By Keith Trivitt | Director, Marketing and Communications
Much of the recent talk in the online marketing world has centered around the emerging concept of SoLoMoCo. For the uninitiated, that stands for SOcial LOcal MObile COmmerce. Boiled down to its most basic parts, this funny looking acronym encapsulates the future of digital marketing: everything social, everything local and everything mobile.
It’s with that perspective in mind that a recent report issued by the Local Search Association (look them up here) caught my eye. The report finds that nearly half (48% to be precise) of mobile phone owners use their device to look for local information.
The Local Search Association findings point to the increased role that smartphones and tablets are increasingly playing for the search industry in the United States. In particular, the report points to the need for marketers to view mobile at a local level.
From local search and SEO, to local mobile (what we at MediaWhiz call “LoMo”), online marketing is becoming more targeted and geo-specific. That presents huge opportunities to marketers that wisely find ways to blend their traditional and mobile SEO campaigns to achieve comprehensive search results.
As my colleague Marc Purtell, MediaWhiz’s director of SEO, attests, the future of SEO is local mobile. (more…)
By Keith Trivitt | Director, Marketing and Communications
In the Digital Age of marketing, connections are everything. Whether it’s connections with consumers (what modern marketers now call “engagement”), connections between consumers and brand advocates or consumer-to-consumer-to-brand connections by way of online review sites, we live in an increasingly interconnected world. Our offline lives have largely merged with our online lives.
Yet one critical aspect of consumers’ offline and online connections has been missing — until now. The announcement by Facebook of the launch of new “partner categories” marks a critical turning point in marketers’ quest to connect offline consumer purchasing habits and intent with online advertising opportunities.
Here’s how AdExchanger described the new ad targeting tool:
“Facebook is adding new offline purchase data from Acxiom, Datalogix and Epsilon. Advertisers can now target people who buy lots of frozen veggies, for instance, or children’s cereal. They can pluck these segments from Facebook’s self-serve interface, alongside its own social data. … It’s just the latest move in a sustained effort by Facebook to absorb the methods pioneered in traditional display over the past decade.”
What ‘Partner Categories’ Mean for Performance Marketers
Facebook’s new ad targeting tools will have a significant positive effective on many aspects of online marketing and advertising. Performance marketers may benefit the most from this new advertising tool. The ability to connect consumers’ offline purchases with potential intent to purchase via Facebook, and then to serve that consumer a relevant ad or lead generation opportunity, has long been one of performance marketers’ top wishes for Facebook advertising.
Here’s how MediaWhiz Senior Vice President of Media Services Peter Klein put it when I asked him yesterday for his thoughts on these new ad targeting tools from Facebook:
“This is a great move by Facebook. Facebook’s “Partner Categories” ad targeting tool clearly lends itself to better targeting of consumers and less irrelevant ads. (more…)
By Marc Purtell | Director, SEO
Location, location, location. Every business owner knows that for retail traffic, it’s all about your location. Increasingly, this adage is being applied to search marketing and search engine optimization campaigns. Yes, we have entered the era of geo-targeted digital marketing.
Given the current state of both consumer search behavior and evolving search algorithms in search engines and social media platforms, geo-targeted marketing is moving closer and closer to the center of many digital strategies. Search engines have long been customizing search results based on users’ IP addresses and delivering search results relevant to users’ location and recent searches.
Whereas IP-based search represented the first phase of digital services focusing on user location, the SEO landscape has fully blown open to the possibilities of geo-targeted marketing. Location-based user experience variations are a huge part of mobile search, as well as social media search (specifically with the introduction of Facebook Graph Search).
Let’s examine why that is the case.
The Emergence of Mobile Search
A strong local search presence is important not only to occupy more relevant real estate within search engine results (organic and local listings) but also to stay competitive with the growing market share of Web users who are searching on mobile devices. There are approximately 187 million Americans accessing Web browsers on mobile devices. This number is increasing at a rate of more than 50 percent year-over-year, while the year-over-year increase of those accessing browsers on desktop devices was only 3%, according to the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism 2012 State of News Media report.
