Jon Samsel

Can anyone reading this imagine putting together a winning business proposal based on “My competitors want your company to fail?” Who among us could support a budget request with an argument like, “If you turn this over to those racists in the ____ department, they’ll ruin the company!” No one can imagine supporting arguments like that in the workplace, but when it comes to discussing politics and economics, that is exactly what most discussions boil down to.

Evan Dodge and Jim Kee wanted more than that. Like most professionals, they want to see evidence before they’ll accept an argument. “We want to provide that professional level discussion that we expect at work in the arena of public policy, economics and politics. We think that there’s a large middle swath of the country that’s not emotionally committed to their party right or wrong. We want to engage them.”

ReasonableViews.com was born.

“We believe in ’showing your work,’ so we bring facts and footnotes to the discussion, say Kee and Dodge. “We believe that by being good students of data and history and by doing some unconventional thinking we can be one step ahead of the mainstream. ReasonableViews is a sports blog that discusses the issues you’ll find in The Economist.”

One way Kee and Dodge are blazing a new trail in the blogosphere is by using tools and technology to stay a few steps ahead of the other guys. SocialStrawPoll.com is an example of a tool they recently used to proclaim a 3-way race for the Republican Presidential nomination several days before the mainstream media.

“We recognized the genius of Herman Cain’s campaign strategy while everyone else was proclaiming him crazy for not campaigning in Iowa. We debated the fairness of the flat tax 3 weeks ago; the Wall Street Journal editorial page covered it 3 days ago. We drew a connection between Herman Cain’s unconventional campaign success and Occupy Wall Street that I haven’t seen anyone else mention. We produced original research on the ‘lost decade’ while everyone else is talking about a double dip. Nailing those insights before other people have them energizes us; it’s a blast, and it keeps us going late at night.”

The biggest challenge for Kee and Dodge to date?  ”There’s such a long learning curve creating a website,” they confess. “Just when you think you’ve got Twitter, StumbleUpon, YouTube and Google Analytics figured out, you realize that there are 16 more online tools you need to know, plus some new twists on old things to get up to speed on. It’s like walking down a telescoping hallway: the farther you go, the more you realize you have farther to go. The more you know, the more you realize you don’t know.”

“But, you hear people say it all the time: it doesn’t feel like ‘work’ when you have a passion for the subject material; well, not as much like work. Debating politics and economics is stuff we like to do.”

The duo at ReasonableViews.com is doing something right. Their online brand health score is already an impressive 608 out of 1,000 according to Heardable.com. Their brand is #15,955 of 14,309,865 brands, putting them in the top 7% of all brands worldwide.

Contact:

reasonableviews@gmail.com

reasonableviews.com

Heardable.com just published a list of the Top 100 Most Liked Brands on Facebook. The majority of brands with a high number of Facebook likes were musical artists, followed by companies/product brands, actors, sports teams and television shows. The only politician who made the list was Barak Obama.

The huge number of daily mentions of Facebook is impressive — 15,429 mentions per day! How about the daily growth rates for FC Barcelona, Real Madrid, Manchester United, Christiano Ronaldo, Britney Spears, Red Hot Chili Peppers, McDonalds, Walmart, Burberry, Chelsea FC, History Channel and The Beatles — which are all over 3.0%?

Take a look at the list for yourself.

Okay, I’m sick of hearing all the reasons why there are no videos posted to your website. I almost believed you when you said they were too expense to produce. And you nearly conned me when you claimed your staff lacked the talent needed to produce ‘videos of the highest caliber that met your corporate standards.’ Yes, your unfortunate tale about your inability to grasp the technical steps required to convent your camcorder videos to MPEG so you could upload them to social networks practically brought tears to me eyes.

But now there are more no more excuses thanks to Google/YouTube’s Search Story tool. All you need is to go to the Google/YouTube tool page, type in a few sentences that speak to the basic story you want to tell, then click the finish button and viola — you have your very own, custom video posted to YouTube.

The video not only tells your basic story — but does so by using search as the visual metaphor for how people create stories during each search they have on Google.

Pretty crafty. Google lets you create a video, in minutes and for free, and they get new content for YouTube at no cost to them — complete with free product placement advertising for Google in nearly every shot! Not a bad deal for all parties.

The finished product can be embedded into other websites (like the one I’ve included in this blog post), or published on third party sites such as Facebook.

