http://searchconcepts.com
On June 13, 2010, In SEO, by Matt Cutts
Have you given Buzz a try recently? Robert Scoble just asked if it was time to reconsider Buzz. Coincidentally I said almost the same thing in a question and answer session with Danny Sullivan last week at the SMX Advanced search conference.
I’ll repeat what I said last week. Do you remember when you first started [...]
Have you given Buzz a try recently? Robert Scoble just asked if it was time to reconsider Buzz. Coincidentally I said almost the same thing in a question and answer session with Danny Sullivan last week at the SMX Advanced search conference.
I’ll repeat what I said last week. Do you remember when you first started on Twitter, and you didn’t know quite what to do with it? Who do I follow? What do I say? I didn’t really “get” Twitter for months. But as I found interesting people to follow and got the hang of it, I began to see the appeal of Twitter and started using it more often. I’ve noticed Buzz is tracing that same trajectory for me: an initial burst, followed by a bit of a slump, and then a steady climb as I found people that make Buzz interesting.
Buzz fits nicely between tweeting and blogging. Twitter is perfect when you want to share a link or a single crystalized idea. But Twitter isn’t as strong for group discussion or expressing medium- to long-form ideas. At the same time, blogging is great when you want a permalinked url that will stand the test of time, but it can be a real pain to write a blog post. I always feel like I have to polish my blog posts and it seems to take me at least an hour to write a blog post no matter what I say.
Buzz has the casual feel of Twitter, but you can dive into a topic pretty deeply. Buzz is easier than a blog post, but can look almost as polished. I find Buzz especially good for asking opinions, because the signal-to-noise ratio is (at least right now) quite high. I think Buzz is incredibly strong for internal company discussions too, so I’m looking forward to Buzz rolling into Google Apps.
If you haven’t checked out Buzz, or haven’t checked it out recently, you might want to give Buzz another look. You can follow me on Buzz if you’re interested; we’re having a nice discussion about favorite Chrome extensions right now.
http://www.mattcutts.com/blog
On May 27, 2010, In SEO, by Michael Brito
Love to see non-profit organizations like Earthjustice embracing social technologies. Each time someone “checks in” at an Earthjustice poster in the San Francisco BART stations, one of Earthjustice’s donors will give $10 to support their cause. The ads, featuring images of Lake Tahoe, oil rig platforms, and the little furry endangered pika, can be found throughout the BART stations coming this summer.
Though Foursquare does not yet have the wide market penetration that Facebook and Twitter enjoy, the hope is that through its embrace of location-based services, Earthjustice can connect a younger audience to its work, whether it’s curbing oil and gas exploration in the Arctic or protecting endangered species like the pikas of the Sierra Nevada.
At the same time, Foursquare users on BART will get their shot at becoming the “mayor” of Earthjustice ads and help protect the environment, all while doing their daily commute. Aside from the donation aspect, [...]
Love to see non-profit organizations like Earthjustice embracing social technologies. Each time someone “checks in” at an Earthjustice poster in the San Francisco BART stations, one of Earthjustice’s donors will give $10 to support their cause. The ads, featuring images of Lake Tahoe, oil rig platforms, and the little furry endangered pika, can be found throughout the BART stations coming this summer.
Though Foursquare does not yet have the wide market penetration that Facebook and Twitter enjoy, the hope is that through its embrace of location-based services, Earthjustice can connect a younger audience to its work, whether it’s curbing oil and gas exploration in the Arctic or protecting endangered species like the pikas of the Sierra Nevada.
At the same time, Foursquare users on BART will get their shot at becoming the “mayor” of Earthjustice ads and help protect the environment, all while doing their daily commute. Aside from the donation aspect, the check-ins also encourage users to learn more about Earthjustice through other Foursquare features, such as tips or “shout outs.” You can follow them on Twitter here of “like” their Facebook page here. I just did.
