Throughout my six years as an SEO, there have been times when I’ve questioned the value of SEO for clients. The reasoning behind this was that popular non-brand phrases were unlikely to drive business or in some cases where markets were dominated by aggregator sites, where people require choice from the offering, rather than an individual brand. Data was often backed up by generic paid search generating negative return and eventually being switched off.  

There are always long tail phrases that will generate return but ultimately, that is not what this post is about. Brand terms are vital and in the majority of cases drive more revenue than high volume generic phrases, especially for big brands yet are often ignored on the basis that a site should rank for them. There are also opportunities that are not strictly related to the brand itself that are often ignored.

Working at OMD has exposed me to working with some of the biggest brands out there and my role is getting stuck in to the chunky pieces of work. Working with existing media clients, it would not make sense to not offer the service and it wouldn’t wash to argue the toss for not doing SEO. For the same reason, integration with other digital and above the line channels is crucial too. Offline marketing types don’t tend to understand digital and to be fair, there is likely a mutual misunderstanding but the two channels need to work together for the greater good and co-ordination is required between teams.

Campaign Based SEO Integration

One common failing of above the line work is that there is no measurability. There are ways in which to rectify this by the use of vanity URLs/domains and redirecting with campaign tracking codes but not everyone will remember the brand, let alone the URL. As much as TV advertisers will hate to admit it, people will often remember the advert but not the brand, unless the brand is drilled in to your head to the point of infuriation like the Go Compare and We Buy Any Car adverts here in the UK. If the branding is not strong however, there are other ways to get visitors to the site via other marketing channels and ensure the brand message is passed. Taking the first example to come to mind:

 

I remember watching this video and not being entirely sure what it was for immediately afterwards, so this is a perfect example of what I am talking about. In actual fact, the video is promoting Cadbury’s Dairy Milk; however, even four years after the advert, there are related terms that are not brand related:

      

I’ve deliberately excluded unrelated and brand terms, which add to the number of searches and while the volumes aren’t ground breaking, the advert is four years old and is still receiving search volume. Searches for these phrases further extend the measurement of above the line activity and increase traffic and ensure the brand association is made online, if it was not clear to begin with. In this particular example, the brand (Cadbury’s) appears eighth in the search results for the phrase, though visibility is poor due to the dominance of universal search:

None of the videos or images are from an official YouTube channel and the brand association is not clear on the titles which is certainly not ideal. Other, non-TV advertising can quite happily live on the site in harmony with regular content, particularly if it is humorous or emotive in some way. This could be in the form of advertising from newspapers, magazines, pub toilets or public transport. The same rules apply.  

My strategy for integrating campaigns in to search and to gain maximum exposure and offline tracking would look something like the following:  

1.       Ensure the client keeps you in the loop with any upcoming marketing activity

It is difficult to carry out campaign optimisation strategy without being forewarned. This is often the most difficult part so prepare to be reactive.

2.       If at all possible get a sneak peak of the campaign from the client or at the very least a brief

Again, a nice luxury if you can make it happen but seeing the campaign first hand will give a better understanding of what the campaign it is and allow you to properly brainstorm potential related keyword searches.

3.       Create official YouTube and Flickr accounts if they do not already exist

Fairly obvious point, however you’d be surprised by the amount of brands that don’t have a branded YouTube account.

4.       Prepare a paid search campaign covering brand and advert related terms, as well as any generic phrases that may apply, i.e. “drumming gorilla”

We all know that ensuring number one positions for every potential keyword is difficult so for maximum exposure and tie in to above the line, PPC will help assist and ensure maximum coverage.

5.       Ensure there is a section of the site for adverts and campaigns and use a tailored landing page for paid search, as well as SEO

Again, an obvious point but not all brands have spaces on their site for their advertising campaigns.

6.       Brief other digital teams to include relevant imagery for display and affiliate activity to amplify the campaign digitally

Display creatives should be altered on a regular basis and while I’m no expert on display, it would make sense for them to match any television advertising. The same creatives could be passed on to affiliate networks for affiliates to use on their own site, which should amplify the impact and engrave the advert on peoples’ minds.

