Worth a Look

• This week we were reminded to choose our tweets with care. While many know employers and other entities can easily monitor Twitter, it may surprise some to see agencies acting on this information.  Surely, no one is more surprised than the man who was detained by Homeland Security for offensive tweets.
• Since Google+ started offering brand pages on their social network, small and medium businesses has been hesitant to join. This week the New York Times asks, Does Google+ Offer Businesses an Edge?Click the link for a great case study of a small company strategically using Circles and +1’s to leverage the unique strengths of Google+.
  

  Can Small and Medium Sized Business Get and Advantage with Google+?

• The “Mobile First” web design philosophy has been gaining momentum in recent years as more and more web traffic shifts to the mobile space. However this philosophy, which prioritizes the experience of mobile users, has led to the “web second” movement. Web second emphasizes the need to design non-mobile sites to take advantage of the capabilities of desktop browsing, instead of simply displaying a slightly modified mobile site to all users.

Trending Searches

Find out the search terms that have been trending on Google during the past week. Data was gathered using Google’s Insights for Search tool.

This week search traffic spiked with the announcement of this year’s Oscar nominees and tax season went into full swing with high amounts of “irs” related searches.

1. 1. oscar nominations 2012 (+1,200%)
2. 2. demi moore (+1,050%)
3. 3. irs refund (+250%)
4. 4. australian open (+100%)
5. 5. heidi klum (+100%)
6. 6. republican debate (+80%)
7. 7. super bowl 2012 (+80% )
8. 8. h&r block (+60%)
9. 9. irs (+60%)
10. 10. seal (+60%)

TNI Partner Spotlight

• We’re excited for the national exposure and attention that our partner Nawgan is receiving! Check out Nawgan in the Wall Street Journal.
• Non-profit partner Karla Smith Foundation was recently featured on the local news to tell their story and promote their upcoming Stigma and Suicide event. See their story on combatting mental illness stigma here.

Stay up to date on industry news and commentary, TNI happenings, and events with web experts. Sign up for The Impact Update today!

Image from: (CC) Magnet 4 Marketing dot Net/Flickr

New technology can’t replace the value of meeting face-to-face.

When making large capital purchases (particularly in the B2B space), businesses value meeting in person. Russell explained companies attend expos to answer two questions: “Are you for real?” and “Are you likeable?”

The modern Expo-Goer does his research.

Today, product information is readily available online through user reviews, case studies, and company blogs.  Tradeshow attendees come armed with facts and seek answers to very specific questions. Modern expo attendees are more selective and prepared, and therefore more qualified, than in the past.

Attendees feel safety in numbers, value limited interaction.

Technology has changed the modern tradeshow dynamic. Attendees react negatively to a hard-sell from the exhibitor. They prefer to limit interaction and find their information at the display or booth, usually via digital kiosks or demo stations.

Expo Industry revenues (purple), are expected to recover.

The Expo Economy is recovering.

The tradeshow business suffered from the recent recession like many other industries. However, attendance and revenue started bouncing back in late 2010, which can be seen in the data provided by Russell (above). Experts predict this industry to recover well in the coming years, possibly confirming Russell’s assertion that the expo industry will always be around, no matter how many times it is written off as “dead”.

Mobile sites and apps are crucial for event marketing.

While the event marketing business isn’t going away, it has needed to adapt to changing technologies and communication channels. Product and event content needs to be easily accessible on mobile devices, providing attendees with valuable company information from the expo floor.

Couldn’t make it to Las Vegas but want more information on Expo Economics and Online Event Integration?

Watch video of the entire TXCHANGE presentation here.

Let’s start this post with a minor clarification.  The relevance attribute or “rel” tag basically defines the relationship between the current document and a linked document.  For example, say I have two html pages, cookies.html and milk.html.  I decide to link the cookies.html page to the milk.html page, hence fulfilling the current document and linked document requirement.  When linking the cookies page to the milk page the code on the cookies page will traditionally look something like this in standard html:

<a href=/milk.html>Milk</a>

Milk is the word that displays to the web user.  Just as “href” is an attribute the same is true for the “rel” attribute.  Href tells “Milk” where to go when the user clicks on the link and Rel describes the relationship between milk and cookies, which we can all agree is pretty darn good.  With a “rel” tag, the same link may look like this:

<a rel=”friend” href=/milk.html>Milk</a>

This makes the assumption that Cookies and Milk are friends.  Why include a “rel” tag?  For one, it’s great for classifying content and styling links.  Search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo! will refer to rel tags to get more information about a link for search engine optimization or SEO.  Browsers support rel tags but do not use the attribute in any way.

Below is a list of different relevance tag values and what they do.  Each can impact SEO in its own way.

