New Online Marketing Strategies

Online marketing includes many of stuffs. It includes SEO, social media, e-mail marketing, pay per click and mobile web. As the new year begins, it is time to rethink our online marketing strategies and rebuilding our online marketing solutions.

Give your online marketing efforts a lift that it needs by applying new plans that will bring about better, more positive changes. These changes should be applied in all your online marketing channels.

For search engine optimization, concentrate more on maximizing visits and conversions coming in from organic searches. As much as possible, your online marketing should be cost-effective. Try to do away with paid advertising. You should also have schemes to bring in new customers. If potential clients aren’t clicking through to your web page, then you have a major problem. Online marketing should work on both having customers and getting conversions.

Maximize the success of your online marketing campaigns by analyzing your metrics report to check which contents or pages are highly visible but are unfortunately making poor traffic results. To improve your online marketing, make sure that you assess the title tags and meta descriptions of competitive search results. Then, search for means and ways to make your own title tags and meta descriptions better than the competition. Then, make sure that your contents are consistent with your title tags and meta tags. It is important for your online marketing strategy to have relevant contents. Make sure that you lead your customers directly to the answer to their problem.

Social media has now played a great role in online marketing. However, it is more challenging to rationalize in terms of ROI. Through social media, you can improve your online marketing by acquiring better customer relationships, reputation management, raising brand awareness and increasing relevant visitor traffics. Improving your online marketing is easy. As long as you know where to begin.

Find out more how good Online Marketing Strategies also called Internet Marketing can boost your business sale for life!

AT&T: Buzz the “Best Way” to Get Your Business in Front of Facebook Users

Google Buzz has captured a lot of the buzz around services with "Buzz" in the title (of which there are a few), but before Google Buzz was even announced, AT&T Interactive had already launched a beta version of its latest take on local business search at Buzz.com. Buzz.com has only been available on an invitation basis so far, and will remain that way until some bugs are ironed out, but you may find AT&T’s Buzz becoming a bigger part of your life than Google’s simply, because it will be coming at you from your Facebook friends.

We spent close to an hour talking to AT&T about the product, checking out a demo of the service, and getting a feel for just what AT&T plans to do with Buzz.com. Right off the bat, Charlie Hornberger, director of product development told WebProNews it’s not as much about getting in front of people on Buzz.com, but getting in front of them on Facebook. That’s just for now anyway, it’s already integrated with Facebook, and Twitter is next on the list, he says. Then they’ll figure out what other networks to integrate, whether that be Gmail contacts, instant messenger lists, or anything else.

Buzz.com is focused on only positive reactions to businesses. Users can "favorite" businesses and recommend them to their friends. So as far as reputation management goes, there shouldn’t be too many issues here from the standpoint of monitoring negative commentary. Although if your competitors are getting a lot of "buzz" and you’re not, that may be worth looking into.

Hornberger doesn’t appear too worried about any branding issues around the name Buzz. Jokingly, he said it seems like "if you don’t have Buzz then you have a problem." The very nature of Buzz.com shouldn’t make it much of an issue anyway, because it’s essentially coming at you right in your Facebook news feed. You don’t necessarily have to go to Buzz.com to feel its presence, although he views having buzz.com as a URL as a "great asset," because it "makes sense for this product."

Before you get all riled up with visions of Farmville-style Facebook updates, relax, because Buzz’s Facebook integration is set up to prevent feed-spamming. If a user shares a lot of businesses at a time, it will consolidate these into a single update on Facebook. Some Facebook users may still wish not to see such things, but they can adjust their settings in Facebook the same as with anything else. Frankly, this is adding more value to the user than learning about friends’ pseudo-farming practices, because if a friend recommends a dentist, for example, that might be useful to you at some point.

Businesses will want to make sure they’re listed in Buzz.com, because not only will they be listed in Buzz.com, they’ll be listed right in Facebook users’ news feeds anytime a Buzz.com user "favorites" their business, and shares that with their friends. Hornberger calls it a way to get on Facebook "in the best possible way."

Currently there is not a place on Buzz.com that businesses can go and get listed, but he says there will be soon. However, listings come from the same database that powers AT&T’s YellowPages.com. I’d advise making sure you have a listing there, complete with a link to your site. They are looking at other potential ways to expand listings as well, including potentially, a way for users to submit things besides businesses (like a public tennis court for example).

