Why Customer Service Is The New Marketing
http://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2011/12/28/why-customer-service-is-the-new-marketing/
(Sent from Flipboard)
Digital Marketing and Social Media collected ideas thoughts and news
Saturday, December 31, 2011
Article: Why Customer Service Is The New Marketing
Why Customer Service Is The New Marketing
http://www.forbes.com/sites/theyec/2011/12/28/why-customer-service-is-the-new-marketing/
(Sent from Flipboard)
Article: Tripadvisor’s Crackdown on ‘phoney’ Reviews | Marketing Times for the Hotel & Travel Industry from Net Affinity | Hotel Marketing News
Tripadvisor's Crackdown on 'phoney' Reviews | Marketing Times for the Hotel & Travel Industry from Net Affinity | Hotel Marketing News
http://www.marketingtimes.com/2011/12/tripadvisors-crackdown-on-phoney-reviews/
(Sent from Flipboard)
The Ultimate Glossary: 120 Social Media Marketing Terms Explained
The Ultimate Glossary: 120 Social Media Marketing Terms Explained http://smf.is/1D0PbA (via @summify from @HubSpot)
Friday, December 30, 2011
4 Steps to Create a Social Listening Strategy
4 Steps to Create a Social Listening Strategy http://smf.is/1CWVO7 (via @summify from @smexaminer)
Craft an Attention-Grabbing Message
Craft an Attention-Grabbing Message http://smf.is/1CWVNQ (via @summify from @HarvardBiz, and @smallbiztrends)
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Hotels to Follow Right Now on Instagram
Hotels to Follow Right Now on Instagram http://smf.is/1CT3S6 (via @summify from @HotelChatter, and @ReviewPro)
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
USA TODAY article: Expedia.com: We verify our hotel reviews
I thought you might find this story from USATODAY.com interesting:
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
Monday, December 26, 2011
Brand Hands Out Samples Using Facial Recognition Vending Machine
 SimplyZesty (@SimplyZesty)26/12/2011 10:47 Brand Hands Our Samples Using Facial Recognition Vending Machine bit.ly/sRbjaj #in |
Sunday, December 25, 2011
53 New Digital Media Resources You May Have Missed
53 New Digital Media Resources You May Have Missed http://smf.is/1CDWgw (via @summify from @mashable, and @mashsocialmedia)
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Search Tops Social in Local Business Research [New Data]
Search Tops Social in Local Business Research [New Data] http://smf.is/1CAhlp (via @summify)
Friday, December 23, 2011
5 Ways to Generate Sales Leads With Mobile
5 Ways to Generate Sales Leads With Mobile http://smf.is/1CwBJY (via @summify from @mashable, and @ReviewPro)
Thursday, December 22, 2011
Facebook: The New Face of the Hotel Concierge.
Facebook: The New Face of the Hotel Concierge. http://smf.is/1CsWfV (via @summify from @ReviewPro, and @iVisitorGuide)
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Monday, December 19, 2011
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Friday, December 16, 2011
Article: 10 Data Points You Need to Convert More Customers
10 Data Points You Need to Convert More Customers
http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/29864/10-Data-Points-You-Need-to-Convert-More-Customers.aspx
(Sent from Flipboard)
Social Media Dashboard for Teams using Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin
Social Media Dashboard for Teams using Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin http://smf.is/1C7Yb5 (via @summify from @summify)
Google Tests Its Hotel Finder As A New Comparison Ad Atop Search Results
Google Tests Its Hotel Finder As A New Comparison Ad Atop Search Results http://smf.is/1C7Yb3 (via @summify from @ReviewPro, @iVisitorGuide)
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Picture: The things on a university website's front page versus things people go to the site looking for.
The things on a university website's front page versus things people go to the site looking for.
