They’ll be doing a rotation for three of the sessions, allowing you to pick between the overview, legal, and panel discussion tracks in two separate time slots.  I’ll be on the panel along with some other WV folks I know very well who will definitely bring it: Emily Bennington of Dixon Hughes, Bob Coffield of Flaherty, Sensabaugh & Bonasso, and Jeff James of Mythology Marketing.

More details to follow as we get closer to the event.  If you want to  learn more now, let me know and I’ll find out the right contact at the State Journal to hook you up with.

Update: Registration is now open!

Justin Seibert

Justin Seibert is the President of Direct Online Marketing. He regularly speaks on search engine marketing, social media optimization, and online reputation management. Follow him on twitter. Why not check out the company on facebook while you're at it?

Before you go any further, be aware this post has virtually nothing to do with search engine marketing – just some interesting information for people who care about Wheeling, WV, history, gold coins, or old breweries.

Well, being the curious type who likes to pee on new things he finds, SEOdog walked over to get a closer look at the cornerstone on the lower left:

Since you can’t see the date because of horrible lighting and my inadequate camera, SEOdog wanted to make sure you knew the building was over 100 years old:

Having never seen this beer down at Kroger or the incomparable (around here anyway) Cappelli’s, SEOdog decided to do a little Googling.  Fortunately, one good soul wrote up quite a bit about this now-defunct brewery.  Of note:

G.D. Ridenour was placed in charge of the plant during receivership, and immediately launched several innovative campaigns to promote the beer. Corks on the caps of their Cream Top brand were imprinted with letters. When the customer had enough caps to spell out the company name, they could redeem them for a $40 gift certificate at the brewery. The certificates were good at many stores in the Benwood-Wheeling area. Another gimmick used by Ridenour was to place $5 gold pieces in random bottles of Diamond Brew. [T]he ideas were good, but not enough to save the brewery.

Gold coins – that’s pretty smart, although pretty expensive.  A $5 gold piece – or half-eagle – would be worth over $100 today based on official inflation statistics.  (The coin itself, if preserved, would be worth much more than $100 as a collectible coin today.)  Perhaps that’s why the brewer only lasted seven years.

While we’re on the subject of beer and Wheeling, here’s another thing to ponder.  There were 20-some breweries in operation in the 1800s, making it a major brew-center of the United States at the time.  Today, none exist.

Justin Seibert

Justin Seibert is the President of Direct Online Marketing. He regularly speaks on search engine marketing, social media optimization, and online reputation management. Follow him on twitter. Why not check out the company on facebook while you're at it?

It’s Moving Day, it’s Moving Day
It’s Moving Day, it’s Moving Day-eyay
It’s not Pony Hooving Day
Today’s the day we move

Anyway, all our phone lines are getting switched.  We’re told there won’t be any interruption, but just in case, please make sure you use our 800.979.3177 line today if you need anything.  That definitely will work and we can transfer you to whomever you need.

Justin Seibert

Justin Seibert is the President of Direct Online Marketing. He regularly speaks on search engine marketing, social media optimization, and online reputation management. Follow him on twitter. Why not check out the company on facebook while you're at it?

For those of you not aware, I’ve been teaching internet marketing at West Liberty University, a local West Virginia university about 15 minutes north of Wheeling.  That’s the class where we did the Google Online Marketing Challenge, their group project.  Well they have one other project – each had to create, post to, and maintain a blog, using WordPress (the .com – not all students in class have a Web development background).

Honestly – and I shouldn’t say that because doesn’t that imply I’m not always honest? – I’ve been really impressed by a lot of the students.  Many have really taken to this and done some great things.  So, if you believe in education and the importance of understanding things like blogging and online reputation management by younger generations entering the workforce, please take the time to visit one or more of these blogs and leave encouraging feedback.  List after the jump.

There’s seriously some good stuff here – I’ve learned from them as well.  I’ve seen different styles of writing, new formatting techniques, uses of add-ons, and more just by watching them and following along.  Not to mention new subject matter for an old guy.  Without further ado, the list in alphabetical order:

Top 25 Student Blogs at West Liberty University

http://1minutephilosphy.wordpress.com

http://2010vehicles.wordpress.com/

http://andystech.wordpress.com

http://athomp3290.wordpress.com/

http://bmcgrawwlu.wordpress.com/

http://bottom5.wordpress.com

http://chaz540.wordpress.com

http://crummittandsonvaultcorp.wordpress.com

http://dailydoseofgoodquotes.wordpress.com/

http://drawingthings.wordpress.com

http://eddievargo.wordpress.com/

http://hatchetreview.wordpress.com/

http://holbsproductions.wordpress.com/

http://jriccadonna.wordpress.com

http://julie0831.wordpress.com

http://junebugbstby.wordpress.com

http://letsdocollege.wordpress.com

http://markledesign.wordpress.com

http://sahana5588.wordpress.com

http://sidcrosby87.wordpress.com

http://westlibkid83.wordpress.com

http://whitneyelyse.wordpress.com

http://www.flowstudios.net

http://zacksmusic.wordpress.com

Justin Seibert

Justin Seibert is the President of Direct Online Marketing. He regularly speaks on search engine marketing, social media optimization, and online reputation management. Follow him on twitter. Why not check out the company on facebook while you're at it?

