The Credence Dot Com

Fighting Your Social Media Fears

2009-11-02T16:40:05Z

Many businesses are afraid of social media for a variety of reasons. For instance, some industries such as finance and healthcare just have a harder time integrating social media for compliance reasons. Other businesses are concerned with potential negativity and time management. The good news is that those fears can be turned around.

It is true that some businesses have an easier time implementing social media as opposed to others. For businesses that are heavily regulated, bring both the legal and compliance teams together to establish a strong set of guidelines. This will help businesses know from the very beginning what they can and can't do.

Secondly, businesses are concerned that they might receive negative comments from social media. Amber Naslund, the Director of Community at Radian6, commonly shares this bit of wisdom: "Social media did not invent criticism."

Every business will face criticism in some way, shape, or form. Social media is just another channel, and while criticism may result, social also provides opportunities to turn that negativity into something positive.

Lastly, time management is a big concern with social media. To overcome this fear, businesses should have a clear purpose and plan from the beginning. Don't try to take it all on at once. Instead, focus on one area at a time.

Are you afraid of social media?

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Google and Yahoo Make Surprising Search Announcements

2009-11-02T16:23:04Z

At the Search Marketing Expo in New York earlier this week, search engines Google and Yahoo made a couple of shocking revelations. The first announcement pertains to the canonical tag, which is a collaborative effort from the engines.

Google, Yahoo, Microsoft's Bing, and later Ask, all joined together to allow users to dictate which of the duplicate pages on their site they want the search engines to list. While users find the tag useful for internal purposes, users have been asking for an external solution for many years. Users want to be able to control which page is listed across multiple domains as well.

It looks like users won't have wait much longer according to a "premature announcement" from a Google representative. Google will reportedly support an external solution by the end of the year.

The second surprise announcement comes from Yahoo and is in regards to the meta keywords tag. In the past, Google and Bing have not supported it, but Yahoo has. However, Yahoo announced that the search company had actually stopped supporting the tag several months ago. In other words, the meta keywords tool is dead for all SEO purposes.

These announcements were not only a surprise to users, but they were also a surprise to the other search engines. It will be interesting to see if the other engines do anything to respond.

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Email Marketing Not Dead

2009-11-02T16:08:51Z

Although email marketing is one of the oldest forms of Internet marketing, it is still one of the most effective marketing strategies. Growing a valuable email list is a challenging process, but in order to be successful, marketers must be creative and integrate popular media into their email marketing campaigns.

A lot of people's initial impression of email marketing efforts is negative. However, the market has evolved and become so sophisticated that many marketers are not even trying negative efforts due to the bad results they produce.

Instead, they are capitalizing on creative opportunities. One creative form of email marketing that has seen extensive growth recently is text messaging. Marketers are using sporting events, billboards, magazine articles and more to start a conversation with consumers.

The marketer urges users to send a text and opt-in. In return, the marketer is able to follow up with an email and send users to a dynamic landing page. Additionally, marketers can enable the content to be distributed through social media platforms such as Facebook.

Email marketing is a very effective marketing channel for both small and large businesses, but marketers have to continue to keep up with the latest trends and incorporate them into their strategies.

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Government Regulation Expected for Social Media

2009-09-30T17:10:42Z

A growing but controversial trend on the Internet is receiving a great deal of scrutiny from the government. The trend involves paid or sponsored endorsements, testimonials, and more on blogs and various social media sites. The Federal Trade Commission began investigating these practices earlier this year and announced it would release new rules and guidelines to update the current legislation.

As a result, marketers, advertisers, and bloggers alike are all raising concern. Is it necessary for the government to intervene? A problem does exist since consumers are directly affected by paid and sponsored posts, but is government regulation the answer?

Brian Solis, the Principal of FutureWorks, conducted a study on Facebook to explore possible solutions. He found that while most everyone agreed that disclosure was the key to solving the issue, they could not agree on a standard format.

Will disclosure be included in the FTC's new guidelines? Could these issues be resolved without government intervention?

Since the FTC is expected to release their guidelines at any time, we might not have to speculate for much longer.

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Twitter to Release Business Product

2009-09-30T17:00:50Z

Twitter is reportedly releasing commercial accounts later this year. The accounts will be paid accounts specifically for businesses and will include statistics and analytics that are not currently offered.

The microblogging service has yet to make money, but will this new business product ultimately provide the monetization model that the company so desperately needs? Although details of the pending product are scarce, early speculation reveals concern.

One area of concern involves third party developers. If Twitter builds new tools and features into their premium accounts, they will be in direct competition with third party developers. In addition, Twitter has also had a fair share of serious outages of late and not to mention the hacking incident over the summer. Will these paid accounts be able to guarantee no outages and offer security?