To amplify the campaign even further, I would recommend the following:
- Aggregate all check ins and tweets somewhere on their web site
- Recognize and showcase each mayor (i.e. on their web site or fan page)
- Create a mechanism that integrates with the campaign and allow users to make contributions easily
- Tweetup / fund-raising event
Heck, I may even take Bart a few times when this launches to show my support. Hopefully you will too!
http://www.britopian.com
On May 21, 2010, In SEO, by Search Concepts - Search and Internet News, Updates, and Trends
Twitter in-stream advertising network Ad.ly, which was only launched last 2009, was reported to have received $5 million in additional funding. This revolutionizing social media tool acquired funding from GRP Partners, Greycroft Partners and Matt Coffin, founder of LowerMyBills. Previously, also Ad.ly raised $500,000 in … Read the Rest
Twitter in-stream advertising network Ad.ly, which was only launched last 2009, was reported to have received $5 million in additional funding. This revolutionizing social media tool acquired funding from GRP Partners, Greycroft Partners and Matt Coffin, founder of LowerMyBills. Previously, also Ad.ly raised $500,000 in ... Read the Rest
http://www.searchconcepts.com
On May 14, 2010, In SEO, by Michael Brito
Thank you Amita Paul, CEO of Objective Marketer for providing this fantastic analysis of SxSW and the conversational activity around the event.
The report provided influencer and demographic data and provides insights as to how information is shared during events. Some of the key findings include:
Higher followership did not guarantee higher retweets but higher rewteets did require a higher number of followers
Most active users were with tweets in the range of 1,000 to 100,000. Activity level of the users with fewer tweets was high. So, It is not necessary that people who are heavy twitter users will be the most active
Embedding multi-media content may not be as effective a strategy on Twitter as it is on Facebook. The retweets for messages without images (31.6%) was almost double than the retweets received for messages with images (16.8%)
The number of Retweets is significantly more when the follower /friend ratio [...]
Thank you Amita Paul, CEO of Objective Marketer for providing this fantastic analysis of SxSW and the conversational activity around the event.
The report provided influencer and demographic data and provides insights as to how information is shared during events. Some of the key findings include:
- Higher followership did not guarantee higher retweets but higher rewteets did require a higher number of followers
- Most active users were with tweets in the range of 1,000 to 100,000. Activity level of the users with fewer tweets was high. So, It is not necessary that people who are heavy twitter users will be the most active
- Embedding multi-media content may not be as effective a strategy on Twitter as it is on Facebook. The retweets for messages without images (31.6%) was almost double than the retweets received for messages with images (16.8%)
- The number of Retweets is significantly more when the follower /friend ratio > =1.
- Tweets and Retweets can have different activity peaks. Retweets followed Tweets for about 30 minutes to 1 hour.
http://www.britopian.com
On May 13, 2010, In SEO, Social Media Marketing, by LuisOliveros
With an estimated 50 million tweets generated across different platforms on a daily basis since its inception in 2006, Twitter remains to be one of the most dominant mass messaging service built on a social networking architecture today. And it keeps on getting stronger in terms of popularity and user registration given its [...]
With an estimated 50 million tweets generated across different platforms on a daily basis since its inception in 2006, Twitter remains to be one of the most dominant mass messaging service built on a social networking architecture today. And it keeps on getting stronger in terms of popularity and user registration given its rather limiting 140-character structure.
As revealed during its recent Chirp developer conference , the company revealed that it has a rated 300,000 number of new users signing up per day in addition to the approximate 105,779,710 currently registered. These are facts not lost among marketers, so we’ve established for their respective brands a venerable network of followers to easily broadcast their messages to the consumer, establish relationships at a much deeper level and boost SEO efforts.
The problem with keeping such a bevy of followers is the near constant need to organize your connections to make sure you are properly targeting the right people. While there are a handful of services online that would prove useful (and we’ve actually recommended some of them on this blog), Tweepi offers a handful of features to get the job done in a “geekier, faster way.”
 Tweepi offers a straightforward interface and several “geeky” utilities to help you manage your network of Twitter contacts. Click for a Closer look. |
Developed by Thoughtpick , a social media developing company based in Amman, Jordan, Tweepi pushes for the “geeky” nomenclature with four utilities for organizing your Twitter network. Rows of information are presented with tables and figures for each user along with their location, number of followers, people they’re following, retweets sent and when they last tweeted, among others. So if you’re one of those spreadsheet-happy geeky types, this is just the tool for you.