7.       Prepare and optimise a landing page for the campaign in question, include imagery and a description of the campaign for the visually impaired

Not the same as point five, which suggests having a dedicated section of the site for advertising, my point here is to ensure a dedicated landing page for each advert and not all adverts on a single page.

8.       Launch the campaign

By launch, this could be the first TV airing, date of coverage in newspaper, etc. The following post launch strategy should occur as soon as possible afterwards and should be fairly self explanatory:

1. If video based content, upload the video to YouTube and link to the landing page in the video description with Analytics tracking
2. If image based, it wouldn’t hurt to upload to Flickr and watermark any images relating to the campaign for branding in universal search
3. Optimise images for related terms in the filename and alt attributes, ensuring the latter are descriptive of the image in question
4. Embed the campaign/video in to the pre-prepared landing page
5. Put the paid search campaign live
6. Amplify the launch by promoting through official social media channels and PR
7. Do not remove the campaign page from the site

The last point is important; often brands will remove older adverts from their sites and YouTube channels, which is completely unnecessary. If the campaign is successful and memorable it can drive traffic for years to come. One further point I’d highlight is tracking content on third party sites using the Google Analytics URL builder where possible.

Search can be avoided altogether with the use of QR codes, however I’d argue that until QR code readers are native in modern smartphones, rather than requiring a third party app, the uptake is likely to be small and regardless, there will always be searches, so it is still worth covering all bases.

Extended Brand Terms

Campaigns are not the only brand related searches that get overlooked. There are many extended brand terms where a brand will not rank in first position. Often brands have parent or sister companies that will outrank them, even if they are less relevant and traffic is lost to these sites. This can be avoided by linking between the sites or if required, by link building targeting these terms.

In my experience there is one common brand related suffix that is usually outranked by third party sites and they relate to the brand and vouchers/discounts. Those pesky voucher code affiliates dominate these terms though this is often due to not having a relevant landing page on the site. If there is no brand presence, people will visit the affiliate sites for these terms anyway, so why not have a discount and voucher code landing page on the site? The offer doesn’t have to be earth shattering, as long as it gets the traffic to the site and not your affiliates. This can be supported through paid search.

Other common brand variations include complaints, contact, prices etc. Make use of your Analytics data, internal search and Google suggest for common variations and see where you rank. I’d imagine you’d be surprised at what ranks for these terms. If you don’t rank, it’s likely that there is no relevant landing page.

Brand Products

Products are effectively brand terms. To use the example above, the main brand was Cadbury’s; however the product was Dairy Milk, which is a brand in itself. Often the product can have greater search volume than the main brand. Again, ensuring a dedicated page for each brand assists with this, though in many cases, the product will have its own site. Of course, there are further terms relating to the product, Dairy Milk itself is a chocolate bar, a milk chocolate bar at that.

Vanity Searches

This leads nicely on to vanity searches, something which the largest brands seem to be adamant on ranking for, despite a likely poor ROI. The brand association is enough for them to want to rank. In the continued example, Cadbury’s and Nestle may want to fight it out for “chocolate”. Levis and G-Star may want to fight it out for “jeans”. It would be poor show to not advise the client that ranking for these terms will take a lot of resource, time and effort for little return but for them, it is often necessary and as long as they have a reasonable budget, there is no reason not to chase it.

Related Terms

There are always less obvious related terms that can be taken advantage of, on top of the primary generic keywords. For food related terms, there are always nutritional searches. “Calories in chocolate”, “fat in chocolate” are two examples following the same theme. Governments, particularly in the UK and the US, are placing a larger emphasis on health awareness and encourage brands to educate their consumers. It is good PR for brands associated with obesity to actively promote healthy eating and a balanced diet. Being upfront and offering honest advice can lead to good publicity and help capture more search traffic, though of course, people will be critical of the dealer preaching to the addicts approach.

Piggybacking

Finally, piggybacking on current affairs is a great way to increase search traffic assuming that it can be made relevant. This could be the form of linkbait or just simply an article/blog post discussing the topic. I’d advise that it is kept on topic and that caution is taken with the topics that you chose to jump on. Choosing a topic that is close to people’s hearts can lead to negative attention and unless you’re Ryanair who seem to thrive from trolling the public, bad publicity is not good publicity. One very recent example is a Dragon’s Den funded popcorn brand that jumped on the riot bandwagon:

This particular gem was blogged about by Andrew Burnett and the image is from his post.

