Last week I was at a client meeting, during my presentation I asked, "So when are you planning to launch X?" I received a quick response from a few members of the audience, "How do you know about X?" How do you think?
I pulled up a few blog posts that were talking about the launch of this new product. This of course shocked the client, but it happens all the time. In preparation for my meeting I had been monitoring the company name via watchlists in: PubSub, Technorati and Google News.
One new element that is appearing in my watchlists are job listings from Monster.com. Now I know what new markets they are expanding into..."Why are you hiring an account rep in X city?"
Need any more reasons to start using RSS to monitor your company/brand/client/competitor names? Many moons ago I wrote up this guide to media monitoring via RSS. It's badly in need up an update (on the to-do list), but the general information holds true.
Visitor Comments
I would like to learn more on analyzing and monitoring the blogosphere/Internet. I think (from a PR point-of-view) it adds real value in terms of knowing what your customers are saying.
Evaluation is offline PR's achilles' heel but with the help of the various monitoring tools available, online PR should be able to deliver solid results of all PR activity.
Posted by: Stephen Davies | February 13, 2006 9:57 AM
Good advice, Josh. It always helps to make the point forcefully that this web stuff has real consequences for companies.
Their online presence can have a very theoretical feel to it until you show them how they are already perceived by others.
Posted by: Eric Eggertson | February 14, 2006 11:14 PM
neil diamond Keyword doesn't matter
Posted by: neil diamond | March 25, 2006 6:39 AM