Having begun my first week at IMI as the Director of Social Media, I am looking forward to stepping in and continuing to grow and further develop the social media department.  With a background in marketing and experience on the client side of Internet marketing technologies, I am eager to bring my brand perspective to the fast-paced agency world.  I started in the social media realm in 2007 at Upper Deck, a prominent sports and entertainment company, where I built social channels from the ground up and worked to integrate them into existing marketing plans.  In 2010, I joined the hospitality and travel industry, managing online marketing and social media efforts at La Costa Resort and Spa in Carlsbad, CA.  In January of 2011, I ventured out and started my own social media consulting business, working with a wide array of clients from the medicine field, technology, real estate and non-profit organizations to help businesses leverage the power of social media.

Now, as a part of Internet Marketing Inc., I am excited to bring my unique background to the team, to work with clients to catapult their business into social success through various social media channels.  By auditing a business initially to get a detailed feel for the company culture and existing marketing plans, our social media team then formulates a strategic plan with recommendations on which social channels make sense for each client.

When part of a strategic marketing plan, social media has the power to transform businesses, personifying the brand and cultivating brand advocates that ultimately lead to increased ROI.

Through polished, professional social pages, real-world events, and a strategic backbone to hold it all together, social media has the power to change the way people communicate about your brand.  People are talking about your business — it’s time to join in the conversation!   Click here to request a free consultation and to speak with someone from our social media team.

Ever since Google+ released in late June, the amount of new users has been on an exponential uphill rise. With that kind of competition now in place, it’s no wonder Facebook had to do something to maintain their ‘top dog’ spot in the social media world.

One clear distinction between the two networking sites was how each managed to segment ones friends. Google+ allows the user to segment people into what they named, “Circles.” The user can create circles of relationships ranging from friends, family, or acquaintances. It was finally possible to share those “girls’ night out” pictures selectively, with whom you wanted to share them with, rather than your 500+ network of friends.  This new segmentation option posed as a definite pro to joining Google+, and therefore resulted in tens of millions of new users.

Facebook saw this as a clear advantage Google+ had on them, therefore they had to keep the ball rolling with its latest update, Smart Lists. Unlike Google+ Circles, Smart Lists will automatically segment your friends into three groups:

• Friends you attended school with
• Friends who live <50 miles from you
• Friends you work with

If these automated lists still aren’t privacy-effective enough, Facebook is promoting a feature that allows one to manually segment friends into the following three groups:

• Close Friends – People you want to hear from often
• Acquaintances – People you do not want featured prominently in your News Feed
• Restricted – People who you do not want to share information with

With these new Smart Lists in place, Facebook users can now easily share the content they want to share with a specified list of friends by using a filter on their news feed. So when comparing the new features of Smart Lists, Friends Lists, and updated privacy settings on Facebook versus Circles on Google+, who do you see as the social media networking leader?

You can now start a Google+ hangout directly from your favorite YouTube videos, according to the Official Google Blog. Upon clicking the share button underneath each video, you’ll find a link that reads, “Start a Google+ Hangout.” This will open up a new browser in seconds that allows you to add your Google+ Circles that you’d like to share the video with in a hangout. Once you’ve chosen whom you’d like to share the video with, click the “Hangout” button and begin your live video-chat.

According to Senior Vice President, Engineering, Vic Gundotra, “With Google+ we wanted to make on-screen gatherings fun, fluid and serendipitous, so we created Hangouts. By combining the casual meet up with live multi-person video, Hangouts lets you stop by when you’re free, and spend time with your Circles. Face-to-face-to-face.” Just like how someone walks into a pub to hang out with friends, you now have the option to do so right from your home computer:

So how does this benefit us as marketers? YouTube viewing and sharing has been on an uphill rise in the recent years. This was first noted in 2007 by the Pew Internet & American Life Project when they reported, “more than half of online video viewers (57%) share links to the video they find with others, and three in four (75%) say they receive links to watch video that others have sent to them.”

If so many people are sharing videos by sending each other links, why not just watch the video together in a Google+ Hangout? This is definitely a significant development in the Google+ Project.

