Measuring your Brand’s Reputation within the Blogosphere

Blogs are a hot topic and have been so for the last year or so. They’ve been around, obviously, for much longer than that (ours has been up for almost five years), but had previously been reserved for individuals to share their personal stories or to serve as a platform for cutting-edge ideas.

Corporate marketers have just recently recognized the power of blogs and have even begun to ask the question about whether or not they should produce one for their own companies. By this, they’ve recognized that they can dialogue in a world that they can control, which is very traditional broadcast thinking.

Conversely, just as the individual has had a handle on the world of blogs for the last several years, the corporate world has not really had a handle on what type of influence those individual blogs really have on the masses. With that in mind, here are a few stats to digest:

*From a recent survey of about 7,000 people by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, thirty-nine percent of U.S. Internet users, or about 57 million Americans, read blogs; 8 percent, or about 12 million Americans, write a blog

*From a study conducted by Yahoo! and OMD earlier this year, consumers say the Internet is the most trusted shopping information source (54 percent), followed by magazines (34 percent) and TV (23 percent).

*The same Yahoo! and OMD study showed that 25 percent of people have posted reviews of products or services online, providing a service to other shoppers.

*According to a survey by Cisco Systems released in August 2006, the ability for a user to post and view customer reviews was one of the 10 most significant factors in scoring a “leader” ranking in the retail category.

While the above stats seem a little scattered, here is how I want to drive you to the point: 12 million people write the blogs that 57 million people read. So, using basic math, one blogger espouses their platform to about five people. In all actuality, there are many blogs that reach far more than five people and obviously there are a whole lot of blogs that speak to an insignificant audience.

I’d like to add that there are also blogs that people don’t realize are blogs in concept and influence, such as MySpace. For example, according to Hitwise, MySpace accounted for 4.46% of all Internet visits in the U.S. for the week ending July 8, 2006.

Also, people love to research products on the Web and those same people listen to what other customers have to say about specific products. They care so much about what those other consumers have to say that, when asked, they rank retail sites higher if they offer that capability to interact or network.

So, ideally, I’ve painted the picture where there are enough people out there talking to people who are intently listening and perhaps marketers should care about what those people are saying about their companies and products.

How does one measure your brand’s reputation within the blogosphere? There are a myriad of companies that are starting to project a level of experience in this realm, but the basics are really this:

Get to know the top bloggers in your space. There are a number of tactics you can use to rank them by gauging by traffic, comments and inbound links. Use resources like Technorati and Blogpulse.

Do continual research on negative phrases related to your company and/or brand; are there specific problems that continually crop up (i.e. common keyword phrases to monitor)?

From your site analytics package, follow in-bound links to your site (even ones that seem insignificant); carefully monitor the fast-movers on your in-bound links.

Track message boards such as Google Groups (groups.google.com) for keywords related to your brand.

Now, if you discover any issues, you want to map those issues’ influence by identifying the subject of discussion, recognize where the comments have been distributed and resolve the issues at the source. For example, if a blogger comments about issues they have with a piece of software that you produce, send them a link or post a comment where they can find the patch or give them a status on the resolution.

Connecting with these influencers is not a bad policy anymore. Too many companies have had an aversion to opening a dialogue with the vocal minority; it is simply good practice to establish some ground rules and know your company’s limits. Treat the influencer as a customer who has walked in the door, solve their needs, but avoid arguments.

Sadly, bad news typically travels faster and thereby outranks any of the good news in search engines. That is just the way it is. So, if you can get a handle on the bad news quickly, you can potentially curb those issues before they become detrimental to your company’s success.

Reid Carr is president of Red Door Interactive Reid Carr is president of Red Door Interactive (http://www.reddoor.biz), a firm that creates comprehensive Internet presences for clients. Services offered include technology integration, online marketing, web traffic analysis, search engine promotion, web site content updates and comprehensive web site design.