, certain businesses simply are not learning how to use this or know what the etiquette is.  Frankly, in this case, I think the company brought a little bit of bad manners along with them to the social media world.

Here is the situation. A customer and his parents had an experience with an outfit called Casey Movers. There were some issues with the move and some things got broken.

Small Business Trends: Moving is stressful.  When you are the child of elderly parents getting ready to make a big move and they are really depending on you to help out, you turn to a moving company that you hope will make this experience as easy on them as possible.

Chris Bucholtz: And it wasn’t. It wasn’t the parents that put the Yelp review up. It was the son’s wife. It was a negative review and time passed.

Small Business Trends: A lot of time passed.

Chris Bucholtz: Eighteen months passed.  That’s eons in business.

Small Business Trends: Let me read the letter that came a year and a half after the Yelp review. I have to stress the time here because it didn’t ask how can we make it better What can we do to alleviate this situation If they were really interested in helping, they would have done it well before a year and a half, correct Here’s some of the letter sent to the customer:

“While we appreciate constructive feedback, it is Casey Movers firm belief that your review is unnecessarily damaging to the company and to the employees and families that this company supports.

Although, we respect that you may have opinions regarding the service, Casey Movers shall not be damaged by following Federal moving procedures as this review is unnecessarily deceiving to future clients.

I am politely asking you to remove the review. Please be advised that if the review remains online, Casey Movers will be filing a libel suit against you in which you must travel to Hingham District Court in Hingham, Massachusetts as a defendant.”

Chris Bucholtz: This is a letter sent to the customer. So these people saw this review and actually took the time and trouble to look up the information on the customer - so they could write them and deliver this wonderful letter telling them that they are going to be sued if they did not change their Yelp review.

Small Business Trends: And it’s from a sales manager. Not a legal counsel, not the president of the company, simply a sales manager.

Chris Bucholtz: Yes. This is exactly the way NOT to do it. You are essentially blaming the victim. You have already caused some problems with these people and you have already made them an unhappy customer.

Trying to intimidate people leaving reviews on Yelp, asking them to take their reviews down or modifying their review, is a little bit unsavory.

Small Business Trends: Everything has been done wrong. The question is, given this history, what could a company do differently

Chris Bucholtz: l think the first thing to do is reach out to the customer who is wronged and try to make it right with them. Just be creative in engaging directly with the customer in a forthright way and if something went wrong, admit it went wrong. The customer was there. The customer is the one making the judgment call about how well you did.

In situations like this is when it comes to Yelp, every now and then, you’ll get a negative review. It’s just the way it works. If you run a business, you’ll get a negative review here and there. Don’t freak out.

The people who are motivated to write either had a really good time, or had a really bad time. Customers who are reading Yelp nowadays are a lot smarter than they used to be. It is not a thing where they fixate on the one bad review out of 30. You have 29 positives and one bad one - don’t fixate on the bad one.

Small Business Trends: This brings up a conversation I had with the CEO of a company called Boloco, a burrito chain. John Pepper said something I will always remember. He said, “When we get criticism for our service from a customer, I view it as one of the best opportunities we can get. Because that allows us an opportunity to build a relationship if we respond accordingly, fast, and show that we intend to change and do it better the next time.”

When you look at Casey Movers, threatening customers is never a good thing. Being a year and a half late to respond to a customer request, or a customer criticism is never a good thing. You have to be responsive and you have to be open to working with the customers.  Not trying to force them to change their negative opinion of a negative experience.

Why not focus on changing the negative experience instead

Chris Bucholtz: Exactly. There are certain things that you have control of.  Once something goes up on social media, you don’t have control over it anymore. But you can control your reaction to it and you can control it in a way that is positive, as a lot of companies are doing these days, and taking the customer’s input to heart and using it to improve the way to do business.

Small Business Trends: You have to be a company that creates a culture of wanting to listen to the customer. A lot of companies haven’t. They talk a good game, but when it comes down to it, when it gets to the negative Yelp review, all bets are off.

Chris Bucholtz: Reviews can be stinging. But in this case, I think the pain really came from the response - not from the actual review itself.

Small Business Trends: It came from the sales manager and it came a year and a half late.  By the way, not only did the Yelp commenter not take down the comment - she added another review.

This interview is part of our One on One series of conversations with some of the most thought-provoking entrepreneurs, authors and experts in business today. This interview has been edited for publication. To hear audio of the full interview, click the right arrow on the gray player below. You can also see more interviews in our interview series.

Foodies: Spot Great Meals with OpenTable And Foodspotting App

Online restaurant reservation service OpenTable recently announced its purchase of mobile app Foodspotting, in an effort to create a more social and visual-focused platform.

The Foodspotting app, which allows users to submit and browse pictures of their favorite meals, will continue to run as its own product. Currently, Foodspotting allows users (and foodies) to search for certain types of dishes within a particular city or geographic area.

Users can also log into Foodspotting with their Facebook accounts so they can see what restaurants and dishes their friends like, and then share their favorites with others.

For businesses, Foodspotting offers a number of tools including photo contests, giveaways, and city restaurant guides. Foodspotting is also working on a way for restaurants to claim their own pages so they can have more control over what is displayed.

The photo on the left above shows an OpenTable page that includes reviews, reservation options, and a photo from Foodspotting. The photo on the right shows the same photo on a Foodspotting page, which includes the user name and when the photo was added, along with how many other users have loved the post.  Foodies, in particular, will really love this feature.

For restaurant owners, this news could mean the addition of some interactive features on the popular reservation platform. By integrating Foodspotting photos and data, the OpenTable experience could become smarter and a little more personal. Instead of simply going to OpenTable to make a reservation, users could submit photos of their favorite dishes or exchange other information about local restaurants.

OpenTable already had a partnership in place with Foodspotting. The site used some user-submitted photos from the app on its restaurant reservation pages, and Foodspotting users were able to make OpenTable reservations within the app.

OpenTable agreed to purchase Foodspotting for $10 million, and the ten-person team will be joining the team at OpenTable. Foodspotting is based in San Francisco and was originally founded in 2009.

Yelp Loses Money, But Hits 100 Million Visitors

Yelp is probably here to stay. Though the company lost an estimated $5.3 million, or $0.08 per share, in the fourth quarter of 2012, that’s less than the net loss of $9.1 million, or $0.56 per share, in the fourth quarter of 2011. At the same time, revenue for the quarter was $41.2 million, up 65 percent from earnings in 2011.

