Archive for the ‘Social Media Networking’ Category
Monday, June 7th, 2010
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A recent study by JiWire, a Wi-Fi provider and mobile ad server, found that most users of its public Wi-Fi services spent more than 30 minutes a day using smartphone apps. 63% of users frequently use apps that require them to give their location to serve specific content. A little more than half were willing to give their location just to receive more relevant advertisements.
Over a third of respondents were more likely to click on a mobile ad that was customized for their specific location. Almost half said that it would not make a difference. Overall, 76% of users preferred ad-supported free apps over paid ones. This presents a huge opportunity for businesses desiring to utilize location specific advertising, as more than one-half of mobile device users had clicked an in-app ad, went to the advertiser’s website, or made a purchase.
Millennial Media, a mobile advertising network, found through a recent study that smartphones account for almost one-half of mobile ad impressions in the US. Even though more subscribers have feature phones, these users have less interaction with advanced mobile content, and therefore only account for one-third of mobile ad views.
iPhones continue to dominate ad impressions within the smartphone category, followed by BlackBerrys and Androids. Androids have seen that largest increase in ad requests, rising 72% month over month. March was the first month the Android phone was one of the three top smartphone operating systems. Requests were up 20% from Apple phones and 25% from BlackBerrys.
On other mobile devices, such as iPads, iPod touches and connected video gaming devices, Millennial Media found that those devices took a significant share of impressions. iPad impressions climbed 713% during the first full week the device was available for purchase. Numbers will only climb as the iPad and similar mobile devices continue to proliferate.
While Apple’s tight hold on the smartphone market continues, the Android has gained significant ground because of its high customer satisfaction and loyalty. Indications that Android also represents a robust mobile app platform also point to a greater share of mobile ad impressions in the future.
Tags: android advertising, blackberry marketing, in-app advertising, in-application advertising, iphone advertising, location specific advertising, location specific content, region specific marketing, smartphone advertising
Posted in Internet Marketing News, Mobile Marketing, Social Media Networking | No Comments »
Monday, May 24th, 2010
In a recent survey by Omniture, marketers stated that marketing cost, order size, and conversion rate were most important in measuring marketing effectiveness. However, measuring visits, page views, and click-throughs were easier to accurately measure. Therefore, click-through continues to lead as the top metric used in measuring online marketing success.
Similar measurement problems existed in mobile, social, and video channels. Overall, 80% of respondents stated that it was important to measure ROI from online activities, but only 31% could effectively do so. Respondents indicated that having a talented staff with expertise was necessary to effectively measure marketing effectiveness. However, lack of budget is indicated as the top reason they lacked the talent they needed.
Tags: click-through measurement, conversion rate measurement, measuring online effectiveness, online advertising measurement, ROI measurement, social media advertising measurement, web analytics
Posted in Conversion Optimization, Internet Marketing Fundamentals, Internet Marketing News, Social Media Networking | No Comments »
Wednesday, May 19th, 2010
As the Internet has become a huge repository of entry-level job advertisements, recruiters have pulled back from on-campus job fairs and recruiting efforts. A recent study by Monster.com found that over 90% of companies utilize online advertising for job recruiting. About 25% are also using social media sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn to advertise entry-level openings.
Monster.com also found that college students and recent graduates sought out friends and family (78%) and online job boards (67%) the most for job opportunities. Social networking sites were only utilized by 38% of respondents. However, this shows a huge gain over last year’s survey, when social networking sites were utilized only 15% of the time by new graduates.
While social networking sites continue to proliferate in their uses, the line has become increasingly blurred between public and private content. 55% of college job seekers said they have tailored their online profiles to make them more appropriate for viewing by potential employers.
Tags: college jobs online, internet job posting, monster.com, onilne job posting, online Employment, online job seekers, online recruiting, social networking
Posted in Internet Marketing News, Marketing, Social Media Networking | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 3rd, 2010
Due to the current state of the economy, many companies are now turning to more affordable methods of advertising their services as well as making sales. Small businesses have turned to social media and internet advertising because it is a cheaper alternative to traditional marketing methods. According to “The State of Small Business Report” from Network Solutions and the Center for Excellence in Service at the University of Maryland School of Business, the use of social media by small businesses has significantly increased to 24%, from 12% the year before.
