Social media news is constantly abuzz with new developments—more specifically, the debut of Google’s +1 button. Google’s +1 concept is comprised of integrating social media influence with Google’s search rankings and has sparked new conversation on the topic of social media buttons.  We’re all familiar with them; they’re frequently clustered together at the top or side of a webpage, inviting us to “Tweet”, “Share This”, or “Like” whatever it is we’re reading, watching or exploring. (more…)

Writers’ block is bad enough—but what if you don’t even know what to write about?  This tends to be the problem for many who are tasked with cranking out frequent blog content.  My advice to this frustrated bunch—use SEO keyword data to dictate the editorial for your blog entries. (more…)

With much anticipation and fanfare, Google+ made its debut earlier this month.

As most people already know, Google+ is Google’s answer to Facebook.  At its core, Google+ is a social network however it’s basically an amalgamation of several existing Google services.  It integrates social services such as Google Profiles and Google Buzz and introduces new services, such as Circles, Hangouts, Sparks and Huddles. (more…)

Today, companies are fighting for our social media attention; with the new Google + and Facebook’s video chat feature, it’s become a fairly difficult prospect to try and decide how to keep up in the social media world. While all of these outlets provide a wide array of opportunities on the personal and business level, it’s often easy to forget what the negative implications of these tools can be. (more…)

Did you know that SiteCatalyst allows you to isolate and analyze the traffic coming from social networks?  It takes a bit of digging, but can provide valuable information. The easiest way to isolate social network stats in SiteCatalyst is to run a referring domain report by going to ‘traffic sources’, and then ‘referring domain’. This will give you all available metrics for all domains. This functionality is already enabled in the default SiteCatalyst code – no need to make any changes. (more…)

In order to effectively communicate both brand message and product offerings, a company must not only grab the attention of its target market, but also educate them as to why they should invest and what value they will obtain from their products. Evaluating which medium to use is an essential choice to make and, if done correctly, your company could gain exposure to a large part of your potential customer base. (more…)

Google Analytics provides two tools for partitioning traffics results: web properties and profiles.  Both of these tools provide useful ways to compartmentalize data and create unique user access.  However, while seemingly very similar in set-up and construction, there are a few highly relevant distinctions users should be cognizant of when determining which method to employ on their Google Analytics account. (more…)

Facebook and Google, the twin behemoths of the modern web, have been waging a vicious battle for control of our online attention (and by extension, marketers’ dollars) for the past few years. Both companies handily dominate their respective fields of social and search, with Facebook currently controlling over 60% of US visits to social networking sites and Google commanding a similar share of the US search market. [1][2]In this environment, it’s almost inevitable that competition would arise between the two, and at times, that competition has gotten pretty rough; the most glaring example being Facebook’s recent clumsy attempts to denigrate Google’s privacy procedures.[3] However, as in war, the fight has become the most heated when one company attempts to move onto the home turf of the other. Facebook’s desire to leverage its vast social data to take on Google’s search dominance is no secret, and Google has already made two well-publicized, yet ultimately unsuccessful, attempts to move into the social space(Google Buzz and Google Wave).[4] [5] However, Google+, the search giant’s most recent social move, could be the game changer that grants one side a decisive advantage.

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In order for companies to effectively communicate their brand message to their target audience, they must recognize the importance of advertising in the appropriate mediums. Choosing the right medium is essential in being able to effectively reach individuals who potentially could have a need for your product or service. In the past, many of these companies were hesitant in allocating a large portion of their budget towards a relatively “new” medium. One of these seemingly “experimental” mediums which seems be receiving more recognition is mobile. (more…)

One of the first things I learned when I joined the marketing profession is that what worked yesterday may not work tomorrow. What worked for one company may be completely wrong for another. Marketing involves continuous learning, testing and an openness to evolution, and we see this illustrated in the growing importance in those whose focus is Marketing Operations. (more…)