Just caught this article in the NYTimes about how Attorney General Andrew Cuomo had fined Lifestyle Lift, a cosmetic surgery company, $300,000 for ordering its employees to write fake reviews of its face-lift procedure on sites like RealSelf.
Let’s put aside the ethics of faking reviews for a minute and reflect on how effective a strategy this was for Lifestyle Lift cost wise:
Pros:
They probably didn’t factor this in, but because they got caught, their site is now generating a lot of links. Variations of “facelift”, “cosmetic surgery”, “neck lift”, etc. are not hugely expensive to buy ($5-$10 CPC), but I guess if they could translate those links into some page one rankings it could easily be worth $300K.
Cons:
Page one of Google for “lifestyle lift” is already littered with results about this story. My bet is unless they do some reputation management SEO these aren’t going away anytime soon. So even if they do rank on page one for some great terms, sooner or later a prospective patient is going to Google them, see this story and likely bail. Hmm, something like this could tank their whole business pretty quickly. Maybe it wasn’t worth the page one rankings?
It’s too bad Lifestyle Lift went down this route, but it’s understandable. There probably was a lot of negative word of mouth about them already in the cosmetic surgery communities. Here’s the first thing I saw after I clicked on the third SERP result for “lifestyle lift” - “Lifestyle lift for jowls, turkey neck - unsure if it was worth it”
While it’s hard to overcome a bad product or service, perhaps if they had consulted with a knowledgable SEO/Reputation Management pro at least they could have come up with an alternate strategy that would not have cost so much, or if it had, at least it would have had a better ROI. Some tips for Lifestyle Lift in the future:
1. SEO your site! At least update your title tags with some good keywords. Hell update your whole site. It’s a bit of a tired, hard-to-read thing as is. If you can’t control what people are saying about you online at least try to get some traffic for valuable keywords and bypass them.
2. Participate in social media without faking it. If Ms. Turkey Neck is not saying nice things address her concerns. Maybe you need to redo her turkey neck. I guarantee if you turn her turkey neck into a swan neck, she will be your loudest supporter in these communities. And what would that cost you? My guess is the margins on turkey neck surgery & neck lifts, among other things, are pretty fat.
3. Work with a reputation management pro who can help you move a lot of those pesky little negative links off of page one.
4. Better yet, give your customers reasons to say nice things about you online.
Even if you don’t have a problem with the ethics of fake reviews, they do often violate the terms of service of the reviews website. And as Lifestyle Lift discovered, that little fact can cost you. So next time you are thinking it might be a good idea to post some fake reviews of your business on the Web, remember you might be blowing all the cash you saved up to fix your damn turkey neck.
For more points of view on turkey-neckgate:
Unethical Customer Reviews Can Cost You Big - Search Influence
Plastic Surgery Co Settles With NYS Over False Reviews - Blumenthal’s Blog
15 responses so far ↓
1 Google Voice For Mobile: One Number To Rule Them All // Jul 15, 2009 at 10:08 am
[...] more discussion on Techmeme. [...]
2 Unethical Customer Reviews Can Cost You Big | Website Promotion is Not Voodoo // Jul 15, 2009 at 10:48 am
[...] appears that Lifestyle Lift was directing employees to spend their time in reviewing their own [...]
3 Fake Reviews Will Cost You Real…. Fake Reviews Purveyor Settles Suit for…. | Total Info // Jul 15, 2009 at 12:21 pm
[...] It’s too bad Lifestyle Lift went down this route, but it’s understandable. There probably was a lot of negative word of mouth about them already in the cosmetic surgery communities. Here’s the first thing I saw after I clicked on the third SERP result for “lifestyle lift” – Read more at http://www.localseoguide.com/fake-reviews-will-cost-you-real-just-ask-lifestyle-lift/ [...]
4 Marty // Jul 15, 2009 at 12:23 pm
5 Marty // Jul 15, 2009 at 12:24 pm
opps here http://sphinn.com/story/121866
6 @tinealene // Jul 17, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Very funny writeup. I am glad some of these bigger companies are getting busted for bad practices and hopefully some of the SMB’s will take notice and implement best practices when it comes to their online marketing.
7 Merchant One Payment Systems Review « Merchant Maverick // Jul 21, 2009 at 1:54 pm
[...] and on Merchant One’s Yelp profile. Look at the Yelp profile, and tell me if you can spot the fake review(s)? It amazes me how obvious some businesses make it. Seriously, if you’re going to have your [...]
8 Lifestyle Lift: Good or Bad? « Stayingyoung's Weblog // Jul 21, 2009 at 4:14 pm
[...] To top it off, this person blogged about how Lifestyle Lift was fined in NY for providing false reviews on realself.com <— note this is the same website I noted above!. http://www.localseoguide.com/fake-reviews-will-cost-you-real-just-ask-lifestyle-lift/ [...]
9 This Week in Search | Webbyn.com // Jul 23, 2009 at 1:25 pm
[...] LifeStyle Lift’s… « Google’s Ronny Conway Joins Andreessen Horowitz The AP gets serious about tracking content online » [...]
10 fort myers cosmetic surgeon // Aug 12, 2009 at 1:04 pm
This is becoming quite a story. Where are the business ethics? What about the peace of mind when you go to bed, knowing that you did the right thing? I hope they learn from their mistakes and figure out that doing the right thing( I know it’s hard sometimes) will eventually pay off.
11 Chrystal Eckes // Aug 16, 2009 at 5:24 pm
It’s about time they (Lifestyle Lift) was caught doing fake reviews about how great their unique procedure is. Maybe if they had been addressing the real issues that women were having instead of blogging about how great they are they would not have had to post bogus reviews. Going so far as to have one employee use their kids names, posting and badgering patients who had poor results and even making fun of people who did post reviews at various sites, taunting them, calling them names and telling them how stupid they were. This is not a case of Big Business using poor judgement, it is Big Business using tactics that are unethical. Kudos to Cuomo for following through on this case. Any person considering this procedure, please go to realself.com and read the reviews and if you do decide to opt for the LSL, at least get a 2nd opinion. You only have one face.
12 Andrew Shotland // Oct 12, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Seems like Lifestyl Lift costs a lot. Then again you can’t put a price on no turkey neck.
13 JOY DURRETT // Oct 30, 2009 at 9:06 am
I GOT THE LIFESTYLE LIFT ABOUT TWO YEARS AGO AND AM HAPPY WITH THE RESULTS. THE ONLY PROBLEM I AM HAVING IS BAD SCARRING BEHIND THE EARS. I HAVE HAD CORTISONE SHOTS TO REDUCE THE SWELLING BUT THE SCARS ARE STILL THERE AND UGLY AND UNCOMFORTABLE. ANYONE ELSE HAVE THIS PROBLEM?
14 Mike Stewart // Nov 25, 2009 at 6:37 pm
Wonder how long it will take before companies start giving the same advice to employees in order to protect the reputation or sway the reputation of advertisers…..
just sayin!
Well, as they say… when you become embarrassed of your employer it is time to exit the door! The employees are also partial to blame. …. or is it because they got caught? LOL regardless!
Great read as always,
Mike Stewart
15 Delores // Jan 8, 2010 at 6:38 am
I had a conventionalk facelift 15 years ago that left me w/horrible scars behind the ears…I was checking out info on the ‘Lifestyle Lift’…for jowly areas…but if it also can leave the same type scarring as one person here who had it (Lifestyle Lift) done …then I am definately NOT interested…especially after hearing too about the horrible business ethics or rather ,lack there of…..they have cut off their proverbial nose to spite their proverbial face!
thanks for the info!!!
Delores S.
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