Being Heardable

Heardable is excited to announce the release of the BETA version of Heardable Labs, a collection of social media statistics about today's leading business organizations culled from our robust database of over 1.2 million brand profiles.

Wanna know the 100 most likable brands on Facebook? 

Or the brands with the most followers on Twitter? 

Need to know which brands have the most subscribers on YouTube? 

Heardable has them! 

So how can you try out Heardable Labs? Just click on any of the three links above, or visit Heardable.com and scroll down the left side of the homepage (see image below).

Here are the direct URLs if you need them:

heardable.com/top_100_brands_on_Facebook

heardable.com/top_100_brands_on_Twitter

heardable.com/top_100_brands_on_YouTube

Keep in mind that Heardable Labs is in BETA and we are busy making improvements every day. If you find something that doesn't look correct, please let us know about it. Or if there are other brand insights you'd like Heardable to offer, please let us know at: marketing@heardable.com

I was on a Skype call with a buddy last night when the subject of coffee came up in our conversation. The person I was speaking with told me about how he had finally managed to pay a visit to Dunkin Donuts to sample their fabulous coffee that he'd been hearing so much about.

While we were talking, I Googled over to Dunkin's website to check out their marketing. One of their websites proudly proclaims, "While we are named for our donuts, it's our Dunkin' Donuts coffee that's fueled the phenomenon."

"So how was the coffee?" I asked my friend, not sure how he would reply.

"The coffee at Dunkin Donuts..was terrible," he proclaimed. "Their marketing is much better than the quality of their product."

Ouch. That's not something that any brand manager wants to hear.

If you believe in the marketing equation [ Design + Experience ] x Communication = Brand, then you already know that a product that doesn't live up to its hype can negatively impact a brand.

To be fair, coffee may be a bit unique beast because taste is so subjective. One person's "bon au goût" (great taste) has a nasty flavor according to another person.

That said, Heardable decided to take a peek at Dunkin Donuts' online brand effectiveness utilizing the Heardable Brand Measurement Engine to see if they're a company with more than just a super marketing department. I wanted to see if their online brand was effective.

What did we uncover? Dunkin Donuts is right in the middle of the pack. Not the best, not the worst, when it comes to following the six best practices of online brand optimization:

- A portable (mobile optimized) brand. DunkinDonuts.com's subscore was 0 of 200.

- A brand that regularly measures and optimizes its online efforts. DunkinDonuts.com's subscore was 75 of 100.

- One that embraces shareable content such as RSS, API's and embedded content. DunkinDonuts.com's subscore was 0 of 150.

- A savvy social media participant. DunkinDonuts.com's subscore was 149 of 200.

- With an actionable website (simple to use & do business with) - DunkinDonuts.com's subscore was 45 of 150.

- And easily searchable/findable via the various search engines. DunkinDonuts.com's subscore was 80 of 200.

Here is quick overview showing several coffee house brands side by side compared by Heardable Score (online brand health). We included two of the Dunkin Donut brands, the main brand and a microsite they built called Dunkin At Home.

starbucks.com = 571 out of 1,000
seattlesbest.com = 368 out of 1,000
dunkindonuts.com = 361 out of 1,000
cariboucoffee.com = 371 out of 1,000
coffeebean.com - 344 out of 1,000
dunkinathome.com = 306 out of 1,000
kellyscoffee.com = 140 out of 1,000

Can Dunkin Donuts improve how they are performing online? You bet'ya!

Will they convince my buddy to return to a store for a second try at sampling their coffee? Probably not.

But hey, there is always the next customer experience to focus on.

Good luck, Dunkin. I do enjoy munching on your donuts from time to time.

Social Commerce Today recently published a story quoting some social commerce statistics originally published by Brian Solis. One of these facts caught our interest:

The top 7 brands on Facebook today host over 100 million Likes on Facebook...

1. Starbucks – 16 million
2. Coca-Cola – 15 million
3. Oreo – 12 million
4. Skittles – 11.5 million
5. Red Bull – 10.2 million
6. Victoria’s Secret – 8.4 million
7. Disney – 8.3 million

Heardable decided to run scans on each of these seven brands to see if there was any correlation between Facebook "Likes" and a brand's overall "online health score."

Here is how each of these seven brands faired according to Heardable's online brand health score:

1. Starbucks – 516 out of 1,000
2. Coca-Cola – 330 out of 1,000
3. Oreo – 269 out of 1,000
4. Skittles – 388 out of 1,000
5. Red Bull – 664 out of 1,000
6. Victoria’s Secret – 539 out of 1,000
7. Disney – 412 out of 1,000

Analysis By Numbers

Clearly there is a disconnect between Facebook "Likes" and a brand's overall online effectiveness. From what we can ascertain, five of the seven brands with millions of "Likes" are food brands that have a close-knit, social following on the web. Food fanatics, so to speak. Most of these brands have launched coordinated, social marketing campaigns with the express goal of generating lots of Facebook "Likes." It's a means to an end, no doubt, but it by no means equates to superulous brand marketing on a broad, multi-channel, global scale.

Redbull was a surprise. They ranked high as Facebook marketers and they had the highest Heardable Score of the seven brands on Solis' list, generating 664 out of 1,000 points. Clearly Redbull's marketing efforts go far beyond social media promotions to include search engine optimization, mobile marketing, direct response marketing, website usability best practices, and the like.

Redbull ranks  #87 out of 1.2 million brands in the Heardable.com database of brands. Not too shabby. Here is a list of the 10 most effective online brands in the world ranked by Heardable Score, as of December 12, 2010:

1. Informationweek.com – 765 out of 1,000
2. Tie: Mediabistro.com – 761 out of 1,000 / VH1.com – 761 out of 1,000
3. Photobucket.com     – 758 out of 1,000
4. Tie: Nascar.com – 750 out of 1,000 / ZDnet.de – 750 out of 1,000
5. Infoworld.com – 746 out of 1,000
6. Businesswire.com – 745 out of 1,000
7. Billboard.com – 736 out of 1,000
8. Oracle.com – 735 out of 1,000
9. NBA.com – 733 out of 1,000
10. Walmart.com – 729 out of 1,000

As you can see, brands such as Skittles, Victoria’s Secret and Disney are underperforming when it comes to their potential online performance metrics. They still have powerful online brands, but they have not optimized their web performance to be as sociable, searchable, portable, actionable, shareable, and measurable as they could be.

