Attached is a document from Marketing Profs Research that provides an overview of the current state of social media marketing. It’s worth a quick look. To download the document click the following link: Marketing Profs Social Media PDF
Among the top social marketing media venues are LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. Before incorporating social media into an organization’s marketing plan we (at a minimum) recommend that our clients are clear about the objectives. For most of our clients our current position is:
Facebook: Yes, do it. Create a page for your business. Facebook users that ‘become a fan’ effectively endorse your business/company to all their contacts. Be aware it does require ongoing attention.
YouTube: A good idea. You can leverage created video content across all your online properties.
Twitter: Not a compelling ‘yes’. Do it if you enjoy it and/or are clear about your objectives. It’s OK to say no on Twitter for now but keep an eye on it.
LinkedIn: Sign up to support individual professional networking objectives.
For those companies that may have cut back on their internet marketing efforts during the recession, they have a decision to make. When to re-engage.
The rationale we heard from some clients when the wheels started to come off was “no matter what promotion we do now it’s no going to matter.” And they may have been correct, at least in the short term. Although some businesses could have effectively argued that investment in organic SEO during a soft economic period would better position them for the presumed inevitable recovery. The organic SEO climb up can be slow, depending on the business category, but the decay rate for organic search engine positioning can also be slow.
Economists tell us that the recession ended earlier this year. Third quarter GDP shows some growth. Economic activity is pushing the dial forward, albeit slowly. Whether to invest now in some form of internet marketing may depend on the type of business, consumer or B2B, but perhaps as much also on the business philosophy of the company’s management. But from where we stand it’s hard to argue against at least beginning to invest more resources in some form of internet marketing. And now. What’s done now will affect whether your business tracks with the recovery, or trails it.
For SEOs and internet marketing specialists it’s easy to get so caught up in the tactics associated with the discipline that it’s temporarily forgotten what gives internet marketing such a unique position in the marketing mix.
For those that have studies traditional marketing methodologies there may be a vague recollection of the 4P’s of marketing (yes, I was awake that day), those being product, place, price and promotion. What makes internet marketing such a powerful promotional element is near realtime attributes. In response to search engine queries, marketing messages that promote awareness and discovery of companies, products, and services are presented at the precise time that someone’s indicated an interest. No other form of marketing we know of can make this claim so effectively.
Affinity Track Internet Promotion | Denver-Boulder SEO
357 S. McCaslin Blvd.
Louisville, CO 80027
(303) 404-8699
Google’s testing some new search enhancements and has posted the following on their blog:
“For the last several months, a large team of Googlers has been working on a secret project: a next-generation architecture for Google’s web search. It’s the first step in a process that will let us push the envelope on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions. The new infrastructure sits “under the hood” of Google’s search engine, which means that most users won’t notice a difference in search results. But web developers and power searchers might notice a few differences, so we’re opening up a web developer preview to collect feedback.
Some parts of this system aren’t completely finished yet, so we’d welcome feedback on any issues you see. We invite you to visit the web developer preview of Google’s new infrastructure at http://www2.sandbox.google.com/ and try searches there.”
We’ll be monitoring this latest Google announcement to see what affect it has on our clients’ search results. Stay tuned.
Affinity Track Internet Promotion | Denver-Boulder SEO
357 S. McCaslin Blvd.
Louisville, CO 80027
(303) 404-8699
Today’s announcement marks a potentially significant change in the competitive landscape of search. The 10-year deal announced today gives Microsoft access to Yahoo’s second-largest internet search engine audience, beefing up its search presence as it tries to catch Google, by far the leader in online search and advertising.
The deal will no doubt be reviewed by the government for anti-trust concerns. According to the Associated Press, a key lawmaker on antitrust issues said the Yahoo-Microsoft plan “warrants our careful scrutiny.” Sen. Herb Kohl, a Wisconsin Democrat, said the Senate antitrust subcommittee he chairs will review the deal “because of the potentially far-reaching consequences for consumers and advertisers and our concern about dampening the innovation we have come to expect from a competitive high-tech industry.”
In our opinion this move could actually create more competition. And what innovation have we seen lately from Yahoo anyway? Google vs. MicroHoo, it could get interesting. And if you’re not ranking that well organically in Yahoo … you may not need to worry about it.
Affinity Track Internet Promotion | Denver-Boulder SEO
357 S. McCaslin Blvd.
Louisville, CO 80027
(303) 404-8699
Is it a good investment to devote the resources necessary to promote your website? It’s a reasonable question. Internet marketing doesn’t happen spontaneously without effort or without cost.
