In today’s economy, people understand that networking is important. Whether it is in-person or through social networking sites, for the most part, people try to take advantage of networking.
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However, because people often associate LinkedIn as a place to find jobs, they forget about how powerful it can be for networking. Nicole Williams, LinkedIn’s Connections Director, told us that the professional network could actually be a game changer in terms of a person’s career.
As she explained, LinkedIn is a platform that is full of credentials and qualified referrals that people need to be utilizing. Through products such as LinkedIn Today, users can keep up with the latest developments and events in their related industries. Additionally, the company recently introduced Causes to allow users to get credit for their volunteer efforts.
Williams said that both these areas, among others, create great networking outlets, which could lead to potential job opportunities. Are you taking advantage of them?
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Monday, October 03, 2011
Friday, August 12, 2011
Video: The Potential of Google+, the Newest Social Network - WebProNews Video
Video: The Potential of Google+, the Newest Social Network
Google+, the latest social development from the search giant, is continuing to gain extreme hype. WebProNews recently spoke with several search and social media leaders including Lee Odden of TopRank Online Marketing, Steve Rubel of Edelman, Li Evans of LiBeck Integrated Marketing, Barry Schwartz of RustyBrick, Loren Baker of BlueGlass, and speaker and author Mari Smith to see what they thought about Google+.
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While they all believe that it is definitely Google’s best attempt at social, they equally agree that there is still a lot that needs to be done to it. For instance, they would like to see further integration of Google products, an improved mobile experience, and better sharing capabilities, to name a few.
View Video at WebProNews
Google+, the latest social development from the search giant, is continuing to gain extreme hype. WebProNews recently spoke with several search and social media leaders including Lee Odden of TopRank Online Marketing, Steve Rubel of Edelman, Li Evans of LiBeck Integrated Marketing, Barry Schwartz of RustyBrick, Loren Baker of BlueGlass, and speaker and author Mari Smith to see what they thought about Google+.
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While they all believe that it is definitely Google’s best attempt at social, they equally agree that there is still a lot that needs to be done to it. For instance, they would like to see further integration of Google products, an improved mobile experience, and better sharing capabilities, to name a few.
View Video at WebProNews
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
How to Create a Local Twitter Account - WebProNews
How to Create a Local Twitter Account from WebProNews
Most of the the tutorials on the web dealing with growing your Twitter followers, don’t pay any attention to location, and are more concerned with raw numbers. I recently started a local travel website and wanted to focus on gaining local followers from that city and surrounding areas. While I can’t reveal the profile, this tutorial will walk you through how I did it.
First the background: this was a travel related website in one of the top 20 metros in the United States. The goal of the account was to build brand recognition by being a curator and online guide that answered people’s questions. The account extended some good will by retweeting the tweets of other non competing hospitality related accounts or other local focused stories. The account would be used once every 1-2 weeks to push out a linkbait, social media, lead gen, or sales tweet.
Next I decided what sort of activity level I want for the account. In this case I aimed for 3-6 informational or news based tweets per day (non self serving tweets). These tweets would usually happen between 12-5pm in the prime timezone of the account. Using in account lists, I aimed for 2-4 retweets per day. I started with a list of 12 terms that would be checked 2-3 times per day to see if we could answer any questions people had. The account had one tweet per day if there was a new post, and the posting schedule was 2-3 posts per week. The account also had an 18 hour archive tweet rotation (I use tweet old posts to accomplish this). While this may seem pretty mechanical, I’m a big fan of letting humans use tools and automation to be more efficient and get more done (aka nap time by the pool on a sunny afternoon).
… you still can’t get a good haircut over the web, and it’s unlikely people hundreds of miles away will ever come to your hair salon…
With my Twitter posting goals in place, I started out tweeting at about half of my desired rate, for the simple reason that no one was following me yet. I wanted new followers to see a history when they decided if I was worth following or not (I’ve been doing this for too long and am far too jaded to be objective about what non marketers really look at when deciding to follow you on Twitter or not).
I started out with a list of social media gurus who were running automated accounts that follow everyone who follows them. I knew I was never going to get their attention, but I was interested in the social proof of having some followers and not being seen as a spammer. Once you have about 50 of these, you should have the basics covered.
Next I made 4 lists for hotels, restaurants, nightclubs, and other travel/hospitality businesses and their web addresses. I sent this list to oDesk to have someone find the Twitter and Facebook profiles for each of the businesses. If you are bootstrapping, you could do this yourself. You can use the information a second time down the road for a who’s who in social media in the area ego link bait post.
A few days later, when the work came back completed, I followed all of the accounts and created separate lists on Twitter for each of the categories (this made retweeting others easier).
