Posts Tagged holiday
Written on July 1, 2010 by admin
Filed Under: marketing, seo
At first look this kind of an announcement should followed by a sarcastic comment of “Really? I would have never guessed.” It only makes sense that colleges would be using social media since there is little question as to how involved their target market it. What is interesting is how their adoption outpaces that of the business world, especially the larger companies.
The study titled, Social Media and College Admissions: Higher-Ed Beats Business in Adoption of New Tools for Third Year was performed by Nora Ganim Barnes, Ph.D., Eric Mattson CEO, Financial Insite (hat tip to @chuckhester for the alert this AM via Twitter). The following chart may raise some eyebrows if it is indeed accurate.
With all of the benefits of blogging including audience engagement and SEO upside, it still appears as if big business in particular is just not buying in. The smaller a business gets the more likely it is to have a blog. This is probably attributable to more flexibility in smaller companies thus making the path to a blog quicker. Having said that I am also a little surprised that only 50% of colleges in the study are blogging. Maybe kids these days don’t like to read? I bet their parents do though especially when it comes to the cost of a college education these days 
.
Another finding showed that college admissions are using a variety of different social media mechanisms to get out there but the bulk of these efforts are in social networking. Notably, Twitter shows up for the first time in the study in the three years of its existence.
Lastly is the adoption by colleges and universities of online monitoring or online listening. It’s certainly encouraging to see that these folks understand that there is a ‘conversation’ going on out there and they need to be on top of that talk.
I can tell you for certain that 73% of businesses of any size are not truly watching what is being said about, around, against or in favor of them online. Why? Your guess is as good as mine but the standard “We just don’t have the resources.” response no longer holds water. In fact, I believe it is the sign of a weak and poorly run company that is taking the ‘head in the sand’ approach to business. These days it doesn’t take as much as you would think to stay on top of these things. It does, however, take as much if not more, to mop up after a mess that could have been prevented.
How’s your business performing in the social media area? Where are you strong and where would you like to improve? Since there is not much happening in the world of Internet marketing before this holiday weekend why not share your take with us?
Lastly, if you would like a copy of this report you can visit this site. It’s free.
Go here to see the original:
College Admissions Adopt Social Media More and More
Written on May 28, 2010 by admin
Filed Under: marketing
While geo-location services often have trouble pinpointing exact location (studies have shown that 40% of the time they are inaccurate) that hasn’t hampered the growth of foursquare. In fact, the exponential growth of checkins is starting to produce numbers that boggle the mind. As marketers it is now getting to the point where ignoring the trend will come at your own risk.
Mashable reports
A tweet from Foursquare yesterday revealed that the company is doing “10+ checkins per second.” We did the math and at 10 checkins per second, Foursquare is processing about 36,000 checkins per hour — putting the daily checkin total somewhere around 864,000.
In fact, once Foursquare hits 11.58 checkins per second — a milestone foreseeable in the very near future — it will be processing over 1 million checkins per day.
That’s a lot of activity for sure even though many still wonder what the point of all of this checkin activity really is. In the end it may just be a way for people to make themselves available to marketers at the right place at the right time with the right need. A true marketer’s trifecta if there ever was one.
Mashable’s Jennifer Van Grove makes a good point in assessing the success of foursquare and giving the mainstream press coverage its due in this growing success. Funny how such new and innovative things rely on the same thing that business has for quite some time now. Word of mouth and playing to peoples’ desire to be ‘cool’ will always play an important role in making or breaking products or services be they online or not.
Where are you checking in from this holiday weekend? Wherever it is be safe and have fun and remember why it’s a holiday.
Read the rest here:
Foursquare Closing In On Checkin Milestone
Written on February 2, 2010 by admin
Filed Under: book, marketing
We’ve seen the trend for a long time: social networks are sending more and more downstream traffic to retail sites. Hitwise has the numbers from December—and the downstream traffic from social networks is up 37%.