So what are you waiting for, Mr. I Can’t Produce Video For My Company Cause It’s Too Darn Difficult? Try it for yourself after watching this video that I created for my company, Heardable.com.

Here is a list of 170 essential social media tools, including performance analytics tools, social search tools, news clipping services, demographic profiling services, brand optimization tools, social monitoring tools, and similar services.

Disclosure — I am the CEO of Heardable.com, a brand performance rating platform, that I have included in this list.

1. Ace Metrix - Patent-pending measurement methodology monitoring television advertising.
2. Actionly - Monitoring & insights for Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, Youtube, Google Buzz, blogs, and news.
3. AlchemyAPI - Content analysis and meta-data annotation tools.
4. Alterian - Campaign management, web content management, email, and social media monitoring.
5. AMI Software - Internet monitoring, intelligence development & evidence based horizon scanning.
6. Amplified Analytics - Forecasting tools & predictive analytical models by quantifying qualitative information.
7. Arkovi - Social media archiving services.
8. Atomic Intelligence - Organizing web content through text indexing, unstructured text parsing, and machine learning.
9. Attensity - Listen to and analyze multi-channel customer conversations.
10. Attentio - Analyze buzz around brands or products + multi-language sentiment.
11. BlogPulse - Real-time view of the most popular topics that bloggers are writing about.
12. BrandsEye - Online reputation monitoring.
13. Brandtology - Sentiment analysis in 12 languages.
14. Brandwatch - Social media monitoring (reputation, sentiment & moderation).
15. BurrellesLuce - Media monitoring, press clipping services, and public relations software.
16. Businesswire - Press release distribution, clipping services, and online measurement (A Berkshire Hathaway company).
17. BuzzAnalytics - Internet buzz tracking in 20 languages + opinion research/polling.
18. BuzzDing - Online reputation management and social media monitoring.
19. Buzzient - Enterprise-class social media analytics.
20. BuzzLogic - Proprietary conversational analytics to optimize online advertising.
21. BuzzNumbers - Social media monitoring, reporting & engagement.
22. BuzzStream - Manage word-of-mouth marketing campaigns.
23. Chartbeat - Real-time monitoring of your online presence.
24. Chatmeter - Reputation monitoring & management.
25. Clarabridge - Text mining & analytics.
26. Clicky - Real-time web analytics.
27. ClearForest - Deriving meaning from unstructured information such as news, blogs, research reports & more.
28. Clixpy - Tracks everything your website users do.
29. Collective Intellect - Social media analytics.
30. ComMetric - Understand how influencers across all types of digital media are networked.
31. Comscore - Digital market intelligence and measurement.
32. Compete - Mine your online performance.
33. Conductor - Organic search visibility platform.
34. Converseon - Social media listening and consulting.
35. Conversition - Bridging the gap between social media and research.
36. Crazyegg - Build heatmaps and track clicks.
37. Crimson Hexagon - Social media monitoring & analysis.
38. CrowdControlHQ - Social media software and reporting.
39. CyberAlert - News monitoring & clipping, social media monitoring, PR measurement.
40. Cymfony - Market influence analytics.
41. Dialogix - Social media monitoring tool from Australia.
42. dna13 - Real-time reputation management and PR software.
43. ecairn - Social media tool for marketing agencies.
44. Echo Research - Reputation analysis, media measurement & research.
45. Eloqua - Integrated campaign management & social sharing.
46. Engagor - Social media listening tool.
47. Entrenza - Track your online presence & monitor brand perceptions.
48. Evolve24 - Enterprise listening platform.
49. Evri - Discover & follow trending stories.
50. Explosive Commerce - Social media management software.
51. Feng-gui - Attention analysis for websites and advertisements.
52. Flurry - Smartphone analytics.
53. Folowen - Find people & organization across social media.
54. GeeYee - Social media analysis service.
55. Google Adwords - Keyword research tool for online advertising.
56. Google Alerts - Automatically monitor selected keywords & receive email alerts.
57. Google Analytics - Free web analytics tool.
58. Google News - Automated news aggregator.
59. Google Reader - Atom and RSS feed reader / aggregator.
60. Google Trends - Insights into popular search patterns.
61. Heardable - Measures the effectiveness of online brands.
62. HotGrinds - Opinion mining.
63. HowSociable? - Brand visibility metrics.
64. ICUC Moderation - Social media & blog moderation services for brands.
    