Twitter does need to establish a business model, but are these business accounts the answer? Will this product truly be able to compete with the current free service the company provides?

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The Future of Search

2009-09-30T16:51:11Z

Where do you see the search industry heading in the future? SEOs and SEMs are notorious for asking this question, since the industry changes so rapidly. As a result of both user and technology advances, the industry must constantly be looking forward in order to be effective in current efforts.

Stephan Spencer of Netconcepts relates the Law of Accelerating Returns to the future of search. Humans think linearly and cannot, therefore, discern their placement on the earth at all times. As a result, the human perception of the future of technology is not entirely accurate. In other words, technology in the future will advance to a much greater level than what humans can currently comprehend.

In applying the law, Spencer says we will see more of the Linguistic User Interface (LUI) and predicts a big shift in transitioning from the Graphical User Interface (GUI) to the LUI. He describes the future interaction with a computer to consist of conversing with an animated personality as opposed to working with a keyboard.

According to Spencer, SEO will evolve with this technology. He believes it will become more metric-oriented but the metrics must also be directly connected to specific actions. As for SEO consultants, he anticipates that they will be similar to existing Web analytics experts.

Do you agree with Stephan Spencer's predictions for the future of search? To learn more about his predictions, check out his full explanation here.

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Social Media to Replace Search?

2009-09-30T16:42:01Z

The stability in the future of search has recently been put into question due to the impact of social media on search. Since people are doing more and more searches on social sites such as Facebook and Twitter, does it mean that social media will eventually replace search engines?

Both Twitter and Facebook have launched real-time search engines within their service offerings, and the major search engines are still struggling to enter the real-time search arena. Heather Dougherty, the Research Director at Hitwise, said:

"I think this [social media] will become integrated as part of search but certainly not circumvent search entirely."

Based upon this information, it is however fair to say that social media has changed SEO permanently. According to Hitwise data, the number of visits to social networking sites exceeds the number of visits to email sites. As a result, Dougherty suggests that marketers increase their efforts with social media in order to reach their customers better.

How have your SEO efforts changed as a result of social media? What role do you see social media playing in the future of search?

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Could You Live without Social Media?

2009-08-17T13:58:06Z

Twitter experienced a severe outage last week that left the site down for several hours. It was later revealed that the microblogging service was the target of a distributed denial-of-service attack as well as Facebook, LiveJournal, and certain Google websites.

The evidence gathered at this point seems to indicate that the attack has ties to a political controversy. The incident is allegedly linked to the ongoing disputes involving Russia and Georgia.

What’s somewhat surprising about this situation is how much of an impact it had on Twitter and other social media users. Businesses, celebrities, and protesters all use various social media websites.

Social media has become a large part of everyday and business life. When it is taken away, how do you react? Have you grown dependent on social media? When social networks are down, is it simply an annoyance or does it alter your entire day?

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“Search” Stands out on Twitter’s New Homepage

2009-08-17T13:49:39Z

Twitter launched a new homepage last week. The redesign contains many new features, but the most prominent one, by far, is the search box.

Twitter says the new design is one effort the company is taking to help new users and people unfamiliar with the site better understand what the service offers. Aside from the sleek new color scheme, Twitter's homepage also sports a new slogan. Instead of "What are you doing?" the new company slogan reads "Share and discover what's happening right now, anywhere in the world."

The redesign also includes "popular topics." Formerly known as "trending topics," the newly coined "popular topics" track the hottest topics by the minute, day, and week. The new design also offers Search Tips when a user searches for a specific item.

As mentioned above, the search box is the main feature on the page. Is this any indication that Twitter is taking steps to eventually become a search company? Only time will tell, but it is important to note that Twitter also recently announced a new search widget called Twitter 101.

Do you believe the new homepage is effective? Will it serve its purpose and attract new users?

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News Sites to Charge for Content

2009-08-17T13:37:38Z

Most new sites do not currently charge for content, but that could all change within a year. During a speech in London, Financial Times Editor Lionel Barber said he could, "confidently predict that within the next 12 months, almost all news organizations will be charging for content."

This prediction comes after Rupert Murdoch of News Corporation made a statement in May in which he said his newspaper websites, such as The New York Times, would likely begin charging for content within a year. Incidentally, the New York Times recently let it slip that it was considering a $5 dollars per month subscription fee.

Barber said the payment models were not yet determined but did mention that charging article-by-article was an option along with charging weekly or monthly subscription fees.

It's no secret that the newspaper industry has been struggling and has even been labeled as dead. Newspaper sales have declined vigorously upon the rise of the Internet. The industry has even gone so far as to blame Google for their woes claiming the engine steals their content.

But will charging for content save the newspapers? What would this mean for news aggregators and more importantly, what does this mean for bloggers? And on the flip side, will charging for content further doom the newspapers?

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