Using Blog Search Engines as a Marketing Barometer
Posted by Patrick on April 28th, 2006
“Markets are conversations” is my favorite quote from The Cluetrain Manifesto, a seminal book on marketing in the 21st century. I like it because it encapsulates the essence of the networked markets we find on the internet today. After so many years of being “talked to” by big business, people have finally got their voice back – and man are they talking! Within a few minutes on the internet any business can find out how people feel about their particular product or service. The voices are loud, honest and genuine and the blogosphere has supplanted message boards and newsgroups as the place where the majority of the conversations are taking place online.
So if markets are conversations (and they are) and the blogosphere is where the conversations are taking place (and it is), then it follows that businesses can use blog specific search engines as a marketing barometer to measure the level of interest in their products or services. Let me give you an example.
I recently met with the marketing manager for Durham Business School (DBS). The crux of the meeting was to convey that no one (in the blogosphere) was talking about their MBA program, which means that either the DBS MBA program is unremarkable or it is simply off the radar of people who are discussing MBA programs (or some combination of the two). This should be very disconcerting especially when you contrast these results with results you get from entering the main competitors into the search engines.
So how do you check whats being said (or not said) about your company/product/service? Easy. Just enter your comany name + product/service + any other descriptors to one of the many blog search engines (my favorite blog search engines are BlogPulse, Technorati, Google and IceRocket) and see where that takes you. Join an existing conversation or get one started. Good luck!
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on April 28th, 2006 at 12:20 pm
PubSub is another favorite.
on May 4th, 2006 at 5:42 am
[...] I wonder what percentage of these companies have employees that are writing unsanctioned blogs? I guess if they are not monitoring the blogosphere than they will never find out. Ignorance is bliss. [...]
on May 5th, 2006 at 4:16 pm
[...] I wonder what percentage of these companies have employees that are writing unsanctioned blogs? I guess if they are not monitoring the blogosphere then they will never find out. Ignorance is bliss. [...]