65. iMente - Social media measurement (in Spanish).
66. Imooty - Media monitoring tool.
67. ImpactWatch - Media coverage dashboard.
68. Infegy - Enterprise socia media monitoring.
69. Infonic - Linguistic processing technology for analysing digital news coverage.
70. Infonitor - Internet trends & opinions (in German).
71. Integrasco - Manage online word of mouth.
72. Interwoven - Manage website content and visitor information.
73. Jamiq - Monitor social media across Asian languages and markets.
74. Janya - Multilingual semantic processing to harvest online insights.
75. Jodange - Indexes feelings and statements from traditional and social media.
76. KnowEm - Claim your brand name across the social media landscape.
77. Leximancer - Analytics technology for unstructured, qualitative, textual data.
78. Linkfluence - Social web insights (in French).
79. ListenLogic - Social market research & analytics.
80. Lithium - Social CRM.
81. Managing News - News and data aggregation engine.
82. Market Sentinel - Conversation & influence analysis.
83. Media Proof i-news - Media analysis & news monitoring.
84. MediaHound - Marketing metrics.
85. MediaMiser - Media analysis, monitoring, and measurement.
86. Mediatrack Research - Analysis, evaluation, and measurement of international media.
87. Meltwater - Reputation management, web-based collaboration & online marketing campaign management.
88. Metatale - Social measurement (in Dutch).
89. Metricly - Aggregated dashboards of web data.
90. MightyBrand - Monitor your brand online.
91. Mint (Have A Mint) - Website analytics.
92. Moreover - Content monitoring & aggregation.
93. Morningside Analytics - Mapping of data clusters.
94. NetBase - Understand consumer insights.
95. Networked Insights - Social-media listening platform for actionable insights.
96. New Media Intelligence - A digital media monitoring agency.
97. Nexalogy Environics - A social media intelligence service.
98. Nielsen - A global leader in measurement and information.
99. ObjectiveMarketer - Social media marketing and campaign management solution.
100. Omgili - Search engine for online discussions.
101. Onalytica - Extract business insights from social conversations.
102. Open Amplify - Create custom taxonomies to classify & analyze content.
103. Optify - Marketing software enabling lead generation through SEO and social.
104. Overtone - Meaningful insights from customer feedback and social media.
105. Parnassus Group - Social media intelligence.
106. Perception Metrics - Data-driven media insights.
107. Personified - Business intelligence and talent management consulting.
108. Postrank - Real-time data and analysis on any topic, trend, or interest.
109. PR Newswire - News distribution, targeting, monitoring, and marketing solutions.
110. PR Web - Press release distribution services to create buzz & increase online visibility.
111. Psydex - Real-time search, data mining, and predictive analytics.
112. Quantcast - Online audience insights.
113. Quarkbase - Website information & research.
114. Radian6 - Social media monitoring & engagement.
115. RapLeaf - Personalized online experiences for your customers.
116. Reedge - Content behavioral targeting & conversion rate optimization.
117. RepuMetrix - Online reputation monitoring & social media measurement.
118. Reputation Institute - Corporate reputation ratings.
119. ReputationHQ - Online reputation manager.
120. Ripple6 - Social networking software and platform for social media marketing.
121. Samepoint - Real-time search & trends.
122. Satmetrix - Customer experience management software.
123. Sentiment Metrics - Social media monitoring, measurement, and engagement.
124. SentiMetrix - Online reputation analysis (in Italian and English).
125. Serendio - Customer experience analytics.
126. Shoutlet - Social media marketing platform.
127. Silverbakk - Social media monitoring based on language and relevance.
128. SlideShare - Share presentations, get stats & generate leads.
129. SociafyQ - Open social network analytics.
130. Social Mention - Real-time search results.
131. SocialMetrix - Social buzz measurement (in English, Portugese, and Spanish).
132. SocialRep - Social market intelligence.
133. SocialReport - Enterprise-class social network analytics.
134. Socialscape - Social media conversation monitoring.
135. Social Target - Social media intelligence.
136. Socialware - Social middleware company.
137. So ME Tracker - Social media tracking (in Swedish).
138. Spinn3r - Real-time indexing of the blogosphere.
139. Spiral16 - Software for web and social media monitoring.
140. Spredfast - Enterprise social media management.
141. Sprout Social - Social media management & CRM.
142. StartPR - Find, manage, and respond to mentions of your company.
143. Storify - Turn what people post on social media into compelling stories.
     
