Marketing Pilgrim

As you know, a couple of weeks ago (my company) Trackur launched Trackur Free–a competely free version of the popular social media monitoring tool.

To celebrate Trackur Free’s success–and to get as many people protecting their reputation as possible–Trackur is now giving all users a chance to win a free Apple iPad!

Yep, you can get your hands on a free online reputation monitoring tool AND enter to win the hottest gadget around!

Want to enter? Head over to the Trackur site pronto!

Have you heard of the Streisand effect?

Long story short, in 2003 Barbra Streisand sued a photographer for $50 million because he took photos of her home. She said the photographs invaded her privacy. Unfortunately for her, the rest of the world had no clue of the existence of these photographs until after she filed the lawsuit. Filing the lawsuit created a greater issue than if she had just kept quiet.

Enter Lindsay Lohan.

The almost popular, but now notsomuch, actress is suing E-Trade for, get this, $100 million for naming one of its TV babies “Lindsay.” Apparently, Miss Lohan believes that she has obtained “single name” status–like Madonna or Oprah–and that everyone that sees the milkaholic manboy-stealer will instantly think of her–and that will ruin her stellar reputation.

Says Lohan’s lawyer:

I absolutely love doing my online reputation management workshops. An entire day of me sharing just about everything I know about reputation management. Not only do I enjoy them, but the feedback has been amazing–just about everyone that attends walks away a reputation management expert!

So, I’m going international and bringing my workshop to Australia and New Zealand in May!

Thanks to a collaboration with Bullet PR, I’ll host my Auckland workshop on May 18th, then jump on a plane and host it again in Sydney on May 20th!

This one-day master class is the only way to get hands-on reputation management training from me, without paying my normal consulting day-rate. In fact the Auckland workshop is priced as low as $595+gst, while the Sydney one is just $550 for PRIA members!

Here’s what our day together will cover:

• Introduction to Online Reputation Management (ORM)

Toyota is now turning to Twitter to help stem the tide of negativity that has been heaped upon it during the “Recall Free For All” (that one’s mine). I guess someone at Toyota HQ has been studying up on this Twitter thing and decided that it was the way to go. Of course, just going headlong into a potentially hostile environment would be foolish so they have found a way to “manage” just what is being seen and heard in this attempt to make things better again with the top selling automaker in the world.

TechCrunch reports

The Japanese auto giant has launched a branded channel on TweetMeme, in partnership with Federated Media, which aggregates and organize Twitter conversations regarding Toyota.

I’m not sure if you know the back story of why I decided to launch social media monitoring tool Trackur.

After completing Radically Transparent, I felt like there was a huge void between those that had outgrown Google Alerts and the monitoring tools available at that time. You had Google Alerts (free) then you had services that started at thousands of dollars.

Fast forward a couple of years–yes, Trackur is two years old this month–and Trackur has grown to be one of the most popular monitoring tools on the web. So popular in fact, that we’re racking up many agency clients–attracted by our quick, easy, and affordable tools.

I digress. No really, I digressed. While we were serving the big agencies, we kind of neglected those that I wanted to help the most: those that had outgrown the limitations of Google Alerts. So, today I’m delighted rectify that by announcing Trackur Free.

Some more Monday morning research for you to consider while getting back into work mode. A report from Millward Brown takes a look at the top trusted brands in the US based on trust and recommendation. These factors are combined into what the researchers call “TrustR” which is a new metric for understanding and strengthening the bond between consumers and brands. In this day and age where trust is more elusive than ever since it appears that saying whatever needs to be said to get out of any situation is more than OK, we will need some measurement of a brand’s trust level.

So who are the big winners according to Millward Brown?

This number was arrived at by using the following formula

You have probably heard or are somewhat aware of the Kevin Smith / Southwest Airlines dust up over the past few days. If you haven’t then you are missing an online reputation monitoring and management real life case study unfold right before your eyes.

The main player is screenwriter, film producer, and director Kevin Smith. Smith is famous for his movies Clerks, Dogma, Mallrats, Chasing Amy and Zack and Miri Make a Porno. If you have seen any of these movies you know where his sense of humor lies. Let’s just say it’s not family fare. His has developed a loyal following and that following has moved to Twitter where he has nearly 1.7 million followers. When you get to numbers like that and the person who has those numbers is a genuine influencer (not some spammer) there can be genuine power involved.

Watching video clips is a very popular pastime in the US and the rest of the world. Hey, it sure beats getting outside and taking a walk in that nasty fresh air. As a result of our obsession with this media there is some opportunity to do some real harm to a reputation if a group decided to do so. One such instance has made the F.D.I.C (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation) take action because they claim a video making the viral rounds is just plain false. Whether it is or not may not be enough to fix the damage.

The New York Times reports

All week long, officials at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation watched with growing dismay as a YouTube video ricocheted around the Internet. In 4 minutes 26 seconds, the clip asserted that the agency’s sale last year of the assets of the failed bank IndyMac to a group of private investors was a sweetheart deal.