The report also mentioned the most popular reasons for engaging in social media use. The leading answer was to provide their company a presence online for both their workers and their consumers, where the second most common answer was to update their statuses regarding the company and their products/services.
Here is a graph that shows the rest of the motives for using social media for small businesses:
It was also found that many businesses feel that social media use was not fulfilling their expectations; rather, social media’s capabilities for staying engaged with consumers and collaborating with other businesses were more in line with businesses’ expectations.
Also according to the report regarding small business and their social media use:
• Most small businesses say they are just breaking even with their current usage of social media, but a solid one-fifth find it profitable already.
• Nearly one-half believe it will make them money in the next 12 months, and another 39% think they will break even on it.
• Just 9% think social marketing will continue to be a losing proposition.
• Overall, 58% of respondents felt social media lived up to their expectations.
• One-half felt it took up more time than they realized, but only 6% claimed negative comments on social media had hurt their business.
A final statement was added about the report from Janet Wagner, director of the Center for Excellence in Service, who made a comment about how social media was letting small businesses become more competitive with larger competitors, “Social media levels the playing field for small businesses by helping them deliver customer service time spent on Twitter, Facebook and blogs is an investment in making it easier for small businesses to compete.”
Information Provided By: eMarketer
Blog Post Written By: Kent Seiders
Tags: cheaper marketing methods, down economy marketing, online marketingt cheaper, san diego internet marketing, small business in down economy, small business marketing, small business marketing plans, small business online marketing
Posted in Social Media Networking | No Comments »
Wednesday, February 24th, 2010
San Diego State University’s Entrepreneurial Management Center presented an interactive seminar called “Social Media for Business” yesterday afternoon. This interactive seminar/workshop enabled the SDSU student population and all others interested in attending to discuss the opportunities for all businesses in social media with experts in social media, online marketing, the media and business.
The seminar was developed to show the importance of social media upon the marketing and branding of businesses everywhere.
Experts in the field running the seminar included:
• Kevin Popovic, founder of Ideahaus®, author of Satellite Marketing: Using Social Media to Sell
• Rodney Rumford, co-founder of TweetPhoto, founder of Gravity Summi
• Steve Kousky, technology correspondent, San Diego 6 TV
• Dexter Bustarde, senior web analyst, Digitaria
Each panelist had some great things to say about social media and its importance in the marketing arena for businesses of all shapes and sizes. These panelists also offered great examples of success stories using social media as well as those that were disasters. For example, they said if you wanted to see some successful social media campaigns currently being utilized, many of them said to check out the following companies: The Red Cross, Best Buy, Dell, Kodak, Cisco, The Susan G. Komen Foundation, Invisible Children, Intuit, and Intel.
There were many tips that they provided for those in attendance including:
• Identifying your target markets: demographics, psychographics, etc.
• Developing a strategy that pertains to your communications objectives and target market
• Developing Satellites: Integrating all forms of marketing to reach your “Prospects”
• Deploying those Satellites: Putting your integrated marketing plans into effect
• Measure and Mend: Measure your results and track your progress to learn from your mistakes and successes
• Take advantage of the free tools our there that are available
• Use social media to interact one-on-one with your consumers and help to improve your product/services by fixing what your consumers are telling you about what’s wrong
Overall, it was a successful seminar that gave a lot of good advice to those interested in social media for their current or prospective businesses!
Blog Post Written By: Kent Seiders
Tags: san diego internet marketing, san diego state marketing, san diego state university, san diego state university social media, SDSU Entrepreneurial Management Center, SDSU Social Media for Businesses, Social Media for Business, Social Media Seminar SDSU, Social Media tips, social media utilization, webitmd at san diego state university, webitmd sdsu
Posted in Social Media Networking | No Comments »
Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010
There is no doubt that social media utilization has become the most popular and highly adopted form of emerging media within today’s marketing strategies. Every company that has a presence online has been frantically trying to increase their company’s exposure by following outrageous numbers of users of Twitter, bombarding fan pages on Facebook, and are seeking the newest markets within other social media networks.
According to eMarketer senior analyst Debra Aho Williamson, the future of social media and its benefits are not only ever-changing but will play an entirely different role for companies who utilize them.
