Steve: Anthony, thanks for being here today. I guess the best way to get started is to ask you how you got your start and what lead you to start the Pappas Group.

Anthony: Thanks Steve. Well I got my start as a designer in college and worked in ad agencies in NY as an art director and was always working on brands. I joined a local firm in the 90’s called Proxicom and eventually worked my way up the ranks over 10 years to become Senior VP of Creative globally for the company. During that time I not only advanced my design skills but alos got really experienced at building teams. When Proxicom was acquired I looked at NY and DC and around here saw many boutique shops but no one focusing on helping a client build their brand. Let’s face it, these days brand are built online. They are built in other ways, but for the most part today they are built online. So I decided to go out on my own and start the Pappas Group.

Steve: Your firm approaches clients as a branding company where it used to be traditionally the domain of advertising agencies. Why this type of differentiation?

Anthony: Because the boutique firms where most design agencies the first thing we identified was that we were not first and foremost a design agency. Let me explain why. You can’t come at a brand strictly from a design perspective. You must start with the strategy. I learned this firsthand when I was at Proxicom and we worked with large ad agencies that owned the brand and dictated how they wanted their sites built. Unfortunately, there was a large conflict of interest because what they wanted wasn’t always beneficial to the client, especially in an online space. So what I wanted to do was help companies “change”. We want to help them reach a goal or launch a product. How you execute is not the point but rather how a company wants or needs to evolve. Every company’s brand is different and there is no perfect service mix.

Steve: Being here in the DC marketplace, what are your hopes for bringing a bit the flare of the brands that are in places like NY?

Anthony: Place like New York have big brands that take risks (i.e. Nike, Liz Claiborne) and while we have great firms here, there is not the same sex appeal which makes it hard to retain the talent here in the area. So I want to help the DC market get awareness and tell the rest of the country that we have the skills here to do it. We start by working with the brands that are here in town.  This is kind of my soapbox right now.

Steve: You will be presenting at the Grow Smart Business conference next week. What should we expect to see and hear from you?

Anthony: One of the things I am going to talk about is that for any company to create a strong brand, it has to come from the inside.  You can’t just build a brand from the outside, it has to come from the people inside the company first. Strong companies are strong companies because their employees are living the brand so people believe it. If they are faking it, people will see right through it.

Steve: I like to wrap up interviews with a top five list. In this case, what are your top five brands?

Anthony: Hmm, let’s see…

1.) Apple – They are really intelligent about marketing. I use their products and I knew they were good. They said they were going to break convention and they said they would do it their way and people would follow. And they have, which is why I really like that brand. They are a serious brand that is making money.

2.) Porsche - The brand that they have built, beyond their cars being excellent, is that they have built a brand that is a good reflection of their product. They hired a great firm and the brand exudes a certain essence about the drive. It is understated which is elegant and powerful.

3.) Target – They have done an amazing job breaking out of the mold of low-cost warehouse store. Target just raised its awareness and said they aren’t playing the game that has been done in the past. People believe that Target doesn’t have the same stuff as other stores and their brand has been the factor that convinces people.

4.) Nordstrom – Their experience is fantastic and the people that are there actually seem like they want to be there which shows that people live the brand.

5.) Zappos – The brand is still new and they are doing the right things like Nordstrom does and is trying to build that it is about quality and service.

Steve: Thanks for the time today. Great interview.

Anthony: Great to be here. See you all next week at the Grow Smart Biz conference.

Register for the Grow Smart Biz Conference and See Anthony Speak

Coming next week on September 29, in Washington, DC, Network Solutions is hosting the Grow Smart Biz Conference where you can see Anthony Pappas speak along with keynote speaker Chris Anderson and Governor Mark Warner. The Grow Smart Biz conference is a premier one-day event featuring renowned small business leaders and well-known industry experts. If you haven’t registered, then click here to learn more and register now. Tickets are going fast!

Now it is time for the long tail to take over and for us to create a personal brand that is niche but powerful and helps us improve our careers/businesses along with increasing our recognition in an area we are passionate.

In Me 2.0: Build a Powerful Brand to Achieve Career Success, personal branding expert Dan Schwabel teaches readers how to use social media tools (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, blogs, etc.) to stand out in the working world. About.com says “The book is aimed at new grads and young professionals who are looking for their first big job, but would also be useful to anyone who wants to climb the corporate ladder or start their own business venture.” I agree buy I disagree on that one. Let me elaborate.

