It has been about 9 months since I wrote that article on Samsung Omnia at my Wassup blog. It was selected and showcased in the Samsung Omnia contest. However, it was not good enough to win the Omnia phone prize. But good enough for me to use the analytics to study the search trends on Omnia related search terms.

Google Trends on Samsung Omnia

The search trends start in June 2008 and Singapore is the number 1 region where you got the most people search for “omnia” and “samsung omnia” related phrases. The rest of the top 10 are European countries (except for South African). No USA? Maybe Samsung did not launch the phone in the USA or used a different name.

Competing against iPhone and no one searched for “omnia” in the USA?!

Google Analytics on Samsung Omnia

However, my Google Analytics data on my Wassup blog tells a different story.

People in Singapore are losing interest in the Omnia after about 2 months! The amount of searches peaked in mid-August.

Meanwhile, as Samsung launched the Omnia in the rest of world, the searches outside Singapore increased. In fact, I am getting about the same number of searches from Singapore and USA recently.

It is apparent that the Omnia is losing its appeal and coming the end of its product cycle. So, what’s next?

Samsung Omnia HD

I guess the Omnia has been a success for Samsung, otherwise there won’t be a sequel to the 9 months old Omnia original… the new OMNIAHD with HD video recording at 720p – Samsung Omnia HD.

Suddenly, I have the feeling that Samsung has been spying on my Omnia blog comments. The FAQs from Omnia owners were mainly on the video function or rather malfunction. Apparently, many people bought the Omnia because of the video – to watch video or to record video. The new Omnia HD being an amazing video camera 3G phone will appeal to these video loving consumers.

Yes. I should be doing a write-up on Omnia HD and collect more Google Trends data. Hopefully, the Omnia HD will be available in Singapore soon.

If you are not convinced that SEO can influence Google’s ranking and your online reputation, go read this article to find out how “SEO experts can bend the truth”

You may need the help of these SEO experts to help you manage your digital reputation and to control the damage caused by some uninitiated advertising agent.

SEO for CEO

If you are the boss of the company (and I mean a really big company) or a government agency, are you not concerned about what is listed on the first page of Google search result for search terms related to your company name or product?

Here’s three of the examples which I’ve witnessed firsthand over the past year in Singapore… Samsung’s Omnia Contest, A*Star’s Star Challenge 2008 and NTU AdWords Fiasco.

Case 1: Samsung Omnia Contest

Can you imagine how you feel when you searched “samsung omnia contest” and see “Samsung Omnia Contest – Scam?” in the #1 position!

How will that #1 position affect potential customers of Samsung mobile phones?

It would be good if potential customers can hear from the contest organizer or Samsung regarding that “scam” blog post.

Whose responsibility? Samsung Singapore’s or the advertising agency’s?

Case 2: Star Challenge 2008

When you searched for “star challenge 2008″ on Google, you would see my earlier blog post on “Star Challenge 2008 Website Broken?” in the #4 position. I didn’t know it would end up there, oops… I just wanted to help.

This accidental first page ranking of my blog post makes me realize the importance to manage what people see in the first page of Google result for those keywords related to one’s reputation or brand.

Case 3: NTU AdWords Campaign Fiasco

Here’s another example of online advertising campaign went wrong:

Google SMU get NTU

And one of the comments was “Whoever did this for NTU should be sacked.”

Digital Reputation Management for Brick and Mortar Business

Even if your business do not have any online marketing campaign or advertise aggressively online, you still have to manage your online reputation.

Because you cannot control what people write in their blogs.

You may not even know you lost at least $3000 worth of business because someone talked about her excruciating encounter at her blog.

Don’t wait for negative publicity to surface on the Internet before you take action.

Because that can be too late and costly.

You have to set aside your company’s resource now for digital reputation management to prevent publicity catastrophe.

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SEO for the Rest of Us

[Updated 16 December 2008] Just came across this newly published blog article by Tony Hirst and realized that, in fact, even librarians need to understanding how search ranking works or risk innocent content being “associated with inappropriate material in a search engine results listing” unintentionally.