“Advertising—which some might say has already failed as a business model for social media companies—will not be the primary revenue driver,” said Ms. Williamson.
The better business model, other than utilizing social media, will lie in the mastery of analytics tools to track their conversion rates of visitors coming to websites. The use for social media in the future will not be for advertising specifically but rather for a plethora of other reasons including:
• Should be integrated within all marketing efforts
• Should be available for consumers to find out more information about your company, products, or services
And more importantly should be used for:
• Brand Monitoring
Social media will soon be the best way for companies to track and begin to understand the “why” of consumer chatter about them and their products/service as well as the “who”, “what”, and “when” of their customer base.
This statement was offered by Ravit Lichtenberg, founder and chief strategist, Ustrategy.com, in response to brand monitoring:
“Naturally occurring conversations will be utilized in product innovation and design, and companies will create incentives for people’s attention and engagement while repurposing and analyzing content and engagement in new ways that will deliver valuable input.”
In essence, social media and its use for companies will be ever-changing. However, the future use of social media will lie in helping companies get information about their consumers and hearing what they have to say about specific products or services to help them improve customer relationships.
Information Provided By: eMarketer
Blog Post Written By: Kent Seiders
Tags: changing role of social media, changing social media, future of social media, new trends in social media, san diego social media, social media advertising, social media marketing san diego, social media networking utilization, social media uses, webitmd social media
Posted in Social Media Networking | No Comments »
Wednesday, February 17th, 2010
Social media networking has now become a necessary tool for any companies marketing efforts. Rather than answering the question: Do we need social media?, companies are now asking themselves: How and where should we be using it?
It is common for companies to create social media accounts across all networks they are familiar with without an initial game plan. Instead of doing this, companies should be conducting research to find out what networks hit their target markets the best which in turn, will give them higher returns on their investments and ability to benefit their consumers within social media. A strategy needs to be developed rather than just putting your company on every social media network known to the marketers!
A strategy for social media is also necessary because users of these networking sites are assuming each company with a social media presence are savvy enough to not only effectively communicate, but are strategically seeking to improve their branding and marketing strategies over their main competitors.
Most companies limit their social media use to aid in their marketing and communications efforts. However, many companies have unique plans to use these social channels for their sales, customer service, and IT services! This will give those companies an edge over their competitors and can offer them very valuable information regarding customer feedback.
After all, according to Paul Verna of eMarketer, “A Facebook promotion is only as good as the information that it feeds back to the sales, CRM, marketing or senior management executives who can turn it into a business gain.”
Information Provided By: eMarketer
Blog Post Written By: Kent Seiders
Tags: customer feedback in social media, latest socila media strategies, new ways to use social media, social media benefits, social media strategy, strategies for social media, trends in social media
Posted in Social Media Networking | No Comments »
Thursday, February 11th, 2010
Happy Birthday Facebook! On February 4, 2010 Facebook officially turned 6 years old. Facebook is used world-wide and has become the platform for internet networking with over 400 million users and more than 900 employees.
Quick Facebook facts:
1. The average user spends about 55 minutes a day on Facebook- this is equal to over 8% of their day.
2. Facebook is now able to be viewed in 65 different languages.
3. 30% of Facebook users are from/in Europe.
4. Every day 35 million users update their status and 20 million become fans of pages. (There are 1.6 million fan pages, by the way).
5. Of the 1.6 million fan pages, 700,000 are local businesses.
6. 2.5 billion Photos are uploaded every month by users.
7. Each month 3.5 million events are created.
Did we mention that now users don’t have to wait until they get home to log onto Facebook? The Facebook mobile application is supported by three phones: Blackberry, iPhone, and the new Android. Facebook mobile has 100 million monthly users and is still growing.
Facebook is dominating the networking game on all levels; especially for marketers. People can directly advertise to their target market via Facebook using pay per click. You can use Facebook as a tool that will post your ad on the pages of those people you select to target- a marketers dream come true. No wonder Facebook is a billion dollar company.
WebitMD knows the value and importance of marketing via social networks like Facebook. It is crucial that businesses, especially local businesses, take advantage of getting their name out to members of their community and using Facebook pages to reach people is the fastest way. WebiMD specialized in social media marketing among the other services we offer.
