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Looking back at 2009, it was decidedly the year to get started with live search media monitoring. If you don’t know what “live search” is, think Twitter.
Never understood what Twitter was all about? Well, then think about this: If I was to go on a little R&R skiing vacation in Bad-Gastein (Austrian Alps), I could do one of two things: Check Google for pages mentioning Bad-Gastein, or search Twitter for the same term.
For the better part of 2009, Google would return a bunch of Bad-Gastein sites optimized for selling travel packages, hotels, spas etc. That’s where live search media monitoring comes into play. Although commercial service providers are relevant for my planning, I’d first of all want to know what the snow conditions were like, preferably from some unbiased source. The hotels, skiing resorts and service providers are unlikely to give me that, which is what makes people so exited about Twitter. It returns real life impressions from people who are there right now!
Google is of course not passively sitting back and has already struck a deal with both Twitter and Facebook which includes search results from them alongside their index and adwords.
This has significant PR implications and companies increasingly need to pay attention and interact with social media users. If a customer service representative is stonewalling customers the word will soon be out on Twitter, which in turn will reveal an unfavorable impression in Google search results. On the flip side, speedy interaction and online reputation management may have the opposite effect.
In other words, now more than ever, it pays to set do live search media monitoring of company and product names. And not just proprietary names, other keywords associated to the products and services should be monitored too. For my Bad Gastein example, it would make sense to monitor, “Skiing vacation in Austria”, “Skiing in Hohe Tauern” and “Austria ski resort guide” too.
For a comprehensive live search media monitoring system, take this opportunity to try out the FREE Imooty.eu trial.
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Online reputation monitoring has become a standard tool in a PR industry constantly adjusting to change. One commonly hears that new tools and practices have everything to do with changes in technology. But is that really true?
Sure, technology has pushed a paradigm shift on traditional media. Long gone are the days when radio, TV and newspaper’s had a monopoly on expressing opinions. However, sudies show that the main change taking place is sociological.
PR professionals are faced with the task of reaching out to a new generation of youngsters that grew up online. Their perception is one of suspicion to anything that smells like “official” opinion or advertising. Forget about conventional press releases, their opinion-makers are bloggers and fellow members in online communities. They are media savvy, value honesty, transparency and engagement.
In order to reach an online community, you have to join in as an exited and engaged participant - welcome to the new PR, a.k.a. community management!
As a PR consultant you will advise community managers (a full time in-house position) on how to conduct online reputation monitoring, participate in community forums discussions and interact with bloggers. Look for a community manager that has:
- ability to reach out to people, “step into the other person’s shoes” and build trust
- deep knowledge of product/service details and problem resolution skills
- an understanding of the organization’s social media goals and ability to communicate strategically to achieve them
In other words, it’s not the geeky knowledge of all the latest social media tools and platforms that makes for a competent community manager. Social media is all about people skills and being able to execute according to strategic goals. More than anything, this means investing in someone who will refrain from responding reactively and with impulse.
Have you started with online reputation monitoring yet? Register for a free trial with Imooty.eu now!
In a recent survey of over 2000 German media intelligence professionals, respondents answered questions centering on three topics; impact felt from the financial meltdown, gender issues and professional ethics.
Not surprisingly, it is the media intelligence professionals from the automotive and metalworking industry that are hardest hit by financial crisis. Particularly challenging is a rising communication need (45%) combined with a decrease in available resources (30%). The average yearly income has furthermore decreased with €6500 compared to 2007. Challenges are a further focus on added value communication aspects (36%), concentration on legitimation over image related aspects (35%), intensified internal communication (21%) and increased efficiency control (29%).
The media intelligence profession furthermore see an increase in female practitioners. In 2007 53% were men, whereas in 2009 we see a 50/50 split. For professionals under 30, 78% are female and between 30-39, 55%. As the professionals come of age, over 40, we see increasing male dominance. For those over 50 there is a 2:1 ratio between male/female practitioners. On average women earn ca. €22.500 less per year than men (€75.876 vs. €53.301). This discrepancy can in part be attributed to the fact that on average women practitioners are younger than men.
In recent years, corporate transparency has become a top-, front- and center issue for the media intelligence profession and 88% of the respondents agree that it is a condition for communicating trustworthiness of their organization. Only 4% of the professionals work in a department subordinate to another department. Consequently, about half of the professionals see their strategic influence on the media intelligence policy of the company as high or very high (and thereby presumably also on corporate transparency). Still, many of the respondents also criticize senior management’s understanding of the strategic importance of a consistent media intelligence policy.
Check out Imooty’s next generation media monitoring and media intelligence tool at Imooty.eu
The first step step beyond social media monitoring is developing listening skills. Needless to say, companies have a lot to gain from understanding the customers problems. By providing solutions and sharing knowledge, content is likely to be passed on and advocated by consumers.