http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=326572350688963&set=a.259091624103703.74558.211314828881383&type=1
(Sent from Flipboard)
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Article: Mobile payments for dummies (infographic) | VentureBeat
Mobile payments for dummies (infographic) | VentureBeat
http://venturebeat.com/2011/09/07/mobile-payments-explained/?obref=obinsite
(Sent from Flipboard)
Fwd: Tweets are - customer service and/or Emarketing
Begin forwarded message:
From: David Wood <david.wood@gmx.co.uk>
Date: 13 December 2011 10:38:17 GMT
Subject: Tweets are - customer service and/or Emarketing
Monday, December 12, 2011
Sunday, December 11, 2011
How To Decide If You Or Your Business Should Use Twitter [Infographic] — SocialMouths
How To Decide If You Or Your Business Should Use Twitter [Infographic] — SocialMouths http://smf.is/1BQSR4 (via @summify, @smallbiztrends)
The Decline of Organic Links Infographic
The Decline of Organic Links Infographic http://smf.is/1BQSR1 (via @summify from @smallbiztrends)
Saturday, December 10, 2011
How to make a great first impression for your Channel
How to make a great first impression for your Channel http://smf.is/1BNs79 (via @summify from @YouTube)
New Twitter: 25 Tips and Tricks for Savvy Tweeters
New Twitter: 25 Tips and Tricks for Savvy Tweeters http://smf.is/1BNs6X (via @summify from @mashable, and @mashsocialmedia)
Friday, December 9, 2011
Twitter Launches Brand Pages for Business Accounts
Begin forwarded message:
From: blog@hubspot.com
Date: 8 December 2011 20:59:05 GMT
To: david.wood@gmx.co.uk
Subject: New Article: Twitter Launches Brand Pages for Business Accounts
New Article: Twitter Launches Brand Pages for Business Accounts
A new article has been posted on our blog by Pamela Vaughan:
Twitter Launches Brand Pages for Business Accounts
This email was sent to david.wood@gmx.co.uk.
If you would like to unsubscribe from these notifications, click here.
HubSpot
25 First St, 2nd Floor, Cambridge, MA 02141
If you would like to continue to receive notifications but less frequently,Click Here
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Small Biz New Year’s Resolutio... (businessinsider.com)
Small Biz New Year's Resolution: Improve Your Social Media Presence
http://www.businessinsider.com/small-biz-new-years-resolution-improve-your-social-media-presence-2011-12
---
Sent from Zite personalized magazine iPad app.
Available for free in the App Store.
www.zite.com
Sent from my iPad
The Ultimate Cheat Sheet for C... (blog.hubspot.com)
The Ultimate Cheat Sheet for Creating Social Media Buttons
http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/29544/The-Ultimate-Cheat-Sheet-for-Creating-Social-Media-Buttons.aspx
---
Sent from Zite personalized magazine iPad app.
Available for free in the App Store.
www.zite.com
Sent from my iPad
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Online Social Media Mega Conference
Online Social Media Mega Conference http://smf.is/1BDggJ (via @summify from @smexaminer)
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Monday, December 5, 2011
Saturday, December 3, 2011
10 top ideas for Emarketing hotels - from eHotelier
Digital marketing for hotels is becoming increasingly complex. Hotel managers need not only to service guests, manage rooms, availabilities and pricing, but now are also expected to compete for guests in new channels and digital communities that emerge every day. Hence, many hotel managers are asking themselves how they can expand their brand online while still having the time to run their business.
The obvious choice has been to hire additional staff, but this tactic is just a temporary solution, because demand for digital marketing is unstoppable and the problem will continue to grow. The breakthrough solution for this complex problem is a digital marketing architecture and tools that provide a consistent multi-channel experience to hotel guests and prepare hotels for future digital marketing demands.
This article provides a quick checklist on five important items hotel managers should consider when defining a digital marketing strategy for their hotels:
Top five items in a hotel digital marketing strategy
Hotel website and booking engine are Number One. This is probably nothing new to you, but your hotel's website is the best opportunity that you have to engage and sell to your guests. On average, guests spend 6 minutes on hotel websites. 6 minutes is ample opportunity to engage your future guests with bold pictures, easy-to-read room descriptions and attractive offers that make the decision to book simple and predictable. One additional important item is to show what guests will experience when they come to your destination: ensure video is part of your web strategy and you will mesmerize your guests. So, when was the last time you updated your website? If the answer is more than 2 years ago, your website could probably be a lot better.
60% of consumers are social travelers.According to Forrester, 60% of guests use one or more social networking platforms during their search, shop and buy process. Hence, it is critical to manage tripadvisor ratings, have a professional-looking presence on facebook, and allow guests to engage over twitter. And to use the social network to amplify your message, ensure that good experiences your guests write about are shared on the different digital communities. For photos we see the best results using Flickr and for videos a dedicated YouTube channel. And don't forget email: it is still the most widely mechanism used to share itineraries and ideas of trips.
Mobile consumers will demand optimized content in 2012. Mobile traffic is the fastest growing category in digital marketing, and to no surprise also in travel. Google research states that 19% of all hotel searches are already executed on a mobile device. If you deployed a mobile solution in 2011, you will realize that mobile consumers have a much more utilitarian behavior - they are looking for the hotel's address, phone number, or want to book a room for tonight or tomorrow night. Hence, the experience to conclude those tasks must be optimized in 2012. While success can be found using mobile as a stand-alone media, it provides the largest rewards when it is used as an integrated, multi-channel engagement platform. If you can provide consistent messages across web, social and mobile, while ensuring that the most relevant offers are prioritized then you truly have provided multi-channel digital marketing.
