Top Takeaways from SES NY

March 26th, 2010

Here are my top discoveries from SES NY ordered from “Hey! Good idea that’s interesting” to “Boom! What was that?! That was my mind being blown!”

No two advertisers have the same attribution model. Use attribution to see what media mix gives the highest ROI for your product.

Don’t just measure a video’s success on CTR – do an engagement analysis. How many people started the video? How many people hit the :30 mark, 1 minute? How many people rewound, fast forwarded, paused?

When it comes to link building it’s more important what others say about you than what you say about yourself. This is true in real life too by the way

Successful link building comes from finding the authority on your keywords, seeing who links to them, and then getting those sites to link back to you.

CTR increased 94% if the user was exposed to social media before searching.

SEO results are moving closer and closer to the fold. Search for ‘lamp table’ and expand all the product boxes, you’ll see what I mean.

YouTube is the #2 search engine.

4% of internet users never search. Don’t ask me what they’re doing. I guess they have a URL directory in their brain which updates in real time.

And….a glimpse into a crystal ball……There’s an app for everything why would anyone open a browser?!

Posted in Events, Online Marketing, Search Marketing, Social Media, Video Ads by Erin M. | | 0 Comments

Putting Social Media on the Map

March 10th, 2010

Evidently, frequent updates of what other users are merely doing at all times no longer enough, so social media outlets are integrating mapping software to allow users to attach their locations to their posts as well. All of the biggest players are unveiling new geolocation features and some businesses are incorporating this into their customer service strategies as well.

Twitter’s geolocation feature went live through its application programming interface (API) last November, yet there wasn’t been any sign of integration into the main twitter.com site until now. The screenshot (above) from TechCrunch shows that tweets with the location tag will have a placemarker next to the source. When the user hovers over the icon it turns blue, and clicking on it brings up a miniature Google map showing the location the tweet was sent from. The user can view these maps as overlays both on other user’s Twitter pages and on tweets in the main stream.

Next, according to several people briefed on the project, Facebook plans to unveil their new location-based feature in late April at the company’s yearly developer conference, f8. These sources were not authorized to discuss unannounced services, so they spoke only under the condition of anonymity.

Last November, Facebook updated its privacy policy in preparation for this new feature. Now, the policy states: “When you share your location with others or add a location to something you post, we treat that like any other content you post.” Essentially, like all other Facebook user content, when a user posts a location they should consider the fact that this is now fairly public information.

Finally, Foursquare is a service that allows users to share their location with a group of friends as they check in to a restaurant, business or any other supporting venue upon arrival. Foursquare encourages the businesses to recognize users’ loyalty in some fashion, such as rewarding the most frequent customers with complimentary items.

With this tool, businesses will be able to see a range of real-time data about Foursquare usage, including who has “checked in” to their clients’ business locations, what time they arrived, the male-to-female customer ratio and which times of day are more active for certain customers. This research will allow business owners to offer instant promotions to engage new customers and retain current ones, similar to the loyalty cards that many retailers typically offer.

“If a restaurant can see one of its loyal customers has dropped off the map and is no longer checking in, the owner could offer them incentives to come back,” said Tristan Walker, director of business development at Foursquare.

Posted in Online Marketing, Social Media by Peter Figueredo | | 0 Comments

Facebook Officially Graduates to Marketing Channel Status

March 3rd, 2010

On Wednesday March 3^rd, Facebook and Omniture announced a new platform for businesses utilizing Facebook as a promotional medium. By joining forces, the two companies can provide marketers using the increasingly prevalent advertising and social medium with the ability to analyze its impact. The two companies will begin by automating the media buying process and then allow companies to better analyze their viewership with a handful metrics. Ultimately, Omniture will help companies utilizing Facebook to reach specific users based on segments.

By utilizing Omniture tools such as SearchCenter Plus, interested companies can buy ads similar to those found in a more traditional SEM function. Also, other tools in the Facebook/Omniture arsenal will allow marketers to identify and reward their loyal customers from a comprehensive dashboard.

The prominence of Facebook as a marketing channel shouldn’t be surprising since it is now the second most utilized online service below Google with 133 million users. By achieving the number two spot, advertisers are typically confident of the ROI they can expect by investing money into Facebook as a marketing channel. Now, with the improved analytics, it might be easier to extract incremental marketing dollars from the C-Suite by flashing some strong preliminary numbers.

Posted in Online Marketing, Search Marketing, Social Media by Peter Figueredo | | 0 Comments