ImpactWatch Blog

I’m proud to say that ImpactWatch was recently recognized for its work with Hewlett-Packard and Porter Novelli.  We have been awarded a 2009 PRSA Totem award!  We are honored that our continuing work to provide excellence in multi-media monitoring has garnered us another award, and I’m sure that it’s far from our last one.  Look for an update to this post with more details, including a link to the website as soon as the information for 2009 is added.

Reading this article by Seth Godin made me think about the role of marketing for a product or service before it’s actually created.  As he states in the final line of his entry, “If someone comes to you with a ‘great’ product that just needs some marketing, the game is probably already over.”

A recent film comes to mind when I think about this concept.  Movies in general do a lot of marketing beforehand, including toys, games, and soundtracks released well before the actual film.  Cloverfield did an especially good job of this by creating many social media outlets for the film, including memes, YouTube ads, and separate websites for fake products placed in the film (one of the fake ads is shown below). 

By the time the actual movie premiered, I felt like I was watching something that was already part of my daily life.  And this is the goal of marketing.  It made me want the product to such a high degree that I couldn’t imagine not having it.

Some would argue that you can’t market something that doesn’t exist.  That’s hogwash.  I could market something that doesn’t exist almost as easily as I could market something that does.  Using the example of Cloverfield once again, they rarely showed any actual clips from the movie.  The social media outlets contained items whose appearance in the film was under complete speculation.

I would even argue that long-term marketing might lead the product creators to fantastic ideas for things that could improve the product.  This is especially true if they listen to feedback from their Internet audience.  Comments such as “This would be great if it also washed dishes!” could lead to new ideas for the finalized product.

My advice?  Immediately start thinking about how to market your new idea as soon as you think of the new idea.  In the long haul, it’ll save you a lot of blood, sweat, and tears.  Hopefully, it’ll even make you some money!

This is a little off-topic, but I simply can’t believe that Microsoft is planning SIX versions of their upcoming operating system.  As clever as the Mojave commercials may have been, they don’t make up for the onslaught of criticism that followed the release of Vista.  Even ‘non-techie’ people knew about the horrors that consumers who purchased Vista faced; so why not focus on one or two versions of the new operating system instead?

When you look at the specs outlined for the different versions, it’s easy to imagine your local Best Buy employee telling everyday consumer after everyday consumer that they need “Home Premium” and not much else.  After all, only a fraction of computer users opt to upgrade their operating system using the ‘if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it’ mentality.

I would personally prefer if Windows followed Google’s lead by focusing their attention on one or two things, improving upon what is already working correctly instead of bombarding us with new things.  Perhaps Windows 7 will be a good OS, but I only want to have to choose between Home and Business versions.

Update: Clearly, Windows read this blog post and fixed the problem, now offering only three versions.  I’m taking full credit for this.

After some feedback from users and colleagues, we have decided to update some of the tracking in EnergyWatch, our free demo of ImpactWatch.  The great thing about IW is that it can be modified quickly to track new attributes, key messages, people, etc.

Originally, the demo was only automatically tracking five major politicians.  We have now expanded to include several new ‘stakeholders’ in the energy world.  Below is a list of the now-included stakeholders introduced in the demo:

• John Muir – a Sierra Club-related environmentalist and activist
• Dr. David Suzuki – best known as host of the popular and long-running CBC Television science magazine, The Nature of Things, seen in syndication in over 40 nations
• Bill Richardson – Governor of New Mexico and newly named Secretary of Commerce; former Secretary of Energy
• Mary Nichols – a prominent environmental advisor; a telling article about her can be found here.
• Terry Tamminen – another popular environmental advisor and lecturer; his site can be found here.
• Dirk Kempthorne – the current Secretary of the Interior
• Arnold Schwarzenegger – there’s no denying that California does a lot of energy innovation, and this governor always seems to be in the thick of it

With his update, EnergyWatch becomes even more expansive as a demo.  Any IW can grow and update as the client sees fit, and this is just one example of how easily it can be done.  Below is the updated pie chart of the stakeholders that appears in the Graph section of EnergyWatch.  Click on the thumbnail for a bigger view.

Our newest demo has been running for several weeks now, and it’s time to see if we’ve found any interesting trends.  As a reminder, this demo concerns different sources of renewable energy, including solar power, wind power, etc.  We use the powerful ImpactWatch platform to track all of these as well as specific key messages and top political figures.

As you can see (click on the thumbnail for a larger image), while most of the sources of new energy remained consistent throughout the tracking period, wind power’s coverage increased dramatically in the last week.  Most of this coverage is due to a deal that Wal-Mart made with Duke Energy.  They are investing in a wind energy farm in Texas that will generate enough power to light 15 percent of its Texas operations. 

 This is a major story in the wind power market because Wal-Mart is one of the biggest companies in the nation.  Its support of this sustainable form of energy is a big step in more large companies adopting ‘green’ strategies.

To get a deeper look into the ImpactWatch platform, sign up for a free demo by clicking on this link.

The Olympics are long over, and it’s time for a new demo.  I’m really excited about this new topic, as it’s very current, important, and something that everyone is talking about!  The new demo is nicknamed ‘EnergyWatch’ and it captures news concerning renewable, sustainable forms of energy.  This includes Biofuel, Water Power, Wind Power, and three more hot topics.  The Demo still shows off the great features of ImpactWatch, as always.

This new demo also tracks several key messages and topics that occur within the stories, including politics and gas prices.  It also tracks top politicians in numerous energy campaigns.  EnergyWatch does all of this while retaining the sleek and efficient design that has made ImpactWatch such a valuable resource for so many clients.  The analytics section of this new demo takes full advantage of our recently created graphing tool, so feel free to explore this very useful device as well.