Just when I thought I had said all I could say about the WVU eMBA scandal from an online reputation management perspective, I was sent a link to this article:

Interim WVU president has big goals — but don’t count on him blogging

Big thank you to Jason Keeling for sending out this article from the Charleston Daily Mail via twitter.  Oh and if you’re into that sort of thing, feel free to follow me on twitter.  We can discuss hopes and dreams 140 characters at a time.

The title’s a bit misleading, but good editors will sometimes do that to draw eyeballs.  That’s why this post was almost named “Naked Supermodels Bomb Panda Bear Orphanage.”

Here’s the money part to the article, emphasis mine:

Interim West Virginia University President C. Peter Magrath said he plans to focus heavily on [three items].

But don’t expect him to blog.Magrath’s predecessor, Mike Garrison, was the first WVU president to type out his thoughts about the university on a blog — jargon for “Web log.” The venture eventually ended up being a sounding board for his critics over the Heather Bresch scandal.

“I don’t believe in blogs,” said Magrath. “You get a lot of crap. A lot of stuff in the blogs really bothers me because it’s one of the things that’s hurting traditional mainstream journalism is that unqualified, untrained people suddenly start reporting on stuff and it starts getting legs and running.”

[Hits head off desk three times, takes advil, bangs head again.]

For a quick recap of the Heather Bresch scandal strictly from an online reputation management perspective, please see the following:

• Extreme Online Reputation Management: WVU, Mylan, & Governor’s Office Edition
• Update – WVU President Mike Garrison Emails Employees
• Governor Manchin Emails State RE: Daughter’s WVU MBA Scandal
  

Let’s do a quick recap with everything wrong here.  These are the comments I left on the article on the Daily Mail Web site along with some extra info since I’m not bound by a 1000 character limit here:

A couple common misconceptions in this article by both Mr. Anderson and President Magrath that are very, very common:

1. “The venture eventually ended up being a sounding board for his critics….”

   While technically accurate, this statement is misleading. People also defended President Garrison on his blog. He had an excellent opportunity to address his critics there, but waited too long to respond to the crisis and never responding to any commenters. He had people creating a conversation on his turf, but no involved parties were willing to making it a real conversation.  It’s sad to say, but I have had WVU officials agree with me that this will probably be a text book case on how not to respond to a crisis in today’s Web 2.0 world.

   Let me also be clear – having a blog was a good decision by Garrison, one he should be proud of.  It was the execution that was lacking.

2. “‘I don’t believe in blogs,’ said Magrath. ‘You get a lot of crap.’”

   I’m not going to be that guy that says, “What do you mean you don’t believe in blogs?  Do unicorns write them?”  A. I don’t want to demean President Magrath.  By all accounts he’s a really good pick by the WVU Board of Governors and I wish him all the success in the world.  B. That would be silly; unicorns would need gigantic keyboards to be able to type out a blog.

   The folks who attended the Next Generation Marketing series should already be light miming the words I’m about to type.  “Blogs” could be replaced in that sentence by any # of words. How many columnists, movies, songs…are truly good let alone great?  90% of everything is – in President Magrath’s words – “crap.”  Apologies to the fine folks over at firejoemorgan for stealing they’re analogy.  (Fair warning: don’t click that last link if profanity or sabremetrics offend you.)

3. “‘A lot of stuff in the blogs really bothers me because it’s…hurting traditional mainstream journalism is that unqualified, untrained people suddenly start reporting on stuff and it starts getting legs and running.”

   MSM has its place and is very valuable. And some blogging is done very dangerously and suffers from not having checks and balances. But on the whole, it has added to the discourse of our society.  Many important stories have only reached the public because of blogging.  Plus the traditional press has given light to many stories that should have stayed locked in a basement.

   Also, can we please put an end to this main stream media vs. blogging.  It’s just silly.  That’s like debating spaghetti vs. tacos.  They’re both awesome sometimes.  And sometimes really bad.

Here’s the main point I want to make, my flag in the ground if you will, which was also my flag in the ground at the Next Generation Marketing conference series this past spring:

The real question isn’t whether blogging is good or bad – it’s neither.  The conversation will happen.  The question is whether or not you want to join the conversation. It’s going to happen somewhere – why not take part and have your voice heard?

