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Taking Advantage of External Links?We know you’re always working on your SEO. Optimizing the title tags and creating new content for search engines to crawl. Of course you’re doing all that. But, are you also working on increasing the number of links to your website? It’s a primary area for improving search engine rankings and should be an important aspect of your overall strategy. Let’s take a look at some ways you can execute:
Labels: Search Engine Marketing (SEM), search marketing, seo Cyber Monday Isn't Over YetToday is the day when retailers typically send the most email marketing messages of the year- Cyber Monday. With some industry doubt over whether or not online sales will come through as big as retailers are hoping for this year (according to the chairman of comScore), you should expect to see a ramp-up in email marketing strategies not just today, but on all four 'Echo Mondays'- the first four Mondays in December- as well. According to the Retail Email Blog, these four Mondays are when consumers are most receptive to email marketing messages. In fact, the blog states that last year, Mondays were the most popular and successful day of the week among email marketers in all of the fourth quarter, not just in December. In addition to picking the best day of the week to lure in potential online holiday shoppers, email marketers are trying some new strategies and tactics for 2009. New research from SLI systems suggested that adding features like site search to emails, or including videos with user reviews, can enhance the email's appeal to a consumer. Integration of new technology into email marketing is an important tool that email marketers must embrace to really get through to consumers this holiday season. With so much clutter in the marketplace, in order to break through to the consumer, a retailer needs to show something tech-savvy, fun and unique that will catch someone's eye over just any other email filling up his or her inbox. According to SLI Systems' "2009 E-Commerce Customer Experience Survey", 35% of online businesses plan to increase their budget in preparation for the holidays, in the hopes of capitalizing on the biggest shopping season of the year to generate positive ROI. It is even more crucial in this regard that marketers begin thinking more outside the box with email strategies. A retailer's house email list could be its single greatest asset- what more could you want than an arsenal of people who have already shown interest in your products?? An additional email strategy that should be big this year is the integration of social media with email marketing. In an April 2009 study from Ball State University, the Email Marketer’s Club and ExactTarget found that only 13% of email marketers were integrating social media into their campaigns. However, 46% of them intended to do so this year. "While the global reach, rapid adoption and high engagement found in social media have email marketers salivating at the potential these environments offer to engage with customers and prospects, the real challenge is how best to facilitate meaningful interactions," said Morgan Stewart, ExactTarget’s director of research and strategy. This concept is what retailers are trying to capitalize on this year, to find the "sweet spot" where they can really get through to consumers in their favorite (and most influential) atmospheres. So look out for some new and interesting emails on the upcoming 'Echo Mondays'. Anything breaking through the clutter for you? Share it with us! Sources: http://www.marketingvox.com/email-marketers-combine-tactics-for-echo-mondays-045623/ http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2009/04/22/integrating-social-media-with-email-marketing Labels: eCommerce, Email Marketing, Holiday Shopping, Online Shopping Facebook Releases New Contest, Sweepstakes Promotion Guidelines Running contests or promotions on Facebook have become one of the most effective ways in building high-level engagement with your brand. Numerous companies have come up with a variety of strategies to link external social networks into their contest campaigns, and a large target in that funnel - FACEBOOK.The new rules that Facebook released ealier this month have now set specific guidelines for any company or individual looking to run any kind of promotion or contest within Facebook. These new guidelines now require anyone to request permission from Facebook before being allowed to launch any Facebook related contest or sweepstakes. All promotions that run on Facebook must be fully located on either the canvas page of an application, or in an application box or tab on a Facebook Page. Section 3. Administering a Promotion through the Facebook Platform Basically, these new rules will now clear out the 'spam' like contest entries that you see float through your friend's newsfeeds, often in status updates through Facebook. To clear up any confusion, Facebook has given users a few examples of how to apply Section 3 of the Promotion Guidelines to actual situations: You cannot: Condition entry in the promotion upon a user providing content on Facebook, such as making a post on a profile or Page, status comment or photo upload. You can: Use a third party application to condition entry to the promotion upon a user providing content. For example, you may administer a photo contest whereby a user uploads a photo through a third-party application to enter the contest. You cannot: Administer a promotion that users automatically enter by becoming a fan of your Page. You can: Only allow fans of your Page to access the tab that contains the third-party application for the promotion. You cannot: Notify winners through Facebook, such as through Facebook messages, chat, or posts on profiles or Pages. You can: Collect an address or email through the third-party application for the promotion in order to contact the winner by email or standard mail. You cannot: Instruct people (in the rules or elsewhere) to sign up for a Facebook account before they enter the promotion. You can: Instruct users to visit the third-party application to enter the promotion (as described in Section 3.4(i)). Since users must have a