Diversify online distribution channels.Recent studies indicate that booking.com is driving a whopping 50% of all hotel online bookings in Europe. This dominance is threatening to hotels as they become more dependent on (and therefore vulnerable to) a single channel that is already demanding higher commissions based on results. Therefore, it is critical to diversify your channels. If you are the manager of a boutique property you should consider signing up with tablethotels.com, mrandmrssmith.com or jetsetter.com. One good source of information for the latest trends in accommodation websites you should consider signing up for is tnooz.com's roundup of top travel websites per market.
Innovate with marketing campaigns.Digital marketing is not a one-time project. It is a new discipline that must be embraced by hotel managers. However, digital marketing does not necessarily require learning a lot of new tools and hiring a lot of new staff. Using the appropriate tools, hotel managers can use their existing e-commerce and reservations staff to create campaigns, follow-up and reap the rewards of increased marketing exposure: more and better bookings. So, choose your tools to minimize setup costs and provide maximum flexibility when creating your campaigns.
In conclusion, a successful digital marketing strategy must provide a consistent multi-channel experience to hotel guests. This can be achieved by using a multitude of tools or an all-in-one hotel digital marketing platform. But no matter which tools you select, at the core of your strategy should be a digital marketing architecture that prepares your hotel for future digital marketing demands.
If you want to learn more about what GuestCentric can do to improve your hotel's digital marketing chat to one of our specialists online or sign up for our Coffee with GuestCentric webinar.
Friday, December 2, 2011
How The Mobile Web Changes The SEO Landscape
How The Mobile Web Changes The SEO Landscape http://smf.is/1Bmww4 (via @summify from @ForbesTech)
15 Ways to Bring Social Media to Events
15 Ways to Bring Social Media to Events http://smf.is/1Bmwvv (via @summify from @SocHospitality)
Monday, November 28, 2011
Social Proof Is The New Marketing
Social Proof Is The New Marketing http://smf.is/1B8EaA (via @summify from @TechCrunch, @EghosaO, and 6 others)
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Article: Get MarketMeSuite, The Free Social Media Dashboard for Business
Get MarketMeSuite, The Free Social Media Dashboard for Business
http://marketmesuite.com/get-app/?BN
(Sent from Flipboard)
Article: White Paper - An ERP Guide to Driving Efficiency
White Paper - An ERP Guide to Driving Efficiency
http://cloud-whitepapers.com/cloud/default/index/164
(Sent from Flipboard)
Sent from my iPad
Article: 6 Ways to Measure Your Social Media Results
6 Ways to Measure Your Social Media Results
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/6-ways-to-measure-your-social-media-results/
(Sent from Flipboard)
Sent from my iPad
Digital predictions for 2012
Rowan Heasley, founding partner at Naked Penguin Boy, gives his digital predictions for 2012.
According to the self styled experts on Mayan civilisation, their cosmic prophecy predicts an earth shattering experience that will occur on December the 21st, 2012. The experts argue a bit after this on whether it would be a sunspot storm, asteroid, rare line up of the earth, sun, mars and galactic centre or if the Galactic federation will finally come to earth and welcome us into the galactic fraternity.
So, besides suggesting that we all buy and give Christmas presents early, here are our other predictions for 2012.
1. Content marketing to increase – With Google's upcoming Panda update, marketers are going to have to focus more on the quality of content rather than quantity, and creating engaging experiences for their audiences will have a direct impact on their search engine results.
2. Mobile continues its expansion – After years of saying that it was the "year of the mobile", 2010/2011 was the first year it really kicked off thanks to Steve Jobs (RIP) and Apple, with Android following closely behind. Mobile continues its expansion with more and more brands looking for mobile solutions to their business issues while closely watching the rise of tablets.
3. Gamification - the hot topic (more among agencies than brands) of 2011 will start to get more serious and structured and be implemented in more campaigns. Though, by its very nature it will hardly be noticed. You will engage and "play" with a brand but not quite be able to put your finger on exactly why you are enjoying it as you admire your collection of badges and trophies.
4. Games – With the rise of mobile, social media, gamification and the stress on ROI, more marketers will be looking at using games as a tried and tested method of reaching their consumers (adver-games or games for content).
Seeding and promotion of the games will also gain more prominence in order to reach the target market more effectively.