Meanwhile, Yelp managed to reach a significant milestone last month. The company’s blog reported hitting 100 million unique visitors in January for the first time since the site’s inception. What does this mean for your business If you have a Yelp page, you’re more likely to receive customer feedback than ever before. And if you haven’t visited Yelp, it may be time to discover whether a page has already been created for your business and what people are saying about you there.

For those not familiar with the site, Yelp provides the opportunity to gain customer feedback and to market your company, especially a local business, to local consumers or other businesses interested in working with you. To get an idea of how the site works and how to get up and running using it, check out Getting Your Small Business Started on Yelp from TJ McCue.

Yelp Faces Competition

Not everyone is sold on the site’s importance as a location-based marketing tool, however. First of all, there are plenty of competitors in the space. Some reports point to the possibility that Facebook’s Graph Search could replace other location-based rivals with new ways to locate local business information and reviews. The Next Web

Adam Gottlieb advises against business owners buying into the location-based marketing hype. Reasons to avoid investing too heavily include steep cost, high learning curve, no guarantee of return, and a highly specialized group of customers. The Frugal Entrepreneur

Customer Review Trend Grows

On the other hand, Gottlieb agrees, it’s important to keep up with what your customers are saying about you. In fact, one study suggests that customer reviews on sites like Yelp, TripAdvisor, and Angie’s List might be more important than professional reviews to many customers. PR Intelligence Blog

The study by Weber Shandwick and KRC Research shows how customer reviews trump professional opinions of consumer products like smartphones, PCs, and printers, and how consumers find them. The study also shows how interested customers are in the authenticity of the reviews they are reading. eMarketer

Editor’s Note: the above article was corrected to note the correct number of visitors. An earlier version said 1 million.

Yelp Loses Money, But Hits 100 Million Visitors

Yelp is probably here to stay. Though the company lost an estimated $5.3 million, or $0.08 per share, in the fourth quarter of 2012, that’s less than the net loss of $9.1 million, or $0.56 per share, in the fourth quarter of 2011. At the same time, revenue for the quarter was $41.2 million, up 65 percent from earnings in 2011.

Meanwhile, Yelp managed to reach a significant milestone last month. The company’s blog reported hitting 100 million unique visitors in January for the first time since the site’s inception. What does this mean for your business If you have a Yelp page, you’re more likely to receive customer feedback than ever before. And if you haven’t visited Yelp, it may be time to discover whether a page has already been created for your business and what people are saying about you there.

For those not familiar with the site, Yelp provides the opportunity to gain customer feedback and to market your company, especially a local business, to local consumers or other businesses interested in working with you. To get an idea of how the site works and how to get up and running using it, check out Getting Your Small Business Started on Yelp from TJ McCue.

Yelp Faces Competition

Not everyone is sold on the site’s importance as a location-based marketing tool, however. First of all, there are plenty of competitors in the space. Some reports point to the possibility that Facebook’s Graph Search could replace other location-based rivals with new ways to locate local business information and reviews. The Next Web

Adam Gottlieb advises against business owners buying into the location-based marketing hype. Reasons to avoid investing too heavily include steep cost, high learning curve, no guarantee of return, and a highly specialized group of customers. The Frugal Entrepreneur

Customer Review Trend Grows

On the other hand, Gottlieb agrees, it’s important to keep up with what your customers are saying about you. In fact, one study suggests that customer reviews on sites like Yelp, TripAdvisor, and Angie’s List might be more important than professional reviews to many customers. PR Intelligence Blog

The study by Weber Shandwick and KRC Research shows how customer reviews trump professional opinions of consumer products like smartphones, PCs, and printers, and how consumers find them. The study also shows how interested customers are in the authenticity of the reviews they are reading. eMarketer

Editor’s Note: the above article was corrected to note the correct number of visitors. An earlier version said 1 million.

5 Things Business Owners Need to Review for Their Website

Websites can make or break a business that depends on the Internet in any way for sales. It is important that businesses make it a point to check their websites often to ensure everything is running smoothly. If the site isn’t running well, you could lose a sale and/or a potential long-term costumer.

Site Errors in Google Webmaster Tools

All websites should be set up in Google Webmaster Tools. Here is why:

In Google Webmaster Tools you can look at “Health” and then “Crawl Errors.” In this area you can see if your site has had any downtime that Google picked up as a result of DNS or server connectivity errors.

This is important information for you because if your site is consistently having crawl errors it could affect how your site ranks, but more importantly when your site is down or not working - you are not making money. Checking crawl errors is really important when you are paying for cheap hosting. Sometimes you never know what kind of service you are actually getting.

Links and Navigation

Most sites have links in sidebars, headers, footers and throughout the pages. Some of those links push site visitors to make a sale and you want to make sure all of your links are working properly. Do random checks to make sure everything is working, especiallywhen you have employees updating the site often.

Navigation is also important to check often:

• Are your drop-downs working
• How do they work on mobile devices
• Are all the tabs taking to you to the right pages

Sometimes when there are updates to CMS platforms or servers, things on a website break. Always make sure that the areas you need working properly to make a sale are, in fact, working.

Contact Forms and Email

One common problem we see are contact forms that are not working properly for a variety of reasons. Sometimes the contact form will let you know when someone hits “submit” that they are not working. But others will look as though the message was sent. When potential customers don’t get a reply, they move on to another company.

Sometimes contact forms entries make it to the right email address, but they end up in Spam on a consistent basis. These are issues that can be fixed. Find any errors and fix them.  Keep in mind that things may be working well now, but they may not next week so testing your forms is a good idea.

Tip for Business Owners: When you are testing out contact forms, sometimes it is a good idea to use a different email and see how long it takes for your staff to reply. You can also see if their responses are appropriate.

Performance on Mobile Devices

Things to check on mobile devices:

• Navigation:  How easy or hard is it to use on mobile
• Links:  Are they easy to see and use
• Contact Forms:  Make sure they function correctly.
• Phone Numbers:  Can people see them Can they click to call on a mobile device
• Downloadable Items:  Do they open on mobile devices
• Logins for Payments or Clients
• Page Loading:  Do the pages load Do they look right Can users read your content
• Email Links: Do they work
• Apps, Plugins, Modules or Scripts:  Is everything functioning as it should

Remember that mobile software changes consistently so checking various parts of your website often is the smart thing to do.

Pages

I know it sounds obvious, but it is important that you check your main pages often:

• How do they look
• Are the pages running slow
• Do you see any script errors

When websites are being updated often it is critical to check and re-check the pages often. Someone could upload an image that is too big and mess up the look of the site and/or slow down the load time. Someone could add a script that is not working or upload a plugin in WordPress that messes up content in some way.