In a new study conducted by Slingshot SEO, the values of the top spots in organic Google rankings have changed with the number one position at about half of its previous worth.  Using various tools including Authority Labs and Google applications, Slingshot SEO gathered data from more than 170,000 user visits and 324 keywords over the course of six months.

The results show very similar overall outcomes to previous studies yet it reveals different numerical values.  The study concludes that the top Google search result gets 18.2% of clicks, 10.1% for second, 7.2 for third and 4.8% for fourth.  Past studies like the one done by Optify in December last year have these numbers at higher values – the #1 spot is at 36.4%, #2 at 12.5, #3 at 9.5 and #4 at 8%.

The study didn’t stop at numbers.  Various explanations have been offered for this discrepancy including seasonality, Long-Tail terms, data sets and perceptions but the outcome doesn’t change.  Basically, get your site as close as possible to the top of the first page of results.  It has been emphasized that the two studies should not be labeled as denouncing one another but, in fact, complimenting each other do to different data pools.  The Slingshot SEO study has suggested, however, that positions 2, 3 and 4 are getting looked at more frequently. This is good news for businesses with keywords not ranking in the #1 position but close to it! We’ll be monitoring this ourselves as well. For more on this discussion visit: SearchEngineWatch

Google never stops expanding the web territory! Google has been shopping patents and businesses to enhance their social media and mobile applications. Your internet marketing experience will change greatly with their new quality services.

 According to the article, “Google Is Diversifying”, Google announced that they purchased several patents to improve search speed, Android or mobile applications, router, and software programming last Friday.

All of this actually came after July 1^st news when Google has lost the bid for over 6,000 Nortel patents to a consortium of investors. Those investors included Apple and Microsoft. Google didn’t expect that the consortium would intrude with $4.5 billion in cash when Google bade $900 million.

Just so you know, Google is not just buying patents. Google has bought at least 15 additional businesses so far this year. It seems like Google is investing heavily on social networking, mobile and localized search. Believe it or not, Google has already spent nearly $40 billion in cash.

These are the lists of patents and businesses Google has purchased this year. Most of the patents and business assist Google’s social networking services. With Google’s new technology, we can expect the further growth in Google+ as well as web services. If your business relies heavily on media commercialization, you probably want to watch out for Google’s further expansion.

Social Networking

The DealMap- Google just got The DealMap last week. The DealMap is a technology company that offers precise locations, coupons and great discounts on local basses.  These are already programmed in social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook. They can also easily viewed on cellphone as well. Google Maps has integrated with the great features of The DealMap. Google Offers and Google Wallet mobile application offer more precise locations with discounts and coupons. With this upgrade, Google can expand their field into Groupons, Living Social and other coupon services sites.

Pittsburgh Pattern Recognition (PittPatt)- Google recently bought a new facial recognition system. Pittpatt is most likely to be integrated into Google+, and it will be easy for users to upload and tag pictures.

Fridge- Fridge is an application that Google just added. Fridge allows users to create a group to share with friends and family and coordinate events, parties, receptions and many more!

PostRank –Google bought this system a while ago, back in June 11^th.  PostRank is a date service that measures “social engagement” through a proprietary ranking algorithm. This service is specifically for bloggers and online publishers. With services, bloggers and online publishers are able to track how the audiences share their content. This is a great software program to find likable audiences and expand your market.

fflick- Although Google has not yet announced how they will implement fflick into their service, Google will come with something awesome for sure. fflick is a social networking service that provides movie recommendations based upon users’ Twitter feeds.

Green Parrot Pictures – Green Parrot Pictures specializes in the manipulation of films and videos. Their application is used worldwide in many other film industries. Google bought Green Parrot Pictures earlier this year to improve the online video experience.

 Next New Networks- Next New Networks provides original entertainment programing online. Next New Networks gets the most views and already has 10 webby’s. This program is most likely to be implemented with YouTube.

Mobile Applications

 Punchd – Google purchased Punchd back in July. Punch is a smartphone-based llyalty card business and the geo-targeted deals to support Google Wallet.

TalkBin- Google bought this cool application in April, which allows your customers to send feedbacks, suggestions, and questions in real time and respond them right away.

