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A Look Back at 2011 Predictions

Tom Sullivan — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 17:14:41 +0000

What a year! 2011 is nearly over and it’s time to look back. Rather than talk about Steve Jobs, the Zynga IPO, or any other social media news I want to look back on some 2011 predictions I made early in the year.

Keep in mind that I really didn’t go out on a limb with any of the predictions. It’s safe to say that social media will only continue to grow in the future, but some sites or applications, if successful, will be swallowed up by bigger companies (Facebook). In any event, here’s a look back at my predictions…

1) Video Marketing becomes more and more important to your online business success:

It’s safe to say that this prediction is true and will continue to be true. More and more people are searching on Youtube now, which is part of the reason why the search results and Youtube channels have been adjusted. Youtube remains the third most viewed site (after Google and Facebook), and Youtube also remains second to only Google in terms of number of internal searches.

2) Local Advertising & Marketing will continue to grow:

If you’ve noticed, Google has adjusted its search results to incorporate more local business results. Sometimes these results take up the majority of the page. This prediction was definitely accurate.

3) Software for tracking social media marketing efforts will be cheaper and more available:

There are more and more applications available to track social media efforts, and most of these companies have partnered with Facebook. Even Google Analytics has evolved to incorporate more data pertaining to social media. Real-time mobile statistics, demographics info and social engagements are now all measured by Google Analytics.

4) Review sites will grow:

I really didn’t go out on a limb with this one, but it’s safe to say that Yelp is as big as its ever been. During 2011 Google stripped out 3rd party reviews, making Google reviews much more important to your Google Places listing. Look for review sites to continue to grow in 2012.

Happy New Year, and stay tuned for 2012 predictions!

The Value of Google+

Tom Sullivan — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 19:00:26 +0000

At first glance Google+ seems like just another social network, and with all the time businesses already spend on Facebook and Twitter can they really handle another network? Better yet, should businesses be delegating even more time to social networking now that Google+ is growing?

As an internet and social media marketing consultant it might seem odd that I might would question the value of Google+, but just because I’m heavily involved in social media does not mean that I have to embrace every single network or site. In fact, I think my responsibility lies in truly understanding each new social media service and giving my opinion about how to best utilize this service to grow you business.

One advantage to using Google+ is the ability to use “circles.” This allows you to delegate different groups to communicate with, such as friends, family, co-workers, etc. Once you have the circles set up you can then set up privacy barriers for each of the circles.

The biggest advantage I see to Google+ is the ability for pages and posts to be indexed by search engines, namely Google. I’ve seen some early indications that being active on Google+ will help with the visibility of your company and website. While I don’t have any long term data to conclusively say Google+ posts get indexed more frequently and get better rankings than Facebook posts, the logic makes sense; Google likes itself more than anyone else, so why wouldn’t a Google+ post get more credibility?

Speaking of posting the same thing on Google+ and Facebook, if you use Hootsuite you’ll be happy to hear that the scheduling software will start to allow people to add their Google+ pages to their Hootsuite account in the near future. In fact, you can apply now, but it looks like Hootsuite is only offering this to Enterprise members. Those using the free version of Hootsuite will have to wait for their integration.

Bottom line, your business should get set up on Google+, and once Hootsuite integrates all users with Google+ then you’ll be able to seamlessly send messages to Twitter, Facebook and Google+, which means no additional time spent on this new social network.

Yahoo’s Revenue Dropping Despite Online Advertising Increases

Tom Sullivan — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 18:06:49 +0000

On Wednesday Yahoo’s stock fell 8%, only a day after the company announced yet another disappointing financial quarter. CEO Carol Bartz, who is in the final 17 months of her four-year contract, already feeling some heart, is likely feeling even more pressure now that both the stock price and projected online advertising market share are dropping.

Yahoo’s stock dropped to $13.48 a share, and it has been falling for the past two months. Part of the blame for this fall is due to the uncertainty over a key investment Yahoo made in the Chinese internet company Alibaba.

Bartz is was quick to defend herself, saying, “We didn’t have enough salespeople in front of the big clients.” Really? Sounds like a lousy excuse to me.

