Keeping a Heads Up

As I began preparing for my E-marketing class tomorrow (it happens), I stumbled across (and by stumbled, I mean deliberately searched for "Listening to consumers, e-marketing") this article regarding listening to consumers.

Interesting to hear about Online Reputation Management (reputable enough for itself for an acronym- ORM!) which allows companies to be gather any online mention of the company. The article points out the importance of being able to monitor how consumers are perceiving the brand, as any negative information can be spread to many, many people within only a short period of time. In fact, the article states that "Forrester research has found that 25% of consumer respondents said they trusted the opinions of fellow consumers above all other forms of media referrals or advertising".

Utilizing Quirk's ORM, one can comprehensively gather online mentions of a company and channels them to a dedicated team to measure the relevance, credibility and impact of each mention. From there, a company can quickly respond appropriately to any "brand attacks" or "haemorrhage of customers".

Interesting to see how these new management tools are emerging as the shift to Web 2.0 continues. But, I wonder how effective it would be for a company, such as Microsoft, whose mentions are likely in the tens of thousands each day, and whose brand is well established. Perhaps this is likely suited to smaller companies, who are establishing their brand value and require more feedback to suss out any potential weaknesses or misconceptions with their product or service.

From Outer Space! (Or, 350 kms above Earth)

I'm definitley staying true to my albino-like skin tone from this next post, so beware. But, I find this very, very cool.

So, I've always LOVED space in a "I want to be an astronaut, until I realized in Grade 11 that I was slightly claustrophobic" kind of way. When I happened upon NASA's website around 5 years ago after watching a space launch, I was amazed at what I found. At the time, streaming video was still in its infancy, with lengthy buffering times and diluted pixels. But, not here. No, not only did NASA have excellent streaming video, it had LIVE coverage of it's space operations 24/hours...from SPACE! Yes, you are privy to all the conversations shared between Mission Control and astronauts in the space shuttle, as well as all interesting activities aboard the space shuttle. This includes watching/listening to astronauts performing space walks, dicey docking manuevers, incoming S-turns as the shuttle glides to Earth...am I losing you? And, today, the NASA TV function has only improved, with various multimedia for Educators, Students, Employees, and so forth.

For a program that is often critized for the amount of funding it receives (although most astronauts only make $50K a year!) I feel that this level of web presence and accessibility provides an excellent communication tool, and allows viewers to interact and engage in activities that promote its program, and will hopefully "fuel" its continuation.

The next space shuttle mission is scheduled to begin Feb. 12th, and I implore you to check out NASA TV over its 2 week duration, and see it for yourself!

It's An Obama-nation!

Just perusing the daily e-marketing news, and found an interesting article on the complete revamp of the Whitehouse.gov website. Not too long ago, our e-marketing class was discussing how Obama was the first presidential candidate to successfully utilize the internet to connect with voters, and as one might expect, it seems that he will continue to be the first president to utilize the internet to connect with the American people- so much so, that his administration is now being termed as the first "internet presidency". Moreover, he/his White House minions have made the addition of a blog to the new website- perhaps not only to keep the public informed, but to give a level of accessibility that has never been attained before. In addition, it will likely provide a useful feedback mechanism and medium.

Although, seeing "The White House" and "Blog" in the same line seems a strange combination, I feel that this a very progressive move, and a good continuation of Obama's strategy to harness the power of the Internet.

To see the new website, and blog check out The White House Blog .