Jon W Chin – Analytics, Social Media & SEO/SEM

Brand Reputation & Search Engine

Advertising Age ran an article titled “Search Shifts Means Visibility Must be Earned, Not Paid” – does this infer that brand reputation and search engine optimization are  correlated? If so, this has many ramifications.

One of which is that marketers should devote more attention to SEO rather than SEM, as the title in Advertising Age suggests. Pull demand is the force online, consumers look to the internet for information and education to help them make a more informed decision. They are unlike our forefathers who fall over to pressured advertising and hard sell. The generation today seek info and pull info towards them, they want companies to educate them not hard sell them. Hence its more of a PULL marketing at play here.

In the fast paced, interconnected world that we live in today, consumers are going to talk about your company regardless if you have entered the online space. So what you do offline campaigns, online campaigns, customer service, product quality will be talked about online. And these conversations can make or break your brand reputation. As part of SEM, one of the variable of a getting ranked higher, content needs to be refreshed and of course rich in content, conversations and (as a result interactions with other consumers) can be a very powerful variable in pushing up your brand name (be it positively or negative publicity) in Search Engines.

Consumers want to know what is the reputation of a firm (especially if its a new firm/product and they need to find a reason to trust you and develop a relationship) and what others have been saying about this particular company or product. Hey isnt that social marketing? Are you involved? Well regardless if you are involved or not, arent they still engaging in a conversation about your company? How would this affect your brand reputation and your sales figures? If your research studies shows that a fair number of your customers are online (well recent Google studies suggests that a vast majority of people are online and the number of hours spent online is increasing year on year) – so what does that suggest?

People are searching, people are also perhaps engaging in long-tail searches on your company and your product – as you know long tail searchers are people who are at the tipping point of buying or not buying your products. So having good or bad pages on the 1st or 2nd page of Google or Yahoo! may be a deal winner or breaker for you – depends how it swings.

As we move forward, I share the same as the author in Advertising Age, people are getting more involved in searching for brands and the search is getting more social – they want to read more about how others have to say about the company and the product – its no longer PUSH marketing but PULL marketing at play here. Not new I might say, in the past we have always trusted our friends more than than companies’s advertisement. But the differences here is the speed and the reachness and richess of the online medium that differs from yesteryears.

So concluding, I personally feel that your brand reputation and search engine are correlated – be it good or bad reputation – if it hits on the first or second page of search engines, it has the power to swing customers to you or to your competitors. Search Marketing is not just about generating leads, its also a strategy in itself that goes beyond selling a product.

What are your thoughts here? I’m keen to hear what you have to say.

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In my earlier post Social Media Marketing went “wrong”: Case: “Langham Hotel Steps in to Calm Online Storm” (Hong Kong) I wrote about how Langham Hotel’s campaign  triggered a social upheveal online.

A month has passed since the event, it has taught a lesson to all – to take note of cultural sensitivities when engaging in a campaign and that one should not have retreated without an explanation.

I’ve always said that social media is a double edged sword, it can be your best friend and it can be your worst enemy. However having said this, don’t just treat the online marketscape or social media networking to be your foe only and forget the opportunities it entails. Embrace it and treat it an an opportunity to better understand your customers, cause people are going to talk about your brand regardless.

Just yesterday, to my pleasant surprise I received an email from Langham’s director of corporate communication.

Here is snippet of the email and I quote:

The videos were wrong.  You were right to tell us so, and we’re sorry.

I thought that was a very amiable step and one worth applauding. I didnt expect this email (and its sincere apology) but I believe it will go a long way.

People make mistakes but most importantly is that one realizes it and make steps to heal it. For that – you have my respect, Langham, cause you have done just that.

All the best!

Below is the YouTube interview conducted by Marketing Magazine (Hong Kong) with Langham Hotel.

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A very interesting reality check podcast on social media marketing.

Click here for the podcast: MIS: Social Media for Businesses – A Reality Check

Summary

(For those who are unable to sit through the 28 minute podcast)

1. Engage in conversations (interaction), the idea behind social media.

2. Use tools (e.g. Facebook, Twitter etc) to better engage your customers, and these are just tools. Social Media marketing is a strategy in itself.

3. Nothing will replace a face to face meeting – not even Social Media marketing.

4. No longer to talk to them, now is I listen to you – from company to customer “what do you think of my products?”

5. Markets are getting smarter – you listen to the customers – and there is also alot of unhappy customers out there. You can get an anti-your company blog. But hey which company doesnt want to listen to those unhappy customers. On the contrary these companies give you a chance to better improve yourself.

6. Use Social Media to understand the customer and give it to them better. They use Social Media tools to listen to the conversation about the company in real time.

7. Companies should embrace the opportunities Social Media entails – think beyond the unhappy customers, on the contrary convert those unhappy ones to happy one and they will be your evangelists.

8. Listening is one thing, participating is another. Its very important to listen first and understand first and then response especially in this fast paced world we live in now.

Closing comments – Should companies get into Social Media?

- it depends on what you want to do and where your customer hang out.

- large organization cant afford to sit on the sideline, have to get in now before you get left behind especially now that a growing number of customers are spending a fair portion of their time online.

- Social Media gives you untapped opportunities and allows you to listen in to conversations about your brand and as a result allow to you understand where you stand, how you can improve and as such deliver better value.

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I’m sure most of you have seen the viral effects of the Domino Pizza employees having a ‘good’ time at the kitchen and the damage it has caused to Domino Pizza. The clips ‘enjoyed’ a million views before Domino Pizza management was informed of the YouTube clip. This was an instant viral marketing success (well for all the wrong reasons).