Facebook account in order to access an application on the Facebook Platform, if you give this instruction, they will be prompted to sign up for a Facebook account if they do not already have one. Labels: Facebook, Social Media Marketing Four Dimensions of Online MediaUnlike print, television, outdoor, and any other form of media, online is hopeless, complicated, and ever growing in its complexity. Every day it brings a new list of ad units, serving options, compensation models, targeting options, and, of course, KPIs (define). To try and enter the industry now, without the benefit of gradually building up a knowledge base to get you up to speed, is difficult for many people. For clients who aren't seasoned online marketers but find their advertising increasingly channeled into the digital space, the task can be daunting. To help agencies help their clients make sense of all the dimensions and options that can go into an online media plan, I have outlined the four dimensions of online media in this column. They include targeting, compensation, ad units, and metrics. Even with all the options and opportunities we have to maximize value and customer impact, I still see agencies planning buys based on pre-determined ad units or creative concepts. The best plans take elements from all over the spectrum to create all-encompassing campaigns that deliver branding (impressions, reach, and frequency) as well as good old fashioned measurable return on investment (conversion, leads, sales, etc.). Also, any seasoned media planner should be able to give examples of each one of the items listed under the four dimensions. Read more... Labels: ClickZ, online marketing, Online Media, Strategy Twitter Will Launch Paid Corporate Accounts by Year's End It's official, Twitter is set to introduce premium accounts for brands and businesses by end of the year, this according to co-founder and CEO Biz Stone. While speaking at an event in London, Stone said Twitter plans to charge for corporate accounts, and in exchange, would offer enhanced features and analytics in return.It is important to note, however, that if you are a current brand or business, you will not be forced to pay, but this will more be added on as a value to your account, which will tie in the rich features & analytics, in addition to some other kind of targeting, is my guess, when plans are unveiled in a few weeks. At the event, according to ClickZ, celebrity Tweeter, Stephen Fry criticized the move, saying it would be "anti-commercial" and there was a "sense of being guided by a big corporate brother." Fry also pointed out that this could now be the beginning of banner ads on the site, and Stone quickly dismissed that saying “the plan has always been to create a [revenue] model that would be native to Twitter.” Labels: twitter social media Who Are You on SlideShare?Users are able to share presentation slide shows, documents and other PDFs on their websites or blogs with SlideShare, a slide hosting service that has taken social networking to another level. SlideShare's features include the option to add audio commentary to presentations, organize presentations according to a variety of categories and use groups to create presentation collections. Furthermore, presentations can be public or private, and viewers have the ability to download the original file. Meanwhile, users can continue to grow their online professional network and share content with others who share similar interests. Now SlideShare offers eight different types of accounts including ones for: - companies, organizations and professional firms, - advertising, marketing and public relations agencies, - universities, schools and other educational institutions, - professional speakers, - event organizers, - presentation design firms, - and non-profit and government organizations. If you don't fit into any one of those categories, you can still use SlideShare's default account setting, which is free and available to anyone. Completed profiles help build branding and identity and also enable better networking among customers and other users. SlideShare is planning to add custom options to each type of account in the near future. View a sample presentation and find out who you are on SlideShare: WHO ARE YOU on SlideShare? View more documents from SlideShare Help. Labels: Social Media, web 2.0 Google to Offer Captioned YouTube VideosTranslation for online video is about to get a whole lot easier. Google just announced that they are going to start offering an automatic caption service for YouTube videos: Offering a service like this, provided it works as described, is nothing short of amazing. Subtitling videos or offering an alternative translated soundtrack is a time-consuming and often costly process that prevents content creators from optimizing the reach of their videos. Being able to post a video to a corporate YouTube channel and then having a captioned translation available in 51 different languages is going to make it a lot easier to get that content embedded in multiple blogs and partner sites. Labels: Blog Outreach, Google, Online Media, online video, Video, web 2.0, YouTube Facebook Creates A Better Experience Between Pages & FansTwo big changes have just been announced for Facebook Pages and Profiles that will help increase user experience, as well as create more valuable interactions between users and brands. The first very exciting update gives administrators of Pages the option to customize their status updates to Fans in the News Feed. These custom updates include the feature to target by geography and language. This is HUGE news for national or international brands who are trying to figure out how to manage their Facebook presence in the world of social media marketing.   