Measuring your brand online
by Craig Raw on 2008/04/23
If you've followed the last few posts on this blog you should now have a selection of different phrases on a variety of search engines picking up mentions of your brands online. Well and good - it's likely that unless you've done this kind of thing before, you will have learnt a few things about how you are perceived online, and may have even started participating in the conversation.
You should also be developing a 'feel' for who is writing about you, be it a customer or the press, an anonymous comment in a blog, an accredited article, or even your own online PR. There are clearly distinct differences between these sources, and that suggests we delve a little deeper and treat the subject from an analytical viewpoint to determine a better idea of your position in the market - who is talking about you, and what platform they are doing it from. To measure this, we divide it up into measurable components, such as:
Of these, some are hard measures (such as phrase matches, linked and language) and some are softer (such as rating and credibility). Credibility in particular is a tricky one - how does one gauge trust online? It turns out there are a number of indicators, which will be the topic of another post. Rating is slightly easier - so long as there is a meaningful scale, it's not too hard to detect praise or criticism.
If you are doing your ORM manually, you can start a spreadsheet and give each of these values a column, adding a new row of data for every mention that comes in. If you're using BrandsEye, it's easy to tag each mention with these metrics as they come in. After a while, you will develop a surprising useful database that can be used to draw all kinds of insights into the market - are the only negative mentions from consumers, are you getting mentioned on sites with enough visibility, etc. It will also give you an insight into where to target links from and how your existing link building is faring.
This kind of information is a gold mine when developing your eMarketing strategy - after all, it's a global conversation, and you need to understand it to be part of it.
You should also be developing a 'feel' for who is writing about you, be it a customer or the press, an anonymous comment in a blog, an accredited article, or even your own online PR. There are clearly distinct differences between these sources, and that suggests we delve a little deeper and treat the subject from an analytical viewpoint to determine a better idea of your position in the market - who is talking about you, and what platform they are doing it from. To measure this, we divide it up into measurable components, such as:
- Title
- Link
- Relevancy (Relevant or irrelevant)
- Date published
- Language
- Media Origin (Consumer, press, enterprise or directory)
- Credibility (How much trust? How many hits?)
- Rating (Good or bad?)
- Linked
- Phrase matches (How many times is the phrase mentioned?)
Of these, some are hard measures (such as phrase matches, linked and language) and some are softer (such as rating and credibility). Credibility in particular is a tricky one - how does one gauge trust online? It turns out there are a number of indicators, which will be the topic of another post. Rating is slightly easier - so long as there is a meaningful scale, it's not too hard to detect praise or criticism.
If you are doing your ORM manually, you can start a spreadsheet and give each of these values a column, adding a new row of data for every mention that comes in. If you're using BrandsEye, it's easy to tag each mention with these metrics as they come in. After a while, you will develop a surprising useful database that can be used to draw all kinds of insights into the market - are the only negative mentions from consumers, are you getting mentioned on sites with enough visibility, etc. It will also give you an insight into where to target links from and how your existing link building is faring.
This kind of information is a gold mine when developing your eMarketing strategy - after all, it's a global conversation, and you need to understand it to be part of it.
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