Helping Businesses During the Coronavirus

We've hit the three-week mark of New York’s statewide stay-at-home order with no definitive end in sight. We need to stay positive and focus on what we can do as business professionals to help our community and other local businesses.

In our last blog post, we focused on communicating with customers. Some of us are B2B, and our customers are fellow businesses. Regardless of whether you are essential or not, we need to continue to stay engaged.

With internet use up 70%, many of us are continuing to rely on the internet for news, communication, business, education, and, of course, entertainment. Just at a higher rate. In between watching Covid Karaoke (here’s one of my favorites), why not take the time to leave a review for a business you’ve used in the past? It helps create social proof of their business and maybe they’ll be kind enough to reciprocate. So, let’s get some things in place for your own business first.

1. Place a review page on your website! On my page, I call it Raving Fans. The review is listed with a link. Now I’m helping promote the reviewer too. When I thank them for the review, I also link to them and their business. It is a way of saying thank you, as well as encouraging others to leave a review for my business because they’ll receive free promotion on my site and social media outlets.

2. Update your social media. I suggest all businesses have a Business Facebook Page, LinkedIn Personal Profile and Business Page, claim your Yelp Page, and most importantly, a Google My Business Page. If you don’t have a Google My Business page – Get one it’s free and we can help!

3. Make it easy for your clients and customers to leave a review for you. Here is an example of what I send my clients who tell me they are happy with the services I provide. Notice how each platform links directly to my pages. This way, they don’t have to hunt around for it. You can reword this to say, “I just left a review for you on <name of platform>. If you would like to leave a review for us…”

Thank you for your kind words. Our goal is to exceed your expectations. Your comments will help prospective customers feel more confident in choosing us. A quick review on one of the following platforms would be greatly appreciated. You can leave a review for us on Google, Facebook, Alignable, Thryv, or LinkedIn.

Now you are set to leave reviews for other businesses. Take a few minutes to jot down the businesses who went out of their way to serve you this year. And also, think of the businesses that have the same target audience as you do. Remember, your name will be published with your review, which gives you free publicity!

Where can you leave a review? Take your pick!

1. Google My Business:

NOTE: There is limited Google My Business functionality due to COVID-19. Review replies are now available. New user reviews, new user photos, new short names, and Q&A will gradually return by country and business category.

· On your computer, open Google Maps or on your phone open the Google Maps app .

· Make sure you're signed in.

· Search for a place or business.

· On your computer, scroll down and click Write a review. On your phone, look for the 5 empty stars.

· Click the stars to score the place. You can also write a review. Add photos too!

2. Facebook:

· Go to the Page of the business you want to recommend.

· Click Recommendations or Reviews on the left side of the Page.

· Click Yes to recommend the Page

· Write a Recommendation. You can also select any of the tags below (example: friendly staff) to recommend a specific feature of the business.

· Click next to Post to select your audience.

· Click Post.

3. LinkedIn Endorsements (Personal Profile)

· To endorse a connection's skill from their profile:

· Navigate to the profile of the 1st-degree connection.

· Scroll down to the Skills & Endorsements section and locate the name of the skill you'd like to endorse.

· If your connection has more than three skills listed, click See [number] more skills to see their whole list of skills.

· Click the (+) Add icon to the right of the skill

4. LinkedIn Recommendations

· Navigate to the profile of the 1st-degree connection you'd like to recommend.

· Click the More (…) button in your introduction card.

· Select Recommend.

· Fill out the Relationship and Position at the time fields of the recommendations pop-up window, and click Next.

· Write your recommendation in the message field and click Send.

5. Alignable Recommendations

· Log into Alignable.com(you can create a free account)

· Go to the profile page of the business you want to recommend by searching for their company name in the search bar at the top of the page

· Click on their business name to head to their profile.

· Click the “Recommend” button that can be found to the right of their company name and to the left of the "Message" button:

· When you click the "Recommend" button, you will be prompted to write a reason for why you recommend that business.

There are many others, including some specific to industries. They include Glassdoor, Foursquare for Business, Home Advisor, Business.com, and Open Table.