Brandify: Small Business Owners Gets Help To Manage Online Reputation

DiTesco 2865 Views, , , , ,
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The internet has given a lot of opportunity for many to be able to make a living online. With today’s available online business resources, anyone can start a small business with relative ease and the best of the best, with minimal investment. While this is true, it also leads to the inevitable proliferation of products and services being offered all over the web.

Imagine this. You are all set to buy a product that you really love. You managed to find several places to buy it from. The question now is, who will you buy it from? Most likely, the answer would be from someone you trust or at the very least, someone who has a good reputation.

In order to succeed, aspiring probloggers and small business owners need to spend a lot of time online, marketing themselves and positioning their brand in the best possible way. This can be achieved in a variety of ways and there are tools you can use to help. Obviously, the ultimate objective is for potential customers to find you and make a positive impression. Having a positive “trust factor” helps you to stand out and this is why, it is important to monitor and manage your online reputation.

As I mentioned earlier, there are some tools out there that can help you monitor your online reputation. For the time being though, there is not (yet) any free tool that allows you to track AND get recommendations on how to improve your online reputation across all channels including search engines, social media, etc. You may use Google Alerts to notify you about any mentions about your brand for example, or use PeerIndex or Klout to measure your influence, but that is not, for now, enough. Actually, it appears that measurement of social influence can be gamed. Also, note that I mentioned, free and not paid.

Introducing Brandify:

Sponsored by Microsoft, Brandify is a web application that helps the aspiring probloggers and small business owners discover, evaluate and improve their online reputation. Essentially, the tool will help you:

  • Find out whether your brand/company is visible in all the places people look for it online.
  • Discover how your online brand comes across to potential customers.
  • Receive guided recommendations to improve both how people find and perceive you.

The service is brought to you by MyWebCareer, Inc. dba Brandify. As I said before, it is sponsored by Microsoft and is being made available to you at zero cost. This is where you may want to consider if you want to use it, because as their TOS indicates:

… In exchange, you consent to us sharing your registration information and information pertinent to your business with Microsoft. As such, using this site and the underlying service, you consent to our privacy policy and that of Microsoft’s.

Nothing really major as most of the information you have are already out there anyway. You may ask about your privacy and all that, but if you are in business, ask yourself this question. Do you really want to stay anonymous?

How does Brandify work?

Unlike some tools that shows off your score and rankings without your permission, Brandify provides information for your use only. It won’t do anything unless you sign up for the service, which you can do using your Windows Live, FaceBook or LinkedIn accounts.

Once you get through the initial process of providing some information, Brandify will scour online listings, reviews, search engine results, and social media for information about your brand, and then presents you with your overall score, along with immediate recommendations to improve it further. The score scales from a 450 – 850 and the average is 572, which I am sure changes depending on the amount of users the system has. Also, for now, you are only allowed to monitor one brand (you can change it anytime). It appears that Brandify is looking into the possibility of extending it for multiple brands in the future.

Online Reputation Score

  • In an instant (less than 2 minutes), you will be able to learn:
  • Your overall reputation
  • Areas or categories in which your reputation is strong, in addition to insights from your major competitors.

Search Competition

  • Your daily activities. List of “things” that happened on the web that mentions you. For example, every time someone follows or unfollows you on Twitter, likes on Facebook, backlinks gained/lost, MozRank alterations, etc. Again, and for now, Google+ is not in the list of social networks scoured by Brandify, and hopefully, it will soon enough.

There you have it. Brandify is still in beta and on its very early stages. The tool does give you some good information on where your brands stands. It also provides some interesting recommendations to help small  business owners grow and succeed, in a clear and simple way. Obviously there is more room for improvement as there are “other” channels that are equally important and for now are not being considered by their algorithms. Nonetheless, for a free service, I believe that it is a great way to get started on monitoring and managing your online reputation.

Here’s a quick video presentation of Brandify.

