Again, this is going to be very brief.  I didn’t have time for a longer post and didn’t want this to become stale.  You should see the terrific post I had going for how Herman Cain was handling online reputation management…and then he dropped out before I could finish and post.

Quick Beginner Notes on How Google AdWords Works

For those of you not intimately familiar with paid search marketing, a couple important notes that can be difficult to grasp:

1. Ads don’t necessarily display all the time.  With Google AdWords – and Microsoft adCenter for that matter – you may be advertising on a particular keyword, but not see your ad.  This can happen for a variety of reasons, but one of the most common is due to budget.  Usually you’ll set your account spend to be spread out evenly throughout the day, meaning that if you can only afford 100 clicks and Google estimates you’d get 150 if they ran you full force, you may only see your ad 2 out of every 3 times you check.*  To counteract this, I did run test searches multiple times, but that doesn’t mean I saw everything.
2. These are New Hampshire results.  Using Google’s Ad Preview Tool, I pulled searches specifically in the state of New Hampshire.  It’s possible candidates are targeting just certain districts (as we’re familiar with from running political search marketing campaigns).  So, if they only care about a particular part of NH for whatever reason, they could just be targeting that region and I wouldn’t be seeing their ads.  Also, the Preview Tool doesn’t let you open up links – I’d normally comment about landing pages as well.

   Update: Assuming he’s using the same tactics in NH as he is across the US, give Romney’s team credit.  Their landing pages are taking people to a donation page.  Click here to see (I stripped the extra tracking parameters from the url).

* Advertisers should also use Google’s Ad Preview Tool to weed out any personalization effects of search.

2012 NH Primary Search Engine Marketing

Alright, here we go.  In the interest of time, I ran only on exact candidate names (first name, last name) and just a couple phrases pulled completely at random.  Any proper AdWords campaign concerned with anything other than branding will have much larger lists of keywords.

The following is the search term and who I could see advertising on them, in order of Iowa results for candidates.  I’m including Michele Bachmann even though she ended her campaign just now because…well I already did the searches.

Update: Now two days after the primary, some more sites are cashing in.  New advertisers noted in green to distinguish.

• Mitt Romney: himself, followthemoney.com on a couple searches, then CSPAN later, then finally Rock the Vote. Now add gopmall.com.
• Rick Santorum: none the first day.  Now people jumping on board: Rock the Vote and livefreeordiealliance.com.
• Ron Paul: therealnews.com a couple times.  Later the Endorse Liberty YouTube channel (youtube.com/EndorseLiberty). BTW – did you notice the YouTube layout changes Google stealthily made over the holidays?
• Newt Gingrich: himself (newtgingrich360.com).  And now a new one, also from Gingrich – the awesomely named newthampshire.com.
• Rick Perry: followthemoney.com
• Michele Bachmann: followthemoney.com, Minnesota Public Radio (minnesota.publicradio.org).  Later CSPAN.  Now,the Endorse Liberty YouTube channel – seems like odd timing.
• Jon Huntsman: followthemoney.com

Takeaways

Here are a few things I found interesting, in no particular order:

• Interesting that in most cases the ads were showing at the bottom of the page, rather than the top where Google was showing Iowa Republican Caucus results in most cases (its own, bug with credit given to AP) along with news results and sometimes image results.  Speaking of which, some of these candidates are just getting destroyed still by Googlebombing image results.  Unless, of course, the Newt Gingrich photo of him posing in tinfoil hat with Nazi flag is an official campaign photo that I’m not aware of.
• Mitt was going strong earlier this morning, but now I’m having trouble triggering his ads at all.  Maybe he ran out of money in that campaign due to higher search volumes?
• Interesting how CSPAN has jumped into this advertising so heavily this afternoon.  They must be paying a pretty penny.
• 

  "Really, guys? C'mon!"

  No love for Rick Santorum?  Seriously?  The guy lost by 8 votes, which I can, like, count on my hands.  Quality Score issues aside, isn’t there an entrepreneur out there that can take advantage of the lack of competition and make some money here? Photo Credit: AP Photo/Eric Gay.

