We have a lot to catch up on this Friday. With Yahoo being busy with some new acquisitions, Facebook getting yet another makeover and Google still up to its old antics, we do not know whether to be surprised or not. Perhaps it’s because we’ve gotten so used to being shocked by the internet that it no longer comes as a surprise.
NEWS
Social Commerce Platform, Soldsie goes International
Soldsie which is a Facebook app for the purchase of products through Facebook has recently gone international backed by funding from the Fundersclug.com, 55 start-ups and eVenture. Its services have been expanded to include 6 additional currencies and cater to Australia, Brazil, Canada, Taiwan and the UK. This app is especially good for small home businesses that have Facebook pages but no real storefront or flexible payment options. Soldsie enables the monetization of the Facebook page by letting customers make purchases by comments. Read more at techcrucnch.
Enhanced Campaigns Introduced to Google Analytics
A new section by the name of Enhanced Campaigns has been added to Google Analytics. This feature can be found under the Google Adwords section. Google representatives were hinting at the change for the past few months. Enhanced Keywords, however has been met with much criticism with advertisers unwilling to use the tool which forces them to let go of some of the control that they have over their campaigns. The feature will be permanently introduced on 22nd July. Read more on Seroundtable.
Yahoo! Purchases Admovate
Ever since Marissa Mayer stepped in as CEO of Yahoo!, the company has been busy acquiring companies which are focusing on consumer mobile products. Apart from the previous 16 companies, Yahoo! also acquired Admovate which will allow advertisers to market products to audiences at the right time and the right place. This move is seen as a challenge to Google’s advertising services. Google’s erratic behavior when it comes to advertising software has led many to switch to other advertising platforms and Yahoo! might just prove to be a tough competitor. Read more at Mashable.
TIPS
Twitter cards for Branding
Advertisers often face problems when it comes to Twitter’s format which only allows 140 characters worth of text to be written. This makes it difficult to get the message across to customers. Twitter cards are a solution to this problem. They offer a small summary and image with your product allowing your customer to expand the tweet and see the product for themselves. This is done by linking information to the tweet directly from your site or blog. Small businesses don’t realize that they can also qualify for usage of the Twitter card provided they regularly update their blogs and websites. Read more at Search Engine Land.
Brands which are using Instagram Video for Marketing
The recent inclusion of video to Instagram has opened up new avenues of advertising for marketers. This move was mostly seen as a move by Instagram owner Facebook to combat the competition being received from Vine. These 15 second clips contain new information about companies and products showing customers sneak peeks at behind the scenes of ads and creating hashtags. View the videos at Practical Ecommerce.
Marketing Trends to Keep Track of
Social media marketing has changed the face f advertising forever and marketers must know how to use social media to their advantage in order to keep up with the times. Jeff Bullas has collected a list of 7 marketing trends which should not be ignored. Some of his excellent tips include the importance of content marketing, mobile marketing and personalized marketing. He stresses on the need to create dynamic liquid content which will attract customers. He urges that marketing should be personalized marketing using cookies and targeting customers according to their preferences. Read more tips over at JeffBullas.com
Changes in Facebook Reports
Owners of business pages on Facebook are once again confused by changes in Facebook Reports. Although advertisers can still enjoy the old Facebook reports interfaces, it won’t be long before the new layout is implemented across the social network. Make use of the presets column to better understand how to start creating the report. Although complicated, the new Facebook reports layout is much more flexible and allows customized metrics. Read the full step by step guide at Search Engine Watch.
Points to consider when Redesigning your website
Redesigning a website is a daunting task. Users become comfortable with the layout and you know it inside out. It can however also be a very exciting process which lets your creativity go in all directions. You must however keep in mind that you do your research and keep with the objective of the website. A working structure of the website is also necessary to keep in mind in order to get a high conversion rate. Read all the handy tips over at Search Engine Watch.
Marketing for Luxury Hotels
Traditionally luxury hotels simply had to create a brochure, insert a few images of beautiful scenes and they were done. Modern marketing has changed the game for them leaving a lot of luxury hotels confused about the manner in which they should market themselves. According to Econsultancy, the best way for them to go is to create a magazine style blog with multiple authors sharing their opinions and experiences. Holding contests through the blog and engaging customers in conversation is also a great way of increasing awareness about their brand. Read more tips at Econsultancy.
Earning User Trust
Users have become very particular about personal information that they share online. This mistrust has stemmed mainly from all the leak and abuse of such information in recent time. This is why most apps are either deleted or not added in the first place, simply because they request access to information which the user might be unwilling to give. Westerman outlines the basic mistakes such as timings and lack of understanding of the customer perspective in her article on Uxmag.
Targeted Pay-per-click Advertising
Shorter attention spans when it comes to online shopping make it difficult to sell to customers online. Marketers aim to recreate the shopping experience of a retail store where the customer will be able to view and compare items and reach a decision to make a purchase. It is important for marketers to have usre friendly websites which are easy to navigate with keywords that lead customers directly to desired categories. Read more on how to enhance the online shopping experience at Kissmetrics.
How Voice Search Affects SEO
The introduction of voice search in Google Chrome allows users to search by speaking sentences or phrases into their microphone. This means that the keywords being used will drastically change, becoming more conversational or inquisitive. This more natural way of speaking will cause appearances of information based websites to decline in search results. Read more about the influence of Voice search at Search Engine Journal.
What Content should you share on Twitter?
It is difficult to find compelling, engaging content that ca b compressed into 140 characters. Not only is it important to create your own content but also share that of other son your Twitter page. Knowing your audience and the kind 0of content that they would like to receive is a step towards understanding what to post. Find tools such as Feedly which will give you access to interesting content according to your needs. Read more about how to post relevant content to Twitter at Social Media Examiner.
INFOGRAPHICS
Businesses with Mobile Optimized sites
According to the “Reducing Customer Struggle Report” at Econsultancy, 55% companies are now running mobile optimized sites while 44% have iPhone apps and 33% have Android apps. The sites are optimized using responsive and adaptive design. The reason behind this move was due to the traffic that was increasing through use of mobile devices and smart phones. Read more at Econsultancy.
Product Videos in Marketing
Marketers have been using vine and Instagram as platforms for video marketing with positive results. The stunning infographic at Marketing Profs shows that 53% customers are more confident about their purchases when they have watched a product video and 2/3 of customers watch at least 2 minutes of videos. The study also showed that customers mostly view these marketing videos through cellular devices rather than traditional PCs. View the Infographic at Marketing Profs.
Losing ranking to Websites with fewer links and poor content
Many marketers are often surprised to see themselves losing out n the ranking to websites which have astonishingly poor content and fewer links. The problem is that marketers are only trained to look at number and are prone to analyze the situation that way. The reason behind this may be qualitative rather than quantitative. Oftentimes, it’s the quality of content, variety and the acceleration rate that affects the results. The usefulness of the content posted to the site may also play an important role. View this week’s Whiteboard Friday video at Moz.
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