New Media Marketing
According to Wikipedia New Media Marketing is a relatively new concept used by businesses in developing an online community, which allows satisfied customers to congregate and extol the virtues of a particular brand. In most cases, the online community includes mechanisms such as blogs, podcasts, message boards, and product reviews, all of which contribute to a transparent forum to post praises, criticisms, questions, and suggestions.
One of the primary arguments to promote New Media Marketing is the premise that traditional advertising is losing its influence on consumers. Backed by statistical evidence demonstrating a growing trend of consumers making purchasing decisions off Internet research and referrals. These advocates strongly adhere to the notion that consumers are more inclined to believe feedback from like-minded peers than corporate marketing verbiage dispersed through traditional television, radio, direct mail, or newspaper advertising.
Although businesses would be exposing certain weaknesses to the marketplace by allowing individuals, or even competitors, to post critical comments, responding with an honest and transparent answer designed around solving the issue at hand may mitigate potential risks.
New Media Marketing is most effectively marketed by Internet-driven technology such as blogs, RSS, Web video productions, and podcasts.
The growing use of New Media marketing also means that there is a growing responsibility to manage brand and search engine reputation which is often overlooked in the management process.
Reputation management is the process of tracking an entity’s actions and other entities’ opinions about those actions; reporting on those actions and opinions; and reacting to that report creating a feedback loop. All entities involved are generally people, but that need not always be the case.
Reputation management has come into wide use with the advent of widespread computing.
Search Engine Reputation Management (or SERM) tactics are often employed by companies and increasingly by individuals who seek to proactively shield their brands or reputations from damaging content brought to light through search engine queries. Some use these same tactics reactively, in attempts to minimize damage inflicted by inflammatory (or “flame”) websites (and weblogs) launched by consumers and, as some believe, competitors.
Given the increasing popularity and development of search engines, these tactics have become more important than ever. Consumer generated media (like blogs) has amplified the public’s voice, making points of view – good or bad – easily expressed.
Search Engine Reputation Management strategies include:
* Search engine optimization (SEO)
* Online Content Management
Because search engines are dynamic and in constant states of change and revision, it is essential that results are constantly monitored.