The key here is to discuss events relevant to your site and brand, perhaps showing some thought leadership while avoiding potentially emotive topics.

After all this, I still believe there are companies that will not see a significant return from search. My experience has told me however, that there are always ways to increase traffic, even if you are concentrating solely on integration with campaign based marketing and brand terms. The extra traction from SEO and search as a whole is 100% worthwhile, if you can get the integration part right.

Article source: http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/big-brand-seo-campaigns-integration-and-extended-brand-keywords

PHOENIX – - Taxpayers sometimes need tax returns from previous years for loan applications, to estimate tax withholding, for legal reasons or because records were destroyed in a natural disaster or fire. If your original tax returns were lost or destroyed, you can obtain copies or transcripts from the IRS. Here are 10 things to know if you need federal tax return information from a previously filed tax return.

There are three options for obtaining free copies of your federal tax return information – on the web, by phone or by mail.

The IRS does not charge a fee for transcripts, which are available for the current and past three tax years.

A tax return transcript shows most line items from your tax return as it was originally filed, including any accompanying forms and schedules. It does not reflect any changes made after the return was filed.

A tax account transcript shows any later adjustments either you or the IRS made after the tax return was filed. This transcript shows basic data, including marital status, type of return filed, adjusted gross income and taxable income.

To request either transcript online, go to www.irs.gov and use our online tool called Order A Transcript. To order by phone, call 800-908-9946 and follow the prompts in the recorded message.

To request a 1040, 1040A or 1040EZ tax return transcript through the mail, complete IRS Form 4506T-EZ, Short Form Request for Individual Tax Return Transcript. Businesses, partnerships and individuals who need transcript information from other forms or need a tax account transcript must use the Form 4506T, Request for Transcript of Tax Return.

If you order online or by phone, you should receive your tax return transcript within five to 10 days from the time the IRS receives your request. Allow 30 calendar days for delivery of a tax account transcript if you order by mail.

If you still need an actual copy of a previously processed tax return, it will cost $57 for each tax year you order. Complete Form 4506, Request for Copy of Tax Return, and mail it to the IRS address listed on the form for your area. Copies are generally available for the current year and past six years. Please allow 60 days for actual copies of your return.

The fee for copies of tax returns may be waived if you are in an area that is declared a federal disaster by the President. Visit www.irs.gov, keyword “disaster,” for more guidance on disaster relief.

Visit www.irs.gov to determine which form will meet your needs. Forms 4506, 4506T and 4506T-EZ are available at www.irs.gov or by calling 800-TAX-FORM (800-829-3676).

Article source: http://www.willcoxrangenews.com/articles/2011/08/31/news/news18.txt

To maximize online lead generation campaigns, B2B marketers need to focus on the multifaceted customer they serve. Design campaigns to meet their needs across the entire decision cycle and business buying process to achieve the optimal ROI from their program.

The Many Faces Of The B2B Customer

In the realm of the B2B marketer, one of the key challenges we face is the alignment of marketing efforts that meet complex customer needs. This can be found in all stages of the lifecycle from awareness and thought leadership, lead origination and generation, and the client engagement and business development.

It is a specifically a challenge in B2B to align the touch points of potential customers due to their varying needs at different stages and the many verticals being serviced.

What many B2B marketers have trouble with is properly identifying the customer journey and generating the most compelling experience to capture customers through their marketing mix. As a result, sales ready lead generation becomes the sole bellwether of effective B2B marketing efforts, leaving a wealth of additional opportunity on the table.

In a recent Forrester article Bigger B2B Marketing Budgets Come With Great Expectations, it is stated that product marketing (at 21.3%) and lead origination (at 15.7%) are the largest investments in the overall B2B marketing budget in 2011.

While every media mix is unique, in the B2B environment particularly, there is opportunity to extend brand engagement and ultimately generate more leads long term through looking at the entire B2B customer lifecycle.

The Light At The ‘Beginning’ Of The Funnel

Fortunately, there is good news for B2B marketers trying to tie together their efforts to capture their many target audiences. Given the ways we can now look at behavior through effective data capture in tracking and analytics, we are now able to spotlight actions and draw conclusions to inform effective strategies.

