Q: How can I monitor what people are saying about my brand online?

A: Good job thinking about this. Some businesses assume that a simple Google search for their company's brand name or a couple of keywords ranking well on various search engines are all they need to know about their standing in their industry. And, on the other hand, some folks are so daunted by the mere idea of the task, they ignore it all together. The truth is, if you're actively marketing yourself on the Internet, your company's profile is probably complex enough that just a few searches won't cover all your mentions. However, that does not mean you can't easily hack out a relatively simple system for occasionally monitoring news that's relevant to you and your industry.

Here's another tidy little list of general guidelines and specific tools:

• There be tools: Google Alerts is free. Use it to catch any keyword's appearances on Google News, Youtube, blogs, non-blog sites, and Google Groups. You can have it deliver updates to your email or create RSS feeds so that it doesn't buzz you absolutely crazy (we know this can happen from experience). Other services include "social" search engines such as www.socialmention.com (narrow down your blog searches), samepoint.com (social search with keyword analysis), www.serph.com (special attention to blogs), and Pipl (the definitive people search engine).
• Know thy terms: Whether you have products, models, actions, press release titles, ISBN numbers, public figures, partners, competitors, or your kids to keep track of, make use of keyword lists. Use synonyms. Get plural. Think hard.
• Set up reminders: If you set up alerts to shoot you emails, they'll let you know when you need to know. Otherwise, you should probably set up some calendar alarms so you check things out once a month. Handy with Excel? Track your progress. Make some goals; this week, two attaboys … next week, the World.
• Don't get crazy: Hey, it's just your identity, right?! But, whatever you hear, use common sense when dealing with it. If you find good things, share those links! If you find not-so-good things, learn from them and bury them with good press. And we were kidding about your kids. Don't search your kids. You probably don't want to know. Seriously, would you have wanted your parents to search you?

If you're lucky and you've put in a bit of effort, people are talking about your company. And, whether they're leaving happy notes, constructive criticism, or big, flaming bags of [woof] around the Internet, you need to know and you can find out. Enjoy! And, you know … if you want us to do all this for you and draft it up in pretty reports, we can do that.

In summation, there's an amazing post over at User Interface Engineering by webslayer Jared called the “$300 million button”:

The designers fixed the problem simply. They took away the Register button. In its place, they put a Continue button with a simple message: “You do not need to create an account to make purchases on our site. Simply click Continue to proceed to checkout. To make your future purchases even faster, you can create an account during checkout.”

The results: The number of customers purchasing went up by 45%. The extra purchases resulted in an extra $15 million the first month. For the first year, the site saw an additional $300,000,000.

A must-read for anyone who likes happy customers, big, shiny buttons, and keeping money flowing on their site.

http://www.uie.com/articles/three_hund_million_button

I was shopping for the Congruent Media Team at Safeway in Canton this morning and learned a little lesson from the best checker in the joint. His name is failing me now, but I'll be sure to get it for a follow-up post.

I've been going to that Safeway for going on 10 years now and have seen the best and worst of checkers. People who you are happy to see and catch-up with, and those that don't give you the time of day and tell you with their body language that they're dying to get out of there. They are worlds apart in how they make you feel for the few moments that you're hanging in their space, so much so that I'll wait in a longer line for the more friendly folks.

Today I was fortunate to line up with the best. As we were going through the routine, he spotted a co-worked and asked, "Were did you get that blue gold?" I turned to see that she was carrying an armful of blue plastic bags, a much better looking bag than the pale brown plastic he was putting CM's food into. I asked him why he referred to them as "blue gold." Was it that they were somehow better?

"Oh yeah. They're much better. They don't stick together. You can put more in them. You can work faster with them." "Not to mention they look a whole lot better" I added.

He went on to tell me that last week a shipment of those bags came in and to the checkers, it was like getting a raise. His words presented with a smile.

I can't help but assume that somewhere in Safeway management a decision was made, at least in part, due to a lower cost of the inferior bag. That's so shortsighted. It sounds to me like if the front line folks were asked about the change, it simply wouldn't have been made. It's also likely that the moral hit and the productivity loss using the inferior bags offsets the line item savings using the pale brown junk. Maybe that's why I've been seeing more of the "not the friendliest people in the world" checkers these days.