Check your pages often and make sure you check all critical pages after updates just to ensure all is well.

Five Critical Areas

The five areas I have mentioned are really important to review and review often. These are basic parts of your site that need to work well to make a sale and bring in new clients. Businesses spend a lot of time and money to have a website.

Spending a little time making sure it is working is required to ensure your website represents your company well and to also make sure the site is making you money.

15 Content Delivery Tools To Speed Up Your Website

When a business website is running slow, customers often decide to leave and look elsewhere. In addition, you lose search engine priority if your website has long load times. Why lose customers over something that is easily remedied Business owners in need of speed for their website can find content delivery networks (CDNs) that will have pages loading fast.

Content delivery networks work by providing nodes that are close to your customers with the stored, fixed content loaded into them. When your website information is offered through a nearby node, it causes that data to travel over shorter distances, creating quicker loads. If you work in WordPress or other shared environments, there are plugins to combine with a CDN to meet your needs, as well.

Note: Remember, the data storage and bandwidth rates mentioned in here are for your website content only - not what’s on your computer hard drive. So you would have to have an extremely large website to exceed most of these. Of course, each of these will have a next level tier to accommodate your needs.

MaxCDN is a content delivery network that has hundreds of servers. The $39.95/year plan should suit most small businesses for those with less than 1TB of data per year.

CloudFlare CDN will keep a copy of minimum content, so your website is available even when the server is down. It also claims to work with other CDNs to increase speed. Although it does not charge for bandwidth and its limited basic service is free, its paid plans run from $20 to $3,000 per month.

CacheFly is used by some of the bigger name companies and is known for its reliability. They offer custom plans (with rates as low as $0.03 per GB) but their Plus Plan is $99 per month (256GB with $0.37/GB above that and limited services). There is a 30-day free trial.

CloudLayer has tools that help with content monetization and digital rights management. Its pricing is solely based on bandwidth, SSL (Secure Socket Layer), and storage needs. These prices range from $0.12 to $0.75 per GB on a pay-as-you-go basis.

Flexihostings is an Australian company that focuses on large content files, audio and video streaming and content caching. But they appear to service companies anywhere with 21 nodes around the world. All prices in Australian Dollars (AU$) Setup fee is $60 and a $200 security deposit. Then, plans start at 250 GB for $76.95/month.

Value CDN provides “fast and low cost” CDN service, and the website definitely looks the part. The site explains the basics and that’s it. However prices range from $120 to $700 per month, with low per GB pricing, but nodes are only located in Europe and North America.

ProCDN says that it works with both large and small content websites. The basic plan is $20 per month for 200 GB. After that it charges $0.15 for each GB up to 10 TB and then $0.10 per GB over 10 TB. I like that they have a short list right on the home page that shows where the servers/nodes are located.

For extra speed with WordPress on a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) level, try these plug-ins:

W3 Total Cache has to be one of the grandfathers in the content speed world. It comes recommended by many of the top bloggers out there.

WP Minify will speed up WordPress and other shared environment sites by compressing JS and CSS files. It can be used in conjunction with a CPN. It is free.

W3Edge is a top-rated plugin that caches, compresses, and is compatible with shared hosting. You can download it from their website for free.

Head JS compresses JavaScript. However, it is recommended you test it first because it can also cause problems if it is not done right. The plugin is free from WordPress.

Plugin Organizer is a WordPress plugin that helps you put your plugins in order and disable ones that you do not need on certain posts. It is free from WordPress.

If you have been searching for a way to host a fast WordPress site without having to do these speed things yourself, then I would recommend you try what is known as Managed WordPress Hosting.

The following three companies are ones where I have spoken to the founder(s) and can vouch for their relentless focus on the customer. There are many others in this growing category, however.

Page.ly was one of the first to offer managed hosting focused on WordPress users. The basic plan starts at $24/month and is ideal for the small business site or blog. Your site is constantly backed up as well, so that’s a nice “peace of mind” feature. I like this short page that explains managed hosting.

Synthesis comes from Copyblogger Media, owner of Scribe Content Marketing software which I just reviewed. It comes with that same - “educational content” that you have come to expect from any Copyblogger product. Plans start at $27/month.

WPEngine is well known for its lightning fast WordPress hosting. Plans start at $29/month and all plans come with a 60 Day money back guarantee. The two founders, Jason Cohen and Ben Metcalfe, are heavy hitters that you can bank on.

What tools are you using to keep your site fast â€" for your customers and for Google

5 Things Business Owners Need to Review for Their Website

Websites can make or break a business that depends on the Internet in any way for sales. It is important that businesses make it a point to check their websites often to ensure everything is running smoothly. If the site isn’t running well, you could lose a sale and/or a potential long-term costumer.

Site Errors in Google Webmaster Tools

All websites should be set up in Google Webmaster Tools. Here is why:

In Google Webmaster Tools you can look at “Health” and then “Crawl Errors.” In this area you can see if your site has had any downtime that Google picked up as a result of DNS or server connectivity errors.

This is important information for you because if your site is consistently having crawl errors it could affect how your site ranks, but more importantly when your site is down or not working - you are not making money. Checking crawl errors is really important when you are paying for cheap hosting. Sometimes you never know what kind of service you are actually getting.

Links and Navigation

Most sites have links in sidebars, headers, footers and throughout the pages. Some of those links push site visitors to make a sale and you want to make sure all of your links are working properly. Do random checks to make sure everything is working, especiallywhen you have employees updating the site often.

Navigation is also important to check often:

• Are your drop-downs working
• How do they work on mobile devices
• Are all the tabs taking to you to the right pages

Sometimes when there are updates to CMS platforms or servers, things on a website break. Always make sure that the areas you need working properly to make a sale are, in fact, working.

Contact Forms and Email

One common problem we see are contact forms that are not working properly for a variety of reasons. Sometimes the contact form will let you know when someone hits “submit” that they are not working. But others will look as though the message was sent. When potential customers don’t get a reply, they move on to another company.

Sometimes contact forms entries make it to the right email address, but they end up in Spam on a consistent basis. These are issues that can be fixed. Find any errors and fix them.  Keep in mind that things may be working well now, but they may not next week so testing your forms is a good idea.

Tip for Business Owners: When you are testing out contact forms, sometimes it is a good idea to use a different email and see how long it takes for your staff to reply. You can also see if their responses are appropriate.

