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Managing a Blog for SEO and Marketing

Wednesday, August 5th, 2009

So you have a blog. Great, but now what?

Blogging can be for both personal use and professional use, and each should follow some sort of guidelines for properly managing the blog. How?

I use the social networking site LinkedIn as a way to stay connected to certain fields, like the PR, marketing and communication industries.

The other day, a discussion started in the Public Relations and Communication Professionals group about how frequently you should blog and whether there should be a set schedule. This got me to thinking…

Assuming that SOMEONE out there reads your blog, does that make you responsible (liable) for providing them fresh reading material on a set schedule?

What happens if you take a vacation for a week? Or maybe you simply don’t have anything creative or worthwhile to say for several days…do you have an obligation to your readers to spew out less-than-quality content merely for the purpose of posting?

Tim Walker, a public speaker and social media manager for Hoover’s, piped in to say that a blogger should pick a schedule that they can keep up with, and then stick to it.

That’s sage advice to be sure, but life sometimes throws a wrench in to even the best laid plans.

If you run the blog for a business, then I probably would advise not to let too much time slip by before you run a new blog post. But what if your creativity runs dries for a few days? Do you run a greater risk of driving your readers away by not keeping to your five-posts-a-week schedule, or by posting pure drivel?

I would prefer to take a day or two (or 5) off from writing than write something that I wouldn’t be proud to have my readers read.

Are some posts stronger and more popular than others? Sure.

But the best writing is based on topics that the writer feels passionately about. Trying to drag yourself through 500 words because you feel obligated to your readers won’t result in a good article.

Now if the goal of your blog is to promote a company and use the blog for SEO opportunities and branding or marketing, the last thing you want is a series of sub-par articles. What better way to drive away your audience and potential consumers by showcasing your apathy towards a subject?

Your best bet is to keep to some sort of schedule, but remain flexible. Don’t force out a blog post just because it’s the day to post. If you can’t find/don’t have a topic you feel is really worth writing – why would someone find it worth their time reading?

In my opinion, the best way to manage your blog is to write as frequently as you have inspiration. Don’t force it, but don’t let too much time slip by either! Write for yourself as much as you write for your audience, and you’ll ultimately end up with a higher quality blog!

By: Zack S.

Tags: blogging, blogging guidlines, marketing, SEO
Posted in Blog Posts | 1 Comment »

What to Expect Now from Bing, Yahoo and Google

Monday, August 3rd, 2009

Now that the Microsoft-Yahoo deal is public and the details have been hashed over by blog after blog, the dust is settling, and we are perhaps getting a clearer picture of what to expect in the future.

Bing and Yahoo will keep their own branding, but Yahoo’s search results will be powered by Bing.

Great – but what about Google? The Mountain View-based industry leader was expected (by some) to throw a fit about the union between number 2 Yahoo and number 3 Bing – yet they released a statement basically saying they were intrigued and interested in the partnership. To me it read: “and then there was only one remaining…”

I don’t think Google has anything to worry about from the Yahoo/Microsoft partnership in terms of search engine market share. With Google Voice and Google Wave being the next hot online tools, I don’t see Bing/Yahoo deal snatching away the limelight.

It will be interesting to see what happens in 2010 when we can finally hope to see the results online of the Bing/Yahoo deal. But until then, what can we expect from the search engine rankings?

Well so far – not much.

For all the hubbub about the Bing search engine, it really hasn’t made much of an impact in the search engine industry. Bing merely took over the market share that Live Search and MSN held, and it’s snagged a few tenths of a percentage point from Yahoo and Google.

In fact, in the past 30 days, Google’s U.S. market share has INCREASED, while Bing has DROPPED over two percent! Hmm…

Yahoo has seen a slight increase in U.S. market share over the same time period – suggesting that the two leaders in the industry (Google and Yahoo) aren’t going anywhere any time soon.

It’s going to be a while before we see anything actually happening online with Bing and Yahoo – and even longer before we see any hope for the new deal to claim market share from Google. I wouldn’t hold my breath.