I sincerely wish President Magrath and everyone at WVU the best of luck in moving forward and representing our state proudly.

Frankly I’m not sure he should do a blog since he’s an interim president and has a lot of other work that needs to be fulfilled.  I just hope the next President will take President Garrison’s lead and bring the blog back to the office.

Justin Seibert

Justin Seibert is the President of Direct Online Marketing. He regularly speaks on search engine marketing, social media optimization, and online reputation management. Follow him on twitter. Why not check out the company on facebook while you're at it?

Background: TakeMeHomeOhioValley.com

Over a year ago our local economic development agency approached us about ways we could attract folks from the Ohio Valley that had moved away to come back. Local employers were having trouble filling good quality positions with skilled workers with previous relevant experience. In addition, companies were expressing an interest in moving here, but sometimes were held back by a lack of [fill in the blank] positions because of a lack of workers in the area with [fill in the blank] skills.

Our mission – to get a list of workers with various marketable skills that are currently in the area or would move back if the right job was available. Tuesday, our efforts finally saw the light of day and TakeMeHomeOhioValley.com was launched.

Early Results are In

It’s still early and we have a lot of features that will be added to the site over the coming weeks and months, including a blog (coming very, very soon), videos, pictures, and especially more employers and opportunities.

Update – A beta version of the WV Jobs blog is up now.  Check it out.

Even after less than 3 full days, the data is impressive if I do say so myself, which I do. [rummages in desk, finds horn, honks it]

Take a look at this map which I screenshotted, screenshot, took a picture of from Google Analytics with a little photoshop help and click on it to see a larger image with more information:

Takeaway #1: Measure your Web Site Traffic

There’s no reason today for you not to know how many people are hitting your site, where they’re coming from, what search phrases visitors are using and several other dozen statistics which may or may not be of importance to you.

If you don’t already have the ability to measure your traffic or aren’t getting the stats you need, go to Google Analytics and set up a free account with haste. The only possible downside to not doing it is if you have concerns that Google’s getting a little too Big Brother-ish (which would be valid, but that’s a subject for another post).

Google Analytics free, easy to use, quick to install via some code to add to your site, and remarkably robust for something that’s free. Big boys will use something more advanced like WebTrends and get even more information, but that’s going to cost you a little. If you do go that route, I suggest you contact Steve Colon. I also want to experiment with Microsoft’s new analytics software – still in beta – but haven’t and can’t report on it.

The bottom line – start getting analytic data today and read your reports regularly. Most services will allow you to choose just the information most valuable to you and have it emailed to you on a regular basis.

Takeaway #2: Buzz Like a Bee

Word-of-mouth is my favorite set of three words bound by hyphens.

Take a look at that picture of the United States again. That tells you where visitors to TakeMeHomeOhioValley.com have come from between noon on Tuesday and midnight Thursday. The darker the color, the more visitors. Obviously we’re getting the most traffic from Ohio, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania (in that order).

But if you look at the other states, you’ll notice many of them are some shade of green as well. In that span, we’ve had visitors from 35 states and the District of Columbia. There are only three states that don’t border any state that’s had someone visit the careers site and one of those is Alaska. Not only that, we’ve had real visitors (meaning not someone jumping on and off immediately) from other countries. Places like Germany, Belgium, Qatar, and Malaysia. Our Belgium friend comes from Mons and spent more than a half hour on the site looking at 14 different pages.

I’ll risk boring the non-numbers folks out there by providing just three more stats. In the first 60 hours, we’ve had

• 1,375 unique visitors
• 23,486 pageviews
• an average of 5:34 spent on the site by each visitor

Those numbers should pop out at you. But you know what’s really amazing? That’s without any advertising – not even search engine optimization or social networking yet. We did a press launch, which resulted in WTRF and WTOV running segments on their local news broadcasts and WKKX do a radio interview with me. Plus one of our educational partners, Wheeling Jesuit University, put a notice about it on their Web site. That’s it – nothing else.

That means all the traffic came through what we call the mom network around here. People who have seen their sons and daughters (or sisters, brothers, friends, cousins…) move away and still send them clips about the Ohio Valley.

So how did this become so viral so quickly (is that redundant?)? Not only is this news information about the Ohio Valley, it’s about ways residents can get their friends and loved ones to come home and ways those people can actually move home. There’s strong desire on both ends of the equation. When you can build content that people will have a deep emotional attachment or reaction to, there’s no limit to this ‘free’ advertising, which is often the best converting.

This emotional desire by both senders and recipients is why this careers site started getting listed in places like a WVU athletics forum that sends 177 people to the site within a matter of hours with posts like this:

new website takemehomeohiovalley.com just went live yesterday and

---

it is being used to promote jobs in the Northern Panhandle with the goal of bring bringing West Virginians back home. i am listening to the web designer on WKKX. eventually it will have a lot job listings. check it out. i know i will.