Performance on Mobile Devices

Things to check on mobile devices:

• Navigation:  How easy or hard is it to use on mobile
• Links:  Are they easy to see and use
• Contact Forms:  Make sure they function correctly.
• Phone Numbers:  Can people see them Can they click to call on a mobile device
• Downloadable Items:  Do they open on mobile devices
• Logins for Payments or Clients
• Page Loading:  Do the pages load Do they look right Can users read your content
• Email Links: Do they work
• Apps, Plugins, Modules or Scripts:  Is everything functioning as it should

Remember that mobile software changes consistently so checking various parts of your website often is the smart thing to do.

Pages

I know it sounds obvious, but it is important that you check your main pages often:

• How do they look
• Are the pages running slow
• Do you see any script errors

When websites are being updated often it is critical to check and re-check the pages often. Someone could upload an image that is too big and mess up the look of the site and/or slow down the load time. Someone could add a script that is not working or upload a plugin in WordPress that messes up content in some way.

Check your pages often and make sure you check all critical pages after updates just to ensure all is well.

Five Critical Areas

The five areas I have mentioned are really important to review and review often. These are basic parts of your site that need to work well to make a sale and bring in new clients. Businesses spend a lot of time and money to have a website.

Spending a little time making sure it is working is required to ensure your website represents your company well and to also make sure the site is making you money.

Foodies: Spot Great Meals with OpenTable And Foodspotting App

Online restaurant reservation service OpenTable recently announced its purchase of mobile app Foodspotting, in an effort to create a more social and visual-focused platform.

The Foodspotting app, which allows users to submit and browse pictures of their favorite meals, will continue to run as its own product. Currently, Foodspotting allows users (and foodies) to search for certain types of dishes within a particular city or geographic area.

Users can also log into Foodspotting with their Facebook accounts so they can see what restaurants and dishes their friends like, and then share their favorites with others.

For businesses, Foodspotting offers a number of tools including photo contests, giveaways, and city restaurant guides. Foodspotting is also working on a way for restaurants to claim their own pages so they can have more control over what is displayed.

The photo on the left above shows an OpenTable page that includes reviews, reservation options, and a photo from Foodspotting. The photo on the right shows the same photo on a Foodspotting page, which includes the user name and when the photo was added, along with how many other users have loved the post.  Foodies, in particular, will really love this feature.

For restaurant owners, this news could mean the addition of some interactive features on the popular reservation platform. By integrating Foodspotting photos and data, the OpenTable experience could become smarter and a little more personal. Instead of simply going to OpenTable to make a reservation, users could submit photos of their favorite dishes or exchange other information about local restaurants.

OpenTable already had a partnership in place with Foodspotting. The site used some user-submitted photos from the app on its restaurant reservation pages, and Foodspotting users were able to make OpenTable reservations within the app.

OpenTable agreed to purchase Foodspotting for $10 million, and the ten-person team will be joining the team at OpenTable. Foodspotting is based in San Francisco and was originally founded in 2009.

4 WordPress Plugins to Fight Content Scrapers

Scrapers are the bane of any blogger’s existence. Web scraping sweeps in, steals your content, claims it is their own, and sometimes there is no way of proving otherwise. Surprisingly, Google hasn’t been too smart at identifying the original content author in many cases. Very often, my Google Alerts notify me of my scraped articles rather than my original (guest) posts and I’ve seen scrapers outranking original articles for long tail searches many times.

There is occasionally a story of a blogger who managed to get back the rights to their content - but it’s more like fighting the windmills. You kill one scraping blog and dozens of them get born overnight. Therefore it is much better to try to prevent scraping (or at least get labeled as the original author) rather than rely on being one of those rare successes.

1. Google Plus Authorship

Google has been trying to fight scrapers for ages and one of its patents (which is part of AuthorRank patents) suggest using authorship to:

 “. . .detect and protect against revision of content after it has been posted by a person or entity.”

Implementing Google Authorship is much easier nowadays (here’s a quick guide), but on many blog set-ups (where there’s no author byline, for example), it can still cause confusion. In these cases, this plugin will help.

It allows you to add a G+ profile picture to search results, confirm authorship, and even grant authorship to multiple authors. It works on a three step system that is very easy to follow, and there are no bugs to worry about.

2. Feed Delay

Half the risk to a small to medium sized blog is having a scraper bot picking up content, publishing it without attribution and then getting the page indexed first (weirdly enough, Google hasn’t been able to knock these sites off or even find the original owner of the content).

Since there are probably at least a couple of bots hiding in your RSS subscriptions, your best bet is to delay feed from being reposted. This plugin will do that for you.

3. Anti Feed-Scraper Message

Most scraping is done by bots, without any actual oversight from humans. So they have no control over what content is published, or how. This is a major plus for you, as you can add a link to your blog in all content, which will show up upon reposting.

Anti Feed-Scraper Message does this, showing Google and all readers where the post originally came from. It also keeps any accusations from the message, so protects you from scandal claims by the scrapers. The message reads: [Post Name] originally appeared on [Site Name] on [Post Date].

4. Copyright Proof

Along with the one above, this plugin can be used. It allows you to digitally certify your ownership at the time of publication, making a certificate that you can show in the case of someone stealing your content. It has a copyright, licensing and attribution license at every post, as well. There is an additional feature for anti-theft if you choose to use it.

Do you know of a good plugin for protecting content against Scrapers What about outside of WordPress

4 WordPress Plugins to Fight Content Scrapers

Scrapers are the bane of any blogger’s existence. Web scraping sweeps in, steals your content, claims it is their own, and sometimes there is no way of proving otherwise. Surprisingly, Google hasn’t been too smart at identifying the original content author in many cases. Very often, my Google Alerts notify me of my scraped articles rather than my original (guest) posts and I’ve seen scrapers outranking original articles for long tail searches many times.

There is occasionally a story of a blogger who managed to get back the rights to their content - but it’s more like fighting the windmills. You kill one scraping blog and dozens of them get born overnight. Therefore it is much better to try to prevent scraping (or at least get labeled as the original author) rather than rely on being one of those rare successes.

1. Google Plus Authorship

Google has been trying to fight scrapers for ages and one of its patents (which is part of AuthorRank patents) suggest using authorship to:

 “. . .detect and protect against revision of content after it has been posted by a person or entity.”

Implementing Google Authorship is much easier nowadays (here’s a quick guide), but on many blog set-ups (where there’s no author byline, for example), it can still cause confusion. In these cases, this plugin will help.

It allows you to add a G+ profile picture to search results, confirm authorship, and even grant authorship to multiple authors. It works on a three step system that is very easy to follow, and there are no bugs to worry about.

2. Feed Delay

Half the risk to a small to medium sized blog is having a scraper bot picking up content, publishing it without attribution and then getting the page indexed first (weirdly enough, Google hasn’t been able to knock these sites off or even find the original owner of the content).