Information provided by: mashable.com
Written by: Samantha J Stephan
Tags: facebook facts, facebook marketing, facebook social media, facebook social media marketing, social media 2009, social media facts, social media impact
Posted in About WebitMD - Internet Marketing San Diego, Internet Marketing Fundamentals, Marketing, Mobile Marketing, Social Media Networking, Web Development | No Comments »
Thursday, February 4th, 2010
Have you ever considered the effects of social media use your employees are engaging in during business hours? According to the “Social Networks vs. Management?” report from employment services firm Manpower, they claim that although social network networking sites can be utilized as an effective marketing tool for your business, it is just as big of a liability.
Lower productivity, security problems, and reputation issues are huge threats to the success of any company and these happen to be the end result of increased social media networking performed by employees during and after business hours.
The graph below demonstrates how many companies have a formal policy for employee use of external social networking sites worldwide. Only one-fifth of the companies that were surveyed in Manpower’s report even have a policy that concerns social media use. It seems that the U.S. and the Asia-Pacific business worlds are leading the pack with setting policies about social media use during business hours.
Among the companies that did have one of these policies, around 63% of them claimed that it was pretty effective in fighting off the lost productivity social media use encourages.
The loss of productivity in the workplace is one major concern of the use of social media. However, one must not forget about the effects of social networking and how it could potentially negatively effect the reputation of your company. Currently in the U.S., 8% of the companies surveyed in Manpower’s report confessed that social media did in fact have a negative effect on their overall reputation.
I personally believe that limiting the use of social media in the workplace is a great way to increase productivity of one’s employees. I also would want to encourage my employees to either promote a positive outlook on their company or even become unaffiliated with it altogether in order to keep the overall reputation of a company’s brand free from harm online through these sites.
Information Provided By: eMarketer, Manpower
Blog Post Written By: Kent Seiders
Tags: liabilities of social media networking, social media at work, social media in the workforce, social media liability, social media networking impact, social media networking problems, social media policies, social media productivity
Posted in Internet Marketing Fundamentals, Internet Marketing News, Marketing, Social Media Networking | No Comments »
Thursday, February 4th, 2010
It was bound to happen- some person writing about the death of SEO. There are a few reasons for this speculation, try searching for “is seo dead.”
Reasons why people think SEO is dying are as follows:
First, people do not really know what SEO is. Even among marketers, people continue to believe that SEO is the “process of tricking search engines to rank a site for search queries for which it isn’t one of the better matches. With this viewpoint, it’s easy to see why people would want to conclude that SEO is a dying medium. Google and Microsoft make billions of dollars in revenue from their search engines, and protecting that revenue stream is a critical activity for them.”
If people are not using SEO correctly, they will ruin the search engine system. This is why Google has invested so much in WebSpam. When consumers receive poor search results they become dissatisfied and turn to different search engines.
Second, other people believe that social media will soon replace SEO. “These people argue that inbound links are an elitist system of voting for Web sites (you have to own a Web site to vote), and that social media will provide a much broader array of signals, because anyone with an Internet connection can sign up for a social media service and start making their opinions known. Further, they argue, more people will rely on social media for opinions on things because people love to learn from the experience of others.”
Social media sites have not been adopted broadly across the population, making the data lumpy and inconsistent- and it is easily spammed. In creating an account, no real investment is needed; all you have to do is sign up and begin posting your opinions and thoughts.
Authority is another issue here. We can assume those with tens of thousands of followers on Twitter have some authority on a topic, but the most they can offer is their own opinions. “Someone with a Web site has made a significant investment in building that site, and here the stamp of authority is likewise relatively easy to measure. However, it’s much more meaningful to receive an authoritative link than an authoritative Tweet.”
So is SEO dying?
“Not a chance. Defined properly, but still somewhat narrowly, SEO is the practice of helping publishers bring new traffic and customers to their Web site, by building and promoting high quality Web sites using technology that the search engines can parse. That need isn’t going away anytime soon.”
Make the most out of available opportunities. For example, Microsoft’s Bing. SEO can and will evolve with the changing times. The advent of universal search resulted in some changes, and created new opportunities for SEOs. The rising prominence of local search did as well. Increasing personalization will create yet more opportunities.