After the base accounts were followed, I started mining the followers (see How to get more followers on twitter). This is where it becomes more an art than a science. Look for people who are important in the space. You should follow them even though they probably won’t follow you back. Second, look for conversationalists who tweet back and forth about your niche topic often. Third, look for people who are “promoters” or who have an “agenda” but are likely to retweet you if you have retweeted them. Lastly, look for real people who live in the area you are targeting. These are people who will probably never retweet or link to you, but they will click your link, read your page, fill out a lead gen form, or buy something from you.
Adding new followers is a bit of a game. You follow them, wait a few days, and unfollow the people who didn’t follow you back. If you’re used to playing in a social media friendly space you can build up 2,000 followers in a matter of days. In the normal world, you’ll have to go a lot slower. You can follow up to 2,000 more people than are following you, but I recommend never getting that far ahead. I recommend never following more than 200-300 more people than are following you because it just makes you look spammy. I used managefilter and check all in Firefox to speed up the unfollow process.
When you are adding followers, one of the things you want to look at is the number of followers. You want to have an idea where the high bar is and where the average is. In this particular case, most of the accounts had between 500-1000 followers. Some of the accounts with a high brand recognition factor had 2,000 followers. The account with the highest number of followers was just over 6,000 followers.
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
How Bing Is Growing, Innovating, and Competing from WebProNews Video
How Bing Is Growing, Innovating, and Competing...
In an effort to contend in the search race, Bing is continuously rolling out new products and initiatives. The search engine’s efforts appear to be paying off since recent data from Experian Hitwise, comScore, and Compete all show that Bing’s market share is growing. Google, on the other hand, lost a small percentage of its market share.
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At SXSW, WebProNews spoke with Stefan Weitz, a director with Bing, about this growth and what the search engine was doing to leverage it. According to him, the search industry is not a “zero-sum game.”
"For us to win, somebody else doesn’t have to lose,” he said.
In other words, he believes that all the search engines can expand on one idea and take it in new, and multiple, directions. Competition is tight, but as a result, it produces more new concepts and experiences. Bing, for example, has recently introduced several new projects. The search engine partnered with DealMap in order to bring great deals from popular sites such as Groupon and LivingSocial to users.
Bing has also launched Project Emporia that puts a new approach on personalization. The project is powered by its Matchbox technology and enables the engine to build profiles that offer better recommendations to users.
Weitz told us that Bing would continue to pursue these areas, along with social search, mobile search, and more, in order to provide a simpler and better user experience.
WATCH VIDEO!
In an effort to contend in the search race, Bing is continuously rolling out new products and initiatives. The search engine’s efforts appear to be paying off since recent data from Experian Hitwise, comScore, and Compete all show that Bing’s market share is growing. Google, on the other hand, lost a small percentage of its market share.
WATCH VIDEO!
At SXSW, WebProNews spoke with Stefan Weitz, a director with Bing, about this growth and what the search engine was doing to leverage it. According to him, the search industry is not a “zero-sum game.”
"For us to win, somebody else doesn’t have to lose,” he said.
In other words, he believes that all the search engines can expand on one idea and take it in new, and multiple, directions. Competition is tight, but as a result, it produces more new concepts and experiences. Bing, for example, has recently introduced several new projects. The search engine partnered with DealMap in order to bring great deals from popular sites such as Groupon and LivingSocial to users.
Bing has also launched Project Emporia that puts a new approach on personalization. The project is powered by its Matchbox technology and enables the engine to build profiles that offer better recommendations to users.
Weitz told us that Bing would continue to pursue these areas, along with social search, mobile search, and more, in order to provide a simpler and better user experience.
WATCH VIDEO!
Friday, March 11, 2011
What’s Your Klout Score Telling You? - WebProNews Video
A new space is emerging that hopes to measure social influence online. The concept is promising but is still very new. One player, in particular, that is making progress in the arena is Klout.
As a service that measures how influential people are on the social Web, Klout looks at the content that users create and analyzes what it is they’re talking about. From there, it examines how people react to that content, thus finding the influence.
As a service that measures how influential people are on the social Web, Klout looks at the content that users create and analyzes what it is they’re talking about. From there, it examines how people react to that content, thus finding the influence.
“For us, when we think about influence, it’s really about the ability to drive some sort of action,” explained Klout CEO Joe Fernandez to WebProNews.
This new metric has been referred to as an equivalent to Google’s PageRank for the social Web. Because Google continues to tweak PageRank, we can understand how a similar metric for the social Web would be an ongoing challenge as well. For example, one person might be very influential to another person but may not have a very high Klout Score, since Klout measures data for efforts across the entire social Web.
Fernandez pointed out, specifically, that, according to their data, Justin Beiber is more influential online than President Obama is. While that is hard for some people to swallow, he said that a video of Justin Bieber gets considerably more clicks and links than a video of President Obama gets.
Fernandez pointed out, specifically, that, according to their data, Justin Beiber is more influential online than President Obama is. While that is hard for some people to swallow, he said that a video of Justin Bieber gets considerably more clicks and links than a video of President Obama gets.