One of the key ways to do this is through the alignment of digital media campaigns that map to keyword signals from buyers across the lifecycle.

5 Steps To Construct Customer Driven B2B Lead Generation

In order to connect customers to the right experience in a B2B context, there are five steps to engineering the experience. In essence, identifying intent and need becomes the crux to help guide us as marketers and extend value to our buyers by enabling interaction no matter the stage.

From the start however, we need to begin by knowing what it is our customers are seeking and why.

1.  Research Customer Behaviors

The first step is to thoroughly understand the ways in which your customers arrive at the decision to go to the market, and how they go about finding a solution to their needs. Most B2B customers’ begin the process with the identification of a challenge or issue that needs resolved.

As such, they will often go to the search engines or trade sites and search for issues and similar challenges. Identifying these keywords and the categorical interests around them provides the first stage to customer behavior.  From this, you can identify related topics and content that provides the answers and serves as a bedrock of insight to inform your program.

2.  Identify B2B Customer Journey Through Keyword Patterns

The ways that people find information is varied, however there are distinct patterns we all exhibit. For example, search is a known entry point into online content consumption. A B2B buyer will often go to a search engine to begin the process of identifying answers to the questions surrounding their needs.

According to one techtarget.com study¹, at the beginning stages of researching a need, B2B buyers are more likely to use three-word keywords versus four-word phrases that are prevalent in later stages.

This kind of insight can allow the search program to identify what stage of the sales cycle a potential buyer is in to serve a relevant ad copy creative and relevant content.  When we spotlight the funnel, we can observe behavior and test campaigns based on intent.

3.  Identify Content Assets

To match the intent of the B2B query, the marketing campaign needs to identify existing content that can be leveraged immediately, i.e., webcasts, white papers, videos, case studies, etc.

Additionally, this is an opportunity to take an appraisal of where new content needs to be generated.  From there, developing a content plan based on the customer journeys becomes a tangible case for the campaign.

A custom content plan can then be formulated to meet the needs of the buyer, and to effectively capture the demand of the stage.

4.  Prioritize Messaging Plan

After the customer research and behaviors are identified, the next step is to prioritize marketing and business needs based on seasonality, relevance, and business efficacy. With an emphasis on the specific needs of the customer and stage, a benefit/effort map can be constructed with the customer in mind.

Through effective messaging and offer optimization, the B2B campaign is able to plan and test messaging that produces results.

5.  Create An Integrated Media Project Plan

The final stage in the B2B customer driven plan is to create the media plan based on where the various audiences are online. Utilizing the research from the planning stage and adding in campaign planning, targeting and media mix modeling, a B2B campaign then must take into account where to place media budget to achieve the branding, acquisition and retention goals.

While a B2B campaign is often concerned only with the outcome of leads generated, it is by implementing a customer driven framework that a campaign is able to most effectively and efficiently capture demand across the entire lifecycle.

When a campaign is driven by customer needs and tied together by the performance data that online campaigns provide, a B2B budget is maximized for optimal ROI.

Related Reading: 

*The Google/TechTarget Research Project: How IT Buyers Search Online During the Purchase Process

Opinions expressed in the article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.

Related Topics: Strictly Business

Article source: http://searchengineland.com/5-steps-to-improve-your-customer-driven-b2b-lead-generation-89246

I don’t have any favorite clients; I love all of them equally. But that is almost entirely down to the fact that, like any good relationship, there is give and take and a huge degree of mutual understanding. Also like any good relationship, it has taken time to grow into this comfortable, supportive, dare I say loving arrangement.

Here are five crucial dos and don’ts for developing and nurturing a beautiful marriage with your SEO agency.

1. Transparency

DO help your agency understand your business in more detail. This will help in defining keyword strategies, and identifying opportunities moving forward. It will also help ensure that your agency is concerned about the same metrics you are, usually profit.

DON’T cut all contact with them for months on end then call them up asking for a full breakdown of links built, ranking metrics, ROI, and more – especially if they have been sending you these reports on a weekly basis. It’s just rude.

2. Collaboration

DO arrange quarterly all-agency meetings to foster a culture of working together. Internal teams and other external agencies are producing data and running campaigns that can help SEO.

