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The Untapped Value of Real Estate Agent Reviews
Similar to many other local businesses, real estate agents rely on reviews to bring in new clients. In the past, people would have simply asked their colleagues, friends, and family for [...]
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The Big 2018 Change To Facebook Reviews: 5-Star Reviews Became Recommendations
Updated: 2/11/21 A few years ago we saw a big change to Facebook reviews as they moved to a new "recommendation" format and away from the standard 5-star rating. Updates On Our 2018 Thoughts [...]
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How to Create an Effective Customer Satisfaction Survey
Satisfied customers are vital for any successful business. To have happy customers you need to first understand what they want and need from your business. How do you know whether your [...]
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January 2021 Webinar Recap
As Aaron Weiche hosted his last GatherUp webinar, he introduced Alice Song, CEO of Traject (GatherUp's parent company), and passed the torch to Garrett Sussman, Chris Walker, and Mike Blumenthal (as [...]
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Webinar Recap: The State of Online Reviews in 2021
(This post is a 19-minute read, and/or take in the 60-minute video of Mike Blumenthal’s presentation.) It goes without saying that 2020 was a tumultuous year and as we head into 2021, it’s a [...]
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Google Review Summaries: What’s New & Different
Google Review Summaries have long annoyed and to some extent baffled business owners.1 But things appear to be changing. What are Google Review Summaries? Google Review Summaries, sometimes [...]
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What is Customer Experience and Why is It Important?
Think about your favorite brand. Why do you love it so much? Chances are, it has a lot to do with the experiences you’ve had as you’ve interacted with it online or in person. Maybe the [...]
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Webinar: The State of Online Reviews in 2021 – January 14th
Have you been paying attention to all of the big and small changes to online reviews over the past year? Your reviews drive so much value to your business. Join us on Thursday, January 14th at [...]
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December 2020 Webinar Recap
Finally hitting the end of 2020 is something to make note of, if not celebrate. Our December webinar took time to look at what happened in 2020 for reviews and reputation management as well as make a [...]
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New Feature: Custom Review Notifications
While GatherUp review notifications have always existed in our reputation management platform, you now have endless options with our launch of custom review notifications. [...]
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Google Review Issue – New Reviews Not Posting
Update 11/15/2020 11 AM: I spoke too soon proclaiming that Google was back to normal (whatever Google normal is). Our system is now seeing 302 reviews for our sample cohort for 11/11 and 316 reviews [...]
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October 2020 Webinar Recap
The reputation management version of "if a tree falls in the forest" is review monitoring. If a new review hits your Google or Facebook profile, do you know? Combining review monitoring and [...]
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Cyfe Adds GatherUp Integration For Digital Dashboards
We are excited to announce that Cyfe, a real time digital marketing dashboard solution, has added GatherUp to its list of over 100 digital marketing data integrations. Reputation And [...]
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What We Learned From A “Google Only” Marketing Approach
(This post is a 15-minute read, and/or take in the 60-minute video of Mike Blumenthal's presentation.) Could a "Google only" approach to marketing move the needle for a very small local business? [...]
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How To Get A (whacko) Google Review Removed
Updated 1/22/21 Have you received any reviews like this? "I was denied service because I wouldn't wear their socialist mask. I will never ever shop at Menards ever again." Or this? [...]
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September Local SEO Webinar Recap
GatherUp's third local SEO webinar covering both local search tips and a lengthy AMA section featured Amanda Jordan and Claire Carlile along with myself and hosted by Mike Blumenthal. Full Webinar [...]
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Reputation Is More Than Stars
For those of us in digital marketing and local SEO, we tend to think of reputation as review stars and ratings only. I think there is more to it than that and a lot of opportunity for a business to [...]
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What Impact Will Apple Reviews Have?
Last week, 9to5Mac discovered that the beta of iOS 14 offered the ability for consumers to leave reviews for local businesses in Apple Maps. Historically, Apple has relied on Yelp, TripAdvisor, [...]
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August 2020 Webinar Recap
Making requesting reviews easier is always a focus with GatherUp and this month's webinar reinforced a long-standing, but underutilized request feature. We launched a small feature to our interface [...]
