The idea about social or online reputation is not a new one. As far back as April 1999, just months before Google received its first major round of funding and nearly five years before Facebook was launched, The Cluetrain Manifesto was written.

The main idea behind the Cluetrain Manifesto, according to the authors, was to challenge the outmoded 20th-century thinking about mass-marketing and business in light of the emergence of the web through a set of 95 theses. In reality, it was an attempt to define a new model for interaction between businesses and consumers, given the conversational style the Internet was rapidly becoming.

If you’ve not read the Cluetrain Manifesto, here are a few snippets

“Markets are conversations.”

“There are no secrets. The networked market knows more than companies do about their own products. And whether the news is good or bad, they tell everyone.”

“A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter—and getting smarter faster than most companies.”

Fast forward 12 years and we’ve got millions if not billions of conversations taking place every day on the Internet and business owners cannot afford to ignore them. These conversations propagate through news sites, social networking sites, blogs and forums at a frightening pace. Social networks are now one of the major influencers of brand reputation and market insight. Companies need to know what, why and where conversations are taking place about their brand or market. Whilst many of these conversations can be harmless and benign, unfortunately some can be negative in tone causing businesses immediate issues of how to manage and repair their reputation.

Online Reputation Management (ORM) is the practice of monitoring reputation on the Internet with a goal of suppressing negative mentions entirely or constructively pushing them lower down the search engine results pages (SERPs).

When negative comments are published and circulated online, the potential damage is effectively done. In most cases if your products or services become linked to negative publicity, you may find your sales drop as a result. Bad news travels quickly on the Internet, so it is imperative that any negative references are addressed immediately before they have a chance to take hold.

The biggest mistake you can make is to ignore what people are saying about you online. Whilst customer review websites, for example, can drive new customers to your website, they can also convince them to stay clear of your products and services. You simply cannot afford to ignore the comments on review websites.

You also need to look at the bigger picture when assessing your reputation. Don’t try to respond to every criticism. Whilst nine out of 10 reviews of your product or service might be positive, there may be one negative review that’s not really that important, especially if it makes claims that are inconsistent with the other nine positive reviews.

There are tools and services available that use sophisticated technology to scan the Internet for target words and phrases associated with your business or brand. These might include the name of your business, your product brands, or the name of key individuals. Reports about any publicity, both positive as well as negative will allow you to act accordingly.

If negative references are reported you can also look at SEO tactics to reduce the impact of the references by effectively pushing them lower down the search engine results pages. In some instances, you can also appeal and negotiate with the search engines to have negative comments removed.

It’s also a good idea with your SEO tactics to displace the negative references by boosting the rankings of positive references in the search engine results. Aggressive replacement of negative content with more positive exposure is the best way of repairing brand reputation in the event that it has been damaged.

Regardless of your company’s size, online reputation management is essential to maintaining your brand equity and developing a positive customer relationship. Whilst smaller companies may be able to manage on their own, larger companies will need a specialist with monitoring tools, experienced SEO staff and a team dedicated to listening, locating and fixing.

And finally, don’t be fooled into thinking this is just limited to an online practice or a reactive process to dispel negative sentiment. There is always a bigger picture to look at and some brands are taking the initiative better than others.

Bill Bivin of Dell recently commented, “Dell has become more focused in the last year on not just responding publicly to conversations, but finding actionable items that improve customer experience and using social media to become more efficient and profitable in all areas of our business. It’s not just about customer support or public relations. We are evolving to a point where we listen to our customer voice, and connect global customers and communities, listening and delivering on the products and services they want.”

Source: The Online Reputation and Buzz Monitoring Buyer’s Guide 2010 from eConsultancy

Image credit: ©iStockphoto.com/artvea

Since the release of CS5.5 is coming only a year after CS5, I wanted to know what exactly all the fuss was about and why Adobe feels the CS5.5 new features are worth paying full upgrade price for – A price tag of £635 for the full master suite upgrade?

We love CS5 and it is truly awesome, but will its half-life upgrade be all that Adobe has promised?