• Although, CSPAN surely hasn’t paid as much as followthemoney.org.  Fortunately for them, they’re paying only on a per click basis and not per impression.  (This assumes they’re not doing cost per acquisition bidding, which should be a safe assumption).  Curious why they’re not on all the candidates – would love to know if that’s a budget issue, oversight, part of their plan based on who they think has a shot at winning, or other.
• I know it’s early with Iowa just wrapping, but really surprised not to see more PACs there.
• Equally if not more surprised the political campaigns aren’t advertising on their opponents’ names.  Perhaps there’s a gentleman’s / woman’s agreement as being part of the party?  You wouldn’t guess it by some of the talk by the candidates themselves.

What stood out to you?

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?

Among the topics covered were optimizing sites for branded searches, facebook, portfolio sites, and Google Tags.  Per the audience’s request, we specifically discussed reputation management for politicians and students.   We even talked about our old friend and favorite ORM example, Lois Feldman.

Enjoy.

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?

Don’t get your dander up.  I realize Daily Kos is a very polarizing site and evokes visceral reactions on both sides of the equation.  We’re going to keep this right in the center of the teeter-totter.  The closest thing to saying something that could be perceived negative to one side that you might read in this post is that Democrats got into the internet marketing game sooner than Republicans, who mostly do now realize what online marketing can offer.

So if you want to learn more about how PACs, campaigns, and other organizations are trying to influence the 2010 midterm elections AND you promise to not attach nonexistent persuasions onto this post, continue reading. 

The article from the Daily Kos is a touch long, but well worth a read if you’re interested in either politics or SEO or both.  If that’s you, click here.  Otherwise, here’s an excerpt:

Campaign Goal and Theory
The goal of Grassroots SEO is to get as many undecided voters as possible to read the most damaging news article about the Republican candidate for Congress in their district. It is based on two simple premises:

1. One of the most common political activities people take online is to use search engines, mainly Google, to find information on candidates. (For more information, see the Pew Internet and American Life Project’s report on 2008 online political engagement.)
2. These results of these searches are always in flux based upon hyperlinks anyone posts anywhere on the Internet, including message board comments and social networking sites (but not email).

As a result of this, not only is it possible for us to use our hyperlinks to impact what people find when they search for information on candidates, but we would be foolish not to do so in a way that benefited our preferred candidates. We are already impacting search engine rankings whenever we post any hyperlink anywhere, so we need to make sure the way we use hyperlinks helps result in our preferred political outcomes.

When we did a Grassroots SEO campaign in 2006, we reached over 700,000 voters in 50 key congressional campaigns in the final two weeks of that midterm election.

The site then goes onto tell its readers how to identify the most damaging articles (and those that make it easier to promote to the top of the organic rankings) and provides an email address for where they can be submitted.  From there, Daily Kos will handle the rest in pushing those articles to the top of searches for candidate names in midterm races throughout the country.

There are a few major takeaways here:

1. Online Reputation Management Paramount.  Protecting your online reputation through owning the SERPs (search engine results) is paramount.  Start early.  If you’re even thinking about ever running for office (and even if you’re not, there are plenty of good reasons to), buy a domain with your name and put up some content / redirect it to your LinkedIn profile, and get as much exposure as you can now through social media properties.  SEO usually takes time, so it’s easier to do when you own a lot of the SERPs already.  There are people you’ve never met that will seek to tear you down just because of the letter next to your name.
2. Don’t Forget about Paid Search.  If you get caught behind (and really – you should be doing any way), don’t forget about buying your own name in Google AdWords and Microsoft adCenter.  Tailor the copy to the search query in question and answer negative claims if necessary.  And if you’re like most campaigns and PACs we know, you’ll probably be even more interested in buying your opponent’s name.
3. Empower Your Fans.  Whether you’re a campaign, political organization, business, or organization, you have a lot of people in your camp who like you.  Empower them.  Give them an action plan.  Tell them how they can help.  No candidate is an island.
4. Left Leading Right in Political SEO.  Liberals are still outpacing conservatives on search engine marketing.  They’re both doing it now, some campaigns and PACs on both sides extremely well.  But the fact that there’s a well-found mechanism like this already in place on the left side says they’re more organized to use individuals across the nation.  I know the GOP and other parties are making similar efforts before and in response to this article, but they’re not as coordinated on this front.  (If anyone has evidence to the contrary, please speak up in the comments.)

Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t give a quick plug about our own political search engine marketing offerings.   It’s not too late.  If you’re running a campaign or a PAC and want to learn more about raising funds and increasing name recognition to get your candidate elected on November 2, give us a call at 800.979.3177.

