I am really pumped up about going to the ALFA annual convention this year for three reasons:

 1. It is a great time to connect with readers of Senior Housing Forum, I hope you will keep an eye out for me and say hello. I am really easy to spot. Tall, bald (yep not a single hair) with a grey beard (ok, more white then grey). You can find me at the Vigil Health Solutions Booth 614 or at the two breakout sessions I am presenting (see below).

2. It is a great time to reconnect with people I have phone, internet or limited face to face contact with.

3. On Tuesday afternoon Blair Carey of Retirement Homes.com and I are doing two presentations (same presentation, twice) on how to build, maintain and manage your on-line reputation. In the last six months there have been at least 4 new websites that have jumped into the space with both feet, on top of Yelp, Angies List, Caring.com and Google+. Most of the senior housing operators we have talked with are very leery of these sites, because you have no direct control over what is being said about your community.

We will cover the following areas:

A. Why you should embrace these consumer review websites and how they can help you gain an advantage over the competition.

B. What sites you should be paying attention to.

C. If you have no ratings, how to go about getting started.

D. What to do if you get slammed on one or more of the sites.

E. A review of some tools that can help you with this process.  

NOTE TO VENDORS: If you run a consumer review site or provide tools to help people manage their consumer reviews, we will be offering attendees a list of resources that will be made available after the session. If you want to be included in that list send me a paragraph or two about what you do and your website/contact information. smoran at seniorhousingforum.net I am looking forward to connecting with you there. Are you going to be there? What are you looking forward to? Steve Moran