Happy Valentine’s Day everyone! While we love you every day of the year, we couldn’t resist the urge to confess our sentiments on this precious holiday! We sure hope you have some great plans for the evening because we have a date with a pepperoni pizza and that’s a tough one to beat. Google continues its love-hate relationship with webmasters and advertisers while Twitter has bought a new dress just for this occasion. All this and more in this week’s Friday catch-up… Lets dish!
NEWS
Google’s New Top Heavy Algorithm
Google absolutely loves to keep us on our toes. Every once in a while, when we think, that the routine cleaning has been done, Google announces the likes of the Top Heavy Algorithm which throws us off our game. The new algorithm was introduced in order to help maintain the quality of webpages keeping the end users in mind. Websites that are too top heavy with advertisements will now be lower in the rankings if deemed too distracting for the user. Read more at Search Engine Land.
Instagram Helps the Brands Out
Instagram just announced the release of an official handbook featuring 11 top brands which were able to achieve marketing success on the visual social network. With some beautiful pixel styling and pastel colors on the cover the book is meant to direct marketers on the ways in which they can use Instagram advertising effectively. Unfortunately, the book is only available to the lucky few who are already spending ad dollars on the site. Read more at Marketing Land.
Twitter Looks an Awful Lot like Facebook Today
Twitter is suddenly causing ripples in an already tumultuous pond by releasing a test redesign which is strikingly similar to Facebook. The new Tweet is stream will be drastically different from its previous look and is going to move away from the current vertical timeline. Along with this is the addition of a new category to the profile; videos and photos. This rollout which was in the testing phase for several weeks has just been launched for all users. Read more at Mashable.
TIPS & TRICKS
Facebook Games for Fan Engagement
As Facebook advertising goes mainstream and marketing methods become more common brands need to look for unconventional ways to stand apart from the crowd. One such way is that of adding games to the product page. This can be as simple as an engaging mini-competition such as ‘Fan Photo of the Week’ by selecting the winner yourself. Another twist on the same old idea can be that of having a showdown or a leader board. If you’ve got some developer skills you can always add a single player gaming app into your page or even share popular ones. Read more at Social Media Examiner.
Hashtags: The Newest Marketing Tool on the Block
Hashtags took over the internet like wildfire. Once exclusive to twitter, these trending indicators are now all over the internet and even have an annoying way of sneaking into real life conversations. This is because these seemingly innocuous little symbols hold some major power behind them which can be harnessed by advertisers if used wisely. According to Uri-Bar Joseph, these (#) can be used in order to increase engagement through links, initiate cross platform integration and create stories. Read more at Search Engine Watch and start tagging.
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The Ninjas Tackle On-Page SEO
Ann Smarty of Internet Marketing Ninjas tells us how to tackle On-page SEO and suggests some great tools to optimize it. her suggestions include page Comparison which helps compare up to 5 URLs, On-page SEO optimization Analysis Tool which analyses meta data and links on the page and the keyword Cloud Tool which can even help analyze Google SERPs. Read more here.
Facebook Contests by Retailers
As Facebook changes its policy for pages to run competitions on its timelines, marketers have come up with some smart ways of doing just that. Sig Euland brings us some of the best examples of Facebook competitions done right. Examples include Eggo which ran a recipe contest with a grand prize of $5,000, Qwerty which ran a design contest for a limited edition shirt and Dove’s real beauty campaign which asked people to share what ‘real beauty’ meant to them. Read more at Practical Ecommerce.
The Top 10 Pinterest Retailers in the UK
As Pinterest keeps growing at a fast pace, marketers have been looking for ways to stand out on the social media site. Luckily, there are some who can serve as some great examples for the kind of marketing that’s effective on Pinterest. Christopher Ratcliff finds us the best marketers on Pinterest in a list which includes Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda, Morrison and Marks & Spencer’s. Read the rest of the list at Econsultancy.
Achieving Big Online Success with a Small Business
It is very easy for small businesses to get lost in the social media jungle especially when you don’t know what you can do to help improve your ranking. Luckily Google is on the side of the Small business owner and has some great tools which can help in local marketing. Alecia Krush shares some great suggestions on how a local business can start marketing online with success. She suggests creating a Google + profile which can then be integrated with local listings. This has become crucial as Google integrates its services across platforms. Another suggestion is to sign up on local review sites and encouraging people to review your business and increase engagement. Online directories can also be highly effective ways of reaching your customers. Read more at Marketing Profs.
Staying Current with Sochi 2014
Real world events have a great influence on social media activity and currently the biggest thing happening are the Sochi Winter Olympics. Kaila Strong tells us how we can stay current on the situation right within the comfort of our own homes. She suggests checking schedules directly in the Google search results, engaging with official fan pages and Olympics pages on Facebook and twitter and downloading some of the most interesting apps of the season. Her suggestions include NBC Sports Live Extra, Sochi Winter games 2014 and 2014 Team USA Road to Sochi. Read more at Vertical Measures.
SEO for Ecommerce Sites
Marketplaces and Ecommerce sites have to face the most complicated SEO challenges on the internet. Unfortunately not too many survive because of the tricky situations they face. Luckily, Erin Galperin just released an SEO guide for Ecommerce sites to follow when doing SEO. She suggests shifting the focus from content to reviews when it comes to product pages and building manual links. She also suggests the creation of interesting content regarding the product such as tutorials and how-tos to generate interest. Read more at KissMetrics.
Using Storify to Create Narratives for B2B Marketing
A recent survey revealed that up to 93% of B2B marketers prefer content marketing but only half of them believe that their methods are effective. Mary Montserrat-Howlett suggests the use of Storify which is a content creation tool. The tool has social and blogging capabilities which allow the user to drag and drop elements from a variety of sources to help you create a story. Read more at Content Marketing Institute.
SES London: The Proceedings of the Event of the Year
The SES London Kicked off without a hitch on the 10th and the proceedings of the first day were initiated by discussing how brand can maintain currency through the use of twitter. B2Bs which need all the help they can get were discussed in terms on online content marketing and the technicalities of keyword mining for the creation of revenue opportunities were discussed. Read about Day 1 at White.
Day 2 started off on a different vein and discussed the topic which is on everyone’s minds today; mobile and tablet domination. This was followed by the methods used in order to reach users on multiple devices and the future of Google Graph. Read about Day 2 at State of Digital.
align=”center”>INFOGRAPHICS
The Google History of Algorithms
Someone has finally captured the rich and colorful history of Google’s algorithmic changes and updates in the form of an infographic and it’s just as confusing as we expected. Something that looks like t came straight from 2001: A Space odyssey, the infographic shows the up and downs faced by algorithms from 2003 to 2013. View the infographic at Hubspot.
The Social Media Cheat Sheet
Social Media can sure get confusing. This statement is especially true when you consider the influx of additional social media sits over the past few years challenging marketers every day. Luckily, we got our hands on a cheat sheet which tells us the approach to take when it comes to social media sites. The document by the Pink Group covers all the little details from the maximum video and image upload size to cover photo dimensions. Download your own file at The Pink Group.
Local Business Websites: the consumer Perspective
Most local businesses have set up websites even if they have the most rudimentary elements. Unfortunately, most of these local sites fail to see what their consumers are actually looking for on their site and end up providing no value to the user. A survey by Bright Local revealed that a clear and smart website was preferable with 36% of respondents leaning towards it in terms of credibility. In addition they were also of the view that products and prices were the primary factors that they gave importance to on a local website. Read some of the eye opening results over at Bright Local
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