“We just kind of let the data speak for itself,” he said.
In addition, Jeremiah Owyang recently released a report that found that, while Klout is a useful metric, it offers an incomplete view of customers for brands. Fernandez said that, while Klout is a critical data point that adds value to customer service and targeting decisions, businesses should consider other data points as well.
Fernandez also acknowledges the challenge of spam and said that the company takes it very seriously.
“It’s something that we’re going to have to continue to face, and honestly, we have to do a better job at it,” he said.
For people and businesses that want to boost their Klout Score, Fernandez recommends being consistent. Klout Score largely depends on how much the person is involved in the conversation and whether or not he is adding value.
Klout currently measures influence across Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, but it hopes to expand to other social platforms this year.
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Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Video: How IntoNow Socializes the TV Experience - WebProNews Video
Video: How IntoNow Socializes the TV Experience
Numerous tools and applications are developed today in order to connect aspects of our lives. IntoNow is a new iOS app that fits into this category. It hopes to socialize the TV experience while answering the question, “What are you into now?”
As Adam Cahan, the company’s CEO, explained to WebProNews, television programming takes up 62 percent of consumers’ leisure time, which, besides sleeping and working, is the largest activity that people partake in. In addition, studies have shown that around 60 percent of people are also on the Internet while they are watching television.
For these reasons, the company wanted to create a way for users to be able to easily connect with their friends around the content that they are watching. The app does this by identifying television programs after only hearing a few seconds of them. Cahan said that the app allows users to look at their social connections, find out what they share in common, and start conversations around those areas of interest.
“For us, what was really exciting was the ability to establish those connections to say you and I both share the same show, and therefore, start a conversation around it,” he added.
Although the app is fun and interesting (it was even named Apple’s App of the Week last week), WebProNews asked Cahan why people would really be drawn to it since many of them already talk about their TV experiences on Facebook and Twitter. In response, he emphasized that IntoNow is not trying to own the conversation.
“It’s about getting recommendations and about getting a sense of your tastes, your friends’ tastes, and then starting to come back to you with ideas around things that we think you should like,” he said.
The technology that enables this experience is based on IntoNow’s SoundPrint platform. Cahan calls the process “fingerprinting,” since it takes the audio signal layer from a snippet of content and translates it into an algorithmic representation of the audio signal.
SoundPrint records 130 channels of live television continuously and is always adding to its catalog. It also has a “back catalog” that includes about 5 years of television, which equates to roughly 2.6 million individual airings.
Cahan told us that IntoNow has several ideas for monetization and is currently talking with one of the largest television manufacturers about embedding the service into TVs. He also said that we could expect an Android version and a Web application soon.
WATCH VIDEO!Friday, February 04, 2011
Video: What Quora Is and What It's Not - WebProNews Video
Have you jumped on the Quora bandwagon yet? A lot of people have and are calling it the next big social phenomenon. Others are relating it to Yahoo Answers and Wikipedia. Some people are even saying that it will replace online forums. So, what is it?
According to Patrick O’Keefe, the author of Managing Online Forums, “Quora is more or less a forum.” However, some people don’t agree with him because they associate forums with things of the past. They, instead, want to associate Quora with something like Facebook or Twitter.
“I think that sometimes people want to see evolution, or something along those lines, in things that maybe don’t need it, or in a way that’s not really fair,” he said.
He compared forums to bread stating that, while many people think bread hasn’t evolved, it really has. Today, there are many different types of bread, and it is used in numerous ways. O’Keefe believes the same principle applies to forums.
These online communities are, essentially, threaded text-based conversations, and interestingly, he points out that this same type of conversation is the backbone of Facebook. He believes that Quora not only has this feature, but that it also has social features.
“The reason Quora is good is because they have taken these features, and they have put them together in a very attractive, very slick, very good way that makes a lot of sense… and really the people aspects of Quora are why it’s successful – the people contributing and the people behind it,” said O’Keefe.
He went on to say that Quora was useful from a business perspective. Although actual brands are not permitted on the service, individuals from companies are allowed and could monitor certain keywords and also answer questions. Companies could potentially receive extra search engine favor since these questions are indexable.
Just like any other service, people are always wondering where it will go in the future. While O’Keefe is not sure, he did address a few challenges that the company would face. First of all, there is the issue of too many basic questions. Another challenge is the fact that people will ask the same question over and over. Thirdly, Quora will have to find a balance in its userbase since it has had the privilege of having people such as former AOL CEO Steve Case answer some questions. However Quora handles these challenges will likely determine its future.
So, what is your take on Quora?
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Thursday, December 09, 2010
Blending Marketing Efforts for the Best Results from WebProNews Videos
Blending Marketing Efforts for the Best Results...