Almost twenty additional rel tag options exist, but the rel tags listed above will make the biggest impact on search engine optimization or SEO.

If you have more questions about relevance tags or search engine optimization, visit us at www.thenetimpact.com.

“Currently, Google Analytics does a great job analyzing past performance. Today we’re very excited to bring real time data to Google Analytics with the launch of Google Analytics Real-Time: a set of new reports that show what’s happening on your site as it happens,” says  John Jersin.  Google Analytics Blog

Let’s take a deeper look into the Real-Time tool.

Right Now

Right Now allows users to see the number of active visitors on site.  If there is more than one active user at a time, you can click on any of the active visitors to follow them.  At any time you can click out of following only that one visitor and view all visitors.  Right now also gives the user a closer look at who is a new visitor and who is a returning one.

Top Referrals

Top Referrals gives the user the opportunity to see where the visitor was browsing before they got to your page. Real-Time also enables user to click on the specific link to see the actual site.

Page Views

Real-Time allows the users to see the average time per minute and per second each visitor is on each page of the website.  This tool is a way to indicate whether a specific page has the information a visitor is looking for.  For example, if a visitor is on a page for a few seconds the page might not have appropriate content for that visitor but if the visitor is on a page for a few minutes then that would indicate it had the correct information they were looking to find.

Top Active Pages

Top active pages enables users to see what pages the active visitor is looking at, allowing the Real-Time user to follow the path they take throughout the website.  This can come in handy if the user wants to navigate the visitor to specific pages on the website.

Top Locations

Top Locations is an easy way to see where the visitors of the website are geographically located.

Google is not the first company to offer such data.  Woopra, Chartbeat and numerous other tools offer Real-Time but Google allows you to use it for free.

Real-Time is able to track the immediate impact to site traffic, making this great for social media.  For example, if a user posts a picture on their website and then tweets about it, Google Analytics Real-Time is able to track when traffic from the tweet stops driving visitors. The new version of Google Analytics was turned on for only a small number of people before to test it out in September of 2011. According to the Google Analytics blog, the full version of Google Analytics will be full force sometime January 2012.

Google Analytics provides tracking for anyone with a web presence, whether the user is an executive, marketing professional, content or a web developer.   It’s important for any person who has a website and wants it to succeed in the crazy world of the internet.  Google Analytics is a way to take control of your website and turn page views into profits.

Interested in Google Analytics? Contact The Net Impact.

Google plus is the latest social media innovation for staying connected. Currently Google plus has 40 million users. Users spend their time connecting in multiple ways; Circles, Hangouts and Games. Google plus makes it easy to share your thoughts, links and photos. Video chat (hangouts) presents the ability for members to interact directly with businesses and vice versa. Take a look at these important considerations when using Google plus for business.

Setting up your Google Plus Business page

When setting up your Google plus business page, Google allows users to choose an accessible Gmail account. Google plus doesn’t currently allow for multiple accounts so you want to be sure everyone who will be using the account and monitoring the page has access to the e-mail account.

When it is time to setup your business page, follow the Google page wizard (similar to the Facebook wizard). It will help when setting up your profile. After selecting a category for your business page, you will then need to fill out all of the other pertinent information about your business. Next, you can customize your public profile. Since the default setting is public, you want to keep the information concise and descriptive.

Google recommends optimizing your business page and sharing links before beginning the promotion process. To further optimize your page, continually interact with other members on Google plus and keep the information you share up to date.

Optimize Profile

When it comes to optimizing your profile, it’s important to share links, photos and other information whenever you can. Google plus is designed for photo and content sharing, but when it comes to sharing you will want to select photos that will ignite conversations and increase viral spread of your content. When promoting your Google plus business page, you will want to link it to other pages to increase your ranking. Two places you might want to promote your page would be on your website and on your company blog. Having links on your blog and website will help increase your ranking in the Google plus algorithm which will help grow your fan base. As with any form of promotion you want to ensure that what you are doing is providing results!

How Google Plus Changes Search

Google plus changes search by improving Google intelligence. Google will soon be able to understand trends and how people interact within their circles. Google will be able to adjust rankings to reflect individual searchers interests based off of their Google plus accounts. Google is taking its improved search results quality and decreasing the amount of spammers by monitoring the behavior on the Google plus pages. This is changing how you they build the traffic based on the +1 button location. For example, the +1 button reflects the page where it sits. If you create a paid search campaign that directs searchers to several different pages, each +1 vote will be broken down by each individual page address. Since each +1 vote will be broken down by each page address it will affect quality score. Which means, every time a page is moved or the address is changed the +1 count will reset.