The seven brands above sure are likeable -- and it makes sense on many levels to encourage consumers to engagement with one's brand via Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, FourSquare, and most of the other popular social watering holes out there on the Web.

To have an effective online brand, organizations need to do more than simply ask people to like them. Branding is not a popularity contest. But it does help to be well-received.

If William Shakespeare were a modern day online marketer, he might utter the following advice:

To try, to brand
To brand, perchance to dream.
Ay, there's the rub

Pop-up ads appearing on a popular news publisher's website in the month of December, 2010? Say it ain't so, Politico!

The gang at Heardable was browsing the Web today when we happened upon Politico.com, a news publishing powerhouse focusing on Washington politics. Suddenly, a large pop-up ad appeared on screen -- yes, one of those annoying, untargeted type we haven't seen since the early 2000's. We couldn't believe our eyes!

Not only did Politico break one of the cardinal rules of the Web (thou shall not take control away from the user), but they served up messages that were of little interest or relevance to us.

Guess those smart marketers over at Politico fell for Zedo.com's slick advertising pitch - "Start advertising now. Build your own ads. Target your audience. Watch your business grow. Fast and Easy!"

Why else would Politico use this ad service to monetise pop-up ads on its site? Is Politico that hard up for revenue that they embraced the nefarious pop-up? Perhaps the genius-wonks at Politico simply felt the need to fire up the ole revenue generator at full throttle during the holidays to show their management just how full they could stuff their Yuletide coffers.

A quick inventory of advertisements appearing on a single page of Politico.com revealed the following:

1. Masthead banner ad for the 2011 Malibu LS (we're happy with out cars, thanks)

2. Bank of America propaganda banner touting their efforts to boost the economy (a humorous read)

3. A skyscraper banner ad pitching the new Bloomberg.com (not compelling enough for us to click)

4. Zeno pop-up ad, covering 1/3 of Politico.com's web page, pitching:

  - Adblade's ad platform (we're not media buyers, sorry)

  - A $109 iPad (we've got several of these neat toys already)

  - A trick to whiten our teeth 5 shades (nope, not into that)

  - Discount auto insurance (we don't need this, we've got Farmers)

  - An easy way to make money online (do we look that gullible)

  - A mother's secret to turning $97 into $6,795 (right...)

The lesson here, Politico, is that your brand is a byproduct of the experience you provide as well as the company you keep.

Here's our impression of your brand after the poor online experience we had with your website today:

[ Politico = Zeno + Loss of Control + Annoying and Irrelevant Pop-Up Ads ]

What will our impression of your brand be tomorrow -- assuming we even come back?

Place that into your revenue stocking to think about.

If you are a golf fan, you may have read or heard about the recent clothing debacle at the 2010 Ryder Cup golf tournament that took place in The Celtic Manor Resort, City of Newport, Wales. The US team was dressed for the rainy weather in its team-issued outerwear supplied by Sun Mountain. But then the rain and wind came tumbling down in torrents. Mortified team captain Corey Pavin was forced to ditch the team's "waterproof" duds when they became rain soaked and inhibited player performance.

According to news sources on the scene, team USA raided the Ryder Cup clubhouse with new gear by ProQuip, the official weatherwear supplier for rival Colin Montgomerie's European Ryder Cup team.

It's interesting to read the marketing pitch for Sun Mountain's Rainflex HD jacket, which proudly proclaims, "...we designed it for a climate where the wind tends to drive the rain sideways. It's perfect for that long-planed trip to Scotland." Whoops. Can you say, foot in mouth?

The real lesson of this golf outerwear brand breakdown? Your marketing-speak doesn't matter anymore. Today, professional athletes (as well as consumers around the world) are more interested in what a brand actually does for them.

People want authenticity over advertising. They demand performance over prose.

Sun Mountain (sunmountain.com) - Sun Mountain claims they are "golfers, engineers, designers and problem solvers" who produce "the best outerwear, bags, carts and accessories available to enhance your enjoyment of the game" of golf.

ProQuip (proquipgolf.com) - Founded 28 years ago, ProQuip creates performance golf weatherwear, providing golfers with state-of-the-art sports garments to cope with every type of weather condition. The company supplied weatherwear garments to Colin Montgomerie's European Ryder Cup Team 2010.

At Heardable, we look at usability testing from four different points of view to ensure our clients get a 360 degree usability 'bang for your buck.' We walk through the entire user experience, not simply from the site visitor's point of view. This ensures that the recommendation we make for improving your online brand are good for both your users and your business objectives.

Point of views we study include:

- Your online customers
- Your business goals
- Search engines (traditional and vertical)
- Emerging media (social, video, mobile, etc)

We realize that most companies just want to understand if their websites are functioning as intended--and that the majority of their users will have a frictionless (and pleasant) user experience. This is important to understand. However, usability testing can unearth much deeper insights than you might think -- nuggets of data thgat go beyond the website itself.

When we conduct a usability test for a client, we look at variables such as:

- Time to complete a task
- Number of issues encountered
- Whether a task was successfully completed or not
- Overall satisfaction of the experience (Launchly, a free online tool, can help you gather feedback too)

In addition to task-based assessments, Heardable often helps our clients gain enhanced insights by conducting:

- Heuristic reviews (how your site is doing compared to established best practices)
- Eye tracking (monitoring where on the screen a user's eye travels and why)
- Click data (understanding mouse-over and click actions)

Enhanced usability insights can be conducting via one on one testing sessions with real people who match your ideal visitor type (aka Personas). Your usability sessions are recorded using simultaneous screen capture and audio / video of the user interacting with your site. Sessions are reviewed to determine where in the task flow there are hurdles that cause users to slow down or abandon the task. The usability testing analysis includes a thorough review of the usability issues plus recommendations for improvements.

Offsite insights can be gathered using the Heardable.com platform, as well as a handful of external tools that can measure narrow bands of a brand's total online performance.

