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• Marketing manager for National Retail Federation poses as online shopper in Fox Business TV report (Silicon Alley Insider)
• How to avoid sending infuriating PR drivel to editors (PRSA)
• Illegal immigrants don’t just mow lawns anymore (NewsBusters)

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Technorati tags: Branding Strategy, PR, Blogs, Journalism, Public Relations, Marketing, Advertising, Media

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• Szul.com: fake orgasms r us (Adfreak)
• Celeb mags going up in price; Baradell’s wife about to make him broke (Advertising Age)
• Anonymity is for sissies (Copywrite, Ink.)
• Walk the talk: stop spinning (Buzz Bin)

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Check out my latest Movie Smackdown, comparing No Country for Old Men to The Terminator.

Most corporate execs know that organic search results are important to a brand’s reputation — at least, in an abstract way they do. But how can you show execs the impression their brand’s Google results are making on potential customers (or investors, or employees)?

I like to use TagCrowd, which creates tag clouds based on word frequency. I simply take all the words in the first three pages of the search results for a brand, dump them in TagCloud and see what it spits out. It’s a great tool for visualizing the terms people see (and thereby associate) with your brand.

Think of it as “brand cloud” for your online reputation.

For example, here’s the brand cloud for one of the world’s most popular brands, IKEA:

This is a brand manager’s dream. Appropriate terms to describe the product (”furniture,” “kitchens”) are supported by positive adjectives such as “best” and “personalized.”

By contrast, here’s the brand cloud for Exxon:

The cloud prominently features negative terms such as “Valdez,” “spill,” “damage,” and “exxonsecrets.” It should come as no surprise that Exxon is not one of America’s more popular brands.

Obviously, Exxon Mobil can’t make the Valdez oil spill go away. But perhaps if it did more to curry favor with its customers and the general public, the Google results would paint a prettier picture.

Finally, here’s a brand cloud for my agency (based on the first three pages of Google results for the term “Idea Grove”):

Try it on your own brand. You may be surprised by what you see.