Earlier this month, Facebook announced a new feature called “Graph Search,” currently in beta, which will allow users to run searches on information specific to Facebook and thus off-limits to Google, Yahoo, or Bing. Graph Search will let you, for example, search for which restaurants your friends who live in San Francisco have visited. You’ll be able to search for friends of friends who work for a particular company. You’ll even have the ability to find which bands your friends Mary and John both like, prior to setting them up on a blind date.
Currently, Facebook handles about 1 billion search queries per day (roughly a fifth of Google’s volume), although most of those are probably for specific people or business pages. If Facebook can change our collective searching habits, it may well steal some search market share from Google. But it’ll have to do one thing first. Read more…
If you haven’t already registered for Digital Atlanta next week, why not? It’s a week’s worth of presentations and events focused on digital marketing, primarily social media. The events are b
eing held at various places around the city, and the whole shebang is free for those who registered before this week. Still, it’s only $25 for latecomers – for as many sessions as you’d like to
attend – so register now.
I’m on the schedule for next Wednesday, October 10. I’ll be presenting on “The Coming Together of Search & Social” from 10:30 am – noon. I’ll be at Digital Atlanta’s main venue at Atlantic Station (Suite 104, 261 19th St NW #1180).
Here’s a description of my session:
There are four main ways social media can have a positive impact on a company’s search engine optimization efforts. Conversely, search marketing can influence social media in at least three ways. As the line between search and social continues to blur, come hear Stacy Williams explain how to best leverage these powerful digital marketing tactics in a holistic way.
Be sure to get there early – since anyone with a Digital Atlanta badge can attend any session at no charge, they’ll shut the doors to attendees once all the seats are full. Thank you to our friends at Engauge for sponsoring this terrific event! I hope to see some familiar faces in the audience.
All business pages will be
migrated to the Facebook timeline format on March 30! Here is all the information, broken down by topic, you need to know on changes you need to make and the new options that are available to you.
Facebook Cover
Image:
The most noticeable feature of Facebook timelines is the addition of a cover image. The image size is 851px wide by 315px high. This must be an image that you have permission to use and it can’t include pricing, email,
phone number, or any sort of call to action.
Tabs:
You will have 4 visible tabs and the others will be accessible via an arrow expand button on the right. These can be moved around so that your most important tabs are in the front.
Pin Content:
If you have an important post that you wish to keep at the top of your page, you can “pin” it. This will keep it at the top of the page for 7 days and new content will appear below it.
Milestones:
Like personal pages, business pages have the option of creating milestones.
Admin Panel:
The Admin Panel for page admins has been updated as well. Mashable has a great article on the admin panel if you would like more information. Link: http://mashable.com/2012/03/20/facebook-admin-panel/
Google’s “Don’t Be Evil” motto has been quite a punchline for years, as Google continues to find new and creative ways to separate advertisers from their money. It appears that Facebook has taken a page from Google’s playbook:
- Cr
eate Unique, Quality Relevant Content
(the best search engine / the best social media site)
- Get People Totally Hooked (70%+ market share / 850 million users worldwide)
- Get Brands Totally Hooked on Free Exposure (SEO / Facebook’s brand pages)
- Severely Limit Free Exposure (more paid ads, Google Places & other content in the search engine results that push down regular organic listings / “Edgerank” & the new Timeline for Pages)
- Force Companies to cialis canadian pharmacy Pay for Exposure (PPC ads for both
Google & Facebook)
First, Facebook’s EdgeRank algorithm started limiting how many of a company’s fans to see its posts in their newsfeeds. Now, with the rollout of Timeline for Pages, businesses can’t have fans land immediately on their branded content, game, poll or whatever. Fans will instead have to click on a tab to bypass the new timeline home page.
For more on this, read this post by “Friend of PPI” Nan Dawkins: Facebook’s New Brand Pages: Combined With Edgerank, a Final Solution That Forces “Pay to Play”.
Well played, Facebook. Well played.
Pinterest, the newest social media darling, is growing at a crazy-fast rate, particularly considering it’s only a year old and
still in “invitation only” mode. Last November, it had over 37 million visitors, which is more than either Google+ or Tumblr!
Pinterest is “a virtual pinboard” which allows you to “pin” images you find on the web cheapest cialis onto your own digital bulletin boards. You can share your pinboards with friends and look at other people’s boards. To me, it’s kind of like sharing a picture of something you love (a restaurant dish, a piece of art, even a cool hairstyle) on Facebook, only you can categorize the photos on different pinboards, and it’s all images,
all the time.
Savvy marketers, particularly those who sell products (rather than services) will want to take advantage of this new way to spread the word virally. Diane Kinney published Leveraging Pinterest: How “Pinnable” Is Your Content? on Search Engine Journal. It’s a great primer, and I’m sure as Pinterest evolves and its users become more creative in how they use it, more opportunities will arise for marketers. (…to use it appropriately by offering up unique, relevant content – I am in no way advocating misusing this fun new tool!)
I know the last thing you need is yet another social media account to keep up with – believe me, I get it! But ignore Google+ at your own peril. It is becoming more and more important in search engine optimization (SEO) for Google:
We’ve covered this — why are we talking about this topic yet again? Because we recently heard inside scoop that Google is increasing the importance of the +1 button in its organic ranking algorithm, and it eventually may count for even more than inbound links!
Read more…
We recently wrote a post about Google’s new Verbatim Search, a substitute for Google’s phased out “+” operator. In the past, the “+” operator was utilized i
n Google Search to apply a mandated inclusion of specific word, in a specific form. Many speculated that these changes would allow the plus sign to perform a function related to Google+.
It was only a matter of time. Google has started testing a feature called Google+ Direct Connect which helps users access their favorite brands’ Google+ pages from within Google Search. With this new feature, users will be able to type “+,” followed by a brand name into Google Search in order to be taken directly to that brand’s Google+ Page.
Read more…
Earlier this week, Google launched Google+ Pages for businesses and brands worldwide. While some people were disappointed by the lack of exciting new features and customization options of the Google+ Pages, the impact of +1s in
AdWords gives busines
ses a good reason to get their Google+ Page up and running.
Google announced: “This week we introduced Google+ Pages, a new way to get closer to your customers online. At that time we announced that you’d be able to link your Page to your AdWords campaigns, so that all your +1s — from your Page, your website, ads and search results get tallied together and appear as a single total. We’re happy to announce that starting today, and rolling out to all advertisers globally over the rest of the week, we’re making this functionality available with a new AdWords feature called Social Extensions.
Read more…
Christian Oestlien, group product manager for social advertising at Google, has said that business profiles are coming soon to Google+! The social network just recently opened up to the public and traffic stats soared! Previously it was invitation on
ly. This article refers to a 1,269% spike in visits week over week when the site fully opened up to the public.
Businesses have been trying to set up their own profiles, but only Ford and General Motors have officially been allowed to set up real business profiles. Many others have been taken down by Google. A lot of the rush seems to be because companies want to be innovative with the next big thing, but also because they’re anxious to claim their real estate. Companies are afraid of imitators setting up fake profiles in their brand names. Calm down! Google+ allows one name to be registered multiple times. This is at least how profiles for people work. That means that companies won’t run into a similar situation Netflix did when they launched Qwikster. In case you didn’t hear, the Twitter handle was already occupied by what appears to be a foul-mouthed teen. So far, the teen still has
the Twitter handle and tweeted “Netflix didn’t take anything this is JASON talking”. It’ll be interesting to see what Qwikster does to establish its Twitter presence.
Read more…
