Fresh and Sizzling at Applebee’s: Social Media Reputation Management

The recent “social meltdown” at Applebee’s went right by the part of the world that could not care less about Reddit, Twitter or Facebook. It never made a large impact in the news and it certainly was not life-changing for more than one or two people. However, this social crisis illustrates an interesting fact about our world: one wrong move in the social arena can generate thousands of angry, irate people blasting your Facebook page or Twitter accounts, and there is little you can do at that point but try to manage the crisis, wait for it to blow over and hope the next atomic bomb does not drop on you.


Is there a way to learn from Applebee’s handling of the social crisis it recently endured? An examination of the facts may help other businesses avoid the issues that came up when Applebee’s responded to social criticism in a way that may have fanned the flames.

Here’s what happened:

A group came into a St. Louis Applebee’s and the leader, a self-proclaimed pastor, refused to pay the 18 percent required tip for a large group. Instead, they left their tips on the table in cash. A waitress who was not even waiting on the group in question photographed a note they left on the table including the words “pastor” and posted it on Reddit. Subsequently, hate mail to the pastor caused her to chide Applebee’s for violations of her privacy and the server was fired. Now, there are all sorts of things wrong with this story on all sides. However, Applebee’s next moves were what sealed its fate in the social media wars. Instead of simply apologizing for the incident, Applebee’s proceeded to post in the middle of the night on Facebook and attempted to gloss over the situation. The angry Reddit mob quickly grew and spread to Facebook and Twitter, as well as a petition to get the server her job back.

 

None of this needed to have happened. Applebee’s had several courses of action open to it, one of which, very simply, was to broker an apology on both sides. That could have been spun into a great, positive social media experience.

Instead, by handling things in a wishy-washy manner, a server is out of a job and Applebee’s has been grilled in social media.

Handling negative input on social media is something that every company should have a plan in place to deal with. Applebee’s apparently learned that lesson the hard way.

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 Taking care of your reputation is not that easy. It requires strategy, open minded and being straight forward. In this social era, thinking for a possible way to clean a certain name or a product is what Orange County SEO is doing for a long time. Check us here to learn more: Orange County SEO

2 New Tools in Google Analytics: Real-Time Widget and Benchmark Tool

If you have not yet made friends with Google Analytics, it is time to do so. The tools are constantly changed and updated and, let’s face it, it is Google doing the updating. The company even blogs about the changes so that you, the lowly SEO analyst trying to figure out the mysterious algorithms, can keep up.

Google is not about to give away all of its secrets, but the new tools they promote often give insight into exactly how the giant search engine sees trends developing. Two new tools that Google has added to its Analytics and that are super-exciting are the Customer Journey and RealTime Widget.

The Customer Journey

The name of this new tool is extremely apt because it is more descriptive of what actually happens when someone buys something on the internet. Purchasing is not an event, although many people tend to think of it that way; rather, it is a journey from finding to clicking to considering to buying.

In April, Google launched a new benchmarking tool for marketers called the “Customer Journey to Online Purchase.” It is a response to the increasing complexity of the consumer journey as the increased need for marketers to make sense of each stage of the sale funnel in order to improve their strategy. The journey is spanning a longer time, Google has discovered, with customers engaging in brand interaction for days or months before purchase. Each channel of marketing may come into play at different times in the purchasing decision journey.

The new Customer Journey tool offers information on how different marketing channels move users toward purchasing. It includes data on display, search, email and website. It also shows how long it took customers to decide to purchase.

Real-Time Widgets

Also in April, Google announced four real-time widgets that can be added to the Google Analytics Dashboard. This is the first time that a real-time data widget has been available, and SEO analysts are excited about the prospect.

These widgets enable users to perform real-time analysis and to combine them with different filters for side-by-side data comparison. They include a counter to see the number of active visitors on a site; a timeline to show scrolling page views; visits on a map; and active visitors with three of the dimensions above combined so that analysts can isolate various market segments.

By these feature of Google Analytics and combination of a good and highly talented SEO Company any campaign will definitely have their goals achieve. Need more information? Visit Orange County SEO for more details.

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