Spam has gone way beyond email these days and is rearing its ugly head with text spam for mobile phones and now social spam as bots roam Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and other sites claiming this and that or offering eternal happiness by watching what this girl did on the Internet (you won’t believe it!).  Social spam is cheaper than email spam as it only takes a single post to generate multiple reactions. At least 280,214 users were tricked into interacting with spam set up by a company currently in litigation with Facebook. Tsk tsk people.

The lesson for all of us is the same as it ever was; don’t click on something if you don’t know where it came from. Just like you don’t ever let a vampire into your house and no one really likes being vegan.

But here’s the interesting thing about social spam: your business may be creating it without even knowing it. Our partners at Constant Contact has an interesting infographic (yay, pictures!) showing how your business may be cutting itself out of Facebook newsfeeds because what you’re posting is irrelevant, boring, useless or creepy. Pay particular attention to the Edgerank information. Basically, if you post content that gets ignored or reported you’ll disappear from the newsfeed of your fans regardless of whether or not they want you to.

So again, connecting with your customers comes down to engagement, relevant content and a benefit for your followers. Constant self-promotion and pat-us-on-the-back posts and Tweets or whatever outreach method you use just annoys people. We’ve covered this before and it just becomes more and more evident that social media marketing goes beyond promotion and into relationships.

If you’re unsure how to reach out to your customers (and potential customers) let Turn The Page Online Marketing show you how to positively engage, bring in more business and be found online. We live and breathe this stuff so why not put it to work for you?

The Importance of Online Marketing

Over the past 5 years the advertising industry landscape has changed dramatically.  Online marketing has seen explosive growth with most other media sources standing still. Online marketing has grown because of its ability to reach consumers in an efficient and measurable manner. There are a range of advertising mediums available online that supply a sophisticated array of tools to track results. Unlike traditional media online marketing reaches potential customers across the complete buying spectrum:

• Awareness
• Consideration
• Trial
• Purchase

97% of the US population says they go online to search for a product or service.

• 900 million active users on Facebook.
• 200 million tweets per day on Twitter.
• 2 billion searches per day on Google properties.
• 3 billion views per day on YouTube.
• 164 million blogs

These are impressive statistics that make online marketing a very necessary component for any business to succeed. The sheer volume of users also means that to receive benefit from online marketing it has to be done correctly.

The Basics of Online Marketing

The science of online marketing is driven by Search Engines. The top three are:

1. Google (65% Searches)
2. Bing (14% Searches)
3. Yahoo (11% Searches)

When somebody makes a search online, they use a search engine or one of its partner sites. Search Engines index the internet gathering data on web pages, photos, videos, PDFs, blogs etc. This indexed data is stored in literally thousands of computers. When a search is made the index is queried using an algorithm that, for Google, has over 200 different components. The algorithm itself is a formula approximately 11 pages long.

Search engines really don’t perceive business websites or any other online property as their customer. The customer for the search engines is the person searching for a product, service or information, and the goal is to provide the searcher with the most relevant result for their search term. Online searches generally fall into 3 categories:

• Transactional (ready to make some sort of purchase)
• Informational (one degree of separation from transactional)
• Navigational (looking for a location or geographic feature)

In order to continually improve their results, search engines are constantly adjusting how they index their data and the make-up of their algorithm. These indexes and algorithms are different for each search engine; although Bing and Yahoo now share architecture.  Google has completed 457 changes in 2011 to their search matrix and 53 just in April 2012.

Within the last year online search has changed dramatically with the evolution of smart phones, social media and geo location technology. People want something nearby; they are not interested in the most relevant result if it is 50 miles away. Google has, and is, updating its search to reflect this localization and is incorporating a social component into all search results.

Stay tuned for Part 2 next week from Turn The Page Online Marketing.

The IPO is valuing itself at $96 billion surpassing Google whose 2004 IPO valued the company at $23 billion and is now worth $200 billion.  Did you know that if you laid a billion dollars end to end that someone would invariably want to be your friend?

Zuckerberg sans hoodie-feel better Wall Street?

So is Facebook really worth the hype? Are investors being smart by hitching their wagon to a company that “seems” worth it? After all, it does have 900 million people trolling around the site. But its revenue has fallen 6% from the previous three months.

Advertising naturally is the moneymaker for the FB (its ticker handle) but what value are advertisers truly getting? Company fan pages are free and engage customers and potential customers on a daily basis. The tiny ads in the margins can sometimes go unnoticed. And bogus ads offering $1000 gift cards or celebrities used as flycatchers to increase CTR may be causing some ad fatigue.

“The bigger issue [with Facebook] is the core business,” said Morningstar analyst Rick Summer. “There’s still no good understanding for what advertisers are paying for.”

