Creative Leisure News

Technology issues that affect your business

How the Internet Can Make -- or Break -- Your Company's Reputation

Message boards and e-tail site reviews can spread good or bad reviews about your company without you even knowing it.

by PC Smart (May, 2004)

When considering buying a new car, what is the first thing most people do? They check Consumer Reports or other automobile review sources to see how the vehicle performed in crash tests, its reliability, and the overall satisfaction ratings. These days, a purchase as minor as a box of adhesive tabs may be subject to such scrutiny. Die hard crafters don�t want to waste their time or money on products that are not going to meet their expectations when there are so many competing products on the shelves.

One bad review can cause ripples of damage on the Internet. Since many message boards are searchable, anyone looking to research or buy a particular product will come up with the scathing review that CindyCrop wrote on her favorite scrap board. Not only will the potential customer see that review, they may see the 25 responses from other scrappers who bought and returned the product. Of course, they could also come up with some glowing reviews. Those are the kind of postings that send crafters running out to their local store with cash in hand. There have even been insinuations among longtime message-board members that when a "newbie" comes online to rave about a product, that the newbie is, in fact, a company employee hiding behind a screen name.

Aside from the message boards, many e-tailers include product reviews under the product photo-price-description. Here is where it gets murky at best: When I conducted a search for a particular electronic device my husband swore he could not live without, I found many sites containing reviews from satisfied (and unsatisfied) customers. Some reviews included identifiers such as first names or screen names, but some were left anonymous with possibly a city location. The strange thing about these reviews is that many of them are "lifted" from other sites. You could visit 10 online stores and find 6 reviews that are identical on each one! It seems that many of these entrepreneurs take it upon themselves to visit the competition and copy/paste reviews into their own sites. Of course this happens more often with good reviews than bad. I still found it sort of humorous. Kind of like the "friend of a friend" urban legend process that mutates as it is repeated.

Rumors are rampant on the Internet, that we all know. But just as an employee can get into a message board and rave about a product, a competitor can assume a screen name and trash the same product. Because of the way the boards are set up, many times people can have two or more screen names and carry on an entire thread by themselves, making it seem like the product is a godsend, or a dud. It is a simple thing to accomplish; sign up multiple times and keep two or three windows open on your computer. If you are thinking to yourself, "why would anyone waste their time with this?", then you are not familiar with the tactics of the Guerilla Marketer. (Go ahead, do a search on the term, it is a fascinating topic).

Recently on one scrap board there was an outrage over a company "lifting" the work of one of the board members to create a product. There was even talk of a boycott. A representative of the company posted a wonderful response on the site trying to smooth the ruffled feathers but that seemed to only fuel the fire. More than a month later, it still pops up in threads. Don�t think for one Internet minute that the next time one of those devoted crafters goes into a store she will have forgotten all she's read.

Think like a consumer.

Sometimes a company�s integrity is just as important as its product line. After all, most crafters are women. Women look beyond a company�s logo; we look at the people behind the packaging. Companies bank on that sensitivity and market to the emotions of women. So when we hear that craft company X made good on a defective product by sending some extra goodies with an apology note � well, we tend to think more highly of the company (and therefore their products).

As I mentioned in the Search column last month, doing regular checks on your product lines (and your competitor�s) is a good business practice. Check the message boards and Internet commerce sites. Even Blogs have been known to trash specific products or stores (Blogs are Internet weblogs, or diaries written by individuals).

Think like a consumer � what are all these resources telling you about the product? The Internet has become the new expert friend, like your brother-in-law the mechanic, or your cousin the nurse. The web puts you in touch with millions of people instantly. And they all have an opinion they want to share with the world.

Note: PC Smart writes for art/craft industry consumer and trade publications, in addition to being a marketing consultant and designer. In her previous, non-creative life, she was a database systems designer for a pharmaceutical company. Her main goal in writing about technology has been the marriage of computers and traditional art/crafts. Specializing in consumer level designs, Pamela focuses on the use of graphics software, scanners, and printers to help the average crafter use their computer for more than an expensive email machine. She believes that technology should be used as a tool in creativity and not necessarily the final output. PC Smart can be reached at pcsmart@bellsouth.net.

The Internet's power.

Note: CLN received an email from Annette Pfau of Stamp on This which illustrates what message boards can do.

"I participate in several online stamper/scrapper groups, just to see what the community is interested in any given week. These groups have an average of 1000-2000 members. Not all members are active in posting messages; many are just active readers.

"Any item of interest; Crayola sparkle paper, Great White Imaging/Photo Paper for instant gel transfers, and other great finds are all posted immediately to a list. Then there is a flurry of email in the next 48 hours of "happy finders" of the items at their local store. So, if you multiply many lists by many members.� The dollar stores do okay on any item of interest (whether it is hobby related or not)." -- Annette Pfau, www.stamponthis.com.

Note: To read previous Tech Talk articles, click on the titles in the right-hand column.

xxx