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Webinar: Local Search AMA – September 8th
We're excited to announce our third local search AMA webinar of 2020 on Tuesday, September 8th at 2pm ET. Local SEO experts Claire Carlile of Claire Carlile Marketing and Amanda Jordan of Locomotive [...]
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How One Business Made a Mess of Masking
Two companies, Menards and Costco, were first out of the blocks in requiring that all customers and employees wear masks in early May due to the Coronavirus. Their stories are similar and yet [...]
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The (Almost) Complete List of Google Review Attribute Categories
We've worked to compile a list of Google My Business (GMB) categories that have review attributes. Our title is more aspirational than specifically accurate but we will periodically update the list [...]
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Do Consumers Support Businesses Requiring Masks?
The pandemic has turned business upside down and we have observed how this has impacted reviews. Most businesses, some more than others, lost rating strength in their reviews. To understand the why [...]
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Google Review Attributes Now Display On Your Website
We were the first reputation management platform to enable Google review attribute monitoring and now GatherUp is the first to display review attributes on your website with our review widget. [...]
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Reviews Signal The Change Needed
You have to know what's wrong to fix it. That sounds simple enough but during COVID-19 with change and adaptation almost daily it can be difficult to find the signal through all of the noise. Here is [...]
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Google’s Management of Reviews and Q&A During COVID-19 – Updated
This post is being updated as we follow Google's management of reviews and Q&A during COVID-19. The most recent updates are at the top of this article and the first update is from 3/20/20 when [...]
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Reviews Don’t Mask The Truth: A Look At COVID-19 And Reviews
Last week a business, Teter’s Faucet Parts Center in Dallas, reported on the Google My Business forum that they had received a totally unfair review accusing them of being communists in light of [...]
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June 2020 Webinar Recap
Multiple new features and enhancements were added to GatherUp in the last month providing plenty of updates for our June webinar. The big item to cover was the launch of Google review attribute [...]
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Have Review Attributes Fixed A Google Review Problem?
Google is killing it on the review quantity front, but far too many of those reviews have zero content. Rating-only reviews are the bane of the review world, easily spammed, and offer little value to [...]
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June Local SEO AMA Webinar Recap
Building off of our first Local Search AMA back in April, Mike Blumenthal hosted Joy Hawkins, Krystal Taing and myself to share local SEO tips, Google My Business changes, digital marketing [...]
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Will Google’s New Privacy Policies Affect Reviews?
Google recently announced that they would now delete private web and location history data from their servers after 18 months unless advised otherwise. They also noted that these new default [...]
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Minimal Badge Added To Review Badge Options
Displaying your reviews with multiple great looking designs has always been a focus for GatherUp. Today we are adding another small, but great looking option to our Review Badge feature for those [...]
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GatherUp Launches Google Review Attributes Monitoring
We are excited to announce that GatherUp is the first reputation management solution to launch monitoring of Google's new review attributes. Last month we broke the news that Google was expanding [...]
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Reviews & Your Business: Developing Your Review Strategy
Right now is a good time to pause and think about your review strategy and where you are asking for reviews. Should you focus on Google reviews? Are there alternatives to Google? If so what is their [...]
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Webinar: Local Search AMA – June 23rd
Our first Local Search AMA webinar back in April was so popular and contained so many incredible tips, we knew it had to happen again! We are excited to host another Local Search AMA (ask me [...]
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Survey: How Willing Are Consumers Willing To Write Reviews?
The latest update to our ongoing survey shows consumers are less likely to write a review than they used to be. This highlights the need for a business to do more than just ask for a review. Over [...]
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May 2020 Webinar Recap
Being able to maximize GatherUp features during the current business climate was the focus of our May webinar. While we took a deep look at Tags we also covered other changes at Google with reviews [...]
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The Power Of Tags For Reviews
Reviews are incredibly valuable to a business. Each positive review is a success story from your customer that can help land your next customer. Each negative review is a suggestion on how to improve [...]
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Google Review Attributes Expand To New Categories
Update 6/17/20: GatherUp Launches Google Review Attributes Monitoring Recently we started seeing Google "review attributes" (What do you like about this place?) being asked for and displayed in [...]
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Agency Analytics Adds GatherUp To Integration Options
We are excited to announce that Agency Analytics, an all-in-one reporting platform for digital marketing agencies, has added GatherUp to their list of over 50 integration options that already include [...]
