What we’d like to focus on is a point made by Tech Crunch. In their haste to split these two entities, the folks at Netflix neglected to acquire the social network properties before their big launch. TechCrunch highlights the user who owns the @Qwikster handle on Twitter, who is currently trying to sell this handle to Netflix.

After a look into the top social networking sites, it seems that they have not created an official page on Facebook or YouTube. There are however 7 unofficial fan-created Qwikster pages, all aggregating negative comments about this change.

So why is this oversight so bad? Why is it important to lock these online real estates down before you launch a new brand, company etc?

Control

Because Netflix did not secure these, they are not in control of what their critics and customers say about them. Had they obtained official accounts prior to the announcement, they could give customers and their company an official forum to comment and respond. The messages are out there, and it seems they are doing very little to respond or explain, which is not going to endear them to their customers.

Random Squatters

They now have to deal with people who are holding onto these properties, and will potentially have to pay them in order to acquire (some speculate in the six figure arena). People can get mighty greedy when they have the whip-hand over a corporation. This cost could have been avoided had they handled this in advance, or gotten a similar handle i.e. @QwiksterOfficial. In addition to the cost, they could have avoided a very public discussion about what kind of deal this yoo-hoo was after.

Confusion for Customers

Not having official outlets for your customers to comment, complain or ask legitimate questions can be very confusing. If they comment on an unofficial forum and never get a response, they may feel negatively about your brand.

Embarrassment

Netflix is a revolutionary company; nothing that they have done can change their impact on the digital-media landscape. However, it’s kind of embarrassing that an Internet-oriented company did not think of this in advance. It seems they don’t really even have a cohesive branded presence on YouTube as Netflix.

Four Easy Steps to Avoid This

1. Determine which social networking sites are the best fits for your company. It is usually smart to incorporate more incase you need them, or at least protect them.
2. Research what is already out there, if there is someone who already owns your brand name, what variation could you use across all of the social networks (i.e. if @MyersCorporation is taken, consider @MyersCorporationOfficial), consistency is key.
3. Grab them! (it will probably take less than an hour)
4. Figure out how you are going to consistently leverage these accounts, so that they become synonymous with your official brand.

"More and more, corporations find themselves in the headlines because they ignore two realities of the information age:

1. A company's attempt to covertly influence opinion is only as effective as the reaction people have when they find out who's behind it and why.
2. Yes, they will find out."

He's right. Transparency has become the currency of online reputation. Simple oversights can make your company look clueless, and attempts to conceal, misdirect, or misinform often generate outright scorn — causing lasting damage to your reputation and your business.

Here are my tips for transparency in conversational media. These apply to PR/marketing pros as well as news organizations, bloggers, citizen journalists, and, well, anyone…

What I want to discuss are two techniques on how you can be the online BUZZ STARTER that everyone else is commenting and creating trackbacks on.

Having completely transitioned to online communications and social media, I brought along some tried and true PR tactics that can be applied to capturing the online conversations. As a matter of fact a few basic block and tackle PR tactics are some of the most powerful ways to be the BUZZ STARTER.

#1. Editorial Calendar Tracking
As much as those of us in the social media world want to lay claim to starting and generating the conversational trends, the fact of the matter is that traditional main stream media (MSM) continues to have a huge influence on conversational topics. The beauty of the MSM is that they are an advertising driven revenue model, so they must publish editorial calendars about subject topics in upcoming issues in order to secure ad sponsorship. Often times editorial calendars are published a year in advance. These calendars are your ticket to being a Buzz Starter. Go get the editorial calendars from your industry trade publications and find out what they are planning to publish in print and start blogging and writing articles for online syndication a month or two in advance of the publication issue.This gives the search engines the time to index your content giving you high visibility for the topic once the publication hits the street.

#2. Industry Conferences
The survival of great industry conferences depends on the quality of the speakers and the relevance of the topics to the attendees. Just like editorial calendars, conferences are planned well in advance, and conference organizers will put out a call for speakers based on subject matter they have identified as being timely and relevant to the audience. By looking at the speaking tracks you can identify subject trends that people will be seeking additional information and knowledge on. If you are subject expert on one of those trends, then start creating and syndicating content a month or two prior to the event. Find out who’s speaking and engage in a conversation with them either via personal email, or posting comments and trackbacks on their respective blogs.

Okay, so the obvious strategy here is to also be in the stories presented in the editorial calendars and be the speaker at the industry conference. I’ll go over that strategy in an upcoming post.