When I picked up the book I knew a fair amount about the concept of personal branding so the first portion of the book was a bit of a review. The book is separated into three major sections:

* Part I: “The Rise of Personal Branding,” which gives you a little history. This is where you get your first clue that this book is targeted toward younger job seekers who are looking to build a career. This is why About.com reviewed the book like this and it is focused on Social Media as your gateway to Personal Branding success. If you’re still a little confused about all this social media stuff and want to figure out how it fits into your marketing strategy – you need to read this section.

* Part II: “Command Your Career in Four Steps,” This is the heart of the book and what I liked the most because it gives you a practical roadmap you can follow regardless of where you are in your career. This is where you will get all the how-to guides and resources to discover, create, communicate and manage your personal brand.

* Part III: “Now You Have Command.” This is a bit of “take some action, this is how other people” have and it has the obligatory success stories that must backup what Dan is trying to explain to those that might be skeptical. They are called “Brand Commanders” and it is pretty good and you will probably find someone to identify with your own journey.

Three Audiences for this Book (via Small Business Trends)

I was going to talk about the types of people that would benefit from this book more than just college students or young people as the review from About.com said. Ivana Taylor at Small Business Trends did an awesome job quantifying the usefulness of various people looking to build their own personal brand.

If you’re currently looking for a full time job — This is a terrific book for you. If you’re a Gen Y looking for your first job, you will find practical tips and tricks for overcoming the “lack of experience” challenge in Chapter Five’s “Discover Your Brand.” If you’re a more experienced job-seeker who needs to look into a different industry, this chapter will help you re-position yourself for an industry that might be faring better in today’s economy.

Independent business owners, consultants and freelancers – You will find wonderfully practical tips on creating and communicating their brand using social media tools. Dan includes a wonderful “Blog Success Checklist” to make sure that your brand-building using a blog is painless and successful:

Small businesses looking for broader networking reach — Does this describe you and your business? If so, you will find “The Popular Social Networking Sites” chart a great summary of the biggest and best social networking sites and how to use them to increase your sphere in influence and build your network.

Don’t just take my word for it

I came across this great video review of the book from. It is from Maria Reyes-McDavis AKA @WebSuccessDiva on Twitter. Enjoy.

Everyone thinks they know how brands work and pretty much everyone of them have no clue. Despite these brands which result in their most identifiable element – the logo, the concept of branding has become less of an art and more about category creation and domination or dare I say survival of the fittest.

This is where The Origin of Brands by Al & Laura Ries comes in to profess and demystify that message.

Is it Really Like Survival of the Fittest?

With a title inspired by Darwin’s “The Origin of the Species”, Al and Laura Ries, who are father and daughter have become know for their series of books on marketing which started with The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing. They take the approach that evolution is a useful analogy for marketers. Throughout the book, readers are encouraged to think of Darwin’s tree of life.

While their travels did not take them to the Galápagos Islands it did however take them around the world studying all the top brands and why they are great. There are many trees and the branches outward that make them diverse. Quoting Publishers Weekly “For example, the television tree used to consist solely of the three networks, but now comprises an array of cable and satellite offerings. The “phone” tree includes cellular, picture, computer, digital and other varieties. Using many examples, the authors explore this notion: “Competition between individuals (brands) improves the species. Competition between species (categories) drives the categories further and further apart.” To survive in today’s competitive market where technology makes innovations much faster than in the past, companies must continue to introduce new computers, cars, phones, food, etc”

Despite the expansion and innovation that a company could experience in “branching out” to other offerings on their respective tree, they run the risk of not being profitable and delivering for their shareholders. You see this all the time with fast food places, soft drink companies, sport clothing companies,

The Whole Point of the Book

The key to success and the whole point of the book that the authors offer specific advice on surrounds devising a new category rather than a brand. Much like the dot com era when many tech companies were creating new brand spaces and working with Gartner or other analysts to own that space. Siebel did it with CRM, Oracle did it with databases and Microsoft with desktop software. On pages 169-170 they list all these great brands who were first in their space.

Reading this book you take away that only the most innovative marketers will be triumphant  if they create a category and launch with a clever name as well, such as Starbucks did for the high-end coffee-shop category.

Who is this book for?

While the book is primarily directed at readers working in marketing, advertising and related fields, managers and executives at both large and small businesses will benefit from it as well.

Would I Buy It?

