Chrystie

Last week, I wrote a blog post about Twitter, the fast growing microblogging platform that allows users to blog 140 character ‘tweets’ to their closest friends, followers and yes, even strangers. Twitter, although, originally created to keep up with what your friends are up to, has quickly become an easy way for companies to monitor their reputation online.

Zappos.com, one of the largest online shoe merchants, known for its outstanding customer service and amazingly large selection of shoes (personal experience) has recently taken to Twitter. They have set up a Twitter feed page on their site which follows online mentions about the company and ‘tweets’ made by their employees.

Zappos.com has been the online sweetheart of many bloggers. With amazing customer service stories like, I Heart Zappos, this one and one more, it’s hard to NOT love them. Zappos.com did not set out to win over bloggers, they set out to win over their customers…and some of them just so happened to be bloggers. With one flower bouquet, Zappos.com managed to win over thousands of bloggers and fans. According to Yahoo Site Explorerr the “I Heart Zappos” post currently has close to 2,000 inbound links! Talk about free publicity!

As a company committed to customer service, it is a smart move for Zappos to embrace Twitter. Following their company’s brand online will help them pro-actively remedy any negative mentions online and humanize the company by following their employee’s tweets.

I’ve been a long time fan of Twitter, mostly to keep up on breaking news and find out what my friends are doing, however, this morning I read a great article which made me realize how powerful of a tool Twitter actually is. James Buck, a UC Berkely student, was arrested in Egypt. Instead of a phone call, Buck used his phone to post a message to his Twitter account: Short and simple, it read, “Arrested.” Within 24 hours, Buck’s Twitter followers had managed to involve UC Berkely, the US Embassy and get him freed. Another young life spared, thanks to modern conveniences of Social Media.

Twitter, ironically enough,isn’t just for busting yourself out of the clink. It can also help you save the life of your business. Twitter is a microblogging platform which allows users to post 140 character ‘tweets’ to hundreds of their closest friends…or whoever chooses to follow them. More and more companies are using Twitter to monitor their online reputation. Using Twitter tools like TweetScan you can set up alerts to email or text you if and when your business name is mentioned on Twitter.

American Airlines suffered a PR nightmare last week when it cancelled over 3000 flights. You can just imagine the amount of negative twitters which were tweeted during the whole debacle. The negative press and online complaints forced American to shift into reputation management mode. They quickly reacted by starting a blog, addressing customer concerns and issues.

By monitoring what people are saying about your business online, you can be pro-active in your reputation management, fending off naysayers as the arise.

A few of our customers have received an email claiming to be from Google Adwords that looks like this:

Dear Google AdWords Customer,

Your ads have stopped running because we were unable to process your billing information. We will reactivate you account after you update your billing information. In order to reactivate your account, please sign it to your account at http://adwords.google.com/select/login and update your billing information.

This is a scam! Do not visit the site and do not enter your information.

In general, if you get any emails that sound fishy — asking for credit card or other personal information to avoid a bad outcome — it’s good to err on the side of caution. We’re happy to review any such emails to let you know if they are legitimate or not.

Traditional advertising is dead. And if it’s not dead…it’s flopping around on the wooden deck of a much bigger ship, a vessel known as search & internet marketing. The inevitable shift to online advertising is forcing traditional print, radio and television media to scramble to find sponsors, sell ad space, and secure their future in the advertising market, unfortunately, it may be a futile fight.

Earlier this week, it was announced that 111 Newsweek Magazine staffers accepted an early buyout and are leaving the paper. This following the layoffs and buyouts of The New York Times and The Washington Post earlier this year. These layoffs and buyouts are just proof that the internet is taking over the advertising market. Craigslist has replaced newspaper classifieds, YouTube has replaced television commercials and banner ads on popular blogs are replacing Magazine ads. Why the shift? It’s cheaper and more effective.

I was talking to a colleague of mine recently who detailed one of her client’s attempts to stick with the ‘old school’ method of marketing his business. He signed a 6 month advertising contract for $20,000 with a well-distributed niche magazine. To track his efforts, the client had his developer set up a landing page specifically for the web address which was printed on the magazine ad. In the first 3 months, that landing page received a total of 5 hits. 5 HITS! If you do the math…you would figure out that those 5 hits cost the client 2,000 each! And the kicker…none of those 5 hits converted into a qualified sale!

On the flip side, internet marketing is cheap! For less than a 6 month magazine ad contract, you could have a seo-friendly website developed, implement organic and internet marketing, effective user conversion strategies and begin to reap benefits indefinitely!

As marketing becomes more internet focused, it is important to find a reputable web development and SEO firm to help you outline an online marketing strategy that fits your budget and fulfills your goals.

photo credit: cursedthing