Social Influence: Learn From The Experts
At The 2nd CLICK Conference!
The program for The 2nd Annual CLICK Conference is now set for Thursday, Sept. 22, 2011, just prior to the start of International Vision Expo West in Las Vegas. Sponsored by The Hoya Free-Form Company, the 2011 CLICK Conference will be held at the Sands/Venetian Convention Center, from 7:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m
This year's CLICK Conference theme is "Social Circles," which will feature leading web experts and colleagues from the eyecare professional community who are going to examine how social influence is changing brands' and businesses' profiles on the web and what's working best for them.
"Social Circles" Speakers include: Nathan Bonilla-Warford, OD. of Bright Eyes Tampa and Suzanne Berardi-Gould of Doctors Vision Center.
Plus...A Digital Media Expert Panel:
Space is limited, so make your plans now! Registration is now open!
—The Editors
Yelp and Business Reviews: C&E/VisionWest Webinar Series
SAN CLEMENTE, Calif.—In line with their stated mission "to inspire profitable eyecare practices," Vision West, Inc. and C&E Vision Services, Inc., leading national buying groups have launched a webinar series this year to help their members better understand social media. Both groups have added Social Media Centers on their respective Vision West and C&E Vision websites, available exclusively to all members.
At a webinar earlier this month, the groups teamed with Yelp for a session titled "Yelp 101: Maximizing Yelp's Business Tools to Attract New Patients." Hosted and moderated by Darnell Holloway, manager of local business outreach for Yelp who illustrated how much the market has changed in just a few short years and contrasted the ability of an ECP to take advantage of Yelp's free tools with that of costly yellow page ads. In illustrating just how much consumers have embraced Yelp he pointed out that the site's stats on unique visitors including smartphone mobile access to Yelp.
Holloway discussed the types of advertising that are trusted by internet users—78 percent recommended by users and 61 percent online opinions. He illustrated in some detail how ECPs can set up a FREE business Yelp page at biz.yelp.com and provided some tips for making an ECP's business Yelp page more attractive, such as providing photos of the office and dispensary and including a biography for each ECP. Holloway spotlighted the more recent additions to Yelp—Yelp Check-Ins and Yelp Deals. Yelp Deals, he said, are very easy for an ECP to set up. The feature enables an ECP to create a completely custom offer for whatever they choose (e.g. frames, lenses, professionals services) and provide for a percentage off regular price or charge $x for the cost of $y (Ex: $100 of value for $50). It is up to the ECP to determine how many deals they want to offer and when they expire.
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Holloway told CLICK, "Yelp exists to connect people with great local businesses, and is a great platform for business owners to market themselves. In the seven years since Yelp was founded it has grown into one of the most visited directories of businesses online in the U.S., with over 53 million unique visitors each month, and 20 million reviews. Yelp also provides a suite of free tools for business owners to build out their listings, and join the conversations happening about their businesses. The webinar provided an overview of biz.yelp.com, and best practices for business owners to create a Yelp listing, and respond diplomatically to customers who have reviewed their business. Yelp hosts free webinars each month, and business owners can register through Yelp's Blog for Business Owners at biz.yelp.com/blog."
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The webinar concluded with a discussion of reviews and their importance in attracting new patients. The moderator showed how an ECP can respond to reviews both privately and publicly. The suggestion was made to always respond privately first and to use the public response too sparingly. For those who are concerned about holding their practices out for reviews he pointed out that 83 percent of all Yelp reviews are positive (3 stars or higher) and that reviews are a great way to receive feedback on the quality of your service. He suggested that if you receive an unfavorable review not to freak out. As an example, if you have 10 reviews and 8 of the 10 are positive there is a good chance that consumers will view your practice favorably. Moreover, by responding privately a person who may have posted an unfavorable review can choose to remove it. The moderator also discussed the importance of promoting the fact that your practice is on Yelp through your website, business cards, email signature, etc. Rather than asking for reviews, the best thing to do is focusing on providing the best possible customer service. The bottom line is that Yelp provides an incredible tool for building and promoting an eyecare practice.
Brad Shapiro, principal at C&E, noted, "We're making a commitment to help practices better understand social media. We held another webinar, a social media "boot camp" and ideas for P.R. via social media, earlier in ths summer. The webinars are complimentary to all Vision West and C&E members and/or participants who 'like' us on the Vision West or C&E Facebook company pages." C&E Vision or Vision West Members have access to a Library of Knowledge on Social Media that include professionally written guides on how to get started and run campaigns as well as access to a forum to ask questions to the experts.
Google's New WDYL.com—Simplifying Product Search
By Alan Glazier, OD, FAAO
ROCKVILLE, Md.—In late June, Google launched a new search tool, WDYL.com (What Do You Love) designed to serve as a query engine able to search multiple Google channels for specific products while returning a single page of relevant results.
The engine provides the best results for queries that are vague, like "soft". For example, a search of the term "soft" brings up videos that are related to the term "soft", blogs that are discussing topics related to "soft" things, pictures of soft things, translation services that translate the word into over 57 languages etc. The results are brought up within individual widgets with buttons at the bottom that take you directly to Google services you may never have known existed, where you can find more information or internet real estate where products you might be interested in are for sale.
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While some of the widgets actually lead somewhere pertinent to your query, others make no sense. For example, a search of the term "eyes" brings up a widget titled "Find Eyes Nearby." I'm sure most people, especially the people reading this blog, have no trouble finding where eyes are nearby, and if they do, I'd encourage them to find another line of work. But if you put in words like 'eyecare' or 'eyewear,' you may learn some new things.
Certain widgets actually lead to social and mobile applications, which has interesting implications, but for the most part WDYL.com seems experimental to me. Look for it to evolve or die, but it is successful at increasing ones awareness of Google features they may not have known about. Matt Weinberger of ZDNet said, "Unless Google has something unexpected planned for WDYL.com, my guess is that (WDYL is likely to be) Google's next major marketing push rather than an actual functional product or proof-of-concept. I wouldn't be surprised if we started seeing "What do you love?" as the slogan behind Google television commercials and magazine ads."
For now, I am using WDYL.com to stay abreast on where internet searches for keywords and key phrases that my patients might search for on different Google properties will take them. I want to make sure I'm there so they can find me, and with the internet as vast as it is, WDYL helps me to ensure my brand is populated on most, if not all of these channels.
Alan N. Glazier, OD, FAAO is the founder/CEO of Shady Grove Eye and Vision Care in Rockville, Md. A search and social optimization consultant,
he is now a regular contributor to CLICK and also writes a regular blog for
SightNation.com. Glazier is at
aglazier@youreyesite.com and his regular
posts can be found via his Twitter handle: @EyeInfo, his blog:
eyeinfo.wordpress.com and his website:
YourEyeSite.com.
Author: Searchial Marketing: How Social Media Drives Search Optimization in Web 3.0.
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