Even though Google has launched a smartphone bot to improve mobile search results and the user experience on smartphones, it doesn’t mean that everything in mobile SEO has changed. Google is still detecting what handset users are searching from, and adapting the results that they send based on the handset; some phones are set up to pull from the desktop index using mobile indicators and phone-specific ranking factors. Other phones will trigger the mobile-only index that has been in play for a long time, serving mostly feature phones, older HTC and Windows Mobile phones and BlackBerrys. (via When & How Is The New Smartphone Bot Affecting Search Results?)
Source: searchengineland.com
Google rolled out Google Local on Wednesday morning, the company’s revamped take on Places and location-based information. The launch teaches the old Places a few new tricks, including adding Google Local pages across other Google verticals like Maps, Search and Mobile. (via Google Local: The Search Giant’s More Social Answer to Places - Mike Isaac - Social - AllThingsD)
Source: allthingsd.com
Third-party apps like HootSuite just got a little less relevant with an update from Facebook that lets Page admins schedule posts. A new help center page from Facebook also outlines how brand pages can now dole out specific duties to multiple page admins, each with varying degrees of permissions. (via Facebook Finally Lets Page Admins Schedule Posts, Have Different Roles)
Source: Mashable
Cohen take on the Facebook (FB) IPO: “I’ve never in 43 years seen something so bollocksed up.”
(via Morgan Stanley CEO: No apologies on Facebook IPO - May. 31, 2012)
Source: CNN
Don’t remove all those LinkedIn clichés just yet
After LinkedIn announced this year’s lists of the most overused words in its profiles yesterday morning, an array of people pulled theirs up to see whether they flaunted their “creative,” “effective” “track records” a bit too much.
A few tweeted that they had none of the 10 worn-out words in their LinkedIn profiles. Many others, including LinkedIn’s (LNKD) co-founder, couldn’t say their profiles were clear of clichéd terms.
“Creative” was the most overused term in the United States, Australia, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, and the U.K., while in Singapore, professionals lean on “track record.” LinkedIn users in India are partial to the word “effective.” The U.S. list, drawn from the career site’s 135 million public profiles, also included shopworn phrases like “extensive experience” and “problem solving.”
While the survey may nudge some job seekers, consultants, and others to revise their profiles, before you eliminate all 10 words, it’s fair to consider whether any of them are going to be used by hiring managers or recruiters who may type these same words in LinkedIn searches when they’re looking for candidates.
This Is Why You Were Friended or Unfriended [STUDY]
While some Internet interactions are online-only relationships, the most common reason we add friends on Facebook is because we know people in real life.
According to recent research from NM Incite, for 82% of Facebook users, knowing someone offline is reason to add them on the social network. The next most common reason for adding a friend is having many mutual friends, a practice reported by 60% of users.
The remaining reasons for adding friends include superficial aspects of your Facebook profile such as physical attractiveness and friend count — which is not surprising considering many users make their posts and comments visible to only their Friends. You can see the complete results of the study in the graphic below.
Time Spent Streaming Outpacing Number of Streamers
In the U.S., the amount of time spent streaming videos online is growing at a much faster rate than the number of video viewers, according to Nielsen. Over the last three years, time spent watching video from home and work computers has more than doubled while the number of unique viewers increased 26 percent over the same period.
“The greater increase in time spent viewing compared to the number of unique viewers is likely due to an increase in the amount of video content available for viewers to watch, especially long-form content like movies and TV shows on sites like Netflix and Hulu,” said Jo Holz, SVP, Client Research Initiatives, Nielsen.
Holiday E-commerce: Make online shopping a rewarding experience for customers
Tip #1: Let customers see the value of buying from you
Despite a wealth of available information on how to do things a little “bigger and better” this holiday season, it’s also good to remember that your deals need to cater to the customer, first, foremost and always.
Embrace potential customers by making your e-commerce a positive part of their holiday season, and not a reason they wished the yuletide was over. This can be done by creating a seamless, efficient shopping experience that builds upon your company’s (hopefully positive) year-round reputation, while extending a clear, powerful value proposition.
As always, your value proposition needs to succinctly tell the customer why they should buy from you, rather than your competitors. A throng of sites will be offering the latest dancing Muppet doll, so how do you make your company the one from which customers choose to buy? By delivering value others can’t, or won’t.
Whether this value comes through a wholly unique product offering, or testimonials that speak to the strength and validity of your brand, a value proposition is a key element of holiday marketing success.
Source: sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com
Marketing Wisdom: Your peers share the surprising foundation that shaped their marketing efforts for 2011
One of my biggest lessons this year has been that social media engagement and success is much more about the conversations you begin and not the messages you push out. When we first implemented social and blogging last fall, we saw it as a way to replicate content in a number of areas, and I think we believed the rest would follow. What I learned [is that] the rest doesn’t follow until you engage in a conversation and provide true value. Not just message blasting to your audience.
As we learned more, we began continuing the conversations started out there with social and have seen tremendous results. Here are just a few examples:
- Clout and mentions have increased steadily as we have seen engagement spike.
- More customers are actively engaged than before.
- We are able to diffuse any negative comments or service issues with quick response.
- Sales and inbound leads have nearly doubled during this same time period.
Results speak volumes, but the conversations we have had over the past year resonate so much more.
- Carissa Newton, Delivra
Source: sherpablog.marketingsherpa.com
Northwestern addresses big data skills gap with analytics degree
Northwestern University is doing its bit to feed the need for analytics skills in this era of big data.
The university’s McCormick School of Engineering this week launched a newMasters of Science degree in analytics and is accepting applications for the inaugural class to kick off next September. Included in the curriculum will be coursework on big data analytics.
The impetus ia an overwhelming demand for analytics expertise spurred by the surge of big data applications, as more businesses need to glean information about their customers from social media sites and other data sources. Expertise in the Hadoop big-data framework, for example, is in huge demand and has become nearly prohibitively expensive for many companies.
Source: gigaom.com