With more Americans using mobile devices for Web searches, and the search engine results on mobile devices becoming more geo-centric, having a location-based digital strategy is essential. (more…)
By Marc Purtell | Director, SEO
Facebook has once again decided to update its News Feed with a new look and algorithm. This update is meant to give members more control of what they see on their own customized News Feeds. What this means for marketers is that there is a higher importance than ever in successfully engaging with consumers and providing useful, compelling information in order to maintain or increase their current level of visibility.
One of the major changes to the News Feed that will need to be addressed by digital marketers is the ability for users to filter the feed for media types such as images, music, videos, news, or apps. This makes it essential for a Facebook marketing strategy to focus on a range of media types. For example, If a brand is doing a great job regularly sharing status updates, that messaging will be missed by people who are filtering only for images. By diversifying the types of content shared, a brand will be able to penetrate multiple filters and maximize their News Feed presence. Specifically for the image feed, Facebook will be displaying images from both Facebook and Instagram, so brands should be uploading photos to both. (more…)
By Sultan Riaz | Marketing Coordinator
If you were lucky enough to be on Twitter Monday afternoon, you likely witnessed the aftermath of Burger King’s Twitter account being hacked by the international hacktivist group Anonymous. Some marketing pundits are going so far as call this a “PR disaster.” Hyperbole aside, I agree that Burger King has a big task on its hands to ensure this type of situation never happens again.
That said I don’t foresee the #failurewhopper Twitter hack hurting Burger King’s business or reputation in the long term.
The nuances of the hack have been analyzed over and over, so there is no reason to go into them in this post. (The company has since apologized for the confusion caused by its Twitter account being compromised.) What’s important, however, is to examine what impact, if any, the hack will have on the company’s brand affinity with consumers.
When I first noticed the Burger King account hack the company had about 82,000 followers. A quick glance at BK’s follower count at Twitter, as of noon EST Tuesday (Feb. 19) shows the company has a little more than 112,000 followers. That’s an increase of 30,000 followers in just a few hours. That’s 30,000 new people, both current and potential customers, that the company can now engage, inform and influence through its Twitter account. (more…)
By Keith Trivitt | Director, Marketing and Communications
The 2013 Online Marketing Summit is next week, and MediaWhiz, along with our SEO team, TLA, will be right in the thick of the show. If you’re in San Diego for the show (Feb. 11-13 at the San Diego Convention Center), be sure to visit booth #305 to chat with us about performance and search marketing, as well as SEO and content marketing. Several of our SEO and search marketing experts will be on site to discuss best practices for improving your SEO and search marketing campaigns.
MediaWhiz Vice President Daryl Colwell will take that discussion a step further during his Feb. 12 presentation, “Content Marketing Like a Pro: Tactics and Techniques to Increase Search Engine Visibility.” Here is a brief overview of Daryl’s presentation:
Time/Date: 3-3:45 p.m. PST, Tuesday, February 12, 2013
Location: Room 29D, San Diego Convention Center
Session Description
It’s no longer enough to have great SEO for your website. In today’s Google-controlled era of search engine marketing, brands need great content that is engaging, informative and shareable to rank well and
generate leads. Join Daryl Colwell to learn about his best practices and techniques to increase your brand’s search engine visibility through content marketing. Session attendees will be given several examples and case studies of brands that have gone from ranking on page three to page one purely from professional-quality content marketing that they produce. You’ll come away from this session with a top-10 list of content marketing best practices that the pros use.
Must-Have Information
MediaWhiz will be exhibiting at OMS San Diego, Feb. 11-13.
Meet us at booth #305.
Contact Keith Trivitt for more information or to schedule a meeting with us at the show.