Thanks goxbyr, whoever you are.

Justin Seibert

Justin Seibert is the President of Direct Online Marketing. He regularly speaks on search engine marketing, social media optimization, and online reputation management. Follow him on twitter. Why not check out the company on facebook while you're at it?

First a little background – Jeff James of Mythology and I have been discussing for sometime about how we could attack negative stereotypes about West Virginia on a national and global basis. Actually part of it would just be creating a stereotype for West Virginia period. While we West Virginians worry that everyone thinks we’re just a bunch of dumb hillbillies (and some do certainly), the reality is that more people don’t recognize that we exist. We Mountaineers that have traveled will all be able to regale you with the same anecdote:

New Person: Where are you from?
West Virginian: West Virginia.
NP: I had a buddy from college that was from Norfolk.
WV: That’s Virginia. I’m from West Virginia.
NP: Western Virginia?
WV: No West Virginia. There was this thing called the Civil War – I don’t know if you’ve heard of it. We became our own state during that whole process. It’s kind of neat. We have our own capital (Charleston), state bird (cardinal), and everything.
NP: Oh.

While we were discussing what our next steps should be, a mutual friend came up with a pretty neat idea that he put into action. As part of West Virginia day, which celebrates our statehood, Jason Keeling of ABetterWestVirginia.com, decided to reach out to bloggers in the Mountain State. He has long written highlighted West Virginia’s good aspects and started discussions about what we can do to improve the state. Now he’s enlisting fellow bloggers to create and propagate new stereotypes for West Virginia. It’s all going on today, so I highly encourage you to check it out.

Now for my part.

Where the Young People Are

Let me start with my personal story because I think it is completely and utterly typical. I was born and raised in Wheeling, WV and went to college at Vanderbilt University. At that point, I had a choice to make – come back to West Virginia or go somewhere else. Actually, I made up my mind several years before, probably in high school. I heard there were no jobs so I never planned on living here after college, although I think I always hoped I could move back. So off I went to Los Angeles.

When my wife became pregnant for the second time in a very short span, we decided to get out of LA. We spent a good bit of time researching and visited several cities across the United States, including Denver, CO, Nashville, TN, and Raleigh, NC. We liked all of them, but decided to move to West Virginia with family considerations being the biggest driver (my folks still live here as do my brother, cousin, aunt, and uncle, with another aunt and uncle right across the border).

OVConnect: Young Professionals in the Upper Ohio Valley

When I moved back, it was important for my wife to meet people as she’s from California and had no previous ties to the area. The next year – now 2007 – a few of us got together and thought it would be nice if there were a young professionals group in the area. After a couple preliminary meetings we held an informal launch / get together with a minimum of publicity and a little bit of word-of-mouth.

70 people showed up to that first gathering. That number may not sound like a lot if you live in a larger metropolitan area, but if you’ve lived in a town / state that’s been in decline for 75 years and heard nothing but how all the young people have left because we have no jobs here (I’ll start debunking that myth next week after a major announcement on Tuesday), you’d be blown away. Many of us just kept walking around with that deer in headlights look muttering, “I never knew there were so many other young people like me in town,” to ourselves.

OVConnect was born.

Let me tell you some stories about people I’ve met or became reacquainted with through our young professionals group; last names withheld since I haven’t spoken about them regarding this post. Keep in mind that OVConnect has been putting on events for less than a year. Just off the top of my head:

• Bob. A young business person from Wheeling who was excited to finally have a way to meet people his age with similar interests. He’s never left the area.
• John and Nina. A young married couple with no connection to the area. Nina moved here for a job as an architect and John found work as a computer programmer in Wheeling. And even though they had no prior connection to here, I don’t know anyone that raves about Wheeling, WV more. Sometimes it takes someone with a history of living other places to recognize the good things that long-time residents may overlook.
• Sandy. A young attorney in town that moved here from Pittsburgh with her husband for work.
• Jason and Sarah. Jason’s from Wheeling; Sarah is from New York. They moved here from California with their young child. He took a job with a college in Ohio County and she’s able to telecommute for a job with the employer she had in the Bay Area.
• Matt and Sarah. Matt’s from St. Clairsville, OH and Sarah’s from Oregon. They moved to the Ohio Valley from Chicago. He’s working in a family business and she teaches at a high school.

I could literally spend the next several hours telling more stories like these. Of all the people above, the only person I knew previously was Jason. And with the exception of Bob, everyone else moved back here or moved here without a prior connection.

I eagerly await the next census to see the numbers for our area. From all the anecdotal evidence, it seems like we’re heading in the right direction. Now we’ll see what the numbers say.

