It has become incredibly popular to turn to the Web to find and post reviews of businesses. Led by services like Yelp!, Google Reviews, and Facebook to levels of use never imagined by the once-formidable Yellow Pages, most if not all remain free to use and profit from banner or sponsored ads run on their sites. While many have ethical rules for treatment of both businesses and customers, there are some who seek to profit unfairly from the business world’s growing interest in reputation management. This quote from a post by the Ecoconsultancy blog’s Meghan Keane explains:
Squidoo is providing a forum for brands to monitor, control and influence their reputation online. But rather than letting brands set up their own pages, Squidoo is doing it for them and dangling control over the site for the $400 monthly fee.
If that price sounds like a threat, it is. If Brands in Public becomes a space where people go to learn about brands, it would be in a company’s best interest to influence the way they’re pictured there. It’s up to them to decide if it’s worth paying Squidoo $4800 a year to influencethe way they look in the space.
While one would hope that consumers are keen enough to disregard the site because of its nature, should it become a popular page businesses may be forced to decide whether to fold and pay up or lose their chance to enter the conversation.
The BCM Blogging Team
https://www.bernsteincrisismanagement.com/