While Geeky Follow lets enter a specific @username to discover Twitter users with the same field of interest based on their tweet activity patters and gives you the option to follow them, Geeky Flush lists the users you are following who are not following you back. Geeky Reciprocate, on the other hand, shows a table of users who are following you but you have yet to follow yourself. Finally, Geeky Cleanup filters out the profiles that offer no valuable content or don’t engage in actual Twitter conversations so you can easily unfollow them as you see fit.
In each utility, you can filter out the Twitter profiles through several presets like the number of tweets within the last seven days, influencers, high followers to following ratio and those who simply dispense linkless ramblings.
Tweepi is ostensibly in its beta stage and it’s pretty upfront about it, saying that continuous updates and the constant bug zapping are being conducted by its development team.
In essence, Tweepi looks to be the outcome when you put Friend or Follow and Untweeps in a blender and set it to “smoothie.” Not that Tweepi’s interface offers a gaudy candy-coated look and feel like these other tools, but its different features are seamlessly reconciled into a simple interface; straightforward enough for new users to utilize without having to leave its single domain.
To use Tweepi, like most third-party Twitter apps and services, it uses Twitter’s OAuth implementation so you can sign in using your Twitter login credentials.
http://www.socialmediamarketing.com/blog
On May 5, 2010, In SEO, by Search Engine Watch
The Labour Party harnesses the efforts of its candidates alongside its online activists with the help of Twitter and Facebook. …
The Labour Party harnesses the efforts of its candidates alongside its online activists with the help of Twitter and Facebook. ...
http://searchenginewatch.com/
On May 3, 2010, In SEO, Social Media Marketing, by LuisOliveros
Mobile has truly become an essential platform for Twitter , bolstered by the convenience afforded by the ubiquity of wireless connectivity and the steadily dropping prices of mobile phones. As such, many third-party Twitter clients and apps have sprouted from this side of the Twitterverse, carrying varying functionalities and value added services on top of [...]
Mobile has truly become an essential platform for Twitter , bolstered by the convenience afforded by the ubiquity of wireless connectivity and the steadily dropping prices of mobile phones. As such, many third-party Twitter clients and apps have sprouted from this side of the Twitterverse, carrying varying functionalities and value added services on top of the 140-character architecture.
To further push mobile Twitter use, the microblogging and messaging tool launched its official app for the Blackberry and acquired Atebits to retcon Tweetie as Twitter for iPhone within the same week last month. Now, hot off the heels of its obvious thrust to dominate the mobile space, Twitter has let out another in-house developed app and this time, it’s all set to target Google ’s developer-friendly mobile operating system, the Android .
This was announced by Twitter’s Leland Rechis this week on the official Twitter blog . He stated that sharing becomes second nature on machines as it does in person when apps work well with each other and that Android performs optimally in that regard.
As you can see from the screenshots we’ve included, usage is as straightforward as it can get, with Twitter capabilities implemented across other apps. Rechis further explains that sharing links and photos with your Twitter contacts are simple—by finding the share button in your favorite app and then tapping on Twitter on the menu list.
“Reading tweets is easy in a bunch of places on your phone.” Rechis likewise adds. “Quickly access your timeline with the home screen widget, view a tweet location on a map, and see your friend’s latest tweet in your phonebook, GoogleTalk list or any application that uses Android’s QuickContact bar.”
As with most Google-hinged product or feature roll outs, the code behind Twitter for Android will also be open sourced so we’ll probably see new independent developer-prompted feature tweaks and enhancements even before 2.0 comes out. Similarly, different variations of the Twitter API implemented on third-party apps for the Android are also definitely expected.
The Twitter for Android app is now available at the Android Market for mobile phones with Android 2.1 (aka Éclair) at the helm which pretty much covers anyone using the Motorola Droid , Google’s own Nexus One and the latest slew of HTC smartphones. No word though whether the app will be developed further to also support the other Android phones with version 1.6 (Donut) or 1.5 (Cupcake), however, their owners can instead use Twitter’s rudimentary mobile site by heading on over to http://mobile.twitter.com for the meantime.
| Screenshots. Click on each for a closer look. |
||||||
|
http://www.socialmediamarketing.com/blog
On April 18, 2010, In SEO, Social Media Marketing, by LuisOliveros
Image by akanesio
We all grew up listening to FM radio with all its genre bending music, morning and rush hour talk shows, varied programming, frequent advertisements and, of course, on-air contests. All these obviously entertained us listeners as they pushed brand promotions that deliver both the radio and their sponsors’ messages.