5. Cloud computing – This is a bit like what mobile has been for years. Suppliers of cloud computing are starting to tout it as the big thing of the year but it has not quite taken off and probably won't until late 2012 either.
6. Social media continues expanding – Facebook trundles on with its privacy issues while users and brands wish it would improve its search engine and make finding new content easier. Google+ which has been off to a reasonably good start will allow its platform to settle in a bit and will then start to push and market it from the middle of the year. Expect to see some good celebrity related stories in the press to help this along.
7. Security – Slowly but surely the boffins have been winning the war against hackers making it more and more difficult for them. Unfortunately that is only in the PC world - with the growth of mobiles, tablets, cloud computing and with more employees taking work home with them, whole new areas have opened up to hackers and we will see some embarrassed companies in 2012 as data is stolen on both an enterprise and individual level.
8. Engagement strategies – closely tied with some of the above predictions, brands will realise the importance of developing an engaging and shareable brand. The most engaging brands will have the most brand advocates and will therefore be most liked by search engines. It's a win-win situation if you can get it right.
9. SMO and SEO – Social Media Optimisation will play an increasing part in your overall Search Engine Optimisation where using social activities to support your SEO and the overall effectiveness of all social media marketing.
Think: sharing, engagement, content, recommendations and conversations.
10. Strategy – Surprisingly most brands don't have a digital strategy in place and work on ad hoc projects instead. In 2012 more thought will be given to tying these projects together into a more effective strategy that will produce more gains and be more flexible over the coming years.
And in summary, 2011 was not the greatest of years with all the financial woes of Europe and the US, but 2012 should definitely be better; after all it will be at least one day longer.
Pee Marketing.
World's first pee-controlled video game opens in London bar
http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/worlds-first-pee-controlled-video-game-opens-in-london-bar/
---
Sent from Zite personalized magazine iPad app.
Available for free in the App Store.
www.zite.com
Sent from my iPad
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Spool tool
What is Spool?
Spool lets you:
- View Flash videos on your phone
- Read articles without pinching or zooming
- Save content for offline access
Here's how Spool works:
1) First, add a webpage to your Spool using your phone or computer. For computer access, go to getspool.com.
2) Next, we'll extract all text, images, and videos from that page and save them to your Spool. Videos are "recorded", just like a DVR or VCR records television, so they take longer to save.
3) Finally, once the page is saved, we'll notify you and download it to your phone.
For fun, try adding one of these pages to your Spool - a page on pandas, our favorite animal, a video on Cut Copy, one of our favorite bands, or a NASA video on lunar eclipses, our favorite type of eclipse.
Article: What is Spool?
What is Spool?
http://getspool.com/s/tWf4paWO
Sent via Spool, an easy way to save web pages and videos to your phone
Get it at getspool.com
http://getspool.com/s/tWf4paWO
Sent via Spool, an easy way to save web pages and videos to your phone
Get it at getspool.com
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Saturday, November 12, 2011
Friday, November 11, 2011
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
Friday, October 7, 2011
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Free trial of Adobe Muse
Try out their beta site for HTML web building without any technical know-how!
Http://muse.adobe.com
Http://muse.adobe.com
Monday, October 3, 2011
Friday, September 30, 2011
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Monday, September 26, 2011
Thursday, September 22, 2011
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
Monday, September 12, 2011
Aim Social Media Marketing at Loyalists not Prospects!
Joan Voight | September 9, 2011
Brands should letting existing fans spread the gospel on Facebook, Twitter and other platforms.
Marketers who put out their brand message on social media in order to attract new customers will be sorely disappointed, according to Gallup researchers. Instead companies should use Facebook, Twitter and other social media, combined with offline word of mouth, to persuade existing customers into recommending their products to prospects.
In other words, it is largely a myth that branded social media will generate sales from new customers. But it can generate the kind of insider recommendations that lead to sales increases.
The findings are based on a Gallup survey of more than 17,000 social media users completed in October 2010. The research evaluated everything from the latest mobile social media apps to old-school word-of-mouth. Analysis of the numbers was released September 1 in the Gallup Management Review. According to the survey, branded social media initiatives don’t drive prospective customers to consider trying a brand or recommending a brand to others in their social network. But prospects are likely to try a product or service if they hear good things about the brand from an engaged existing customer in their social network.
“Since marketers are less likely to engage prospects directly through social media, they should encourage or guide their current customers to advocate on their behalf instead,” say Gallup analysts Jim Asplund and Blaise James. The research also suggests that brands should concentrate their social media efforts “on your most engaged customers because these customers are the most likely to advocate on your behalf and the least likely to criticize you,” say Asplund and James.
