Capturing Consumer Buzz

An industry colleague, Greg Jarboe who is the president and co-founder of SEO-PR, a search engine promotion company that recently launched a News Blog focused on the top stories in search engine optimization and public relations has written an excellent report Blogs, Boards, and Posts: Capturing Consumer Buzz Online covering the recent Search Engine Strategies Conference held in NYC.

The importance of monitoring customer comments was clearly laid out by Gary Stein, senior analyst JupiterResearch who presented research that found when users search for companies, 26% of the results are content generated by consumers, 22% by experts, 18% by corporate sources, 12% by media, and 22% by other sources. In other words, when prospects search for your company, the top 10 listings are likely to include:

    •     3 listings from consumer posts to blogs, message boards, and opinion sites
    •     2 listings from experts
    •     2 listings from your own corporate site
    •     1 listing from an online publication
    •     2 listings from other sources

While virtually all SEO's monitor the ranking of the two corporate listings and most PR departments monitor their press clippings, very few marketers monitor what is being said by consumers on blogs, message boards and opinion sites. What is needed, said Stein, is a Dynamic Attitude Analysis Tool, a way of making opinions measurable and actionable for marketing.