And then there’s mobile which Facebook just can’t seem to master. Its monthly averages users on mobile exceeds desktop users but yet ad revenue from mobile is itty bitty. The interface is terrible and if you think the ads are small on your laptop anyone over 40 can’t even see them on an iPhone. This conundrum has apparently even caused Facebook to amend its S-1 (a SEC filing for public companies) stating that the lack of mobile ad revenue is contributing to the overall weak advertising numbers.

Mr. Z will continue to dress like a rich hobo as well as control 58% of the company’s voting power meaning he’ll have final say over the company’s direction even after it goes public. This is the same guy who bought Instagram for a cool $1B without notifying the board of directors who found out about it the same day my mom did. What’s going to happen when this guy sees a pony?

And now that the FTC is looking into the purchase much like a rich husband into his wife’s Saks account it could delay FB integrating Instagram into it’s dominion for six months or longer. If the acquisition was an effort to bring mobile closer it will be a while before that happens.

Facebook has recently dipped a toe deeper into search but whether or not this will show real profit is unclear.

So I’ll ask a meaningless question to most, if not all, of the people reading this: would you buy Facebook if you could?

But if you really do stop to think about all that information that is sent into the world wide web by yourself, friends, co-workers, family members, neighbors, and those random folks you know – the amount of information is overwhelming. Where does that info go? Sure those 418 pictures of your family vacation to the Badlands last year are saved in your web albums for you to refer back to but what if someone is looking to take a trip themselves out West wants to know where to stay? Maybe you wrote a great review at a campsite that would interest them but how does this info get to them now?

This is where Social Search comes into play. It’s not a new fad, Google has been at it for a while and with everything they do, some tweaking has been done. Without boring you with all the juicy, geeky, mathematical details that we at Turn The Page enjoy with a side of toast in the morning, it is basically searching within your social graph (the online version of ‘social networking’) and getting the info to you from others around you. You are searching the world wide web of your people and their people. Searches aren’t just limited to the information they post but say a friend is looking for a campsite to stay within the Badlands National Park – your review you wrote will be within their search results giving them a personal and relevant review, as well as every other campsite available. Cool, huh?

Social searching is available when you are logged into Chrome and have a Google Profile which gives you the power to control it – a gift from Google. They can be pretty good at letting us think we are in control from time to time. And when used correctly, it’s a whole lot easier than calling up your sister when she’s having a bad day only to ask for the name of her salon and ending up getting a whole earful about her neighbor’s crazy ex-girfriend’s dog when all you have to do is log in to Chrome, second nature for some, and search for her latest add/like/bamboozle and voici! Your answer awaits.

With every great personalized feature comes some spammish downfalls but you’ll have that. Having the power of increased relevance to your preferences from friends’ and their friends’ perspective rather than a cold, uncaring and indifferent to your desires? Worth it.

Mobile phones are the new marketing frontier.

With the advent of smartphones and their variety of applications, folks check their emails, chat via SMS or will engage on social media through web apps such as Facebook, Twitter, Hootsuite, and a variety of utilities. Over 300,000 apps have been developed over the past three years with 10 Billion downloads to go with them.

So how does mobile fit into small business? More infograph pictures show that 77% of mobile users use their phones for searching, primarily using search engines (although that will undeniably change as voice recognition technology matures) and a big chunk of that searching was done for local information. It makes sense that users are looking for local retail, dining, services or attractions close to where they live or work.

So what can small businesses do to get included? As mobile search, marketing and development is a living and practically breathing entity it pays to pay attention. But there are a few basic moves you can make.

Start local-target your mobile ad spending by your city location and consider other geo-location approaches. Mobile users often search within a mile or so radius for immediate needs (food, retail, even emergency services such as automotive repair) so it pays to go local.

Offer relevant content-present deals or coupons over just business promotion. Most people who click “Like” on Facebook company pages do so in anticipation of getting something in return so your mobile ads should do the same. Offer a one day only or “say you like ice cream” call to action and you will have a way to engage the customer when they come in to use your deal.

Join Mobile Directories-Google Places offers a way to put your business on the mobile map. Be sure and fill out all of the 20 or so different fields in your Places listing, most businesses don’t and that can make a difference in how and where you show up.

And probably the most important way to participate in the mobile deluge is to make your website mobile compatible. Here’s a factoid for you: According to a recent survey conducted late 2011, 79% of Fortune 500 companies do not yet have a mobile optimized site. Seriously? It doesn’t matter if you show up first in search with bells and glitter if your customers can’t view your site. Then it just makes them mad. And for some reason mad people won’t buy your widgets.  There are simple ways to improve your mobile site.

Mobile use will only continue to rise so getting involved is increasingly mandatory.  Getting your feet wet in the mobile space now can head off any hasty decisions and wasted money in the future. Sure it seems daunting and complicated but that’s why you call your friends at Turn The Page Online Marketing. We can help you forge the mobile landscape and offer relevant recommendations and advice to get your business onto the mobile highway.

