Online Reputation Monitoring Is Just Good Business!

ORM, Online Repuation Management or Monitoring, whatever you want to call it makes no difference to the fact that everyone who is looking at effectively managing their PR needs to take great stock in this.

ORM is quite simply, the practice of tracking a group or set of pre-defined keywords about your company, your competitors or just about anything you want, across the entire internet from websites, to newsgroups and across the entire blogosphere… But good ORM is not just tracking everything, a good ORM strategy also needs some type of analysis and yes, some kind of strategy when dealing with unruly statements that you may happen to find.

Not too long ago, the world of ORM was started by the advent of Google Alerts, relevant phrases would be setup and carefully monitored… which I suppose is fine, but then it does not really help if you do nothing about a bad piece of press and if no-one actually monitors this online PR channel then its just another glorified web-type report that ends up in the “file” pile…

Thankfully, due to the natural evolution of the online marketing environment though, a number of well-established marketing companies have thrown a bit more “know-how” behind the aggregation of collecting alerts, and created some great tools for tracking and managing your reputation online. There are a number of tools available, notably Andy Beal’s Trackur and local offerings, Brandseye from Quirk and SaidWot from LongTail. They all have a similar offering and allow the added advantage of giving you more than just tracking, which is the strategy and action of dealing with unruly PR on various channels. This all comes with a small price (obviously) and is really well worth the cost too, especially when it comes to the interpretation and strategy behind the Reputation Management tool. As an online marketer myself, I would defintely advocate the usage of one of these professional offerings – you just can’t take a chance when it comes to your online reputation.

However, if budget is an issue, or if you would prefer to test the world of Online Reputation Management without spending any money, then there are other ways to manage your own reputation online.

As mentioned there are Google Alerts, which send daily, weekly, or “as it happens” news through – related to keywords and is farily comprehensive, covering everything from mainstream news sites, to entries across the blogosphere. These alerts arrive in your mailbox in the form of an email so the information is readily available.

Now, if Google Alerts are not enough, then you can also setup a simple Online Reputation Monitoring tool by using your WordPress blog. It’s actually a WordPress Widget plug-in and gives you an opportunity to monitor pretty much any source of content that is provided in RSS feeds called WP-O-Matic. This plug-in automatically creates posts from RSS/Atom feeds that you provide it and organises them into campaigns for you to use and easily interpret too. The plugin has an easy to manage user interface, which features imaging caching, word rewriting to name a few. It also allows you to import your own OPML files, so essentially you can create a tracking campaign across thousands of feeds quite instantly. When it comes to adding the actual feed content, WP-O-matic has both Unix cron and WordPress cron jobs to make the fetching process simple, or alternatively you can just hit the “fetch” button and manually import the latest posts from the feeds you have specified and collected. It is a very well thought out and well researched plugin, and one you really need to see in action to believe.

So there you have it, ORM in a nutshell, as well as some handy free tools and some very professional options to choose from too.

“Search Engine World” returns to normal… almost

Well, only about a week after I posted the article about Cuil, and to be fair so did everyone else… it seems as though the much-vaunted, and hugely-hyped Cuil Search Engine has slid back in relative obscurity. Not totally gone mind you, but the “Search Engine World’s” pecking order has been officially re-established, with Google assuming its undaunted role as top of the search pile…

The online research and marketing company, Hitwise, has confirmed that after Cuil’s initial launch which caused the sites ranking and traffic to spike dramatically to around 106 (in most trafficked sites), over the past week or two the traffic has dropped off quite dramatically… down to 1034th in traffic and to number 34 in terms of Search Engines… So yes, I suppose one could say Cuil has almost come and gone…

Cuil’s impact was noted however, buoyed by a lot of media spend on traditional as well as online channels, as well as a HUGE amount of online buzz marketing, Cuil has shown the world that it is possible to take a “pot” at the mighty Google. Granted it’s going to take a large amount of money, technology and some serious “balls”, but even having all these factors in place, it is still a HUGE ask, so maybe we are just going to have to leave it to the seriously BIG players to slug it out (read: Microsoft)…

Must say, it is kind of sad that the hype has died and Cuil is just back to being one of those “other search engines”, the world of search was just starting to get interesting again…

The world of search has just got more interesting…

So during this past week, on Monday to be exact, the search engine world received another contender in the search stakes… “So what?” you may say… Many have come and gone, with only a few sticking around, and none of them have come even close to dethroning the search prowess and efficiency of Google.

Well… none until now… ok, ok, hold your laughter and hear me out.

Cuil.com is a new search engine that has its sights on challenging Google, and many industry insiders believe they may well have a slim chance of doing so too…

Reasons for this stem from the following facts:

They claim to have the biggest search index on the planet. With more than 3 times the web index of Google and more than 10times that of Microsoft, nothing to scoff at and definitely something that made me sit-up.

Along with this massive index, they have a unique way of displaying results (in a news like format with 3 columns and images),  and also have a slightly different outlook on indexing and displaying results (more on this in a future post).

Along with these unique way of displaying and indexing, they have another huge advantage over any other contenders to the search crown… quite simply they have a management and development team that have worked at Google and every other major search company, and know what it takes to be the best…

I did quite a few test searches with Cuil and I must admit that it returned really good results. Whether they were better or worse than results from Google, I am not sure, I suppose it depends on the query and the needs of the person doing the search.