144. Surchur - Real-time search.
145. Symscio - Communications research firm specializing in media analysis & surveys.
146. Syncapse - Social media management.
147. Synthesio - Social media monitoring & engagement.
148. Sysomos - Business intelligence for social media.
149. Techrigy - Social media monitoring & analysis.
150. Tinker - Follow live conversations in social media.
151. Traackr - Measuring online infuence.
152. TraceBuzz - Find, filter, and show you buzz.
153. Trackur - White-labeled social media monitoring tools.
154. Translated Labs - Readibility analyzer.
155. Trendrr - Track the popularity and awareness of trends.
156. Trustworthy - Tracking social media response.
157. Truviso - Web analytics software.
158. UKNetMonitor - Internet reputation monitoring.
159. Unilyzer - Social media dashboard software.
160. Viral Heat - Social media monitoring & analytics.
161. Visible - Social media solutions for enterprise social intelligence.
162. Vitrue - Social relationship management platform.
163. Vocus - On-demand software for public relations management.
164. Wavemetrix - Buzz research.
165. WebClipping - Media monitoring & clipping service.
166. Website Grader - How well is your website doing?
     
167. WebTrends - Mobile & social analytics.
168. Whitevector - Monitoring & analyzing social media.
169. WiseWindow - Mass opinion business intelligence.
170. WooRank - Website analysis tool.

Here is a new screencast profiling Heardable.com, the world’s first online brand optimization platform.

Get your free brand health score so you can start optimizing your brand’s performance — today!

Measure the effectiveness of any brand online in real-time — for free. Compare your score to competitors in your business category or in your local zip code.

Over 1 million brands have been scored so far.

Go to: http://heardable.com to get your free Heardable Score.

1. Get found
2. Boost brand awareness
3. Increase traffic
4. Generate more revenue

Heardable.com posted a nice PowerPoint presentation on SlideShare.net today titled, “20 Simple Rules of Social Business Success.” SlideShare featured it on its home page as one of the best presentations of the day. At last count, over 400 people had viewed it in only a few hours [UPDATE: 2,356 views in 3 days!]. Now that’s a smart social media marketing move!

What’s inside this PowerPoint deck? Twenty simple phases for companies large and small to live by. Each slide also has a corresponding image to help drive home the marketing point being made. Following each of the twenty steps may be a smart decision for marketers because each of these simple rules can help make your brand more effective online. Think of them as Internet branding best practices.

Boost your natural search rankings. Increase your conversions. Expand your brand reach and make your customers happy. What’s not to love about that?!

Brands are invisible if their products and services and not getting found online. In today’s competitive world, being heard is a marketing imperative. And brands who tell the best stories are often the winners because they connect on a visceral level with their customers.

In the this 26 page PPT deck, you will learn how to make your brand visible and remain relevant in the age of the weird, wild web.

Did you know there are stunning similarities between beekeeping and branding? This 41 page PPT presentation utilizes bees as a metaphor for how web surfers (and brands) sometimes need assistance navigating to-and-from the social hive of life.

As the old saying goes — no bees, no honey, no work, no money!

The Heardable name speaks to the underlying human desire of wanting our voices heard. Most of us crave to make a difference; we want our opinions to have an audience; we want people to admire us. But that can only happen if we are found, visible, heard. Brands should be heardable too.

In this PPT presentation, you will see what it is to be a ‘heardable brand’ by taking you through 26 pages of with images of Heardable’s own brand. http://heardable.com

Here is a tasty selection of recent blog posts published on Heardable.com that talk about online marketing, brand optimization, and why it matters.

1.  Successful Brands Are About People
2.  Seven Amazing Videos Showcasing Creativity
3.  10 Odd Examples of Brand Hijacking on Flickr
4.  The 100 Most Effective Advertising Agency Brands Online
5.  Teaching Old School Management A Few New Web Tricks
6.  Will It Brand? That Is The Question
7.  Google Places: 10 Big Brand Benefits In Under 5 Minutes
8.  Nationwide Wins the Great Life Insurance Brand Shootout
9.  Brand Disloyalty Card: A Trustworthy Mug of Marketing
10. Top 20 Most Effective Banking Brands Online
11. How to Rank Your Online Brand Over Your Competition
12. This Is An Anthem For The Brands That Got Away
13. Amplify Your Brand With An Engagement Grid
14. 92 Most Effective Social Bookmarking Brands
15. Consistency: The Secret Sauce of Highly Trusted, Visible Brands
16. Hospitality, Branding and BitterWaitress.com
17. Transmedia Development: 132 Page PPT from Gulltaggen
18. Nordstrom: It’s the Experience, Stupid!
19. Brandformers: Marketing Forum 2010 (29 Page PPT)
20. Where the Brand of Things Are
21. 10 Benefits of Building Strong Brands

Jon Samsel had the good fortune of presenting to a group of esteemed marketing executives and creative agency representatives at the recent Marketing Forum 2010 which took place at the Doral Resort in Miami, Florida on April 25-27. The event was sponsored by Richmond Events and our presentation was entitled, “Brandformers: Integrated Brand Marketing Strategies Based on Consumer Engagement.”