To sign up for a 5-day trial of our new demo, click here.

The Bivings Group, Hewlett-Packard and Porter Novelli together won the Platinum PR Award presented by PR News in the category of Research and Measurement. We are honored to be recognized for our development of HPWatch, a web-based platform that tracks and analyzes HP’s media coverage that is powered by our ImpactWatch product. The study, “A Swiss Army Knife for Measurement and Evaluation”, highlights the flexibility and breadth of the ImpactWatch monitoring and measurement tool.

A Little Bit about Our Project

HP’s original PR-measurement program lacked sophistication, required time-consuming manual processes and provided no insights into trends, competitors or campaign effectiveness. HP turned to PN and TBG to create a solution.

We worked through a series of interviews with stakeholders to determine the issues that the program needed to address. Porter-Novelli created a thorough outline of HP’s public relations initiatives and messages, mapping them to each of the company’s business lines. TBG customized a version of its ImpactWatch product, creating new modules to meet HP’s reporting requirements.

Working closely with PN, we developed policies outlining details such as tonality evaluation, created training materials and developed return on investment (ROI) calculations. To maintain objectivity, TBG developed subjective measures such as tonality, while PN used their expertise to identify coverage resulting from communication initiatives and events.

The project has been a huge success. HP’s Imaging and Printing Group now has a searchable database of six years’ worth of HP print, broadcast, online and blog coverage. In 2007 alone, the team wrote more than 150 reports with consistent metrics over nine market segments. The team has also used HPWatch to judge media event value, analyze product reviews, understand messaging effectiveness and compare coverage tonality. It truly is a Swiss army knife of evaluation.

We’d like to take this opportunity to thank all of the team members that helped in the venture. It was worth it (expect a picture of Chuck and me holding a trophy in the near future).

Clip sheets can be easily created in ImpactWatch (IW) to aid presentations, handouts, or general office gossip on the latest company news.  A clip sheet is a multipage document that contains not only summaries of the articles, but the full text as well.  Along with that, the clip sheet’s first page contains summary points such as the number of pickups, total reach, and dates.  Article summaries appear similarly to how they appear in the News section of IW with headlines, summary, tonality, and other important information.  Below is a step-by-step guide to creating one of these valuable clip sheets.

1. Login with your username and password, and then click on the News section in the right-hand menu.

2. Using the filters, select the appropriate range of articles.  You can filter articles by favorability, date range, type of article, and even search for specific key words.

3. Once you have selected the appropriate filters, click on Display.

4. When you are satisfied with the articles present, click the box next to Choose at the top right of the page to select Create Clip Sheet.

5. From this page, use the check boxes to select all of the appropriate articles for your clip sheet.  You can also check Select All to…select them all!

6. Next, click on the blue Create Clip Sheet button on the upper left (make sure that you have PDF or DOC selected as you would like it to appear).

7. A dialogue box will appear asking you if you would like to save or open the file.

8. Your clip sheet is now complete, and you can use IW to create as many as you would like.

Two weeks ago, I showed you how to change your password under the My Account section of ImpactWatch. 

This week, I want to make sure that everyone is aware of the other customizable options in My Account.

Want to receive your daily email alerts in plain text as opposed to HTML?  Easy; simply change the selection under My Account by using the content box shown below:

You can also check the boxes of all the daily email alerts that you want to receive.

Want to skim the News section at your leisure, but view all the trending graphs and analytics when you first login?  Select Analytics under the Home Page Format section and check Remember Me to always see the graphs upon first login.

Don’t forget to click Submit to save all of your changes!

ImpactWatch lets you customize the way you view the news that is relevant to you and your company.  Use the My Account section to make it even more impactful.

This week we conclude our look at The Corporate Weblog Manifesto by Robert Scoble.  There are six final tips contained within this section.

Tip #16 – Never hide information.

It’s the Internet; people can find out quickly if you are hiding information.  We live in a world where creditability is questioned constantly; try to make sure that you are not the one being questioned.  Someone will find out.  It’s a guarantee.

Tip #17 – If you have information that might get you in a lawsuit, see a lawyer before posting, but do it fast.

It’s always best to stay out of legal issues, but if you wait too long, you’re going to be in trouble anyway.  Other weblogs will find loopholes and post before you can offer your counterargument.

Tip #18 – Link to your competitors and say nice things about them.

Think of yourself as part of an industry.  If the industry as a whole is doing well, the individual stores in the industry will also do well.  Consumers remember who was friendly and gave them valuable information.  They may not buy a specific product from you, but you can bet that you made a return costumer out of them!

Tip #19 – BOGU or ‘Bend Over and Grease Up’

Normally this refers to keeping the big-wigs happy, by doing anything you possibly can…but Scoble recommends doing this for everyone.  Why?  You never know who is going to be able to ‘scratch your back’ in the future.  Today’s intern is tomorrow’s CEO.

Tip #20 – Be the authority on your product/company.

There is absolutely no excuse for not knowing more about what you are selling than everyone else.  Why are you selling it if you don’t know the most about it?

Tip #21 – Know who is talking about you.

This used to be a pretty new idea back in the days when consumer-generated content was still growing.  Now, companies devote entire positions (sometimes entire sections) to following their feedback online.  In fact, it’s what ImpactWatch is all about.

I hope that you’ve enjoyed our review of the Manifesto.  It’s incredible how pertinent it remains after five years.  In case you missed it in the first part of our review, here is the link to the original blog post.