How Location-Based Marketing Delivers Ads to In-Store Shoppers [Infographic] – Micro-location and proximity targeting are happening in brick and mortar stores right now. This infographic explains some of the location-based marketing systems out there and how they tap into wifi, GPS, NFC and other technologies to detect location and help deliver ads. Marketing Land
LinkedIn Unlocks Influencer Program – LinkedIn has expanded their influencer blogging program from 500 to 25,000 this week. The blogging function will extend to more members in the future. Enabling LinkedIn members to blog will give LinkedIn substantially more content and engagement opportunities to drive pageviews and website visits. It should also provide more value for members. LinkedIn Blog (client)
Less Than 40 Percent of Web Traffic Comes From Humans – The chart differentiates between “good” bots, like search engines and analytics tools, and “bad” bots, like scam advertisements, scrapers, hacking tools and spam bots (hacking and spam make up 5 percent of total traffic). It’s troubling that bot traffic is evenly split between 31 percent “good” and 30.5 percent “bad,” but throw humans in there and things start to even out. Maybe humans need a “Take Back the Internet” rallying cry. Slate
Klout Quietly Tests Native Ad Product – Klout has already conducted an alpha test of native ads with a few undisclosed brands with what it deemed “great” results. The move comes hot on the heels of reports that the online social influence start-up is being sold to social customer service company Lithium Technologies for $100 million or more. ClickZ
LinkedIn Study Shows Social Media Marketing is Working for SMBs – LinkedIn conducted a survey of 998 SMBs in the U.S. and Canada and discovered that 81% of SMBs are using social media. They see it as a way of maintaining brand presence (90%), generating word-of-mouth (88%), delivering information about their company (89%) and attracting new leads (82%). Marketing Pilgrim
Twitter Testing Major Profile Redesign That Looks a Lot Like Facebook – The main picture and bio will be scaled to the left with significantly more real estate dedicated to the header photo. The revamped tweet stream is also a departure from its signature look. There is a greater focus on photos and content cards. It moves away from a strictly vertical timeline too. Mashable
Bitcoin Bubble Could Burst as Investors Rush to Withdraw Cash – Investors have been left high and dry holding on to plummeting bitcoin as a bug in the software has prevented them trading in the currency. ZDNet
When Mentos and Diet Coke Went Viral – As familiar as we all are now with user-generated branded content, it really didn’t make an impact until 2006 when Eepybird Studios, a video production team, went super viral with their “Extreme Mentos and Diet Coke” clip. Here’s an interview with the creators asking about the science of going viral and why YouTube wasn’t even part of their plan in the very early days. ReelSEO
5 Ways in Which Search is Evolving – The great thing about search is the way it keeps changing and growing, meaning website owners and marketers need to adapt and exploit new opportunities regularly to maximize their search presence. Here are five noteworthy directions in which search is evolving that digital marketers need to be aware of. eConsultancy
A Visual History of Google Algorithm Changes [Infographic] – Over the years, Google has made thousands of changes to the way it finds and prioritizes information on the web. While most of these changes have been small, there have also been several major changes, which have affected significantly how marketers think about SEO. Here’s a snapshot of when and why Google rolled out its most notable algorithm updates. HubSpot
Netflix is Building an Artificial Brain Using Amazon’s Cloud – In an effort to further hone its recommendation engine, Netflix is delving into “deep learning,” a branch of artificial intelligence that tries to mimic the structure of the human brain to solve problems that are usually too difficult for computers. Wired
Is it Time to Give Your Mobile Marketing a Push? [Infographic] – As much as 76% of consumers have enabled push notifications on their phone. Marketers measure 50% higher open rates with push notifications versus email–and double the click-through rates! In addition, 70% or more of consumers found all types of push notifications, including order updates and location-based messages, to be valuable. Marketing Pilgrim
The New iPhone Feature That Could Change Your Mobile Content Strategy – Included as part of Apple’s iOS 7, the iBeacon feature uses Bluetooth location-based technology to allow a sensor to communicate with a nearby device. Tiny transmitters can be placed throughout a building to determine visitors’ locations and send targeted alerts to their phones as they move about. Combine this with push notifications and marketers benefit from a one-two punch. Content Marketing Institute
Study: Personalized Emails Deliver 6X Higher Transaction Rates, But 70% of Brands Fail to Use Them – Experian Marketing Services has released its 2013 Email Marketing Study, analyzing a wide breadth of email marketing best practices, including personalization, social integration, mobile and customer preferences. Not only did personalization prove to lift transaction rates and revenue, Experian stated that personalized promotional mailings had 29 percent higher unique open rates and 41 percent higher unique click rates. For triggered email campaigns, personalization resulted in double the transaction rates compared to non-personalized triggered emails. What are brands waiting for? Marketing Land
Facebook Allows Users to Enter a Custom Gender – Facebook announced that it will allow its users to customize their gender on their timeline. Previously, the only options available were female and male, but now there’s a custom option for users to identify as their preferred pronoun. They have also added the ability for people to control the audience with whom they want to share their custom gender. Inside Facebook
Facebook to Buy WhatsApp for $19 Billion – Facebook will buy fast-growing mobile-messaging startup WhatsApp for $19 billion in cash and stock, as the world’s largest social network looks for ways to boost its popularity, especially among a younger crowd and underscores its determination to win the market for messaging, an indispensable utility in a mobile era. Reuters
Study: Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest Buttons Rated Most Effective Social Media Marketing Tactic – 37 percent of marketers rated social sharing buttons as very effective for increasing conversions from consumers, with 46 percent claiming they were somewhat effective. Live chat/instant messaging, user-created collections and user-generated content also rated highly in the survey. MediaBistro
Infinite Scroll Search-Friendly Recommendations – To make sure that search engines can crawl individual items linked from an infinite scroll page, make sure that you or your content management system produces a paginated series (component pages) to go along with your infinite scroll. Google Webmaster Central Blog
Starbucks and The Economist Admit to Using Google+ for SEO More Than Social – According to The New York Times Starbucks, “Updates its Google+ page for the sake of good search placement, and takes advice from Google representatives on how to optimize Google+ content for the search engine.” And the audience director for The Economist commented on how Google+ helps with their SEO strategy — their Google+ posts actually show up in search engine results. Search Engine Land
Google To Introduce A New Content-Recommendation System For Publishers Next Month – The search and advertising giant is pitching content companies on joining a beta of the service. The new program could present competition to companies like Taboola, Outbrain, and Zemanta, which recommends multiple articles from a given publisher on that outlet’s website. In typical Google fashion, they had nothing more to report. Venture Beat
4 Things Online Marketers Should Know About User Experience (UX) – Discover four important concepts that search engine optimization (SEO) professionals contribute to the user experience (UX) and user experience design (UXD). UX expert, Shari Thurow, explains the difference and puts it all in a context in this super smart post. Marketing Land
From the TopRank Online Marketing Community:
Cara Posey on Essential Stages of Content Marketing Evolution – If You’re Not Growing, You’re Dying, said “This is an excellent resource that really helps identify what stage you are at and where you want to be. There is such a huge jump between some of these smaller steps. Organizations need to know that they aren’t failing if they haven’t yet hit storytelling or monetization, but there is certainly opportunity to do better and be more successful.
“Even those of us in the content marketing space must make a concerted effort to keep moving forward. Thanks for always inspiring us to do so and for breaking it down so simply. Luckily I have a copy of Youtility that Jay kindly signed at WOMMA Summit. Time to hit the books again!”
What were the top online and digital marketing news stories for you this week?
Thanks for reading and have a great weekend!