The change doesn’t look super significant, I know, but it’s the biggest percentage increase for any category. Fewer people are starting at retailers’ sites or through permission email, so search engines and social media are more important than ever.
So is it more because users are recommending deals to their friends, or is it because of retailers’ presence on social networks? Likely both. Hitwise found that many users were actively seeking info on popular retailers.
As an example, we ran a custom analysis of internal searches on Facebook to look for retail brands during the holiday season. . . . During the holidays over 2% of the traffic to Facebook (the 2nd ranked website in the US) visited a website in the Retail 500 immediately after. Retailers like Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy, and Bath & Body Works (and others) all appeared within the internal searches taking place on Facebook signifying that consumers were actively seeking their content and offerings.
The first week of December, that rate topped 3%. With 175M daily visitors, even 3% is nothing to sneeze at.
What do you think? Is this proof that even big brands should be on social media? Or should they focus their efforts elsewhere?
See the rest here:
Social Network Traffic to Retail Grows
Written on December 2, 2009 by admin
Filed Under: marketing
The results are in: Cyber Monday (and Black Friday) = success! The numbers are actually up from last year, despite the state the economy is still in. And according to Hitwise, social sites helped to drive sales. (Yeah, FOR REAL.)
Their data shows that not only was US traffic up to social sites over the holiday weekend, but downstream traffic to online retailers was also up—especially to Amazon (Cyber Monday winner), Wal-Mart (Black Friday winner), Target, Best Buy and Toys R Us. Wal-Mart also saw the highest increase in downstream traffic from Twitter (among the Retail 500 that Hitwise tracks).
However, let me just pull out my favorite wet blanket—sort of. Let’s see, how can I put this? #1—Cyber Monday is a made-up holiday. Nobody outside of Internet marketing/retailing has ever heard of it and it has nothing to do with their shopping patterns. However, there’s good news here, too. We are a nation (world?) of procrastinators—and another day is actually the biggest (revenue-wise) online shopping day of the year—and it’s yet to come.
The thinking behind Cyber Monday, created in 2005, was that workers returning from their Thanksgiving holiday would use the Internet to do a lot of their holiday shopping. (At work? Don’t they have the Internet at home, where they have all those glossy ads from stores to compare prices? Were they too lazy/agoraphobic to go out on Black Friday? (Hey, no worries, me too.) Clearly, the logic behind this “holiday” was always flawed.)
Two years ago, it was “Green Monday” (although now there seems to be some confusion as to whether that label applies to the first or second Monday in December)—with $881M in online sales (versus $733 on Cyber Monday, tied for tenth among the big online sales days in 2007). Last year, it was the day after Green Monday, with $887M (versus $846M on Cyber Monday)—but with this year’s Cyber Monday total the same as last year’s highest sales day (and last year’s highest sales day only a 1% increase over the year before), could we hope for anything higher?
Excerpt from:
Social Sites Help eCommerce (and Your Annual Reality Check)
Written on November 30, 2009 by admin
Filed Under: book, marketing
Let’s face it this holiday season is a pivotal one for all of us from a macro point of view. While many retailers will be focused on their individual bottom lines it will be important to look at how this whole ‘first weekend’ of the holiday shopping season plays out from start to finish with the latest entry, Cyber Monday, happening as you read this.
First the good news. Online sales for Black Friday were up 11% over last year according to comScore and the rest of November was an improvement over the prior year. Let’s remember, though, that last year’s holiday season was on the heels of “Bailout 1” and waiting for a new president to be inaugurated. In other words, last year sucked so any improvement over those numbers needs to be tempered.
Overall, meaning the performance of the Black Friday weekend in total, was less heartening in that it appears that people are intent on spending less and there was virtually no increase in spending overall from last year. Yahoo News reports
Consumers spent significantly less per person at the start of the holiday season this weekend, dimming hopes for a retail comeback that would help propel the economy early in 2010.
Consumers said they will have spent nearly 8 percent less on average, or about $343 per person, over the weekend that includes Thanksgiving, Black Friday and runs through Sunday, according to the NRF (National Federation of Retailers).
