Today, the best business owners spend significant resources in building their brands online -- it’s what you have to do to compete. In business, after all, your brand’s good reputation is your greatest asset.

But what if - despite your efforts to build your brand online - negative sentiment about your brand develops online? And what if it develops quickly? Thanks to the popularity and power of social networking, online news and views spread like wildfire, and a brand’s hard-won reputation can be ruined in hours. 

Not very long ago, “it was fairly easy to outrun a disgruntled customer, a misinformed journalist or some other minor blunder. That time now belongs to another world. Today’s hyper-connected socially responsible individual can connect with millions across the globe inform not only friends but legions of others as an exercise of radical transparency . Are you listening or are their words falling on your deaf corporate ears? Are you joining their conversation or hoping you can drown out their words with yours? What do people know about you from a simple online search?” (Bryan Eisenberg, author: Waiting for Your Cat to Bark?: Persuading Customers When They Ignore Marketing from www.radicallytransparent.com)

Online Reputation Management (ORM) is the act of gathering and measuring that online feedback, analyzing online sentiment, and then promoting positives and eliminating negatives. It has quickly become an essential part of any successful company’s marketing and communications plan. Why?

Your business and your brand have a reputation online whether or not you choose to activelyparticipate in online promotional activities. And if you don’t manage and monitor what’s beingsaid about your business and brand online and control your online reputation, someone elsewill. So, whatever your online marketing efforts entail, the management/monitoring is as important as the marketing.

But you’re busy growing your business in “the real world”, and most companies today lack the following crucial elements to successfully carry out regular and successful Online Reputation Management:

1) time
2) staff
3) budget
4) knowledge
5) partnerships
6) access to cutting-edge ORM tools and programs

That’s why you need to hire a professional. A good professional online reputation management firm will help you to: hear what your customers (and your potential customers), as well as competitors and industry insiders (bloggers, critics, and journalists, for example) are saying about your brand; analyze trends in online feedback; manage critics and complaints, and then respond to it in a way that will build your brand, create positive sentiment and loyalty, drive sales and grow your business -- perhaps by re-branding, changing service/product offerings, or refocusing targeted marketing campaigns.

You simply can’t (and shouldn’t) do it on your own.

You can, however, learn quite a bit about your current online reputation just by searching for yourself, your brand, your company in Google, Facebook or Twitter. What do you find? After initial analysis, your company can decide if you have to:

1) create a positive online reputation because none currently exists
2) monitor, manage, and maintain an already positive online reputation, or
3) prepare for/mitigate bad press that could lead to a bad reputation online

Then make the positive and important choice to partner with a professional. 

In choosing a professional online reputation management firm, look for one that incorporates extensive knowledge, high-quality online brand and product reputation monitoring programs, and customizable analysis and reporting tools to measure the efficacy of campaigns– business owners like you can generate brand awareness, benefit from powerful positiveword-of-mouth advertising, increase traffic and sales, and develop customer loyalty.

Stir Solutions is that company. We are a team of internet marketing experts with over a decade of experience in Social Media Marketing and Monitoring who specialize in helping you to manage and grow your business through a customized and comprehensive social media monitoring and online reputation management system. Our team offers, among others, the following Online Reputation Management Services:

• Social media reputation management
• Social media brand management
• Social media monitoring and reporting
• Campaign/Product Launch monitoring
• Corporate and staff monitoring
• Twitter monitoring
• Facebook monitoring
• Linkedin monitoring
• Youtube monitoring
• Blog monitoring
• Search engine reputation management
• Analytics and reporting

We will:

• Monitor blogs, forums, social networks (Twitter), and image- and video-sharing sites
• Learn what people are saying about your brand, your industry, and your competition
• Track what people like and dislike about your brand
• Monitor negative and positive conversations about your brand across cyberspace
• Monitor the efficacy of product launches and campaigns
• Provide summaries of the most buzz-worthy stories
• Implement tools, systems, and policies for online reputation defence & building

To learn more about Stir and our Internet Marketing Services, call us today.

You’re not alone!