Greg’s 5 Tips from the WOMMA Blog are:
#1. Have a valid place in the conversation
#2. Use your voice and have an opinion
#3. Be relevant
#4. Be responsible
#5. Remember that it’s a social phenomenon

But I would say there needs to be another tip (I know, WOMMA’s format only allows for 5), and it should be the #1 Tip and that is Listening.

We often get too excited about talking and forget that the best conversationalists are the best listeners. Teaching someone to be a good listener is much harder than teaching them how to talk about what they know.

Listening takes patients, focus and attention. In the online world, listening also takes some technical skills too. One must set up an RSS reader, use scouts such asTechnorati and Google Alters to find the conversation, understand blog comments and trackbacks to drive the conversation, analyze and interpret web analytics to understand behavior, and blog to capture the conversation.

The art of listening often overwhelms those trying to enter the conversation. This is why we work with our clients to customize the listening systems and analyze the conversation to ensure their online communications success.

For those interested in starting this on their own, we’ve created a set of DIY online video tutorials for Getting Started.

The largest barrier to good blogging is having good listening skills. In the online world these listening skills involve using a set of scouting tools such as Technorati, IceRocket, Google Alerts, Moreover.com pulling the data into a RSS reader and analyzing the conversation.

We found that people just getting into blogging, are quickly overwhelmend with the process of listening to the conversation, entering the conversation and capturing the conversation.

This is why we set up our “Getting Started” online video tutorials to take someone through the entire process of setting up a RSS reader, a Blogger blog, a Delicious account, how to post to blog, setting trackbacks, commenting on other’s blogs, submitting an RSS feed, etc.

Eric’s HP Blog

Here’s how it works: Imagine that you land one big “media hit,” such as a Business Week article mentioning your company. This publicity lures volumes of new visitors to your web site.

…That’s great, IF your PR firm, online communications expert, or anyone in your marketing department planned ahead of time to Capture the Conversation during and after peak traffic to drive sales or solidify new business relationships.

Most companies – including yours, probably – don’t do that. Therefore, much of that wonderful web traffic gets wasted.

New visitors click away if you don’t engage them immediately. Every time that happens, your PR/marketing team is costing you an opportunity.

Don’t blame them, however. They’re just doing the job they’ve been trained to do. Unfortunately it’s only half the job that really needs to be done.

Most PR/marketing professionals are trained to attract attention (as media coverage), but not to turn attention into real results.

The key to truly successful media relations involving online media (such as your site) is to track sales, generate new leads, and – most importantly – engage in a meaningful conversation with new prospects.

Great media exposure does offer tremendous value. However, by itself it’s just not enough. You must also engage prospects and follow through. Fortunately, the Internet makes that easier than ever. Here’s how:

1. Make your site easy to find via a simple search in popular search engines such as Google.
2. Provide immediate access to critical decision-making information, presented using the customer’s perspective and language.
3. Use simple tools to nurture and follow online conversations, such as weblogs and forums. The content of these tools also becomes findable through online searches, widening your reach.

PR that clearly boosts the bottom line. Imaging this scenario: a new DNA testing company gains exposure on a leading national morning show. Before an audience of millions, the show’s anchor takes the test and discusses the health implications of genes and diet.

Of those millions of viewers, thousands visit the DNA testing company’s web site. When they arrive on the home page, they see a prominent link: “Learn more about our test featured on [name of show].” Beneath that, there’s an invitation to register to attend an upcoming free teleseminar with the company’s lead scientist, who will answer questions about the test and the science behind it.

Imagine that 700 people attend the teleseminar, and 200 of them purchased the test, yielding more than $40,000 dollars in sales!

Isn’t that a much better way to justify PR, compared to traditional monthly billing reports that attempt to justify the PR budget with antiquated, fuzzy measures such as Ad Value Equivalency?

A results-focused PR team can confidently state quantifiable, bottom-line results. That will get any executive’s attention – and respect.

I first introduced the The Placement Crash in the article Fire Your PR Firm, published in June, 2006. To view the extended original article visit http://www.www.capturetheconversation.com.

For the above scenario, we would use the following tools to capture the offline exposure and drive teleseminar traffic and track sales conversions:
Google Analytics – to track site visitor statistic, teleseminar sign ups and sales conversions
MovableType or WordPress – blog platforms to continue the conversation
AWeber – form capture and contact database application
AskDatabase – survey teleseminar participants on the top questions they would like answered
ReadyTalk – conferencing service, record as MP3 for playback or podcast.

I’ve been talking to people about companies like Umbria for several months now, all in the spirit of using tools that collect the kind of data that can help predict the future (as opposed to simply summarizing the past). Now, we are beginning to see this topic talked about more in main-stream news circles. If this isn’t the future of Marketing, I don’t know what is.