It’s important to understand exactly what this partnership between Yahoo and Bing means. The partnership is for a period of 10 years, and the basic terms of the deal are that Bing’s search engine technology is going to be powering Yahoo’s search. Bing also gains access to Yahoo’s technology, and may use that to help improve and advanced their own algorithms and techniques.

What this means for those in the SEO world is that you have to be aware of what the Bing algorithms favor. Being able to rank well in Bing actually will now mean being able to rank well for both Bing and Yahoo. While Google has the dominant share, the combined forces of these two platforms is already significant, and may be increasing by leaps and bounds it the strategy works as they planned.

Another term of the deal is that Yahoo is going to handle the premium advertising sales for both search engines. However, it will be Microsoft’s AdCenter that controls the self-serve advertising from both sites. This is something that can potentially shake up the world of PPC. Now instead of having to run separate campaigns, you can have a lower barrier to create a dual-campaign in both Yahoo and Bing.

The ease of this may cut into Google’s Adwords revenues, and webmasters may begin favoring the Yahoo and Bing tag team. However, it also means that some of the low costs found in the separate Yahoo and AdCenter PPC programs may begin to disappear as competition rises. The quick movers who capitalize on the integration in the beginning will see the best results, before the competition catches up and the prices correspondingly rise.

So can the Yahoo and Bing tag-team conquer all that is Google? It’s unlikely that Google falls below a majority share of the marketplace anytime soon. After all, you still “Google” something when you look it up, not “Bing” it. Google is therefore truly ingrained into our society. Additionally, Google has worked hard to integrate many services into their package besides just the core search engine. With Google Documents, Maps, Reader and much more, Google provides a great deal of services that can’t be matched anywhere else

The likely result is that Yahoo and Bing are going to begin taking a chunk of change from Google Adwords, and will begin to win some market share of searches. How much that share will be remains to be seen, and how effective Yahoo and Bing work together against Google will have a large effect on that final tally.

Many discuss the efficiency of online video for success yet some business owners are still skeptical about its benefits and ROI, because they feel that social media is simply a fad.

If the successful tendencies of the past are not enough to convince your marketing team in the value of online video, here’s what the future holds for our industry…

• Internet traffic will increase fivefold over the next five years, driven in large part by a jump in the amount of video transmitted
• Over 90% of traffic will come from video (including TV, video on demand, or file sharing)
• Video chat will increase tenfold between 2008 and 2013
• The amount of data flowing to mobile devices will double each year, increasing 66 times by 2013, with video being the fastest growing category.

By the looks of it, there’s a bright light ahead.

With that being said, one of the main reasons businesses are still hesitant to invest their marketing dollars into digital is because they simply do not know the best way to break into digital. Here’s a few questions and answers to help you out….

1. Who is your consumer?

Consumer research, insight and marketing are at the core of marketing communications. Online video may be the future, it may be relevant, it may be the breaking point for your brand…… but if you’re advertising primarily to women in their 70s, perhaps online video isn’t the best way to go…. Either way, understand your market.

2. What is the role of online video in your marketing mix?

Clearly know what it contributes to brand objectives. Online video exposure resulted in 44% aided brand favorability (compared to 35% for TV) so the high impact and preference is apparent. However, does this mean you must completely abandon traditional media marketing? Of course not. Instead, make sure to integrate and optimize.

3. Is your advertisement relevant to your medium?

So you finally decided to integrate your television and online video campaigns. Great! But make sure you do not simply distribute the same video through both channels – TV advertisements fail, for the most part, to establish a deeper relationship with the consumer where as online strives on building that same consumer relationship. By producing separate more interactive content, you will only win in the long run.

4. What is your measurement plan?

Now that you’ve mastered steps 1-3, measure your success with step 4. Quantify your goals and exactly what you want to achieve through online video. Is it to increase brand awareness? Improve perception? Drive sales? It is key to prioritize your goals and make sure the video is distributed through the correct platforms maximizing the reach.

