Brand monitoring on steroids

Now I can't claim to be an expert or member of the so-called Digerati. Far from it. So if this is old news, then look away now.

But what I heard this morning listening to Dave Sifry, CEO of Technorati made me sit up and listen. He was talking with Jennifer Jones on the consistently good Marketing Voices podcast and he claimed that Technorati picks up anything that's said about your business on any of the estimated 67 million blogs in 60 seconds or less.

Just compare that with how slow most search engines are! Imagine search engines reindexing every page every 60 seconds, it would be a monumental task. Any yet, because of the way blogs are web-optimised, this is not only possible but almost expected.

So that means that if an employee or customer comments about one of your brands or your business, you know about it in 60 seconds and can respond. The now infamous case study Dave Sifry gives relates to Kryptonite locks. If Kryptonite had known and addressed the many rumours about the flaw in the security of their lock, that enabled anyone to pick the lock in seconds with the aid of a biro, then a major crisis might have been avoided. As it was, they waited until the story broke in newspapers before issuing a formal response. Too late.

As Dave Sifry goes on to say, if your boss doesn't understand the power of blogs and other social media to affect brand equity and opinions of your business and brands, consider walking...

Robin Crumby.