If you’re in the business of selling “kitchen tables” (for example) we can consult the Google Adwords Keyword Tool, one of several keyword resources available plus its free. The results say there were around 450,000 Google searches on the word kitchen table in June of this year. It’s a significant number. That traffic’s going somewhere, and chances are that your kitchen table sales business would benefit if some of it was coming to you.
Targeting the word combination of kitchen tables may be too big a goal for your site, especially if it doesn’t carry a lot of weight in the search engines. Markets have a tendency to sub-divide over time. Effective marketing is almost always a result of intelligently segmenting markets, then determining the most appropriate target, and then implementing a plan to penetrate it.
The market for kitchen tables can be segmented in numerous ways. It could be segmented geographically (e.g., Denver kitchen tables), by table style and material (e.g., wooden kitchen tables), or even size (e.g., large kitchen tables). If your site cannot yet compete for the overall market leader position in the largest categories, adding qualifiers to attract segments of traffic from the overall traffic pool available will often be essential to compete. The marketing principles that applied pre-internet marketing, still apply. In our experience it’s the rare website that cannot benefit from and justify promotion.
There. Another blog in and my daughter’s still watching Sponge Bob. Ahh success!
Affinity Track Internet Promotion | Denver-Boulder SEO
357 S. McCaslin Blvd.
Louisville, CO 80027
(303) 404-8699
There’s lots of material around for small business owners to consult in connection with SEO and general promotion of their websites. Given the nature of small businesses with principals often wearing multiple hats, many small businesses just have a hard time finding the time (and discipline) to give attention to these things.
At Affinity Track we read about and stay informed on the latest trends in SEO circles. The use of canonical tags introduced earlier this year, the recent link-sculpting debate, a new search engine launch from Microsoft are among the events that have recently grabbed attention. But for many small businesses (e.g., mom and pop on up to several hundred employees) they’re often not giving attention to even the most fundamental of SEO practices. Keyword research, good pages titles and meta descriptions for starters, would do a lot of sites a world of good. It’s not rocket science, but it does require some attention, awareness of SEO principles, and the ability and willingness to write.
This is actually good news for small businesses. Competing online is relative thing … relative to what your competitors are doing that is. So with so many small business websites ignoring even the most basic SEO practices, there’s an opportunity for your small business to compete. If your business is suitable for online marketing, and most are today, you need only take the initiative to get going to begin reaping the benefits.
Affinity Track Internet Promotion | Denver-Boulder SEO
357 S. McCaslin Blvd.
Louisville, CO 80027
(303) 404-8699
One of the most notable recent predictions within SEO circles has to do with video. Search engines are getting better at detecting video on web pages and understanding some things about them. One interesting observation about original video content is that it’s difficult to ‘scrape’ from another site, allowed video embedding being an exception. In recognition of this fact there may be a presumption by search engines that video content is more likely to be fresh and original. As a result Google and other search engines will value pages with video more. Some predict radical reshuffling of search engine rankings as a result.
YouTube is also getting better at processing HD video. Uploaded HD videos, after processing, are looking noticeably better now than even a few weeks ago. For these reasons our Denver SEO company has begun producing low-cost internet videos. For organizations that seek to compete online, we think video needs to be part of the equation.
Guess what? Your company can compete online. Yes it’s true … provided you do the right things.
Affinity Track Internet Promotion works with a select group of companies and organizations that aspire to compete online in their respective spaces. It can be done. Starting is the first step.
Do as much or as little as your like, though in some business categories doing a little can put your organization far ahead of its competitors. For additional information in the Denver area, contact us at (303) 404-8699 to begin a conversation about how to enhance your organization’s online competitiveness.
Affinity Track Internet Promotion | Denver-Boulder SEO
357 S. McCaslin Blvd.
Louisville, CO 80027
(303) 404-8699
One of the reasons we’ve been emphasizing web videos recently is because the number of YouTube searches recently surpassed those of Yahoo. This milestone makes YouTube the second most popular internet search environment, second only to Google.
Producing web videos for posting on YouTube or your own site requires a bit more capability than just adding a standard web page. So we look for ways to differentiate our services. Website videos, optimized for search engines, are one such service offering.
Introductory pricing is:
$199 – 30 minutes onsite HD video acquisition and 2 minute finished/edited video
$299 – 1 hour onsite HD video acquisition and 5 minute finished/edited video