We can get some campaigns up within hours of receiving payment and can get your ads hundreds of thousands or millions of impressions on everything from local newspaper sites to sports sites and everything in between for just pennies on the dollar.  The reach you get costs just a fraction of what you’ll pay for tv and radio.

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?

With that, let’s take a fairly extensive look into what the candidates are doing today in their paid search campaigns, shall we?

Before we go any further, check out Manny Marrero’s (aka Steaprok)’s excellent post on online marketing throughout this election season (hat tip: Brett D. Payne).  Do not pass go.  Do not collect $200.

Update: Also check the very bottom of this post for a list of articles related to internet marketing and the 2008 Presidential election.  I’ll update as I find them.

It’s a very thorough post on how both John McCain and Barack Obama have implemented internet marketing strategies and where each is strongest and weakest.  Pertinent to this post are the following:

• Going back to February 2007, the candidates had already spent well over $7 million in online advertising by September, not counting search.  Let’s overestimate what they probably spent and say the total figure with search is $9 million.  Pretty impressive, except that $9 million would represent only about 3% of their overall ad spending.  Problem is, US advertisers in general spend about 7% of their budget online.
• Update: Borrell Associates pegs the 2008 political advertising pie slice devoted to online marketing at only 1% (although that’s for everyone, not just the Presidential candidates).
• Both candidates are using some paid search best practices, including using multiple ad copies and landing pages specific to their keywords.
• McCain is spending a lot more and generally doing better on the pay per click side (even on Obama-related terms); Obama much better on the natural listings / seo side.
• Search volume is heavier for keywords with “Obama,” but many of those searches are not necessarily pro-Obama searches (the 4th most searched for term, for example is “Barack Obama birth certificate.”

Paid Search Political Advertising on Election Day

With that background, let’s take a look at today’s paid search landscape (methodology / ranking system at bottom – it’s a doozy!)*.  Keep in mind that this is a snapshot and not necessarily indicative of the candidates’ paid search campaigns over the last few months.  But if you’re not going full bore today for whatever reason and running til the coffers are empty, I have no sympathy for you.

So let’s go.  By coin flip (seriously, we did one), Obama’s up first:

How Obama Ranks for Paid Search Marketing

Anti-Obama Search Terms: 19.5
- Barack Obama birth certificate
- Bill Ayres and Barack Obama
- is Barack Obama Muslim

McCain-Neutral Search Terms: 5
- John McCain
- all about John McCain
- John McCain’s views

Anti-McCain Search Terms: 1.5
- McCain old man
- McCain Bush
- McCain oil

Issues Pro-Obama Search Terms: 0
- Iraq war end
- affordable health care
- alternative energy

Issues Pro-McCain Search Terms: 0
- spread the wealth
- government spending
- offshore drilling

Deductions: -3
For not keeping budgets high enough on election day.  See Methodology #11

Total Paid Search Score for Barack Obama: 23

Of special interest: The DNC did a pretty nice ad / landing page / campaign just for Pennsylvania – thought it was a nice way to show “politics is local.”  Only saw it one place for Obama and nowhere for McCain.  Also, Obama does some really great Fight the Smears advertising – goes to the same Web site (well, subdomain now) that I wrote about before.  In this area, he does a really great job of matching up keyword, landing page, and ad text.

How McCain Ranks for Paid Search Marketing

Anti-McCain Search Terms: 10.5
- McCain old man
- McCain Bush
- McCain oil

Obama-Neutral Search Terms: 14
- Barack Obama
- Barack Obama biography
- facts about Barack Obama

Anti-Obama Search Terms: 5.5
- Barack Obama birth certificate
- Bill Ayres and Barack Obama
- is Barack Obama Muslim

Issues Pro-McCain Search Terms: 10.5
- spread the wealth
- government spending
- offshore drilling

Issues Pro-Obama Search Terms: 4.5
- Iraq war end
- affordable health care
- alternative energy

Deductions: 0

Total Paid Search Score for John McCain:45

Of special interest: McCain seems to run a much more robust campaign, especially on Microsoft adCenter and especially on terms related to his opponent.  Obama is not invisible, but very hard to find on terms related to McCain, generally.

And 2008 Presidential Winner is…

John McCain by a score of 45 to 23. Now go out there and vote if you haven’t already!

I’ll go ahead and put a wager out that these numbers will be much higher on both sides in 2012.  Any takers?