Probably not, but others should. I went through it pretty quickly and with a fairly strong marketing background I get the essence of what it was trying to say, which was pretty logical. However, if I was an entrepreneur that had no clue about marketing or branding, then I would totally own this book and keep it forever. It helps you think about your competitive space especially when you are looking to be different, be innovative and demonstrate why investors should put money in your business, then this book would be perfect for you. If you are established in business and trying to focus or “prune” as they call it in the book then I would also take a quick read.

If you want other reviews from the pros and from the passionate readers, check out their page on Amazon.

True, this is nothing really new about personal branding. There are experts on it, books about it and passionate detractors. However, with sites like Twitter and Facebook creating very valuable property if you can get your name and/or your company name to extend your personal brand, it is more important all the time. Most people don’t know who the heck you are but they can through techniques like Personal Branding and establishing yourself as a Thought Leader in your area of expertise. Jay lays out a nice and simple 10 point plan to accomplish this and own your “personal brand” and the space you plan to occupy.

10 Simple Rules to Effective Personal Branding

1.) Be Your own Brand Manager (develop your brand marketing plan, how are you going to promote, set specific measurable goals)

2.) Determine your USP (what makes you distinctive, how can you enhance your unique skills)

3.) Follow Your Passion (where do you like to hangout, what do you

4.) Listen to everyone else

5.) Embrace Your Inner Author (Create Unique Content)

6.) Build Your New (Set a goal to make a few quality connections, give to get ask about them, Ask about them)

7.) Volunteer to Shine (Develop new skills, enhance skill through freelance opportunities)

8.) Innovate to Lead

9.) Be Entrepreneurial – Entrepreneur is a verb

10.) Speak Up! – Go to Toastmasters, Presentation Zen

I think that no matter how you feel about the term “Personal Branding” you can’t deny that with all the content and bombardment of information we receive every minute of the day it is harder and harder to be recognized. Jay is convinced that this will become even more critical in participating in Web 2010 and he is probably right on target.

What are your thoughts and feelings on “Personal Branding”?

I know there are experts out there, dectractors and people learning this approach and I want to hear from you all. Leave a comment on whether you think this will be important now, next year and beyond.

Photo Credit: Digital Mommy

So what are the five steps to improving your “whuffie”?

1. Turn the bull horn around.
2. Become part of the community.
3. Create amazing feelings.
4. Embrace the chaos.
5. Find your purpose.

So let’s now examine each one individually and see what Tara Hunt means in The Whuffie Factor.

Turn the Bull Horn Around. Since when do we use bull horns? Metaphorically speaking, marketers have always been using a bull horn. It’s probably the most used way to try and get your message heard across the noise. It’s either that or  we’ve been shouting in the ears of our customers just to make sure they get the point. Shockingly, that hasn’t been working, but yet we’re thinking that social media will let us get away with this same tactic. Unfortunately, we’re wrong. What? We expect a new avenue of promotion where people can spread conversation and hate against our brand quicker than we can guzzle down a cup of Starbucks coffee to be part of the status quo? Absolutely not! By turning the proverbial “bull horn” around, you’re now able to focus on letting the customers shout their feedback and issues at you. So instead of you shouting to millions of customers, it’s the reverse. Millions of customers are shouting at you. So pay attention and LISTEN.

Become part of the community. Don’t think of a community as a solid entity that you can simply shoot over a press release and everything will be fine. They’re not going to exclaim from the high heavens that they’re stoked about receiving a press release from their “favorite brand”. Rather, they’re going to look at it and most are going to pass it over, some are going to think you don’t know who they are, while you might have a small number read it but file it away. Mission Fail. Look at the individuals in the community and reach out to them. Learn to talk with the community members, not at them. And yes, transparency and authenticity do count so they’re not just for show.

Create amazing feelings. Stop being so stale. Your design and creativity efforts haven’t worked. So spruce it up and look at what will appeal to them, not just what “looks good”. Your customers and community already know you, once you’ve reached out to them, of course. Learn to lighten up and react to how they behave. Examples of how to create these feelings were given by Tara Hunt during recent presentation at WordCamp in San Franciscio:

If you’ve used Dopplr, you know that it’s a travel “management” site. It will share your trips with fellow travelers you’re connected with on the network & also offer you some personalized travel statistics. But here’s where it’s not all numbers and trips traveled: they analyze your travels and give you the “velocity”. In Tara Hunt’s case, it indicated that she had the velocity of a squirrel. Yup. That’s right. There’s the amusement in everything. They give you the velocity analysis in the form of animal speed. You wouldn’t have expected it, huh?