Today, most business owners understand the importance of internet and social media marketing for success and financial growth. But, as one survey indicated, “Social Media Marketing is so new and so different that many companies, large and small, locked in a traditional mindset, simply do not know how to use it”. 

That being the case, the most savvy business owners partner with experienced professionals to navigate the rapidly changing and consistently confusing world of social media marketing on their behalf. 

Stir Communications Group is an internet and social media marketing company in Vancouver, BC and, since 2002, we’ve helped countless clients like you to build their brands, beat the competition, boost their sales online.Stir tailors specific communications, web, and marketing strategies around each client’s unique needs, budget and objectives. We are committed to excellence in communicating with clients and consistent in creating positive results for clients. 

Choosing to partner with Stir Solutions for your business’ internet marketing campaigns and projects can make the sometimes difficult task of getting started (or gaining momentum) in internet marketing easy, educational, and fun!

To learn more about Social Media Marketing and Stir’s Social Media Marketing Services, click here. Or call Stir (1-866-899-7847) to book your free 30-minute social media marketing consultation with one of Stir’s Internet Marketing Experts.

Choosing the best Vancouver Internet Marketing Company to compete in BC's booming business economy

Last month Forbes magazine ranked Canada the (#1) Best Country for Business in the world, with Canada’s major banks “[emerging] from the financial crisis of 2008-09 among the strongest in the world” (www.forbes.com). 

And Vancouver, BC is no different: “The [province’s economy] is one of the most energetic in Canada due to Vancouver's situation as the nation's gateway to the Pacific Rim, a major port, and the main western terminus of transcontinental highway and rail routes” (www.wikipedia.org). 

As for small business in the province, “both the Government of Canada and the Government of British Columbia have designated 2011as the ‘Year of the entrepreneur’...[with]...the spirit of entrepreneurialism...seen in the thousands of British Columbians that have started their own small business, creating jobs for families across the province”… Last year, there were approximately 391,700 small businesses operating in the province, employing over a million British Columbians” (www.resourcecentre.gov.bc.ca).

So how, as a small business owner in Vancouver, BC, do you compete? Well, among other things (of course), you understand the importance of superior-quality website design and active internet and social media marketing to your business’ growth, and you hire an internet marketing company to help you succeed.

Choosing the right Vancouver internet marketing company can be a bit of a challenge -- there are countless companies of all shapes and sizes offering services in the Lower Mainland. So look for a company you can trust to market your business online with the same enthusiasm and care as if it were their own. Choose a company with experience, a history of measurable and documented success, the ability to take on all the facets of a complete internet marketing campaign, the ability to produce case studies and professional references, an interest in making work fun, a willingness to train you and your team, and integrity.

Stir Communications Group is a Vancouver-based Internet Marketing, Consulting and Web Solutions Company. With many Canadian and international clients, we pride ourselves on unmatched customer service, innovation, and world class marketing and communications solutions. 

Founded in 2002, Stir has expertise in tailoring specific communications, web and marketing strategies around each client’s unique needs, budget and objectives.

To learn more, visit the Stir Solutions website today: www.stirsolutions.com or call the team directly to discuss your business’ unique needs and growth goals (604.847.3447 / 1.866.899.7847).

The Best Social Media Monitoring Tools for Tracking your Business, Service, Product, or Brand

 Social Media Marketing is the use of web-based and mobile Internet applications (or sites) like Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, and blogs by individuals, organizations, and businesses to market themselves -- to tell the world about their perspective, their mandate, their unique selling point, their services and their products, upcoming events, and news (campaigns). And it’s an inexpensive, fast, and far-reaching marketing tool for businesses.

But you can’t just tell people about yourself, your organization, or your company. You must actively listen to what they’re saying, analyze the response, and react to it in a proactive way.

That’s where Social Media Monitoring comes in.  Social Media Monitoring is the use of one of a variety of tools to gather and analyse that online conversation about you, your organization, or your company. Today there are a multitude of social media monitoring tools (of varying levels of quality) that will monitor the internet (social media sites), gather information,  and produce reports using which you can improve marketing tactics and increase sales. Below are some of the best Social Media Monitoring Tools available today.