Generation West Virginia: Young Professionals in the Mountain State

West Virginia’s a pretty tight-knit state of 1.8 million people. Around the time we were organizing, someone said we ought to get in touch with the folks at Generation West Virginia. This group, which officially launched a couple months ago in Morgantown, but has been functioning for over a year, serves as an umbrella organization for individual young professional groups in West Virginia.

What struck me in my first conversation with Paul Daugherty, the President of Generation WV, was that several other groups all formed the same way within a 2-year time frame all independently of one another. Folks just said, I’d like to meet and network with other people my age with similar interests. I know they have to be out there – now how do I find them?

Generation West Virginia is comprised of the following groups:

• Generation Charleston
• Generation Morgantown
• OVConnect (Wheeling, WV – St. Clairsville, OH – Washington, PA)
• Young Emerging Leaders of the Mid-Ohio Valley (Parkersburg, WV / Marietta, OH)
• Young Professional Committee of the Huntington Regional Chamber of Commerce
• Young Professionals of the Eastern Panhandle (Martinsburg)

One of the best things about being associated with Generation West Virginia and its member groups is that we all seem to come from an abundance mentality as opposed to the scarcity mentality that seems prevalent among many other generations of West Virginia.

It is my sincerest hope that we all begin to realize that if we create more opportunities, the pie will get bigger and everyone’s slice, though perhaps a smaller percentage of the pie than before, will actually contain more delicious banana cream goodness.

PS – If you’re reading this from a different part of West Virginia and you’re interested in forming your own group, get in touch with Generation West Virginia for some tips on how you can make that happen.

Summary

In closing this Tolstoy-esque post, there are two important thoughts I would like to leave you with:

1. West Virginia is again becoming a place where young people are choosing to live. Sometimes that means moving back, other times it’s a relocation, and sometimes it just means staying put. Job opportunities are increasing (again, check back next week) while the quality of life remains as great as it always has been. Plus, telecommuting’s a more realistic option than ever before.

We as a statewide community need to recognize that we do have a young professional class here that’s growing and ease back on the negativity that comes partially from a 75-year decline. And please – when you meet someone that says they moved here, do NOT ask “Why would you do that?” Otherwise I’ll send my buddy John after you to lecture you for three hours about why so many of us choose to do that.

2. Changing perceptions can only come at the grass roots level and best happen when you can replace old stereotypes with new ones. This little experiment beginning with ABetterWestVirginia.com can be continued by all of us, with just a little knowledge about how social media and search engines work. You don’t need to write a blog to participate; just have a little passion and devote some time in an educated, focused manner.

Also, I recognize that we have readers from several different parts of the country. Everything we’re talking about here in terms of changing stereotypes and managing reputations applies to you, too. I’ve rarely been to any place that didn’t have some sort of chip on their shoulder about why they’re a great place to live, yet doing so while carrying and pushing more negative stereotypes about their town than anyone from the outside ever would.

Big note to Pittsburgh readers – you’re among the worst in this category. You have a great town, so relax. I’ve lived and visited a lot of places, and very rarely have I ever heard anything negative about the Burgh. Yet when I talk to Pittsburghers or read your writers, it’s often defensiveness and negativity full speed ahead. Dejean, you get a free pass on the negativity, but not the defensiveness.

3. Bonus important thought. Wheeling and the Northern Panhandle are part of West Virginia. I just had another West Virginian remind me yesterday (I won’t embarrass you, but you know who you are) that he doesn’t think of it as part of the state. Similarly, my father-in-law was doing a job in Iraq a couple years back. When the project manager said she was from West Virginia, he said his son-in-law was from Wheeling. She said, “That’s not West Virginia.”

Justin Seibert

Justin Seibert is the President of Direct Online Marketing. He regularly speaks on search engine marketing, social media optimization, and online reputation management. Follow him on twitter. Why not check out the company on facebook while you're at it?

Now I’m convinced the higher ups at WVU and in West Virginia State government are reading my blog and attending our Next Generation Marketing conferences.

I’m not going to go through the whole spiel again, but be aware that this article is written in a non-biased fashion meant to take a deeper look at the Heather Bresch pr crisis from an academic standpoint. Careful readers should be able to learn several ways to combat their own bad press.

For organizations with robust search engine reputation management and online pr crisis response needs, please contact us to discuss your options and develop a plan. We accept checks and all major credit cards and operators are standing by. Plus, call within the next 15 minutes and receive a free genuine ginsu link building plan.

You must understand two things:

1. You cannot bury your head in the sand. The conversation will happen. The question is: do you want to join it?

2. It is a million times easier to respond to pr crises with a proper plan in place before the dynamite goes boom.

Paid Search in Online Reputation Management

In my first blog post on the WVU MBA degree scandal, I discussed the issue from an online reputation management standpoint. As an aside, I pointed out that WVU – through its Google AdWords content match search advertising program – was advertising its MBA degree on the very same online articles that announced the record keeping discrepancies and questioned how it would impact the value of MBA degrees at West Virginia University.

