"Five Minutes with Justin Seibert" in the Pittsburgh Business Times

August 8th, 2007

"Five Minutes with Justin Seibert" was published in the August 3rd – 9th print edition of the Pittsburgh Business Times. The following is the article in its entirety:

Justin Seibert is president of Wheeling-based Direct Online Marketing™ LLC. The Internet marketing firm works throughout the tri-state area to get clients at the top of search engine listings and also placing advertisements online, as well as Web site design and blogging services. Seibert is slated to speak at a marketing conference on August 16th at Southpointe.

[PBT] We’ve seen some major company executives get into trouble recently with posting inappropriate comments on a blog. What strategy should they be taking instead?

[JS] “Some people haven’t been too smart about it. I think it really comes down to what are the rules of the Internet today. Before the rise of the Internet becoming so popular and so prevalent in everyday life, companies could just say they had their strategy and they would have their corporate-speak, and that was everything they said. The problem was, people were able to communicate with each other. A whole conversation started taking place away from the companies. One of the great powers of the blog is that you can talk with those people, you can become engaged in that conversation now. One of the problems people are having is they aren’t being transparent and honest.”

[PBT] How many companies have been affected by this?

[JS]“Wal-mart got bashed a couple of months ago because they had a couple of average joes (who were paid to blog positively about Wal-Mart). There wouldn’t be anything wrong with that….if you’re upfront about it. (Readers) might not like it, but you’re not going to get bashed for it. And instead, for getting flogs – fake blogs – they just got hammered for it. Honesty and lack of transparency are really the two biggest pitfalls.”

[PBT] What does your company do to help companies increase their online presence?

[JS] “We’re about search engine visibility. We make sure that if someone is searching – whether it’s a product or a service – we make sure they show up. We can make sure they show up all over the world.”

To learn more about Direct Online Marketing™ and its internet marketing capabilities, or to request an interview, please contact Katie McDonald at (304) 217-2823.

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