Note: Choosing the right tool, analyzing the data it provides, and deciding how best to react to that data can be onerous, difficult, time-consuming, and costly. Working with an agency, like Stir Solutions, that specializes in Social Media Marketing and Monitoring will be a crucial component of your online marketing and monitoring effort. Stir Solutions will help to make the process of online marketing and monitoring easy, exciting, and effective.

Google Alerts
“Get the latest relevant Google results based on your choice of query or topic.”
Using the Google Alerts Monitoring Tool – which sends an email alert each time Google finds a new result – you can monitor a product, find out what’s being said about you or your company, and keep up with the news on a topic you’re interested in (like industry trends and competitor updates). Monitors webpages, newspaper articles and blogs and can accommodate up to1000 alerts at once.

Trackur
“Social Media Monitoring Tools Made Easy...with a money-back guarantee.”Trackur Social Media Monitoring was founded by online reputation management expert Andy Beal – widely considered the “the go-to-guy for reputation building, managing, and monitoring” – and offers powerful results through a userfriendly platform. Trackur offers several packages for different needs and promises users will “be up and running in less than 60-seconds”.

Lithium
“Social customers don't talk just to talk. They want to be heard.”
Lithium Social Media Monitoring monitors search-specific mentions and sentiment (whether online comments are positive or negative) on a variety of platforms including blog posts, Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr and presents the results in easy-to-read graphs and metrics. Current clients include Best Buy, Barnes & Noble, Disney Online, Motorola, Coca Cola, and Netflix.

Spredfast
“Ready to plan and execute your social media initiatives effectively?”
Spredfast Social Media Management is considered a full social media management, measurement and campaign tool with a user-friendly dashboard from which clients can manage, monitor, and react to online conversations from multiple networks. Clients include AOL, Nokia, and IBM among others.

Brandwatch
“A brand’s best friend. How are you listening to social media chatter?”
Brandwatch Social Media Monitoring’s tool monitors news, blogs, forums, wikis and social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook to provide clients with information about mentions of their company, brand, and/or product. Clients receive reports and brand summaries on which they can act. Clients include Aviva, CheapFlights, and The Body Shop.

Collective Intellect
“Our semantic technology pinpoints your customers preferences and considerations”.
Collective Intellect Real time Social Analytics is considered a “top-tier player” in the social media monitoring field, and combines self-serve dashboards and human analysis to provide comprehensive reports. CI’s tools are best suited to mid-size and large companies, and package pricing is scaled based on specific client needs and according to published reports. Clients include General Mills, NBC Universal, Pepsi, Walmart, and Hasbro.

Attensity360
“Listen, Analyze, Relate, and Act”
Attensity360 Customer Experience Management tool monitors trending topics, influencers, and “the reach of your brand” while recommending ways for your business to join the conversation and respond to customer needs and wants. Attensity360 uses text analytics to understand sentiment and to uncover trends. Clients include Whirlpool, Vodofone,TMobile, and Oracle.

Spiral16
“Go beyond social media monitoring.”
Sprial16’s Monitoring Software focuses on gathering and analysing “who is saying what about a company, brand, or product” in comparison to competitions. Spiral16 promises to help monitor social media strategy success while effectively sourcing and analyzing extensive data. Spiral16 works with companies (like Toyota, Lee, and Cadbury) to tailor plans that fit their budgets.

Sysomos’ Heartbeat
“...redefining social media analytics.”
Sysomos’ Heartbeat Social Media Monitoring Dashboard is a “real-time monitoring and measurement tool” that provides frequently updated synopses of social media conversations related to your company, product or brand in a variety of reports and graphics aimed at helping you find ways to engage in that conversation. Clients include IBM, HSBC, and Shell Oil.

Crimson Hexagon
“Know what the online conversation really means.”
Crimson Hexagon Social Media Monitoring and Analysis popular and reliable tools mine and analyze vast amounts of data and turn it into “actionable data for better brand understanding and improvement”. Clients include CNN, Hanes,AT&T, HP, Johnson & Johnson, Mashable, Microsoft, Monster, AdWeek, Thomson Reuters, Rubbermaid, Sybase, the Huffington Post, A&E, the Wall Street Journal.