Traffic to stores and websites rose to 195 million people from 172 million in 2008, but shoppers were focused on buying low-priced items, like $10 toys and $9 books, the NRF said.
Total spending for the holiday weekend rose to an estimated $41.2 billion, up 0.5 percent from a year earlier, NRF said.
Since I am not a prognosticator I am not going to offer some thoughts on where this will all go. What I will say is that this will not be the time for irrational exuberance over numbers that look nice in a silo. This season is about online and offline together and if there is little or no increase (or even a decrease) in spending then we are looking at some interesting times ahead.
Read more:
Online Spending Up Year Over Year for Black Friday
Written on November 30, 2009 by admin
Filed Under: marketing
In the absence of an official statement, your stakeholders will fill the void with rumor and speculation.
I’ve preached that enough times, you’d think that even Tiger Woods would have heard about it.
Apparently not:
Which is leading to this:
With rumors like that, you’d think that Woods would be grabbing the nearest TV camera and setting the record straight. Now, you might argue that Woods deserves his privacy–just like any other individual. The problem is, Tiger Woods is not just a person, he’s a $1 billion brand.
Yes, a brand.
Look, I’m not denying his right to privacy, but if he wants to continue being the face of Nike, Buick, Accenture, and such, he needs to come forward pretty soon and put the gossipers in their place.
Assuming that he can.
Who knows why Woods is keeping quiet. He does naturally appear to be less extravagant than most sports stars–more reserved–but he still needs to explain how he managed to drive into tree without any apparent mitigating circumstances. He owes his fans, the media, and his sponsors an explanation.
Yes, he does!
They invested their time, their money, their emotional commitment to Woods. He sold them a brand and now he’s not living up to it. Just like any other “product” its customers deserve to know why it’s not “working” the way it has for the past decade or more.
Cold? Sure! And Woods can continue to hold onto his privacy if he so chooses–as Bobby Brown would say, that’s his “perogative!” But, at some point he needs to decide what’s more important, Tiger Woods the person, or Tiger Woods the brand.
Because Tiger Woods the brand is in a lot of trouble at this point.
Original post:
Tiger Woods Crashing a $1 Billion Reputation With His Silence?
Tags: a-year-earlier- ,fill-the-void ,gossipers ,holiday ,individual ,marketing ,media ,networkers ,privacy ,reputation ,shopping ,tiger ,tiger-woods ,time ,woods
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Written on November 26, 2009 by admin
Filed Under: seo
Posted by Sam Niccolls
Tags: development ,director ,holiday ,location ,operator ,plugin ,post ,related ,seo ,spying ,theory ,training
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Written on November 12, 2009 by admin
Filed Under: Object, seo
Day three is just about complete of PubCon Vegas 2009, at least the conference sessions. I thought I share many of the session coverage I found written on the various blogs throughout the day. Here is PubCon Vegas day three coverage:
Best of PubCon 2009, Managing Greatness
Competitive Intelligence: Know Thy Competitor Well, outspokenmedia.com
Holiday SEO: [...]
….
View original here:
Day Three: PubCon Vegas 2009
Tags: competitive ,conference ,found-written ,holiday ,managing ,sem industry: conferences ,seo ,spzmu ,the-day- ,the-session ,the-various ,various ,vegas
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Written on November 10, 2009 by admin
Filed Under: marketing
Free wifi seems to be the new black as of late when it comes to Internet companies promoting their offerings. As you may or may not know, I am a disgruntled Blackberry Storm user who went with an iTouch so I could at least be in the same room as the cool kids but if there’s no Wifi there’s no go. Well, depending on where I may roam and when I am out and about I may have more connectivity then I am accustomed to thanks to a rush of folks thinking it would be cool if there were “Wifi for all” during the holiday season. Hmmmm, I wonder if they have ulterior motives other than just being nice……
Here’s a list of who’s doing what and where.
