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Ashley Zeckman

A-to-Z Internet Marketing News: Reflections & Outlooks, Facebook Addiction, Go Google+, Stats You Can Use, Social Fails

Ashley Zeckman on Dec 23rd, 2011     Online Marketing, Search Industry News

Social Commerce Psychology

Social Commerce Psychology [INFOGRAPHIC]

This is indeed an infographic of a different color.  Tab Juice has created a very interesting graphic which focuses on 6 mental rules of thumb that affect social commerce buying decisions.  In an online world flooded with infographics this one definitely stands out!

Did You Know?

  • 81% of consumers receive advice from friends and family through a social networking platform.
  • 50% of people have made purchases based on recommendations received through their social network.
  • Over 25,000,000,000 pieces of content are shared on Facebook each month.

#Trending: Reflections of 2011 & Predictions for 2012

“150+ Content Marketing & Social Media Predictions for 2012”  This very extensive list of 2012 predictions includes some of the creme de la creme for online marketers including: even more from Google+, the year for video and mobile, and long-form content poised to make a comeback. Via Content Marketing Institute.

Ashley Zeckman

A to Z Internet Marketing News: Tacky Social PR, Can You Measure Up, Is Sales #1?, Sharing 2011, Email/Social Become One

Ashley Zeckman on Dec 16th, 2011     Search Industry News

Data for Social Shares in 2011

2011 Social Sharing Trends [INFOGRAPHIC]

A new infographic recently released by Clearspring provides a good overview of social sharing in the past year.  I especially liked the breakdown of shares by social media platform.

Facts You May Not Know You Didn’t Know:

  • 73% of the top 10 shares were related to death & disaster
  • Twitter makes up 52% of sharing in Japan
  • Google sharing declines by 8% even with the addition of the +1 button

Is Google Scheming on Your Location?

“Google follows Currents launch with activity-recommendation tool Schemer and face recognition on Google+ Econsultancy” If you want to try out the new location based tool recently released by Google, get in line.  Currently in beta testing mode “Schemer” is an online application that allows users to make plans and explore suggestions for things to do.   In addition to launching new services Google+ is also putting it’s best face forward with a facial recognition feature.  Sounds like Google’s been busy!  But will it pay off in the end?  Via Econsultancy.

Ashley Zeckman

A-to-Z Internet Marketing News: Bloggers Beware, Google Trust, Mobile SEO, New Twitter, SMBs Heart SEO

Ashley Zeckman on Dec 9th, 2011     B2B, Online Marketing, Search Industry News

B2B Content Marketing Report

New Report on B2B Content Marketing for 2012:

This week started off right with the new report (pdf) from Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs:  ”B2B Content Marketing: 2012 Benchmarks, Budgets & Trends”. The report offers a great mix of insight into most and least effective content marketing tactics, social media tools, measurement, budgets and compelling data points like:

  • 9 in 10 organizations market with content
  • Content marketers use 8 different content marketing tactics (on average) in their mix
  • The most popular content marketing tactics included social media, blogs, newsletters, case studies and events
  • The least effective content marketing tactics: podcasts, mobile content, digital magazines
Ashley Zeckman

A-to-Z Internet Marketing News: Google Redesign, Cyber Monday, Speed Linking, Self Serve Twitter Ads, Damn Humans

Ashley Zeckman on Dec 2nd, 2011     Interactive Marketing, Online Marketing, Search Industry News

Lee Odden

Wicked Smart Interview with Ann Handley of MarketingProfs

Lee Odden on May 8th, 2011     Content Marketing, Interviews, Online Marketing

Ann HandleyIf you’re looking for one of the most influential and “wicked smart” voices in online marketing, Ann Handley is an easy conclusion. Add a sense of humor and brilliant writing skills and she’s easily #1 in my book. A journalist and co-founder of ClickZ, you’re more likely to know Ann as the Chief Content Officer for the wildly popular MarketingProfs which boasts over 388,000 subscribers. Ann is also co-author with C. C. Chapman of one of my favorite marketing books, Content Rules.

A perk I enjoy most from blogging and working in this industry is getting to meet and know smart marketers. Smart + funny just takes it to another level and you can count on Ann for plenty of both. Along with the accomplishments, contributions, influence and energy she brings to our industry, Ann is genuine and grounded, plus she’s not afraid to “tell it like it is”. I appreciate those qualities a great deal.

Lee Odden

Essential Statistics from Technorati’s State of the Blogosphere 2010

Lee Odden on Nov 4th, 2010     Blogging, Online Marketing, Search Industry News

State of the Blogosphere 2010Jon Sobel of Technorati has published the latest State of the Blogosphere Report for 2010 including stats from 7,200 blogger respondents world-wide. Started in 2004 by Dave Sifry, this annual report has provided insight into the growth of the blogging community and helps answer questions like: who is blogging, why, what are they blogging about, how often and where are they blogging from.

In 2008 Technorati added insights of individual bloggers to the report with an emphasis this year on women blogging. As a long time blogger and advocate of blogging for online marketing, I’ve always taken a lot of interest and insight from these reports.