Alterian SM2
“Are you ready to engage?”
Alterian SM2 Engagement Management & Analytics’ tools track and monitor conversations about a person, product, or company on blogs, forums, social networks, video- and photo-sharing sites, and Craigslist and provides easy-to-use and interpret reports. Clients include Rosetta, Pursuit, and YouCast.

Radian6
“Provides organizations with a platform to listen, discover, measure and engage.”
Radian6 Social Media Monitoring and Engagement helps business owners “listen to what’s being said about them” online and determine the best responses through a monitoring dashboard that tracks mentions on more than 100 million social media sites. Reports and summaries help clients respond to data, and a comprehensive dashboard allows for updates to various social media platforms all at once. Clients include Adobe, Cirque de Soleil, Red Cross, and Microsoft.

To find out which tool will best suit your needs and help you to reach your business goals, contact one of the Social Media Marketing and Monitoring Experts at Stir Solutions today.

 

Related Reading:
Social Media Marketing for Business

Custom Facebook Page Design, Facebook Landing Pages, Geotargeted Facebook PPC & Marketing Strategy

We can help with all of your Custom Facebook Page and Facebook marketing needs. Our social media marketing and Facebook page design experts can create custom Facebook pages, increase likes/fans, run Facebook advertising campaigns, provide business Facebook marketing strategy and consulting, and implement any Facebook apps you've seen on any Facebook page. Here's a list of our Facebook marketing & design services:

• Facebook Advertising Campaigns
• Facebook Analytics & Reporting
• Facebook Apps
• Facebook Cause Promotion
• Facebook Contact / Signup Forms
• Facebook Contests & Sweepstakes
• Facebook Custom Graphics
• Facebook Custom Landing Pages
• Facebook Discount Codes / Offers
• Facebook Donations
• Facebook Fan Offers for Like Building
• Facebook Landing Page Design & Programming
• Facebook Links and Widgets
• Facebook Maps Integration
• Facebook Newsletter / Email Signup
• Facebook Page Promotion
• Facebook PDF / Whitepapers Document Display
• Facebook Photo / Image Gallery
• Facebook Places Marketing
• Facebook PPC Keyword Marketing / Advertising
• Facebook Recruiting
• Facebook RSS Feed
• Facebook Marketing Strategic Planning & Consulting
• Facebook Sales / Buy Now Product Pages
• Facebook Signup Forms
• Facebook Social Media Links
• Facebook Social Media Monitoring
• Facebook Twitter Feed Integration
• Facebook Video & Music Player

For more information about getting a custom Facebook page design, implementing a Facebook marketing or advertising campaign contact us at Stir today for a free estimate or free consultation

Don’t trust your next internet marketing project to just any consultant. Whether you need a search engine marketing, pay per click or email marketing campaign, Stir's experienced Internet marketing consultants are available to help your company achieve its online marketing strategic planning, implementation, tracking & reporting goals.

Stir's Internet Marketing Consultants:

• offer strategic consultation services for commercial and nonprofit organizations in Canada, USA and around the world

• advise on marketing planning, Pay Per Click Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Viral Marketing, Video Marketing, Email marketing and more.

• offer consulting services to Business to Business (B2B) and Business to Consumer (B2C) companies of all sizes and industries.

• can bring your organization up to date with the latest and most effective internet marketing tools and strategies.

We Get Measurable Results.

Whether you're looking for help getting started in Facebook and Twitter, want to increase your social media buzz or presence, promote a product or special on Groupon, Foursquare, Yelp or Gowalla, start and email marketing campaign, develop landing pages, increase your online conversion rates, increase your company website ranking in Google, generate more online leads, or simply speak to a digital media consultant about your ideas or questions about promoting your business, products or services online contact us today for a free 30 minute phone consultation or give us a call at 604-847-3447. Read testimonials from past clients.

Our Internet Marketing Consultants are in high demand.

We offer our strategic marketing and web development services to companies that can benefit the most from our internet marketing strategies. Click here to schedule an initial free consultation for your company. Or click here to submit a request for proposal.