I realize there may be an environmental element at play here, and if that's the case, the Safeway management needs to do a better job of educating the front line team members so they understand the change and can explain it to the customers who might ask about the switch.

If Safeway's agency has a Google Alert setup or a Tweetscan pinging them of Safeway mentions, here's a tip for you: I suggest taking a look at bringing back the blue bags and telling the checkers that you're doing it because you listen and appreciate their input. Or if it's an environmental move, tell us all why you did it.

Today's Wall Street Journal has an article announcing the results of Yahoo's trial-run of Google's ad platform. The results? "Positive."

Despite Google's ad network having a smaller reach than Yahoo, Google's ads bring in "significantly" more money. Should a Google-Yahoo partnership shape up, that additional revenue could add up to $1 billion a year to Yahoo's coffers.

Granted, a partnership between the two search giants (Google's market share: 67%; Yahoo's market share: 20%; source: Hitwise) would likely be difficult impossible to get by regulators, it gives Yahoo more leverage against Microsoft's hostile takeover attempts. Redmond's April 7th ultimatum might hold a little less weight now that Google may be sniffing around. And even if they're not, Yahoo would probably be wise to play that card ;)

If a Google-Yahoo partnership were to emerge from this, what would that mean for your SEO/SEM campaigns? Would a singular entity in the market make it easier and cheaper to reach your audience? Would the new search behemoth be able to mold internet marketing practices to it's own terms, at the expense of current SEO techniques? Or is any merger/acquisition/partnership destined to fail simply because "GooHoo" is a ridiculous name?

Give me your thoughts in the comments.

My friend, C, emailed me this morning to let me know he was rudely awakened at 6 AM by his BlackBerry, which had received some sort of SPAM or other...  In the same message, C also let me know that Google had just launched its new "App Engine", open to the public (well, about 10,000 of them, anyway, since this is a "Preview" release) - pointing me to Matt Cutts blog (posted yesterday) on the subject.

According to the official Google Blog, the Google App Engine opens up to developers the "same building blocks" that Google itself uses.  Items built using the Google App Engine are hosted on Google servers, for free, and receive 500 MB of storage utilizing the Google File System and Bigtable data storage system and 10 GB of daily bandwidth.

This rung a bell, reminding me of SalesForce.com's entrance into providing Software as a Service (SaaS) with their AppExchange and SDK for developing SFDC-integrated and hosted solutions.  A little bit of Internet sleuthing uncovered a blog entry on Tech Crunch, also dated yesterday, that hints at "Deep Integration" between SFDC and Google.  According to the blog post, SFDC is going to begin reselling Google Apps, such as Google Docs, which will be "tightly integrated" into SalesForce, and is purported to make an announcement next week to the same effect.

Interesting timing... In light of the Google App Engine announcement, WHAT DOES THIS ALL MEAN?  The Tech Crunch article goes on to offer the tantalizing speculation that Marc Benioff, SalesForce CEO, might be considering selling to Google, but I'd think a merging of forces might be more in-line with these recent announcements.  If SFDC is going to resell Google Apps which are going to seamlessly integrate with it's own SaaS platform, it makes a blogger wonder if SFDC isn't going to end up being powered by the Google App Engine itself.  Imagine the kind of powerhouse that would be...  People integrating SFDC inside of the hosted Google App Enginge, people integrating Google Apps in SFDC, strange hybrids between Google and SFDC, monstrous cross-breads, ridiculous amounts of customer data flowing back and forth...

Is Google in it to gain access to the customer data?  That "deep integration" certainly is a way to expose Google Apps to the corporate (paying) sphere...

Are Google and SalesForce in it for platform dominance?  A combined Google/SFDC platform would sure blow the metaphorical socks off of the Windows Live/Office Live platform...

And aren't there any other players out there?  What happened to that offer for Oracle to buy up SFDC?  Where's Yahoo! when you need them? (Oh, right, hoping to fend off Microsoft's takeover bid...)  And Apple Computers (forget about them - they gave up the good fight a long time ago)?

It's beginning to look more and more like a two-player world after all - two corporate titans gobbling up everything else in sight.  Get ready for another match up of corporate titans, ten rounds of Microsoft versus Google, Steve Ballmer versus the tag-team of Larry Page and Sergey Brin.  I don't know who to root for on this one...  Linus Torvalds, where are you when we need you the most?