As the search industry continues to grow and become more mature and sophisticated, managing search programs becomes more challenging. According to David Roth, the Director of SEM at Yahoo, this is especially true in regards to large paid search programs.
“It just gets harder and harder every year to maintain your edge if you’re out there doing big paid search programs,” he said.
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To better manage these programs, he believes that marketers should integrate their paid efforts into other campaigns such as organic, display, affiliate, and social media. In other words, he recommends that marketers view all the programs as one and optimize them as a whole.
Yahoo, for instance, had a #1 ranking for an organic listing for a brand keyword. It then purchased a paid search ad on top of it, which drove more traffic to the organic listing. Marketing efforts are, essentially, more effective when they are blended together.
Incidentally, Roth also discusses the Yahoo/Microsoft transition. His job was to transfer all of Yahoo’s advertising over to adCenter and use it to manage Yahoo. In addition, he was responsible for monetizing search results all over Yahoo. He said that both companies continuously evaluated the transition in order to ensure that the highest level of quality was being maintained.
As the search industry continues to grow and become more mature and sophisticated, managing search programs becomes more challenging. According to David Roth, the Director of SEM at Yahoo, this is especially true in regards to large paid search programs.
“It just gets harder and harder every year to maintain your edge if you’re out there doing big paid search programs,” he said.
WATCH VIDEO
To better manage these programs, he believes that marketers should integrate their paid efforts into other campaigns such as organic, display, affiliate, and social media. In other words, he recommends that marketers view all the programs as one and optimize them as a whole.
Yahoo, for instance, had a #1 ranking for an organic listing for a brand keyword. It then purchased a paid search ad on top of it, which drove more traffic to the organic listing. Marketing efforts are, essentially, more effective when they are blended together.
Incidentally, Roth also discusses the Yahoo/Microsoft transition. His job was to transfer all of Yahoo’s advertising over to adCenter and use it to manage Yahoo. In addition, he was responsible for monetizing search results all over Yahoo. He said that both companies continuously evaluated the transition in order to ensure that the highest level of quality was being maintained.
Sunday, November 14, 2010
Simple Tips For Making Your Blog Better from WebProNews Video
Simple Tips For Making Your Blog Better from WebProNews Video:
Scott Hanselman, Principal Program Manager, Microsoft, spoke to Abby Johnson about maintaining a quality blog.
Scott Hanselman, Principal Program Manager, Microsoft, spoke to Abby Johnson about maintaining a quality blog.
Hanselman says a lot of people “have low blog self-esteem,” meaning they think their blog sucks.
Professional blogs have a sense of focus and bloggers who are not professional need to ask themselves why they are blogging and who is their audience.
Be passionate about the subject your are blogging about and have a focus. Hanselman says he blogs consciously and with focus.
Make your blog look tidy and protect it against comment spam. Also make sure you have a tempo when you blog, it does not have to be everyday, it can be three times a week.
Read More...Friday, October 29, 2010
Video: The Next Stage of Internet Video - WebProNews
The Next Stage of Internet Video...
If you’re involved in social media and marketing, you know who Chris Brogan is. As the President of New Marketing Labs, he is very respected in the industry for both his knowledge and his personality. In this interview from the Inbound Marketing Summit, Brogan talks to WebProNews about his latest endeavor, The Pulse Network.
As he explains, this network is about building “content, community, and marketplace” around various channels. For the Inbound Marketing Summit, The Pulse Network sent live broadcasts back to their studio and incorporated live studio hosts and bumpers.
Watch the Video Now!
Online video has seen many changes since its early days and more are expected to come. It’s a new and exciting realm but still has many challenges. For starters, the combination of the popularity of mobile devices and the talk of multiple tablets coming to market create format issues that need to be addressed.
Another challenge is the bandwidth issue. However, Brogan believes a bandwidth overhaul will be sooner than later. He goes on to say that phones will actually do what they are advertised to do on commercials.
Brogan also points out that HD consumption of online video is on the rise and will continue to increase. This is something that he previously did not think would happen, but he has been proven wrong.
In the end, just like many other areas online, good quality content will rule with Internet video.
“There’s going to be a lot of bleeding edge fallout, but I think also we’re going to see that the iteration process of that will be a lot faster,” adds Brogan.
In addition, Brogan touches on some of the primary topics discussed at the Inbound Marketing Summit. According to him, marketers now want to know specific numbers and statistics. They are also very interested in getting conversions and determining what works in the sales funnel.
Watch the Video!
If you’re involved in social media and marketing, you know who Chris Brogan is. As the President of New Marketing Labs, he is very respected in the industry for both his knowledge and his personality. In this interview from the Inbound Marketing Summit, Brogan talks to WebProNews about his latest endeavor, The Pulse Network.
As he explains, this network is about building “content, community, and marketplace” around various channels. For the Inbound Marketing Summit, The Pulse Network sent live broadcasts back to their studio and incorporated live studio hosts and bumpers.