- SocialMention can be used to calculate depth and frequency of brand chatter
- Wordle can help you visualize how search engines might see your brand's RSS feeds & blog posts
- Twitter monitoring is a neat way to eavesdrop on what people are saying about your brand
- SlideShare, YouTube, and Facebook provide free stats about content you post to their networks

Add this all together and you can start to see the wealth of data that can be made available about your website and your branded content sydicated beyond your website. 360 degree usability insights can help busy marketers like you get the deep insights your need to make quick, smart decisions about how to:

- Redesign your site to increase sales conversions
- Rewrite your text to boost human comprehension and trust
- Retool your code to make it more appealing to search engines
- Revamp your publishing strategy in a way that broadens your brand reach

Dave Ramsey is a well-known financial author, radio host personality, and speaker who provides advice to listeners and customers on how to live a debt-free life. His radio program uses the promotional tagline, "It's about your life and your money." After analyzing his online brand, Dave might want to consider altering his tagline to, "It's about your brand and your brand health score." DaveRamsey.com recently attained a Heardable Score of 705 out of 1,000 -- surpassing established investment advice companies such as Motley Fool, TheStreet and Charles Schwab.

DaveRamsey.com's online performance is impressive:

#13 out of 1,200,000 brands in the Heardable platform.

#1 out of the 7,943 brands in their business category (NAICS Code 523930 - Investment Advice).

#1 in their local zip code (Brentwood, TN 37027).

So how did DaveRamsey.com do it? What is the secret to their success?

One thing is for sure, the folks behind DaveRamsey.com totally get the fact that their online customers are also buying their brand. In every aspect, whether onsite of offsite, they have taken steps to engage, promote, discuss, and share information in a way that benefits the consumer.

Let's look at their brand profile on Heardable.com, drilling down into each of their six subscores to get a better idea of what they are doing right.

Actionable Score = 92/150: They make it easy for their site visitors to engage and transact with them. And their website is somewhat ADA compliant.

Measurable Score = 100/100: They monitor and optimize the performance of their website using web analytics software, onsite advertising, plus use optimization tools.

Portable Score = 165/200: They have optimized their site experience for most of the major mobile web browsers so that smart phone users have the best possible user experience.  

Searchable Score = 122/200: DaveRamsey.com is optimized for SEO, with an emphasis on local search. Having 240,970 incoming links and 14,677 indexed pages on their website doesn't hurt either!

Shareable Score = 108/150: The Dave Ramsey brand has made it easy to send and receive Internet data feeds in multiple formats, showcasing an open company that is not afraid to share, syndicate, and embed content. 

Sociable = 118/200: Their brand is active participant in social media across a span of external social networks. They also appear to be active in the conversations taking place around their brand.

Overall, Team Heardable was very impressed by the Dave Ramsey brand. Like the little engine that could, this online brand is a beacon of hope to the millions of small to medium-size businesses who are trying to expand their brand reach by becoming more visible online.

Don't think your online brand can perform as well as DaveRamsey.com? Hogwash! Just repeat after us: "I think I can. I think I can. I think I can."

It's been said that branding is the true identity and essence of a business. It's no wonder then that so many businesses -- small and large -- use branding to emphasize what differentiates them from the competition.

Understanding your brand's online metrics can create long-term insights that can help you optimize your branding programs and marketing campaigns. When it comes to metrics, we recommend:

1. Establish your baseline performance metrics first (so you know where you started from)

2. Determine how well you're performing against your competitors (Heardable is great for this)

3. Devise strategies, goals, and tactics to optimize your online performance

4. Meaure your results each day, month, and quarter

5. Refine what you're doing -- then rinse and repeat each of the steps above

Heardable is a handy platform that helps you meaure and improve your online marketing efforts. In fact, our mission is to measure the world's brands. We can help you determine how visible your business is online -- and provide you with the data you need to help you align your business objectives with your customer expectations.

Have you seen the new Advanced Search feature on Heardable? It's right there on our home page to the right of the VIEW SCORE button at the top of the page.

Recent site visitors tell us they love Advanced Search. You can use this new tool to:

- Quickly find out how the top online brands are performing by zip code or by industry

- See the top 100 companies ranked by brand health score (including subscore performance details)

- Look under the hood, examine columns of real-time data and compare each brand's strengths and weaknesses

What's the benefit to you? Learn from the best so you can optimize your company's online brand performance:

1) Increase your brand awareness
2) Drive more traffic to your website
3) Boost sales revenue

Happy Thanksgiving 2010...from Heardable!

It's been a fun ride through the summer of 2010 and into the fall. A big 'thank you' to all our visitors and subscribers!

Thousands of companies are now using Heardable to measure the effectiveness of their online brand. Pretty cool, huh? But don't just take our word for it.

Heardable Platform Updates: October/November 2010

- Added over 1.2 million brands to our database

- Launched an advanced search tool: Now you can view lists of the top 100 brands by industry sector or zip code

- When available, added brand ownership information: fanta.com is owned by The Coca-Cola Company

- Improved look and feel of our subscore metrics, making it easier to perform deep brand diagnostics

- Ability to add custom social media handles to a brand's profile, if they differ from your brand name: twitter.com/thisisgmc

- Links to a brand's social media pages: youtube.com/user/fanta

- Published our first research report, Top 10 US Domestic Airline Brands Online ($1,299 / $799 for Heardable subscribers)

- Added a Heardable screencast video

- All new list of the top 100 brands in the world ranked by brand health score

- Posted 17 insightful blog posts

Are there features or platform functionality you'd like us to add to Heardable? Just drop us a note at: marketing@heardable.com

Heardable's mission is to measure the world's brands. Suddenly, your brand's online performance makes sense -- with Heardable.

A digital press release is the single, sure-fire marketing activity you can do on a regular basis that is worth your time and effort.  If your company is not sending out at least one press release a month, then you should fire your head of marketing. I am not kidding.

If you are are a small business and you are serving as your own chief bottle washer and lead marketeer -- you are in luck. Today's PR services (sometimes referred to as news syndicates) are not your father's old school press clipping services. They've made it easy for any company, large or small, to take full advantage of today's PR technologies to maximize exposure for any brand.

Today's digital press release is like a website in itself -- with links, embedded multimedia, optimized for SEO, and more.

And most leading PR companies are multi-faceted, techno-savvy communications operations. They can help you create, disseminate, and track the impact of your story better than ever before.