Since there are probably at least a couple of bots hiding in your RSS subscriptions, your best bet is to delay feed from being reposted. This plugin will do that for you.

3. Anti Feed-Scraper Message

Most scraping is done by bots, without any actual oversight from humans. So they have no control over what content is published, or how. This is a major plus for you, as you can add a link to your blog in all content, which will show up upon reposting.

Anti Feed-Scraper Message does this, showing Google and all readers where the post originally came from. It also keeps any accusations from the message, so protects you from scandal claims by the scrapers. The message reads: [Post Name] originally appeared on [Site Name] on [Post Date].

4. Copyright Proof

Along with the one above, this plugin can be used. It allows you to digitally certify your ownership at the time of publication, making a certificate that you can show in the case of someone stealing your content. It has a copyright, licensing and attribution license at every post, as well. There is an additional feature for anti-theft if you choose to use it.

Do you know of a good plugin for protecting content against Scrapers What about outside of WordPress

USPS Cuts Saturday Mail Delivery But Will Continue Package Delivery

For several years, the United States Postal Service has been talking about the possibility of doing away with mail delivery on Saturdays in order to help balance its budget. Congress and the American public have debated whether or not this change could have a negative impact on consumers and businesses.

The USPS has officially announced that mail will no longer be delivered to residential addresses on Saturdays beginning the week of August 5, 2013. Packages will continue to be delivered on Saturdays, and Post Offices that currently have Saturday hours will remain open, some with limited hours, to sell stamps and accept packages for shipping. Mail to PO boxes will also continue to be delivered on Saturdays.

Since package delivery remains a more profitable part of the business than traditional mail, businesses like online retailers that ship products to consumers shouldn’t really be affected by this change.

But for other types of businesses, like those that use direct mail for marketing purposes, cutting Saturday delivery could potentially have more of an impact. However, since mail will still be delivered Monday through Friday, any potential negative impacts from the new schedule should be minimal.

The USPS has been contemplating cutting Saturday delivery for some time, due mainly to loss of business from email and other forms of digital communication, as well as competition from private carriers like FedEx and UPS.

The Postal Service expects that this measure will help to save about $2 billion annually, once the new schedule has been fully implemented.

The USPS is a self-supporting government enterprise, and the only delivery service that reaches every address in the nation. In addition, the Postal Service receives no tax dollars or government funding for running its operations. Post Offices are funded by the sale of postage, and its other products and services.

USPS Cuts Saturday Mail Delivery But Will Continue Package Delivery

For several years, the United States Postal Service has been talking about the possibility of doing away with mail delivery on Saturdays in order to help balance its budget. Congress and the American public have debated whether or not this change could have a negative impact on consumers and businesses.

The USPS has officially announced that mail will no longer be delivered to residential addresses on Saturdays beginning the week of August 5, 2013. Packages will continue to be delivered on Saturdays, and Post Offices that currently have Saturday hours will remain open, some with limited hours, to sell stamps and accept packages for shipping. Mail to PO boxes will also continue to be delivered on Saturdays.

Since package delivery remains a more profitable part of the business than traditional mail, businesses like online retailers that ship products to consumers shouldn’t really be affected by this change.

But for other types of businesses, like those that use direct mail for marketing purposes, cutting Saturday delivery could potentially have more of an impact. However, since mail will still be delivered Monday through Friday, any potential negative impacts from the new schedule should be minimal.

The USPS has been contemplating cutting Saturday delivery for some time, due mainly to loss of business from email and other forms of digital communication, as well as competition from private carriers like FedEx and UPS.

The Postal Service expects that this measure will help to save about $2 billion annually, once the new schedule has been fully implemented.

The USPS is a self-supporting government enterprise, and the only delivery service that reaches every address in the nation. In addition, the Postal Service receives no tax dollars or government funding for running its operations. Post Offices are funded by the sale of postage, and its other products and services.

A Sales Meeting Full of Awe [CARTOON]

I’ve probably previously mentioned that old chestnut “brevity is wit,” which I wholeheartedly believe is true.

I often spend a fair amount time whittling my captions down from 10 words to 9 or 8, if I’m lucky.  So when I can get a one word caption, it’s a happy day indeed.

Throw in a sales graph to boot and I’m in 7th heaven. Now if I could only get that down to 6 . . .

A Sales Meeting Full of Awe [CARTOON]

I’ve probably previously mentioned that old chestnut “brevity is wit,” which I wholeheartedly believe is true.

I often spend a fair amount time whittling my captions down from 10 words to 9 or 8, if I’m lucky.  So when I can get a one word caption, it’s a happy day indeed.

Throw in a sales graph to boot and I’m in 7th heaven. Now if I could only get that down to 6 . . .

Chris Bucholtz of CRM Outsiders: A Tragic Case of Customer Relationship Mismanagement

Everyone has a voice and these days, everyone has valuable tool to broadcast their voice and that tool is the Internet. Tune in as Chris Bucholtz, Editor-in-Chief of CRM Outsiders, joins Brent Leary to explore customer relationship and online reputation management, and one case in particular, the Casey Movers threat on Yelp.

* * * * *

Small Business Trends: Chris, can you tell us a little bit about the case of the  Casey Movers Yelp threat

Chris Bucholtz: I wrote a piece on CRM Outsiders about Yelp and about how customers are getting more sophisticated about what they see in terms of comments.

Customers are learning to use it better. But for some reason, certain businesses simply are not learning how to use this or know what the etiquette is.  Frankly, in this case, I think the company brought a little bit of bad manners along with them to the social media world.

Here is the situation. A customer and his parents had an experience with an outfit called Casey Movers. There were some issues with the move and some things got broken.

Small Business Trends: Moving is stressful.  When you are the child of elderly parents getting ready to make a big move and they are really depending on you to help out, you turn to a moving company that you hope will make this experience as easy on them as possible.

Chris Bucholtz: And it wasn’t. It wasn’t the parents that put the Yelp review up. It was the son’s wife. It was a negative review and time passed.

Small Business Trends: A lot of time passed.

Chris Bucholtz: Eighteen months passed.  That’s eons in business.

Small Business Trends: Let me read the letter that came a year and a half after the Yelp review. I have to stress the time here because it didn’t ask how can we make it better What can we do to alleviate this situation If they were really interested in helping, they would have done it well before a year and a half, correct Here’s some of the letter sent to the customer:

“While we appreciate constructive feedback, it is Casey Movers firm belief that your review is unnecessarily damaging to the company and to the employees and families that this company supports.

