With the recent advances in real time search brands now need to monitor their online reputation more closely than ever before. Coming from a past where the corporate website was the sole online showcase for a brand, 2009 showed us that the search engines have a definite interest in MyFaceFlicSpinTwit, with public views now appearing in the index in real time. This presents a dramatically altered landscape for brand managers and PR agencies in the way that they manage their online presence.

2009 saw a mad dash for the social media real estate and even then uptake was tentative and haphazard, with many companies taking a stand just for the sake of it, simply because of all the buzz around social media, but without actually knowing why they needed it or what the return on the time invested was going to be.

I presented this to everyone in the agency this morning, (always the toughest crowd around ). SERM is something that is definitely a specialist an advanced stream of SEO and IMHO is the intersection of SEO and PR. Its critical that more PR agencies are aware of the practise, its uses and limits.

Ive shared it on slideshare under LouisVenter or you can get to it via MediaVison. Will get to the sharecast next week with any luck.

In this presentation:

1. What is SERM?
2. Why is it Important? – Hitwise report on navigational search
3. Who Typically Needs SERM
4. Some Horror Stories
5. Is it only about companies that dont get SEO? :- An SEO agency with an SERM issue
6. What tactics are involved?
7. Some success stories

So here goes:

Many say content is king, but I would like to take it a step further and say content is god. The line between content and advertising is blurring and one of the major ways to be recognised online is to have content that others seek. The days of advertising to create a buzz and receive hits on your site are decreasing, while Web 2.0 is becoming more popular.

I realise “Web 2.0” is a term loosely thrown around, what I mean by it is that the internet is becoming more of a community. Information and sites are being passed on to friends and other community members through social media sites, email and blogs. People react more to personal recommendations than adverts and pop up banners; and one of the best way to receive a “thumbs up” is through attractive content on your site. In the context of this post, attractive means: useful, informative and fun content that the user will find worthwhile.