Organic social retargeting – sharing actionable content to reach the followers of your followers – is happening on your social networks whether you know it or not. This post will tell you, via a short case study, how to create and track your efforts for a Facebook Page. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Google
Flash Finale
Sure, Flash is great for banner ads, gaming, and some mobile applications, but for your website, you should be using HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS3. Continue reading
Facebook: Changing the Internet
In much the same way that Apple changed forever the way we listen to music, Facebook is changing the way we use the internet. More than 7 out of every 100 visits to web sites are to Facebook, making Google #2.
Outbound Marketing? "You Oughta Know" Better
HubSpot’s Rebecca Corliss sings about the horrible life of an outbound marketer to Alanis Morissette’s hit, “You Oughta Know.”
Print Ads? Radio Spots? Think Again.
Folks, it’s time to completely ditch the T.V., radio, and print ads. They’re insanely expensive and you’re not reaching that many people….compared to the social space, that is. Take a look and be amazed. I am every time.
It's All About the Search
Whether you’re into social media, professional networking, PPC campaigns, email marketing, or any other type of online marketing, its a necessity to know it is still ALL about search.
Should You Advertise on Bing?
Microsoft is spending a fortune on TV commercials for Bing, its newest adventure in search engines. It is already the #8 search engine in the UK, with users spending 8 minutes there before moving on. Not bad. The down side to this is that Google still occupies 72% of the market; Bing only has 8%. Where do you want to spend your advertising dollars for paid ads?
Bing does have some good features and its getting a lot of attention right now, so its easy to see the allure of advertising there for your keywords. The design of Bing is also something that could pay off for advertisers and Andy Beal of SearchNewz gives a good explanation for this:
“Bing uses a three column design for its search results page. Having just returned from Microsofts Search Summit, I can confirm that this wasnt just done on a whim, but very carefully thought out. One of the driving factors for the design, was the ability to give Bing users a vast array of data and refinement options. In essence, Bing gave that left hand navigational column a prime time spot.”
Benjamin Rudolph, of Search Discovery, gave a presentation on Bing at the Women in Interactive Media networking event on August 20. He described the reality for advertisers: Bing is not Google, not even close (although it is MUCH better than Microsoft’s previous search engine). Bing may be as good as Google for search, the design is definitely very nice, but at the end of the day, its just not worth putting your advertising dollars where your customers are not. Google is a verb, I mean we “Google” everything!…its where everyone is. And if you want your product or service to be found, its where you need to be too.
Facebook is Growing…But Into What?
Facebook has acquired FriendFeed, which is extremely interesting for the social networking world for several reasons. It has long been discussed that Facebook does not have a business model in place to be profitable and yet now they are acquiring other companies…smart move? Mergers traditionally fail over 70% of the time…so how is this different? Firstly, Social Media is such a new concept even to those who are using it all the time, so the traditional statistics may very well not apply. Also, its reasonable to assume that Facebook wanted FriendFeed for the brains of the operation: indeed, they are keeping the staff on, as many of them were former Google employees responsible for such things as Gmail and Google Maps.
But what will Facebook do with this brilliant team? What is their strategy? At this point, I would say they are trying to grow their online presence even further. 250 million users dwarfs Twitter still, but there is so much buzz around Twitter and all of its real-time capabilites, especially its ability to take news and information viral almost instantaneously. Facebook has already implemented many FriendFeed features such as “Comments” and “Like” and now, according to Mashable, they get “a platform and a team that fills a number of gaps at a fraction of the cost (of Twitter).”
If you take it even further, going into Facebook’s attempt to purchase Twitter previously, it can be reasoned that they are trying to completely change our internet experience. This is the viewpoint of Oge Ekeh, of Single in Atlanta, who has mentioned that this recent acquisition does seem to show Facebook’s intent in this area. What would be the implications of this? Facebook has recently made all of its user data searchable by Google unless you set strict controls on your account. Its becoming a larger and larger resource by the day, as companies who are using Salesforce CRM can even synch with Facebook to import user data directly into their Contact Manager.
I think its going to be big, enormous even. Twitter better step it up, starting with adding a “Re-Tweet” button and a “Like” feature for posts. Thoughts?