What about how Southwest has helped create a lively environment with its community. They know how to have fun in person, but the true test is distributing that hilarity and personality to its online community. This YouTube video pretty much illustrates that:

Lighten up and remember to create feelings of happiness and appreciation towards your community.

Embrace the chaos. I’ve been a firm believer that the community runs its own existence. You have no control over how they interact with each other. The same should go for what you do communicate to them. Once you’ve released something, whether it’s a new campaign or product, then let it go and see how it progresses. If you think that your marketing message is being distorted, do NOT try and reach out there to realign it to what corporate wants. Rather, embrace how it’s been deviated, if it has. The community are your evangelists. You can educate them on what you’re doing but they know how to reach out to their friends and other people who might see them as influencers.  Remember, once out there, you have immediately lost control. So work with the chaos, not against it.

Find your purpose. You don’t let the community run by itself without showing some appreciation. Look at the number of referrals they’re giving you and all just because they’re evangelizing your product. Don’t be ignorant to their efforts and support them. As Tara Hunt states, you need to find a way to give back to the community. You need to find a way to give back and offer them reasons to continue referrals or the proverbial “well” will run dry.

You can read more about The Whuffie Factor by Tara Hunt in bookstores now or by purchasing it on Amazon. Make sure you read this so you understand fully what’s at stake and how you can strengthen your credibility with your community.

Photo Credit: Kenneth Yeung

I wanted to take the opportunity to thank Shashi Bellamkonda, our Social Media Swami, and the man responsible for launching this social media “road trip” and evangelizing both internally and externally to people growing it into the award-winning social media destination for small businesses on the Internet.

In typical TV Show fashion we are going to take a look at the last 500 posts and highlight all those who have contributed in our version of “flashbacks” while sparing you from the cheesy music and soft camera lense fades. We will then look forward about our refined mission, our expanding team and what you should expect from us for the next 500 posts.

So let’s turn on the way back machine and begin….

Best of Shashi Bellamkonda – “The Swami”

Who doesn’t know the Swami? Or in the case of the picture to the left, the Cowboy. He got that hat at SXSW and he now has two names. He has been the driving force with helping Network Solutions dive into the social media pool. Under his leadership we have grown into a family of blogs covering numerous small business related topics. Our presence on twitter as @netsolcares has helped transform our reputation management program so much that he won the 2008 Excellence in New Communications Award.

Here are some of his best posts from the last year:

10 Reasons to Use Facebook for Business

How Small Businesses Can Use Social Media

How I became a Social Media Swami at Network Solutions

Aesops Fables and Corporate Blogs

A Hard Sell? Social Media and Your Boss – Part 2 Becoming an Expert

Best of Connie Bensen – “Queen of Community”

Connie joined the team in July as the first community manager and wrote tons of great stuff until her departure in October. She has moved on to work with other companies to help build their communities. Her presence is missed but we still have her awesome content.

Here are a few of her greatest hits:

Building Your Business Online Series (6 Parts)

Building Your Brand Series (5 Parts)

10 Reasons to Choose Network Solutions to Register Your Domain Name

Use Social Networking to Grow Your Small Business

Does Your Business Need a Community?

Best of Steve Fisher – “Part Pinky, Part Brain”

I joined the team back in June as a writer to add content to this growing blog. Prior to that I was writing VentureFiles for about four years which focused on small business and raising funding from the entrepreneur’s perspective.

In November I “leveled up” and became the Social Media and Community Manager under the guidance and mentorship of “The Swami”. Over that time we have increased the size of our team, launched new blogs, brought in tons of guest contributors and done Social Media training courses for groups here at Network Solutions. I have had some great experiences meeting extremely talented small business owners and have had the opportunity to interview many great entrepreneurs. Most are customers of Network Solutions and it is always great to reach out to those who might become customers in the future.

Here are my favorite posts over the last year:

The Business Plan Series (15 Parts)

The Marketing Plan Series (15 Parts)

Rules for Entrepreneurs – Rule #1: Make Sure Your Business Card Doesn’t Get Thrown Out

Getting Productive in 2009 – Spending a Year with GTD

Thoughts on Coworking: What is it and is it for you?