Watch the Video Now!
Online video has seen many changes since its early days and more are expected to come. It’s a new and exciting realm but still has many challenges. For starters, the combination of the popularity of mobile devices and the talk of multiple tablets coming to market create format issues that need to be addressed.
Another challenge is the bandwidth issue. However, Brogan believes a bandwidth overhaul will be sooner than later. He goes on to say that phones will actually do what they are advertised to do on commercials.
Brogan also points out that HD consumption of online video is on the rise and will continue to increase. This is something that he previously did not think would happen, but he has been proven wrong.
In the end, just like many other areas online, good quality content will rule with Internet video.
“There’s going to be a lot of bleeding edge fallout, but I think also we’re going to see that the iteration process of that will be a lot faster,” adds Brogan.
In addition, Brogan touches on some of the primary topics discussed at the Inbound Marketing Summit. According to him, marketers now want to know specific numbers and statistics. They are also very interested in getting conversions and determining what works in the sales funnel.
Watch the Video!
Thursday, October 14, 2010
Survivor Creator: What Kind of Idiot Changes a Successful Format? - WebProNews
Survivor Creator: What Kind of Idiot Changes a Successful Format? from WebProNews...
Mark Burnett, an executive television producer behind shows like Survivor, The Apprentice, The Shark Tank, Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader, and many others (he was even behind the MTV Movie Awards where Bruno landed on Eminem), took the time today here at the BlogWorld & New Media Expo in Vegas to draw some parallels between his experiences in television and searching for success in new media.
Frankly, he almost painted something of a doomy picture for those aspiring to find such success, discussing how truly hard it is to succeed. Success is unpredictable, but "the unpredictable nature is the creative driver" he said. He says shows like Survivor or American Idol are so successful in part to their unpredictability. You don't know who's going to get eliminated from week to week, compared to a show like CSI or House, where you generally know that the main characters will probably not die.
Interestingly enough, it's that same unpredictability that helps shows like Survivor and American Idol thrive in the social media universe. People get excited about who will win and who will lose, and they frantically discuss every week, all week, before and after and during the show.
Read Full Story!
Mark Burnett, an executive television producer behind shows like Survivor, The Apprentice, The Shark Tank, Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader, and many others (he was even behind the MTV Movie Awards where Bruno landed on Eminem), took the time today here at the BlogWorld & New Media Expo in Vegas to draw some parallels between his experiences in television and searching for success in new media.
Frankly, he almost painted something of a doomy picture for those aspiring to find such success, discussing how truly hard it is to succeed. Success is unpredictable, but "the unpredictable nature is the creative driver" he said. He says shows like Survivor or American Idol are so successful in part to their unpredictability. You don't know who's going to get eliminated from week to week, compared to a show like CSI or House, where you generally know that the main characters will probably not die.
Interestingly enough, it's that same unpredictability that helps shows like Survivor and American Idol thrive in the social media universe. People get excited about who will win and who will lose, and they frantically discuss every week, all week, before and after and during the show.
Read Full Story!
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Video: Battle Builds in Quest to Bridge TV and Web from WebProNews
Video: Battle Builds in Quest to Bridge TV and Web:
With the launch of Google TV coming sometime this autumn, WebProNews looks at how the platform will change the living room viewing experience and gets some thoughts from search industry expert Danny Sullivan on the topic.
View Video Now!
Sullivan says Google TV will maybe make more people adopt Android tablets and phones in future because of the ability to run applications on multiple platforms. Sullivan thinks if people run apps on Google TV they will want to be able to do the same on other Android devices.
Some of the challenges Google TV faces are concerns over privacy and how much control the company would have over online video advertising. Hollywood, cable, and satellite companies worry users will drop their paid subscriptions.
Google has maintained its TV service advertising model would provide revenue and would not have the same effect as other online services have had on the music and newspaper industries.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt told Reuters earlier this week that the company is working with a variety of program makers and electronics manufacturers to bring the TV service to consumers.
“We will work with content providers, but it is very unlikely that we will get into actual content production,” Schmidt told journalists after a keynote speech to the IFA consumer electronics trade fair in Berlin.
View WebProNews Video Now!
With the launch of Google TV coming sometime this autumn, WebProNews looks at how the platform will change the living room viewing experience and gets some thoughts from search industry expert Danny Sullivan on the topic.
View Video Now!
Sullivan says Google TV will maybe make more people adopt Android tablets and phones in future because of the ability to run applications on multiple platforms. Sullivan thinks if people run apps on Google TV they will want to be able to do the same on other Android devices.
Some of the challenges Google TV faces are concerns over privacy and how much control the company would have over online video advertising. Hollywood, cable, and satellite companies worry users will drop their paid subscriptions.