PR Services - The Pros:

- Wide distribution of your 'story'

- Inbound link credit from the PR service, plus inbound link credit from any third party site that runs your story

- A boost in your website traffic

- Analytics on the performance of your press release

- The 'stamp of credibility' that a well-written (and distributed) press release can provide

PR Services - The Cons:

- For some it's hard to write an effective release

- Cost of some PR services can be prohibitive

- To get the most bang for your buck you'll need some SEO skills

- The web submission user interfaces & measurement tools offered by most PR firms are not all that great

Basically, when it comes to which PR service to go with, you get what you pay for.

1. BusinessWire (if they agree to represent you). Your stories must be newsworthy or they won't release them and they can be pricey. BUT...they are hands down the gold standard in this category.

2. PRNewswire

3. Marketwire

4. PRweb

5. Catapultpr

Others: mediapost.com, ereleases.com, uexpress.com, realwire.com, pr.com, pr-inside.com

Here is a list of the top 50 most effective news syndicates & news wire services online, ranked by brand health score.

Of course, it helps to utilize the services of a reputable public relations firms first. They can help you establish the right goals, craft a strategy and approach, manage a budget, arrange interviews with the press, report on results, and much more!

Here is a link to a list of the top 400 pubic relations firms in the Heardable database, ranked by brand health score.

Comprehensive social media (brand) monitoring & performance optimization can be a daunting task. Tools and technology change like the wind -- and new players come and go so quickly. To be effective, smart marketers should have a wide array of tools at their disposal -- tools that are not always exclusive to 'social media' tools per se.

For example, SlideShare is a hidden marketing jewel. Not only is it a wonderful social content sharing platform where savvy marketers can syndicate branded content, but it provides lots of free social statistics to justify your time & effort. Here's a link to a recent blog post, 8 Simple Reasons to Promote Your Brand On SlideShare, that explains some of the marketing benefits of using SlideShare.

Google is another wonderful source of free social data. From Google Analytics, Google Alerts, Google News, Google Trends, Google Adwords Keyword Tool, and Google Reader (links to each can be found in the list below).

Web analytics and common brand metrics don't really help you understand how you're doing against your business objectives. They're just numbers. A better indicator of web marketing success might be the use of key performance indicators (KPI's). These are specialized metrics that tell brands how they're performing against their business objectives and goals. Here is a link to a great article on the value of KPI's.

I have purposely not included the [thousands] of Twitter monitoring/mash-up tools even though they could technically be included in this list. The reason -- there are too many, and they are too specialized around a single social network. If you are looking for a list of known Twitter tools, try conducting a search on Bing or Google and I am sure you will find plenty.

That said, here's a list of 171 indispensable social media tools for your enjoyment! This list includes performance analytics tools, social search tools, news clipping services, demographic profiling services, brand optimization tools, social monitoring tools, and similar services. If I have left anything out (which I'm sure I have) please let me know and I will add it to my list).

Actionly - Monitoring & insights for Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Youtube, Google Buzz, blogs, and news.

AlchemyAPI - Content analysis and meta-data annotation tools.

Alterian - Campaign management, web content management, email, and social media monitoring.

AMI Software - Internet monitoring, intelligence development & evidence based horizon scanning.

Amplified Analytics - Forecasting tools & predictive analytical models by quantifying qualitative information.

Arkovi - Social media archiving services.

Atomic Intelligence - Organizing web content through text indexing, unstructured text parsing, and machine learning.

Attensity - Listen to and analyze multi-channel customer conversations.

Attentio - Analyze buzz around brands or products + multi-language sentiment.

BlogPulse - Real-time view of the most popular topics that bloggers are writing about.

BrandsEye - Online reputation monitoring.

Brandtology - Sentiment analysis in 12 languages.

Brandwatch - Social media monitoring (reputation, sentiment & moderation).

BurrellesLuce - Media monitoring, press clipping services, and public relations software.

Businesswire - Press release distribution, clipping services, and online measurement (A Berkshire Hathaway company).

BuzzAnalytics - Internet buzz tracking in 20 languages + opinion research/polling.

BuzzDing - Online reputation management and social media monitoring.

Buzzient - Enterprise-class social media analytics.

BuzzLogic - Proprietary conversational analytics to optimize online advertising.

BuzzNumbers - Social media monitoring, reporting & engagement.

BuzzStream - Manage word-of-mouth marketing campaigns.

Chartbeat - Real-time monitoring of your online presence.

Chatmeter - Reputation monitoring & management.

Clarabridge - Text mining & analytics.

Clicky - Real-time web analytics.

ClearForest - Deriving meaning from unstructured information such as news, blogs, research reports & more.

Clixpy - Tracks everything your website users do.

Collective Intellect - Social media analytics.

ComMetric - Understand how influencers across all types of digital media are networked.

Comscore - Digital market intelligence and measurement.

Compete - Mine your online performance.

Conductor - Organic search visibility platform.

Converseon - Social media listening and consulting.

Conversition - Bridging the gap between social media and research.

Crazyegg - Build heatmaps and track clicks.

Crimson Hexagon - Social media monitoring & analysis.

CrowdControlHQ - Social media software and reporting.

CyberAlert - News monitoring & clipping, social media monitoring, PR measurement.

Cymfony - Market influence analytics.

Dialogix - Social media monitoring tool from Australia.

dna13 - Real-time reputation management and PR software.

ecairn - Social media tool for marketing agencies.

Echo Research - Reputation analysis, media measurement & research.

Eloqua - Integrated campaign management & social sharing.

Engagor - Social media listening tool.

Entrenza - Track your online presence & monitor brand perceptions.

Evolve24 - Enterprise listening platform.

Evri - Discover & follow trending stories.

Explosive Commerce - Social media management software.

Feng-gui - Attention analysis for websites and advertisements.

Flurry - Smartphone analytics.

Folowen - Find people & organization across social media.

GeeYee - Social media analysis service.

Google Adwords - Keyword research tool for online advertising.

Google Alerts - Automatically monitor selected keywords & receive email alerts.

Google Analytics - Free web analytics tool.

Google News - Automated news aggregator.

Google Reader - Atom and RSS feed reader / aggregator.

Google Trends - Insights into popular search patterns.

Heardable - Real-time contextual brand analytics (social, mobile, seo & more).

HotGrinds - Opinion mining.