A couple days later the ad was gone.

Email Marketing to Reach Advocates

Also in that blog post – and in my “Engagement & Dialogue” sessions in Huntington and Charleston, I mentioned that the Governor has often used email marketing very effective and what a powerful tool it can be. With RichRod, I received an email within 4 hours of his announcement about leaving for Michigan. Yet, I received not one email on the issue of Heather Bresch’s MBA degree.

Until a few minutes ago. I’ve copied and pasted the full text at the bottom for you to read. You’d think with all this help, we’d have a new contract with the state by now.

So come join us in Morgantown this Thurday and find out what free advice I’ll be giving out next. Oh, and if you represent the State of West Virginia, Mylan Corporation, or West Virginia University, please feel free to give me a call. I’ll set aside 3 ginsu link building sets in the meantime.

Note bene: Wrong – at least on the WVU front. They’re still advertising there. I may call some of my WVU contacts.

Click on the picture to open up a larger version you can actually read.

Copy of Governor Manchin’s Email

——– Original Message ——–

May 19, 2008

STATEMENT FROM THE GOVERNOR
REGARDING CONTINUING DISCUSSION
OF WVU E-MBA DEGREE REPORT

Contact: Lara Ramsburg, 304-558-2000

CHARLESTON, W.Va. – Gov. Joe Manchin today released the following statement about the continuing discussions regarding the report from the independent panel examining the E-MBA program and his daughter’s degree at West Virginia University.

“As a father, I must admit that I was hoping that the controversy surrounding my daughter’s E-MBA coursework at WVU would eventually resolve itself and subside. However, as a Governor, I recognize that is not realistic.

“In both roles, it has been extremely difficult for me to watch this controversy unfold. As governor, my natural instinct in a crisis is to do my very best to dive in and help bring all sides together to find a resolution. However, because of my family’s involvement in this particular situation, I feel that this is one time in which I am not in a position to follow that instinct, because it is likely that one side or the other would be inclined to question my ability to remain objective.

“WVU holds a special place in the hearts of both Gayle and I not only because we are proud graduates of WVU, but because it is also the place where we met, fell in love and started our family. From our perspective, this controversy all started because our daughter sincerely believed that she had her degree, because of a meeting that everyone admits took place with the program’s director in 1998, and when she contacted the university last year, she was simply asking them to find the records that she believed would confirm that.

“Had they told her that after looking through their records they didn’t have the proper documentation on file, we honestly believe that while she may not have liked that answer, she would have accepted it and moved on with her life.

“At no time would she have asked anyone to either ‘guess’ as to her records or to fabricate grades on those records. As a result, Gayle and I are both angry, in particular, at the fabrication of grades that took place, because it unfairly damages our daughter’s reputation as much as it does the University’s. It was absolutely wrong and, in my mind, completely unacceptable.

“Although I remain confident in President Garrison’s ability to follow the recommendations of the independent panel’s report, I am also fully aware of the concerns that have been raised by the faculty, staff, students and alumni of WVU and recognize that they must be addressed in some meaningful manner. WVU needs to find a way to begin to heal the wounds that have been created over these last few weeks, and it will take all parties working together to achieve that goal.

“To that end, I have seen it stated many times by individuals and the press that because I appointed certain members of the Board of Governors, they must be following my orders as to what to think and say regarding President Garrison and the independent panel’s report. This simply is not true.

“The Board of Governors is made up of extremely bright and accomplished people who were not given this responsibility lightly and who I trust to do the job assigned to them to the best of their abilities. While many members are appointed by a governor, they do not serve at the will and pleasure of a governor. They may act as they wish during their four-year terms as long as it is within legal and ethical reason.

“Therefore, the WVU Board of Governors members are not under my control and remain free, as they always have been, to make their own individual and collective decisions on this or any other situation. As I said previously, I am not in a position to make a recommendation to them in this instance even if I wanted to because, regardless of what it might be, it would not be viewed as being made objectively – and I absolutely understand and accept that.

“As a result, I consider this matter one that should be decided by the members of the Board of Governors based upon their own insights and beliefs and information, and as governor, I will continue to support whatever direction they believe is in the best interests of WVU both now and in the future.”

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Justin Seibert

Justin Seibert is the President of Direct Online Marketing. He regularly speaks on search engine marketing, social media optimization, and online reputation management. Follow him on twitter. Why not check out the company on facebook while you're at it?

I really want to do a post on the subject – if only there were some really big public scandal involving reputations being changed on the internet that involved West Virginia and the Pittsburgh, PA area. Hmmm. Let’s see. [shuffles through piles of old newspapers by desk - who needs the internet?]

