Feedback on Goddard School Bethesda

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think you’re over complicating things. Something as simple as “my friend pulled her kid out of XYZ Montessori” or “i toured this preschool and it was messy” and so on.

Sure. But you are still talking about a daycare asking parents to falsely post that about a rival school on their Facebook page and the parent agreeing.

I’m not saying it would be hard to do. But I have trouble envisioning a parent agreeing and almost as much trouble seeing a daycare bothering to ask someone to do it, for the reasons outlined.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They are full, and I’m sure the Open Houses are to fill their upcoming spots for summer and next year. And before anyone starts policing me, I am a parent just looking to find care for my son. I know for a fact that competing schools give incentives for shit-talking other schools, Goddard Bethesda being one of them because my neighbor told me that she was offered an incentive and all she had to do was post on Facebook about goddard and two other schools. That’s some pretty shitty marketing ploys right there. Anonymity is fun because you can’t get caught but if you want the truth, ask to speak to some of their families no matter where you go.

What?! I've never in a million years heard that. Our Goddard location didn't do that at all.

Sorry PP here - goddard bethesda didn’t ask their parents to do that - other schools gave incentives to parents for trash talking goddard bethesda, the church preschool down the street, and one other Montessori one.

What?! They offered incentives if you trash talked a school on Facebook? I find that very hard to believe.

Which other schools give incentives to trash talk Goddard? What are the incentives? How did they decide who to offer it to?

This just doesn’t make any sense.

Word of mouth is powerful! Crappy practice and leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth.

Word of mouth is pretty different than having people plant false Facebook posts. And you didn’t actually answer any of the questions raised.

Sorry, this still makes no sense and I can’t believe it went down as you described.

Are you kidding right now? Facebook reviews, online reviews etc is EXACTLY what word of mouth is. So Yes, Facebook reviews are word of mouth. Even if it’s true or false, planted or real, it’s still considered Word of Mouth Advertising. It’s cited in Nielsen that 68% of consumers trust online reviews from other consumers. So sorry, but you’re wrong.

I would think most people rely on talking to other parents to research daycares rather than looking at Facebook comments, but fine that is "word of mouth." A semantic debate about what counts as "word of mouth" is beside the point.

The point is I still can't fathom that daycares are incentivizing parents to make negative Facebook posts about other daycares.

Say my daycare asked me to post about another school. If I posted, that could show up in my and friends' feeds. My friends who know that my kid goes to daycare A are going to be pretty puzzled when I talk about daycare B. It wouldn't be worth whatever small payment/incentive my daycare could provide. I guess I could create a dummy Facebook post as if I were some Russian troll, but again that isn't going to be worth it. Plus, my (and most) daycares in this area are already full. Most don't advertise at all and, if they did, they would likely use traditional means of advertising -- not hiring people to trash their competitors.

It all just doesn't make sense. But, maybe the poster who claimed her friend heard about this will come back with more info.

Showed her the post. She’s not talking! (Whoops) :/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They are full, and I’m sure the Open Houses are to fill their upcoming spots for summer and next year. And before anyone starts policing me, I am a parent just looking to find care for my son. I know for a fact that competing schools give incentives for shit-talking other schools, Goddard Bethesda being one of them because my neighbor told me that she was offered an incentive and all she had to do was post on Facebook about goddard and two other schools. That’s some pretty shitty marketing ploys right there. Anonymity is fun because you can’t get caught but if you want the truth, ask to speak to some of their families no matter where you go.

What?! I've never in a million years heard that. Our Goddard location didn't do that at all.

Sorry PP here - goddard bethesda didn’t ask their parents to do that - other schools gave incentives to parents for trash talking goddard bethesda, the church preschool down the street, and one other Montessori one.

What?! They offered incentives if you trash talked a school on Facebook? I find that very hard to believe.

Which other schools give incentives to trash talk Goddard? What are the incentives? How did they decide who to offer it to?

This just doesn’t make any sense.

Word of mouth is powerful! Crappy practice and leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth.

Word of mouth is pretty different than having people plant false Facebook posts. And you didn’t actually answer any of the questions raised.

Sorry, this still makes no sense and I can’t believe it went down as you described.