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Building Consumer Confidence As You Re-open Your Business During COVID-19
As your businesses re-opens and stays open during COVID-19 you will be adapting to new service models, delivery, and customer experiences in a changed economy. Health, safety, and trust [...]
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Deliver Instant Reputation Management Value
As a digital marketing or SEO agency reselling reputation management to your clients, you want to deliver wins early to earn the time to do the more difficult work. The following is a 5 step process [...]
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Should You Respond To Old Reviews?
When speaking at conferences or writing about review replies it's often an eye-opener that a business should be replying to their reviews ... bad, good, or neutral. Responding to reviews is an [...]
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What Exactly Is A Review Rating?
As consumers and business owners we want review ratings to reflect some objective reality. We decided to analyze 2.25 million reviews across the top 18 review sites in our review monitoring [...]
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April 2020 Webinar Recap
The GatherUp April 2020 webinar showcases new updates to our Social Sharing feature with a Twitter integration and new cropping tools. We also cover recent articles on review strategy, digital [...]
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Social Sharing Adds Twitter Integration, Cropping & Themes
GatherUp's Social Sharing feature was launched earlier this year to help you turn reviews into stunning social media content. Users love how simple it is to create custom social media images in [...]
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Social Sharing Images Benefit More Than Social Media
GatherUp's Social Sharing feature allows you to create visually engaging social media content in just a few clicks for Facebook, Twitter, Google Posts, and Instagram. Easily turn any of your [...]
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Local SEO & Google My Business Tips – Webinar AMA Recap & Video
GatherUp hosted some of the best local SEO experts in our "ask me anything" (AMA) webinar. Joy Hawkins of Sterling Sky and Darren Shaw of Whitespark joined GatherUp's Mike Blumenthal and Aaron Weiche [...]
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Google Q & A is Starting to Return
Update 5/6 Google Q & A has disappeared again. Status unknown at this time. Update 4/30 We track Google Q & A across thousands of businesses. As of today, we have seen roughly 50% [...]
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How To Reply To Reviews + Free Templates
Good. Glowing. Negative. Unfair. Online reviews take on all shapes and sizes. Regardless of their tone, replying to reviews benefits your business in a big way. In this guide, we cover the benefits [...]
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Reviews Are A Business Strategy, Not Just A Marketing Tactic
Running a business is difficult. Having customers give you their opinion on your business can both be rewarding through great 5-star reviews and challenging when you receive a 2-star review. We get [...]
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Tracking What Your Customers Care About – Insights Turn Into Survey Questions
Not all reputation management and customer experience solutions provide options for quick and easy survey questions. If you are lucky enough to ask your customers focused questions it can be [...]
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Free Online Reputation Report – Powerful Metrics That Matter
Curious to know how your brand is viewed online? Head to review sites like Google My Business, Facebook, Yelp and other social media. You'll find out if people are leaving five stars and [...]
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Free Software For Social Media, Reporting, and SEO For GatherUp Customers
At GatherUp, we continue to talk with our customers, support them, educate, create and work as a community during COVID-19. Today we are excited to announce that GatherUp customers will be able to [...]
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Webinar: Local Search AMA
In our efforts to bring our customers and local SEO professionals valuable content we are excited to host a local search webinar on Thursday, April 23rd at 2pm ET. Our line-up won't disappoint as [...]
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Asking For Reviews With One Simple Link
Asking for reviews for your business is incredibly valuable and important. Knowing what your customer thinks about their experience in working with you is a top priority. When potential [...]
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Automation For Your Agency With Zapier and GatherUp
As a digital marketing agency you know that time is a valuable commodity. When it’s in abundance you are able to be creative, try new strategies and really do the best work for your clients. [...]
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Listening To Customers
Now, more than ever, listening to your customers is one of the most important things you can do as a business owner. With the current state of COVID-19, many non-essential businesses are in a waiting [...]
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The 5X Review Strategy
The importance of online reviews is no secret in online marketing today, but how to multiply their value definitely is. Most businesses simply work to capture as many great reviews as they can. [...]
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Reputation, Reviews, and Customer Feedback During COVID-19
Right now, just about everything in our current social and business life is changing day by day and often hour by hour. And while there are very important topics, themes, and news items that [...]