Oh that’s right – how about Heather Bresch? Do a search on her name, particularly a news search, and see what you come up with. For those readers either too lazy to do the search or too enthralled with my hypnotic musings (read: put you in a catatonic state), it comes down to the following:

Ms. Bresch was promoted to Chief Operating Officer of Mylan, Incorporated in October 2007. In doing some fact checking for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, a reporter named Patricia Sabatini called West Virginia University to verify that Ms. Bresch had received her Masters of Business Administration there. WVU could not find any record of it.

The pieces of information that have the makings of a good scandal, but may or may not actually mean anything include: Ms. Bresch is the daughter of Governor Joe Manchin; she has previous dealings with WVU President Mike Garrison; and Mylan’s head is WVU’s largest benefactor.

Fast forward two seasons.

Last week WVU rescinded her degree, which was recognized / awarded last fall after the initial story broke. Two top WVU administrators, College of Business and Economics Dean R. Stephen Sears and Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Gerald E. Lang resigned today. Additional fallout in one form or another is likely.

Ground Rules

Now before I move any further, let me clue you in on some ground rules I laid out for myself:

1. I am going to write this without any bias or come as close as I possibly can. West Virginia is a very close-knit state, or as Mary Hunt-Lieving recently told a group of young professionals at the Generation West Virginia launch party, in West Virginia, it’s not six degrees of separation, it’s two. Therefore I’m going to stay out of this as best as possible even though I know folks involved with this issue and these institutions. And I fully expect at least one of my friends to call me names for doing so.

It also means, no super cool photoshopped pictures that cost me an hour’s worth of time and add little to the post. I was thinking based on the title of a “Extreme Home Makeover” collage with some of the principal players and Ty Pennington. Either that or an X Games theme with lots of Mountain Dew and maybe the idiot bullies from Harold and Kumar go to White Castle (please don’t ask why I saw that).

Having said that, feel free to comment however you think appropriate.

2. No linking to any reports or stories for this article. You read what’s out there – there’s no shortage of material – and come to your own conclusion.

3. I am going to write about this strictly from an online reputation management perspective.

Okay, with those rules set, let’s look at what happened.

The Ostrich Approach

When the story originally, broke, it led to several internal meetings, but – for the most part – no comment for the press or any real proactive response.

In the old days, that was fine. Think about it – it’s pretty much just a West Virginia story. About the only paper that picked it up in any sort of negative way (from WVU’s and Ms. Bresch’s perspectives – correct me if I’m wrong) until recently was the paper that broke the story: the Post-Gazette. Since the paper’s in Pittsburgh, not that many folks in WV would have the paper delivered. Stick your head in the sand for six months and when you pull it back up, the story’s probably gone away.

But in today’s age, anyone can access that original expose piece and all in the series that followed it online. So whether you live in the hollers of southern West Virginia, the hills of the Eastern Panhandle, or anywhere else across the state, as long as you had an internet connection, you could read those stories (and not have to pay the two quarters to boot).

And not just West Virginia, either. With national exposure from multiple stories in papers like the New York Times, this issue will likely start getting major mainstream national press.

Basic Online Reputation Management Techniques Avoided

While some things can still be done, all parties facing the reputation attack – WVU’s President Mike Garrison and various administrators, Mylan, Ms. Bresch, and Governor Joe Manchin (let’s call them Team West Virginia since that’s a lot to type; the Post-Gazette can be Team Pittsburgh for a sort of a Back Yard PRawl – get it, that’s Brawl, but with a PR instead. Sorry no ban on bad puns in my ground rules) – really missed the boat on some things that could have been done from the beginning. Wow, was that really just one sentence?

Instead they did virtually nothing. For example:

1. WVU President Mike Garrison has a blog. This is a very forward thinking strategy for advancing the ideals of the University and I applaud him for it. This would have been the ideal place to join the conversation and discuss the matter. Discuss what? I don’t care – just something. It could be something like, “we take this very seriously…we’re looking into…have an independent investigation….” Get people looking to your blog for information. Make it show up in the search engines. Otherwise, it will be mostly the things that are negative from Team West Virginia’s perspective.

Instead, the first post about the subject did not appear until April 24th. And on that post, there are two dozen almost universally negative comments that were posted…but not one response in the comments from Mr. Garrison. You made the good first step of writing about it, sir. Now just follow up and respond directly.

Update: Read Mr. Garrison’s email to WVU employees.

2. Governor Joe Manchin sends out emails frequently on everything from business reports to news on our military personnel. What an incredible tool for communicating directly with the people! Within three hours of WVU football coach Rich Rodriguez leaving for Michigan, the Governor emailed the State. Yet, to date not one email has been sent out about this issue, and as far as I can tell, only one quote on the subject has been given to the press.

