Foursquare sounds like fun. We’ve said it before: as a location-based social networking platform, it is able to engage mobile users to explore neighborhoods, do “check-ins”, find friends, play social city games, unlock cool badges, win “Mayorships”, and earn points and rewards. And thanks to its innovative social mechanics, Foursquare is making city after city a social media playground. Let’s admit it, though. Foursquare doesn’t sound business-y. It doesn’t exactly have the feel of a traditional corporate strategy – and if you had to present this in the boardroom to your marketing director or CEO, you might be disposed to think you’re speaking in a language that they can’t understand. Here’s some good news. Foursquare – if leveraged properly – is as viable a marketing tool as any, perfect for boosting your business. Foursquare users check-in at all kinds of places – cafes, bars, shops, malls, hotels, restaurants, parks, homes, offices, recreational areas, day spa, and events, among many others. – Read the full article
The online advertising arena is just about to get a lot more interesting. In an announcement made Thursday on the Inside AdWords blog, Google says it is launching a new type of online advertising that will appear in its search results – called Product Listing Ads. States Dan Friedman, Google spokesperson: “We wanted to introduce a basic ad format that makes it easy for (advertisers) to promote (their) entire product inventory while still providing potential customers with high-quality, relevant results.” While Google’s text-only search ads – AdWords – have served as its bread and butter for awhile now, Product Listing Ads work slightly differently. First, they’re a lot more visual: advertisers can now list specific products with accompanying images/pictures, instead of just lines of text (“Sponsored Links”) that are placed next to the search results that are based on the keywords that people enter into their search queries. According to Google, people are twice as likely to click on these – Read the full article
If only we can search for restaurants, takeout menus, and food deliveries in the same easy, convenient, hassle-free way we can search for pretty much anything else on Google… Wait. Hold that thought. Because there is actually a way to do just that. Or ways, rather. Plural form. Search engines for restaurants? It is no longer just a possibility. It’s now a reality. It’s a pretty convenient reality, too. If you’re a customer, you’ll no longer have to keep calling the same old pizza place every Friday night. No more queuing up for half an hour at your favorite café, and no more getting frustrated by botched phone orders. Just click and eat. If you’re a restaurant, café, bakery, fast food company, florist, or caterer, then you’ll have a chance – unlike any other you’ve had – to leverage the Internet and tap into a new audience: people who stay in and look at your menu – not from the – Read the full article
Instant just got mobile. It was only last September that Google introduced Google Instant, a search enhancement that allowed users to view search engine results as they typed. Promising better, faster results, Google Instant also saved a lot of typing and time – about 2 to 5 seconds per search, according to the company. As covered by our very own Brandon Zeman, as well as of guest writer Phyllis Roe, the new feature introduces new implications on SEO and gives rising importance to efficiency in search. Two months later? Google has taken Instant search to mobile platforms. In an announcement made Thursday on the Google Mobile blog, Google is rolling out the beta release of the search service for mobile phones, particularly the iPhone and Android-powered devices. According to the company, Google Instant on mobile is tied to a new implementation of AJAX and HTML5, which thus allows dynamic page updates and eliminates the need to load a new webpage – Read the full article
Writing content for your website, company blog, and social media networks? Unleash your inner comic. If you don’t have one, hire a writer who has one. That’s because a great sense of humor will go far in helping you get noticed on the Web. Sure, your brand may be as serious as serious can get. Maybe you’re in the business of selling insurance, or dental services, or something of the sort that makes you sit straight up in boardroom meetings, wear a crisp suit to work every day, and conclude that funny does not bode well for the bottom line. But in the age of the Internet, in the vast and competitive landscape known as social media, it’s probably a good idea to take a cue from those who can make people laugh. Why? Because humor lengthens the attention span: Thanks in part to Twitter and to our link-clicking habits, Web content has been reduced to a matter of 140-character – Read the full article
If you’re thinking of starting your online business, then you’re part of a race where millions are striving for successful brand recognition on the Web. To win, you have to build an online brand that stands out in the competition – a brand that has a unique, likeable personality. Online brand building means thinking of ways you can make your Web identity more accessible to your potential customers, all while boosting your sales and building a reputation that engenders trust and credibility. Let me first raise some of the aspects of brand-building across the Internet: Quality Creatively built web identity Customer service Promotion and marketing Consistency Quality of products or services is your niche and is arguably most important. It’s better to have a single product that does well rather than having a hundred that perform really badly. Your product should be more innovative and superior than what the next guy has to offer. To make a product with distinction, – Read the full article
Twitter and Facebook: yes, sure, everyone’s heard of these social media giants. But there’s another name that’s slowly but steadily catching the attention of media companies, businesses, and celebrities – and one which you, as an Internet marketer, business owner, or startup, might want to check out for yourself. It’s called Tumblr. Tumblr has actually been around for awhile – it was launched nearly four years ago – but it’s only now that the potential of this easy blogging service is being recognized and realized by the world of social media users. In a nutshell, Tumblr is a platform for blogging, much like WordPress, Blogger, Movable Type, and Posterous, but what makes it different from these other platforms is its ability to “socialize” its service. Tumblr isn’t just for strictly “writerly” bloggers or Dear Diary writers; it’s for anyone who wants to share anything, from text passages, quotes, photos, links, music videos, etc. at the click of a button. In – Read the full article
Link building is currently one of the most important methods used in search engine optimization (SEO). Websites receive high popularity ratings due to the use of search engines with relevance as a basis for measurement. As a result of this link building, a website receives quality traffic taken from relevant sites, thus making it a valuable resource. Credibility, visibility, and awareness are established and a website receives a wide search engine exposure as long as the strategy focus is with link building. The three ways in link building include a complete link, one-way linking, or reciprocal link structure. The first method is the most favorable strategy because it gets links for your site and directs those that do not require a reciprocal relationship. There is a possibility, however, that this link building method will only feature sites that are relevant to their content. This means that the link should have the same theme for search engine optimization. With the one-way – Read the full article