This to most companies is a situation where they dread most. However this is something very real and this could happen to any company.

Imagine years of building your baby brand to what it is today take a lot of hard work but it only requires one serious episode to bring it down. Similar to the notion of trust. Trust takes incremental steps to build but when the trust is lost, it drops by leaps and bounds.

Well my view is though one may completely take control of its brands in the online space, one can minimize these negative effects, i.e. control the negative spread of viral marketing.

How you might ask. Here are some tactics I recommend:

1. Craft an internal social media policy for all employees — this would signal to your staff that your actions offline and online concerning your company brand name is made answerable – unfortunately no many companies have one, if you dont, dont you think you should have one soon? After all, research suggests that social media is growing at an exponential rate.

a. Well ideally you would have someone listening in the online space that can inform your company at a moment’s notice.

Well the first one is not really a tactic but a good pre step. Do have one.

2. If it does happen, adopt the “SUN-SET” rule, make sure you quickly respond to this. In the online world, speed is of utmost importance. You need to craft an official respond.

a. If you know who the originator of the spread e.g. it was a blogger, perhaps you could get the blogger to link back to your official response. Most readers appreciate the other side of the story.

b. Well if you don’t (in most cases), do craft a response on your webpage and submit that page to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – yes do some keywords. This would ensure that user would be able to see your response on the first page of Google. Typically most users would click on the official response.

c. Engage Twitter, Twitter has been known for its speed! Use that to your advantage.

As you can see, all these revolves around prompt action. Do not ignore it and do act on it fast.

I’m sure you do not want the Domino Pizza effects happening to your company.

That’s all I can think of for now. But I’m keen to hear what you would do (or have done) to control the negative spread of your brand name.

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Its been nearly a good three years since VAGSG a forum that is created to serve the Singaporean (and Malaysian) motor enthusiasts. Vagsg has come a long way – from his humble beginning where whenever one posts, one can “FEEL” echos in the forum. HALLLLLLOOOOO…..

Now VAGSG stands strong at around 9000 members where activities have been planned both online and offline to foster growth and of course least but not least CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT – THE word in the marketing arena. VAGSG enjoys a strong return rate and it is a highly interactive forum as well.

How does one do that, the operating philosophy is very simple, just make users create contents (user generated contents) and let the spiders crawl through your web. That’s IT.

Actually thats not just it. I wish it was just that (haha). It was really a painful but challenging journey to make VAGSG what it is today. It is the de facto Audi and VW forum in Singapore.

The planning phase included:

1. Differentiate – USP – unique selling proposition. We are an independent forum run by enthusiasts for enthusiasts.
2. Excite – By generating fun activities (online and offline), chat about the latest models, modification of the cars etc.
3. Connect – this is done via offline ways, the intent is to get the forummers to meet one another and develop relationships and form a TRIBE. Its a long term engagement, encouraging customer loyalty and last by not least advocate positive word of mouth (yes viral again).

Our bounce rate of the forum is very encouraging (very low – I compared it with a fellow local automobile website) and the time spent on the forum is very encouraging.

That’s all from me for now. Will update more when I get the chance on the VAGSG forum story from its humble beginnings to what it is today. The e-strategies involved to drive traffic, attract and retain the forummers (offline and online) and of course will share the web analytics side of it, SEO and SEM as well. What I have learnt.

Lastly VAGSG has an army of supporters who cant wait to tell people about the forum and of course their rides and spread the positive word of mouth – yes its viral again.

Didnt Xerox research show, that is cost 5 times more to attract a new customer than to serve an existing, just let the customer do the job for you afterall your potential customer will trust them more, no? viral baby. The power of WOM.

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One lazy Sunday, whilst on the comfy sofa, received a text message from my twitter account. Blogger Seth Sodin has just updated his blog on Critics – an interesting read I must say.

Service marketers and academia have always advocated that one should not shun complains or negative comments on the contrary one should embrace them. The rationale behind it is your customer is giving you a second chance – he/she is basically say “Hey I like your product and I’m giving you a second chance”. This is where the company can shine by utilizing service recovery techniques. But humans are only humans…I share the same as Sodin and I quote him below.

If you’re a human being and you’re telling the truth, the answer is pretty obvious: you want to know which misguided losers had nasty things to say and you want to know what they said. In fact, if we’re being totally truthful, it’s likely you’re going to take what the critics had to say to heart.

But he adds a spin to it, telling us to ignore the critics, cause even if you heed the advice, they aint going to change – you just ignore them. His suggestion is to engage the “sneezers” instead – a term he used to describe +ve WOM advocates. Does this hold water? Perhaps or perhaps not. One can argue either way. But one thing for sure. Viral marketing especially positive WOM is a very powerful weapon and can unleash VIRUSES for your competitors.

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Remember the ads from monster.com a couple of years back that asked, “what do you want to do when you grow up?” typically answers like “I want to be a fireman” “I want to be a doctor” blah blah blah. Nothing really exciting so to speak.

But hey wait till you see BBH’s 2008 recruitment drive, I have to admit it got my attention, it made me crave for more, it subconsciously activate my propensity to tell my all my friends about it (marketers would call it yes you got it viral marketing at work).

Seriously, this is one top advertisement (Well done BBH). if one of the goal (other than to seek recruitment) it definitely suceeded in generating positive word of mouth (at least from me).

Please enjoy the ad below and feel free to share (opps again a victim of viral marketing)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTyJgCusdo0]

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