This type of varying pattern [...]
Image by akanesio
We all grew up listening to FM radio with all its genre bending music, morning and rush hour talk shows, varied programming, frequent advertisements and, of course, on-air contests. All these obviously entertained us listeners as they pushed brand promotions that deliver both the radio and their sponsors’ messages.
This type of varying pattern has always been proven effective from a marketing standpoint as it also rewarded listeners not only with the hourly dishing of current top rating music, but also allowed the station and its sponsors a platform to thank their patrons and potential followers as well as rewarding us with chances of actually winning something in return for our loyalty.
Proven as it is for traditional media like radio (and television and publishing as well, for that matter), it has also made a crossover to the Internet, as you may have noticed from tech and lifestyle portals. Marketers have effectively utilized it for their companies’ own Web site’s SEO strategy which. We’ll pick apart elements to plan a good contest to properly employ them over to our social media campaign through Twitter . We’ll start off with the planning stage.
Planning Carefully
Running a successful contest or game on Twitter entails sitting down and thoughtfully mapping out a clever set of steps and detailing them one by one. The top of the list should always be your objective; why are running such a promo and what do intend to achieve by doing so? Now, the answer to these can vary from simply getting more Twitter followers or gaining a significant boost to your site traffic, to simply improving on your brand awareness campaign while spreading the word about your brand’s new products or services.
While your intended contest can obviously hit more of these in one go, make sure to detail which one your prioritize is. This will definitely help keep you focused on your goal and you can craft a good contest aligned with it.
The Reward
From your followers’ vantage point, the prize you’re rewarding them for their efforts should be…well, rewarding. Needless to say, something that can easily be bought from the neighborhood dollar store, no matter how useful it is, just isn’t as attractive as the latest mouse launched recently by a well-known IT manufacturer, for instance.
Depending on the budget you, your clients or sponsors are willing to shell out, you can get valuable items or services up for grabs. “Valuable” is such a subjective term; it doesn’t mean you have to go all-out, sometimes, little tokens like a signed baseball, gift cards for an online store like iTunes , Amazon or Audible and items carrying your brand’s logo would also prove attractive.
As an option, a quick way to choose a prize is by aligning it with your brand. Needless to say, it would be logical to give away copies of an album from the band, tickets to a ballgame or a concert being sponsored by your company or services to create a personalized blog or site from a Web developer you’re representing.
The Mechanics
As with most games, there has to be a set of mechanics your followers need to follow to successfully win and these should tie directly to your game’s objective and the prize you’re giving away. A common practice on Twitter would have people to simply follow your tweets, another is by having them retweet a specific tweet you’ve sent out. These easily grows your Twitter followers which, in turn, gives you a boost in the site traffic and comments on your actual site, amplifies repeat visits and increases potential clients.
One way of going about it on Twitter is by running a sweepstakes type of contest by employing a simple randomizing application for drawing out a winner. Another is by actually giving your followers a fun activity, like providing a funny photo or drawing and then asking them to supply a funny caption or title. Maybe you can even target specific groups in your followers by setting a theme and then asking them to Photoshop a certain graphic to follow it. However, as mentioned, your prize’s value should also determine the mechanics of your contest and gauge the lengths at which your audience would go to attain them.
On Your Own Site
To integrate both the contest details and its mechanics while aiming to drive more traffic to your own domain, it’s best to set aside a specific landing page on your Web site. As the contest’s home on your domain, make sure that the page’s layout is clean and easy to navigate through for your readers. Since it is on your own site or blog, , it will not only allow your readers to read up on what else you have to offer, but it also affords them the security that what they are engaging in is a legitimate promotion and not some scam aiming to sponge off their details and links.
While this makes your readers focused and engaged on the contest details, it also catches the attention of your other readers and those who have stumbled upon your site who don’t necessarily follow you on Twitter. As a good measure, also include a small but easily seen splash graphic on your site’s homepage and a smaller one at the top of your sidebar announcing the contest with the necessary links.
Should the contest revolve around submissions, provide a separate tab on the same page where your users and others can view them. This works great if you’ve also allowed your readers to vote for the winner as this also increases social mentions across Twitterverse.
http://www.socialmediamarketing.com/blog