Specifically, about three-fourths (74 percent) of loyal customers engaged their social networks in a complimentary way about their favored brand, product or service, according to the survey. Loyalists never engaged their network in a derogatory way about their favored brand. In contrast, only 1 percent of disinterested customers complemented a brand, product, or service on their social network, while 14 percent criticized a product or service they bought.
Gallup’s analysis takes it a step further, saying that metrics such as Net Promoter, followership, app downloads, hashtags, and click-throughs are not useful for revealing a brand's social engagement (the degree to which customers will work for or against your brand within their social networks) and subsequent sales increases. James points to Apple as an example of a high-engagement and high-sales brand. “We compared the Apple brand to the Microsoft brand in our research and found out that Apple has almost 3 times as many fully engaged customers. Apple also enjoys a social engagement score that was almost 4 times higher than Microsoft.”
The analysts stress that a brand’s social engagement with a customer should be measured and managed across all channels -- online and offline. “Digital-only social media initiatives are leaving far too many prospects and customers untapped. Our analysis suggests that the most frequent type of social networking is still analog -- face-to-face or over the phone. Don't confuse the channel (social media) for the desired outcome, (social networking),” they warn.
Other researchers acknowledge the “friend factor” in social media marketing. Gian Fulgoni, comScore’s executive chairman, says comScore’s findings reflect the persuasive influence that fans have on their friends in driving sales. He calls it “the amplification impact of a trusted communication,” and compares it to the way that an audience's recommendations to their friends determine the success of a Broadway show.
Incidentally, the Gallup survey also shows that the likelihood of people relying on online ads and TV ads to decide what product or service to buy is about the same as the likelihood of relying on company Twitter or Facebook pages – a mere 1 percent.
Tags: Facebook
Categories: Social Media
Brands should letting existing fans spread the gospel on Facebook, Twitter and other platforms.
Marketers who put out their brand message on social media in order to attract new customers will be sorely disappointed, according to Gallup researchers. Instead companies should use Facebook, Twitter and other social media, combined with offline word of mouth, to persuade existing customers into recommending their products to prospects.
In other words, it is largely a myth that branded social media will generate sales from new customers. But it can generate the kind of insider recommendations that lead to sales increases.
The findings are based on a Gallup survey of more than 17,000 social media users completed in October 2010. The research evaluated everything from the latest mobile social media apps to old-school word-of-mouth. Analysis of the numbers was released September 1 in the Gallup Management Review. According to the survey, branded social media initiatives don’t drive prospective customers to consider trying a brand or recommending a brand to others in their social network. But prospects are likely to try a product or service if they hear good things about the brand from an engaged existing customer in their social network.
“Since marketers are less likely to engage prospects directly through social media, they should encourage or guide their current customers to advocate on their behalf instead,” say Gallup analysts Jim Asplund and Blaise James. The research also suggests that brands should concentrate their social media efforts “on your most engaged customers because these customers are the most likely to advocate on your behalf and the least likely to criticize you,” say Asplund and James.
Specifically, about three-fourths (74 percent) of loyal customers engaged their social networks in a complimentary way about their favored brand, product or service, according to the survey. Loyalists never engaged their network in a derogatory way about their favored brand. In contrast, only 1 percent of disinterested customers complemented a brand, product, or service on their social network, while 14 percent criticized a product or service they bought.
Gallup’s analysis takes it a step further, saying that metrics such as Net Promoter, followership, app downloads, hashtags, and click-throughs are not useful for revealing a brand's social engagement (the degree to which customers will work for or against your brand within their social networks) and subsequent sales increases. James points to Apple as an example of a high-engagement and high-sales brand. “We compared the Apple brand to the Microsoft brand in our research and found out that Apple has almost 3 times as many fully engaged customers. Apple also enjoys a social engagement score that was almost 4 times higher than Microsoft.”
The analysts stress that a brand’s social engagement with a customer should be measured and managed across all channels -- online and offline. “Digital-only social media initiatives are leaving far too many prospects and customers untapped. Our analysis suggests that the most frequent type of social networking is still analog -- face-to-face or over the phone. Don't confuse the channel (social media) for the desired outcome, (social networking),” they warn.
Other researchers acknowledge the “friend factor” in social media marketing. Gian Fulgoni, comScore’s executive chairman, says comScore’s findings reflect the persuasive influence that fans have on their friends in driving sales. He calls it “the amplification impact of a trusted communication,” and compares it to the way that an audience's recommendations to their friends determine the success of a Broadway show.