Jon’s 29-page PowerPoint deck can be viewed below.

At the event, Jon shared the stage with several speaking luminaries, including:

Scott Bedbury of Brandstream, Inc., former worldwide advertising director for Nike and also the former CMO of Starbucks. Scott is the author of A New Brand World.

Jeffrey Hayzlett, the CMO of Eastman Kodak Company, and author of The Mirror Test.

Brands who are not active participants in social conversations are doing a disservice to their shareholders, to their customers, staff and to their brands. Branding is no longer something you can control like a carefully-timed press release or multimillion dollar television commercial. Brands are about people. And people want to be heard.

The law of reciprocity says that those who give are likely to receive in turn — and often in exponentially greater proportions — since the act of giving is considered to be a noble, forthright and trusted action that people notice, talk about and reward.

Shakti Gawain write about this paradox in his book, Creating True Prosperity, when he says, “Receiving and giving are opposite energies that are inextricably linked together in the natural flow of life, like inhaling and exhaling. If one aspect of that cycle doesn’t function, the entire cycle ceases to function and the life force cannot move freely.  If you can’t inhale, you will soon have nothing to exhale, and before long, your body will be unable to continue living.”

Here are nine ‘elements of brand amplification’ that if practiced by your brand, you will be better positioned to satisfy your customers, create positive work-of-mouth, and even generate higher sales.

TRY: Is your brand willing to try something new and daring or are you more of a fast follower? When you try new things, the people who follow your brand are more likely to perceive you as a trailblazer and thought leader. When you allow your constituents to try before they buy, or when you try new ways of working with them (before they demand it), it can foster trust.

FIND: Make it easier for folks to find your brand in search engine, find content within your website, find answers to questions about your products and services. Surprisingly, most brands remain invisible to the people most-likely to look for them.

CARE: Do you feature your customers as case studies in brand best-practices? Are you a brand that gives back to your community through charitable giving? Do you answer the phone promptly or respond to email inquired in a personal, human tone?

PLAY: Do you allow people to play with your products in your retail outlets? Do you provide rich and engaging online experiences — which can help solve complex problems and become essential extensions of your brand? Do you let customers interact so they are more likely to transact? If your brand is playful, fun and engaging then I am more likely to tell 10 friends about it. What’s that free marketing worth to you?

LISTEN: Does your brand respond when someone posts a negative comment about your brand on twitter? Do you regularly reach out to your constituents via surveys or do you provide online feedback buttons to gauge satisfaction levels so you can respond with answers/solutions?

HELP: Online chat, easy-to-find phone numbers and mailing addresses on your website, on-site search tools, how-to podcasts, free consultations, video tutorials. These are just a few of the simple ways forward-thinking brands reach out and engage their customers — answering questions they might have in multiple formats that are tailor-made for various situations.

SHOW: Does your brand take time to showcase it website features via insightful screencasts? Do you post presentations or instruction manuals on edocr.com, SideShare.net, Flickr.com, or DoxTop.com? Why wouldn’t you want to make it as easy as possible for folks to do business with you?

SHARE: Does your brand use RSS feeds and API feeds that allow users to connect with your content and brand remotely? Are you willing to share insights and information that may not be 100% tied into your business plan? Transparency = trust!

GIVE: Give customers more of your brand and you, in turn, will receive much in return. Don’t believe us? Look what happened to Starbucks when they gave coffee lovers a ‘third space’ to call their own. See how Kodak reinvented their company focus and rejuvenated their brand by celebrating the joy of photography in ever single marketing program they launched.

Brands not willing to give won’t receive for very long. Said another way, companies are more likely to fail if they are unwilling or unable to listen and provide what their customers demand. In today’s web-focused world, consumers and business constituents are making simple, yet meaningful, demands.

So amplify your brand today. Give, so that you can receive.