• SEO: Search Engine Optimization: Making your website more visible to search engines to increase your ranking in the results
• SERP: Search Engine Results Page: The results of a keyword inquiry by a search engine.
• CMS: Content Management Systems: A system used to manage and create information in an organization that allows for easy entry, retrieval, collaboration. Also minimizes duplicate entries and information for gathering reports.
• Title Tag: The tag that appears on top of the web browser that gives the title of the page that is being viewed. Also a very important part in Search Engine Optimization.
• Meta Description: Is the description given in a search engine results page to describe the listed links.
• Meta Keywords: Keywords that describe the content of a web page to a search engine.
• Keywords: are the words that describe the premise of a website.
• Black Hat SEO: devious tactics of manipulating search engines to think a site is relevant to many unrelated keywords. Frowned upon and penalized by search engine algorithms.
• White Hat SEO: accepted tactics in optimizing a web site to be found by search engines.
• Ranking: the position where a website is listed on a search engine results page.
• Website Optimization: setting up a website using various techniques to have increase its potential for being seen by search engines.
• SEM: Search Engine Marketing: a form of online marketing that provides visibility through optimization of a website and targeted paid ads placed on search engine result pages.
• Keyword Optimization: Strategically placing select words on a website in order to be seen as more relevant to a search engine keyword inquiry.
• Link Building: is a SEO tactic that links a website to another website. 

• Online Reputation: what others think an entity represents online.
• Online Presence: The act of being online in some form of content.
• Online review management: finding and processing review found on multiple review sites.
• Website Analytics: is a picture of how much traffic a website receives, where the traffic is coming from, what that traffic did while visiting the site, and how long that traffic was on the site for.
• Bounce Rate: The number of visitors that where directed to the website and exited right away.
• BLOG: is an entry to a website where the author offers specific content about a subject. Includes but not limited to news, opinions, information, pictures, and videos.
• Track online reviews: processing where reviews are coming from and if they are good or bad reviews.
• Content Marketing: creating stories, news, or asking question in order to engage and convert a customer base

• SMB: Small to Medium Businesses
• Guerilla Marketing: an unconventional way to promote a brand or product.
• PPC: Pay Per Click: A type of online advertising where the entity taking out the ad only pays when someone clicks on the ad.
• CPM: Cost Per Impression: A type of online advertising where the entity taking out the ad pays per 1000 of impressions. An impression is when the ad is shown on a website when a consumer is logged on to that sight.
• CRM: Customer Relationship Management: Is how a company handles and maintains its contact and rapport with its customers

FOHBOH® & CHATMETER DISRUPTS BILLION DOLLAR MYSTERY SHOPPING INDUSTRY WITH FOHBUZZ

THE FIRST SOCIAL MEDIA GUEST SATISFACTION REPORT CARD

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: SAN JOSE, CA, August 17, 2011. FohBoh, Inc. (fohboh.com) announced today the release of FOHBuzz SnapShot^®, the first Social CRM reporting tool that promises to make restaurant operators smarter and more successful using real-time, guest satisfaction analysis on-demand. FOHBuzz SnapShot takes aim directly at the billion dollar mystery shopping industry to help both chain and independent restaurateurs access real-time “crowd-sourced” reviews and opinions to better manage guest satisfaction, gauge social media marketing efforts while building loyalty and manage their online reputations.

“For the first time, restaurants will be able to order up a report, tap into customer sentiment in near real-time, to learn (a) what their customers think and say about them for any single restaurant location; and (b) learn how effective their local social media marketing efforts are working, represented by the FOHBuzz Score^™” said Emerald Reilly, Senior Social Media Analyst and Product Manager at FohBoh. FOHBuzz SnapShot can be accessed exclusively through the FohBoh.com restaurant community and is only available to registered FohBoh.com members for just $25 per report beginning August 15, 2011.

FohBoh, positioned at the intersection of social media and the Foodservice industry, is the original restaurant social network. “With the general release of FOHBuzz SnapShot, we are able to leverage the power of the social web to build restaurant ready applications that integrate Social CRM with real-time guest satisfaction data” said founder and CEO Michael L. Atkinson. “Knowing what’s being said about your brand is one thing. Knowing what to do to improve your social score is where FOHBuzz really helps.

Already the leading social-business network for the $1.7 trillion foodservice industry, FohBoh, views social media as a unique and powerful force of change that offers untapped opportunity for restaurant operators to forge long-lasting relationships with their customers.  “The FohBoh business model targets a single vertical for social web analysis. Our mission is to build a bridge between social web technology and restaurants, between operators and their guests,” said Sarah Atkinson, Senior Manager, Social Media Marketing at FohBoh.

FOHBuzz is powered by Chatmeter, a San Diego-based online presence and reputation monitoring company that provides services to a wide array of industries. “When Michael conceived the idea of the crowd-sourced mystery shopping report, our solution seemed like a perfect fit.  Not only does our service report what customers are saying, we also report on your brand presence and reputation that potential customers are seeing when shopping online or on their phone.  This is the first tool to measure the shopping experience before consumers ever walk into the restaurant!,” said Collin Holmes, CEO and founder of Chatmeter.

About FohBoh

FohBoh^® is a leading provider of social media analytics and social media management services to the $1.7 trillion foodservice industry, via their integrated social-digital media platform. FohBoh offers a powerful way for more than 20 million foodservice industry professionals to connect, communicate, collaborate and transact business online via FohBoh.com.

