Ok, so it’s probably not possible to own all 10 listings on the SERPs for your brand name, but you can certainly try.

First off, why should you care about having more than one result for your company name? From a branding point of view, it lends great credibility. Multiple results on various web properties conveys that you’re “out there” and actively engaged with your customers in many forms. From a public relations view, it’s a great way to potentially push negative press (customer complaints) off the first page.

By utilizing the hugely popular sites of the day, it’s not impossible to own at least 5 out of the 10 top spots on Google. Here’s my list for the top web properties you should have a presence on.

1. Your Website (duh!) - If you don’t yet rank for your own company or brand name, don’t read any further in this post. You’ll want to first focus on some basic SEO tactics.
   
2. LinkedIn - The most popular business professional networking site. Your profile page should rank highly for your brand name.
3. Press Release Sites - I’ve seen press releases ranking on the first page for years after their initial release. These provide an ongoing source of branding and traffic about previous newsworthy events. PRWeb.com will get you the best results.
   
4. YouTube - Post a short informational video about your company. Google loves YouTube content, so your video may instantly rank first page for your brand.
5. Facebook - Facebook now displays a limited public profile, so it can be indexed by search engines.
   
6. Myspace - Declining in light of Facebook, but still possesses great social networking capabilities. Make sure your profile page contains your brand name prominently.
7. Squidoo - Create a Squidoo hub for your brand and link it up with your RSS feed, YouTube videos, and Flickr images.
   
8. Hubpages - Similar to Squidoo and a Google favorite.
9. Wikipedia - Not every brand is worthy of Wikipedia entry, but it’s worth a try.
   
10. Technorati - Claiming your Technorati space should be the first step after creating a blog.
    

In addition to having a presence on the sites above, try using these tactics to create a Google indented listing.

Did I miss anything? Be sure to leave a comment. Hope everyone has a great Easter weekend.

In my opinion, there’s two ways to build a well-known, enduring brand:

1. Spend tons of money on advertising and PR campaigns
2. Let your customers do the marketing for you

With the rising cost of most traditional forms of marketing, who wouldn’t prefer the second option? Unfortunately, very few customers ever become true fans. After all, many businesses focus entirely too much on customer acquisition and neglect customer retention. But in order for customers to become fans, not even traditional retention strategies will suffice. Companies must go out of their way and transform their customers into friends, advisors, and partners. Below I’ve listed some ideas I’ve either used or seen used to accomplish this purpose.

1. Street Teams, Brand Reps or Brand Ambassadors: Street Team marketing is a fascinating concept that developed from the underground music industry. It centers around a grass root strategy where your fans do the marketing for you. Using this strategy, an online retailer might give customers access to branded wallpapers, screensavers, or avatars. Customers are encouraged to copy and paste banners ads into their personal Myspace profiles, blogs, or email signatures. Customers can easily email friends through easy to use tell-a-friend forms. Some online Street Teams, such as C28 or Threadless, combine these tactics with a customer referral program, allowing users to earn store credit for sales referred to the site. Street Team marketing will not work for everyone, but it can be powerful if this style of marketing fits your target audience and brand.
2. Create a Community: Whether its through forums, Myspace, Facebook, or your own sub community site, allow your customers to interact with others of similar interests. Circuit City recently launched a social networking site complete with forums, blogs, photo galleries, and user profiles. Hot Topic has a robust Myspace profile with over 35,000 members. Only time will tell if social networking continues to grow, but for now it’s inexpensive and effective brand exposure.
3. Rewards Programs: Rewards programs are nothing new, but they work well for creating brand loyalty. Maybe your online store doesn’t offer the cheapest prices, but if you let customers earn points redeemable for merchandise, they just might overlook that.
4. Recognize your Brand Warriors: Be sure to recognize top spenders by displaying their stats for all to see. Recognizing your top customers will only encourage them to spend more. One company I worked for decided to send hand-written thank you notes to their top customers along with a gift card.
5. Share and Listen: How well does your business interact with your audience? Corporate blogs, forums, customer generated product reviews and surveys can be great two way communication channels. Run your business like a democracy. Let your customers vote with their opinions and preferences. Policies and procedures should from the bottom up, not the other way around.

Be sure to leave your comments with examples of anyone successfully using these or other brand building tactics.  