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The Law and Your Reviews – How Not To Run Your Review Campaigns
Poorly run online review programs have been a topic we have covered from multiple angles over the years. Amazingly, many businesses are still ignorant, self-deluded or willfully not in compliance on [...]
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February 2020 Webinar Recap
Social Sharing has launched! Tune in to see our newest feature in action and get tips on how to create interesting social media posts. We also talk about how to get 5x more value from your reviews [...]
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User Management Made Easy for Teams of Any Size
Easily manage users, and their access to data, features, and settings within the platform, for teams of any size. GatherUp's user management tools have been expanded to include 6 new roles, My [...]
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Turn Reviews into Beautiful Social Media Content
Our latest feature Social Sharing helps you turn your reviews into stunning social media content you can post to your social media channels. Share your best reviews to Google Posts or Facebook [...]
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January 2020 Webinar Recap
Happy New Year! We're kicking off 2020 with a trio of new features you don't want to miss. January's webinar introduces Optimized Templates for requests to get more reviews for your business and [...]
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Generate More Online Reviews With Optimized Templates
We've optimized the user experience for our review request process by improving our templates in each Request Mode. Focused on the consumer mobile experience, we've fine-tuned spacing, sizing, [...]
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New Feature: Agency Default Configuration
As a digital marketing agency reselling GatherUp, you've learned what works for your clients. Why not start them all off with the best chance for success? We now provide the same Default [...]
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November 2019 Webinar Recap
November's webinar is a rich discussion about responding to reviews, what's up with Google Q&A lately, and the effects of review gating on overall star ratings. If that's not enough to pull up a [...]
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B2B Services Need Reputation Management Too
Recently I spoke with Apoorv Dwivedi, the head of an agency that specializes in servicing accountants and financial advisors. He noted that his clients get very few, if any, reviews because there [...]
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GatherUp Is Acquired By Alpine Software Group
GatherUp is excited to announce that we have been acquired by Alpine Software Group (ASG). ASG and its family of companies, a fast-growing software business that buys, builds, and operates [...]
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Google Q&A Drops 55%. What is Going on?
Update 11/23/19: It might be too early to "declare victory" but several Google Product Experts have noted that the specific Q&A that they track have returned to "normal", ie the number of [...]
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The FTC Takes on Fake Reviews, Kinda
FTC Mission Statement: Protecting consumers and competition by preventing anticompetitive, deceptive, and unfair business practices through law enforcement, advocacy, and education without unduly [...]
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New Feature: Reply to Facebook Recommendations via GatherUp
You can now reply to Facebook Recommendations via GatherUp. This is the newest addition to GatherUp's reply features that enables you to efficiently manage replies to online reviews from a single [...]
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Does Review Gating Impact Star-Ratings?
In April 2018, we performed a grand experiment. Google had publicly declared that "gating" was formally banned. So, we switched every customer in our system that was still gating to a fully Google [...]
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Case Study: Allstate Partners With GatherUp To Drive Reviews
Allstate’s commitment to making a difference in customers’ lives, giving back to local communities, and helping people has helped make them one of the largest and most trusted insurance [...]
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What is Yelp’s Actual Impact in the Real World?
Yelp seems to focus into view at every turn in the review space. Yet, in looking at website analytics over the years, I've rarely seen Yelp contribute more than a few percent to actual [...]
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September 2019 Webinar Recap
We covered a lot this month (from the Northwoods), including Google's announcement regarding review rich snippets and a deep dive into review replies that includes an upcoming feature release. [...]
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Display Replies to Google Reviews on Your Business Website
There is a multitude of reasons replying to reviews benefits your business and now we've amplified the impact of replies to Google reviews by automatically displaying them in the Review Widget. [...]
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Google and Review Snippets
Co-authored by Mike Blumenthal and Aaron Weiche Last week Google announced they will now be ignoring schema related to 1st-party reviews. This change is frustrating for marketers but as we'll get [...]
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When is a Review More Than a Review?
As you work to earn new reviews, don't overlook the value of aggregate review content This headline may seem like a riddle but it's not meant to be. A review is more than a review... when [...]
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The Best Review Incentive is… No Incentive
A good friend showed me an eco-hotel that was offering a very creative review incentive and asked if I thought this violated TripAdvisors no incentive terms of service: "When you leave a review on [...]
