In the first study of 2007, the smaller INC 500 companies outpaced the Fortune 500 in blog use (19% vs. 8%) and this trend continued as both group increased their blogging over the years. Now for the first blogging has declined in the Inc. 500 as other social media tools have emerged. In 2010 50% of the Inc. 500 had a corporate blog, up from 45% in 2009 and 39% in 2008.  Now in 2011, the use of blogging dropped to 37%. In contrast, they found, in a related study that blogs continued at the same 23% level in Fortune 500 companies.

There are other shifts as the use of Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, texting, downloadable mobile apps and Foursquare are increasing while there are reductions in the use of blogs, message boards, video blogs, podcasts and MySpace. Specifically, in 2011 74% of the Inc. 500 used Facebook and 73% used LinkedIn.  Twenty-five and 24% respectively find that Facebook or LinkedIn is the single most effective social networking platform. In addition, texting, downloadable mobile applications, and Foursquare are used by 13%-15% of the 2011 Inc. 500.

Social media is seen as an effective tool in a variety of ways with 90% of responding executives indicate that social media tools are important for brand awareness and company reputation.  In addition, 88% find social media as important for generating web traffic, 81% find it important for lead generation, and 73% find social media tools important for customer support programs.  At the same time I was surprised to see a drop in monitoring social media as the 2011 study found that 68% of companies do monitor, down from 70% in 2010, which was the highest percent of the past 5 years. Although is a small drop and we will have to see if this trend continues.

Investment in social media will continue to increase for most as 71% plan to increase their investment, 25% said they would keep their social media budget the same, and only 1 company (4%) plans to decrease its investment. Only 24% of the Inc. 500 now have a written social media policy for their employees who use these tools on behalf of the company. This number clearly needs to increase.  Measurement will also likely increase as current metrics include: numbers of fans, followers and supporters (26%), web traffic (25%), lead generation (16%), reduced cost of customer support (10%), the value of sales generated through social media programs (7%).

Most firms are filling resource requirements internally as 66% report retraining or repositioning existing employees to handle their social media efforts, 10% use external consultants or agencies, and 7% have made new hires specifically for their social media needs.  In summary, 91% of the Inc. 500 are now using social media to market their brands with a shift from blogs as the main tool to Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. This matches my intuitive and informal observation but it is really useful to have this useful research to validate these trends.

Comments

While Twitter’s General Counsel Alex Macgillivray tweeted that he believes this move heralds a “bad day for the Internet,” the company’s PR department came out with a statement saying -

As we’ve seen time and time again, news breaks first on Twitter. As a result, Twitter accounts and Tweets are often the most relevant (search) results. We’re concerned that as a result of Google’s changes, finding this information will be much harder for everyone. We think that’s bad for people, publishers, news organizations and Twitter users.

With the new Search Plus Your World feature Google aims at transforming its search engine into a personalized and content rich portal.

Ben Gomes of Google said, “There is a huge amount of content on the Web today but, at a certain point this content is nameless and faceless. The most relevant content is from people you know, so we are introducing your personal world to search. I’ve been trying it out and it really changes the nature of search for me. Now when I search for Bangalore I not only see information about the city but I see pictures of the house where I grew up.”

The ‘Search Plus Your World’ works around 3 major components :

1. Personal Results: This will include results like your Google+ photos and posts.
2. Profiles in Search: This will highlight people that might have helpful information.
3. People and Pages: This will help users find people profiles and Google+ pages related to a specific topic or area of interest, and enable users to follow those pages with just a few clicks. Because as per Google ‘behind most queries there is a community’.

Gomes also reconfirmed that Google has gone above and beyond on privacy issues as the company understands that people are sensitive with personal data.

However, Twitter’s main concern about this release is that with Google’s Search Plus Your World, people will find their own Google+ pages, profiles, updates etc in the top results making it much more difficult for users to find relevant information on Google. Further more critiques says that users will be restricted to the Google+ community pages only so Google motive behind ‘most queries, there’s a community’ is really not served.