And a final note – boy is Yahoo! the biggest loser in this race.  I didn’t see any official McCain advertising and very little by Obama / related groups or the GOP.

* Methodology

I wouldn’t get an A in my sociology courses (yes, I graduated from Vanderbilt University with the ‘athlete’s degree’) for experimentation, but this isn’t exactly flying by the seat of my pants either.  Here’s my madness’ method:

1. I’m in West Virginia, although sometimes my ip address gets read as Ohio (here’s Wheeling on a map – an hour from Pittsburgh, it’s situated across the river from OH and 15 minutes from PA).  Most pundits think West Virginia is not in play, so I’m going to trick Google AdWords into thinking I’m from Pennsylvania for my searches.  If the candidates are doing any geo-targeting, surely they’re putting dollars there.
2. For Obama, I’ll pick three terms that seem anti-Obama, McCain-neutral, anti-McCain, issues based (pro-Obama) and issues based (pro-McCain).  Then I’ll do the equivalent for McCain.
3. If you disagree with the issues based terms I have, let me know.  I’d love to know what I should have used.  Just don’t accuse me of being for one side or the other – I tried to pick stuff that was highlighted by the candidate or his opponent in debates and advertising.  Obviously some of these could have been put on the other side or not selected at all.
4. A case could be made that it’s inappropriate for candidates to advertise on certain (but not all) anti-opponent terms like “is Barack Obama Muslim” and “McCain old man”.  Because of that, I’m devaluing their listings by 50% of whatever the normal total would be.
5. Not doing any positive terms for either candidate or any neutral terms for that candidate.  Why?  They may still be advertising on those terms, but that seems like wasted money to me so I’m not going to knock a guy for not advertising on them.  That approach was more appropriate during the primaries.
6. Will rate each candidate on the following:
   • 1 point for having a listing in each of the three major search engines (extra point if #1, extra half-point if #2 or #3)
   • 1 point for having ad text related to the term (may deduct or add half a point at my discretion depending on keyword insertion tool usage and manual ad copy)
   • 1 point for a landing page specific to the keyword
   • Bonus points available for useful features on a landing page such as voting booth locations, ability to donate, etc.
7. I’m checking all three major search engines for ad listings, but not going to go through and check each one’s ad copy, destination urls, etc.  That’s just too much time.  So I’ll only use Google AdWords for the digging deeper parts of the point scale.
8. No bonus points for having multiple sites listed, and for the purposes of this report, a site that either the party or another clearly pro-candidate entity puts out will count for that candidate.
9. The results are probably a little skewed by the fact that someone might be doing a broad match and show up for all keywords that contain a candidate’s name, but A. the candidates should probably be doing this anyway, so shame on them if they’re not, and B. I’m hoping this gets tempered somewhat by whether they took the time to do related ad copy and landing pages.
10. Would like to rank based on testing and some other pay per click best practices, but the campaigns didn’t give me their passwords to dive in and check.
11. I only made one manual adjustment and that was deducting 3 points from Barack’s overall score.  The reason is that his ads were showing up only part of the time.  I know that could do some with how Google displays searches to me specifically, but my experience leads me to believe it’s more to do with how their budgets are set.  Not running full steam on election day merits a deduction.
12. Tried very hard not to do double dipping, e.g. giving bonus points out for the same landing page used for different terms.

That’s it.  Let me know what I missed or give any feedback below.

Suggested Reading:

• Barack Obama & John Mccain: A 2008 Presidential Election Search and Social Marketing Analysis
• Finally an Example of being Proactive in Online Reputation Management Courtesy of Obama
• McCain Seems To Have Obama Beat in One Arena
• Obama Makes Money, McCain Ignites Issues With Internet Marketing
• Like Pig Fat Slinging Mud
• Piggybacking on Election Day publicity
• Sarah Palin Most Searched For Term on Internet Since Al Gore Invented It
• Are you a John M(a)cCain or a (P)PC Guy?
• McCain’s Paid Search Marketing Campaign Still A Mystery To “Experts”
• The keywords John McCain and Barack Obama are buying on Google
• Obama Vs. McCain: Paid Search Keywords
• Sponsored-link ads on Internet play campaign role

The list above contains a few from our blog, but that has more to do with me reading all of our posts.  What else am I missing that’s deserving of some linky goodness?

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?

Pig fat – great for indoor or outdoor use!