DON’T treat SEO as a silo and a channel that can just be left to its own devices. It isn’t an affiliate network. SEO is an ongoing process of convincing search engine algorithms that your site is more worthwhile and relevant than those of your competitors. As a result, it should be central to everything you do online.

3. Ranking Improvements

DO accept that these are important. Higher rankings equal higher traffic levels. Choose to monitor as many keywords as you like to show success, but remember you will never be able to see all keywords driving traffic to your site. Good metrics to monitor are improvements to an “indicator” set of keywords, the level of overall non-brand traffic to your site, and the total number of keywords driving traffic. Between these metrics you can be confident that your site is ranking highly for more keywords, and for your target categories in particular.

DON’T focus on a small set of 100 keywords and think that your agency is only responsible for revenue coming specifically from those keywords.

4. Projections

Based on expectations of increased rankings, DO ask your agency to project what improvements in traffic should be, and estimate what that should mean in increased revenue. This gives realistic expectations of what revenue increases you will see.

DON’T change your tracking solution after making these projections. Make sure you track all visits through to sale. If you don’t, you won’t know what ROI you’re making from SEO or anything else. This may sound simple, but there are actually still large retailers not tracking through to conversion.

5. Changing KPIs

DO set a range of KPIs that reflect your overall marketing goals. You can afford to do this more with SEO as you aren’t paying for each and every click, so the value of thousands of visitors to your site who have been searching for “TV’s” may not be that high in terms of direct tracked ROI, for example, but you can guarantee there is value to your brand.

DON’T chop and change target keywords on an ad hoc basis. SEO isn’t PPC; you can set much broader targets, but you can’t pick and choose what keywords to go after to the same degree. Keep to your agreed metrics for success and add tactical campaigns by all means, especially for new product launches, but don’t randomly move the goalposts.

Save up to 30 percent! Register now for SES Chicago 2011, the Leading Search Social Marketing Event, taking place November 14-18. Hurry, pre-agenda rate expires September 1!

Article source: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2105396/How-to-be-Your-Agencys-Favorite-Client-Five-Dos-and-Donts

Text marketing small business for small businesses. Send group messages to anybody with one click.

Chicago, IL (PRUnderground) August 30th, 2011

Marketing the old way, can be frustrating. Newspapers take too long and cost a lot. Direct mailers cannot reach everyone and most people put direct mail in the trash. Radio and TV advertising cost too much. Emails, most of the time goes to the junk mail area. All can help your business but one marketing tool stands out above all of them… Text Marketing.

With text marketing, you can:

• Sent text messages alerts to groups in a second.
• Set up auto responds to people who want info right away.
• Send mobile coupon.
• Build a list of customer by subscribing to a keyword.
• Customers can opt-in if they want.
• Customers can opt-out if they do not to subscribe.
• You can a setup reminders.

With SMS Scoop, you get a platform to work with. Sending your own alerts and setting up welcome messages. Custom made and easy to use. You just login with a Google or Gmail account. Then sent an alert to your groups keyword. Your keyword is your way to link your customer to your alerts. And you can send as many messages as you can.

Here are pricing plans:

Business Plan -

• Basic $29, 1 Keyword, 150 Subscribers and unlimited messages.
• Pro $49, 2 Keywords, 350 Subscribers and unlimited messages.
• Plus $99, 3 Keywords, 750 Subscribers and unlimited messages.
• Premium $199, 5 Keywords, 1100 Subscribers and unlimited messages.

Micro Plan -

• Starter $15, 1 Keyword, 10 Subscriber and unlimited messages.
• Alerter $19, 1 Keyword, 35 Subscriber and unlimited messages.
• Blaster $24, 1 Keyword, 75 Subscriber and unlimited messages.

All plans include: Unlimited Messages, Email/Phone Support, No Contract and No Setup Fee.

Please website for more on TC www.smsscoop.com

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Visit Our Site

Tags: Advertising, ATT, Keyword, Market, Marketing, Messages, Mobile, SMS, Sprint, Subscriber, Text, Text Marketing, Text Messaging, Texting, Tmobile, US Cellular, Verizon

Article source: http://www.prunderground.com/the-starting-of-a-new-marketing-way-text-marketing/007155/

Managing and growing any personal brand online can be a difficult task. For those of us looking to curate a respectable following, we simply can’t afford to miss any stops as nowadays, our online reputation means almost everything. Luckily, there are several tools we can use online that make this process easy and, in some cases, fun.

