USA Today Quotes My Thoughts on Google vs. China
As you may have heard, Google and the Chinese government are playing a game of cat and mouse. Or, as I told the USA Today…
“Google is playing a game of chess with China,” says Internet marketing consultant Andy Beal, editor of Marketing Pilgrim. “But it’s clear that Google doesn’t know what tactic will actually result in it being able to keep its presence in China.”
I personally believe that Google will ultimately face checkmate. I suspect it’s trying to frustrate the Chinese government into a compromise that the search engine can live with.
Google Reputation Management Advice from PubCon South
Thanks to all those that attended my Google Reputation Management spotlight presentation at PubCon South. We had a packed room and clearly managing your reputation in Google is gaining importance among SEOs and marketing professionals.
As it may be a few weeks before you receive your PubCon CD, I thought I’d go ahead and share my Google Reputation Management slidedeck as quickly as possible.
If you didn’t get to PubCon, you’ll notice many of my slides are somewhat criptic. That’s because I don’t like to be one of those presenters that simply reads off from his slides. 
If you have any questions about Google reputation management, managing negative search engine results, etc, please leave them in the comments section.
Cheers!
The BBC Asks For My Thoughts on Politician’s Twitter Stumble
When John Prescott tweeted what appeared to be a call for Labour supporters to commit click fraud, I called him out on it. The BBC followed up with its own story.
Mr Prescott’s tweet was spotted by Andy Beal, a British expat marketing executive based in the US, who linked to it on his website and saw the story followed up across the blogosphere.
He said it was an example of “click fraud” – following a link purely to generate a charge for its owner.
Mr Beal told the BBC: “John Prescott has a reputation of being a bulldog MP, so I wasn’t too surprised by his Twitter request. ”However, I was shocked that he didn’t realize the ramifications of suggesting Labour supporters maliciously click on Google Ads to deplete the funds of the Conservative Party.
“It’s the equivalent of asking Labour Party supporters to call the Conservative Party HQ and reverse the charges,” he added.
Forbes Looks at Reputation Management for Job Hunters
I was invited to share my advice on reputation management for job hunters with Helen Coster of Forbes–I wonder if she’s now monitoring the web for mention of her name.
The article is full of my advice, but specific quotes include:
“Focus on publishing content about yourself that you can control, and that portrays you in a positive light,” says Andy Beal, the chief executive of Trackur, a social media monitoring tool.
“Go ahead and build that content now, before you need it,” says Beal. “Give that content time to percolate and move its way around the Web.”
Quoted in The New York Times
I was asked by The New York Times to provide my opinion on how an online dating site was effectively using surveys and user-data to improve its reputation and attract new users.
Here’s what I told the NYT:
The blog reports could help to build trust and add legitimacy to the site’s matchmaking approach, said Andy Beal, an online marketing expert and co-author of “Radically Transparent.”
“There is an underlying psychological benefit to publishing statistics that resonate with your target audience,” Mr. Beal said. “People will start to think that this is a site where others like them are hanging out, and they should join it instead of one of its competitors.”
