This is one of the first times that Google has officially spoken about search engine reputation management via its blog. It is probably because they have increased demand from businesses/users to remove negative results…

SERM was been big topic foe at least 4 years now… and is getting very important for most of the users to have a clear search reputation.

Google advise you to remove all the content that can be negative if you own the content or ask the people who posted the negative content to remove it. These advice provided by Google is pretty simple but good common sense.

Probably good advice if you are a simple user and a few of your friends posted some stupid pictures of you but if you are a business it would be a lot harder to remove the negative content.

Anyway, it is still interesting to see that search engine reputation (SERM) has become one very big subject.

Paranormal activity is a new low budget horror movie from the US. With a budget of only $11,000, it has still managed to reach the top 5 of the box office rankings in the US after only two weeks!

Obviously without any money for a traditional marketing plan, they used the new social media platforms and word-of-mouth fan buzz.

Paranormal Activity Twitter

Starting with a posting of the very well done trailer and utilising Twitter and Facebook as its only marketing, the movie is now a hit. It is a simple technique but very efficient. The main ingredient was the trailer and the rest is just a question of word-of-mouth.

In the UK we will have to wait until the 27th of November to see it…

Most of the search engine reputation management (SERM) issues exist because people are unhappy with the brand or the company has some negative news (strikes, delays, redundancies…).

When I was looking for Louis Vuitton on Google UK, the results page wasn’t what I was expected. There were no negative results about the brand but there were some ‘affiliate websites’ which sell Louis Vuitton hand bags. So far nothing wrong, but when I had a closer look at these websites I realised that all of them are selling replicas! Probably some website hosted in China or another country where is difficult for Louis Vuitton to close them.

Louis Vuitton Google Result Page

I am pretty sure that Louis Vuitton is spending a lot of money on legal action but doing nothing online regarding this issue. I am not sure that it is the right move…

This is why Louis Vuitton should set-up a search engine reputation management (SERM) campaign. Technically, they have to push down the replica websites on Google results page and it would be a lot more difficult for the people who are just looking for the brand to find these websites.

With this strategy they could possibly damage these websites more quickly than through lengthy legal actions…

This just goes to show how SERM can be used for different and unexpected situations.

On YouTube today I noticed that the most viewed video is one about Google. Quickly watch it; it is only a ten second video. It is about the test home page of Google, where the top menu and the links fade in.

My surprise wasn’t that Google had a new homepage, but that so many people are interested in it and the huge amount people watching this video (75,000 viewers in two days). Does everything that Google does important to everyone?

For me, this is a proof that Google is highly important for most internet users. Everybody seems concerned about any tiny changes to our favourite search engine.

The Federal Trade Commission (USA) has announced a series of new guidelines about blogging. Any blogger who receives any money, gifts or any kind of endorsement for writing a post/review should notify the FTC.

The FTC is trying to help the customer to identify authentic product reviews. It is a nice idea but once again it would be difficult for the FTC to apply this law. Most of the bloggers get gifts and no money which makes it more difficult to trace.

Federal Trade Commission - Blog Guides

Also, most of the time, the bloggers are independent to write whatever they want about a product even when they have been given a gift/money for it…

I can understand the initiative of the FTC but the negative effect of it would be that it would be harder for the customer to find independent reviews online – although most of them are truly autonomous and not managed by the company.

This guideline will also penalise the smallest review blog which get free products, under this law they will be not able to buy all the products that they want to review.

Let see what happens to some blogs, the USA based ones at least.

For people like me who spend their time devising social media strategies for various clients, not having a Twitter profile for a big company sounds pretty odd. It is even weirder when it is one of America’s biggest companies.

McDonald’s started its Twitter profile the 25th of September and already has 855 followers. There are only 33 Tweets and there is not a lot of interaction… but at least they are not only ‘pushing’ Tweets from an RSS news feed. They are also talking with different people who are talking about them. It is not a bad strategy.

McDonald's Twitter Profile

This is not the first time that McDonald’s has used social media. McDonald’s are already are on Facebook with an excellent fan group.

McDonald's Facebook Profile

In conclusion, Mc Donald’s did not spend as much time on its Twitter profile/strategy as on its Facebook group as but at least now they are doing it.

A few months ago Google tried to predict the result of the Eurovision Song Contest by studying the number of searches on each contestant. The weird thing was that Google was right, correctly guessing the winner of the Eurovision contest before everyone else.

There is definitely a relation between the number of searches and the results of a vote (at least where entertainment is concerned). We can also use YouTube to see how many users saw contestants on video, although it is harder to geo targeted the result.

This technique is not alwyas… accurate, do you remember Susan Boyle (Britains Got Talent) was by far on top of YouTube viewings as well as the number of searches but at the end did not win.

Now lets see if Google/YouTube can give us the winner of the X factor 2009.

Based on Google insight (UK search only), the winner will be……….. Danyl Johnson, followed by Jamie Archer.

Searches X factor Winner

If we look at YouTube top watched videos we have once again Danyl Johnson but this time followed by Stacey Soloman.  

X factor Winner - Youtube

So based on the above, the next X – Factor winner is Danyl Johnson! Let see in few months if I am right…