HowSociable? - Brand visibility metrics.

ICUC Moderation - Social media & blog moderation services for brands.

iMente - Social media measurement (in Spanish).

Imooty - Media monitoring tool.

ImpactWatch - Media coverage dashboard.

Infegy - Enterprise socia media monitoring.

Infonic - Linguistic processing technology for analysing digital news coverage.

Infonitor - Internet trends & opinions (in German).

Integrasco - Manage online word of mouth.

Interwoven - Manage website content and visitor information.

Jamiq - Monitor social media across Asian languages and markets.

Janya - Multilingual semantic processing to harvest online insights.

Jodange - Indexes feelings and statements from traditional and social media.

KnowEm - Claim your brand name across the social media landscape.

Leximancer - Analytics technology for unstructured, qualitative, textual data.

Linkfluence - Social web insights (in French).

ListenLogic - Social market research & analytics.

Liquida - Social market research & analytics.

Lithium - Social CRM.

Managing News - News and data aggregation engine.

Market Sentinel - Conversation & influence analysis.

Media Proof i-news - Media analysis & news monitoring.

MediaHound - Marketing metrics.

MediaMiser - Media analysis, monitoring, and measurement.

Mediatrack Research - Analysis, evaluation, and measurement of international media.

Meltwater - Reputation management, web-based collaboration & online marketing campaign management.

Metatale - Social measurement (in Dutch).

Metricly - Aggregated dashboards of web data.

MightyBrand - Monitor your brand online.

Mint (Have A Mint) - Website analytics.

Moreover - Content monitoring & aggregation.

Morningside Analytics - Mapping of data clusters.

NetBase - Understand consumer insights.

Networked Insights - Social-media listening platform for actionable insights.

New Media Intelligence - A digital media monitoring agency.

Nexalogy Environics - A social media intelligence service.

Nielsen - A global leader in measurement and information.

ObjectiveMarketer - Social media marketing and campaign management solution.

Omgili - Search engine for online discussions.

Onalytica - Extract business insights from social conversations.

Open Amplify - Create custom taxonomies to classify & analyze content.

Optify - Marketing software enabling lead generation through SEO and social.

Overtone - Meaningful insights from customer feedback and social media.

Parnassus Group - Social media intelligence.

Perception Metrics - Data-driven media insights.

Personified - Business intelligence and talent management consulting.

Postrank - Real-time data and analysis on any topic, trend, or interest.

PR Newswire - News distribution, targeting, monitoring, and marketing solutions.

PR Web - Press release distribution services to create buzz & increase online visibility.

Psydex - Real-time search, data mining, and predictive analytics.

Quantcast - Online audience insights.

Quarkbase - Website information & research.

Radian6 - Social media monitoring & engagement.

RapLeaf - Personalized online experiences for your customers.

Reedge - Content behavioral targeting & conversion rate optimization.

RepuMetrix - Online reputation monitoring & social media measurement.

Reputation Institute - Corporate reputation ratings.

ReputationHQ - Online reputation manager.

Ripple6 - Social networking software and platform for social media marketing.

Samepoint - Real-time search & trends.

Satmetrix - Customer experience management software.

Sentiment Metrics - Social media monitoring, measurement, and engagement.

SentiMetrix - Online reputation analysis (in Italian and English).

Serendio - Customer experience analytics.

Shoutlet - Social media marketing platform.

Silverbakk - Social media monitoring based on language and relevance.

SlideShare - Share presentations, get stats & generate leads.

SociafyQ - Open social network analytics.

Social Mention - Real-time search results.

SocialMetrix - Social buzz measurement (in English, Portugese, and Spanish).

SocialRep - Social market intelligence.

SocialReport - Enterprise-class social network analytics.

Socialscape - Social media conversation monitoring.

Social Target - Social media intelligence.

Socialware - Social middleware company.

So ME Tracker - Social media tracking (in Swedish).

Spinn3r - Real-time indexing of the blogosphere.

Spiral16 - Software for web and social media monitoring.

Spredfast - Enterprise social media management.

Sprout Social - Social media management & CRM.

StartPR - Find, manage, and respond to mentions of your company.

Storify - Turn what people post on social media into compelling stories.

Surchur - Real-time search.

Symscio - Communications research firm specializing in media analysis & surveys.

Syncapse - Social media management.

Synthesio - Social media monitoring & engagement.

Sysomos - Business intelligence for social media.

Techrigy - Social media monitoring & analysis.

Tinker - Follow live conversations in social media.

TodaPulse.com - Manage your social media marketing.

Traackr - Measuring online infuence.

TraceBuzz - Find, filter, and show you buzz.

Trackur - White-labeled social media monitoring tools.

Translated Labs - Readibility analyzer.

Trendrr - Track the popularity and awareness of trends.

Trustworthy - Tracking social media response.

Truviso - Web analytics software.

UKNetMonitor - Internet reputation monitoring.

Unilyzer - Social media dashboard software.

Viral Heat - Social media monitoring & analytics.

Visible - Social media solutions for enterprise social intelligence.

Vitrue - Social relationship management platform.

Vocus - On-demand software for public relations management.

Wavemetrix - Buzz research.

WebClipping - Media monitoring & clipping service.

Website Grader - How well is your website doing?

WebTrends - Mobile & social analytics.

Whitevector - Monitoring & analyzing social media.

WiseWindow - Mass opinion business intelligence.

WooRank - Website analysis tool.

Disclosure -- Jon Samsel is the CEO of Heardable.com, one of the tools included in this list.

Heardable Names Top 10 US Domestic Airline Brands Online
Delta Air Lines named the most effective domestic airline brand, followed by JetBlue and Southwest

Los Angeles, CA (PR-INSIDE) November 1, 2010 -- Delta Air Lines has been named the most effective domestic airline brand online by Heardable, Inc., a brand performance rating platform whose mission is to organize the world's brand data.

Delta beat competitors such as JetBlue and Southwest to take the top position, which was calculated by a thorough examination of hundreds of airline brand variables. Delta's brand health score of 580 out of 1,000 beat its nearest competitor, JetBlue, by 22 points. Shockingly, Delta's performance was 51% higher than United Airlines, whose score of 284 out of 1,000 did not even make the top 10 list.