Adobe CS5.5

For all you web/media designers out there, a quick review of CS5.5 suggests there’s a design for any screen option (Adobe have been pushing this in their advertising) which is available in both Photoshop and Dreamweaver. This, we’re told, will give you the option to design once and convert to different screen options, thus further helping in the desitgn and development of iPhone/Android apps. There’s also a big hint towards new HTML5 coding snippets and excellent 3D animation features available in Aftereffects.

After reading Adobe’s features and reviews section I’m beginning to feel like this is a re-run of CS5’s features with new pictures and a new write up! (Although I’ve seen some nice text editors in Flash, which looks like it could save us Flash designers a bit of time and hair pulling!)

If you’re a designer or coder who likes to keep up to date with the latest software then CS5.5 is for you, otherwise think before you purchase. Is it really worth £600+, with a full upgrade to CS6 on the way next year?

For more info on CS5.5 check out here: http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/design/features.html

Flash is primarily 2D software, although with the dawn of Papervision, Alternativa3D, Away3D etc this has provided some 3D capabilities. However without using hardware acceleration people have been really pushing the limits of what is capable.

Adobe Molehill example

“Molehill” is the code name for a new set of low-level, GPU-accelerated 3D APIs that will enable advanced 3D experiences across screens through the Adobe® Flash® Platform runtimes. In using the GPU it means that the CPU useage is as little as 0%, rendering realtime 3D graphics with environment mapping and reflections.  Using the new 3D APIs in Flash Player and AIR will make it possible to deliver sophisticated 3D experiences across almost every computer and device connected to the Internet.

Developers will be able to build their own engine or use existing engines on top of the Molehill API. Adobe produced this example in conjunction with Alternativa3D for Adobe MAX.

Magento recently released Magento Go, a hosted ecommerce package based on the Magento commerce package. Magento Go is in the vein of Shopify, Moonfruit, Volusion, BigCartel and countless other hosted web store solutions that have sprung up in the last year, indicating the fast growth of smaller retailers wanting to set up shop online by themselves.

The current crop of hosted ecommerce websites tout simplicity as a selling point which makes Magento Go stand out. The Magento administration interface and workflow isn’t always the most intuitive when compared to other carts and takes time to get to grips with but with the extra complexity comes a whole slew of other features missing from other hosted stores.

This extra complexity of Magento Go could add barriers to non-tech savvy users who are likely to go elsewhere but, for retailers wanting more from their store and willing to put the time in Magento Go won’t hold back their online business like other options could.

We’ve been doing lots of research into Facebook pages recently for a few of our clients.  We really like some of the design work brands are pushing, especially the Like page tabs.

The first page tab you’re directed to on Redbull for example, is less than subtle.

Redbull Facebook Like Page Tab

But our favourite has still got to be this one for Liverpool FC with Steven Gerrard. What do you think?

Liverpool FC Facebook Like Page Tab with Steven Gerrard

On Friday 12th November 2010, at the DADI’s (The Drum Awards for Digital Industries) at The Royal Armouries in Leeds, we won our first award for adidas – become the 12th Man.

OK we might be milking this a bit, but it’s our first award and we’re proud to have won it. And I thought I should probably write a bit about why awards matter to creative agencies.

If you combine research, insight and brand message, it can lead to great creative. The gap between brand message and great creative is the challenge. For that, you need exceptional people. And it’s not just in Exstatik that we have exceptional people. As part of the Intermarketing & Communications Group of companies, we (Exstatik) have access to some of the industry’s brightest talents from creative and production to account and support teams. Now that we’ve won the award, you’ll know that it wasn’t just us digital folk that made it possible.

So why does it matter that we win industry awards? Personally, I feel winning awards is more about agency feel-good than anything else.  It’s an affirmation that the agency is doing creative work that resonates with the target audience. And it’s not about awards at the expense of results. No, absolutely not. The creative has to work and we just want our efforts to work harder than our competitor’s. Oh, and we get another excuse to celebrate and catch up with clients, friends and peers over a glass or two of bubbly; only if you win of course!

