It was an evening of sensory overload that kicked off with a food demonstration from the lovely ladies of the ELEVEN Food Coaching Co-Op in Woodstock. With great finesse, they turned a handful of delicious ingredients into delicate works of art and after a little encouragement the demonstration was turned into an interactive feasting experience with the guests adding their own foodie creativity to their snacks.

But what is good food without good wine? Fortunately, Perdeberg Wines (the one with zebra) brought some of the fruits of the vine to the party for the guests to sample, compare and enjoy. Under the wise eye of the Perdeberg Team, some of the Cape’s PR practitioners were educated about wine and wine-making, while quaffing some of the winery’s award-wining produce. 

Perdeberg Wines were also the focus of the presentation given by Wired Communications, a PR agency who have been doing some interesting things with their marketing of this little known winery. “Clink to Win” is a Facebook application that rewards users for inviting their friends and for making online toasts by giving them wine. Hugely successful, this innovative and experimental campaign has brought a great deal of exposure to Perdeberg, using social networking trends as a foundation.

The second presentation of the evening was given by Quirk’s own Rob Stokes. With his usual dynamic energy, he talked about the increasing need for companies to utilise Online Reputation Monitoring and Management as a way to understand and respond to their consumers. He also introduced BrandsEye; the nifty tool developed by Quirk to help companies do this.  

Once the formalities were out of the way, guests had the opportunity to chat, mingle and enjoy an off-the-wall darts competition for a six month BrandsEye License worth R30 000, or some smaller BrandsEye prizes concealed in blue balloons around the board’s perimeter.  Fittingly, the evening’s winner was Natalie from the Red Cross Children’s Hospital. Our most hearty congratulations to her, and to Scott from Encyclomedia who managed to dart a balloon containing a one month BrandsEye license.

For those who missed out, Tristan, from MyVideo caught the whole event on film which will be live in a few days. In the meantime, it was a great evening, all in all. Fun was had by everyone and no one left without having learnt a thing or two; about wine, about gourmet cooking, innovative marketing and of course, about Online Reputation Management.

The 21^st Century is one of consumer generated media, and in a day and age where anyone can say just about anything and get away with it, there is an increasing need for companies to monitor and protect their online reputations. With this in mind, Quirk eMarketing has developed BrandsEye; an innovative online tool that allows companies to track and quantify what the public is saying about their brands.   

Online Reputation Management is an ever expanding sphere, but BrandsEye brings something new and essential to the table: 

• BrandsEye scours every corner of the Web, including blogs, forums, company websites, directories, press sites and even Twitter, and identifies any relevant mentions of your brand.
• These mentions can then be tagged and ranked according to their relevance, the credibility of their source, their sentiment, as well as numerous other factors. From this process, the mentions requiring the most urgent response can be selected.  
• BrandsEye converts your multi-faceted online reputation into a single score, using a unique algorithm. This ensures that your online reputation can not only be tracked but that it is also quantifiable and can be compared with the scores of your competitors. This reveals not only chinks in your brand’s armour, but also reveals opportunities for your company.
• These processes happen in real-time, offering an effective early warning system against potential crises.

BrandsEye combines the best elements of technology with the inimitable benefits of human intelligence to monitor what the world is saying about your brand. Its beauty lies in its simplicity and its customisability. To learn more about BrandsEye and its amazing capabilities, check out the newly launched site: www.brandseye.com.

Many of our most valued clients, including Property 24, Amazing Vouchers and South African Tourism have already discovered the benefits of Quirk’s exciting, new ORM tool. Maybe its time you did too?

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• Listen to Part 2
• Listen to Part 3

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Mandela Rhodes is an educational foundation targeted at building exceptional leadership capacity in Africa. Quirk will drive their eMarketing strategy: developing and designing their new website and blog as well as providing search engine optimisation and email marketing services. Quirk’s CEO, Rob Stokes is excited about the potential of this partnership:  “it’s a real honour to land this account and we at Quirk are privileged to be in a position to help such an esteemed institution achieve its online marketing goals.”