“For the SEO professional, staying abreast of the changing market environment is part of the price of being in this business. While change is constant, publishers use SEO as a means for obtaining new customers from search engines. As long as search is around, there will be a need for people who know how to make that happen.”
Information provided by: searchenginewatch.com
Written by: Samantha J Stephan
Tags: internet marketing seo, san diego internet marketing, SEO, SEO San Diego, seo vs. social media, social media, social media rising, webitmd internet marketing
Posted in Internet Marketing Fundamentals, Internet Marketing News, Marketing, SEO, Social Media Networking, Web Development | No Comments »
Wednesday, January 27th, 2010
The number of mobile applications is growing daily pretty soon we won’t even need computers! Marketers are quickly jumping on this trend in 2010- the world of applications will soon grow to an all-time high. Although the spending on social apps will stagnate this year, most marketers have already produced them. “Less than one-half of marketers created either a mobile or social app in 2009, but most plan to invest in a mobile app this year. The iPhone is the platform of choice, followed by Android.” And among those marketers with apps in 09, Facebook was the leading platform.
Social apps were perceived as the top goal for achieving engagement, audience targeting, reach, sharing and branding potential. “The top one-third of advertisers and agencies using mobile apps planned to up their investments by 75% or more. Marketers who used apps reported a growing market, client demand and increased standardization in the app world as reasons to spend more in the coming months.”
Mobile applications by marketers and publishers are the next goal for distribution and discover ability.
15% of advertisers and agencies spent more than 60% of their budgets on promotion in 2009, but more than one-third spent less than 5%. Times are changing, and today consumers want easy access to their favorite sites quickly. Mobile apps are the newest trend for 2010 when it comes to reaching your target audience.
Information Provided by: eMarketer.com
Written by: Samantha J Stephan
Tags: 2010 trends, internet marketing san diego, mobile applications, mobile applications take over, san diego internet marketing, social applications, webitmd internet marketing, webitmd san diego
Posted in Link Building, Marketing, Mobile Marketing, Social Media Networking | No Comments »
Tuesday, January 26th, 2010
Many companies fear that online consumers will post negative or hurtful comments about them and their products or services. This is worrisome especially on social media where opinions about certain things are shared all over the globe and in real-time.
In their “Social Media and Online PR Report,” Econsultancy and bigmouthmedia explored ways marketers can combat “brand bashing” online.
They reported, when asked how companies most often combat these negative comments, that:
• Nearly one-half suggested having directly engaged with the consumer
• The second-most-common strategy was longer-term in focus: trying to improve products and services.
Many respondents had even tried to get offensive content written about their company removed entirely but that tactic can have many negative effects on a company’s image.
Econsultancy also noted that only 12% of companies tried to create their own content to offset negative consumer opinions in search results, and that more could go this route.
When companies were asked about their activities on Twitter specifically, Brand monitoring was the third highest activity behind publicizing new content and marketing using this form of communication channel.
Other findings from Twitter usage found:
• About one-quarter of companies were using the microblogging site for customer service or gathering customer feedback.
• Nearly two-thirds (63%) of companies reported responding to tweets, and 34% responded “systematically.”
• More than one-fifth of client-side companies told Econsultancy that fear of reputation issues was a factor preventing more effective social media engagement.
• Almost 30% of agencies said the same of their clients.
In response to the results of these findings, Econsultancy offered this statement to address brand monitoring and how to effectively combat it: “To address this, there needs to be more education around how to deal with negative PR and social media crisis management, as well as best practice on how to engage in the first place,” according to the report. “There is clearly an opportunity here for agencies to better educate their clients.”
Happy Branding!
Information Provided By: eMarketer
Blog Post Written By: Kent Seiders
Tags: Brand Monitoring Social Media, Brand Reputation Social Media, San Diego Internet Branding, san diego social media, social media advertising, Social Media Branding, Social Media Utilization WebitMD, WebitMD Branding Social Media
Posted in Social Media Networking | 1 Comment »
Tuesday, January 12th, 2010
Out with the old and in with the new! A new year has begun and keeping up with SEO trends should be at the top of your to-do list. So for 2010 here is a list of trends to keep an eye out for:
- Site Speed – Site speed may be used as a new ranking factor in 2010. Make sure your pages load quickly by decreasing load time. “The order of things on your page will affect its load time, so make sure you’re using proper HTML, and cleaning up your CSS and JavaScript so that users aren’t left waiting when they try to access your site.”
