StepRep Update: Reputation Management One Account at a Time

This morning I published a post called Strengthen Your Online Search Reputation on the StepRep blog. This post is a continuation of the previous 2 posts on linking. Your linking can greatly affect your search profile - the results that someone sees when they search for you or your company. Hopefully these 3 posts are helpful for people that are looking for a high level plan to start improving their online reputation.

Yesterday the VendAsta team attended the CSSS career fair at the University of Saskatchewan Computer Science Department. It was great to get out and talk to students that will be coming out of the program. We've already received applications for summer students and from graduating students. Hopefully we find some good matches.

By way of an update on our 2 initiatives:

Today, the HomeBook team wrapped up a sprint and started in on the planning of our last 30 day sprint before our public beta launch of HomeBook. We're super pumped to get it out to the world for a first look!

The StepRep team is winding down their StepRep improvement sprint. We're doing a few things in this milestone. We have some improvements and general styling to finish and we're also doing some architecture work for functionality that will be released in the next sprint (30 day milestone). We'll be wrapping this one up next week.

StepRep will officially be 1 month old on Sunday. Today, I'm gathering up a lot of feedback that we've generated from our first group of users and I'll post a bunch of them on the StepRep blog at the beginning of the week. I'll do this just to let everyone know that we are listening, we appreciate the feedback and we are acting on the feedback.

Lastly, I wanted to say a big thanks to Joel Burslem and Inman News for mentioning StepRep. Also wanted to thanks Missy Caulk, our favorite Ann Arbor Real Estate blogger (there's a little link love for you Missy!), for her post about us on ActiveRain. Of course, I was notified of these posts right away by StepRep! Whether a comment is good or bad, you have to be responsive. Luckily, we're seeing a lot of positive feedback...

Fusing the Age of Social Media with Marketing Principles

I bookmarked a good article on how to evolve marketing by fusing web 2.0 with sound marketing principles. Besides the very obvious plug for SilverPop, the article is has some good suggestions. Some of the better ones I have some comments on:

1. Speak from a place of service - Rather than blatant self promotion. Sounds obvious, but too many people don't get it. If you are using your blog or twitter account to spam thousands of people while trying to build awareness, you are shooting yourself in the foot. Especially on twitter, the best way to build your followers is to publish frequent, valuable content. People find you through feeds and if your tweets have value, you'll get followed. Further, using twitter's content search, people will find you through relevant information you publish on topics they are interested in. You can't splatter your name or your brand all over social media without adding value.

2. Cross-link all of your profiles and social groups. Common sense and I discussed it in my last two blog posts on linking and building a search profile on our StepRep blog. Don't forget to list these profiles, blogs and don't forget about your email footers and other marketing materials.

3. While I noted the obvious plug for SilverPop, I don't think this is a bad product. A more important point here is to clarify what viral should mean. Viral marketing is not trying to produce a video that is soo crazy millions of people are going to share it. A viral product is one that naturally spreads when it is used. Rather, the use of the product spreads it. While SP makes it easier for email messages to spread, an overall focus should be on trying to create something that is spread through it's practical use.

4. Lastly, the point on exclusivity is a good one. If you have several profiles that you are actively trying to promote and build, you have to make the content on them somewhat unique. Sounds simple but it multiplies the workload.

(Oh, and I had to comment - I liked the title of the article ;-) Catchy)

Are Old School Linking Strategies Still Relevant?

The short answer is yes. Typically, websites have used linking to build page rank and compete for search terms. Over the past number of years, those search terms (across the board) have become more and more competitive. Linking to build site traffic is harder and harder. But one area of linking that is very effective and relatively easy is the area of ORM or reputation management.

Not a lot of people take ORM seriously and thus competing in search for your name is easier, in general, than competing for broad search terms. Obviously ORM for search is harder, the more common your name is, but using links properly can catapult rankings for even very common names.

I wrote a basic background on linking over the our StepRep ORM blog this afternoon. Next week, I'll be supplying some concrete strategies for building a personal search profile.

Traditional Models and New Media

I was reading Seth Godin's latest post called That's a Special Case and it got me thinking about traditional businesses and online models. He says that everything is online because there is a different experience, different expectations and different rules.

I don't think there is such a clear line in the sand. Traditional businesses are being affected by online models because user expectations are changing. The problem is that the 'online user' defines almost everyone. Search created a greater expectation and desire for instant gratification (instant results). I think that social media played a big part in the US election. I think you can say that social media is creating a larger desire to participate and be heard. Social media is creating a greater expectation around openness,transparency and truth.

The mobile world is creating a more connected individuals. People are now always connected to their online tools.

The game is changing now for all businesses because the mobile Internet and social media are changing they way people do things and what they expect. It's no longer a matter of companies 'needing' to get online or have a website because other businesses do. They need to recognize how technology is changing expectations and behavior.

Advertising and Promotion in 2009 and Beyond

I tossed up a post on our StepRep blog about Belkin paying people to write positive reviews. I really hate the practice - it's just generally bad form, but it had me thinking how it's really different from other forms of advertising. How do you think advertising is going to change in the future. Love to hear some thoughts from others. Join the conversation.