So what’s the problem?
When you say that you have an open and receptive online presence, it creates an expectation. Specifically, an expectation of being heard. Active social media monitoring and a policy for when/how to respond to feedback, is priority number one for building customer relationships and trust. Do not make the mistake of ignoring a customer who expects being heard.
Most companies hesitate to take the step from social media monitoring to active interaction because of perceived risks. A fear that everything will spin out of control if people start communicating via Twitter. However, there are also risks associated with not participating. The indecisiveness is an expression of sticking with the status quo and keeping with the old hierarchical communication structure. However, adapting to social media is unlikely to undo the company. Mistakes will be made, sure, but that is part of what makes social media appealing.
Companies seem to have a hard time speaking about anything else than their products. To avoid looking pushy, or worse, boring, find topics that connect to the bigger picture. Kodak’s photography blog for example isn’t just about their products.
Also, users increasingly expect websites to be interactive, not just an online version of the company brochure. They’re looking for fresh content, articles, videos, podcasts and links to the latest developments in your industry. Content generation is unlikely to work very well in a top-down structure. If the IT department needs to recode the website every time someone wants to contribute, social interaction will never happen. It is important to have an easy to publish CMS. Once the new PR and communiation policy is in place, everyone should be able to share and contribute.
Taking the step from social media monitoring to participation doesn’t have to be a major undertaking. It doesn’t take hi-tech tools to connect with your customers. Think corporate blog, Twitter and a Facebook page.
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Media intelligence : Analyzing how your company name or brand rates in online reviews, vs. those of your competitors’, most definitely belongs on your media intelligence to-do list.
Or does it?
The New York Times article, “On the Internet, Everyone’s a Critic But They’re Not Very Critical” reports that the average online review rating is 4.3 stars out of 5. That’s of course far away from being even remotely close to the “bell curve”. How come the average distribution of statistical data is so far off? Does media intelligence practices play a role here?
The article seems to indicate that yes, they do. Printer paper, boots and dog food in particular have bloated online reputations and the same can be said for hotels being reviewed on TripAdvisor.com.
However, media intelligence practices, such as a manager’s puffing up the average rating of this own product or service, is not the only factor. Someone is also minding the store. Several independent Amazon reviewers for example, suspect that the online megastore is involved in selective review vetting.
Translation: Negative reviews are simply deleted in order to sell more products. Ed Keller, CEO of the Keller Fay Group, has found that ca. 65% of word-of-mouth reviews are positive, whereas only 8% are negative!
At the end of the day the question then becomes how “good” is a good review. Do you have the strength to give a 4.3 review its real (average) value in your media intelligence matrix?
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The Communication Summit is the yearly highlight for PR and Communication professionals in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. During a panel discussion on online PR and communication, Mr. Volker Gaßner from Greenpeace, made an interesting contribution to the topic of online reputation monitoring.
Greenpeace does online reputation monitoring of companies they see as “greenwashing” their corporate image (i.e. claiming without merit that they are green and sustainable). He used an example of RWE, a large energy provider, who recently hired a high profile PR and marketing agency to create a video to improve their corporate image. The video depicts an animated version of the energy giant planting windmills, wave power generators and fixing broken power lines.
In fact, only 2% of RWE’s energy comes from green and sustainable energy and Greenpeace sees the RWE video as a typical “greenwashing” campaign. Accordingly, Greenpeace re-cut and altered the video to be shown on a TV monitor, sitting in a wasteland of nuclear energy plants (RWE owns 5 of them in Germany).
After only a few weeks the Greenpeace response has almost as many YouTube views as the original, it backfired.
Mr. Dieter Zetsche, Chairman of the Board of Management at Daimler AG, also addressed the topic at his opening Keynote to the Communication Summit. The challenges for PR and communication professionals in communicating green technology efforts are indeed real. It is not only a complex and difficult technology to understand (especially in the car industry), it is also easy to fall for the temptation of playing with statistics and nice imagery.
Mr. Zetsche concluded that only communication of real substance is likely to gain trust and goodwill. It is also safe to assume that Greenpeace, as well as competitors, will continue with online reputation monitoring, to keep track of greenwashing and misleading advertising.
The web is increasingly the place to make a buying decisions and online reputation management has become routine for many businesses. Potential customers have to get a positive first impression of a company, product or service when doing online research.
The effect of a positive reputation is obvious, consumers associate trust and confidence with the brand thereby directly impacting company growth and profitability. But what happens when a prospective reads a negative comment about a brand? Exactly the opposite. A negative mention of a company reduces consumer confidence and translates in lower revenue and profits.
But isn’t this outweighed by another favourable review? Unfortunately not.