While the risky investments and drop in the stock price is very concerning to investors, what they really should be focusing on is market share (or lack thereof). Emarketer predicts that Yahoo’s market share in online advertising, which includes both display and banner ads, will drop from 14.4% last year to 13.1% this year.

So is Google cutting into Yahoo’s marketing share yet again? Well yes, but Facebook is also getting in on the action. Facebook’s share of the US online display ad revenue is expected to grow to 17.7% this year, up from 12.2% last year. That’s quite a jump, which is why Yahoo should be very afraid.

Should Google be afraid of Facebook? Some would say that they already are. Google seems to be scrambling to find a solution to the social network behemouth, and it thinks it found the solution in Google+. Time will tell how Google+ evolves, but one thing is for sure, Google is still the top dog. Google’s display ad revenue is expected to top $1 billion for the first time this year, and their market share is expected to grow even more.

Yahoo’s been Google’s little brother for quite some time, and despite changes in management and tactics, they continue to lose the relevance they once possessed back in the late 90s.

Google Profiles Will No Longer Be Private

Tom Sullivan — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 19:42:16 +0000

As of July 31, 2011 Google will no longer allow users to have private profiles. This announcement was made last week, and it coincides with Google’s push to promote it’s new social network Google+.

What does this mean exactly? Well, if you’re currently using Google Buzz, share information on Google Reader, or use any other number of Google products, then you have a Google profile. In the past you have had the ability to make your profile private, so no one can view the page but you.

However, after July 31, Google will delete all private profiles, so if you want to keep using a Google profile then you’ll have to make it public.

Keep in mind that if you’re using Gmail you don’t need to worry. Email itself is inherently private (unless you get hacked). Also, you don’t need a Google profile to be using Gmail.

The bottom line is, if you’re concerned about privacy, but don’t want to lose your Google profile, then minimize the information shared. The bare minimum is your name and gender. You can also hide your profile from showing up in search results, which effectively makes it private (unless you have the direct url link).

If you have any concerns about your Google privacy setting I recommend that you review your account settings here.

Facebook Now Offering Video Calls & Group Chatting

Tom Sullivan — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 17:11:53 +0000

On Wednesday, Facebook unveiled several new tools, with the main feature being video chat. This comes just days after Google announced its latest social networking effort in Google+. Facebook, now claiming to have surpassed the 750 million user mark, also introduced a group chatting feature.

The video chat will be powered by Skype, and in order to use this feature Facebook users will have to have webcam-equipped computers. Facebook users then simply need to select the friends they want to chat with, prompting a chat pop up window, and then clicking on a small blue video icon that brings up the video chat feature. As of now, the video chat is limited to only one-on-one communication. Coincidentally, Google+, which Google announced last week, has a video chat feature as well.

The group chat option is also another feature that Google+ had mentioned last week, and Facebook’s version will work similarly. Once you begin chatting with a friend you can click an icon to add more people to the conversation.

With all the talk about Google+, it’s been a while since Facebook made any major announcements. However, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that the company is embarking on “launching season” in 2011, and that users can “expect a lot of stuff coming out” in the next couple weeks and months.

In related news, Skype, a new partner of Facebook’s, has agreed to be bought out by Microsoft for $8.5 billion in a deal that is expected to close by the end of the year.

Google Still Hoping to Challenge Facebook with Google+

Tom Sullivan — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 19:48:49 +0000

If you haven’t yet heard the news, Google is attempting to challenge Facebook. The search giant recently announced several of the major pieces being put into place that will make up Google+. This should come as a shock to no one given Google’s thirst to be at the forefront of everything internet related. Steven Levy, of Wired.com, explained in a recent article he’d been watching this progress for the last year and that hundreds of engineers were involved in the effort.

The Google+ project, developed under the code name ‘Emerald Sea,’ came about from Google’s recognition that the nature of the Internet has started to shift away from the search engine as the central focal point. ”No longer could Google operate without making its products more personal,” Levy wrote, in summarizing the call-to-arms memo issued by Google head of operations Urs Hölzle in March 2010. “The social challenge required decisive and substantial response within Google.”

Many of the details of Google+ have not emerged, but we know that it will be comprised of a significant number of separate launches. A few of the features that Google has announced that sound intriguing are: group video chat; new way of sharing stories, photos and videos from around the Web; and the ability to easily create many small networks, for friends, family and co-workers.