In defense Google quickly responded Twitter’ statement with the following Google+ post:

We are a bit surprised by Twitter’s comments about Search Plus Your World, because they chose not to renew their agreement with us last summer, and since then we have observed their no-follow instructions.

In a similar statement Gabriel Stricker, a spokesman for Google said, “Google does not have access to crawl all the information on some sites, so it’s not possible for us to surface all that content. Based on current policies from many social networks, we currently only have persistent access to information from Google+.”

While the two companies continue to battle it out, you can learn more about Google’s Search Plus Your World here.

Comments

A recent report shows that U.S. shoppers have already spent close to $25 billion in their online shopping for this holiday season with 8 days of the shopping season still remaining. This figure is an 15% increase when compared to the same period last year.

Strong marketing ideas combined with attractive offers and free shipping seemed to be the magic formula used by most retailers to entice online shoppers to buy gifts online rather than at retail locations.

The week ending on 9th Dec 2011 has not only recorded a $9.5 billion spending (a remarkable 15% increase from last year), but also includes 3 days when the sales figure surpassed $1billion. For the holiday season-to-date, six individual days out of 39 days have exceeded the billion dollar threshold, led by Cyber Monday at $1.25 billion.

In a statement, comScore chairman Gian Fugoni said:

These highlights represent another very positive sign for the holiday shopping season, as the week following ‘Cyber Week’ often experiences relative softness in spending momentum due to retailers pulling back on their promotional activity. As we enter what will be the heaviest week of the season for online retailers – beginning with ‘Green Monday’ on December 12 – all signs are now pointing to a strong finish to the season.

The term “Green Monday” was coined by eBay in 2007 to describe the Monday of the second week of December, which has been noted to be the day of the greatest online spending of the season since then and it seems that the trend will surely continue this year as well.

Fulgoni also said that although it is known that Green Monday will rank among the top online spending days of the season, but its hold on the #1 position may be slipping somewhat over time. One of the many reasons behind this dip could be that as Free Shipping Day (Friday, December 16 this year) gains in importance each year, online spending during the heaviest week of the season is being more evenly distributed throughout the week, whereas in the past there was a much higher concentration of spending during the early part of the week.

Did your business do well from the holiday shopping period? We certainly hope so.

Comments

The Purpose Of The Study: Google’s Golden Triangle still applicable?

Internet marketers are engaging in location based marketing as a part of their digital marketing strategy. This study was an attempt to answer these questions:

1. What do the users see on a Places page?
2. Reviews make a difference?
3. Are the maps really studied by the people?

These queries could be answered in one way, by knowing how people interacted with search results from Google Places listings.

The process of the study involved eye tracking on 12 participants and online click tracking was studied on 90 people. The click behavior was tracked on the way they interacted with Google’s local search results as shown on Google Maps. The things to search involved 4 cities and places to get a tattoo done in those places.

When the Golden Triangle Showed up in Google Maps Results:

When the study participants searched for a tattoo parlor in Hamilton, Ontario, the results were seen by the users in a classic F-shaped, golden triangle. The number one result had one review, and was sans image. The second listing had one review and an image, and the fourth result had a review with text snippets.

The click tracking results of the same query showed that users preferred the first listing. The 4th listing with review and text snippets was shown to get more clicks than the 2nd or 3rd listings.

User Behavior is Influenced By Social Content:

In the second phase of the test, the participants searched for tattoo parlors in London, Ontario. While the first listing came up with a website URL and contact info, the third one had additional information like a ratings indicator showing three red stars, another indicator to show Google’s eight reviews for this business, and a text snippet from one of those reviews. This additional information drew a lot of attention to the listing than other results.

As for the click tracking study, the third result got a lot of clicks. Even substantial in number as compared to the first result. See the image below, how the third listing with social inputs got more clicks that the second listing.

The conclusion: Top ranked listings get more attention and clicks, but the results using social content like reviews are also able to draw attention.

