A recent article in Internet Marketing News states that Omniture is going to start tracking Twitter conversations for their customers.

From what I gather, it will work similarily to something like Google alerts, allowing you to create a report alerting you to talk of simple words and phrases. It can be set up to send real-time alerts to email or SMS services so that you can be well aware as to what people are saying about your brand as it happens.

What I like about this is that it can be incorporated into their reporting, allowing you the user the ability to take it all in context. You can compare the number of conversations (good or bad) that occured on a given day or time, against the number of traffic you get from the Twitter site.

Not only are you now beginning to get a one-stop shop for all your tracking and monitoring needs, as the article further points out, users will have an unlimited number of keywords to track, which means besides your brand, you could track your competitors as well. Gathering almost real-time intelligence and being ready to jump on any kind of feedback that occurs is vital in such a competitive market, and kudos to Omniture for being the (one of – if not the) first to attempt it in this capacity.

Omniture to Add Twitter Tracking Options to SiteCatalyst is a post from: The Direct Approach Blog owner: Rebecca Atkinson (Muller)

Let’s look at this whole Motrin kerfuffle as a shining example. Motrin is the same product it always was, however, now there are swarms of mothers out there who say they will not use the product again. It has nothing to do with how good or bad the product is; it has to do with a choice that was made to run a specific advertising campaign. Because of this action, it has changed the perception people have of the brand and their feelings towards it.

If you think of the traditional marketing/advertising brief, there’s usually some sort of question around, “What do we want the consumer to think/believe after seeing our ad/product?”

And then there are questions around brand perception, asking what people currently tend to think of the brand or product.

If the folks at Motrin were to fill this out now vs. before the campaign, the answers to those questions would look a whole lot different, and if I lived under a rock, I wouldn’t know why a good many people have the perception of the brand it now seems they do.

Wouldn’t it be interesting to understand why people think the way they do? What “action” took place to put those thoughts in someone’s head?

What would happen if you broke down the actions that your company has taken over the last two to five years and started writing down the perceptions of your brand, company or product that people had before and after each action? Yes, I know there are focus groups and brand perception studies that do this now – but do they go to the next level?

What if you began tracking the perceptions against more than ad campaigns – anything you’ve done (donations, social media presence, etc.) – and began looking for patterns to understand what kinds of actions generally changed consumer’s perceptions – whether it be for good or bad… or indifferent.

You could suddenly start making a case for doing – or not doing – any number of things because of how your consumers *should* react (Note: no such thing as a sure thing).

It’s not just about asking why, it’s about understanding how and why your actions affect others.

It’s Not Your Brand They Hate – It’s Your Actions is a post from: The Direct Approach Blog owner: Rebecca Atkinson (Muller)

A landing page is not as simple some copy, links and a couple of graphics and then you’re done. Understanding what the user experience is going to be when they get to that page and ensuring it’s a positive one to reinforce your brand is one of the most important things in the online world. Throw in some SEO so people can actually find the page and you start adding a whole other layer of tactics that many of us have spent years trying to perfect.

Then there’s the QA side of things. QA of a website is not just reading the copy for spelling errors. (I think QA can be a whole separate post – so I’ll stop there for now).

Recently, in an effort to be more “integrated,” I’ve watched traditional marketers flock to the digital space, thinking it is a piece of cake, and that they can follow the same steps/process as they would for an offline tactic; feeling there’s really nothing to learn other than a few “buzz words.” Frankly, that scares me.

If it were truly as easy as that, there wouldn’t be a need for niche little interactive shops or consultants.

Traditional agencies and other marketing companies are starting to realize that they need to change to keep up with the times. Knowing that many of their client’s print/mass budgets are slowly drying up and interactive budgets are in most cases doubling YOY, there’s a trend taking place that sees the most seasoned “offline” marketers suddenly leading large digital campaigns.

I don’t mean any disrespect, but I know I wouldn’t go around telling anyone how to make a newspaper ad or radio campaign – that’s not my speciality.

Throwing the mass/print teams into the interactive pot with no training or real understanding of the space is not a model for success.

We’re now starting to see a two-tier interactive landscape popping up. You’ve got brands with websites and banner ad campaigns that look like brochures and print ads and don’t take into account how people actually use the web, or view an ad online. These brands are not going to understand why their online marketing don’t seem to be working “because it’s prettier than my competitor’s fill in the blank…”

Which is exactly it. Pretty may be the print way, but isn’t web friendly. Not to say you can’t have a nice looking web site, but the web is all about user experience, how customers interact with and find your brand online and of course functionality. Sometimes pretty has to get sacrificed in order to achieve that.

The brands out there who understand that, will go searching for the right people to create their online user experience and they will rise to the top of the space – even if their product offering leaves something to be desired.

At the end of the day, if you truly want to make interactive work for your brand or your clients, you’re going to have to bite the bullet and get someone in a senior position who comes from the space – someone who was in the trenches and who not only understands all about user experience, SEO and so on, but someone who actually can show you the battle scars they earned from physically doing these things and what they learned in the process.

The Interactive Landscape is Changing is a post from: The Direct Approach Blog owner: Rebecca Atkinson (Muller)