Anyway, me and Steph were sat at our table sipping our sodas, when the owner – some ancient native Magyar woman who probably arrived some time after the 1956 Hungarian Revolution – waltzed over and started gently stroking Steph’s cheek with the knuckle of her right index finger proclaiming what a pretty thing she was. Perhaps a touch odd, but nothing too bizarre considering Hungarian women aren’t known for their reticence and the influence of America may have emboldened her in not being backward at coming forward.

In the same breath she turned her still crooked finger towards me and asked Steph, “Who’s this, your father?”

I tried to smile politely, but soon turned quite a shade of pink ham as Steph let her know that I was in fact her husband.

The look on the Gypsy interrogator’s face will forever be burned into my mind’s eye as an expression of disbelief on the first take made way for revulsion on the second. You could tell that her general busy-bodyness was getting the better of her as confusion began to reign and meddle with her mind as she obviously pondered getting out while the going was bad or really digging herself into some cesspit.

But, she did what every Hungarian woman I’ve ever met would do and felt the need to comment just a little bit more. In order to qualify what in her mind must’ve been the type of relationship she felt ought to see me put on some sex offenders’ register, she managed to pluck up enough fake decency to say that it didn’t really matter so long as I looked after her.

The day had already beaten me. This could wound no more.

And as we discuss the dirty-old-man-with-woman-young-enough-to-be-his-daughter dynamic, thoughts move swiftly to John McCain. Or, to be more precise, the Obama campaign’s launching of their own mud pie yesterday – the Keating 5 Scandal Video and accompanying mini-site.

In microcosm, this is a perfect example of how to launch something like this online.

Essentially, from a search perspective, they’ve done a simple one, two. Not only is it nearly impossible to start ranking for organic searches as soon as you launch a site, it’s even trickier if you don’t know exactly when, if ever, you intend to launch said site. (However, they do rank #1 for the term ‘keating economics’ which is the keyword phrase contained within the URL.)

So, let’s look at what happens when you do a search for Keating five in Google.

First up after the news results, you’ll see the Wikipedia entry which somebody has edited to add a link and explanation to another Wikipedia entry about Keating economics – the name of the Website being www.keatingeconomics.com – that in turn talks about the scandal and links to the site itself.

The Obama campaign has also bought PPC keywords related to the scandal, which are going to be dirt cheap considering they’re the only ones bidding on them. Take a look at the search link again and you’ll see the sponsored link sat atop everything else.

So there you go, you’ve cornered the top informational organic query by proxy while you’re paying a pittance for your PPC.

Easy. Although, it might be an idea for somebody to explain to McCain’s campaign that a bit of online reputation management wouldn’t go amiss. You know, a counter video with your own take on events and buying the same keywords to show up in the sponsored results and adding a paragraph or two on Wikipedia.

Even if it is just a video of Sarah Palin winking. The base should love it.

Paul Woodhouse

Paul looks after the SEO side of things here at Direct Online Marketing as well as trying to work out the best social media strategies for our clients.

Now here’s the closest thing I could find to a pitbull wearing lipstick, and probably a reminder why you don’t leave pooches alone with your make-up bag. I mean, it’s the wrong color for its fur-tone and everything.

Although I did find this chavette pikey pic of a pitbull wearing a hoodie languishing in Google’s image search:

I shall avoid any political reference to Ms. Palin, and I’m only mentioning her at all to point out that since she’s been plucked from relative obscurity last week, she’s (to quote fivethirtyeight.com) generated more US-based internet search traffic than Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Michael Phelps and Barack Obama combined:

[link]

Yes, ironic isn’t it.

Anyway, you can go and play around with Google Trends and put in the names of you and your competitors to see who has that certain flavor of the month edge. Or you can throw some keywords related to your business or industry and see which are generating more buzz than a beekeepers convention.

Chances are, you’ll be flatlining in comparison to Jerry Springer+Palin.

Paul Woodhouse

Paul looks after the SEO side of things here at Direct Online Marketing as well as trying to work out the best social media strategies for our clients.

Friends, you’ve already lost control.

Blogging and Control

I’m not going to delve into a larger discussion of online reputation management in this post since I’ve covered it a lot recently.  Instead I want to focus on one specific idea: commenting.

Note bene: I don’t think all blogs need to allow comments.  The Direct Online Marketing Blog didn’t at first.  But way more often than not, you get a better, richer experience for everyone when you allow your readers to contribute.