Google has maintained its TV service advertising model would provide revenue and would not have the same effect as other online services have had on the music and newspaper industries.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt told Reuters earlier this week that the company is working with a variety of program makers and electronics manufacturers to bring the TV service to consumers.
“We will work with content providers, but it is very unlikely that we will get into actual content production,” Schmidt told journalists after a keynote speech to the IFA consumer electronics trade fair in Berlin.
View WebProNews Video Now!
Friday, August 27, 2010
Measuring Social Media Effectiveness May Have Just Gotten Easier - WebProNews
Measuring Social Media Effectiveness May Have Just Gotten Easier - WebProNews:
Everyone knows that social media provides some great opportunities for marketing, but measurement issues continue to plague businesses. You know content is being shared, but you don't know how people who its being shared with are responding to it.
One of the metrics is its Audience Index, which lets publishers understand and compare their social audiences against 850,000 other sites (and soon against categories), find out what types of influencers your site attracts, and find out how well you connect with influencers, listeners, and engaged customers.
Read FULL Article at WebProNews!
Everyone knows that social media provides some great opportunities for marketing, but measurement issues continue to plague businesses. You know content is being shared, but you don't know how people who its being shared with are responding to it.
Are you content with your ability to measure social media effectiveness? Let us know.
ShareThis, which reaches 400 million people a month through social media share buttons across content all over the web, has released some new metrics for measuring social media effectiveness.One of the metrics is its Audience Index, which lets publishers understand and compare their social audiences against 850,000 other sites (and soon against categories), find out what types of influencers your site attracts, and find out how well you connect with influencers, listeners, and engaged customers.
Read FULL Article at WebProNews!
Video: How Retailers Can Leverage the Economic Comeback
Video: How Retailers Can Leverage the Economic Comeback:
Fortunately, online retailers are beginning to see the economy bounce back. According to Ryan Gibson, the Vice President of Marketing at The Rimm-Kaufman Group, online retailers are seeing improvements in conversion rates.
Fortunately, online retailers are beginning to see the economy bounce back. According to Ryan Gibson, the Vice President of Marketing at The Rimm-Kaufman Group, online retailers are seeing improvements in conversion rates.
As the economy continues to turn around, there are some elements that retailers should apply to better leverage the comeback. From a paid search perspective, Gibson recommends that retailers update their keywords based on incoming inventory.
During the recession, many retailers cut back on their inventory. Now that the economy is starting to improve, they are ordering more products. Gibson says retailers need to make sure that their new inventory is represented in paid search. He also adds that retailers need to optimize pages to guarantee that they are found in the search engines. Ultimately, no one will benefit if the new inventory cannot be found.
Gibson also tells WebProNews that The Rimm-Kaufman Group is adding products. In the past, the company focused primarily on paid search. As Gibson explains, it is now adding an attribution management component that will help its clients understand what is happening outside of paid search. RKG will talk with clients about the data it collects and help them build an attribution model.
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Being an Effective Marketer, Both Online and Offline from WebProNews Video
Being an Effective Marketer, Both Online and Offline:
The term “marketing” gets used a lot and, sometimes, it’s used rather loosely in search and social media circles.
“Not all, but a lot of the search industry tends to be kind of search geeks who are trying to figure out what marketing is,” says Bill Leake of Apogee Results, formerly Apogee Search.
To make a long-term difference in customers, he believes effective marketing is key. Factors such as determining what the customer wants to do, how you can make it happen, and how you can transfer business objectives into strategies that can be implemented, are all instrumental aspects of marketing. He goes on to say that search is just one area of marketing that is important, but it works best when used with the other aspects.
Some people focus heavily on search, since it is easily measured. Other challenges of marketing could result from all the departments in companies and, particularly, within marketing itself. Due to the lack of communication these departments create, many opportunities are missed. As online marketing increases in awareness, there is also the danger of neglecting offline channels.
Online marketing is very valuable for businesses involved largely in the consumer space and B2B. On the other hand, online isn’t as valuable when reaching enterprise level companies and government agencies. Essentially, Leake says businesses need to market wherever their customers are, whether it be online, offline, or both.
Watch the Video Now at: http://videos.webpronews.com
The term “marketing” gets used a lot and, sometimes, it’s used rather loosely in search and social media circles.
“Not all, but a lot of the search industry tends to be kind of search geeks who are trying to figure out what marketing is,” says Bill Leake of Apogee Results, formerly Apogee Search.
To make a long-term difference in customers, he believes effective marketing is key. Factors such as determining what the customer wants to do, how you can make it happen, and how you can transfer business objectives into strategies that can be implemented, are all instrumental aspects of marketing. He goes on to say that search is just one area of marketing that is important, but it works best when used with the other aspects.
Some people focus heavily on search, since it is easily measured. Other challenges of marketing could result from all the departments in companies and, particularly, within marketing itself. Due to the lack of communication these departments create, many opportunities are missed. As online marketing increases in awareness, there is also the danger of neglecting offline channels.