What say you? Have you tried Brandify yet? Do you know of other services that is similar to theirs? Is this something that you think can help you in  any way? Tell me all about it.

DiTesco

DiTesco is a Business and Inbound Marketing Consultant, and founder of iBlogzone.com. iBlogzone's main objective is to help startups and small business owners achieve success in their online ventures. | More About Me and my Digital Marketing Services in SP Brazil.

29 thoughts on “Brandify: Small Business Owners Gets Help To Manage Online Reputation”

  • Hi DiTesco,

    Tools like Brandify help you get a pulse on your social media presence. I can see immense value in using the application and your review is a fair and balanced take on the tool.

    Thanks!

    Ryan

    • Hi Ryan. Its amazing how technology has given people plenty of opportunities. The only thing that keeps pounding on my head sometimes is why there are those that prefer not to use it. Go figure… Anyway, I like this tool and have been giving it a spin for nearly a week now. The recommendations that it gives is pretty solid …

  • Hi DiTesco,

    It looks really great, sound good. I think, I am going to give it a try. I have never used any tool for my site except webmaster tools and analytics.

    Thank you for the suggestion.

    • Hi Abhi. GWT and analytics are good tools, but they provide different types of data. What I like about this tool is that it provides you with how you are perceived as a brand in the WWW. It is really important to have a solid “trust factor” as it could make or break a brand.

  • Lots to consume. I’m going to have a look at adding it to my business package. the more stats there are, the more corporates eyes begin to glow. I know for a fact.

    Do you know that a customer just signed a pilot project with me and asked how many visits could they get/expect. I get visits in my sleep. What is MUCH more important is that people go the counter and ASK for your brand in the shops./ I always tell them that’s MUCH more important than a site visitor. That means nothing if it doesn’t convert.

    • Too bad Brandify thinks only Americans do branding. When I wanted to sign up, they say my zip code is incorrect. There’s no option to choose another country or alternative codes. 🙁

      • Hi Ivin. I know what you mean. However, Brandify does “search” for your brand anywhere and not by your location. Why just not put a Zip code of your favorite state 🙂 I used the location of my web hosting provider which is in the US. That’s an alternative. It works 😉

        • Good idea. Your hosting account is after all part of your property, even if it’s online. Sometimes I thought of just hiring a PO box in the US to help with stuff like this, or adsense.

          Thanks for the idea.

          • Hi Ivin. You are welcome. Actually if you look at Nip’s comment below, you will see that the turn around actually works, LOL. Anyway, I do know that there are services that you can use to have a US address (like myus dot com). I kept it to read later, but I can’t find the damn thing 🙂 Anyway, a search of “need a US address” could give you some pretty decent results 😉

  • From a algorithm perspective, I think that with the recent implementation of Penguin, and the stress on branded keywords over anchor text, its impossible to ignore software like brandify any longer.

    Great review, and thanks for including the video, really worth the watch.

    • Welcome Pete. Glad you liked it. Thanks for stopping by

  • The cost is right up my alley. I’ll have to check out the registration page to see if they ask for anything that isn’t already known about me.

    I’m guessing that it also checks website names as your brand. I don’t have a brick and mortar business, just a website.

    I really think this could be helpful and I need all the help I can get right now. Thanks.

    • Hi Brian. Good to know that you found this tool useful. I hope it favors your business and provides you with some insights on how to improve it more…

  • It looks like Klout? BTW, i don’t love Microsoft or their sponsored products. They only have Windows and Offices that work. Other things aren’t good at all

    • Hi Robert. I do understand what you are saying. Unfortunately, not all of us love the same things and sometimes, what works for me may not work for the other. I think that Brandify is an interesting tool and as Nip mentioned above, they have the commitment to only make it better.

      BTW, I believe that Klout is different from Brandify’s scoring algorithms. Klout measures or so they say, social influence and not how the web perceives your brand. My take is that Brandify’s reach is far broader than that of Klout. Then again, I may be wrong. Thanks for stopping by.