"Delta really came out of nowhere and stole the crown," says Jon Samsel, Heardable's CEO. "JetBlue and Southwest had been outperforming Delta all year, but Delta's acquisition of Northwest seems to have helped Delta become more searchable. Delta's recent homepage redesign looks to have tipped the scales in their favor. Hat's off to Delta, a brand that's committed to conducting business online."

Heardable allows business operators and brand owners to understand how well their brands are performing online, relative to their competition. Heardable's unique ABLE engine analyzes 438 separate data points for each brand and its competitors, in real time, isolating those areas in which the business operator has an advantage over its competition, and which areas it needs to improve. It's like a FICO score for brands.

Delta's brand health score of 580 is comprised of six subscores:

Portable - 173 out of 200 points: Delta.com is optimized for the most popular mobile browsers
Sociable - 151 out of 200 points: Delta has a solid brand presence on the major social networks
Measurable - 40 out of 100 points: Delta tracks & optimizes online performance using various analytics tools
Actionable - 65 out of 150 points: Delta.com makes it moderately easy for site visitors to do business with them
Shareable - 20 out of 150 points: Delta.com's ability to share or embed content needs some improvement
Searchable - 131 out of 200 points: Delta.com is fairly well optimized for search engines

"Delta has obviously put in a lot of effort into social marketing over the past year, and that effort is now being rewarded," adds John Sharp, director of Heardable, Inc.  "You need to get a lot of things right to win the top spot in a competitive sector like airlines - their brand management team deserves high marks."

The top 10 most effective airline brands online in the US, ranked by brand health score:

1. Delta Air Lines - 580
2. JetBlue Airways - 558
3. SouthWest Airlines - 520
4. American Airlines - 498
5. AirTran Airways - 492
6. US Airways - 487
7. Alaska Airlines - 465
8. Continental Airlines - 410
9. Allegiant Air - 371
10. Virgin America - 341

A free PowerPoint summary report showcasing the top 10 most effective online brands online can be viewed or downloaded on SlideShare.

Heardable's industry report, Top 10 US Domestic Airline Brands Online, will soon be available for purchase on the company's website.

About Heardable, Inc:
Heardable's mission is to organize the world's brand data. Heardable.com can measure the effectiveness of any online brand in less than 30 seconds, in real-time, allowing users to instantly compare businesses by industry or local zip code. Type in any URL and start your scan. The higher the score, the better you're doing. And yes, it really is that simple. With over 1.2 million brand profiles already stored in our database and hundreds of new companies added each day, Heardable's vast data repository can be utilized by any business looking for ways to optimize their online performance, boost brand awareness, and increase revenue. Heardable, Inc. is a privately held company based in Los Angeles, CA.

Jon Samsel, CEO of Heardable.com, a website that helps companies measure the effectiveness of their online brand, shares his top five social media optimization tips for savvy brands.

1. Maintain Brand Consistency: Brand fragmentation is bad for your business -- especially as you utilize the Internet to market to new customers, communicate with existing customers, or try to expand the visibility of your online brand. Brand consistency means using the same spelling of your name anyplace it appears, publishing true color schemes, and using persistent design aesthetics. Why? Consistent branding makes it easier for customers to find you -- and to recognize your brand from other brands with similar names, logos, or taglines.

Brands should try to do whatever it takes to ensure that their brand name is consistent across the web. Register your brand 'handle' on as many social media sites as you can before someone else does -- and use the same url extension everywhere. If you are unitedvanlines on Twitter, don't be united-van-lines on Facebook. Keep everything consistent. For a fee, services like KnowEm.com can help you register your brand on over 400 popular and emerging social media websites.

2. Play Responsibly: Actively participate in a minimum of 5-10 social media sites in a meaningful, transparent way that provides value. Our favorite social networks are: Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter, LinkedIn, SlideShare, Digg, FourSquare, and StumbleUpon. Be sure to publish content on a daily basis and mix it up with your followers or prospective fans. Post, read, follow, engage, solve problems, thank people, listen, learn, and put a human face to your brand. Don't just sit back and wait for people to come to you, don't simply post corporate propaganda, and try to think of social media as more than an early warning indicator for customer service complaints -- or as mere listing posts for mentions of your brand.

3. Treat Social As It's Own Business Channel: When I was a senior vice-president at Bank of America, I gave a presentation to internal leadership in which I provided research insights and a call to form a new business channel, social search, within our digital marketing division focusing on this emerging new business opportunity. I made the argument that social search is not paid search, it's not organic search, and it's not social media -- social search is an emerging channel in and of itself.

Today, as we all know, search has become more conversational, more real-time. There are numerous new vertical search engines (plus unconventional ones like Twitter) and for the most part, they are not scanning traditional websites to see if they are following SEO best practices. The new wave of search -- social search -- is sorting through RSS feeds, API feeds, bog posts, consumer ratings, social media updates, and videos to glean insights for searchers.

Brands who focus on website optimization or paid search media buys to generate traffic/sales are missing the boat. To be visible within social search, brands must be active publishers within dozens of social communities and multimedia content portals.

4. Spread the Social Chum: It's not enough anymore to simply post a promotional video to YouTube or blog about your company's latest product release. You need to market your content in bold, innovative ways to get found. In fact, marketing your content is just as important as the quality of the content you produce.

Here is a sample way to 'chum' after posting a brand promotional video on YouTube:

- Embed the video code into a prominent position within your website

- Embed the video code into a new blog post about the video, and tie your blog posts into LinkedIn and Friendfeed to maximize your distribution

- Tweet the video link -- and don't just do it once. Re-phrase your post and tweet it 3-4 times on different days, at different times of the day

- Email the video link to your contact database asking them to check out the video and like it

- Post a link to the video to Facebook, Digg, Reddit, and all the other social destinations you can think of

- Post a StumbleUpon review of the link / video

- Don't limit your video to YouTube -- post it everywhere (Vimeo, DailyMotion, Etc)

I like to call this practice, spreading the social chum, because it reminds me of what marine biologists do to attract sharks. They scoop heaping portions of tasty fish parts into the ocean and wait for the scent of food to propagate through the current to attract its intended target -- sharks! The end result? Swarms of sharks appear within minutes, ready to consume the chum.