Tags: Bing, Google, Microsoft, search engines, Yahoo
Posted in Blog Posts | No Comments »

It Turns Out Bing Didn’t Splash the Pond Much

Tuesday, July 21st, 2009

Because this company is involved with SEO, we pay close attention to what’s going on in the search engine industry. Everyone knows Google reigns supreme, but Bing has drawn a lot of attention and made a lot of noise for itself.

Meanwhile there’s Yahoo, AOL, Ask, Lycos, and a whole slew of others…from Altavista to Zapmeta.

I’ll admit this post was spurred by the fact that I’m tired of hearing about Bing. Microsoft has done a nice job with re-branding Live and MSN Search and I truly enjoy the home page for Bing.

But many Web sites have written articles about Bing overtaking Yahoo (officially 4 times in the past 51 days), that I felt obligated to clarify the status of Google -> Yahoo -> Bing -> AOL -> Others.

It has been 51 days since Bing officially went live on June 1, 2009. The average daily U.S. search engine market share for the top four is as follows:

Google: 78.32 percent

Yahoo: 10.98 percent

Bing: 8.44 percent

AOL: 1.27 percent

Standing alone, those number really don’t tell us too much about Microsoft’s search engine and it’s relation to everyone else. So I looked at the 51 days preceding Bing’s launch as well.

For the 51 days leading up to June 1, I combined Microsoft’s two search engines (Live and MSN) and compared that total to the other top three.

Google: 78.86 percent

Yahoo: 11.07 percent

Live + MSN: 7.57 percent

AOL: 1.35 percent

There was only one day I could find prior to June 4 where Microsoft’s offerings beat out Yahoo for number two in the U.S and that was May 28 – the day the news broke about Bing going live in a few days.

So while we can congratulate Microsoft on putting together a very nice looking engine, and providing quick, accurate results, there really hasn’t been too much of a change overall.

Yes, every tenth of a percentage point counts – particularly for Yahoo, who is tenaciously holding onto its number two ranking. But Bing’s appearance online hasn’t exactly sent shockwaves across the industry.

It’s only been 51 days, so much is left to be seen – but we can quit it with the “Bing will become the next Google” garbage. It isn’t going to happen.

I still kind of think that Microsoft is just looking for a way to force Yahoo to sell.

By: Zack S.

Tags: Bing, Google, Microsoft, search engine market share
Posted in Blog Posts | 2 Comments »

Online Marketing: Carving Out Your Corner of the Internet

Monday, July 20th, 2009

The internet is a giant place these days. It hasn’t always been so big, but it is now estimated that there are some 232 million websites in the world.

To be successful at online marketing and business building, you need to spend some time outfitting your corner of the internet. Start by defining the general area or industry you want to be in, and it’s time to get down to detail.

I’ll use USASEOPros as an example. We’re in the SEO and online marketing industry, and so our general corner of the internet is related to marketing.

But to further define our business, we’ve added a blog, a Facebook page, a Twitter account, a StumbleUpon account, a Sphinn account, and many others.

Pictured: The Internet

Above photo credit: Sebastian Prooth.

We use these tools to participate in our corner of the internet as a whole. While on Sphinn, I try to read any and all articles that other people share that I find interesting. The same is true on Twitter – we pay attention to the people we’re following and what they’re saying.

By the same token, we use our blog and the social media sites to share our own thoughts and ideas about the industry. This is the paying attention to detail part.

A blog is an excellent place to start. We try to use our blog as the main landing place for people stumbling across our company, so when we set up social networking accounts, we use the blog URL.

Your blog lets you give your visitors an idea of what the company is about and your own thoughts on the industry you inhabit. Even though a mission statement is a great way to explicitly state the corporate culture, a blog can feel a lot less formal.

It’s with your social media accounts that you can further flesh out your online presence and add some more detail to your corporate identity online.