In some case studies, personal brands that founded their online presence through small, community-based sites were then able to use the connections formed from those services in conjunction with several tools to further promote themselves on the web.

In an attempt to uncover which tools exactly have helped personal brands reach the heights that they have, we’ve curated a helpful list of services and online tools to make managing your web reputation just a bit easier.

1. Facebook Pages

While many of us are using Facebook simply as a tool to connect with old friends and perhaps long-distance relatives that we’ve been meaning to get in touch with, those of us keen on being a bit more socially “present” have tapped into Facebook’s ability to grow and manage our personal brands online are creating Fan Pages.

Pages on Facebook are a great way to introduce fans and followers to our online “presence” without adding them as actual friends or providing them with ammo against our online personalities on our much-more-personal profile pages.

Facebook Pages give brands another outlet to provide a relatable “voice” for their target audience. In this way, brands are better able to interact with their following on a more intimate or personal level that engages their fans and makes them feel more involved.

2. Twitter Profiles

We wouldn’t forget Twitter, of course. Twitter is popularly known as a real-time online communication channel that provides both live and rapid-fire feedback as well as facilitates the exchange of ideas quickly over a single platform.

Through Twitter, brands like the cast of Jersey Shore, for example, are already using the service to communicate with their target audience and even troubleshoot issues that fans and followers seem to be having with their personality. In this way, followers can feel both heard and taken care of in, again, a more intimate setting.

Public Figures are also using Twitter to represent their reach online, where their amount of followers is indicative to how loyal potential consumers are and how willing they are to participate in what a particular brand has to say. In this way, sponsors and advertisers are more likely to reach out to brands with larger followings on Twitter who understand how to engage their audience than they are to those with small Twitter followings.

3. Google+ Profiles

Though relatively new, Google Plus pages are already becoming an excellent resource for personal brands and public figures to provide a gateway to their various presences online.

Some consider the service a step above Facebook in that not only can a brand deliver meaningful and customized text content through the platform, but personalities can also link directly from their “About” sections to their officially linked brand pages elsewhere on the web.

Much like Twitter and Facebook, personal brands can use this platform to further engage their audience or network with others who have similar interests, as the platform allows users to both follow and track brands without needing to be “followed back”, while providing further privacy setting customization to limit what brands let certain “Circles” of followers see.

4. Gateway and Splash Pages

Much like Google+’s ability to link between several of a brand’s affiliated profiles online, gateway pages like About.me and Flavors.me provide a gorgeous and user-friendly interface that displays a brief blurb about your personal brand in a way that is aesthetically appealing.

Many Twitter users (like Veronica Belmont, Host of Tekzilla) are even linking their About.me splash pages directly on their profile to point towards their various personal appearances across the web. In this way, search engines can better lead users directly to the proper pages where they can find out more about your brand, while also doing a better job of eliminating would-be imposters online.

In fact, .me domains are already popular online (see our EIC’s profile, Zee.me) so it might be a good idea to snatch up yours now before it gets taken by someone else eager to profit.

5. Niche-Based Social Sites

Popular services like deviantART for creative types and ModelMayhem for models and photographers provide social platforms where personal brands can both meet and interact with like-minded users.

Whatever your profession or focus, these niche-based social sites are an easy way for you to gather alongside your target audience and market yourself to a potential following that actually cares about what you have to say. The higher concentration of those with similar interests on a niche-based social platform takes the struggle out of building bridges between content consumers and brands.

Dribbble is another “show and tell” service for creative types that provides a clean interface for users to display their work in a gallery of sorts for other artists. NaNoWriMo is the official site for National Novel Writing Month that hopes to encourage its community to participate in thirty days and nights of “literary abandon.”

6. Social Influence Analytics

Sites that claim to score your personal influence like Klout and PeerIndex are two services that measure your reach and amplification online, providing personal brands with the analytics they need to properly compensate where their attention is lacking.