SayNow- Saynow is an innovative mobile service that connect you with your favorite celebrities though voice messages or text messages. Google also purchased this patent last January.

PushLife- PushLife provides mobile wallpapers, music, videos, ring tones and other accessories on your mobile phone. Google also bought this patent though they have not announced how they implement their service yet.

Others

Sparkbuy- Sparkguy provides easy access and search to find electronic items. Google bought this service earlier this year to improve Google Product Search.

 BeatThatQuote.com- Google bought this patent for $61.5 million, hoping to expand Google Shopping search for personal finance industry – loans, insurance, legal services, utilities and other financial products.

AdMeld- Admeld provides real-time bidding and ad optimization platform. Google bought this patent in June as it helps publishers to negotiate the best prices from a variety of advertisement networks.

eBook Technologies – Google acquired eBook Technologies earlier this year to enhance hardware and software distribution of e-books.

SageTV-  With this service, Google users have options to create and control your media from multiple devices.

Zynamics- Google bought this security application that looks for mal-ware re-engineered code last March.

It will be exciting to see how the acquisition of all these services will be integrated with Google’s current offering.  I am all for it if it makes my web experience better!

Google studies have recently shown that 89% of incremental traffic comes from paid search ads, while the remaining 11% comes from organic search results. Organic search results are the sites that are “best recommended” by search engines like Google, while pay-per-click advertising allows anyone to place a bid on their ad to be placed next to the organic search results.

The research proved that by withholding search ads, also referred to as the “Search Ads Pause Studies”, the 89% of incremental traffic was not made up for by organic clicks when the Search Ads were put on pause.

It seems that Google’s bottom line in these studies is to ensure that spending money on Google ads is profitable. Others have been skeptical that the study does not provide an accurate account of organic click results in the absence of paid search ads.

Twitter has just announced that they have acquired Bagcheck, a new fun way to talk about and share what’s inside our “bags” with our Twitter followers. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed, but a warm welcome is put out to Sam Pullara to the Twitter engineering team! Mr. Pullara is the CTO and co-founder of Bagcheck.

Bagcheck is an innovative way to share and discover what’s inside your “bag.” Now you may be wondering what exactly characterizes a bag. In a broad sense, the startup refers to any sort of curated list or collection as a bag. As you can see to the right, people can post bags of backpacking essentials or coffee-making gear to what their favorite apps and accessories are.

The brains behind Bagcheck found their inspiration by simply wanting to expand their discussion of the products they love to use with the rest of the social networking world. It provides people with a place to share their “bags” of items they feel most passionate about with others who may share the same interests – whether it’s photography, cooking, computing, or sports.

Bagcheck still remains in service online for all those who already have accounts. Therefore, the content already created in current users bags will still remain with the same URLs. However, soon enough things may change so Bagcheck has made it quick and simple for current users to export your bags anywhere you like.  Your bags will be wrapped into a set of HTML and JSON files that you may then save or post to other social networking platforms.

On behalf of Bagcheck, they’d like to take the opportunity to show appreciation for all the people involved in creating bags and sharing their passions with others throughout the site thus far. They hope you’ll continue to do so. Happy Bagging!

Google is always taking steps to distance themselves from other competitors. Google Chrome was developed with the goal to outrank Internet Explorer as the leading web browser, but over time Internet Explorer has kept its popularity and its number one rank as the leading web browser. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer has been and continues to be to be a major benefit for Microsoft and an edge over Google.

Google’s use of Apple’s Safari, Firefox, and Google Chrome combined consists of approximately 48% of all web browser usage, while IE takes the remaining 52%. According to an updated report by Chitika, a company that provides data analysis, 75% of Bing’s traffic is a result from IE users, while only 40% of visitors to Google Search use IE.  Although Microsoft could use Internet Explorer as a weapon against Google, it would not prove beneficial considering they would lose that fraction of web surfers who visit and utilize Google Search. But if Microsoft did ever decided to lockout Google, it would definitely hurt Google a lot more than Microsoft.