Google – CNN Money reports that Google is providing free Wifi to travelers in 47 airports across the country. Pretty neat. All of the international airports in Florida will reap the benefits through the rest of the year. Not to be outdone Google is making sure that people in some less trafficked airports like Billings, MT can try out any new Google goodies while waiting for their flights. This offer is in addition the already announced free Wifi on Virgin America flights as well.
Yahoo – Not to be outdone, Yahoo has announced it will provide free Wifi to Times Square in New York City for an entire year. Nice!
A rep says it’s “the latest literal expression of Yahoo’s promise to be at the center of people’s online lives”—which is also a theme of the company’s $100 million ad campaign
Don’t you just get a boat load of warm fuzzies when you hear that from Yahoo! (Hi, Carol!)
eBay – For those flying Delta for the Thanksgiving holiday eBay will be providing free Wifi through Gogo. Nice touch. Don’t forget to do your holiday shopping while at 30,000 feet. Welcome to the new version of the “Mile High Club” which is G-rated and fun for the whole family.
Even brands like Lexus are utilizing the free Wifi approach to get their word out. While more product related around the intro of a new vehicle, the car maker offered free Wifi for a week on American Airlines flights.
Google is making sure that it does more than anyone else apparently as they tie a charitable effort to their promotion as well.
The company is also running a charity campaign to raise money for three nonprofit groups: Engineers without Borders, One Economy Corporation and Climate Savers Computing Initiative. When Google WiFi users first log on, the landing page will offer them the option of donating to the organizations. Google will match donations of up to $250,000 per airport.
Now, I don’t know the economics of this kind of effort but this kind of sponsored offering makes the most sense to me as a great way to spend marketing dollars and add utility all at once. If I could ditch my Storm and use the iTouch just about anywhere then maybe my hybrid Apple and Droid dream could come true. I would be endeared to anyone who helped make that happen.
Read more here:
‘Tis the Season for Free Wifi
Tags: cnn ,cool ,country ,economics ,flights ,google ,holiday ,kind ,money ,organizations ,virgin-america ,yahoo
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Written on November 10, 2009 by admin
Filed Under: marketing
Since August Google has been experimenting with and testing its new Caffeine project for improving the indexing ability of the search giant. As Andy reported in August, there is a real shift to moving toward real time (read social media) results in this new environment. Andy’s concern at the time is that Twitter and other social media offerings may hold too much sway in the new result sets. Well, according to Mashable, Google is feeling comfortable enough with the new environment to put it in at least one data center for some road testing.
Since the launch of the developer preview however, we haven’t heard much about it. It’s quietly been undergoing testing and tweaking. That’s all changing though, as now the developer preview of Google Caffeine has been taken down, replaced with an announcement that Google Caffeine will go live in its first datacenter soon.
The new Caffeine splash page says it all. Here’s the full text:
“Based on the success we’ve seen, we believe Caffeine is ready for a larger audience. Soon we will activate Caffeine more widely, beginning with one data center. This sandbox is no longer necessary and has been retired, but we appreciate the testing and positive input that webmasters and publishers have given. ”
Matt Cutts had said in an interview with WebProNews back at SES in San Jose (August 2009) that this update was along the lines, in terms if significance, of the Big Daddy update of late 2005 / early 2006. So this is no small potatoes move by any means and of course Matt played down any coincidence that this just so happened to occur after the bingahoo announcement.
Personally, I could care less about whether Google is responding to the threat of a competitor. In fact, I find that healthy considering that Google could be resting on their laurels and saying that they can’t be touched. Instead, they are working to make sure they can’t actually be touched. That’s just good business.
So has anyone had any direct experience with the new caffeinated motor on Google? If so tell us what you think. We’re up already and have had enough coffee to pay attention.
Read the original here:
Google’s Caffeine Gets a Data Center Roll Out
Tags: along-the-lines ,cool ,country ,economics ,google ,google-caffeine ,holiday ,organizations ,search ,social ,virgin-america
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