What to Do in San Diego
San Diego is one of America’s most beautiful cities. It’s perfect mix of Pacific Ocean breezes, sunny days and laid-back atmosphere make it a perennial contender as one of America’s top tourist destinations. And there is plenty to do for free. Here are some resources for great activities you can take part in while you’re visiting San Diego during OMS:
By Sultan Riaz | Marketing Coordinator
One of the hottest trends in online marketing is native advertising. While not necessarily a new concept — the relatively old-school advertorial has been around for decades — it has seen a resurgence in the current content marketing era. Recent examples of native advertising can be seen with Google’s paid search results, YouTube’s sponsored videos and, to a lesser extent, trending topics on Twitter.
Content marketing has led to innovative forms of online advertising. With the online user experience key to a successful marketing campaign, this non-disruptive form of online advertising will continue to capture marketers’ addition — and advertising dollars — in 2013.
Native Advertising: The Basics
Native advertising is considered one of the newest forms of online marketing.
According to a September 2012 article in Mashable, the term didn’t take root until famed start-up investor Fred Wilson told an audience at OMMA Global in early 2012 about “native monetization” for Web properties, which he described as ads that were “unique and native to the experience” of a website.
Dan Greenberg, the CEO of Sharethrough, is credited with coining the actual term “native advertising.” Here’s Greenberg’s definition: “Native advertising is a form of media that’s built into the actual visual design and where the ads are part of the content.”
What separates native advertising from the equally hot trend of content marketing is a matter of debate. John LoGioco, SVP and general manager of content at Outbrain, recently told Mashable that the two are pretty much the same. “Native advertising seems to be the thing that most are able to hang on to and get it.”
What Makes for Great Native Ads
At its best, native advertising blends seamlessly with the editorial content of a website while providing content that is valuable to the target audience. Below is an example of native advertising on Twitter.
(more…)
By Marc Purtell | Director, SEO
Content marketing isn’t a new or cutting-edge digital marketing practice. But it has evolved into a vital piece of the online marketing puzzle and is capable of impacting other marketing channels, especially SEO.
In today’s arena of social influence on both humans and search engines, developing and promoting content with real value is paramount to success of any digital strategy. For content to generate revenue, it must provide a value to consumer and engage them in conversations.
There are several best practices you should use when creating new content to leverage its potential as a driver of customer acquisition and a catalyst to organic search success.
Step 1: Define the Target Audience
In order to effectively communicate with consumers, it’s important to understand what they are looking for and what is compelling to them. The first step in content development is to perform some consumer research to identify the customer segment the content is targeted to and how it will best be engaged based on its buying patterns. Sites such as MarketResearch.com are a great resource for defining your target audience.
By Marc Purtell | Director, SEO
Yesterday’s announcement by Facebook of its revolutionary new form of search — called Graph Search — has set the online marketing world abuzz with chatter about its impact on search. More specifically, whether Facebook will finally become the Google killer that so many have predicted it will.
While it’s unlikely that Graph Search will ever become a Google killer, the reality is that Facebook has just become a major player in the multi-billion-dollar search business. More importantly to brands and marketers, Facebook offers a bevy of new search and online advertising options that simply aren’t available with Google’s robust but often rudimentary search platform.
In short, Facebook’s Graph Search is just the latest milestone in an ongoing trend of the Web becoming more social. It’s the first true iteration of the social-search era that we at MediaWhiz colleagues previously predicted would come to fruition.
Let’s examine what the news means for the three parties most significantly impacted by the launch of Graph Search: marketers, brands and Facebook itself. (more…)
By Sultan Riaz | Marketing Coordinator
Over the holiday season I signed up to receive email newsletters and offers from several retail websites. Interestingly, when I received some of these emails for discounts, coupons or alerts for new items I was most likely to click on a link in the email and browse the retailer’s site. When comparing email to social media, TV or other forms of online media, the channel that most frequently grabbed my attention was email.
Not surprisingly, retailers agree that email marketing is one of the most powerful marketing tools that they have. Wait! Isn’t social media supposed to be the new medium that kills email while simultaneously generating sales? Not so, according to recent industry reports. Forrester tracked 77,000 sales during the recent holiday season and found out that only 1% of online sales came from social media sites like Facebook.
So please forgive me if I am not one who buys into the fact that in in the next two years 50% of retail sales will come from social media sites. (more…)