Online marketing is very valuable for businesses involved largely in the consumer space and B2B. On the other hand, online isn’t as valuable when reaching enterprise level companies and government agencies. Essentially, Leake says businesses need to market wherever their customers are, whether it be online, offline, or both.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Tips for Conversion Rate Optimization from WebProNews Video
How do you approach conversion rate optimization? Khalid Saleh of Invesp tells WebProNews that many people make the mistake of taking an approach that is too simplistic. Although it’s easy to do with large sites, Saleh says it could be problematic since “[it] doesn’t mimic how visitors react or act on your website.”
Alternatively, he suggests looking at analytics to find the primary areas of focus. Once these areas are determined, think about the customer and what he or she wants instead of simply making uncalculated changes.
Although changes will vary from site to site, Saleh recommends taking things such ad spend into account. In addition, he advises people to look at their analytics to see the navigational path users take. This not only helps site owners understand where the customers are going, but it also could identify any areas that they themselves need to modify.
By taking these factors into consideration, Saleh says people could see meaningful increases in conversion rates. Are you paying attention to these areas?
Alternatively, he suggests looking at analytics to find the primary areas of focus. Once these areas are determined, think about the customer and what he or she wants instead of simply making uncalculated changes.
Although changes will vary from site to site, Saleh recommends taking things such ad spend into account. In addition, he advises people to look at their analytics to see the navigational path users take. This not only helps site owners understand where the customers are going, but it also could identify any areas that they themselves need to modify.
By taking these factors into consideration, Saleh says people could see meaningful increases in conversion rates. Are you paying attention to these areas?
Saturday, July 10, 2010
Global Marketing: What You Need to Know - WebProNews Video
The Web has provided numerous opportunities for businesses including the ability to have global reach. But with that opportunity comes many challenges such as marketing on a global scale. To learn more about global marketing, WebProNews caught up with Anne Kennedy of Beyond Ink and Joblr and Kristjan Mar Hauksson of Nordic eMarketing.
As Kennedy points out, a big SEO challenge is language. However, she believes the biggest challenge is enculturation in matters such as finding the right keyword set for a different country. This could be a problem since it may not translate directly. For instance, soccer cleats in the U.S. are called football boots in the UK and something completely different in France.
It’s also important to think about these cultural matters in regards to content, link building, graphic design, and more. Although localization and enculturation are the most important areas, Kennedy says understanding the language barrier is the first step in getting these areas right.
Although Nordic eMarketing is based in Iceland, Mar Hauksson says it has found ways to market its products in a multilingual environment. He also points out that the company understands the impact of culture and realizes that not everyone speaks and uses English.
“When you understand that, you have a much bigger market that you can market towards,” says Mar Hauksson.
At the time of the recording of this interview, Google had recently made the move to stop censoring its search results on Google.cn and was redirecting visitors to Google.com.hk, which it does not censor. While some developments have occurred since that time, it is far from being over. Just last week, Google reported that its operations in China were partially blocked and that Chinese officials were allegedly reviewing its application to operate in the country.
Today, the company released this statement, “We are very pleased that the government has renewed our ICP license and we look forward to continuing to provide web search and local products to our users in China.”
Both Kennedy and Mar Hauksson believe it is important to pay attention to the Google/China situation from both a SEO and marketing standpoint.
Kennedy also offers some tips for doing social media globally. Just as understanding culture is critical to SEO, it is also critical to social media. She says marketers need to be aware of what social networks are popular in each country and how the people use and interact with them.
“Social media, by its very definition, depends on the nature of the society where it’s doing business,” explains Kennedy.
Are you embracing marketing on a global level?
As Kennedy points out, a big SEO challenge is language. However, she believes the biggest challenge is enculturation in matters such as finding the right keyword set for a different country. This could be a problem since it may not translate directly. For instance, soccer cleats in the U.S. are called football boots in the UK and something completely different in France.
It’s also important to think about these cultural matters in regards to content, link building, graphic design, and more. Although localization and enculturation are the most important areas, Kennedy says understanding the language barrier is the first step in getting these areas right.
Although Nordic eMarketing is based in Iceland, Mar Hauksson says it has found ways to market its products in a multilingual environment. He also points out that the company understands the impact of culture and realizes that not everyone speaks and uses English.
“When you understand that, you have a much bigger market that you can market towards,” says Mar Hauksson.
At the time of the recording of this interview, Google had recently made the move to stop censoring its search results on Google.cn and was redirecting visitors to Google.com.hk, which it does not censor. While some developments have occurred since that time, it is far from being over. Just last week, Google reported that its operations in China were partially blocked and that Chinese officials were allegedly reviewing its application to operate in the country.
Today, the company released this statement, “We are very pleased that the government has renewed our ICP license and we look forward to continuing to provide web search and local products to our users in China.”
