When to trust, and not to trust an online review

Salon has a great article today that talks about the reliability of online review websites. Or more specifically, the un-reliability of these sites.

One of the sites that the article looks at is Yelp. Yelp has scared the pants off your local yellow pages company by bringing to the web not only a dynamic way to find local businesses but by adding a social networking component of ratings to listings. The phone company used yellow page directories to give you the ability to make a call, companies like Yelp let you make your connections within the directory.

But the problem the advertiser finds, and the one focused on in today's Salon article, is that the reviews are given the same level of legitimacy as the content of the listing. Meaning that while your store may sell the best chocolate ever made, if someone doesn't like it, they can talk badly about your chocolate to your customers at the point when those customers are making their decision to buy from you.

As with all things online, it's important to keep an eye on the reviews of your business. They will always tell you something about how people are viewing you. And knowing how people view you is just one of the things AdSymetrix does.

AdSymetrix can let you know when someone has contacted you through any listing, any advertisement, anywhere. And knowing how they're finding you helps you find out what they're thinking about you.

Give AdSymetrix a try, sign up - and email and click tracking - are free .

Searching for Where They're Searching From

One of the first places advertisers think to buy ads online is their favorite search engine. And sure, using some of the Search Engine Optimization tools, refining your campaigns to take advantage of searching browsers is very helpful. But when it comes to generating new online leads, the smart business owner needs to do more than just upload a set of meta-tags.

Some online advertisers use company sponsored blogs to generate content that drives hits. Some scour comments pages of other blogs placing their URLs everywhere they can. Some even create 'viral' videos and place them on social networking sites as a way to get a bit more traffic.

AdSymetrix is the tool your business needs to use to determine what works and how your new efforts affect your business. Simply Tag Your Ad or in this case, your original content, and let AdSymetrix track and monitor your responses. That way you're doing more than reading blogs, you're generating business.

The Fun of Social Media

Recently, BrandWeek fronted a story about how Marketers are warming up to Social Media. The article talks about how the new new medium of social networks - like MySpace, Facebook and Friendster are opening up new means for connecting with potential customers.

There's some validity in exploring this new way of marketing. But if you're going to experiment, at least make sure that you've got a way to measure the effectiveness of the message. AdSymetrix is here to help.

Whenever you're set to try out a new way of reaching your audience, use Tag Your Ad with AdSymetrix and use our online tools to track and monitor your repsonses.

Give us a try, signup is free.

MySpace and YourBusiness

Social Network Websites, like MySpace, are great for making friends, connecting with lost colleagues and promoting your new record album. What happens when you try to take advantage of MySpace's huge audience, but lose control of your friends list?

Daytona Beach's Outreach Committee has learned their lesson. Thanks to the open nature of MySpace, some of the friends that were listed on the City site were less than savory. And that's when the controversy erupted.

If you use MySpace, learn from Daytona Beach, and define ways to monitor your friends list. Knowing how your advertising works is as important as knowing what your advertising says.

AdSymetrix has been designed as your tool for knowing how your ads are working. We tie your advertisement to powerful online tracking tools that let you monitor the responses you get from any ad, anywhere. Signup is free.