The thing to keep in mind is that the conversation will happen somewhere.  The only question is: Do you want your Web site / blog to be a part of that conversation – a place where you have great influence and some minor degree of control (e.g. using the bully pulpit in choosing what topics to write about, which comments to expound upon)?

Comments are such a blessing when they come.  Trust me – it can be difficult for those of us not posting sex tape videos of Mini-Me to get comments.  If they’re positive, you’ve just gained some powerful advocates.  If they’re negative, that can be great, too.

Negative Blog Comments

Let’s assume for a second that any negative comments are legitimate and not a competitor fake commenting.  We’ll come back to that in a second.

I often quote my old boss’ father who used to tell him, “You only get two chances to make a first impression: the first time you meet someone and the first time you screw up.”**

If someone brings up a legitimate complaint or other opportunity issue (some might use the word “negative” in place of “opportunity”), that means you’ve just won half the battle.   You now have the opportunity to respond to them in your house!  [cue any stupid Under Armor commercial circa 2006 - "We must protect this...blog"]

I guarantee if you’re able to take care of the issue – whether it was 100% your fault, 0%, or anything in between – you’ll come off smelling as sweet as Frosty-dipped honeysuckle rolled in cookie dough.  If someone keeps hammering you about something that’s been resolved, typically your community will come to your rescue.

Now, let’s go back to every business person’s favorite paranoia – competitors fake commenting.  Seriously, I know my share of snaky business people out there, but why is this what seems to keep 75% of people with whom I speak up counting sheep at night?

If folks are attacking you unfairly, you’ll have your chance to respond and likely will have the community backing you up to tell folks to shut their yappers and quit threadjacking (taking the comment trail to an unnatural place off topic).

Remember, you also have all the administrative controls.  You can decide that commenters must be approved for the first comment (strongly recommended), approved for all comments (like we’re doing for the WV Jobs Blog), or never (bad mistake unless you love comment spam).

You can even edit or delete comments, but you need to be very careful here.  If folks think they’re having their speech censured unfairly (and almost every time is seen as unfairly as the Constitution clearly mentioned blog comments in the Freedom of Speech section), they’re likely to rebel. If you’re a high traffic blog with lots of passionate commenters, it’s a good idea to have a comment policy spelled out clearly.

Federal Government Blogging

Think recognizing that you have no control and posting a blog with commenting functionality on your Web site is difficult for your organization? Consider federal agencies, who by their very nature are bureaucratic, hierarchical, and very large. The US government should be the last place to adopt blogging.

Yet many government blogs (with commenting) are running right now as a way to reach out to us taxpayers. Here are just a handful of ones that are active and writing in a conversational tone:

• TSA’s Evolution of Security. Comments galore, which one might expect from angry air travelers, which is exactly why it’s important for TSA to have one. Good on ya, mates!
• AIDS.gov Blog. This blog and the site as a whole are really addressing and utilizing new media.
• Library of Congress Blog. They’ve even partnered with flickr. Check out the cool old photo of America’s pastime.
• Gov Gab. This blog from the Office of Citizen Services and Communications utilizes multiple posters (one sure-fire way to alleviate the time needed to blog).

Note bene #2 – we do some federal contracting work, but not currently with the above agencies.

It’s not just limited to the US, either. You never know what world leaders are out there blogging.

** I keep meaning to do a full post about this, but want to touch on it before I forget.  I used that quote about screwing up in the Next Generation Marketing conference series this past May.  A couple days after we did the Huntington, WV seminar, one of the attendees sent me an email.  Adam Daniels of First State Bank said that he created a standard form letter for mistakes.  Now whenever someone at the bank does and oopsie, they have a process to follow and a form letter they can customize for a quick response.  How brilliant is that?!?  I already told Adam I’m stealing that idea.

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 can’t help it. Most organizations are just so bad at it and don’t seem to recognize that the internet has fundamentally changed the way the game is played. And yes, I’m looking at you, David Stern. I know you’re a smart guy, but do you seriously think you can just shout down claims by Tim Donaghy – no matter how false and self-serving they may be – when your league already has an image problem in today’s world? Really? </condescending sarcasm to David Stern>

Often times, my talking of online reputation management turns to government. We seem to like talking politics a lot around this here blog. I’m proud, though, that neither Paul nor I show our cards and our readers don’t know whom we support. Except of course that we obviously don’t like Barrack Obama since we’re a bunch of racist, redneck West Virginians. </condescending sarcasm to national media and The Daily Show> Yes, Paul, I’m including you – you live here now.