Cuil does seem to understand the different meaning of words, the fact that one word could mean the same for different things and people. As an example, if you search for “proteas” then Cuil will return results for the flower, the nickname of the South African cricket team , gardening tips and then companies with that word in the name on the their results pages. Pretty cool

This knowledge and skill, partnered with a huge amount of financial backing, makes for a potent search force and only time will tell if it really will give Google a run for its money.

However, there is clearly a lot more to search than having a the largest index and great search results… If that was the only measurment criteria then surely Yahoo would have a much bigger share of the search market?

Watch what you blog…

As a fairly active blogger, I am always always quite impressed by the fact that ones opinion (or blog) can be readily accessible and also deemed as quite important… especially for those of us without any formal writing experience or training Free speech at work… got to love it!

But then, every now and then, an article gets posted that makes all bloggers sit up and take notice… and no, this is not an article about Google putting a man on the moon, or Microsoft funding the first manned flight to Jupiter… but rather something a lot more alarming that affects the very thing that many of us would-be “writers” (read bloggers) do on a daily basis… and that is being liable and accountable for what we write, and possibly even being thrown in jail for it! Yup, writing on a blog could land you in prison…

This article on the ABC News website, really made me sit up and start thinking a little more about what I write and especially who I write about.

The bottom line is that in the last 4 years, over 159 civil court actions have been taken against bloggers… with verdicts against bloggers ending up in cumulative penalties totalling $18.5 million!!! Yikes! Talk about clamping down on free speech… believe me, if I knew I was going to have to fork out a few million because of something I said, I would definitely start shutting up. And surely this reaction is the exact opposite reaction of what free speech, and hell, what the blogosphere is all about?!?!

Or maybe I am just overreacting… ? Well, read the article and let me know what you think.

Optimising for geographical regions

As we all know Google and many other Search Engines have the ability to search very specific geographical regions… and as expected, all websites that fall within the domain registration of that country will tend to have greater importance than sites that don’t… Which can be expected and also heps level the playing field, just a little, for a few local sites that might not have a chance against the bigger, top teir domain names on Google.com for example…

However, what happens if you do have a .com domain or any other top tier domain name, that just happens to be country specific too? Sometimes the Search Engines or even local engines will not register the domain as being regionally viable and possibly rank you lower than necessary because of this…

Enter geo-tagging… drum-roll please

Geo-tagging is a way to add geographical Meta Data to virtually any content: photos, RSS feeds, or just to websites. A geo-tag essentially defines the longitude and latitude, the location place name or a regional identifier.  By placing a geo-tag on a Web page you provide information to readers and to search engines about the geographical location of the site. And as an added bonus, it can also refer to the location that the page or photo is about. so you can write a story about Ventersdorp for example… and then this can then be indexed in Google… oh, and Ventersdorp is in South Africa

To add geo-tags to your site, you must first know the latitude and longitude of your location.  Seeing as not everyone has this info at their fingertipsd, there are a number of geo tag generators online to help you on your way. I definitely recommend Geo Tag Generator. (Simply enter your complete address and the proper meta-tags are provided to you for placement in your page headers).

So there you have it, an easy way to get geographical content “noticed” online…

Happy 30th Birthday Spam!

Man, 30 years already. and to think it all started with an unsolicited message that was sent to 600 people over 30 years ago by a Direct Marketer. And now it is the hourly bane of most of our Inboxes!

I stumbled across this funny article on AdLand, a true “tongue-in-cheek” salute to Spam Read it here.

Google TV Ads Launched

So Media Buying has gone to the next level with Google TV ads. In a nutshell, Google TV Ads is a flexible, all-digital system for buying more accountable and measurable TV advertising. Using the familiar AdWords interface. basically you can manage and buy your own media space and setup and launch a TV advertising campaign in minutes.

This may only be available in the US for now. but it’s impact on the world of TV and media buying in general cannot be denied. And there are plans to roll it out internationally too, so stay tuned.

Read more about it on the Google TV Ads Site.
And to see how easy it is to buy TV media in the USA, just check out the video on the site.

It’s almost that time of year again.

Yup, the day is around the corner. the day most internet addicts, computer junkies and gaming afficionados hate. Shutdown Day!!

Well, that’s if you sign up of course

Shutdown Day is a massive global experiment to spread awareness about the pitfalls of excessive use and abuse of computers and Internet. And, to find out how many people can go without a computer for one whole day, and what will happen if everyone participates.

Interested? Well then click-on over to http://www.shutdownday.org and pledge your support!

And no, I seriously doubt I will be signing up

Can you survive for 24 hours without your computer ?

Social Networking for Mom’s

The social networking spin-off, from Facebook, continues in ernest. And big business is now right behind it too. Sprint and Unilever have funded the venture with the aim of attracting millions of Mom’s to the site. What makes it so effective in its atrractiveness is that it combines big-budget Hollywood style production techniques to get Mom’s to the site. Some Big names in Hollywood have signed-up to star in the consumer generated stories that are published on the website – Some really good and funny video content.

Check out http://www.inthemotherhood.com/

Green Social Networks

To ease the daily pains (and to help your social conscience) visit and sign-up to Greenopolis People band together online, to date, discuss politics or lose weight . this all happens in a community whose members help each other live in a more earth-friendly manner. Pretty cool!

See, don’t you feel better already.