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People are talking about you online - Start listening!

By Kim Larochelle, account manager for Dennis Rutzou Public Relations

There's no denying the internet has become a powerful business tool. It has made the sharing of information, tips and feedback so much more open and it has the ability to reach customers, influence opinion, sell products and reinforce corporate branding messages.

Many businesses have a set and forget mentality when it comes to their website and often don't realise that people may be talking about the brand in areas outside of their corporate website.

The rise of review websites and forums such as Whirlpool, have changed the shopping habits of many Australians who will research a product online before visiting a store.

These conversations can provide valuable market intelligence and also provide new opportunities for a brand to engage new audiences, enrich existing customer relationships and increase brand awareness. In other words, your online brand is becoming increasingly more important and visible.

Before embarking on any communication strategy, you first need to monitor the market. Here are a few simple and free tips on how you can start monitoring online discussions about your brand:

1. Google

• Google search - just doing a Google search for your brand will reveal a lot. Apart from hopefully listing your company website, it will also show you what directories you may be already listed on as well as any other sites that mention your brand name
• Expanding the options in a Google search will also show you the results for video, forums and reviews
• Google Alerts - Set up Google Alerts for any keywords and Google will send you email updates of the latest relevant results based on your keywords
• Google Reader & RSS - Google Reader constantly checks your designated websites for new content. Great for keeping an eye on your competitors
• Google Trends - you can compare the world's interest in up to five topics at once with Google Trends and see how often they have been searched on Google over time

2. Blogs & forums

• Find the top 10 bloggers and forums in your industry and keep monitoring their comments
  - To identify top bloggers, look at how often they write their blogs, how they report on the industry, the comments they leave on other blogs and forums and the comments and links included on their own blogs
  - Bigpond regularly references the top 100 Australian blogs
• Search blogs and forums for mentions of your company and industry:
  - Google
  - Blogpulse
  - Technorati
  - Boardreader
  - Backtype will let you search for mentions of your brand in blog and forum comments

3. Bookmarks

• Delicious, Digg, StumbleUpon - Look up if people have bookmarked your website and what they are saying about it

4. Social media

• Look up Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, YouTube, Twitter and other social media websites to see if groups related to your industry or your company have been created
• Use search functions on sites like Twitter to see what people are saying about your brand

5. News aggregators

• Use free news aggregator sites like Wot News to monitor mentions of your brand, key people, competitors and industry from online news sources.

After monitoring your brand online you may then be ready to start engaging with these audiences. An agency like Dennis Rutzou Public Relations can help you to develop a comprehensive online PR strategy that may also be integrated with a full public relations plan. This will ensure that you lift your profile in cyberspace and stay a step ahead of your competitors.

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For more information about online monitoring and public relations contact:

Dennis Rutzou Public Relations Pty Ltd

Telephone: 02 9413 4244 (International: +61 2 9413 4244)
Facsimile: 02 9413 4263 (International: +61 2 9413 4263)
E-mail: greatpr@drpr.com.au | Website: www.drpr.com.au

Street Address:
Suite 21, Chatswood Village 47 Neridah Street Chatswood NSW 2067 Australia

  

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