And every time I talk about it, I bring up examples of how it’s managed poorly or just completely ignored (which is usually worse). Examples are endless.

Examples of proper reputation management, however, are rare. That’s why I got a smile on my face when I read this article in Time (emphasis mine):

Will Obama’s Anti-Rumor Plan Work?

As long as there have been rumors in politics, there has been one widely accepted way for a candidate to deal with them. Basically, it’s not to. Otherwise, according to prevailing wisdom, all a candidate achieves is to elevate the rumors to a legitimate story for the media to feast on. That don’t-go-there approach was Barack Obama’s plan for months until, on the candidate’s first full day of campaigning as his party’s presumed presidential nominee, a reporter from McClatchy Newspapers who was traveling aboard his plane asked him about a particularly toxic bit of hearsay that was zooming around the Internet about his wife Michelle. Obama lost his cool. “We have seen this before. There is dirt and lies that are circulated in e-mails, and they pump them out long enough until finally you, a mainstream reporter, asks me about it,” Obama said, bristling. “That gives legs to the story. If somebody has evidence that myself or Michelle or anybody has said something inappropriate, let them do it.”

That night, in a conference call, Obama told his top aides it was time for a more aggressive solution to the rumors that have been popping up on the Internet about him and his family for months. And so the Obama campaign has built what might best be described as a Web-based rumor clearinghouse, located at fightthesmears.com, in which it hopes all the shady stories about Obama’s faith, his family and his rumored connections with controversial figures can go to die.

Obama is enlisting his millions of supporters to help him hunt down and quash these stories….

Go check out the site. It has just about everything I would have suggested:

• A clear purpose (fight rumors it says are false)
• A clean, simple layout
• 4 calls to action. In many cases it’s best not to have more than 1, but it’s okay here. They are:

1. Spread the word, e.g. send emails out to others debunking the “smears”
2. Donate cash…since politicians on both sides of the aisle are so poor </condescending sarcasm to our political system>
3. Sign up for email alerts – even geotargeted to zip code, a very nice touch.
4. Be proactive and send in rumors to the campaign to be debunked

• Nice use of video

Sure it could be more interactive (although that would require an immense amount of monitoring and could potentially make it less effective just as it could make it more so) and I might write the copy a little differently, but those are minor quibbles. Seriously, this site is darn near perfect for its purpose.

It’s no wonder this site – one of the first and best examples of its kind – came in the political arena given all the money tied up in politics. Considering the documented attention to paid search and its effectiveness; the use of blogs and online video; social media campaigns and email marketing, I think it’s safe to say that online reputation management has arrived. Surely corporate America is the next to follow.

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?

“Neither, I’m an illiterate that has to rely on my wife for all of the assistance I can get.”

Now as much as a luddite / technophobe / rickety old buffer John McCain might be, his campaign appears to have an online marketing team that’s worthy of praise from the head honcho at Google responsible for political search advertising, Peter Greenberger. In a recent Q&A Greenberger talks about the respective paid search campaigns of Senators Clinton, McCain and Obama, and has the following to say about the McCain AdWords strategy:

Q. It’s my understanding that the McCain campaign has been very dedicated to using search advertising throughout the election so far. Is that what you’ve seen?

A. Absolutely. The McCain campaign was the savviest among the Republican presidential primary campaigns. We think it’s not a coincidence that the two savviest primary campaigns with Google are the winning ones.

Even in the darkest days of the [McCain] campaign… they never stopped spending on Google AdWords… There were times, corresponding to the political polls, when maybe interest waned in his campaign, but he was ready to capture interest.

So there you go; you have a failing campaign where money’s too tight to mention but you still need to advertise. It’s imperative you get the best ROI imaginable, and a good PPC campaign is deemed one of the best ways to achieve that.

So credit where it’s due – while the old fella may not be able to turn a computer on, he has managed to assemble a team capable of running a half decent PPC campaign.

But McCain is of a very different age. In the following table that shows what internet users do according to their age he’d quite possibly be thrown in and amongst the ‘matures’ category:

I think it’s a fairly safe bet to assume Mr. McCain won’t be starting a personal campaign blog anytime soon if that table is anything to go by.

Paul Woodhouse

Paul looks after the SEO side of things here at Direct Online Marketing as well as trying to work out the best social media strategies for our clients.