5. Have you contacted VMG to create the most effective online video for your brand yet?

Kidding… somewhat.
The agency definitely plays an integral part in your marketing campaign. Your creative, production, distribution, and strategy all rely on the team you hire so it’s everyone’s best interest to hire experts in the field.

Stay innovative,
Marina.

For more information, please visit www.vmgcinematic.com

In traditional PPC, you begin by selecting a keyword or phrase that you would like to target. You write your ad copy including a subject line and body text and you make a bid that determines where and how your ad ends up being displayed. You only pay money when someone actually clicks on your ad, as opposed to every time your ad is displayed.

The Good
Starting with a few positive aspects of Facebook advertising, you can include images with your ads. This is a very powerful way to make your ads more visually appealing and enticing while standing out from the crowd. And of course, you can experiment with different images to find out which draws the most clicks.

Another benefit is that given the detailed demographic information available on Facebook, you can target your users to a very narrow degree. So, for example, if you run a sports apparel shop in New York,  you can do more than just target a keyword like “football”; you can target college aged males living in or near New York City, that have indicated that they like “football” or “hockey”, or even “fire juggling” if you wish.

The Bad
Despite the good aspects, the Facebook advertising program is far from perfect. To begin with, there is a very limited range of reporting and tracking features available. The true power of PPC derives from the fact that you can understand every single detail about every ad and click, but the Facebook program is somewhat limited in this respect. For example, there is little understanding of what increasing/decreasing clicks bids actually does, as positioning data isn’t available. And perhaps the single most obviously missing piece of reporting is conversion tracking – it simply isn’t provided.

Additionally, navigating the complex requirements for market definition and ad writing can be a major hassle, ultimately restricting your ads to a large degree.

Finally, PPC thrives from being able to make instant changes to capitalize on sudden trends and new data developments. However the long review time with the Facebook program prohibits this to some extent. And there is no API or external management tool, all maintenance must be done from within the cumbersome interface.

One inherent problem in the system has nothing to do with the interface but rather the audience that Facebook reaches. With classic PPC, you’re not just providing highly targeted ads, but you’re doing so in an environment where the product/service is being actively sought! However, on a social networking platform where people feel comfortable and open with their friends, they may not be open to, or likely to click on,  advertisements as much as they would be when conducting a search through a search engine. Trying to break through with advertisements when people aren’t receptive to them can result in very low CTR’s.

The Reality
The bottom line is that Facebook advertising opens the doors to a potentially huge market that could drive a great amount of targeted traffic to your website. However, the somewhat clunky system, the unexpected bombardment of advertisements in the eyes of the users of the website itself and several other factors make it a bumpy road. With a professional agency managing the campaign you will certainly be able to see results; but if you’re looking for more of a sure thing and have less experience with PPC, sticking with Google Adwords or a similar program might be a better option.

Custom Reporting

custom reports

Custom Reporting from Google Analytics is a powerful new feature that allows you to obtain the exact information that you are seeking. Using Custom Reporting you can drill down into your stats to open up a wealth of new data. The way it works is that you create a custom report, or many custom reports for your website based on a series of individually selected Metrics and Dimensions.

There are dozens of Metrics, including things such as entrances, pageviews, bounces and more. After selecting the metric or metrics that you are interested in, you then select the appropriate Dimensions you are seeking. There are dozens of Dimensions including things such as traffic sources, content page titles, landing pages, and visitor country. Combining the two you can have amazing new information about the success of your website. You can choose up to ten metrics at a time and up to 5 dimensions at a time, producing an infinite array of different custom reports that can highlight any detail you are trying to learn about.

For example, combing the Metrics of entrances and pageviews with the Dimension Page Title, you see which pages on your website serve as the main landing pages, and which lead to the most engaged visitors as determined by total pageviews. You can derive a great deal of useful, specific information from this new feature. Custom Reporting takes a little bit of time to get used to, because not all Metrics can be used with all Dimensions. However, some quick experimentation will allow you to dig out the data you are trying to find.

Adsense Integration

AdSense Integration

For a long time, Google Analytics has allowed you to connect your Google Adwords campaigns to your Google Analytics account. This lets you see how effective your different campaigns are in terms of generating targeted traffic and real prospects to your site. Using the Goals and Funnels that Analytics provide, you can then track your campaigns in terms of the conversions they actually produce for your website.