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Tell Your Brand Story Across Search With Google My Business
The other day I was asked to contribute to a blog post by answering the following question: What is the most common thing you see missed or not utilized by business owners on Google My Business? [...]
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GatherUp Makes The Inc. 5000 List Of Fastest Growing Private Companies
It's official. We've been selected to the 2019 Inc. 5000 list of the fastest-growing private companies in America! GatherUp ranked among the upper half of the list at #2240 in our debut year, [...]
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July 2019 Customer Webinar Recap
We're doing big things! Check-in on a new feature launch AND the public BETA launch of Insights Report in this month's webinar. If you missed it... watch it, check out the agenda, and grab the slides [...]
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Insights Report Launches to Analyze Reviews with IBM Watson
GatherUp is excited to announce the release of our new Insights Report into public BETA. Powered by IBM Watson, the Insights Report uses artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze reviews automatically, [...]
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Feature Update: Manage All Reviews in Customer Activity
3rd-party reviews have been added to Customer Activity Manage all of your reviews from a single screen with the addition of 3rd-party reviews to Customer Activity. Now, all ratings, reviews, [...]
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Grab a Tissue and Let’s Recap MozCon 2019
https://vimeo.com/349705313 Last week, I attended MozCon 2019. As an event partner (and first-time attendee), it was exciting to arrive at the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle... [...]
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Google Launching Place Topics Adding More Value to Reviews
Last month Google rolled out Google Q&A Auto-Suggest Answer, using reviews to help consumers answer their questions. This month, in a still partial rollout, Google has launched Place Topics as a [...]
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June 2019 Customer Webinar Recap
Feature updates, industry news, case studies, and a sneak peek were shared during the June 2019 Customer Webinar. Watch the webinar, check out the agenda, or grab the slides if you missed it. [...]
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Google Expands Business Profile Answers For Mobile Results
It appears that Google has expanded and enhanced the display of "Business Profile Answers" on mobile search results. And in doing so, now wraps even mundane details like the answer to a phone number [...]
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TextBack Case Study: Driving Big Reviews For A Small Restaurant
The TextBack call to action sits on every table top and at the front counter. I am a sucker for a good diner with an all day breakfast and a great lunch. Any place that hand presses their [...]
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GatherUp Announces The MozCon 2019 Ticket Winner
We are beyond excited to announce our MozCon 2019 ticket winner from our MozCon review contest. Winning a ticket worth almost $2,000 and 3 full days of SEO and digital marketing greatness at this [...]
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Google Fully Rolls Out Q & A Auto-Suggest Answers
In April, Google rolled out a cool Business Profile (aka Knowledge Panel) feature that auto-suggested answers to new Google Q & A questions. Over the past week they have rolled out the feature to [...]
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How To Use A Customer Feedback Survey For Your Grand Opening
Opening your doors for the first time is not only "open for business", but it should be "open for feedback". The quicker you learn what your new customers like, love or want to see improved, the [...]
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May 2019 Customer Webinar Recap
The May GatherUp customer webinar was full of general feature reminders and tips. We looked at recent changes to the navigation, requests, request modes, testing, feedback settings, reports and [...]
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The FTC Takes Action On Companies Barring Consumers From Writing Negative Reviews
Including language in your contracts or agreements that bar your customer from writing a negative online review is not only bad form, it's against the law. Last week, the Federal Trade [...]
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Case Study: US Storage Centers Is Using Reviews To Edge Out Competitors
US Storage Centers CMO Jason Lopez understands the marketing power of customer reviews. With over 120 locations nationwide, they are far from the smallest, but they compete with massive [...]
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April 2019 Customer Webinar Recap
Widgets, widgets everywhere! April's webinar put the NEW widget designs on full display. Vertical, Horizontal and Full Page are now available for the Review Widget and Tag Review Widget and come with [...]
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Google Upgrades Q & A to Auto-Suggest Answers To Your Questions
Google appears to be rolling out an upgrade to Google Questions & Answers (Q & A) that uses previous answers to questions and Google Local Business (GMB) reviews to suggest answers to new [...]
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Feature Update: NEW Review Widget Designs Display Reviews On Your Website In Style
Reviews are valuable content. And using review content on your website to promote your business or service is smart marketing that will help you win your next customer. The Review Widget [...]
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