Apple's Siri Reinforces Importance of Reputation Management

The release of the iPhone 4S with new voice-search technology called "Siri" caused a stir among the search marketing world. But, what are the implications for business owners?

Siri is currently only available to English, German and French speakers, with expansion to other languages planned for 2012. When you ask your phone for a city's best restaurants, hotels and attractions, it draws from review sites like Yelp to find you the top-rated results. This highlights the importance of having solid reviews by consumers, which in turn perpetuates more business, and more reviews. Or, what those in public relations like to call "reputation management." Through proper relationship building and maintenance consumers will be able to act as brand ambassadors for your business, influencing others to do the same. But, if consumers don't feel as though they are being rewarded, appreciated, or listened to, there's a serious problem that technology like Siri will only further reveal.

Monitoring your business on sites like TripAdvisor, Google,Yelp and Foursquare, and –more importantly – claiming your business on these platforms takes on a whole new importance with technology like Siri in the marketplace. It isn't the technology that matters, as much as the basic idea that when a business receives a critique – good or bad – there are certain actions to be taken by the business.

Guess what: the people who just said your restaurant serves up a great meal on Yelp or Foursquare are a lot more convincing to potential consumers than you are. That's because interpersonal communication, or "word-of-mouth," is much more effective at influencing consumer decision making than advertising or other forms of mediated communication, which many consumers today distrust. Siri is just one more way that ignoring what your customers are saying about you will backfire.

For information on how we can help you with reputation management through public relations, visit www.adworkshop.com.

To learn more about how voice-activated searches can help or hurt your business, stay tuned for Part II—coming soon!