Now, Google Analytics allows you to connect your account with your Adsense account. This is a great new feature that many webmasters have been looking for. With this functionality, you can see which specific page on your site leads to the most clicks or the best conversions. You can track different ad placements on similar pages, you can see which pages produce the highest price per click and so on. It’s a great and handy feature that allows you to make the most of your Adsense revenue.

Advanced Segments

Advanced Segments

Advanced Segments in Google Analytics is a quick way to take a narrower look at your data. Using Advanced Segments you can easily and instantly look at only a specific set of information, apart from the whole, and you can then compare that set to other specific sets or to your entire site.

For example, you can use the default segment of Paid Traffic to see returned all of the information related to traffic from your PPC campaigns. You can then compare that to the segment of Non-Paid Traffic to see how your organic traffic compares in success to your paid traffic. Other segments include referral traffic, direct traffic, returning visitors, new visitors, visits with conversions and more. Of course, you can also create custom segments with different information as well.

As compared to Custom Reporting, Advanced Segments is instant to use and shows you a grouping or subset of your data, including every statistic that Analytics provides. Custom Reporting on the other hand shows you a combination of different factors that you specifically choose to paint a clear and specific picture about one or several specific factors.

Conclusion
These new features to Google Analytics provide an even more rich and in-depth experience for those looking to obtain as much information as possible about their websites. If you utilize Analytics to the fullest extent possible, you’ll have a very clear picture of how your website is operating in the real world, which marketing campaigns are working and which aren’t, and most importantly – how you can continue to improve performance.

Gone are the days of individuals and companies presenting static websites online for people to browse. Today, the people doing the browsing are the people creating the content. They produce their own content, they share it with others, they comment on your content and they interact with content in a variety of different ways.

This means that less power and control lies in the website owner’s hands, however, a whole new world of opportunity has opened itself up for the website owner who is looking to capitalize on the latest trends.

There are many different social media sites out there that you may consider looking into. It’s important to remember that while they share many of the same core traits, they all are quite different from one another. Each one presents their own unique set of challenges, and you have to follow the unwritten code for each site in order to ensure that you play nicely with those already in the community and that you garner serious results for your organization.

Content Popularity
One group of social media site is the voting and submission community. This is a service such as Digg, Reddit or Propeller, where anybody can submit an article, picture or video from the Internet to the site. The other users on the site then view it, and if they like it they vote for it. The more votes that a piece of content generates, the more attention it receives in the community and the more traffic and buzz you’ll end up generating.

Social Butterfly-ism
Another style of social media site is the major profile and friend sites, such as MySpace, Facebook and Twitter. With these sites you can keep people informed with all of your latest news, you can share hobbies and interests with people, connect with new prospects and join groups of fellow supporters. Basically, in one of these services you’re less of a company and more of a person with a set of passions and ideals, hoping to connect with other people on those topics.

Media Sharing
There is also a good deal of media sharing sites. Media sites include YouTube, where you can post your own videos and Flickr, where you can share a collection of photographs. Both present unique opportunities for promoting your website and finding new prospects.

YouTube is great for demonstrating a product or a service or if you could pull it off, producing a viral video campaign that gets quickly spread around the web. Flickr can be used in many different ways, from showcasing pictures of your product in use around the world to highlighting how fun your recent event was to hosting contests for the best photograph incorporating your logo or anything else.

What it Boils Down To
What stays the same within all of these various communities is that you need to be providing something of interest and something of value to people. You can’t just create an account and expect the traffic to start rolling in. You have to interact with people, pay attention to what they are saying and respond to their needs. You have to generate useful, unique and engaging content based around your product or your niche that people are going to be drawn to.

If you can do all of these things successfully then you will find that the world of social media can be very rewarding for your organization. The opportunities are literally endless, and it’s all about staying on top of the latest trends and making them work for your organization by being as creative and personable as possible.

Don’t be the last one on the train, start considering social media as a component for your online marketing strategy.