People might think that Bing is doing so well because it’s the default search engine for Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, but that’s actually not the case. Computer manufacturers typically set up most default browsers themselves, based on who invests the most in buying default browser positioning. Google has been aggressive in this area up until around 2008 when Microsoft took over and led most of the remaining deals. But browser positioning is only one of Internet Explorers attributes. Internet Explorer’s popularity is not only credited to its easy use and brand name reputation, but its ability to remain the way users like it. If updating from Internet Explorer 8 to Internet Explorer 9, Microsoft not only provides the user with an improved browser, but also transfers over old settings from your previous browser. As Internet Explorer’s dominance continues, Microsoft will continue to hold bragging rights over Google in the web browser field.

While everyone has been impressed by Google+ and Google’s new facial recognition system, Microsoft also announced that Bing and Yahoo! decided to form a new search engine alliance in Europe. This transition was actually already made in countries such as the United States, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, New Zealand, Peru and Venezuela. From now and on, Yahoo! organic search results both on PC and mobile will powered by Bing in France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Spain, and the UK as well.

 
Why did Bing and Yahoo! form an alliance?

The answer is simple. Both Microsoft and Yahoo want to improve their search results and attract more users with rich information and options to accomplish their goals.  Just like AT&T bought T-Mobile earlier this year, it is important to expand the scale of search engine. The more people search on Bing or Yahoo!, the faster and more relevant their search results will be. With this transition, Yahoo! hopes to improve the overall relevancy of its organic search results and attract more of an audience. Meanwhile, Bing wants to corroborate their new investment in their search engine results. Bing recently worked with companies like Facebook, Nokia or RIM to adopt their technology for web search services. For Bing, this transition will be a great opportunity to measure how effective their new technology is.

How might this alliance affect paid advertisements?

 For now, Bing and Yahoo! alliance won’t be as influential as it could be on search advertisements. However, you want to be well prepared for this change if organic search results are the number one important source for your website. This alliance may have a great impact on SEO strategies.

 How should you be prepared for this change?

You need to make sure whether your website is properly referred and indexed by the Bing platform. In order to do so, webmasters should register your website and sitemap in the Bing Webmaster Tools. It will give you the free analytics and adopt the best way to be shared in search engine results.

What’s next?

As for the paid advertisements, both Microsoft and Yahoo! will keep focusing on meeting marketplace and product performance benchmarks. They have been working with independent agencies such as Efficient Frontier and Marin Software and making more efforts to provide international audience quality services. Although they are still testing, they will be able to come up with updated global rollout plans for Internet marketing. They are more committed to advertisers and partners ever before. They will assist them fully through innovative changes.

Google announced on July 26 that Panda 2.3 was officially up and running, as mentioned on Search Engine Land. Ever since the initial Panda update back in February, content Farmers that were gaining higher ranking through poor content have been fearful. Every one of Panda’s updates has filtered out more and more low-quality websites or “scraper” sites from Google’s list of high-ranking websites. Google’s new actions with Panda have caught the attention of everyday search engine companies since Google estimated that the new updates would cause 12% of queries to come back different.

Recently, Panda has been making major changes for Google users.  Prior to the Panda update 1.0, Google had frequently been changing its algorithm, but each change was not significant enough to be announced. But with Panda update 1.0, the change was not minor. Panda 1.0 impacted Google’s US search results by 12%, majorly dropping the rankings of numerous websites.

With the introduction of Panda 2.0, Google’s change impacted all English queries around the world, as well as all the US queries as before. Panda 2.0 also incorporated Google “blocking” data that resulted in a 2% change in search queries and search results.

In June Google released Panda 2.1, but did not release Panda 2.1’s percent of impact on queries since they admitted that it was not a major update or even close to having the same impact as Panda 2.0 did. Similarly when Panda 2.2 came out, Google proved to have only made a few additions, which as explained by Google’s Matt Cutts were, the improvement of scraper detection as well as making it clear that these updates were now being pushed out manually. Panda 2.3 continues the trend, showing multiple updates, including some new signals that further help to filter out lower- from higher-quality ranking sites on Google. Since the introduction of these multiple Panda updates, Google has been slowly paving a road for the most elite websites, helping them to gain rankings the right, natural way.