Although the majority of purchases are made off-line, recommendations from other consumers is the most important factor in making purchasing decisions (source TNS and eMarketer). According to research on Ebay and Amazon merchants, the positive/negative ratio is about 10 to 1. Translation; you need 10 positive reviews to outweigh 1 negative. Or better illustrated with a quote from Warren Buffet; “It takes 20 years to build your reputation and five minutes to ruin it”.
On the web, rumors, gossip and bad news in general, spread like wildfire. There is no longer a geographic limitation to distribution of content and negative reviews can be deadly to a company’s bottom line. This is why online reputation management is important.
So how do you make sure that potential customers receive a favourable first impression when researching your company, brand, product or service online?
First, by monitoring online press articles, blog posts, social media reviews, pictures and video uploads as they relate to your company’s product and services.
Secondly, it analyse and document the development of search results as they relate to source type authority and relevance.
Thirdly, influence search results by cultivating your own online assets, namely your official website, blog, micro sites and customer review forums.
Visit Imooty today to get started with online reputation management and to set up your online monitoring service.
Yesterday it was time to thank our interns for their efforts over the past few months. Edward and Ana came to us via “Leonardo”, a program which helps young professionals find internships abroad. Edward worked on our visual media monitoring system whereas Ana did a great job with research of online reputation management services in Spain.
Kristina has also done a terrific job over the last few months. Her awareness of the particular PR needs of the Web 2.0 generation, helped us develop an online monitoring service for the next generation media monitoring professionals.
Together we all went to a Biergarten by the river, across from the Bode Museum. It was one of those nights when people clearly had not been out for a while… It has been a crappy summer so far and instead of constantly checking mobile news, folks could finally bake in the sun, have a drink and dance tango as the boats went honking by.
It turned out to be a good start of the summer and we hope we’ll be as lucky with our next interns as with Ana, Edward & Kristina.
Thank you!
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What media content do you consider trustworthy? Are online information sources part of your online monitoring? According to eMarketer and TNS, a recent survey finds that online news sources, rank high as trusted information sources. The most trusted information source is friends and word-of-mouth recommendations. TV news and newspapers are considered to be about equally trustworthy.
Especially interesting is the comparison from country to country. Whereas private blogs overall are considered the least reputable, Chinese consumers rank them notably higher. In Scandinavia the most trusted information source is TV news, whereas in Germany and Italy it is Wikipedia (!).
As a online monitoring service, it’s definitely surprising to find Wikipedia as the most trusted information source in Germany and Italy. We’re reminded of Merriam-Webster’s word of the year 2006, namely Stephen Colbert’s adaptation of “truthiness”:
“We’re not talking about truth, we’re talking about something that seems like truth – the truth we want to exist…”
For our own part, we notice a spike in visitor numbers and online monitoring registrations every time a major event takes place. From earthquakes to political scandals, visitors swarm to Imooty for trusted information anytime a big news story breaks.
Want to have your create your own online monitoring service? Try Imooty for FREE today!
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Imooty attended Berlin’s 4th conference multimedia start-up’s yesterday. We were pleased to present our mobile news application at the conference, which is a forum for multimedia and technology start-ups to network with prospective investors. It took place in the former DDR movie theater “Kosmos” in East Berlin.
This year’s motto was to collaborate and succeed in a time of economic crisis and Mr Kaczorowski, Director of Internet Business Solutions at Cisco Systems AG, held the keynote address. He told us how Cisco, one of the world’s largest networking equipment and network management suppliers didn’t had to cancel its annual leadership conference. Instead, new ‘live size’ video conference applications enabled them to organize a 3 day online conference for top level management world wide. Later, we were pleased to share Imooty’s collaborative mobile news features with the conference participants.
Another presentation by Dr. Martin Kupp, from European School of Management and Technology in Berlin, dealt with the fundamental question: how to stay longer on the market? The Queen of pop, Madonna would serve as an example for success as her biography is a textbook example for marketing and PR strategies.
In short the reccomendations were as follows;
- Move with the flow and endorse new technologies; Madonna boldly promoted MTV’s use of music videos already in 1983.
- Break some rules; Madonna has questioned sexual and religious tabus her entire career.
- Blend with the up-and coming, Madonna has collaborated with young artists and got good coverage as she kissed Britney Spears in the MTV Video Awards in 2003.
As for the exhibition, we had our own stand somewhere in the middle, presenting Imooty’s Media Monitoring solutions. As expected, the financial crisis dominated the general mood at the conference, and proved to be an excellent occasion to present Imooty as a concrete way for companies to save money on online reputation management services in trying times.
And the Gummy Bears at our stand, courtesy of Profund, FU, was a huge hit among fellow exhibitors as well as investors.
Create your online monitoring tool and start following mobile news today!
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