- Mobile – Research done by Neilson shows that there are now 56.9 million people looking for information on mobile web sites, which is up 34% from last year. First you should find out how your site performs on small devices. There are paid services which provide feedback for this. Then, once it is functional, take advantage of Google’s new mobile services and free online coupons.
- Online Video - YouTube was made the second largest search engine last year. With larger companies dropping out, more space is available for small to medium sized companies which could use the attention. So make a video and post it soon!
- Reputation Management Meets Real-Time Search – “When Google put real-time search updates into the SERPs they unleashed a potential online reputation problem of epic proportions. They essentially opened the floodgates to give angry customers immediate power in the search results. You no longer have a window to reach out to an angry tweeter to ask them to amend their update or tone down that Blog post. Google is pulling from tweets, from Blogs, from news, from articles and other Web content and throwing it immediately into your search results, often right above your own site. All of this means that you need to be even more vigilant about monitoring the conversation in an attempt to protect your brand. For a small business owner, your best line of defense is to build a listening station that will help keep you abreast of conversations as they happen.”
- Increased Awareness of Local – “If you haven’t tied up all your local listings and profiles, it is beyond time to do that. The search engines, especially Google, are looking at the consistency and completeness of your local listings in order to rank you for relevant queries. That’s a huge ranking factor that is 100 percent in your control. Take advantage of it!”
Information Provided by: Smallbiztrends.com
Written by: Samantha J Stephan
Tags: 2010 trends, internet marketing san diego, internet marketing trends, internet marketing trends 2010, san diego internet marketing, seo trends for 2010, top new trends 2010, webitmd internet marketing, webitmd san diego
Posted in Behavioral Marketing, Marketing, Mobile Marketing, SEO, Social Media Networking, Starting Up | No Comments »
Sunday, December 20th, 2009
Social Media Networking as a tool for marketing purposes is absolutely booming. Sites like MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other types of social networking sites are receiving the highest numbers of web traffic and are harvesting the attention of companies with big budgets to spend on publicity and advertising online.
Many of these social networking sites are offering great marketing channels and services for those large companies to reach their target audiences, in mass quantities of course. MySpace Bulletin Postings is a service offered by MySpace that allows companies to purchase MySpace Bulletins, Craigslist postings, and opportunities for seeding message boards to send out fabricated “bulletins” about their company or products. MySpace will then post these “bulletins” on the pages of consumers in their target market.
MySpace describes how they’ve “created a network of account holders who, between them have thousands and millions of friends. By having these multiple account holders place your bulletin, it looks like genuine and organic buzz. Whether you’re a brand looking to drive traffic to a jump site, or a band establishing a following, our bulletin program is a way to spread authentic buzz to a large group of people.”
The advantage of using a service like this is the reach potential that sites like MySpace and Craigslist contain. The numbers of consumers that can be targeted are outrageously large and are very effective in reaching a mass market in one’s target market. Also, since these social networking sites are based on peer-to-peer communication, word of mouth and viral marketing are almost guaranteed to take place.
There is one major disadvantage to using this service. Many think this form of marketing will only work for certain types of promotions. For example if you want to advertise an upcoming gig for your band, one can see how using a MySpace “blast” to thousands of accounts would appear reasonably real since the site is often used as a central site for bands. However, for a company that was trying to promote breast enhancement pills, there is much doubt any company could make a “bulletin” about that seem like a real bulletin rather than an advertisement.
So, depending on the form of business you are running, social media networking may or may-not be a good form of advertising to use online. If your company could benefit from one of these major sites, paying for these services could help you increase your reach.
Information Provided By: Entreprenuers-Journey.com
Blog Post Written By: Kent Seiders
Tags: internet marketing san diego, internet marketing witn social media, online social media optimization, outsourcing internet markeitng, san diego social media marketing, social media marketing, social media marketing san diego, social media marketing service, when to oursourcing internet marketing
Posted in Internet Marketing News, Social Media Networking | No Comments »