Located in beautiful Vancouver British Columbia Canada, Stir is a full service Internet marketing & web strategy company

We are at the beginning of an exciting new era of location based advertising that integrates geo-location with advertising and apps. Foursquare, Facebook Places, Gowalla, Yelp, BrightKite, Loopt. These are just a few of the geo location based applications that are going to change everything in advertising & marketing.  Location based advertising allows anyone to target potential customers when they are within a certain distance from a select location such as a store, event or meeting place. Start thinking now how your business can integrate its goals, offerings, services and products with location based advertising opportunities.

Have you claimed your business location in Foursquare or Facebook Pages? Do it today. We can help with all of your social media marketing needs. Take control of your social media presence so your existing and potential future clients and customers can accurately find, check in and post about your business.

Contact us today via email or schedule a free 30 minute online marketing consultation to discuss how your business or organization can use location based advertising and social media marketing to help you achieve your business goals.

Growing numbers of individuals, small businesses, corporations and non profit organizations are jumping onto the Twitter bandwagon. Those who will find the most success will take the time to consider how they can use Twitter to their strategic advantage. Here’s a few suggestions how to make the most of Twitter for your marketing & PR:

Marketing & Advertising

Follow customers & future potential customers. Integrate your online and offline marketing & advertising messages with your Tweets. Provide links to promotions, microsites, videos, advertisements.

Reputation Management

Follow experts, industry leaders, news & media. Develop a reputation as an authority in your industry or niche. Open dialogue with others in your or related industries.

Events

Follow individuals or groups interested in your events. Provide event notifications, reminders, twitter-based event discounts, updates, photos, videos, articles. Tweet live from events. Encourage attendees to tweet during and after about the event. Dialogue live with attendees.

Promotions

Follow customers & future potential customers, offering twitter-user-only deals and promotions as incentives to follow you on Twitter. Provide links to online deals or twitter coupons, discount codes time-based promotions. Interact with your followers & aim reach a large audience through word of mouth & viral retweeting.

Crisis & Issues Management

Monitor your brand, products, name(s), and issues related to your business or organization. Provide relevant information to address customer needs such as company info, tips, frequently asked questions. Dialogue with followers about the issues, encourage them to get involved and to retweet your posts.

PR & Customer Relations

Follow customers, future potential customers. Create content directly related and relevant to your target audience. Engage customers by asking them questions. Answer questions. Build positive sentiment about your brand.

What do you think?: How have you used or seen Twitter used to help achieve (or hinder) an organizations marketing & PR goals?

photo: kimba

Have you ever wondered if ANY of your Twitter followers even see some of your Twitter posts? Are you just posting into a black hole when you tweet on Saturday afternoon?

Studies show that for many Twitter users, Tuesday is the most active Twitter day. Wednesday and Friday have the second highest Twitter activity. Monday and Saturday are the slowest days. There are also general trends that people will check their Twitter accounts when they first get to work, at lunch time, and/or near the end of their work day.

Twitter is Global

Remember that your Twitter followers are likely from all around the world, so if you post to Twitter from Los Angeles on Wednesday at 12:00 noon,  it’s Wednesday 3PM in New York, Wednesday 8PM in London and Thursday 3AM in Beijing. If you’re trying to reach a certain geographic region, plan your posts to match high Twitter activity times in their timezone. A good free timezone tool is available at http://www.timeanddate.com/

Twitter Marketing Experiment: Find The Best Time For You To Tweet

Want to find out the best time for you to Tweet to get maximum exposure and/or clicks on your post links? Try an experiment by reposting a few different high-quality retweet-worthy twitter posts over a couple weeks — reposting them on, say, tuesday, wednesday, thursday and friday in the morning afternoon and evening — using a trackable url shortener system (ie bit.ly or hootsuite) to determine when your experimental posts are clicked on the most. Repeat the experiment a few times with different content and look for trends. Some suggest it’s worth repeating important tweets up to 4 times in about 18 hours. Typically, that would be evening, late evening, next morning and then the afternoon. You need to not overdo it and turn your readers off, so post carefully and don’t hesitate to ask your readers for feedback.

I’m posting this to my blog (which auto posts to my twitter account) at ~4pm on Tuesday. Lucky me.