For marketers and communications professionals seeking to better understand the changing nature of the social web and the role blogs pay within in it, here are some essential statistics from Days 1 & 2 (of 3) from the 2010 State of the Blogosphere Report:

Lee Odden

5 Instant Search Engines & the Mash-up

Lee Odden on Sep 21st, 2010     Google, Online Marketing, Search Industry News

instant searchImitation is the sincerest form of flattery and on the social web, that flattery goes one step further, often in the form of a mash-up. Google has launched a variety of services to much fanfare by the media and yawns from the masses (Google Wave, Buzz).

However, the recent implementation of Google Instant has resulted in a number of “instant” implementations on other types of search. Twitter has tempted us with the promise of real-time, all the time and Google’s effort at real-time results has resonated with a number of developers. How much it has resonated with the searching public at large, is not yet being disclosed.

Check out the following Instant Search applications and see which you like best:

Lee Odden

Brent D. Payne on SEO for Journalists

Lee Odden on Sep 15th, 2010     Interviews, Marketing PR Conferences, Online Marketing, Search Engine Strategies, SEO, Video Interviews

brent d payneI’ve been connected via the social web with Brent Payne for several years and we finally met in person at SES Hong Kong. Working for the Tribune companies as Director of Search Engine Optimization, Brent has been able to make a significant impact on news web sites like the Chicago Tribune and the LA Times.

In this interview, Brent shares his experiences with how optimizing news content for search engines works as well as the challenges and results from training journalists on how to use keywords to improve traffic to news content.

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If you work with a media company or online publisher, do you train writers, reporters, editors and journalists on how to optimize content with keywords? Have you tried and had great results? Have you tried and met strong resistance?

Lee Odden

Avinash Kaushik on Storytelling & Web Analytics

Lee Odden on Sep 14th, 2010     Interviews, Marketing PR Conferences, Online Marketing, Search Engine Strategies, Video Interviews, Web Analytics

avinash kaushikThe opening keynote presentation at SES Hong Kong featured none other than Avinash Kaushik, co-Founder of Market Motive Inc and the Analytics Evangelist for Google.

In this video interview, Avinash talks about the value of communicating analytics information in more meaningful ways. He gives examples of metaphors he’s used to present important analytics information that helps others better understand the meaning and implications of the data. There are lessons here for companies that report tabular data with no insight and little creativity in communicating insight.

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What creative ways have you found to communicate web analytics insights? Have you had nightmare experiences with web analytics reports?

Check out Avinash’s “must-read” web analytics blog, Occam’s Razor, here.

Lee Odden

10 Resources on Google Instant & What it Means for Search Marketing

Lee Odden on Sep 9th, 2010     Online Marketing, Search Industry News, SEO

Google InstantYesterday Google implemented their new search experience, Google Instant and the SEO and Tech blogs lit up like a Christmas tree. It’s nice to see something get these folks excited for a change. While the notion of instant search isn’t new, Yahoo had it in 2005, Google commands the vast majority of search engine market share so such a major, public change to the Google interface warrants attention.

Essentially, in Google’s quest to improve user experience and increase speed, they’ve already lowered the time it takes to return results on a query.  The actual act of searching and refinement of queries by users is what takes time, so Google Instant is designed to shorten the time it takes for users to find what they’re looking for by showing search results as you type. If you’re logged in to Google, those results are personalized as they have since personalization was implemented.

Lee Odden

Interview: Mel Carson of Microsoft Advertising on Social Media

Lee Odden on Sep 6th, 2010     Interviews, Microsoft Bing, Online Marketing, Social Media, Spotlight on Search


Spotlight on Search Interview: Mel Carson of Microsoft Advertising on How Microsoft Does Social Media and the Yahoo Bing Search Alliance

mel carson microsoft advertisingIf you attend Search Marketing industry conferences, you’ve no doubt run into the ever optimistic and charming Mel Carson from Microsoft.  When I was last in London, Mel connected me with an excellent Fish n Chips that the pubs around Trafalgar Square couldn’t get close to.  Mel is active as an advocate of Microsoft Advertising , especially via social media channels and at conferences to the Webmaster and search marketing community. His work is global and very interesting. With the Bing and Yahoo convergence, I thought it was time we did an interview – and he agreed.

Lee Odden

Chris Pirillo on SEO & Social Media @ OpenCa.mp

Lee Odden on Aug 29th, 2010     Interviews, Online Marketing, SEO, Social Media, Video Interviews

chris pirilloAt the OpenCa.mp conference in Dallas this weekend I was able to re-connect with Chris Pirillo of Lockergnome and the Gnomedex conference (We’ve interviewed each other in the past). We both jumped out of the same airplane with the Army Golden Knights last week and are also speaking today about blogs at OpenCa.mp.

I caught up with Chris to talk about his take on SEO and social media.  He had pretty strong opinions about people who are too aggressive and not always relevant in the social connections they’re making.  This is what he had to say:

You can find Chris online by Googling “chris“. How’s that for the effect of links on search engine visibility?

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