Incidentally, the Gallup survey also shows that the likelihood of people relying on online ads and TV ads to decide what product or service to buy is about the same as the likelihood of relying on company Twitter or Facebook pages – a mere 1 percent.
Tags: Facebook
Categories: Social Media
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Hoteliers social media case studied
Hoteliers : Here are 50 Social Media Case Studies Worth Bookmarking reviewp.ro/rajrTW
Thursday, September 8, 2011
intro-to-facebook
intro-to-facebook
Shelf Life of Social Media Links Only 3 Hours [Data]
from HubSpot's Inbound Internet Marketing Blog by Pamela Vaughan
shelf lifeWhen it comes to link sharing in social media, it turns out it's not about where you share it -- it's about what you share. New research from URL shortening service bitly focuses on how long a link is "alive” before people stop engaging with it and whether it matters what kind of content it is or where it was shared.
By calculating what bitly is calling the link's 'half life' (the time it takes a link to receive half the clicks it will ever receive after it’s reached its peak), bitly evaluated the persistence of 1,000 popular bitly links, and found some strikingly similar results.
Half Life Research Results
* The mean half life of a link on Twitter is 2.8 hours.
* The mean half life of a link on Facebook is 3.2 hours.
* The mean half life of a link via ‘direct’ sources such as email or instant messaging clients is 3.4 hours.
* The mean half life of a link on YouTube is 7.4 hours.
halflife density2 resized 600In a nutshell, bitly's research reveals that generally, links shared on Facebook, Twitter, and via direct sources like email or instant message have a shelf life of about 3 hours. This excludes YouTube, where people remain interested in links for more than twice that -- 7 hours! And while you can expect that the majority of links will only remain interesting for less than 2 hours, others can generate a lot more interaction and clicks, lasting for more than 11 hours.
From this, bitly concludes that when it comes to the lifespan of a link (if you exclude YouTube from the equation), it's not where the link is shared that matters; instead, it's more important what the link shares (the content) that has the potential to attract more clicks and engagement.
Marketing Takeaway
Bitly's research indicates that when it comes to promoting content in social media, marketers need to focus mostly on quality. Whether a link makes it in social media depends on the content it points to, so marketers should put the majority of their efforts into creating remarkable content that has the potential to make an impact. It's not enough to just post any links to Facebook and Twitter. Rather, marketers need to make sure that the content they link to is high in quality and valuable to its audience in order to reap the maximum benefits of social media marketing.
When it comes to content creation, are you placing enough emphasis on quality?
Photo Credit: Alex Barth
Shelf Life of Social Media Links Only 3 Hours [Data]
from HubSpot's Inbound Internet Marketing Blog by Pamela Vaughan
shelf lifeWhen it comes to link sharing in social media, it turns out it's not about where you share it -- it's about what you share. New research from URL shortening service bitly focuses on how long a link is "alive” before people stop engaging with it and whether it matters what kind of content it is or where it was shared.
By calculating what bitly is calling the link's 'half life' (the time it takes a link to receive half the clicks it will ever receive after it’s reached its peak), bitly evaluated the persistence of 1,000 popular bitly links, and found some strikingly similar results.
Half Life Research Results
* The mean half life of a link on Twitter is 2.8 hours.
* The mean half life of a link on Facebook is 3.2 hours.
* The mean half life of a link via ‘direct’ sources such as email or instant messaging clients is 3.4 hours.
* The mean half life of a link on YouTube is 7.4 hours.
halflife density2 resized 600In a nutshell, bitly's research reveals that generally, links shared on Facebook, Twitter, and via direct sources like email or instant message have a shelf life of about 3 hours. This excludes YouTube, where people remain interested in links for more than twice that -- 7 hours! And while you can expect that the majority of links will only remain interesting for less than 2 hours, others can generate a lot more interaction and clicks, lasting for more than 11 hours.
From this, bitly concludes that when it comes to the lifespan of a link (if you exclude YouTube from the equation), it's not where the link is shared that matters; instead, it's more important what the link shares (the content) that has the potential to attract more clicks and engagement.
Marketing Takeaway
Bitly's research indicates that when it comes to promoting content in social media, marketers need to focus mostly on quality. Whether a link makes it in social media depends on the content it points to, so marketers should put the majority of their efforts into creating remarkable content that has the potential to make an impact. It's not enough to just post any links to Facebook and Twitter. Rather, marketers need to make sure that the content they link to is high in quality and valuable to its audience in order to reap the maximum benefits of social media marketing.
When it comes to content creation, are you placing enough emphasis on quality?