5. Monitor, Measure, Rinse & Repeat: I know everyone talks about measuring and monitoring performance, but besides glancing at high level data found in Google Analytics such as the number of site visits, or source of traffic, I have been a bit disappointed with how brands are gleaning insight from the data that is available out there.

You will never know how far you've come without knowing where you started from. That's why establishing baseline performance metrics are critical for brand marketing managers.

Here is a short list of tools from my 'measurement & monitoring' toolbox:

http://www.google.com/reader
http://www.socialmention.com
http://www.google.com/alerts
http://www.google.com/trends
http://www.google.com/analytics
http://news.google.com
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
http://www.wordle.net
http://www.slideshare.net
http://labs.translated.net/text-readability
http://www.clicktake.com
http://www.converseon.com
http://www.ecairn.com
http://www.scoutlabs.com
http://www.radian6.com
http://www.techrigy.com
http://www.nielsen.com
http://www.trendrr.com
http://www.overtone.com
http://www.cymfony.com
http://heardable.com
http://www.getclicky.com
http://sproutsocial.com
http://unbounce.com   
http://www.compete.com
http://www.quantcast.com
http://www.conductor.com
http://socialmedia.alterian.com
http://sysomos.com
http://www.backlinkwatch.com/index.php#
http://www.stumbleupon.com

Distinguished copywriters do not tell—they show.

Don’t tell me something like, “Johnny is sitting angrily beside the bus stop.” If Johnny is angry, he should show us his anger. Maybe he slams his fist into the bench. Or maybe he refuses a ride from a friend. Properly contextualized, either situation will allow the audience to feel Johnny’s emotion because they participate in it.

Genuine emotion should be presented indirectly. It should be dramatized. Rather than tell us what's going on in Jack’s mind or Jill’s heart, show us what the characters say, see, and do.

If you read a line like, “She shoots him an angry glance,” you ought to know that you’re being cheated. Glances can neither be shot nor angry.

Smart businesses—like smart copywriters—utilize a variety of mediums, modes of interaction, selling methods, images, and experiences to paint indirect stories about their brand.

Nordstrom, the famous department store brand, often hires pianists to play live music in their stores to indirectly signal to its visitors that this is a luxury shopping experience like no other. This allows them to charge a premium for its products because the in-store experience you get while shopping at Nordstrom is unique. 

"I love shopping at Nordstrom and hearing the piano play while I shop. It's relaxing and peaceful. Nordstrom is really upscale, they are one of my favorite department stores." —miamibeach1791 via YouTube

Oakley geometric performance eyewear is in a class by itself. The company owns more unique patents to their lens technology than any other eyewear manufacturer. They embrace customization. And they support the athletes and the sports that are fiercely loyal to their brand.

Rather that talk about how good their products are, the athletes who wear Oakley sunglasses in racing events SHOW consumers the benefits of their product rather than simply TELLING.

"Great shades. I've got the path lens shape in grey/black and everyhting he says is true. I can't fault them at all!" —MrPlanetOcean via via YouTube

But of course, positive reviews/testimonials like this never hurt!

One wonders if the age-old motivators of money and power drive consumer behavior at all. Perhaps our desire to be unique, to be the best, to have purpose—is the real, hidden motivator. A brand encapsulates both the tangible and the intangible—so brands that are able to tap into the aspirations and aims of its target customers are more like to become popular (assuming they have quality products or services as well).

Indirect 'storyselling' can effect the way consumers perceive, interact, and transact with any given brand. Let's all try to do a little more showing and a little less telling. Deal?

Traditional book publishing turned on its head as Heardable, Inc. joins GoDaddy and 1800Flowers.com in an exciting cross-media sponsorship deal.

LOS ANGELES, CA (October 22, 2010) --  Heardable, Inc. joins GoDaddy and 1800Flowers.com in an exciting cross-media sponsorship deal for Lynn Isenberg's The Funeral Planner series. In one fell swoop, a trilogy of stories are released in multiple mediums (e-book, digital video and social media) at the same time -- with corporate sponsors like Heardable underwriting a portion of the publishing expenses via product placement advertising and ad inserts.

The Funeral Planner is a digital series and trilogy of novels that make you laugh and re-think how to celebrate a life. The hero, Maddy Banks, is a serial entrepreneur inspired by the lack of personalization at her best friend's funeral to launch Lights Out Enterprises™ to create meaningful Life Celebrations. The new Digital Series features Grammy Award-winning singer Joss Stone. The Book Trilogy features "The Funeral Planner" and "The Funeral Planner Goes to Washington" with "The Funeral Planner Goes Global" debuting this winter. And a new social media network has been launched to make it easy to honor loved ones on The Tribute Network. A feature-film in the works with award winning comedy director Donald Petrie (Miss Congeniality, How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days) and with Producer Karen Waldron.

"We are excited to support a transmedia narrative opportunity like The Funeral Planner that breaks from the traditional publishing paradigm and ventures into untested territory that empowers small publishers, consumers and sponsoring brands to participate in a new type of 'storyselling,' said Jon Samsel, Chief Executive Officer of Heardable. "The Internet makes it possible for the disconnected to become connected -- for small tales to bossom into large digital experiences that previously would not have seen the light of day due to the previously restrictive nature of traditional publishing. We are excited to support Lynn Isenberg and her efforts to promulgate great stories through diversified mechanisms of telling."

Isenberg's books and series are brought to you by the Dignity Memorial Network, Legacy.com, Eternal Image, SOYJOY; plus brand integrated ads, some with value added promo codes, featuring 1800Flowers.com, GoDaddy.com, Heardable.com, Forethought Financial Group, LLC, Echo Sign, National Hospice Foundation, DNA2Diamonds, First Capital Funding; and plot- related restaurants Got Kosher Inc., Andiamo's Italia, BTB Burrito, Eagles Nest, and Cadillac Travel Agency.

The Funeral Planner Digital Series featuring Joss Stone is available at Amazon.com. The Funeral Planner Novels are available at Amazon.com, Kindle, Scribd.com/FocusMedia, BN.com, and where Adobe eBooks are sold.