Clearly, not every business can afford to pay for online brand monitoring services. But regardless of your size and budget, there are many free ways to monitor your online reputation.

First off, why is online brand monitoring necessary? With the incredible growth of online social media, your customers or potential customers are relying more and more on peer reviews. What happens when a distraught customer vents about your company’s products or services? Surprisingly, a single blog post or forum thread can cause immeasurable damage to a brand. If people begin linking to this item, it can start to rank on search engine below or even above your company website. In addition, online brand monitoring will allow you to identify positive feedback, and react accordingly. Below I’ve listed the tactics I currently use to monitor Palmer Web Marketing as well as other client’s brands.

1. Omgili Searches: Do a search for your company or product name on Omgili. Omgili is a search engine that focuses exclusively on Forum threads and other customer generated content. You’ll probably be surprised to find how many people are talking about your brand.
2. Google Alerts: Setup Google alerts for your company and product or service names. Google will email you every time it finds a blog post, press releases, or other document that contains the keyword(s) you specified. For more ideas on what to monitor, checkout 10 things you should be monitoring by Pronet Advertising. 
3. Check Your Server Logs: Surprisingly, angry customers venting about your company will link to your website. By monitoring your web analytics, you’ll find abnormal sources of traffic from these sources.

In previous posts, I’ve discussed some online Street Team marketing basics. In this post, I’ll throw out some more ideas on how it can be used as both a branding tool and a sales driver. Some of the suggestions below will not apply to all business types, and some of them may be too complex on the technical/programming side. However, I have successfully used all of these before with clients, so rest assured they do work.

1. Customer affiliate program - give your customers a % of sales when they refer friends and family.
2. Promo packs - Send out your dedicated street team members packs of stickers, flyers, coupons, etc.
3. Free PC Wallpapers - Great branding tool for the home or office
4. Screensavers - Great branding tool for the home or office
5. Printable flyers - Great for getting the word out in the community
6. Avatars - Used extensively with IM applciations such as MSN and Yahoo
7. AOL Buddy icons - Smaller than an Avatar, these are very popular with younger crowds
8. Myspace backgrounds - What can be better than your brand plastered on hundreds of myspace profiles?
9. Mysapce layouts - Even better than just a background, this will change the appearance of their whole color and layout scheme
10. Copy and paste HTML banners - Perfect for people to use on the myspace profiles, blogs, facebook profiles, etc.

I’ll admit it. I finally broke down and created a Myspace and Facebook account. Why? In this post, I share my thoughts on why every business needs a presence on social networking sites. 

1. Brand control: A company I work for recently had a unique problem. Their brand was so popular among the demographic that uses Myspace that well meaning customers were creating profiles that appeared to be the Official myspace of the company. Customers were taking company logos and images off the company website, and pasting them on their myspace profiles. Obviously, this was a problem. Several of the myspace profiles contained content that the company did not approve of, and did not want associated with the brand. In their case, they needed an Official myspace presence in order to prevent this confusion.
2. Your Customers Will Look There: Because these sites are insanely popular, people will likely search for your company or brand name. By adding you as a friend, they feel they are participating or becoming part of your community.
3. They Are Great Communication Channels: When you allow your customers to add themselves as friends, you then have the ability to post bulletins to them. These bullentins can be a great way to share company news or even marketing messages.
4. Claim Your Real Estate: Just as .com domains are becoming rare, myspace domains are also disappearing fast. You might be surprised to find that your company or brand name is already taken. If this is the case, you might want to prefix your myspace page with something like myspace.com/OfficialYourCompanyName.

I haven’t used my myspace or facebook for much yet, but I’d love to hear how anyone else uses there profiles to promote their business. Be sure to leave comment if you have any ideas.

In Street Team marketing part 1, I discussed some strategies used to create an online street team as a way of brand marketing. Below are some ideas for providing useful content for your street team. Obvisously, each of these suggestions will not apply equally to all business types as it will depend greatly on your brand identity and your customer demographic.

1. Free PC Wallpapers
2. Screensavers
3. Printable flyers
4. Avatars
5. AOL Buddy icons
6. Myspace backgrounds
7. Mysapce layouts
8. Copy and paste HTML banners

In the next post, I’ll talk about how to integrate a customer referral program into this free content. For now, checkout 2 great examples of online street team.

• Threadless street team
• C28 Street team