The Telegraph reported on 28th October 2010, that the UK has the most developed internet economy in the world (according to a recent report from Boston Consulting Group which was commissioned by Google) with the largest online e-commerce market per person, researchers have found.

The UK also has the second largest online advertising market world wide, after the United States.

If the internet was an economic sector it would be the fifth largest – outweighing the UK’s construction, transport and utilities industries.

So what’s this got to do with mobile and why should retailers be looking to focus on mobile commerce? According to ABI research “Mobile commerce is set to grow to $119bn by 2015 and this market is growing solidly in Europe too, and is expected to outpace the US by the end of 2010.”

Some retailers are adopting effective mobile strategies and offer an enhanced brand experience on mobile. But according to a recent BigMouthMedia survey “three quarters of UK brands don’t understand the value of having mobile enabled websites” and “UK Enterprises also revealed that 70% currently have no mobile strategy.”

The thing with mobile is it’s real time. Retailers can talk to customers anywhere anytime. Mobile is the most intuitive and immediate response channel available, encouraging impulse purchasing and instant response to above-the-line and CRM messaging.

Audiences are already trying to find retailers through their mobiles. “25% of consumers said they would never visit a retailer’s website again if they had a negative experience on their mobile”, according to a YouGov BrandBank Mcommerce Content Report in 2010.

And according to a more recent report from Adobe Mobile Experience Survey in November 2010, the following graph shows the consumer products purchased through mobile devices in the last 6 Months.

It’s no surprise then to expect the next generation will demand all their services to be available on the platform of their choice and it’s more than likely to be a mobile device.

Smartphones, for example are set to achieve nearly complete market penetration in youth and adult sectors within 3 years. This uptake will be driven by the need to access digital content such as social networks and video on the move.

Morgan Stanley predicts mobile users will exceed desktop internet users within 5 years. No surprise really when you think that the global penetration for mobile handsets far out numbers desktop PCs.

Banking and payments are going mobile. VISA are allegedly spending over $200m on global mobile services. Increased awareness of contactless enabled handsets means that soon, a consumer’s mobile, will also be their wallet.

Mobile App or Browser-Based Site? A recent report says the browser will win on mobile. Mobile search company Taptu believes the future of the Mobile Web is likely to be dominated by cross-platform browser-based mobile web sites – rather than apps built specifically for iPhone, Android, or any other platform.

Taptu estimates that there are 326,000 Mobile Touch Web sites worldwide, which they say compares to 148,000 iPhone apps in the App Store and 24,000 apps in the Android market. Taptu expects the browser-based mobile web market to grow much faster than the app market.

Users prefer mobile browsers over downloadable mobile apps for accessing content.

Across all categories, respondents generally prefer using mobile web browsers to downloadable mobile applications except when interacting with social media, games, maps and music.

M&S launches Your M&S Mobile website.
Launched in May 2010, Your M&S mobile is a full retail site for Marks and Spencer, and as such represents the first large-scale deployment to the mobile web by a UK retailer. The site is to sell every product available on the M&S website, allow sync-ing with online accounts, and work for every mobile device in the UK

According to New Toy London, the developers of the Your M&S Mobile site, “the site has been launched to a very positive response, especially regarding its look and feel”
- 1.2m unique visitors (May-Aug 2010)
- 300,000 orders (same period)
- Everything sells – TVs to furniture to clothes
- £3,280 is the largest order (two leather sofas)

Tesco rolls out grocery shopping app
09 September 2010
Supermarket giant Tesco is launching a free app for the iPhone that will enable users to log in to their online grocery account and shop on the go.

26 October 2010
Tesco has updated its iPhone app to include a barcode reader that enables customers to quickly add items to their online shopping basket.

08 November 2010
Tesco Direct has launched its first mobile website, dedicated to non-food and household items, and promises the launch of several more sites in the coming months.

The dedicated mobile website aims to build on a 300% increase in the use of Tesco Direct from mobile phones over the past year to around 500,000 users per month.

The site gives shoppers the chance to scan the product range, compare items and prices, buy items and work-out a convenient delivery time.

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