Happy New Year! Another year has passed and a lot has happened. We hope that the last year was an awesome one and that the next has some other amazing things in store for you. Through it all, we’re glad that you stuck with us.
What better way to kick off the New Year than to read up on all that is happening on the internet? As the cold winds of winter become a little more ruthless, it’s time to curl up with a great cup of coffee and read up on the gossip around the internet. This week’s round up brings to us some dark news for Snapchat as Google makes a few moves on the chessboard.
align=”center”>NEWS
Snapchat Under Fire As Hackers Leak User Info
Things took a dark turn at the very beginning of the year for Snapchat as computer hackers posted the usernames and partial contact information of 4.6 million users of Snapchat. A website named SnapchatDB.info made this user information available for download but was shut down later on Jan 2nd. The website claimed that the information was put up there in an effort to notify Snapchat of its weak security and to convince them to take better measures. Read more on Reuters.
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Mashable’s 2014 Predictions
No point in acting surprised. We all knew it was coming and we’re glad it did. When Mashable makes a prediction, we listen. Mashable just released a list of 7 predictions for the New Year. According to them the New Year will be the year of the high tech homes as smartphone and tablet usage increases. Privacy concerns will meet the wrath of the people. With security concerns still unresolved in 2013, backlash from the people is expected. Advertising will find newer ways to reach customers and the cloud will become a little more relevant. Read more at Mashable.
Bump and Flock dropped by Google
Bump and Flock, the file sharing applications which were adopted by Google have been abandoned yet again. Both will be removed from the App store and Google play by the end of January due to the lack of monetization success. Additionally, the two apps might be integrated with Google+ to create a strong contender for the competition against Dropbox and Facebook’s photo sharing. Looks like Google won’t accept anything less than perfect no matter how whimsical their names are. Read more at TechCrunch.
align=”center”>TIPS & TRICKS
Pinterest is Popular with the Ladies
The surge in Pinterest users just in the last year was astonishing and the demographics that follow it are even more so. Their popularity has increased by 15% in one year and there are no signs of stopping. In a research study by Pew Research, it was found that 1/3 women in the USA use Pinterest. This information is highly valuable to advertisers who are looking to start targeted marketing campaigns. Read more at Mashable.
Twitter Advertising Tips
Kristi Hines of Social media examiner sheds some much needed light on the way twitter advertising can be used most effectively in order to increase leads and sales. She suggests the use of promoted tweets in order to deliver a specific message and promoted accounts for increased followers. Lastly she suggests the use of lead generation cards for increased leads. Read more at Social Media Examiner.
SEO Suggestions for 2014
Tom Schmitz of Search Engine Land not only asked the SEO questions that everyone was afraid to for 2014 but also answered them. SEOs are always on edge when it comes to Google’s algorithm. According to him, Google will continue to be aggressive towards penalties and link analysis will get better at discerning quality. He suggested that SEOs stay away from purchasing links and to focus more on building more valuable links. Read more at Search Engine Land.
Meatspace: The Frankenstein of Apps
Meatspace is the new thing that the crazy kids are up to these days. This addictive new application seems to have taken a little bit out of everyone to create a hybrid that is part twitter, part Snapchat and part Tumblr. This ephemeral app lets you share gifs with 250 character descriptions. You simply pose for a picture and it creates a 2 second loop which is shown over and over again. It is yet to be seen whether the idea is a complete disaster or simply the smartest thing that has been done with social sharing. Read more on TechCrunch.
Using the Ved Code
As Google is withholding search terms in referrer headers, lesser information is reaching SEOs. Tim Resnik however spotted some patterns within the Ved code which contains patterns indicating important information that was used when the user clicked the link in the search results page. These codes are fairly easy to decrypt. In fact, Google itself has released open source compilers which can be used to decrypt the ved code itself. Read more at Moz.
Moz’s 2013 Roundup: Nostalgia for Breakfast
Just like all the other members of the internet, Moz has released a roundup of its most popular posts in the year 2013. We love roundups because not only do they let us take a walk down memory lane but also show us how far we’ve come in only one year. The top posts of the site included “10 Tools for Creating Infographics and Visualizations, A Visual Guide to Keyword Targeting and On-Page Optimization, and The Web Developer’s SEO Cheat Sheet 2.0”. Take a look at the rest of the list at Moz.
The Best Social Media marketing Articles of 2013
Social Media Examiner just brought us a veritable gold mine when it comes to social media marketing. With the internet throwing all kinds of information at us from all directions it becomes a little difficult to sift the good from the bad. Lucky for us, someone else already did the hard work. Social Media Examiner compiled a list of the best Social Media Marketing articles of 2013 starting with Barry Feldmans “Enlarge Your Digital Footprint for More Effective Online Marketing”. Other notable contenders for the top spot included Rand Fishkin’s “A Visual Guide to Keyword Targeting and On-Page Optimization” and Pam Moore’s “13 Characteristics of Human Brands.” This is one to bookmark.
Beyond the Publish Button
So you’ve worked on your blog, honed it, and made it absolutely perfect and sent it off into the wild world of the internet. What now? Problogger however tells us that hitting the publish button is only the beginning of the story. This is when you start promoting the post that you’ve written. Simply writing a post does not mean that people will know about its existence and start reading it. Some suggestions are to keep updating a topic and republishing, writing a sequel, or compiling multiple posts into an eBook. Read more of these suggestions at Problogger.
The SEO Swiss Knife for 2014
As the New Year begins its best to stay prepared when it comes to SEO because you never know what might be up Google’s sleeve next. While the tools that you would use for SEO depend entirely upon your objective, there are some that are definite winners. Eric Covino lists some of his favorites over at SEOBook. The list includes Ahrefs, Buzzstream, the Citation Labs Suite and Authority Labs. Look at some more of these over at SEOBook.
B2B & Baidu
Baidu has about 64% of China’s search engine market share. This has made it a very powerful tool for B2B marketers not only in China but also around the world. The manner in which content can be optimized for Baidu is a little different from conventional search engines. With stricter penalization on duplicate content and the use of Meta descriptions as ranking factors, Baidu marketing needs to be understood by B2B marketers. Read more at Search Engine Land.
align=”center”>INFOGRAPHICS
Declined Growth Rate for Christmas Applications
The importance of Christmas cannot be understood more by anyone other than marketers. While downloads in applications increases on Christmas for smartphones, this year showed that the Christmas spirit was a little lower than usual. Although there was an 11% increase in downloads from 2012, it was noted that the growth rate had decreased. This can be attributed to the shift in the demographics of mobile phone users and the fact that not everyone around the world celebrates Christmas. Read more at Mashable.
The Best PR Presentations of the Year 2013
There have been quite a few ups and downs in the year 2013 but we must focus only on the highlights. Lee Odden over at Top Rank Blog compiled a list of the best Public relations Presentations that have been held so far. According to him the best ones included the “How to Scale Creative Content Marketing” in New York, “Digital Convergence: Integrated Marketing & Public Relations” in Portland and “Future of SEO in a Social Content World” in Madrid. Read more about them over at Top Rank Blog.
Pinterest and LinkedIn become more popular than Twitter
It seems that Twitter has been lagging a little behind in the race. While once it was only second to Facebook, the arrival of a few new players has left it a few steps behind. The results of the study by Pew research show that Pinterest and LinkedIn have surpassed twitter in the rankings. Pinterest showed a 15% increase in usage since last year while LinkedIn usage increased by 22% whereas twitter increased by 18%. The study also revealed that almost 36% of registered twitter users don’t use the social media platform. Read more at Reuters.
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