Takeaway Tips For SEOs:

This study, tells you these important things regarding local search-

1. Even lowers listings with social content can get more clicks than top results sans social signals.
2. If your results are not on top, and being lowers, do not have any social content, then they may be ignored by the users.
3. Reviews are an important factor affecting local search.
4. Text snippets of the reviews are effective in gaining users’ attention.

For further details of the study, you can download it here.

Comments

These third-party networks in AdSense are supported by DoubleClick Ad Exchange, and even more networks can take part in the auction to help the publishers earn more! The system allows the publishers to even block by network via the AdSense interface.

As Google said, “With today’s new report, you’ll be able to see a breakdown of impressions, clicks, and earnings by Google-certified ad network. To view this report, log in to your account and visit the Performance reports tab. Click ‘Ad networks’ in the side navigation to see which networks served ads on your pages and how they performed. When comparing the performance of different ad networks, bear in mind that some metrics like RPM can be affected by networks targeting certain value impressions. ”

The participants include Rocket Fuel, Dotomi, Quantcast, Turn, AdRoll.com and [x+1]. Google also said that the data available will only go back as far as September 27, 2011.

Comments

[...] people live tweeting a race is less of an issue to him than making sure the media gets all the results of the events in realtime. A lot of new software architecture has been created for this for the Olympics and there’s going to be a new Olympic Data Feed, an XML feed for the media and rights holders, which subsequent events will make use of. A new Commentator Information System (CIS) means realtime results rather than TV cameras picking up crowds cheering before the results appear on screen.

“We’ll also be developing some iOS, Android, RIM and Windows 7 applications [to] deliver various things” he says, adding that more will be revealed about this apps in due course.

[...] The sheer scale of the tech aspects of the Olympics have to be read to be believed.

The 16 days of the Olympics games and 12 days of the Paralympics will see 450 technologists keep 180 servers and 1160 PCs and laptops running 24/7. There are 92 buildings to be connected and BT is investing 640,000 man hours in the project. A volunteer portal created by Atos Origin will manage volunteer staff of up to 70,000 during the games. A radio trunked network from British company Airwave will will be used by stewards and the emergency services, and will act as a backup mobile network if anything goes wrong.

(Also read London warned Olympic games may mean mobile phone ‘capacity crunch’ in the Guardian last month.)

Worldwide IT partner Atos Origin says the first IT professionals are already working full time to design the IT infrastructure and systems that will process the accreditation badges for the 200,000 members of the Olympic Family; manage staffing rotas and deliver the results to the world in less than a second.

They add:

For the London 2012 Games, we predict that technology will play a bigger role in two areas. Firstly, in improving access to information as audiences worldwide expect more detailed and colourful information to be delivered, as it happens, to an increasingly complex network of channels. Secondly, the technology infrastructure will also enable a sustainable Olympic Games.

Think also of the opportunity for terrorists to cause disruption on a global scale: massive  denial of service attacks, for instance, or introducing viruses or malware into the computer systems. Part of all the preparations include preparations now for cyber attack tests for the games’ computer systems that will take place next year.

Maybe the success of it all will be judged by how you don’t think about all that effort in the background leading up to the events next year.

Seamless is how it should be so you can concentrate on the sport.

When you’re sitting in front of your widescreen HD television in July 2012 to enjoy two weeks of the 2012 Olympic Games, spare a thought for the huge technology infrastructure that will enable you to get images and sound as well as up-to-the-minute instant results, rankings and other metrics about each and every event, the participants and more, all without a second thought.

Mike Butcher interviews Gerry Pennell, CIO of London 2012, who provides some choice insights into the scope and scale of what he’s aiming to deliver between now and the opening ceremony at the London stadium on July 27, 2012 – that’s 288 days from now.

[...] people live tweeting a race is less of an issue to him than making sure the media gets all the results of the events in realtime. A lot of new software architecture has been created for this for the Olympics and there’s going to be a new Olympic Data Feed, an XML feed for the media and rights holders, which subsequent events will make use of. A new Commentator Information System (CIS) means realtime results rather than TV cameras picking up crowds cheering before the results appear on screen.

