Building An Online Community That Begs For More – If you like to hobnob with rock stars like we do, then you’ll be happy to read through this Slideshare that was presented at the Social Media Rockstars event a few weeks ago in TopRank’s home state of Minnesota. Discover core engagement principles and how they can be translated across multiple platforms. Acknowledging and nurturing your online community members provide ample opportunities for authentic conversations. That’s the first step toward extending your online reach and creating ‘real life’ customer conversations. By Mykl Roventine
In Other Online Marketing News…
Google Keywords – No Longer Provided: Google closed the narrowing gap of organic keyword data this week in a move that has rippled across the search marketing industry. With no keywords to inform web site owners how customers found them on search engines, marketers are now more reliant than ever on Google AdWords advertising and other data sources for the performance of optimized content. See more in yesterday’s post here on Online Marketing Blog
Google Hummingbird – The Most Significant Algorithm Change to Google Since 2001. Google rolled out a major algorithm change a month ago and just announced it’s Hummingbird update this week. The new “engine” of Google’s search algorithm better supports “conversational search” beyond knowledge graph to a billions of documents. Any site affected by this change would have experienced it in the past 4 weeks. Search Engine Land
Survey Finds Advertisers Most Bullish on Social Media Over Next 12 Months – More than half of marketing and agency professionals surveyed by Advertiser Perceptions predicted they would increase ad spending in digital media during the next 12 months, far more than the share predicting the same for traditional channels such as cable TV (31%), broadcast TV (20%), magazines (14%) and national newspapers (11%). AdAge
Google Launches Hashtag Search – If you search Google for a hashtag, you might see Google+ posts using that hashtag to the right of the regular search results. The Google+ posts will scroll automatically, or you can control them manually via the up/down arrows at the top. SearchEngineLand
Want To Comment On YouTube? You’ll Need a Google+ Account First – The video site is notorious for users who down-vote videos or post scathing replies, so YouTube is taking action to provide higher-quality comments and conversations (so they say.) This is Google’s attempt to bring Google+ to the mainstream. Still think G+ is a ghost town? ReadWrite
New York Attorney General Cracks Down on Fake Yelp Reviews – Did you know that 20% of Yelp reviews are phony? Bought and paid for according to a new report. The AG announced that it recently fined 19 businesses over $350,000 for generating fake reviews online. If you read the many comments, you’ll find that these deceptive practices are costing small businesses millions in lost revenue. MarketWatch
Former Google Exec Named LinkedIn Ad Chief – LinkedIn’s hiring of a high-profile ad exec signals the company is building up its advertising business. What that means is the networking site is likely eyeing expansion beyond its current ad role with field sales staff and self-service ads used by small businesses. USA Today
The Rise of Social Commerce [Infographic] – Yahoo! may have first coined the term in 2005, but the concept now represents several types of social commerce that are flourishing as business models on the Internet. Infographic Journal
Pinterest Rolling Out Updated Article Pins – Article pins can help writers, media and other businesses reach new audiences, get more referral traffic and extend the lifespan of their content. More reasons for structured data on your site. Pinterest Blog
12 Most Sure-Fire Ways to Damage Your Personal Brand – Without a public relations expert or branding coach to help you navigate the murky, sometimes dangerous Internet waters, you may unwittingly taint your reputation. Learn the many ways you may be sending the wrong message. Katherine Kotaw
11 Tips for Pitching Reporters – PR and Media Relations represent huge opportunities for building authority. Discover what Lee Odden has learned from experience and by listening to journalists, including that they still appreciate the good old-fashioned press release. Ragan.com
Study: Content Consumption Key to IT Purchase Process; Trusted Info Said Lacking – Just 9% of B2B buyers said they trust vendor content. The top 3 challenges associated with finding the right information are: too much marketing hype/buzzwords; a lack of truly independent unbiased information; and information being too general. Who else sees a real opportunity here? Marketing Charts
Apple Sets Another Opening Weekend Record – In case you hadn’t heard, 9 million new iPhones were sold last weekend. This time around, the company made both its new iPhones available in China on day one. Apple’s press release doesn’t reveal what the split between the 5C and the 5S was, but analytics firm, Localytics, estimates that the 5S outsold the 5C by nearly three-and-a-half to one. The Verge
Everything You Need to Know About Your New iPhone – Superb visual presentation of what’s new and one extremely helpful tip: if you did grab a new iPhone 5S or 5C, you should still take the time to back up your old device to iTunes and/or iCloud so you can restore your new purchase to a familiar state. Wired
SMS May Be Fading, But Businesses Are Still Texting Customers – Even though in decline, text messaging is often a more effective marketing tool than other social media platforms because it ensures consumers are seeing businesses’ updates immediately, without getting lost in a news feed teeming with posts. ReadWrite
Study: Pinterest Drives More Referrals But Fewer Clicks – While Pinterest ‘by far’ refers more traffic than other social media sites, those visitors click on ads 45% less than the average visitor. Compare this to Facebook which refers less traffic but visitors are 60% more likely to click on an ad. Realtime Report
Twitter Looking for Loan of $500 Million to $1 billion Pre-IPO – Goldman Sachs is believed to have nabbed the chief role in Twitter’s offering, which is expected to be launched sometime around Thanksgiving. For JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanely to land the lead on Twitter’s credit line is seen as a sort of consolation prize after losing out on the more lucrative lead role. (I guess every industry has its gossip.) NewYorkPost
How to use Vine and Instagram for Product Video – To begin encouraging video creation and sharing, make it simple for customers to find videos, share them, and submit them. As you create and post videos, find out if your customers are actually watching them, and if the videos help drive conversions. Conduct A/B testing on videos to see if content, length, and placement affect viewing rates. eConsultancy
From the Online Marketing Community
On ‘For Epic Content Marketing, Subscription Needs to Top Your Marketing Objectives,’ Deb Tevino said, As a content creator (previously inside a corporate communications organization; now as an outside consultant), this is music to my ears. Our profession has done an incredibly poor job of demonstrating the long-term value of content, and it’s always challenging to get clients to invest in it. Using our marketing acumen to reposition content’s value proposition could be game-changing.
On ‘The Newest Rules for Marketing & PR: Optimized – David Meerman Scott Interview,’ Jacqui Kuiss said, I highly recommend this book. I’ve been applying the new rules discussed in the book and the results have been incredible. This is essential reading for anyone battling to get their voices heard in the ever-changing social sphere
Whitepoint said, A great breakdown of how attention gets generated – especially the idea of *earning* attention through the consumption of information, such as photos.
SuzyQ said, I’m a Comm/PR student @CSUF and this book is required reading in Advanced PR Writing. It’s relevant, up to date and written in a style that is easy for a busy person to read and understand.
On Last Week’s Online Marketing News, Andy Anderson said, I am most intrigued by the cookie free Advertising, changes to Bing search, and the future of content. What shocks me is the number of blogs and magazines that act like the demand for great content is a new concept, those who have understood their customers have been using great content to utterly destroy any competition that uses a advertise and go approach. Web 2.0 the big blog theory has been going strong for over a decade.
What’s Your Take?
Are you nurturing your online communities in ways that keep them coming back for more? How do you pitch reporters? Is SMS part of your customer outreach?
Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!