When it comes to click-through-rates, the Google plus button lets searchers know when other searchers have found a page they have viewed helpful. People are more inclined to click on pages with “good” reviews rather than a page with no reviews.

Direct Connect

When using a search engine, Google has added a “+” feature to make it easier to search for specifics on Google plus. By adding a “+” in front of a search, searchers will be taken directly to the appropriate Google plus page. Add the direct connect code to your company’s website in order to prove you are the “official page”. This can be done by clicking “connect your website” under the “Get started” tab on your Google plus business page. Google plus direct connect is determined by a direct connect algorithm which is influenced by promotion of Google plus within your site.

Interested in learning more about Social Media Marketing? The Net Impact can help!

Google Plus brand pages seem to be relatively similar to Facebook pages.  They allow businesses to get involved with their customers and potential customers in a more organic and social online environment.  But really, what sets them apart from each other?

Facebook pages allow organizations, businesses, celebrities and others to broadcast information to people who choose to connect to them.  Page owners can add or develop apps to further engage their fans and reach out to new ones.  Facebook pages allow you to post events, links, news, pictures, videos and more, but can Google Plus brand pages provide a more effective marketing platform than Facebook?

Like Facebook pages, Google Plus brand pages allow organizations to engage their audience and keep users up-to-date on happenings within their company.  Google Plus brand pages also allow users to share media and increase opportunities for page views.  However, a recent article suggests that Google Plus brand pages offer better search opportunities, more customization and better analytics.  Mashable.com actually lists 4 reasons they think Google Plus brand pages will strongly challenge Facebook’s pages.

Google Plus brand pages give businesses and brands the opportunity to connect with customers and fans. Customers can +1 their favorite Pages, add those pages to their circles and even utilize face to face interaction with businesses via the Hangout feature.

Through Facebook, users have the ability to “like” a page, providing the user with page updates and announcements on his or her news feed. Facebook users also have the ability to use a video chat feature but they can only chat with their Facebook friends versus being able to chat with businesses as well, like users can do in Google Plus.

Google is a major search engine.  Today, more people use the Internet than ever before, but not everyone has Facebook.  According to an article from Mashable.com, Google CEO Larry Page said, “Google Plus already has 10 million users who share 1 billion items every day, and Google’s +1 button gets 2.3 billion hits per day.”  It seems more people may have a good reason to start using Google Plus to market to their social circles. For example, businesses may experience better brand visibility if they have a Google plus brand page.

Facebook has the highest number of users between Facebook and Google Plus.  Will Google ever be able to reach the same number of users as Facebook? If Google can’t reach Facebook’s numbers, without question, Facebook will continue to be at the top of the social media ladder.

Do you need help with Social Media Marketing?  The Net Impact can help you out!

 Worth a Look

• “Black Friday” may always be the largest shopping holiday of the year, but the channels in which consumers shop is ever-changing. IBM is reporting that this Black Friday, online sales were up 24.3% over last year. This surge in e-commerce activity was paralleled with a rise in mobile commerce, with mobile sales up 9.8% annually.
• Pinterest, the image bookmarking and display site has experienced enormous growth this year as a social network. This represents a great opportunity for businesses to create easily shareable content that will resonate in this growing network. To help ensure your image content is creating the desired conversions, Search Engine Journal has some SEO strategies for Pinterest.
  

  Are your images easy to "pin"?

• Of course, when speaking of holiday shopping and e-commerce it is impossible to ignore the “Cyber Monday” phenomenon. Last year online sales on the Monday following Thanksgiving reached over $1 billion in revenue. This week The New York Times covers Cyber Monday’s history and significance to e-commerce retailers. The ubiquity of Cyber Monday can be seen in the many deals today from TNI partners, including RideMakerz, Artistic Sensations, Jenny Present and Myself Belts.

Trending Searches

Find out the search terms that have been trending on Google during the past week. Data was gathered using Google’s Insights for Search tool.

Last week there was a major spike in search traffic regarding the holidays and more specifically, holiday shopping. ‘Tis the season!

1. 1. thanksgiving (+400%)
2. 2. turkey (+300%)
3. 3. black friday deals (+250%)
4. 4. black friday (+200%)
5. 5. thanksgiving 2011 (+200%)
6. 6. black friday 2011 (+160%)
7. 7. best buy (+100%)
8. 8. black friday ads (+60%)
9. 9. walmart (+60%)
10. 10. macys (+50%)

 TNI Partner Spotlight

• Congratulations to Jenny Present for being featured in People Magazine’s Holiday 2011 Gift Guide!
• See photos from non-profit partner Karla Smith Foundation’s 2011 Dinner Auction, which The Net Impact Team had the pleasure of attending!