Best of Jill Foster – “Our Most Passionate Blogger”

Not to be confused with the character on Young and the Restless, Jill signed on in November to contribute as a writer to Solutions Are Power and a few months ago we launched a new blog in our growing family of blogs. This blog focused on Women Entrepreneurs Growing their Businesses is appropriately called Women Grow Business. She has written awesome content on both Solutions Are Power and Women Grow Business.

Here is some her best stuff from Solutions Are Power:

Web 2.0 in mostly plain English: a workshop take down

Obama’s White House: forecasts & challenges for digital America

Ego surfs and action plans: your roadmap to transparency

Best of Joe Loong – “King of the Subject Line”

Joe knows how to write a catchy subject line. So much that most of his posts stay in the top read posts. You might call that search engine bait but we call it good content. Joe joined around the same time as Jill and has written some really informative and timely stories as well as providing great coverage of our local events.

Here are a few of his golden “SEO bait” posts:

Fake Your Way to Being a Social Media Expert: Strategies for Keeping Up

Stupid Link Tricks: A Daisy Chain of URL Shorteners

5 Stories of Twittering Gone Bad

Using Bacon and Social Media to Promote Your Business

How to Write Catchy, Clicky Blog Headlines

Looking to the Future

As we begin our journey writing our next 500 posts, we have two new bloggers that will be gracing our pages in the next week. They are Ken Yeung and Michael Dougherty.

Ken Yeung – “Mr. Everywhere”

Ken is someone I have known for about three years and while he was here in DC he was always the guy with a camera taking really awesome photos that showed up on his Flickr feed. I saw him at almost every event and I called him “Mr. Everywhere”. Now that he is living in San Francisco, I consider him our new West Coast blogger and correspondent. Most importantly he is a great writer and brings a new perspective along with new topics that this blog has been looking to expand into for a while.

He has a great marketing background and will be writing about online marketing, and because he is on the west coast, covering events in that region to expand beyond the many DC events you have read about.

Michael Dougherty – “Wicked Java”

Mike AKA “WickedJava” is a long time entrepreneur, marketing expert and social media guru. He has worked on the marketing agency side as well as in corporate marketing departments for large and small firms. His perspective for small business owners on navigating the online and offline worlds of branding, print, web design and social media has been a missing element here and one frequently requested by readers.

In his other life, Mike is also a budding film Director and accomplished screenwriter. In the interest of full disclosure, we are both co-founders of a non-profit film production company called Big Damn Fan Films that is about to begin principal photography on Browncoats:Redemption, a project that is based on the Firefly/Serenity universe created by Joss Whedon. The project will raise money for five select charities and will be released in Fall of 2010.

Our experiences using Social Media and Marketing might be a topic of discussion once in a while but only in the interest of lessons learned that we can pass on to our small business/future entrepreneur readership.

We are excited to have these two new team members on board and the future is looking extremely bright.

The Future Looks Bright

Thanks for coming to the blog, being a regular reader and growing with us. If you found us for the first time with this post, please subscribe because we are only getting started. We are committed to bringing you relevant, informative and CCC content we hope helps you grow your business. We are partners with you in this journey and if there is any topic you want to hear about, please let us know in the comments.

See you at post #1000…

• Building your Brand 101 Series
• Building Your Brand Series – Part 1 – Listening
• Building Your Brand Series – Part 2 – Responding
• Building Your Brand Series – Part 3 – Analytics
• Building Your Brand Series – Part 3 second half – Analytics

In working with those tools you’ve probably found places where your customers are interacting. You should be participating there too.

I have written about opportunities to network on social network sites like Facebook, LinkedIn & Xing (Europe’s version of LinkedIn). There are also specialty networks like Konnects. Network Solutions offer MySolutionSpot & now offers LinkTogether.

Your profile is probably the key thing. If you don’t fill it out how will people know what your company offers?

Get involved – this will help people notice you. And it also allows you to present yourself as an expert in the area. Being a leader is also a good way to position yourself. How can you help others?

How much time should you spend doing this? It can be as little as 15 minutes per day. Or if you’d prefer to do a half hour a couple of times a week, that works too. The secret is to be consistent.

Get involved in groups, meet new people & grow your network. It will pay off. At first it seems like a waste of time, but after awhile it gets easier & you’ll find that you enjoy it!

What social networks do you participate in?