For example, say your personal brand has loads of followers but is strongly lacking in actual amplified information (ie. the information that users actually want to reshare or retweet). Social influence analytics services like the above give these brands a visual representation of where they stack up against other popular users on social services, making it easier to pinpoint where they excel versus where they can stand to improve.

7. Google Alerts

Google’s Alerts beta promises to help you “monitor the web for interesting new content”. After programming the tool to keep an eye out on a certain query or keyword, Google Alerts will immediately email you to keep you abreast on the latest developments of that topic:

Google Alerts are email updates of the latest relevant Google results (web, news, etc.) based on your choice of query or topic.

Enter the topic you wish to monitor, then click preview to see the type of results you’ll receive.

Personal brands have the option to use this service as a “vanity metric” of sorts, a way of keeping track of who is talking about the brand and what they are saying about them online. On the opposite feedback spectrum, Google Alerts users can also use the service to alert them to negative press, allowing them the opportunity to react to or handle the coverage.

A similar service is TweetDeck‘s ability to create columns on their platform based on search results for similar keywords and topics. Social Mention and HootSuite are other services that scour social networks like Twitter and Facebook for relevant comments

8. Online Forums

Forums, like niche-based social sites, are a fantastic way to build the reputation of your personal brand within small interest-driven communities online. Potential followers and fans are more likely to care, after all, if your interests lie in the same vein as their own.

By actively engaging in discussions within forums, personal brands can provide evidence of their character or sincerity when relating to a topic they take an interest in. Forum users are also the sort to utilize forum profiles or signatures to link back and forth between their various presences online, much like gateway or splash pages.

A popular interest-driven forum for, say, “Anime Art” is GaiaOnline (which is an almost entirely forum-driven community), while tech gadget lovers might head to Coolest Gadgets Forums.

9. Community Blogs

Community blogging platforms like Tumblr, Posterous and Livejournal provide a medium for personal brands to create regular and original content, while also helping them network with other users who are also creating newsworthy and unique material online.

Sites like these often spotlight blogs that are doing well in their field or excel in a specific point of interest. In some cases, the spotlighted blogs are determined based on user vote or popularity, increasing the probability that community bloggers will actively work towards improving and optimizing their content online.

Much like forums and niche-based social sites, community blogging provides a service that eventually links like-minded writers and readers together under one roof and in a single space, enabling them to “follow” and “friend” each other to keep up with their posts on a regular basis.

10. Personal Websites Blogs

Personal websites and blogs can be a combination of all of the tools listed above presented on one domain that takes the effort out of discovering more information about a brand.

On a personally hosted website or domain, bloggers, photographers, artists, models, and any other individual looking to market their brand online can display their content in a way that is appealing to their audience and without the TOS roadblocks that services like Tumblr or deviantART might limit them with.

Personal brands can display Twitter and Facebook Page feeds, link to their various community blogging platforms online, integrate a forum onto their server for their current audience to gather and form a community, and utilize RSS feeds to deliver their content regularly to their readers.

11. Google Search

Those of us familiar with search engine optimization (SEO) will often tell you that it’s important to create as many links back to our profiles across the web as possible. This helps search engines like Google Search crawl our information and create branches between our official profiles to wherever else we’ve manage to make our mark online.

Google Support lists a number of ways to use Google Search to manage our reputations online, but to save you from having to click through for yourself, we’re reiterating them for you here:

1. Search for your name to see what pops up about you.
2. Create an official google profile to claim your pages online.
3. Strive to remove your unwanted content from the search results.
4. Sign up to be notified when you appear on the Web somewhere.

In the event that you are unable to remove an ill-favored search listing from Google’s results, we recommend that you actively work to compete against it. By this, we mean targeting the keywords that bring those results to the top of the list and creating search optimized posts that rank higher.

12. Multiple Brand Management

For those of us who have more to monitor online than a single keyword, services like Trackur and Radian6 aim to help personal brands tap into the goldmine of social conversations happening online.

Viralheat, for example, “aims to be a one stop shop for understanding social media.” Big brands like Microsoft, MTV, ESPN and Ebay are using Viralheat to keep track of their competitors and stay up to date with what their audience is saying about them. If large brands are monitoring their detailed social analytics, why shouldn’t you?

Some of the packages for the above tools can be fairly expensive to use, but these services also provide smaller and less expensive options for those on a budget.

13. LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a professional social networking service where users can source their various credentials and history with an online resume. Aside from being able to construct a more accomplished reputation through this tool, personal brands can also use the platform to connect with other professionals in their industry and build relationships with those they are looking to get in touch with.

Various networking sub-groups also exist on the LinkedIn platform to help you meet professionals in your line of expertise that may have an interest in helping you grow your brand. The service encourages coworking among your professional peers by making it easy to connect with those who are looking to find your brand as well.

One of our readers, Andrew King, states, “I have found it as a good way to chat with local CEO’s. It’s nice to recognize them by face and reputation at events and it pays off in spades when they recognize me.”

14. Friends and Family

Amazingly enough, no matter how strict and finely detailed our personal brand management strategies may be, our friends and family also play a key part in our reputations online. Many of us have experienced moments where we’ve had to quickly untag ourselves from embarrassing photos posted to Facebook, or dialed up friends in a panic to have them delete a tweet that’s revealed too much.

The fact is, not everyone is as tech-savvy as many of us hope to be. Having to educate our friends on privacy issues and lecture them into respecting our Internet character is a daily battle that will continue to evolve as web culture becomes more of a societal norm.

Similarly, friends and family are also hubs for free marketing. Where our own personal network only extends so far, the networks of those we know can reach even further. Supposing you have a pleasant enough reputation with your online neighbors, they will likely be more than happy to help promote your existing content.

Of course, this isn’t an all-inclusive list and we’re sure we’ve managed to leave out a few of your favorites. What brand-building tools are you using online and how are they working out for you? Weigh in below.

Article source: http://thenextweb.com/2011/08/30/14-must-haves-for-your-online-personal-brand-building-toolkit/

By PAULA PASCHE
JRC News Service

ALLEN PARK — One job going down to the wire is between Nick Harris and Ryan Donahue to be the Lions punter.

Both will get chances in Thursday night’s final preseason game at Buffalo.

“Both of those guys have punted very, very well — just like our kickers. Jason (Hanson) was in a little different spot and we thought we needed to make that move right away,” coach Jim Schwartz said.

The Lions released kicker Dave Rayner, who had been competing with Hanson for the position.

But the battle at punter lingers.

“We’ve been alternating a lot of different ways and things like that and we chart just about every punt that those guys do — and hold is also important. When you’re a punter you’re also a holder, so, you know, those will all be important factors in (this) decision,” Schwartz added.

The Lions know Harris, whose been with the Lions for eight seasons, can hold so they’ve been giving Donahue opportunities.

“He was clean. Yeah, he … we used Dominic Raiola on our first extra point. He’s our back-up snapper and he looked like the back-up snapper and he rolled one back and Ryan was able to get it down and get that,” Schwartz said. “It’s a little slower operation on an extra point, but he did a good job of digging that out.”

Depleted offense hums

in the first three preseason games the Lions’ offense has hummed to the tune of at least 30 points per game, leading to three wins.

(See Lions, Page 4B)

(Continued from 1B)

The four quarterbacks have combined for 10 touchdown passes and just one interception.

The key here is that not all the starting offense has been on the field at one time.

It won’t happen at Buffalo on Thursday night either, but it will be close.

Schwartz said on Tuesday that running back Jahvid Best, who missed Saturday’s win over the Patriots, will play on Thursday.

However, wide receiver Nate Burleson will sit thanks to stitches in his elbow. He was hit on the spot in his elbow in Saturday’s game at the spot where he had been sown up after having a bursa sac removed in the offseason.

Ins and outs

Defensive end Kyle Vanden Bosch was back at practice Tuesday for the first time since injuring his shoulder in the preseason game at Cleveland.

Vanden Bosch has been ruled out of the game at Buffalo.

Offensive lineman Jason Fox (foot) still is not practicing but he is out of the orthopedic boot so another step closer to a return.

CB Alphonso Smith (foot) still is not practicing.

Follow @PaulaPasche on Twitter. Read her Lions Lowdown blog at oplions.blogspot.com. Get Lions news delivered directly to your phone by texting the keyword “Lions” to 22700.

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Article source: http://www.themorningsun.com/articles/2011/08/31/sports/srv0000013514590.txt