Although, we respect that you may have opinions regarding the service, Casey Movers shall not be damaged by following Federal moving procedures as this review is unnecessarily deceiving to future clients.

I am politely asking you to remove the review. Please be advised that if the review remains online, Casey Movers will be filing a libel suit against you in which you must travel to Hingham District Court in Hingham, Massachusetts as a defendant.”

Chris Bucholtz: This is a letter sent to the customer. So these people saw this review and actually took the time and trouble to look up the information on the customer - so they could write them and deliver this wonderful letter telling them that they are going to be sued if they did not change their Yelp review.

Small Business Trends: And it’s from a sales manager. Not a legal counsel, not the president of the company, simply a sales manager.

Chris Bucholtz: Yes. This is exactly the way NOT to do it. You are essentially blaming the victim. You have already caused some problems with these people and you have already made them an unhappy customer.

Trying to intimidate people leaving reviews on Yelp, asking them to take their reviews down or modifying their review, is a little bit unsavory.

Small Business Trends: Everything has been done wrong. The question is, given this history, what could a company do differently

Chris Bucholtz: l think the first thing to do is reach out to the customer who is wronged and try to make it right with them. Just be creative in engaging directly with the customer in a forthright way and if something went wrong, admit it went wrong. The customer was there. The customer is the one making the judgment call about how well you did.

In situations like this is when it comes to Yelp, every now and then, you’ll get a negative review. It’s just the way it works. If you run a business, you’ll get a negative review here and there. Don’t freak out.

The people who are motivated to write either had a really good time, or had a really bad time. Customers who are reading Yelp nowadays are a lot smarter than they used to be. It is not a thing where they fixate on the one bad review out of 30. You have 29 positives and one bad one - don’t fixate on the bad one.

Small Business Trends: This brings up a conversation I had with the CEO of a company called Boloco, a burrito chain. John Pepper said something I will always remember. He said, “When we get criticism for our service from a customer, I view it as one of the best opportunities we can get. Because that allows us an opportunity to build a relationship if we respond accordingly, fast, and show that we intend to change and do it better the next time.”

When you look at Casey Movers, threatening customers is never a good thing. Being a year and a half late to respond to a customer request, or a customer criticism is never a good thing. You have to be responsive and you have to be open to working with the customers.  Not trying to force them to change their negative opinion of a negative experience.

Why not focus on changing the negative experience instead

Chris Bucholtz: Exactly. There are certain things that you have control of.  Once something goes up on social media, you don’t have control over it anymore. But you can control your reaction to it and you can control it in a way that is positive, as a lot of companies are doing these days, and taking the customer’s input to heart and using it to improve the way to do business.

Small Business Trends: You have to be a company that creates a culture of wanting to listen to the customer. A lot of companies haven’t. They talk a good game, but when it comes down to it, when it gets to the negative Yelp review, all bets are off.

Chris Bucholtz: Reviews can be stinging. But in this case, I think the pain really came from the response - not from the actual review itself.

Small Business Trends: It came from the sales manager and it came a year and a half late.  By the way, not only did the Yelp commenter not take down the comment - she added another review.

This interview is part of our One on One series of conversations with some of the most thought-provoking entrepreneurs, authors and experts in business today. This interview has been edited for publication. To hear audio of the full interview, click the right arrow on the gray player below. You can also see more interviews in our interview series.

Offer Personalized Homepages With Gravity

Gravity, an online startup that helps publishers personalize content for their readers, has just made its suite of APIs available so that all publishers have free access to the platform.

Gravity’s technology allows publishers to offer personalized homepages to each person who visits their site, taking users’ specific interests and activity into account, while also leaving editors room to curate some of the content so they can include viral or popular articles with those that best fit with their readers’ interests.

If you’re interested in a less involved personalization experience on your site, Gravity also offers widgets so that the whole homepage isn’t necessarily based on personalization, but visitors can still see a list of articles that would be more likely to interest them.

The photo on the right shows a “Recommendations for You” widget that can appear on a site and give recommendations for visitors. And the photo on the left shows an example of a homepage that can be more fully customized for each visitor.

The new API options allow publishers to gain more control over how the personalization on their sites or mobile apps appears.

The company, which was originally founded in 2009 by three former Myspace executives, uses a tool called an interest graph to find and recommend topics that are relevant to readers.

The process starts with Gravity processing tweets, status updates, articles, blogs, RSS feeds, and other user actions. It then processes user behavior, such as clicks, reads, shares, and likes through its partner sites and apps.

Then, Gravity uses all of its information to create interest graphs for users, as well as for websites and pieces of content like individual articles. Then the graphs evolve in real time, taking into account factors like users’ sharing and reading history, social trends, and other interest graphs.

For web publishers, tailoring content to your readership could help you stand out in an overly saturated market. Since anyone can post content online, making yours stand out simply by trying to deliver high quality content might not be enough. But making it easier for readers to find relevant items could keep them on your site longer and increase the likelihood of them becoming returning visitors.

The platform is supported by advertising, so users will have to deal with some sponsored stories in order to take advantage of the free service. However, Sponsored Stories can also help publishers make some extra money from third party advertisers.

Offer Personalized Homepages With Gravity

Gravity, an online startup that helps publishers personalize content for their readers, has just made its suite of APIs available so that all publishers have free access to the platform.

Gravity’s technology allows publishers to offer personalized homepages to each person who visits their site, taking users’ specific interests and activity into account, while also leaving editors room to curate some of the content so they can include viral or popular articles with those that best fit with their readers’ interests.

If you’re interested in a less involved personalization experience on your site, Gravity also offers widgets so that the whole homepage isn’t necessarily based on personalization, but visitors can still see a list of articles that would be more likely to interest them.

The photo on the right shows a “Recommendations for You” widget that can appear on a site and give recommendations for visitors. And the photo on the left shows an example of a homepage that can be more fully customized for each visitor.

The new API options allow publishers to gain more control over how the personalization on their sites or mobile apps appears.

The company, which was originally founded in 2009 by three former Myspace executives, uses a tool called an interest graph to find and recommend topics that are relevant to readers.

The process starts with Gravity processing tweets, status updates, articles, blogs, RSS feeds, and other user actions. It then processes user behavior, such as clicks, reads, shares, and likes through its partner sites and apps.

Then, Gravity uses all of its information to create interest graphs for users, as well as for websites and pieces of content like individual articles. Then the graphs evolve in real time, taking into account factors like users’ sharing and reading history, social trends, and other interest graphs.