Yes, that’s correct – I don’t need an iWhatever barking my orders.
I want to get off the couch and get my own damn pizza rolls.

Steve Jobs to Bill Gates, “PC guy is what makes it all work”.

That’s nice, Steve. You were a brilliant man with a great vision and no doubt you have Heaven full of  fruit-named doohickies and installing accessible and wieldy devices in angel wings spreading the sounds of pop chart gleefulness and Angry Birds. The world is little less lustrous without you now.

Even though you were a jerk and ‘Nigel’ or ‘Chauncey’ may have been a more fitting name for you. Bill, however, is much more K.I.S.S. and relatable name to the hardworking people of this great world.

It’s an age old battle of the nerds – Microsoft vs. Apple. Us common folk have been bickering for years over who is better and I am certainly not the first to cover this topic. It’s just a little healthy bantering that feeds our geeky souls – much like bottles and bottles of wine.

But to the big dogs, Bill and Steve, it was free market at its finest  - together they needed each other. Kind of like the auto industry and the government. With each other’s respective companies learning from each other and pushing each other to be better, we the people have choices. We win.

Microsoft took note when Apple was in the high-dollar machine market and offered PCs for all – at an affordable price to the average masses thus becoming the backbone of households. Apple may be learning from this move by offering learning institutions discounts to put an iPad in the hand of every student to use in and out of the classroom. Will Apple become the company that revolutionizes the way our future world leaders learn? Maybe. Let’s hope the students first get past the label of ‘snooty elitist’ that comes with the ownership of an iPad as recently displayed by a group of graduate students at the University of Kansas in a guest blog on ProfHacker by instructor Doug Ward. I can’t imagine their embarrassment….

Is there an answer to Microsoft vs Apple? Chocolate vs Vanilla? Beavis vs Butthead? No. To each their own and may they continue innovating and thrilling us with the latest and greatest – and may they never merge in MicrApple.

Will a Facebook "Like" be golden for advertisers?

On one hand do we really need to find the post from 2011 about the recital, recipe, dog antics or beef about customer service? Maybe not, but the potential mining of current and relevant search results could put the web on its ear.

Business Insider cites a publication from an entity calling itself Anonymous (can’t these guys come up with better names? You can call me NetSuperNinjaGaga) making a case that a Facebook search engine would result in a minimization of Google within five years.

Add to this the coop between Facebook and Bing, Microsoft’s own search engine and you may have a case. The combination would combine Bings “Google-class algorithm based search engine” with Facebook’s social search engine to produce a search product that will cross the 50% threshold for search market share. All this from our pal Anonymous.

This threat to Google is potentially real as the huge buckets of information that users have heartily volunteered to Facebook includes their tastes and friend connections, current shopping habits and most importantly their “likes” could turn it into a serious rival for online advertising dollars. When a Facebook user sees a brand ad that a friend has “liked” that user is 300% more likely to recall that brand later. That’s fantabulous, as our friend Anonymous might say. Or maybe not.

This news doesn’t seem to indicate that Facebook has any intention of becoming your go-to search engine for all things internet but rather an inward pointing search tool concentrating on users movings about that advertisers will go for like Charlie Sheen to a loose girl. But this could be enough to shake Google’s tree enough to add to Facebook’s further dominance.

Oh and we haven’t even said the word “mobile”. Nearly half of Facebook’s users are on the site via a mobile device. According to web maven Mary Meeker by the middle of next year more people will access the internet on a mobile device than on desktops. Facebook’s current mobile app isn’t fun at all so if they plan to monetize their internal search they’d better figure out how to improve that in a hurry.

Signing off,

NetSuperNinjaGaga

SEO Changes are undeniable

Google made 50 changes to their search algorithm just last month and some of those changes appear to rip at accepted (and not so accepted) SEO practices.  A big “given” in our industry is the saying that “content is Queen” that is the one big consistent,  Content itself is not enough in itself, ideally your content is unique, interesting and relevant.  We know those SEO components to be true and so far Google has never messed with this premise.  Sure there is now a freshness and a  local piece to the way content is viewed but what makes content good for the reader and search engines is still basically the same.

So What Has Changed?

It is interesting – Google has always said to focus on the reader not the Search Engine and the changes reflect this advice.  Overdone SEO for the Search Engines sake is potentially due to be penalized.  Where Google draws the line and decides what constitutes overdone SEO is still a very blurry line.  From the list of changes and some hints dropped by Googlers; there are some areas that we can look at as the most likely areas of focus.