Both Kennedy and Mar Hauksson believe it is important to pay attention to the Google/China situation from both a SEO and marketing standpoint.
Kennedy also offers some tips for doing social media globally. Just as understanding culture is critical to SEO, it is also critical to social media. She says marketers need to be aware of what social networks are popular in each country and how the people use and interact with them.
“Social media, by its very definition, depends on the nature of the society where it’s doing business,” explains Kennedy.
Are you embracing marketing on a global level?
Thursday, July 08, 2010
Building an Effective Social Media Strategy - WebProNews Video
As marketers, what goals do you have with social media? Most marketers use social for efforts such as branding, promotion, and visibility. Interestingly, marketers do not usually consider the benefits that search and social provide together...
According to Rebecca Lieb of Econsultancy, most marketers aren’t aware of how closely the two are tied. For instance, when a user signs into Google and searches for a query, he can see real-time social search results in addition to the other results. Specifically, he can see a live Twitter feed and anything that people within his social circle are saying, related to his query.
While still talking about social media, Lieb brings up two areas that marketers have not fully grasped. They are: strategy and execution. So many marketers are jumping on the social media bandwagon with a FacebookTwitter account to simply keep up with the times. However, this is not the way that people succeed in social media. page or
As part of a social media strategy, marketers need to know what they want to accomplish, who they are trying to reach, how they are going to communicate with the target, and more. Many people perceive social as something that is free, but as Lieb points out, nothing is free.
To be truthful, social media takes lots of time and resources. If marketers calculate these factors into their strategy, their chances for social success will increase.
On a different note, Lieb also tells WebProNews that she is encouraged by current developments taking place regarding net neutrality. She believes the U.S. is on the right track to improve the necessity of high-speed and open Web access.
Wednesday, June 09, 2010
How to Approach a Web Video Series as a Marketing Strategy
How to Approach a Web Video Series as a Marketing Strategy
What’s a proven but very overlooked social media business strategy for professional minded individuals and small business operations, one that’s well-suited for online video? According to successful author and Chicago media personality Robyn Okrant, it’s doing “serialization” with your video content – i.e., knowing how to tell a story as a series of videos where your audience stays tuned on a daily basis. Listen to my podcast interview to hear about a how serialization can be a successful online video strategy that builds an enthusiastic audience and great-word-of-mouth marketing – even without having an actual marketing budget.
Every now and then we at ReelSEO like to cover media personalities and their own takes on online video marketing, getting fresh perspectives from people not embedded deep in our industry. Robyn Okrant is a Chicago-based author, artist, and media personality who I would say certainly fits that billing. She’s the author of the book Living Oprah: My One-Year Experiment to Walk the Walk of the Queen of Talk, and the sister “Living Oprah” blog that generated over a million monthly views featuring her personal project diary. Her online popularity led to international television appearances (including the Today show, CNBC, MSNBC) and national radio programs, more book deals, and the lecture circuit on successful social networking with new media, but a self-avowed non-tecchie drama arts major.
Read the full story at ReelSEO.com
So how does someone with a performance background but no real techie background manage to be a proven success with social media all by herself? Well, aside from picking a subject that happens to be arguable the biggest key influencer in modern history save for perhaps one or two religious figures (I’m referring to Oprah Winfrey of course), she touched on a concept that is pervasive in the traditional entertainment world and high-priced video webisodes, but very rare with your regular bloggers – that would be serialization.
Tuesday, June 08, 2010
What Recent Google Announcements Mean for Google - WebProNews Video
It is always interesting to find out what search industry veteran Danny Sullivan has to say about announcements pertaining to the Web. For this reason, WebProNews spoke with Sullivan at Google I/O to get his opinion on HTML5, Android, and Google TV...
As we have previously reported, Adobe announced an update pack to Dreamweaver CS5 for HTML5. Since the announcement was made at Google I/O, Sullivan believes Google wants to publicly show that it embraces the idea of openness that HTML5 is built upon.
“It plays well with Google’s thing, which is… if you can get to everything on the Web, then Google thinks it’s going to win along the way,” says Sullivan.
In regards to Google TV, Sullivan is excited about the innovation but is curious about pricing. He specifically says, “It puts them [Google] into a place where people are spending hours of their day and not getting a chance to see any of Google’s ads…”
He points out that he would like to see Google TV integrated into cable company services. Despite all the excitement about Google TV, what does it mean for the iPad? Currently, many people use the iPad to look up items as they are watching TV. Google TV, however, could eliminate this need. In addition, Sullivan indicated that Google TV could lead to a greater adoption of Android devices since it runs Android apps.
There have also been many questions since Google has two operating systems: Chrome and Android. Sullivan tried to get Google to clarify the two moving forward but did not receive a definite response. The company hinted that it could unify Android and Chrome at some point in the future, but did not make any commitments that it would.
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