We have yet to see if even the features that have been announced will be fully developed as planned. Google has failed in several attempts to get into social media in the past, but Google+ seems to be the key focus new CEO Larry Page.

Does Google PageRank Still Matter?

Tom Sullivan — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 20:36:10 +0000

Recently I’ve had a few separate conversations with clients about Google’s pagerank (or PR- not to be confused with public relations). Since many people, including my clients, seemed to be obsessed with PR I figured it would be a good opportunity to go into detail about the pagerank and how it affects a website SEO and rankings. One question that comes up in conversation is: “Does pagerank still matter?” The short answer is yes, but does it matter for search engine rankings? I would say no…

If you’re not familiar with Google’s pagerank it is a browser plugin that you can install that will give a ranking of 0-10 for every website (10 being the highest), based on a variety of factors, but primarily how valuable the the website is in Google’s eyes. Very few websites have a pagerank above a 5, and they’re mainly educational, government or well-known, reputable companies (such as Microsoft, Abode and Yahoo). Not surprisingly, Google has one of the handful of websites with a PR 10.

In my opinion, PR is more of an external indication (one of many) of how well a website is performing, and not a search engine ranking determinate in it of itself. In other words, I can show you a website that has a PR of zero that outranks a website with a PR 5. The PR number means nothing in relation to ranking. Authoritative backlinks and optimized, unique content matter for rankings. However, keep in mind that people determine how authoritative a backlink is based on its PR. Confused yet? Basically I’m saying that PR means nothing in determining ranking and that backlinking means a lot, and in order to determine the quality of the backlinking people analyze the PR of the backlink.

Often times you’ll hear link builders say they can get “10 backlinks from PR 5 sites or blah blah blah.” However, these links lose their value if they’re not relevant or there are a bunch of other links on the page to non-relevant content. Therefore, even having many high PR backlinks won’t necessarily improve your rankings.

PR is more like an Alexa ranking, which is another thing that internet marketers get excited about. Alexa is a website ranking system that rates every single website on the web (provided that it’s index-able). More than likely a website with a high PR and a high Alexa ranking will rank highly on search engines, but not always. Conversely, a website that has a low Alexa ranking and low PR could rank poorly or rank very well.

In summary, it’s not a bad idea to monitor your pagerank or Alexa ranking. However, it’s important to be much more aware of your website’s search engine rankings, unique visitors and conversions. If you’re doing backlinking, which I highly recommend for a solid SEO strategy, then the PR of the backlinks matters, but it matters less if these backlinks are from sites that are irrelevant or full of other outbound links.

If you have any questions about pagerank, Alexa rankings, or simply want to learn more about SEO then contact Turbo Social Media today or call 877-673-7096 x2.

Google Invests in Kabam

Tom Sullivan — Fri, 27 May 2011 00:41:17 +0000

For those of you who aren’t “gamers” or online video game players, Facebook is not only a place where who can interact with friends and businesses, but also a place where you can play games. Many people are familiar with Scrabble and Farmville, but the there are also hard core action games such as “Kings of Camelot” and “Dragons of Atlantis.” The company behind several of these widely popular games is Kabam Inc., and just recently they raised $85 million in venture capital from Google Inc.

Kabam’s Facebook games can be played for free, an approach similar to that of Zynga Inc. Both Kabam and Zynga make money by charging for virtual items – a market that’s expected to more than double to $20.3 billion in 2014, from $9.3 billion last year, according to ThinkEquity LLC. However, Kabam is targeting hard-core gamers, who spend hours pursuing complex adventures, often on video-game consoles.

Kablam has more to offer than video games that you play on X-box or Playstation, according to Kabam CEO Kevin Chou. “We’ve created hard-core games that have a very distinctly social flavor,” Chou said. “Compared to buying the latest console game and having to pay up front at a retail store, they pay only if we deliver them entertainment value.”

Kablam has come along way over the past 5 years. Formerly known as Watercooler, the company changed its name to Kabam in 2010, when it shifted its business from sports and media to social games. In just the last year alone the number of employees increased to 400 from 25 early last year. Based in downtown San Francisco, the company aims to hire at least 150 more people.