Page Titles

We think Page Title have become a subject of abuse.  It is extremely common for page titles to be completely written for SEO.  Overloading the page title maybe one of the areas penalized by Google.  An overloaded Page Title is basically a series of keywords written directly for the Search Engines as follows:

Home Loans | Loans for Homes | Home Lender

This Page Title maybe considered overdone.  Remember when reviewing a Page Title for authenticity the litmus test is: Is it useful to the searcher?  Compare the above to

A. N. Other Home Loans | Loans for Homes in Kansas City | Trusted Home Lender

Although it may seem subtle it is obvious the second is written more for the reader and provides more beneficial information without being as keyword targeted.

Link Filled Footers

This is old style SEO at its worst.  The classic is lists of city names defining area the business serves.  This tactic is easy to define and penalize and we believe it is probably on Google’s hit list.  The basic rule f0r anchor text is if you cannot use it in a regular fashion within your content then its for the Search Engines.  Keep your footers for their regular purpose copyright, address, etc.

Cruddy Back Links

This one is difficult to define and correct.  Google has already started penalizing Link Directory links. So it is definitely an area of concern.  If you are getting links in any environment that is an organized link exchange this now seems to be a potential area for concern.  The basic rule here is if it feels like cheating then it is likely to be penalized.

In Conclusion

We believe these changes are beneficial for people genuinely developing a quality web presence.  They make it more apparent that your web presence should be written for the reader not the engine.  We recommend a review of your current SEO plans and if they are out of line; bring them in line to avoid a fall in results.

And so the offending site dwindled down to nothing and with its tail between its legs went away never to be seen again.

Yeah, right!  800 million users and six years later the site, known as Facebook, just plunked down a billion dollars for a photo sharing service called Instagram. And the social media universe erupted again with indignant calls for justice and ironic t-shirts sported “Ban the Gram” messages as their wearers sulked over their iPads.

The Twitterverse was aghast:

“Instagram just officially died today,” wrote @AmirKassaei.

“I liked instagram before they sold out,” wrote @EAJosh.

“Must delete Instagram from my phone; don’t want any sneaking doorways into Facebook privacy grabs,” from @sinabhfuil

Instagram has yet to turn any sort of profit and has 13 employees of which 13 have yet to stop high fiving anyone who wanders by. There’s little there except rampant popularity among iPhone users to indicate a cash cow worthy of such a huge investment.  Facebook reps seemed surprised at the reaction. Maybe they still thought they were the cool, hip social site. More likely they were surprised that there are still people out there who think the Internet is funded by pixies and chai.

Changes in the features or settings have been made repeatedly in the past, arousing much wailing and gnashing of teeth. Timeline, anyone? The outcry was mostly ignored and the masses went back to posting their kid photos and random cries for social justice. So this too shall pass and the original users of Instagram will no doubt find another outlet to express their mass individuality. Facebook is betting that a new wave of users will come forth who either didn’t know about Instagram or didn’t have an iPhone (Android users just recently got the app) and will dive right in to post endless photos of their own lives.  And kids. Lots and lots of kids.

You can bet that’ll be around the time that Facebook debuts a desktop version and then starts putting ads on the site. The new joiners probably won’t be surprised or offended when the ads begin to appear, they expect it, and they probably won’t give a damn about it. It’s just photo sharing, people.  It’s not like Dylan went electric.

Um, this just in as I’m uploading the photo above (not from Instagram but from Pixlr.com) Techcrunch reports that since the launch of its Android app, Instagram’s user base grew from 30 to 40 million. That’s over 1,000,000 new users a day.

So what should brands do once they get that Like?

You can bring fans to your page with the promise of a contest or other promotions and there are some brands that have done a totally bang up job with that. But after that, it’s up to the brand to engage and keep them and it’s a fine, fine line between engagement and annoyance.

It may actually be easier for a small business to successfully navigate a Facebook relationship than a larger brand with huge ad budget.

Here’s how:

If this is your first foray into a brand page take the time to answer individual posts. Use the first name of the poster; this will establish an immediate connection. Don’t just post and run. Be ready to answer negative commentary with sincerity and honesty.

Offer varied content. Post related industry news, new technology or just something you find funny. Make sure you have the mobile app for your phone so you can post on the go. A spontaneous update about some dude in a weird hat on a street corner may make your Likers think you’re an actual human who finds weird dudes in hats funny.

If your business supports a non-profit or other causes post information about that as well. Not only will your fans see that you’re civic minded you’ll also generate more support for a cause you care about.

An eMarketer’s study indicated that 54% of the consumers polled did not Like a brand on Facebook because they didn’t want to be assaulted by messages promoting the brand. So don’t clog the stream like those annoying Farmville posts I finally had to block.

Think of your relationship with your Facebook fans as a way to humanize your brand, talk about it like you would with a customer, and show your passion for what you do. You have the “chance to be heard” that businesses of even a few years ago would have killed for so use it!