About Chatmeter

chatmeter (www.chatmeter.com) provides marketers, agencies, and local business owners with the tools for improving marketing effectiveness by managing their online presence and reputation. Our service will help you understand what people are saying about your business online (reviews, blogs, social media) in a single place saving time and frustration.  The chatmeter will measure your online marketing effectiveness, provide personalized recommendations for improvement, and benchmark performance against local competitors.

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     What does this mean for small and medium businesses? It makes life for SMBs and agencies a little more challenging because now they cannot track online reviews from Google Places alone. It is getting to the point that the web is becoming so saturated with review sites, blog sites and social media sites that it is hard to monitor them all. There is a greater need for a review monitoring service, especially to look for bad reviews. As a business owner, monitoring online reviews and chatter is very time-consuming if you have to go to log onto 20 or more sites to see if a new review or comment has been posted. You either need a team of people monitoring your online reputation or an online reputation management service like chatmeter.com.  

     An added concern that companies have had, is if their rankings are affected by this change? According to Mike Blumenthal, Will This Change my Rankings, this update to Google places was a surface update and does not actually affect company’s rankings. So, they are using the 3rd party reviews as references for Local SEO, just not showing them to consumers. Thus, it is still important to get regular reviews from a variety of sites to help you rank better and insure you have a strong presence and online reputation across the web. Chatmeter’s rank tracker will monitor your rankings for you as well. Rank Tracker

     One more important aspect that Google still allows is to claim your local listing on Google Places. This is important because it lets the owner update the content on the page for accuracy, so the material on the page is accurate and represents your brand and service. Chatmeter helps identify this for agencies and franchises which may have hundreds of locations, so an automated solution is much more cost-effective. To learn more about our agency and enterprise solutions, click here. Agencies

     As mentioned previously, everyday another blog, review site and social media site pops up making the web saturated with people’s opinions. This can be a huge threat if you’re not monitoring your reviews or simply ignoring them. Customer reviews are more valuable than ever (84% of consumers believe the reviews they read online). It takes a small investment, but can pay off significantly. Chatmeter is a simple, cost-effective way to help you manage your online reputation. For more information, click here: Chatmeter

Of course, this isn’t Google’s first try into social, but this seems like they’re strongest effort and with many people reporting a little Facebook exhaustion as well as spam and advertising taking over, the timing may be right for the next social service. G+ (Google+) has some interesting new features and improved on some existing features that other social sites support. For example, G+ has circles, where you can categorize people into groups. I can put my grandma, dad and aunt all in the same “family circle,” and this means that they are not able to see the pictures that people in my “friend circle” post.

The next feature that G+ offers is “Hangouts,” which is combining social media with Skype. You can now have a video chat with one or more friends or even whole “circles”, all in the same place. One of my favorite and smartest features G+ offers is “sparks”. Sparks are what you “Like” on Facebook but with a Google twist. According to Mashable, when you add a “spark” to your profile, G+ will then stream personalized content to your profile based on +1’s, Google+ sharing activity, and the algorithm that fuels Google searches, all based on the chosen interest or spark.

The last element that G+ has to offer is “Huddles,” which allows mobile users to have group conversations with their circles via text. This is a huge deal with texting becoming so popular and being a big source of revenue for wireless carriers. The “huddles” feature now threatens that revenue stream for wireless carriers. Google+ seems like it could be the next big step in SMBs social media marketing, because it could be the next trend and google seems to have had the foresight to build in business friendly features. In a study just released by Roost, it was said that 84.1% of SMBs found that their Facebook page was a more effective way to advertise than paid advertising. This could hold true for G+ as well because of features like circles and places (if they really do integrated the two tools).

Google + will allow businesses, one interesting and unique feature, with circles, it will allow the organization to categorize its customers and will permit them to communicate to each group. So, you can have your “regulars” in one circle, occasional customers in another, first-time customers in another, and prospects in another. This allows you to create different marketing messages and promotions to each group, which is a huge benefit for marketers. However, it’s been rumored that Google + will automatically create a page for each of the 15 millions US businesses. This seems like the same disaster that Facebook places has caused with confusion and multiple pages for each business. SMBs can barely manage 1 page, much less have to deal with 2 pages.

Christian Oestlien, project manager for Google +, recently posted on You Tube that the + pages for businesses were going to integrate a lot of features that Google already offers like analytics and adwords. It sounds like Google+ could be the new platform for businesses to use all of their G-tools (Google Tools). If Google gets their tools organized and makes them easier for SMBs to use, then it could become a power house in local search marketing. With the integration of Google+, Google places and other tools, Google is going to be valuing, measuring, and encouraging the sharing of information and why not, Google is already monitoring all your search activity, so of course they’d like to know all the information that you are sharing with everyone you know!

That’s even more impactful when it comes to targeting. Of course, Google is already using customer feedback as component to establish trust for SMBs listings and sites with reviews. Thus, it’s pretty likely that they could now use customer input (sharing and sparking) to further establish trust and impact rankings as well. That would certainly get more businesses to jump on the Google+ train. So, is Google going to be successful getting SMBs to use Google+, or will it just be another Google product that falls flat in the SMB space? What do you think?