For web publishers, tailoring content to your readership could help you stand out in an overly saturated market. Since anyone can post content online, making yours stand out simply by trying to deliver high quality content might not be enough. But making it easier for readers to find relevant items could keep them on your site longer and increase the likelihood of them becoming returning visitors.

The platform is supported by advertising, so users will have to deal with some sponsored stories in order to take advantage of the free service. However, Sponsored Stories can also help publishers make some extra money from third party advertisers.

14 Days of Facebook Marketing Tips. Tip #4: Use Facebook To Promote Your Events

Tip #4: Use Facebook to Promote Your Events

Welcome to 14 Days of Facebook Marketing Tips, on the occasion of the upcoming launch of “The Facebook Guide to Small Business Marketing” (Wiley) by Ramon Ray, of Smallbiztechnology.com and Infusionsoft.

Buy Ramon’s latest book on February 19th and get a digital box of goodies as your gift for buying the book, educating yourself and growing your business with Facebook.

In The Facebook Guide to Small Business Marketing, you will overall learn how to get more customers and keep the ones you have. You’ll also learn how to leverage overall online marketing, how to better use social media and, more specifically, how to use the power of Facebook for YOUR business. 

Tip #4: Use Facebook to Promote Your Events

You’ve got a special event planned for your business, but how are you going to let everyone know about it  Sure, you can start an email marketing campaign to invite those individuals in your contact list, but that’s so limiting.  You can request to have your event posted on the many event websites, some of which are free and some are not, OT!), but that takes a lot of time to manage and there’s no guarantee you’re getting to the right sites. So how can you get information about the event in front of literally billions of people  Use Facebook!!

Facebook is a great tool for getting information about events to your customers and followers. Even better, it opens the opportunity for you to extend the reach to your followers friends and their friends and their friends…I think you get the point! Facebook is perfect for all types of events;  book and music launches, retailer in-store promotions, webinars, networking events, fundraisers, seminars - any type of event you can think of really.The best part is you manage it all from one platform, for no cost (unless you incorporate an ad program) and it’s SIMPLE.

Here are a few tips for creating and promoting an event on Facebook:

1. Create Your Event Early and Announce It Regularly.  Create your event well in advance of the event date.  This will allow you plenty of time to promote the event to your followers. You’ll want to schedule regular announcements of the event to your Timeline, keeping in mind that you don’t want to overdue it, as that may cause people to stop following you.  You can use a social media scheduler, like dlvr.it or Hootesuite, to schedule out your posts and make managing much easier. 
2. Keep Your Announcements ‘Fresh’.  Make sure each post about your event is unique and ‘fresh’ so your followers don’t get bored.  You can use ‘teaser’ content in the announcements, such as photos showing event preparation, photos from past events or text like “Look what is coming soon…”.  These posts are a great way to share excitement about your event and entice people to come.
3. Link With Other Event Apps. There are other event apps, such as Eventbrite or Meetup, that allow you to connect your events to Facebook.  By creating an event in those applications, you can create a link to your Facebook page, which creates a post and the ability to easily link back to those apps to register for the event.

14 Days of Facebook Marketing Tips. Tip #4: Use Facebook To Promote Your Events

Tip #4: Use Facebook to Promote Your Events

Welcome to 14 Days of Facebook Marketing Tips, on the occasion of the upcoming launch of “The Facebook Guide to Small Business Marketing” (Wiley) by Ramon Ray, of Smallbiztechnology.com and Infusionsoft.

Buy Ramon’s latest book on February 19th and get a digital box of goodies as your gift for buying the book, educating yourself and growing your business with Facebook.

In The Facebook Guide to Small Business Marketing, you will overall learn how to get more customers and keep the ones you have. You’ll also learn how to leverage overall online marketing, how to better use social media and, more specifically, how to use the power of Facebook for YOUR business. 

Tip #4: Use Facebook to Promote Your Events

You’ve got a special event planned for your business, but how are you going to let everyone know about it  Sure, you can start an email marketing campaign to invite those individuals in your contact list, but that’s so limiting.  You can request to have your event posted on the many event websites, some of which are free and some are not, OT!), but that takes a lot of time to manage and there’s no guarantee you’re getting to the right sites. So how can you get information about the event in front of literally billions of people  Use Facebook!!

Facebook is a great tool for getting information about events to your customers and followers. Even better, it opens the opportunity for you to extend the reach to your followers friends and their friends and their friends…I think you get the point! Facebook is perfect for all types of events;  book and music launches, retailer in-store promotions, webinars, networking events, fundraisers, seminars - any type of event you can think of really.The best part is you manage it all from one platform, for no cost (unless you incorporate an ad program) and it’s SIMPLE.

Here are a few tips for creating and promoting an event on Facebook:

1. Create Your Event Early and Announce It Regularly.  Create your event well in advance of the event date.  This will allow you plenty of time to promote the event to your followers. You’ll want to schedule regular announcements of the event to your Timeline, keeping in mind that you don’t want to overdue it, as that may cause people to stop following you.  You can use a social media scheduler, like dlvr.it or Hootesuite, to schedule out your posts and make managing much easier. 
2. Keep Your Announcements ‘Fresh’.  Make sure each post about your event is unique and ‘fresh’ so your followers don’t get bored.  You can use ‘teaser’ content in the announcements, such as photos showing event preparation, photos from past events or text like “Look what is coming soon…”.  These posts are a great way to share excitement about your event and entice people to come.
3. Link With Other Event Apps. There are other event apps, such as Eventbrite or Meetup, that allow you to connect your events to Facebook.  By creating an event in those applications, you can create a link to your Facebook page, which creates a post and the ability to easily link back to those apps to register for the event.

Three Software Solutions That Put Your Desktop in the Cloud

Imagine having your desktop safely stored in the Cloud. No matter where you log in, your icons, wallpaper, and files are all exactly where you need them. No longer do you have to worry about backing up files or restoring everything following a hard drive crash. It’s all there, accessible from any web browser.

