San Diego, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 03/25/2010 -- chatmeter (http://www.chatmeter.com), a local search marketing and reputation management company, announced today the beta release of chatmeter, a free directory and social media monitoring tool for Small-to-Medium Size Businesses (SMBs). The chatmeter is a proprietary technology that puts the small business owner back in control of their online reputation.
This emerging industry, known as e-mail, reputation and presence management (ERPM), is expected to grow from $460 million in 2008 to $3.1 billion in 2013, according to BIA/Kelsey. The firm projects the number of SMBs using ERPM to increase from approximately 500,000 to nearly 4 million during the forecast period.
As more small businesses move online, they are discovering the tremendous complexity of local search marketing, not to mention the extent of their digital footprint - spread across hundreds of local sites with customers, partners, bloggers, and even competitors driving their online reputation. The chatmeter is designed to provide them with cost-effective tools to help them devise and execute an effective online marketing and reputation management strategy tailored specifically to the needs of that business, their industry, and their local market.
“With the explosive adoption of local search, mobile search and social media, it’s becoming more difficult than ever for SMBs to track their online presence and execute an effective digital strategy for local search marketing,” said Matt Booth, senior vice president and program director, Interactive Local Media, BIA/Kelsey. “Cost-effective reputation management tools like the chatmeter offer local businesses an efficient way to improve their online marketing and leverage the power of digital word of mouth.”
WHAT IS CHATMETER?
chatmeter is a free online marketing tool that will help local business owners and marketers manage their online reputation and improve marketing effectiveness. It allows owners to quickly track where people are talking about their business on local search and review sites, while also tracking blogs and social media chatter. This service will track their digital footprint across the web, benchmark them against other local competitors, and provide them with a monthly status report and personalized recommendations for improvement.
FEATURES:
Review Tracker: chatmeter aggregates and analyzes your reviews and provides benchmarking against your local competitors, notification of new reviews, and historical charts for measurement over time.
Social Media/Blog Tracker: Tracks your social media mentions, blogs and local media coverage in chart format to measure your online reputation and effectiveness of marketing campaigns.
Listing Manager: Searches for your listings, highlights any inaccuracies found and creates awareness of other sites for listing opportunities.
Rank Tracker: Monitors your rankings across local search sites for your business listings and general web search for your website.
Competitive Benchmarking: Spy on local competitors, see how you compare, and learn from the leaders in your area.
Local SEO Analysis: Drive new business by helping to improve rankings on local and general web search sites through Local Search Engine Optimization (Local SEO).
Personalized Recommendations: Receive clear, easy to implement recommendations for improvement that are tailored for your business and local area.
“The recession has driven today’s SMB online in an effort to find more business and differentiate, resulting in a realization of the tremendous complexity of managing and marketing their online reputation across a very broad digital footprint, said Collin Holmes, Founder and CEO of chatmeter. chatmeter puts business owners and marketers back in the driver’s seat, saving them valuable time and money with a free online marketing service that provides the tools and information to help them understand where they should focus their efforts for the greatest impact.”
PRICING AND AVAILABILITY
The chatmeter is available for commercial release today for all local businesses. This is a beta release period, in which they will be measuring feedback and making improvements of the service. Customers can sign up today for the FREE Basic service at http://www.chatmeter.com/chatmeter_signup.php and they will immediately start receiving their monthly chatmeter report. The FREE service will provide information and analysis about their listings, reviews, and social media chatter. For $19.99 per month, Premium subscribers will see competitive benchmarking and receive personalized recommendations.
ABOUT CHATMETER
chatmeter provides local business owners and marketers with the tools and education to manage their online reputation and marketing effectiveness. Our tools will help business owners understand what people are saying about their business online (reviews, blogs, social media) in a single place saving time and frustration. The chatmeter will measure their online marketing effectiveness, provide personalized recommendations for improvement, and benchmark performance against local competitors. As big fans of the small-business entrepreneur, we’re putting owners back in the driver’s seat with an information advantage and time saving tools to take their business to the next level.
We will be attending the Kelsey Group’s Marketplaces 2010 conference in San Diego, March 22-24, 2010.
For more information, please email us at: support@chatmeter.com