How this option could help you: - Ability to target promotions/contests to a specific country or state. - Ability to target job listing to a specific country or state. - Ability to target a specific language or run multi-lingual campaigns. - Ability to gain valuable market research through comparing comments and results when asking the same question (or different question) targeted to specific regions. - Ability to gain a better understanding of local or regional consumer opinions and values. The next big change in the works for December 2009/January 2010 is the modification of Facebook Pages and Profiles. In order to help brands emphasize their identity and customized content, the following changes will be made: - Tab width changing from 760 to 520 pixels. - Boxes tab will be removed as the focus has switched to custom tabs. - Application tabs will be the exclusive integration point for applications on Facebook Pages and Profiles. I never was a believer in the Boxes Tab so this is a very exciting change to me. The more Facebook can help support brands create custom tabs within their Facebook Page, the greater the interaction these brands will have with their Fans. There’s already brands doing a great job of this like Liberty Medical and Harley-Davidson, but it can only get better from here! Labels: Brand Awareness, Facebook, Social Media, Social Media Marketing Facebook Now Rated the No. 3 Video SiteWhen it comes to online video, Facebook always seemed to be one step behind the usual online video giants...not anymore! According to Nielsen's latest VideoCensus numbers, Facebook has rose to No. 3 behind online video giants Hulu and YouTube in terms of total streams. Facebook jumped from No. 10 last month - leap-frogging the likes of MSN, ABC Television, Fox Interactive Media, and Yahoo! The report said Facebook generated more than 217 million streams in October to more than 31.5 million unique viewers - this is up from 110 million streams to 23 million viewers in September.  As fast as Facebook has grown in the past year, the online video viewing aspect was never something brands, nor advertisers really drove too much interest to. However, this could open up a door to change. Facebook actually had more than double the number of unique viewers Hulu had for October - but do remember, Facebook caters to the shorter and more personal videos, as compared to TV show length videos that flood Hulu. Facebook began their venture into large-scale video streaming when they partnered with CNN to present the President Inauguration in January, then opened up another live streaming event with the NBA All-Star Game in February - both events drew a high level of engagement across Facebook. More recently, the Foo Fighters in October, held a live concert that was streamed across Facebook, Livestream and the iPhone, and delivered 2 hours and 45 minutes of their greatest hits to more than 150,000 viewers around the world. The video drew 440,000 total live streams, with a max of 20,000 at any one time. Watch live streaming video from foofighters at livestream.com Clearly Facebook is making their platform more friendly from a video streaming perspective, think what could of been from an advertisers' standpoint if the Foo Fighters' record label was to try and monetize that almost 3 hour long show...exactly. On top of that, the concert trended on Twitter at #2, (#1 was Halloween) and it was also #1 on Digg. Music has not been the only source of featured video for Facebook, the early premier of the NBC (and Hulu owner) show Community was debuted through Facebook on the NBC Fan Page. Overall, the number of total U.S. video watchers dipped to 138.6 million unique viewers from 139.3 million in September. However, the number of total streams rose to 11.2 billion in October vs. 11.02 billion in September. And the number of streams per person was up to 81 in October, compared to 79.1 in September, and the time spent per viewer was up to 212.5 minutes in October, compared to 195.2 in September.  Labels: Facebook, hulu, online video, Social Media, Video, YouTube Facebook Launches 'Friends of Connection' TargetingLast week, Facebook added another targeting opportunity for its advertisers: Friends of Connection. According the Facebook Ads: “Friends of connection” targeting is now available for Facebook Ads. Expand your audience reach by delivering your ads to the friends of people already connected with your Page, Application, Group or Event. In addition to harnessing the social graph by targeting your connections’ friends, every “Friends of connection” targeted ad promoting a Page or Event includes social content about a friend’s interaction with your business, amplifying the relevancy of your ad. This means that advertisers can reach potential customers or highly relevant users (since birds of the same feather flock together, and it is likely that you and your friends have similar interests) and gain free impressions/brand presence through viral propagation. For the advertiser: this option is only available though if you are the admin of a Facebook Page. So for instance, I am an admin of the Overdrive Facebook Page. When I create a Facebook ad (ASU = ad space unit) using the self-serve platform/ad interface, I can target users whose friends are already connected to Overdrive Interactive:  For the Facebook user: Facebook will then show those ads to the appropriate users and include a blurb about their friends. So for instance, Harry is a Fan of Overdrive and he is friends with with Barb. Facebook will show an Overdrive ad to Barb with the sentence "Harry Gold is a fan of this Page." Now the Facebook ad is more relevant to Barb; it has more "pull" because her friend Harry's connection/interaction with Overdrive is directly showcased. And remember that there are other brilliant ways that Facebook lets advertisers target. Here's a quick list:
Labels: Facebook, Industry, Online Media, POV Facebook, Twitter, Last.fm Land on Xbox 360They always said games would be more fun when you play them with friends, which is why the Xbox 360 just finalized their Xbox Live software to sync with your Facebook and Twitter accounts. Users will now be able to wrap themselves entirely in a "social-enabled" game experience and connect and play with their friends on Facebook & Twitter.  With the integration, you can now use your Facebook account through your Xbox 360, and update your status, browse updates from your friends and view photos on the big screen. You will also be able to link your Xbox Gamertag to find your Facebook friends who also play on Xbox Live and connect with them directly within your gaming experience. Facebook goes one step further and utilizes the fairly new interface of the Xbox 360 dashboard, and allows a variety of sorting and slick panel movement, all with the touch of your controller. Your photo albums will also load pretty quickly and look impressive on a high-definition TV - much better looking then on your computer screen.  Twitter also will now sync with your account, and you will be able to tweet through your Xbox 360 anytime during your Xbox Live experience, as well as view profiles, trends and conversations - even search to see who is tweeting about your favorite game. Although it is not much different than tweeting from a computer or your phone, the Xbox 360 interface takes tweeting to an entirely new level with just the design of it alone.  And for you PS3 fans, I know you are asking - where is our update? It is coming! The company just announced on its official PlayStation blog that upcoming firmware update v3.10 will add Facebook and Twitter functionality to the PS3 interface. And for music fans, Last.fm, a streaming music application that allows you to set a channel and listen for as long as you'd like, also will now sync with the Xbox 360. As does the new Microsoft Zune player, Microsoft's version of the iPod, where users can now watch videos in 1080p and 5.1 channel surround sound - all through their game system. In addition to all the new social features, Xbox Live also will be debuting the "News and More" section, transforming Xbox Live into a full-on media portal that will regularly update streaming content from MSNBC, The New Yorker, and Dilbert, just to name a few. Happy Gaming! Labels: Facebook, last.fm, Social Media, Twitter 'Unfriend', 2009 Word of the Year Winner Drum roll please...Oxford Dictionary has announced its "word of the year" winner, and to no one's surprise, they came through with a social media related term..."unfriend", your new 2009 award winner. The definition reads as followed "To remove someone as a ‘friend’ on a social networking site such as Facebook.” Over the past few years, dictionary makers have seemed to jump at announcing social media related terms as the new words that deserve the recognition treatment. "Twitter" was announced by the Collins English Dictionary earlier this year as a new entrant, and "Facebook" was the word of the year back in the end of 2007. And according to the dictionary's blog, other terms that were under consideration this year included hashtag, sexting, funemployed, tramp stamp, intexticated and birther....hmm? (Photo courtesy of SocialSignal.com) Labels: Social Media Predictive Modeling and Display AdsOften times we're approached by direct marketing clients who want to scale up their online sales, but have exhausted or saturated their successful channels. They're bidding on all the keywords that perform, they hit their e-mail list as much as they can, and they're applying all the focus in their power to SEO (define). The one channel they haven't successfully cracked open is display advertising. Unlike search, where you're limited to the volume of consumer queries around your performing terms, display ads, particularly banners, have a lot more scalability if done right. The amount of inventory and opportunities in some cases (if your target audience is broad enough) is unlimited. The challenge is to crack the formula of what sites, placements, rates, creative (offers, images, messages, etc.), and conversion environments (landing pages, conversion paths, etc.) will ultimately form a scalable and reliable channel that grows your business. The problem is that many companies have tried to use display advertising with sporadic bursts of banners, often in high CPM (define) and premium placements, without a foresight of predictive modeling and a sustained effort that applies an ROI (define) optimization process and methodology. They then fail and condemn the whole category of online display. Read more... Labels: Advertising, ClickZ, online marketing, Online Media, Strategy Is Generation Y Experiencing a Technology Burnout?Working in a marketing agency, I’m surrounded by buzz words like ‘social media’ everyday. Recently, however, this new phenomenon turned up in a place I never expected: the Museum of Fine Arts.
I was there for a few hours before wandering into the gift shop to find two silvered hair women chatting with each other about their lives. My presence had interrupted their conversation and they turned to ask me if I needed any assistance, but I stood struck at the fact their conversation consisted of talking about Facebooking their grandchildren, using Twitter to get their Quilt group known, using the internet to find vintage fabric, and even sending text messages to their children! These women were in their mid 70’s – slightly younger than my mother who is 82 and got instant anxiety when I bought her a cell phone… I found myself lingering around the conversation listening to learn more about their on-line lives and trying to understand why they choose to stay current with the times, and others their age do not. This is a fascinating topic for me, so I decided to look up some more research -- only to find that Baby Boomers are now adopting popular consumer technology applications at a faster rate and the younger generations are losing interest. I am from the pre-computer age – my Graphic Arts college education consisted of t-squares, layout paper, marker comps and rapidographs – so the concept of us old folks keeping up and turning up the heat was fascinating.  Micro Persuasion: Social Networking Demographics: Boomers Jump In, Gen Y Plateaus — Baby boomers are the fastest growing segment of social networking users. So, if you think you can ignore social media because you think only high school and college students use social media, think again. Yes, it is true that social media is still much more popular with younger generations, but Boomers have shown a willingness to embrace social media and blogging.There has been a belief that older people would stick with newspapers over the Web. Boomers are set to retire and become that older generation, and Boomers don’t appear like they’ll be on the sidelines watching the Web go by. According to the study, baby boomers...
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