Kabam is a fraction the size of its San Francisco competitor Zynga. Kabam has 7.2 million monthly active users, compared with 248 million for Zynga, the biggest U.S. social-game company, according to research firm AppData.com

The business model of charging for virtual good and items is not new. Programs like Second Life and Kaneva allow people to purchase goods and items for their virtual characters. Similarly, Kabam charges $1 to $50 for gamers to buy tools and weapons to help them complete levels.

As Facebook continues to grow, expect more of these gaming companies to emerge to challenge Kabam and Zynga.

Bing Incorporating Facebook “likes” into Search Results

Tom Sullivan — Tue, 17 May 2011 21:30:59 +0000

In an effort to continuously keep their search engine on the cutting edge, Microsoft is incorporating several new Facebook social cues into its Bing search results. Microsoft is taking full advantage of its partnership with Facebook in order to cut into the search market share of Google.

Bing has been incorporating Facebook “likes” into its search results, when relevant to a query. Microsoft has announced that these social cues will play an even more prominent role in search results. Expect to see more results based on what your Facebook friends’ “like.” Moreover, Bing will indicate articles and topics that many Facebook users are liking, regardless of your relationship to them.

For example, if you search Bing for “San Francisco,” Bing will show all your Facebook friends who live there. By click in the adjacent link, users can ask their friends about the city. This is ideal for travel queries. For shopping inquiries, people can click on the products they’re interested in and see how many of their friends like that product. People can also leave comments on the Facebook pages of their friends who like a particular product.

All these updates fall in line with Bing’s mantra that it is the “decision engine.” All the new features are geared toward helping people make quicker, better decisions. The idea is that people use their family and friends to make a buying decision offline, so why not allow them to have this interaction online?

As of now you have to click to use the “social search” by Bing. I anticipate that Bing will slowly phase this in so that within the next month every search will be a social search. Don’t expect Google to be a spectator in this development. They’ve already tweaked their algorithm and incorporated +1, in an attempt to help people narrow down relevant results as suggested by friends.

If you have any questions or comments about your experience with Bing’s social search drop us a line below, or to learn more about what we do at Turbo Social Media contact us here, or call 877-673-7096 x2.

Google and Apple Phone Users Being Tracked

Tom Sullivan — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 17:22:23 +0000

According to the Wall Street Journal, users of both Apple’s iPhones and Google’s Android smartphones have their locations regularly transmitted back to Apple and Google, respectively. While tracking services and apps are available to smartphone users, they have to be activated in order for them to work. This finding outlines the fact that smartphone users are being tracked without their knowledge.

Ever since the Patriot Act was introduced by President George W. Bush in 2001, privacy of Americans has become a much more talked about issue. Now, factor in technological advances, and people are becoming deeply concerned about their personal information becoming public information. This latest news about Google and Apple comes at a time when location-based services, or location-based advertising, is at an all time high and expected to rise to $8.3 billion in 2014, according to research firm Gartner.

This is nothing new for Google. The reason that they websites to use Google Analytics for free, a software that is more robust than many website analytics software competitors who charge monthly fees, is to gather information about people. Google is constantly looking to grow their database, and leverage this database, so they can make money off of advertisers.

What about privacy laws with cell phones? Apple claims that it “intermittently” collects location data, including GPS coordinates, of iPhone users and nearby Wi-Fi networks and transmits that data to itself about every 12 hours. Google does the same, collecting the name, location and signal strength of nearby Wi-Fi networks. In this case no personal information is accessed (other than your location). However, Google admitted that until last year it was collecting similar Wi-Fi data with its StreetView cars in order to photograph streets worldwide. The company eventually shut down its StreetView Wi-Fi collection because it inadvertantly collected personal information, email addresses, contacts and passwords.

Google and Apple have both declined to comment on this latest finding.

So what do smartphone users do about this? For starters, do not put any personal information on your phone. This includes financial information or passwords. Having your email address or contact list compromised is an invasion or privacy; however, this information in the hands of Apple or Google doesn’t put you in any real danger. Having your financial information and passwords accessible from your phone is a disaster waiting to happen. Stay tuned for the federal government’s response to this latest news.