About Heardable, Inc.:
Heardable.com meaures the effectiveness of any online brand in less than 30 seconds, allowing users to instantly compare businesses by industry or local zip code. Type in any URL and start your scan. The higher the score, the better you're doing. And yes, it really is that simple. With over 1 million+ brand profiles already stored in our database and hundreds of new companies added each day, Heardable's vast data repository can be utilized by any business looking for ways to optimize their online performance, boost brand awareness, and increase revenue. Heardable, Inc. is a privately held company based in Los Angeles, CA.

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Our Slideshare presentation, "20 Simple Rules of Social Business Success" is so popular (nearly 4,000 views and counting) we decided to create a video version of it as well. So grab some popcorn and give it a play!  [1:45]

By 2013, mobile phones will overtake PCs as the most common Web access device worldwide.*  Even mobilemarketingwatch.com claims that 46% of active Twitter users already access the site via mobile devices.

The mobile web is upon us -- yet surprisingly, most of today's websites don't offer visitors an online experience that is optimized for the mobile visitor.

So what's going on here? And why should you sit up and take notice?

Let's take a look at Clearwire.com, a leading provider of wireless broadband services based in Kirkland, Washington. When their website is viewed via a mobile browser, the user experience looks something like this.

Basically, the entire homepage is squeezed into a very small screen, making the content practically illegible. Common user activities such as logging into an account or searching for coverage area are not easily found. Once you do find what you're looking for, it's not reasy to use. The only way to view the content is to zoom in, look around, and click when you find what you are looking for. The website is just not designed for the mobile user to experience. It was created for the PC user.

Here is what the site looks like in regular web browser on a typical laptop or desktop computer.

Notice the difference?

It's a well-known fact that mobile web users make fewer clicks on a website than users accessing sites from a standard computer. When your website is not optimized for smaller-screen formats, your customers have less-than-optimimal user experiences. At best, your entire site is squeezed into a very small viewing screen, making it nearly improssible to read, navigate, or find things. Some websites are not viewable at all.

"I don't need to worry," you say. "Our site is built on a Wordpress blogger platform -- so it's automatically reformatted for the small mobile browser screen."

Well, that may be the case if you've installed a mobile re-sizing plug in, or if your tech team has worked its magic on your code in a way that optimizes your site for portable devices. In most cases, however, your site will not render effectively for a mobile user.

Take TheFordStory.com for example. It's a nice looking automobile fan site built on Wordpress. For the PC user, it's a quality experience. Viewed from a mobile phone, however, and you can see the site has simply been squeezed into a tiny viewing area. Wordpress alone didn't magically transform the content into an optimal online experience.

If your website has not been optimized for viewing on a mobile devise like an iPhone, you are probably losing money as a result. Even more concerning -- there is a chance your brand could be negatively impacted as well, as today, the online experience users have has a direct correlation -- and lingering impact -- on brand impression.

Leading retailer, Walmart.com, does a much better job by providing a steller online experience for its mobile visitors. See below.

Basically, when a mobile user types in Walmart.com, Walmart's site automatically detects -- and redirects mobile users to -- a mobile-optimized web experience. The Walmart mobile site is very different from their main website viewable from most standard web browsers. Walmart has trimmed down the navigation to the seven key things a user might want to do most:

1. Store Finder
2. Values of the Day
3. Rollbacks
4. Top Rated & Best Sellers
5. Local Ad
6. Shopping List
7. Order History

Walmart's mobile site design is also tailored to a mobile browser's small screen -- with no images that might slow down the page load time, and focusing on only a few functional tasks that a portable visitor might want to do.

Compare Walmart's mobile site with its standard website below.

Considering that the 'age of the mobile user is upon us,' most CEO's and professional web marketers will want to have their websites reformatted or rebuilt -- or risk offering a terrible brand experience to your customers.

3 Simple Steps to Mobile Web Optimization

1. Benchmark your current online performance.

Try Heardable.com - Is your website optimized for the various mobile browsers? Scan your URL on Heardable.com and see what your Portable subscore is. If it's less than 200, you have some work to do! Sign up for your free Heardable account today and you can see which mobile browsers your URL is optimized for and which ones it's not.

Simulate the User Experience - See what your website might look like in a mobile browser by using this free tool.

2. Determine if you can make improvements to your website code yourself or if you need help from outside developers or web consultants.

Fix It Yourself - If you have an in-house IT, marketing, or technical development staff who can enhance your website to be more mobile-friendly, and you have the budget and bandwidth to do it, then what are you waiting for? Make your website mobile-friendly today.

Get a Free Consultation - There are thousands of companies out there who might be able to help you optimize your website. Call the team at Heardable for a free quote on how we can help optimize your website for the emerging mobile marketplace.

3. Monitor your mobile web performance on a regular basis

Bookmark Heardable.com - Use Heardable.com as one of your regular weekly or monthly tools to track and measure your brand's mobile performance. Be sure to bookmark out site today and come back often. Heardable results are in real-time -- so changes you make today can be measured immediately!

* Source: Gartner, Inc.
 

Okay, so, forget all that mumbo jumbo you learned back in business school.

Any CEO worth his salt will tell you there's only one metric that really matters in business: How well you're performing against your competition.

But keeping track of your competition can be tedious, time consuming work.

Well...not anymore. Heardable.com allows you to assess the effectiveness of any online brand in less than 30 seconds.

Heardable monitors and makes sense of a dizzying array of online metrics in one easy-to-use web platform. Imagine -- mobile browser friendliness, site usability stats, content sharing & syndication insights, SEO readiness, social media participation, and more – and your fingertips and in one place.

Online marketers -- think of how much time, money, and effort that could save you!

Yeah, and think of the edge you could gain in business.

Here's how it works...

1. Go to Heardable.com and get your free brand health score -- it's like a FICO score for brands

2. Compare your brand to other brands in your business category or by zip code

3. Learn what you need to do to optimize your brand's performance

4. Rescan your brand -- and chart your progress over time to see how you're improving

So how do we it?

Hey, check this out...our real-time crawler scours the web in search of over 400 brand marketing variables, then runs the data through a custom scoring engine to rendor your brand health score on a scale of one to one thousand. The higher the score, the better you're doing. And yes, it realy is that simple.

Did you know that over one million businesses already have a brand health score from Heardable? Great news -- you can get one too. And best of all, it's free!

Generate buzz. Expand your brand reach. Boost website traffic. And increase your online sales.

Let your brand be heard!

Heardable.com

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