Photo Credit: Alex Barth
New Article: How to Use Twitter Hashtags to Generate Event Marketing Buzz
New Article: How to Use Twitter Hashtags to Generate Event Marketing Buzz
######################################
######################################
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
HSMAI eConnect - Five Tips for Engaging Guests on Twitter | By Pedro Colaco
http://www.hsmaieconnect.org/news/154000370/4052827.html">HSMAI eConnect - Five Tips for Engaging Guests on Twitter | By Pedro Colaco
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Sunday, September 4, 2011
Friday, September 2, 2011
Does PageRank really matter
Does Google PageRank Really Matter?
by NEIL PATEL on AUGUST 31, 2011
Does Google PageRank Really Matter? quicksprout.com/2011/08/31/do
So what’s the deal with PageRank? Should you panic over every little change in your PageRank scores? Or do you even need to focus on increasing your PageRank?
Although those are all good questions that you have, before I dive into the Google PageRank (PR) metrics, let’s look at exactly what PageRank is and how it’s gained or lost. By understanding how PageRank is calculated, you can see its specific limitations in the evolving world of search, as well as what it can still be used to measure effectively.
What is PageRank?
As far as a working definition of PageRank goes, you don’t need look any further than Google’s own Technology Overview page, which describes PageRank as:
When Google was founded, one key innovation was PageRank, a technology that determined the “importance” of a webpage by looking at what other pages link to it, as well as other data.
Basically PageRank, which was also named after Google co-founder Larry Page, assigns a score to every page in its index based on the number of websites linking to it and the relative quality of these links. PageRank scores are reported on a 0-10 scale, with PR0 being the lowest indexed rank and PR10 being the highest.
If you have a new website your PR will typically be N/A until a PageRank update happens.
And if you are wondering how PageRank is exactly determined, according to PageRank Explained, the equation used to calculate PageRank is likely version of the following formula:
PR(A) = (1-d) + d(PR(t1)/C(t1) + … + PR(tn)/C(tn))
The formula above is the original equation that was published when Google was first developing the PageRank metric, so although it’s probably gone through a lot of changes over the years, the base variables are probably still similar.
And while you probably don’t care how it’s calculated, the important conclusion to draw is that links coming from a PR3 site with 5 outbound links would be more valuable than links coming from a PR5 site with 1000 outbound links.
The other thing to note about PageRank is that it operates on a logarithmic scale. This means that the difference between a PR0 ranking and a PR1 isn’t the same as the difference between a PR7 site and a PR8 site. This image below by Elliance should give you a good understanding of how it works.
How often is PageRank updated?
In 2008 there were 5 PageRank updates, 5 in 2009, 1 in 2010, and 3 so far in 2011. Although historically it’s updated a few times a year in the toolbar, it’s actually constantly being updated on Google’s end.
The reason Google doesn’t want to constantly show you your new Google PR score on a daily basis is because they don’t want you to obsess about it instead of focusing on creating a site that doesn’t just provide value to people, but also solves problems.
So whether you have a new site or an old site, it’s good for you to realize that your PageRank score is being update and you shouldn’t focus on what the toolbar is reporting. Instead you should focus on your marketing efforts to grow your business.
Is PageRank important?
PageRank does not correlate that strongly to search engine results placement, just because you have a high PageRank it doesn’t automatically guarantee you a high placement on Google. And if you also rank really well, it also doesn’t guarantee you a high PageRank.
In SEOmoz’s study, they analyzed the search results for 4,000 keyword phrases and compared the sites that appeared in these SERPs with their individual PageRank scores. If the two variables were perfectly correlated, in which the highest PageRank pages were first, the correlation would be 1.00. But as you can see from the graph, the correlation between rankings and PR in Google’s SERPs was barely .20.
The overall result of the study was that Google’s PageRank is, slightly correlated with their rankings as well as with the rankings of other major search engines.
So while it’s true that PageRank played a huge role in Google’s ranking algorithm in the past, its role today clearly isn’t as important in terms of rankings, due in large part to the fact that plenty of other ranking factors have been introduced since the launch of PageRank. As more ranking factors are introduced, their relative weight must get smaller, as each represents a smaller percentage of a site’s total score.
For example, when PageRank was first launched, it was one of maybe a few dozen factors that were considered by Google’s ranking algorithm. Today, however, the algorithm considers more than 200 different variables, decreasing the importance of each single ranking factor significantly.
