Searching For Online Brand Equity
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
Why don't more brands use organic search results as the ultimate measure of success for their online marketing efforts?
If you want to know if your brand is associated with a particular word or idea, then just Google the word or idea, and see if your brand comes up.
If you want to see if the messaging in your advertising is getting through, then go to Twitter and search for your message.
Ian Coyle pointed out to me how successful Dos Equis has been with their Most Interesting Man in the World commercials running during the NBA playoffs. One of the funniest lines from the commercial is "He lives vicariously... through himself." Ian sent me the link to the Twitter search, and sure enough that line is getting quoted on Twitter... a lot.
This seems like a fantastic measure of the efficacy of their advertising. And if it was a little bit more carefully constructed they could transform this casual bit of attention into a deliberate nightly people-powered Twitter campaign.
Companies spend millions of dollars on research and measurement, yet usually ignore the best (and cheapest) measurement of online success there is: Search Results.
Of course, the problem is that brands have to have success beyond the banner in order to see meaningful results on Google. Smart search engine optimization is a good start, but you're also going to need to build some relationships, and get people talking about your brand.
Which brings me back to this slide from my Online Friendship deck, defining Online Brand Equity:
(Click for full-size image)
In order to build a strong reputation, and have a strong following compared to your competitors, you need to invest in relationships. Online Brand Equity is a product of how invested people feel in your success, how much time you've spent with them, and how prolific the individuals are in sharing within their own networks.
If you have success in these spheres, you have success on the web. And it can be measured by simply Googling yourself.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on the roles that fostering relationships and online conversations play in affecting search results? And what are the ways that a search result goal like this should be structured and articulated? Comments welcome.
If you want to know if your brand is associated with a particular word or idea, then just Google the word or idea, and see if your brand comes up.
If you want to see if the messaging in your advertising is getting through, then go to Twitter and search for your message.
Ian Coyle pointed out to me how successful Dos Equis has been with their Most Interesting Man in the World commercials running during the NBA playoffs. One of the funniest lines from the commercial is "He lives vicariously... through himself." Ian sent me the link to the Twitter search, and sure enough that line is getting quoted on Twitter... a lot.
This seems like a fantastic measure of the efficacy of their advertising. And if it was a little bit more carefully constructed they could transform this casual bit of attention into a deliberate nightly people-powered Twitter campaign.
Companies spend millions of dollars on research and measurement, yet usually ignore the best (and cheapest) measurement of online success there is: Search Results.
Of course, the problem is that brands have to have success beyond the banner in order to see meaningful results on Google. Smart search engine optimization is a good start, but you're also going to need to build some relationships, and get people talking about your brand.
Which brings me back to this slide from my Online Friendship deck, defining Online Brand Equity:
In order to build a strong reputation, and have a strong following compared to your competitors, you need to invest in relationships. Online Brand Equity is a product of how invested people feel in your success, how much time you've spent with them, and how prolific the individuals are in sharing within their own networks.
If you have success in these spheres, you have success on the web. And it can be measured by simply Googling yourself.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on the roles that fostering relationships and online conversations play in affecting search results? And what are the ways that a search result goal like this should be structured and articulated? Comments welcome.
4 Comments:
hey mike, check out www.ivillage.com redesigned site. it's super search-optimized, and - at the same time - has nothing to do with the old brand. which one is more important?
Excellent idea, though you need to caveat it with the idea that it only works for brands aimed at the same target demo as Twitter and other social media vehicles.
Though the SM demo is rapidly expanding.
I wonder how the Dos Equis fans would feel about the brand horning in on their joking-- there's a line there where people like the commercial far more than the brand itself-- and you need to be really careful about that. Especially with things like beer, it's very possible people will glom onto a commercial (Whassup!) without developing a strong connection to the brand itself.
But as always, your posts make me think, far more frequently than 99% of the stuff I read. Nicely done.
PS: On a personal level, I found the wearout on these happened pretty fast, e.g. they went from clever to annoying really quickly, whereas the T-Mobile spots with Barkley, Howard & Wade kept me laughing. But that's just me.
And Ana-- Happy Birthday.
Haha Alan -- thank you! (and thank you, Mike, too)
This is definitely a super-important topic, especially in the domain of digital brand "execution": today, a lot of brands still seek "immersive" destinations online, and "branded experiences" and really the question is what's the point of having something super-beautiful in some forgotten corner of the web.
If people don't link to it, and if destination is not search-optimized (and flash-heavy destinations are not), there's no way it will ever end up at the top of search results. And, as we know, Google is the real home page.
Back to my example of iVillage (remember when it was bought by NBC for "synergy". like, whatever). Now it looks totally bare, but has all relevant information on ONE page. So, once you are there, and you found what you are looking for, why not browse some more? Clicks increase, time spent on the site increases = all the relevant measures. At the end of the day, simplicity and real results count the most.
Good stuff.
Interesting idea of using to Google to measure brand equity.
Companies spend thousands of dollars to measure their brand equities relative to their competitors. If there was a way to mine Google for simple correlations (i.e., your search results idea).
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