Stay up to date on industry news and commentary, TNI happenings, and events with web experts. Sign up for The Impact Update today!

Keynote speaker, Valeria Maltoni (@ConversationAge)

Social Media consulting and advocacy group Social IRL (Social: In Real Life) recently hosted an all day workshop in St. Louis on social media strategies, tools, and tactics. Pat Niday from The Net Impact marketing team attended the event along with many other social media strategists from businesses and agencies in the St. Louis community.

The keynote speaker for the event was Valeria Maltoni, social media consultant and author of the popular Conversation Agent blog. Valeria’s presentation focused on the role social media plays in a complete marketing strategy instead of simply what to do with social media accounts.

Attendees were encouraged to “do more of the things they are good at” by analyzing all the assets a company has and trading on the strongest assets in social media.  Valeria insisted that in social media promises are traded, so make sure the promise is “pretty amazing”. Overall, the presentation demonstrated social media as a way to augment a strategic marketing plan and engage with consumers in an immediate and intimate way.

After Valeria’s strategy-focused presentation in the morning, the afternoon was filled with several presentations designed to show great social media tactics, tools, and applications.

First was a presentation by Haley Spoeneman and Maeve Connor of 4ORCE Digital. They demonstrated a great case study for Save-a-lot Grocery Stores covering the integration of social media with other traditional marketing tactics like discounting. Using $5 coupon that required a “like” on Facebook, 4ORCE was able to grow Save-a-lot’s reach and engagement with its fans greatly.

Next was Jim Rudden of Spredfast, a social CRM service. Jim discussed integrating social media into the traditional sales pipeline and inbound marketing strategy. He also highlighted the advantages of using your subject matter experts in the company to generate content. Engineers want to hear from the engineering team, not the marketing team. As Jim said, social media should be part of the rhythm of the company.

Craig Moore and Jeff Schultz from Armstrong Teasdale LLP offered a fascinating look at the legal ramifications of social media, including employee/employer conflicts, content ownership, and trade secrets. One particular point of interest was the varying terms of service for Facebook, Twitter, and WordPress; reminding social media account managers to always be careful of the content posted.

Jake of @JakesJournal, a Twitter account born in the back of a van during the Tour de France

The final presentation of the day included Justin Meyer of the Kansas City International Airport and Jake Jacobson of Garmin. Both showed how in their respective organization being timely and honest with social media helped generate consumer goodwill and engagement. A quick and personal response is a great way to create a brand evangelist.

Overall, the Social IRL workshop was a great opportunity to discuss and analyze social media strategy with other members of the St. Louis community. The Net Impact looks forward to future Social IRL events in the future.

Don’t miss out on The Net Impact events, announcements, and analysis. Sign up for the Impact Update today!

It’s important to know what local search can do for your business. Local search allows users to submit their geographical location and business information via search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, and Bing.

Typical local search listings not only include contact information for the business but also give the exact geographic location, show photos or videos uploaded by the business, and link to company websites for that business.

Directories to keep in mind when adding a business to local search engines include Bing Local Listings, Biz Journal, Google Places, Yahoo Local and Yellow Pages, just to name a few. Some directory websites also gather information from huge data warehouses like Localeze, INFOUSA, and Acxiom.

When adding your business to local search directories consider the following tips:

Sign Up

When creating user accounts, use the same user name, password and e-mail address for each of these listings. It makes it easier to update the listings should the company phone number, website or address change.

Business Information

Make sure you aren’t over sharing information about your business, just enough to make users want to learn more and to provide them with the information they want. Typically searchers want to see a company or business name, the address and a phone number. The company website is also a key piece of information to share.

Images

Use fitting images. Your company logo and a picture outside of the building are appropriate images. Too many irrelevant pictures may lead to your business looking unprofessional.

Keywords

Keywords make all the difference when users search for businesses. The keywords you use in directories should be relevant and align with your SEO keyword strategy. Think like a searcher. If you were searching for your business, what words would you use? This simple tactic plays a huge role in helping customers easily find your company online.

Links

It’s important to have a direct link to your company website. Encourage viewers to discover more about your company with a localized landing page.

If you follow these general tips, it will get you on the path to get your business noticed.

For more information on Local Search Optimization, check out this TNI Podcast about local search optimization and geo-targeted campaigns.

Contact The Net Impact

Fascinated about local, mobile and social SEO strategies?
Website: www.thenetimpact.com

Watch the full podcast:

Get more information on local search marketing.

Video Transcription:

Sammi:  So it definitely seems like businesses should take advantage of search engines to get the word out about their business. I really appreciate you coming in and talking with me. We are nearing the end of our time. So for anyone who is listening, for more information, please visit The Net Impact website at www.thenetimpact.com.