“Young’s Jersey Dairy doesn’t make their own ice cream, like most people think.”
When I was working with Young’s to strengthen their online presence, this is one of the things I came across on the Yelp.com ratings site. Now, most people in Ohio who know of Young’s would immediately dismiss this as silliness. But what about the people who don’t know anything about Young’s and were looking for a good recommendation?
If we hadn’t decided to search out this kind of information, we would have never known the difference. People would find it, read the fact that Young’s is lying about the food and services they offer and not come, or even worse, pass this information to someone else which spreads the false information.
For context, let’s just say that just .5% of Young’s annual customers saw this comment this year and decided not to visit the farm because of it. The average Young’s customer family is a family of four and were planning on coming for lunch, playing miniature golf, riding the slide, feeding the goats and trying some of that world famous Homemade Young’s Ice Cream before they headed home. Without boring you too much with the details of each thing, let’s just estimate and say that the day’s worth of food and entertainment would cost $70 for the family.
.5% of 1,200,000 annual visitors = 60,000 people
60,000 people x $70 = $4,200,000 lost because someone put false information out there about Young’s Homemade Ice Cream.
Unrealistic? Maybe. But the point is – people are saying bad things about your business right at this second, and you aren’t doing anything about it. Did we go to Yelp and demand they take that comment down? No, we calmly replied that Young’s does in fact make their own ice cream, and you can see it being made 6 days a week in our Ice Cream & Cheese Production facility that has a huge glass window for viewing.
Am I saying you should join every review site out there? No – that would be a waste of time. But being a part of the major ones, Yelp, Google Maps, UrbanSpoon (and there are a few others) – can be a very worthwhile venture. Monitoring your brand online is one of the most important things you can do in this digital age. And all those companies make it free to join and ‘own’ your brand on their sites. So why not do it?
Need help managing your brand online? Shout It Out Design offers many different kind of affordable social media packages so you can get the help you need. Let us do what we do best, so you can do what you do best.
Any other horror stories out there? Let us know by commenting below!
(By the way, Young’s Jersey Dairy does make their own ice cream, of course) Here is a news report done a long time ago that is on the Young’s YouTube channel. If that doesn’t suffice – stop by Mon-Sat and watch it being made!