“We’ll also be developing some iOS, Android, RIM and Windows 7 applications [to] deliver various things” he says, adding that more will be revealed about this apps in due course.

[...] The sheer scale of the tech aspects of the Olympics have to be read to be believed.

The 16 days of the Olympics games and 12 days of the Paralympics will see 450 technologists keep 180 servers and 1160 PCs and laptops running 24/7. There are 92 buildings to be connected and BT is investing 640,000 man hours in the project. A volunteer portal created by Atos Origin will manage volunteer staff of up to 70,000 during the games. A radio trunked network from British company Airwave will will be used by stewards and the emergency services, and will act as a backup mobile network if anything goes wrong.

(Also read London warned Olympic games may mean mobile phone ‘capacity crunch’ in the Guardian last month.)

Worldwide IT partner Atos Origin says the first IT professionals are already working full time to design the IT infrastructure and systems that will process the accreditation badges for the 200,000 members of the Olympic Family; manage staffing rotas and deliver the results to the world in less than a second.

They add:

For the London 2012 Games, we predict that technology will play a bigger role in two areas. Firstly, in improving access to information as audiences worldwide expect more detailed and colourful information to be delivered, as it happens, to an increasingly complex network of channels. Secondly, the technology infrastructure will also enable a sustainable Olympic Games.

Think also of the opportunity for terrorists to cause disruption on a global scale: massive  denial of service attacks, for instance, or introducing viruses or malware into the computer systems. Part of all the preparations include preparations now for cyber attack tests for the games’ computer systems that will take place next year.

Maybe the success of it all will be judged by how you don’t think about all that effort in the background leading up to the events next year.

Seamless is how it should be so you can concentrate on the sport.

Comments

The announcement of the program is in partnership with the US Chamber of Commerce and the small-business group National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB). The motive here will be educating small businesses on how to promote themselves on the social-networking site including which ads to buy for the market they are targeting.

The new program will be officially kicked off by Facebook next month with a cross-country road show and a series of webinars with their partners. Facebook is said to be giving $50 per business in free advertising credits to around 200,000 small businesses, such a discount is said to be redeemable on first come first serve basis, when purchasing ads on the social networking web site.

While Facebook is making $4.05 billion in global advertising revenue,  only 9.2 million small businesses are using Facebook advertising to reach out to their customers. When you consider that there are 30 million small businesses registered in the United States, Facebook has found an opportunity that they want to exploit.

The motive behind the free advertising credit is to get small business to try out an ad campaign on Facebook, so businesses can see first-hand how it can work to increase their businesses growth. Facebook has set up a page for more information.

So, if you’re looking to delve into Facebook marketing for your business, this new program might be a great opportunity to get started.

Comments

As of now Sprint Nexus S 4G is the only NFC compatible handset. However,  there are indications that the future Android handsets will also go for the NFC chip, while the other handsets will get them tuned with Google Wallet through NFC-enabled stickers.

Google Wallet is poised to make the payment procedure smooth. It will help the user to organize gift cards, credit cards and loyalty programmes on his phone, thereby enabling him to make quick payment for purchases. The user only has to tap his phone on an enabled payment terminal. The technology that will be used is that of ‘Near Field Communication’ (NFC).

While using Google Wallet you can pay through Citi MasterCard credit card and Google Prepaid Card. The same can be funded with any plastic credit cards that you are using as of now.

By the way, Visa, Discover and American Express also seek their cards to be enabled to be compatible with the future versions of Google Wallet. In fact they have already made their NFC specifications available.

Initially Google Wallet will be available with only a limited number of retailers, such as Bloomingdales, American Eagle, Sports Authority, Macys,  Walgreens, Subway,  and many of MasterCard PayPass enabled merchants.

Another key appeal of Google Wallet is that NFC handsets are better than plastic credit cards in terms of security.

Comments