  • Hey DiTesco,

    Brandify seems great free tool to monitor your social media activities and reputation. As you mentioned it also offers recommendation to improve your reputation, that’s certainly an awesome feature and I would love to try it.

    • Glad you liked it Aasma. Do take it for a spin and let me know what you think of it 🙂

  • Hi Francisco,
    thanks for sharing information about brandify. I must check it and try it in the future. And your tip about putting Zip code of web hosting provider is very good idea 😉
    BR, Chris

    • Hi Chris. Yeah, I had to overcome the same hiccup and it worked pretty well considering that most of my audience are from the US. See followup comment to Ivin.. Nip the co-founder of Brandify (below) does mention about it 😉

  • It does ask you about Twitter, but has the same problem as LinkedIn. It won’t recognize a personal based Twitter account (even though the handle is my company name), only a corporate Twitter.

    • HI Shamelle. I do realize that there are some improvements that need to be made. Please do refer to Nip’s comment below. That should clarify things a bit.

  • Hi DiTesco,

    Thanks for the excellent write-up of Brandify. I’m one of the co-founders and wanted to chime in on a couple of comments that were made.

    As you pointed out and we agree that there are “other channels” that our algorithm must consider. To that effect, we’re always looking to add additional data sources as well as improve our scoring algorithm. We’ll be adding at least one if not two new data sources within a week or so.

    At present, Brandify is limited to the US. However, for non-local businesses, the service will work fine for non-US companies. Simply enter a US zip code (i.e., 22193) if you’re interested in taking it for a spin.

    Lastly, Brandify is setup to monitor and analyze company pages only. Ideally, one should separate the two and have both a personal and a company page on LinkedIn. However, we do appreciate that many business owners have built a brand around their personal profiles so we are working on integrating the logic from our sister site at http://www.mywebcareer.com. Once this is complete, users will be able to evaluate both their professional and corporate brand.

    I hope that helps and I’d be happy to answer follow-up questions.

    Best Regards,
    Nip

    • Hi Nip. Thanks for stopping by. I realize that the tool is quite on its early stages and as with anything else, there is always some improvements to be made. What I like best about the service is the “initiative” in helping small business owners understand a bit more about how their brand is viewed on a much broader scale. The improvements you mention are outstanding and I am sure that more users will be attracted to using the tool once it is able to evaluate an “online persona”. That’s great news!

      Anyway, I really appreciate you taking the time to shed some light about your tool. Keep up the good work and all the best.

  • It seems very useful I never used any tools except Google webmaster and SeoMoz toolbar for my sites.

  • Brandify is an amazing tool. I have been using it for quite awhile now and I can only say great things about what is has done for me and my business. I own a On-Site IT services company, The Computer Doctor, and Brandify has greatly improved my local business presence in my area and I am starting to see the results of the work that I have done by using Brandify’s advice.

    • Hi Jason. Thanks for leaving you comment. It is really great to know from people who has had positive experience about a service. I’m glad to know that you are reaping the benefits of having a well managed brand. Thanks for stopping by

  • Wow! Brandify seems like a great tool for tracking consumer interest in businesses and readers interest in blogs. It’s important to gauge how well people are responding to your posts and articles. One great thing about Facebook is Facebook Insights which tracks fans interactions with Facebook Pages. Brandify is a good option too!

  • This looks like a brilliant tool and I think I will be signing up for it. I really like the idea of this because it looks simple and tells you what you need to know, it almost seems like having your very own checklist of things you need to do to keep your business visible online.

    There’s too much conflicting advice for business owners out there so it’s good that there is finally something to point everybody in the right direction.

  • How cool is that!? I’ve seen a lot of these kind of programs on-line but as you mentioned, they always cost $100 a month use them. With all the software out there I’m already paying on it becomes hard to justify another expense. Greatly looking forward to playing around with this and seeing how our brand and the businesses we work with are performing. Very neat.

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