| h effort should you put into reputation | | | | searched the most often are Greek, Tagalog and |
| management programs centered on particular | | | | Finnish. English is fourth. |
| company or brand names, or the names of | | | | · |
| individuals under attack? Are people really looking | | | | When you look at the top 10 cities, the first U.S. |
| at the criticized terms a lot? What parts of the | | | | city is ranked 8th (Washington, D.C.), with the top |
| country or world are more vulnerable? Some | | | | ranked being Athens, Greece. |
| very expensive and often proprietary diagnostic | | | | · |
| tools have been developed for this purpose, but I | | | | And when you look at the regional rankings, the |
| was very pleased to learn of a new, FREE tool | | | | U.S. doesn't even make the top 10, which starts |
| from Google - Google Trends, which I anticipate | | | | with Pakistan and ends with Indonesia. |
| will be very useful to crisis managers. | | | | Google explains the ranking system as follows: |
| At Google Trends, you enter a keyword - or | | | | " |
| multiple keywords you wish to compare - and the | | | | When the Cities tab is selected, Google Trends |
| system will tell you how popular those terms are: | | | | first looks at a sample of all Google searches to |
| · By the top 10 cities where the term(s) is/are | | | | determine the cities from which we received the |
| searched, worldwide. | | | | most searches for your first term. Then, for |
| · By the top 10 regions where the term(s) is | | | | those top cities, Google Trends calculates the |
| are searched,worldwide. | | | | ratio of searches for your term coming from |
| · By the top 10 languages in which the term(s) is | | | | each city divided by total Google searches coming |
| are searched, worldwide. | | | | from the same city. The city ranking you see on |
| In some cases, if the stats are low enough, the | | | | the page and the bar charts alongside each city |
| search results may not show a "top 10" but, | | | | name both represent this ratio. When cities' ratios |
| rather, a "top (number of significant results)." In | | | | are fairly close together, the corresponding bar |
| one example below, there were only four results. | | | | graphs will be roughly the same length, and the |
| Using the brand name by which a certain | | | | exact ranking between these cities is less |
| company being criticized online is best known in | | | | meaningful. |
| the United States, I learned that: | | | | "The Regions and Languages tabs work just like |
| · To my great fascination, their primary brand | | | | the Cities tab. Google Trends uses IP address |
| name in North America is searched more in the | | | | information from our server logs to make a best |
| State of Hawaii than in their corporate home | | | | guess about where queries originated. Language |
| state (which I'll leave out in the interest of | | | | information is determined by the language version |
| confidentiality). That means, perhaps, that they | | | | of the Google site on which the search was |
| have to focus some localized reputation | | | | originally entered. |
| management in Hawaii, knowing that a lot of | | | | "Keep in mind that instead of measuring overall |
| people there will be seeing the negative on the | | | | interest in a topic, Google Trends shows users' |
| Web. It could also, but not necessarily, indicate a | | | | propensity to search for that topic on Google on |
| higher level of concern by residents of Hawaii, | | | | a relative basis. For example, just because a |
| something worth correlating against other | | | | particular region isn't on the Top Regions list for |
| research sources. | | | | the term "haircut" doesn't necessarily mean that |
| · Subjective information the company had | | | | people there have decided to stage a mass |
| received to the effect that Spanish language | | | | rebellion against society's conventions. It could be |
| reputation-related communication was a lower | | | | that people in that region might not use Google to |
| priority than English was verified - rather | | | | find a barber, use a different term when doing |
| conclusively - by Google Trends. Most searches | | | | their searches, or simply search for so many |
| for their name were in English...followed by | | | | other topics unrelated to haircuts that searches |
| French...followed by Chinese...followed in distant last | | | | for 'haircut' make up a very small portion of the |
| by Spanish. The company considers this to be | | | | search volume from that region when compared |
| very useful strategic information. | | | | to other regions." |
| When you look at a broader term, e.g., "crisis | | | | The explanation is followed by the usual caveats |
| management," once again the results aren't what | | | | about the limitations of a feature still in |
| one might expect. | | | | beta-testing, the fact that not ALL of Google is |
| · | | | | included in the results, etc. |
| The top three languages in which the term is | | | | |