My PageRank experience
I’ve own dozens of sites and they have all have a different PR. Some of the sites I own have a PR that is as low as 3 and I have a few that are as high as a PR8. The one thing that I’ve noticed is that 5 or so years ago the sites had really high PageRanks did really well in Google. But sadly it isn’t the case anymore.
It could have been the way I was increasing my PageRank as I was getting sites like TechCrunch and all of Gawker Media to link to my blog from every one of their pages through a business development deal I did with them (no money was exchanged). Doing this not only drove good traffic to my site, but it typically got my site to a PageRank of at least 7 if not 8. After years of doing this and realizing that I wasn’t really ranking higher on search engines by boosting my PR and my traffic wasn’t growing by leaps and bounds, I went back to old school link building to increase my traffic.
I personally don’t focus on PageRank anymore, but instead I focus on:
Social media traffic – as your social media traffic increases, you’ll typically get more links coming into your site and in the long run you’ll rank better.
Create good content – if you have good content that is unique, people will find out about your website and link to it.
Clean code – if your website code isn’t search engine friendly, you won’t rank that well. From meta tags to URL structures, those simple things can have a big impact on your traffic. For example, by just tweaking TechCrunch’s meta description and title tags I was able to increase their search engine traffic by over 30%.
Time – SEO is no longer a quick game in which you can rank on the top of search engines without putting in the time and effort. Don’t focus on growing too fast, but instead be patient. Build quality links instead of going for quantity and just give them time to kick in.
Site authority – it’s all about the long tail. If you want to get millions of visitors to your website you can’t just focus on ranking for a few keywords, you have to rank for thousands if not millions. Build links to your internal pages and you’ll notice that your overall site will get a higher authority and rank better across the board.
Conclusion
So based on this information, it would be easy to assume that PageRank doesn’t matter as much anymore. And, in some ways, it doesn’t. Having a higher PageRank isn’t going to get you ranked higher in the search engine results, which means that working towards a high PR isn’t going to bring in more website traffic or, consequently, more sales. From the standpoint of improving the metrics that actually make a difference for your site, it’s true that PageRank doesn’t matter much anymore.
Susan Moskwa, a Webmaster Trends Analyst for Google sums up this idea nicely in a post on the Google Webmaster Central blog:
I posit that none of us truly care about PageRank as an end goal. PageRank is just a stand-in for what we really want: for our websites to make more money, attract more readers, generate more leads, more newsletter sign-ups, etc.
However, this doesn’t mean that PageRank is totally worthless. There are two areas in which PageRank still plays an important role:
The way PageRank contributes to your site’s indexing frequency.
Using it as an indicator of penalties from from bad back linking strategies.
First off, PageRank plays a role in determining how often your site is re-indexed. If your site has a high PageRank, Google considers it to be more important and worthy of being crawled and analyzed more often than a lower PR site. Being crawled more frequently can lead to content being ranked in the search engines more quickly, so for this reason, having a high PageRank is still important.
Also, PageRank has long been used by Google as a warning shot to penalize website owners who are using linking strategy that violate Google’s terms of service. Recently, both Forbes.com and JC Penney suffered high profile penalties for using paid inbound links to boost their PageRank unnaturally or for selling them.
So with regards to our original question about whether or not PageRank matters anymore, the answer is yes… and no. While focusing on improving your PageRank isn’t going to directly correlate with better rankings I wouldn’t recommend abandoning it entirely.
If you see a dramatic downward shift in your PageRank, take a good, hard look at the SEO strategies you’re using. If your number continues to increase gradually, it’s smooth sailing for you.
So do you think PageRank matters?
3 trackbacks
Adsense101 » Blog Archive » SearchCap: The Day In Search, August 31, 2011
August 31, 2011 at 11:08 PM
My Secrets to Improve Page Rank | Increase Page Rank Fast | Improve Google Page Rank
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Monday, August 29, 2011
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Monday, August 22, 2011
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Friday, August 19, 2011
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Monday, August 15, 2011
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Monday, August 8, 2011
Sunday, August 7, 2011
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Infographic on the social media population - StumbleUpon
In this week's Ad Age, we collected a lot of social media demographics based on actual user profiles, not just Web traffic. But knowing how you love to pass around your #infographics we thought we'd pull it all into one handy file for you. And also knowing how you like deep-dive data, here's a more detailed table of the age breakdowns of Facebook, MySpace and LinkedIn.
http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/9BsRzy/t.co/9jI5uih
http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/9BsRzy/t.co/9jI5uih
Friday, August 5, 2011
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
Friday, July 29, 2011
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Monday, July 25, 2011
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Friday, July 22, 2011
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Friday, July 15, 2011
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Monday, July 11, 2011
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)