3. Mylan, Incorporated offers its Web site visitors email alerts and houses an entire media center, but it has repeatedly offered no comment on the subject. It’s only change was removing the MBA information from her site bio. Ms. Bresch herself has only spoken with the press twice and neither time with the paper investigating her situation.

Bottom line, folks should have joined the conversation at the beginning or at least much earlier than they did.

Advanced Methods of Online Reputation Management

Beyond just getting in the game and utilizing some of the tools already at their disposal, Team West Virginia should have gone on the attack early. Issued press releases, written about it on their sites, given interviews. But, like many, many companies these days, they didn’t do anything until after the crisis had peaked.

So much more could have been done in concert with whatever internal discussions, investigations, and changes occurred, such as:

1. Run some paid search campaigns. Think people are searching for “Bresch” right now on the search engines? Go to Google Trends and see the spikes in traffic.

Related to this, be careful how you’re advertising. The Post-Gazette runs Google content ads on its site. When looking up one of the old articles today, I saw this:

It’s possible you can’t read that because I had to shrink it down. In case you can’t, WVU is advertising MBA degrees for its Integrated Marketing Communications on this story entitled, “MBA mystery in Morgantown:Questions raised over how WVU granted Mylan executive her degree.”

2. You have WVU fans and friends of all involved individuals out there. Encourage them to go out and post / comment on sites and blogs. Tell people to be patient, that they know these people and they’re good folks. Whatever they’re comfortable saying.

3. Get aggressive – start a Web site on just this subject. Nothing else. Address it head on.

4. Help other folks writing good things (or neutral, or nothing at all, but related to the material) optimize their sites through search engine optimization. Get everything else pushed down in the news.

Conclusion

Those are just a few of the things that should have been done and some that could still be done even in this late stage. Dozens of other tactics exist. You just need a good plan and good execution – come to think of it, I can think of a local West Virginia firm close to Pittsburgh that specializes in online reputation management and I hear they’re taking on clients.

Or if you just want to learn more about joining the conversation, check out the Next Generation Marketing executive series, coming to a West Virginia town near you.

Final note bene: I really want all of this to be accurate. If I missed anything or misstated anything, please let me know and I’ll do a quick update. Please send links if possible so I can verify.

Justin Seibert

Justin Seibert is the President of Direct Online Marketing. He regularly speaks on search engine marketing, social media optimization, and online reputation management. Follow him on twitter. Why not check out the company on facebook while you're at it?

For those of you not aware of the term “embargo,” I can empathize. The first time I sent out a press release, I had no idea what I was doing. More often than not in life, I have learned via trial by fire, which makes for a toasty, charred backside. By dumb luck, persistence, or some combination, I got an actual editor from a real publication (Time?) on the phone. I explained to her that we had a press release coming out and I wanted to give her early notice, but that they could not yet print anything. She said, “You mean it’s embargoed?”

Well, I had two choices: 1. bs my way through it. This probably could have easily been done, since her tone clearly indicated an affirmative response was appropriate. Or 2. say “huh?”, tip my head to the side, and let her hear the rocks fall out and hit the floor.

Of course I chose #2! “I’m kind of embarrassed, but this is my first time doing anything like this and I don’t know what that means.” She then very politely explained to me that “embargoing” a press release means floating it out there to news editors (or these days, bloggers) so they could have advance notice to do a story before the general public gets wind, but that they can’t actually release any stories until a certain date. And then she wrote the most beautiful story about my press release and asked if she could be the future Mrs. Seibert.

All of that is true except for the last sentence. She didn’t take my follow up call and probably laughed with her friends about the rube she just got off the phone with. Or I think too much of myself, she forgot about the call as soon as she hung up, and went about her day. Just like Second Thoughts (Anyone know where I can find this video online?).

West Virginia Marketing Series

So back to my current news. Some partners and I are putting on a pretty progressive executive marketing workshop series around West Virginia this spring all over the state: up North in Wheeling and Morgantown, in the eastern Panhandle in Martinsburg, and on down to Charleston and Huntington.

Among the techniques discussed will be search engine reputation management, blogging, social media, and a lot of other forms of marketing and client relation tactics. We have some special guest speakers lined up and a really solid day, complete with live feedback on the marketing efforts of people in our audience. I’m sure I’ll speak about this more over the coming days, but in the meantime, check out the site to learn more: Next Generation Marketing.

Oh, and if you’re reading this post, Time reporter…call me. Please? I just want to know what I did wrong. Like you’re so good. Who needs you anyway? Not me. No sir, not Justin Seibert. I’m doing just fine. (Seriously, I’m here for you – call, email, twitter, smoke signal.)

Justin Seibert

Justin Seibert is the President of Direct Online Marketing. He regularly speaks on search engine marketing, social media optimization, and online reputation management. Follow him on twitter. Why not check out the company on facebook while you're at it?