• Building your Brand 101 Series
• Building Your Brand Series – Part 1 – Listening
• Building Your Brand Series – Part 2 – Responding
• Building Your Brand Series – Part 3 – Analytics

In the last post I talked about Google Analytics.
In this post I’m going to cover Feedburner. Feedburner is my favorite & I use it daily. It tells me a quick overview of where my traffic is coming from & also I can tell what pages they’re looking at. I use this tool daily & Google Analytics on a weekly to monthly basis depending on what I’m focused on.
Feedburner is installed just like Google Analytics but it’s much easier because they give you specific instructions. (I installed the html code myself on my blog!). You need to get a Feedburner account, then give it your rss feed & it will create some html code for you.
Feedburner aggregates all of my subscriptions (by RSS & email) & shows me a graph of the # of subscribers & how they’re reading my blog. It is a bit flaky & not consistent but I don’t worry about it.
This is a screenshot for my blog. I use Site Stat’s Incoming the most. This tells me where my daily traffic is coming from. If I see that someone has stumbled on one of my posts then I immediately add more links to other places in my blog because I know that post will get a rash of new readers & I want to help them explore my blog & encourage them to subscribe. (It’s a trick I learned from Darren Rowse, ProBlogger). And like Google Analytics I can see what people are searching for & what’s finding my blog. Those are words to focus on when I’m writing.

You should claim your blog in Technorati. That’s the best place to see your backlinks.

You will want to listen for awhile before responding. Look for trends & see where people are talking about your product/services. What is the tone? Are they pleased or not? It’s important to have a strategy in how you’re going to respond.

Here are a number of possibilities that you could encounter:

Reputation management – people are complaining about your brand. In responding to them, apologize & state how you will be improving the situation so that it doesn’t happen again. If this relies on other staff or improving your product, then follow thru on that.

Crisis - These need to be dealt with as soon as possible. If you can respond immediately before there are a number of other people agreeing with the author it’s much better for your brand.

Customer service – Provide the person with information on how to resolve their problem or contact your company to get assistance

Product development – Sometimes enthusiasts will review your product or service. Thank the person for their ideas for your product. If you decide to incorporate them, reach out to that person later & let them know of the new release. They will be thrilled & share that information with their readers. It’s the easiest way to generate word of mouth!

Compliments- You definitely need to graciously thank them!

You will also be able to find advocates for your brand. Talk with them by commenting on their posts & get involved. They will be pleasantly surprised!

Competitive knowledge – Monitoring conversations about the competitor is a good idea. You will learn a number of things. There may be opportunities for you to provide information about your products or services when people are asking for the competitor’s products. Practice good manners & remember that you’re in a social conversation. If you wouldn’t say it in real life in a social setting then it’s not a good idea to type it.

Further reading:

Why You Should Turn to Social Media During This Economic Crisis

50 Ways Marketers Can use Social Media to Improve Their Marketing by Chris Brogan

How do you get involved in the conversation? And please share examples of your successes & even failures so that others can learn from them.

The first step is listening. You need to consider where your customers are at online. Once you find the conversations are at then you can decide how to best participate. This is very different from traditional marketing & advertising efforts.

Here are 5 reasons to use listening tools & how they can help your online business:

1. identifying where conversations are taking place about your brand & identify new markets
2. building brand
3. brand reparation including crisis management
4. reporting to management about the progress of your online engagement efforts
5. monitor competitors & their products

There are a number of free tools that you can use:

Google alerts – you will need a Google account (but there are so many tools) – have the results delivered by email – you can choose ‘as it happens’ or daily

Search.Twitter.com – you can subscribe to the RSS feed or have it open in a tab during the day
Blogsearch – another tool from Google
Technorati – blog search
www.twing.com – monitors conversations in forums

BoardTracker.com – also monitors conversations in forums
The secret to using these are choosing keywords that don’t bring back too many results. Try setting them up (like Google alerts & Technorati) & if you’re getting too many results, then refine your keywords. For example if you’re a photographer like in my example then using ‘photography’ is too general. Use “portrait photography” in order to limit the results. Or “landscape photography”. I also have Google alerts set up for my name as well as the misspelled version. “connie bensen” and “connie benson”
When the results come in to your email or blog reader review them. For the results that are pertinent click thru & see what is being said. When you decide to engage you can start responding.
If you consistently monitor & respond you can accomplish the 5 items I listed above & build brand awareness online. People will think that you’re everywhere. The best thing is that it’s a very efficient use of time.
Do you monitor your brand? Have you had success?