Real Estate Marketing Tips and Strategies Blog

Voicing one’s opinion online can be transformed into a bloodsport at times and nowhere is this truer than in the realm of online reviews. Opinions count, at the very least insofar as they affect your business, and ensuring that you manage your online reputation is more important than ever. Poor reviews are going to happen. You can’t please everyone all of the time. What’s key however is ensuring that they don’t influence a lot of your audience, and that your brand is viewed as one which cares and addresses issues that come up, not contests, refutes or hides from them.

What to do with a negative review

Follow these three steps and develop your own system for taking care of a negative review when they happen.

1. Make customer service a number one priority – A big part of the reason companies find themselves in the position of having to deal with a negative online review is that often there is a breakdown with their customer service or support. Often clients are reaching out through various channels, including email, Facebook, Twitter, or in blog comments. Often they are overlooked for way too long, resulting in one mad client, who feels as though they have no recourse except to vent their aggravations on an online review site. In actuality, usually the whole scenario may have been avoided by paying a little more attention to your social and internal channels.
2. Deal professionally with people – No matter what you do, don’t inflame the problem by resorting to vitriolic he said, she said types of scenarios online. It will NEVER work in your favor, even if you are right. Remain professional, generous, and remember you are trying to keep a client, or at least not lose more of them! The real problem clients are few, and not worth the potential damage they can do should you get in it with them!
3. Encourage good reviews – One of the best ways you can actively make a difference is by supporting and even rewarding positive reviews of your real estate services. Get enough of these on a regular basis, and the infrequent negative review will not stand much of a chance of remaining high in the search results. On the contrary, they’ll more than likely bring you more clients!

The main thing in managing negative reviews is to be aware when they happen, handle clients with respect and professionalism, and make maintaining your online reputation a high priority! In this time of instant communication, you virtually have no choice!

Social media is a fantastic tool. It can allow you to reach many thousands of people with the click of a mouse. It can also be a tsunami of bad news should you fail to monitor your social channels on a daily basis. Making sure you are knowledgeable of the conversations happening in regards to you and your brand online is or ought to be regular part of your online reputation management. This will help on both keeping a lid on brewing problems in addition to increasing the chances for conversions. The issue is how to do this without having to spend hours online. The good thing is that it can be done quickly and efficiently, as outlined by HubSpot.

How to keep track your social media conversations

• Use available tools such as TweetDeck or HootSuite to monitor social media mentions on several platforms. These are easy to configure, and help you to see quickly a broad summary of what’s going on across your social channels.
• Google Alerts have long been very useful tools in the hands of marketers that were intent on monitoring the buzz around their products or brands. Here are a few you others you might consider: NewsBlur, or Flipboard for mobile. For Google Alerts try TalkWalker or Social Mention.
• Make sure you check your blogs, social networks, videos, and your Facebook pages for questions or concerns. Answering and dealing with these at the beginning will help you avoid trouble and also lead to greater sales and conversions.

However you choose to do it, make sure to make the time in your hectic schedule to make this happen daily. Unsatisfied clients and unresolved issues will fester and turn into major headaches if you let them. You don’t want this to take on a life of its own, magnifying what started out as a small fire into a big one! Don’t allowed this to happen to you!