Are you kidding right now? Facebook reviews, online reviews etc is EXACTLY what word of mouth is. So Yes, Facebook reviews are word of mouth. Even if it’s true or false, planted or real, it’s still considered Word of Mouth Advertising. It’s cited in Nielsen that 68% of consumers trust online reviews from other consumers. So sorry, but you’re wrong.

I would think most people rely on talking to other parents to research daycares rather than looking at Facebook comments, but fine that is "word of mouth." A semantic debate about what counts as "word of mouth" is beside the point.

The point is I still can't fathom that daycares are incentivizing parents to make negative Facebook posts about other daycares.

Say my daycare asked me to post about another school. If I posted, that could show up in my and friends' feeds. My friends who know that my kid goes to daycare A are going to be pretty puzzled when I talk about daycare B. It wouldn't be worth whatever small payment/incentive my daycare could provide. I guess I could create a dummy Facebook post as if I were some Russian troll, but again that isn't going to be worth it. Plus, my (and most) daycares in this area are already full. Most don't advertise at all and, if they did, they would likely use traditional means of advertising -- not hiring people to trash their competitors.

It all just doesn't make sense. But, maybe the poster who claimed her friend heard about this will come back with more info.

Showed her the post. She’s not talking! (Whoops) :/

I am sure that has nothing to do with her claims of payment to parents to disparage other preschools being false.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They are full, and I’m sure the Open Houses are to fill their upcoming spots for summer and next year. And before anyone starts policing me, I am a parent just looking to find care for my son. I know for a fact that competing schools give incentives for shit-talking other schools, Goddard Bethesda being one of them because my neighbor told me that she was offered an incentive and all she had to do was post on Facebook about goddard and two other schools. That’s some pretty shitty marketing ploys right there. Anonymity is fun because you can’t get caught but if you want the truth, ask to speak to some of their families no matter where you go.

What?! I've never in a million years heard that. Our Goddard location didn't do that at all.

Sorry PP here - goddard bethesda didn’t ask their parents to do that - other schools gave incentives to parents for trash talking goddard bethesda, the church preschool down the street, and one other Montessori one.

What?! They offered incentives if you trash talked a school on Facebook? I find that very hard to believe.

Which other schools give incentives to trash talk Goddard? What are the incentives? How did they decide who to offer it to?

This just doesn’t make any sense.

Word of mouth is powerful! Crappy practice and leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth.

Word of mouth is pretty different than having people plant false Facebook posts. And you didn’t actually answer any of the questions raised.

Sorry, this still makes no sense and I can’t believe it went down as you described.

Are you kidding right now? Facebook reviews, online reviews etc is EXACTLY what word of mouth is. So Yes, Facebook reviews are word of mouth. Even if it’s true or false, planted or real, it’s still considered Word of Mouth Advertising. It’s cited in Nielsen that 68% of consumers trust online reviews from other consumers. So sorry, but you’re wrong.

I would think most people rely on talking to other parents to research daycares rather than looking at Facebook comments, but fine that is "word of mouth." A semantic debate about what counts as "word of mouth" is beside the point.

The point is I still can't fathom that daycares are incentivizing parents to make negative Facebook posts about other daycares.

Say my daycare asked me to post about another school. If I posted, that could show up in my and friends' feeds. My friends who know that my kid goes to daycare A are going to be pretty puzzled when I talk about daycare B. It wouldn't be worth whatever small payment/incentive my daycare could provide. I guess I could create a dummy Facebook post as if I were some Russian troll, but again that isn't going to be worth it. Plus, my (and most) daycares in this area are already full. Most don't advertise at all and, if they did, they would likely use traditional means of advertising -- not hiring people to trash their competitors.

It all just doesn't make sense. But, maybe the poster who claimed her friend heard about this will come back with more info.

Showed her the post. She’s not talking! (Whoops) :/

I am sure that has nothing to do with her claims of payment to parents to disparage other preschools being false.

She was supposed to keep it hush and i went and blabbed it on the Internet. Anywho. I’m still going to tour all of the Bethesda area preschools come summer so I can make an informed decision about what i see and what’s best for my infant.