Storing a desktop in the Cloud is nothing new to businesses. However, HTML5 has made it easier for customers to access a desktop through a browser using a wide variety of devices. This technology is in high demand from users gravitating toward tablets and smartphones as a substitute for PCs and laptops. So many providers are offering this service to small businesses, it’s easy to get caught up in which service is best for you. Here are a few options to help you decide:

• Mikogo Cloud Desktop. In addition to setting up server space in the cloud for their permanent workers, businesses can also rent space for contractors, interns, and other short-term workers. In addition to desktop storage, Mikogo adds on the ability to host meetings on allotted Cloud space, sharing the very screen space you’re storing on the Cloud. Mikogo is in the process of rolling out this service, so no pricing is presently available, but a free demo account is currently available by completing the form at http://www.mikogo.com/product/cloud-desktop/.
• Nivio. Nivio has plans that include Microsoft Office licensing and pre-made desktops. You can even rent software and apps. You simply log in and a desktop is set up for you. Simply log into the site using any device and you’ll have a desktop that will always be available to you. Prices start at $35 per user per month ($50 per month if Microsoft Office is included) and include a Windows desktop, user management, a virtual file server, 10GB of storage per user, and comprehensive support.
• Cloud My Office. Cloud My Office gives users an administrator panel through which they can add applications and customize their desktop to look as they prefer. Once created, users can access their desktop using any device with a web connection, including Android- and iOS-based tablets and smartphones. Pricing begins at $35.97 per user per month for plans that don’t include Microsoft Office licenses or $46.28 for plans that do.

There are quite a few benefits to having a Cloud-based desktop, including freedom from viruses and spyware. Small businesses are able to save money on paying for servers, PCs, and tech staff to support them-all of which can be a challenge for tight-budgeted businesses. Plus, because these services offer top-level security, you won’t have to worry about losing files by carrying them around on external hard drives.

Small businesses may be among the earliest adapters of Cloud-based desktops, with many unable to afford in-house servers. Cloud solutions provide the opportunity to take advantage of mobile device features without being tied to a laptop or PC to house a primary desktop. By trying out one of the above options, you can determine whether a Cloud-based solution is right for all of your employees.

Chris Bucholtz of CRM Outsiders: A Tragic Case of Customer Relationship Mismanagement

Everyone has a voice and these days, everyone has valuable tool to broadcast their voice and that tool is the Internet. Tune in as Chris Bucholtz, Editor-in-Chief of CRM Outsiders, joins Brent Leary to explore customer relationship and online reputation management, and one case in particular, the Casey Movers threat on Yelp.

* * * * *

Small Business Trends: Chris, can you tell us a little bit about the case of the  Casey Movers Yelp threat

Chris Bucholtz: I wrote a piece on CRM Outsiders about Yelp and about how customers are getting more sophisticated about what they see in terms of comments.

Customers are learning to use it better. But for some reason, certain businesses simply are not learning how to use this or know what the etiquette is.  Frankly, in this case, I think the company brought a little bit of bad manners along with them to the social media world.

Here is the situation. A customer and his parents had an experience with an outfit called Casey Movers. There were some issues with the move and some things got broken.

Small Business Trends: Moving is stressful.  When you are the child of elderly parents getting ready to make a big move and they are really depending on you to help out, you turn to a moving company that you hope will make this experience as easy on them as possible.

Chris Bucholtz: And it wasn’t. It wasn’t the parents that put the Yelp review up. It was the son’s wife. It was a negative review and time passed.

Small Business Trends: A lot of time passed.

Chris Bucholtz: Eighteen months passed.  That’s eons in business.

Small Business Trends: Let me read the letter that came a year and a half after the Yelp review. I have to stress the time here because it didn’t ask how can we make it better What can we do to alleviate this situation If they were really interested in helping, they would have done it well before a year and a half, correct Here’s some of the letter sent to the customer:

“While we appreciate constructive feedback, it is Casey Movers firm belief that your review is unnecessarily damaging to the company and to the employees and families that this company supports.

Although, we respect that you may have opinions regarding the service, Casey Movers shall not be damaged by following Federal moving procedures as this review is unnecessarily deceiving to future clients.

I am politely asking you to remove the review. Please be advised that if the review remains online, Casey Movers will be filing a libel suit against you in which you must travel to Hingham District Court in Hingham, Massachusetts as a defendant.”

Chris Bucholtz: This is a letter sent to the customer. So these people saw this review and actually took the time and trouble to look up the information on the customer - so they could write them and deliver this wonderful letter telling them that they are going to be sued if they did not change their Yelp review.

Small Business Trends: And it’s from a sales manager. Not a legal counsel, not the president of the company, simply a sales manager.

Chris Bucholtz: Yes. This is exactly the way NOT to do it. You are essentially blaming the victim. You have already caused some problems with these people and you have already made them an unhappy customer.

Trying to intimidate people leaving reviews on Yelp, asking them to take their reviews down or modifying their review, is a little bit unsavory.

Small Business Trends: Everything has been done wrong. The question is, given this history, what could a company do differently

Chris Bucholtz: l think the first thing to do is reach out to the customer who is wronged and try to make it right with them. Just be creative in engaging directly with the customer in a forthright way and if something went wrong, admit it went wrong. The customer was there. The customer is the one making the judgment call about how well you did.

In situations like this is when it comes to Yelp, every now and then, you’ll get a negative review. It’s just the way it works. If you run a business, you’ll get a negative review here and there. Don’t freak out.

The people who are motivated to write either had a really good time, or had a really bad time. Customers who are reading Yelp nowadays are a lot smarter than they used to be. It is not a thing where they fixate on the one bad review out of 30. You have 29 positives and one bad one - don’t fixate on the bad one.

Small Business Trends: This brings up a conversation I had with the CEO of a company called Boloco, a burrito chain. John Pepper said something I will always remember. He said, “When we get criticism for our service from a customer, I view it as one of the best opportunities we can get. Because that allows us an opportunity to build a relationship if we respond accordingly, fast, and show that we intend to change and do it better the next time.”

When you look at Casey Movers, threatening customers is never a good thing. Being a year and a half late to respond to a customer request, or a customer criticism is never a good thing. You have to be responsive and you have to be open to working with the customers.  Not trying to force them to change their negative opinion of a negative experience.

Why not focus on changing the negative experience instead

Chris Bucholtz: Exactly. There are certain things that you have control of.  Once something goes up on social media, you don’t have control over it anymore. But you can control your reaction to it and you can control it in a way that is positive, as a lot of companies are doing these days, and taking the customer’s input to heart and using it to improve the way to do business.

Small Business Trends: You have to be a company that creates a culture of wanting to listen to the customer. A lot of companies haven’t. They talk a good game, but when it comes down to it, when it gets to the negative Yelp review, all bets are off.

Chris Bucholtz: Reviews can be stinging. But in this case, I think the pain really came from the response - not from the actual review itself.

Small Business Trends: It came from the sales manager and it came a year and a half late.  By the way, not only did the Yelp commenter not take down the comment - she added another review.

This interview is part of our One on One series of conversations with some of the most thought-provoking entrepreneurs, authors and experts in business today. This interview has been edited for publication. To hear audio of the full interview, click the right arrow on the gray player below. You can also see more interviews in our interview series.