They will have a mobile web app available in a couple weeks for Buzz.com. Hornberger says they haven’t started on one for the App Store, but even if they do, it will be more for visibility purposes, and the web app will likely provide the better user experience (no mention of an Android app).

For now, you can use Buzz.com if you get an invite. Everyone that gets an invite can send out more invitations. There is a chance you are already seeing people post Buzz.com activity to Facebook. Until the kinks are worked out, it will continue to be on an invitation-only basis, but that will likely change in the not-too-distant future.

Buzz.com could play a significant role in the local search space as it grows, and is probably not something businesses want to ignore. On a side note, Buzz.com utilizes AT&T’s existing partnership with Microsoft by providing Bing Maps imagery, so this could be considered another factor in Bing usage.

Have you used Buzz.com? Share your thoughts.

Ghost Tweeting: Right or Wrong?

Earlier this year at SES New York, Guy Kawasaki raised quite a stir when he gave his keynote address regarding his use of Twitter and specifically, his use of ghost tweeters. Although many SEOs disagree with the practice, Li Evans of Serengeti Communications defends him on the grounds of marketing.

Kawasaki’s use of Twitter became a problem when some people discovered that he had ghost tweeters but didn’t disclose it. Although he does disclose now, Evans says people need to understand that Kawasaki is a marketer. With marketing, the message plays one of the most critical roles.

In an interview with WebProNews at the BlogWorld Expo 2009, Kawasaki responded to the criticism of his ghost tweeters by saying: “At the end of the day, the ultimate test is not who tweeted it, as much as, is it interesting.”

According to Evans, the core issue is the expectations of the audience. Ashton Kutcher is an avid tweeter and his followers know it. On the contrary, 50 Cent has other people tweet for him; although it doesn’t make everyone happy, his followers know that he is not tweeting on his own.

In regards to business usage of Twitter, Evans recommends planning a strategy to determine the best way to meet the audience’s expectations. If the expectations involve more than the business can do on its own, make sure to disclose whoever is doing it. Otherwise, the business could lose its credibility.

Do you think ghost tweeting is wrong if you disclose it? What does your audience expect from you?

With Real-Time Search, Comes Real-Time Spam

Earlier this week, Google announced that it has begun integrating real-time search into its regular search results. Incidentally, Rae Hoffman, CEO and Co-Founder of Outspoken Media, began playing with the new feature and discovered some alarming results.

The first concern Hoffman noticed is a spam issue. Upon tweeting about Viagra, she found that her results were showing up in Google’s results. She was even able to drop links into her tweets that people could access directly from Google.

Secondly, Hoffman uncovered reputation management issues with Google’s new integration. An unhappy employee or competitor could easily damage a company’s reputation. During a session at SES Chicago, Dave Naylor even mentioned that he might have to clean up his Twitter stream over fear of losing business.

Thirdly and probably the most serious of the issues Hoffman revealed is the safety concerns for children online. Through a series of tests including the highest level of safe search, Hoffman was able to reach out to kids who searched for queries such as Sesame Street and Miley Cyrus. Unfortunately, sexual predators could easily do the same. Scary, huh?

There were actually even more discoveries Hoffman was able to uncover that she did not disclose.

Many people believe Google rushed its real-time integration to respond to the recent real-time efforts Bing has made. Hoffman predicts that Google will either have bad results for a while as they fix their problems, or admit they made a mistake and deal with a reputation management problem.

What is your response to Google’s real-time integration?

Tips for Building and Monitoring Your Brand

Connie Bensen of Techrigy SM2 spoke with WebProNews at the BlogWorld Expo and gave some helpful tips for building and monitoring a brand. As you build your brand, be consistent, memorable, and always provide value.

Bensen is careful to point out that you can never be done with building a brand, because it is a continual process.

After you begin building your brand, you must also monitor your brand. Listen to what the community is saying about your brand, whether it is good or bad. While it is important to address the negativity your brand may receive, Bensen says it is also very important to “thank” the positive feedback.

If you are able to build a positive community for your brand, it will act as a strong advocate when negativity pops up. In some cases, the community may be able to handle the situation on its own, which could even be more effective than the brand intervening itself.