We focus a lot on Twitter, Facebook and Sphinn, but it really depends on what you feel comfortable with and what industry you’re in. For example, Kaboodle is a social shopping network where the community makes recommendations. Do with that what you will!

Most importantly, as with any online marketing and social media dabbling, remember you’re representing your company as a whole. In fact, you’re painting your own company portrait out there on the internet! You’re in charge of the brush strokes, so when you’re trying to carve out your corner of the web, think about how you’re representing your company.

After all, you don’t want this sort of snafu to become a part of your corner of the internet!

By: Zack S.

Tags: number of websites in world, online marketing, SEO, Social media, Twitter, USASEOPros
Posted in Blog Posts | 1 Comment »

Monitoring Social Media for Niche and Localized Marketing

Wednesday, July 15th, 2009

Yesterday the online social media guide Mashable posted an article with four great tools to track Twitpics in (mostly) real-time. I believe this offers marketers an opportunity to reach out to and communicate with people who are discussing a company or product.

Of the four 3rd party applications (Pingwire, Twitcaps, PicFog, Twicsy), I liked PicFog the best thanks its search and the fact that it displays the number of retweets and when the image was uploaded.

I wrote earlier how I was surprised that the top 25 communicators as ranked by PRWeek don’t have much of a presence on Twitter, and neither did their respective companies.

Whether they understand the tool or not, I believe there is some real value for helping build relationships with consumers and clients, and giving individuals a personalized experience.

Take McDonald’s, for example. Sure, the company is a franchise, and every franchise owner is probably responsible for doing some of their own marketing, but there is a national branding push too.

Imagine if someone was listening in to what was being said and posted about McDonald’s on Twitter. Do you think they might learn something?

Below is a picture of the image stream that PicFog returned when I did a search for McDonalds.

You can see there’s a variety of McDonalds’ related images – from McDonalds’ branded cars to a McCafe cup.

There’s also a picture comment about the back of a McDonald’s receipt and the fact that it’s advertising instead of coupons like at HEB. I always felt that putting a coupon on the back of a receipt was a great way to ensure a quick repeat customer, and obviously this McDonalds patron felt the same way.

Or how about this picture stream about the Boston Red Sox…

This particular user says they aren’t even a fan of baseball, but they love how cute the baby-sized red socks with the BoSox logo on them are.

If someone was monitoring this, they might reach out to the user and mention that next Tuesday was family appreciation day at Fenway Park and would she be interested in free tickets for the family? I’m willing to bet they would have a faithful fan for life. Their kids would be Red Sox faithful fans for life…

Let’s move on to an internet company – eBay. Surely they can find some way to utilize Twitter, right? They do appear to have a Twitter account at least…

In the image below, a Twitter user has posted an image of an HTC phone called the TyTN II that the user is going to be selling on eBay.

This might be a great chance for eBay to join the conversation and offer a seller’s discount of 10 percent for sharing it on Twitter. After all, it’s all exposure for eBay.

Speaking of HTC, here’s a picture from Twitcaps showing a stream from a search for HTC. In this instance, there’s a user who has posted an image of an HTC phone that they want.

A quick search on Twitter will turn up the user’s profile, and in this case, they made it very easy for a marketer to find where they’re located.

HTC Twitterer

How about a local HTC retailer sending an @ message to the user saying they have the phone he’s looking for in stock and if he comes in and signs up in their store, they’ll give him a 5 percent discount?

And finally here’s a sushi aficionado who lives in the Toronto area.

If the Mye Japanese Restaurant picked up on that, they could send a message to the user and let him know the specials of the night and the drink specials for the week. He may already know about the restaurant, but it might also win him away from a competitor.

For the adopters of the latest marketing technologies, these ideas are probably nothing new. But as I pointed out in an earlier post, there isn’t always someone manning the airwaves.

I think it’s important for marketers to keep an eye on what’s being said about their company and their industry, and tools like Twitter, accompanied by 3rd party applications are a fantastic way to do it!

By: Zack S.

Tags: localized marketing, Mashable, niche marketing, picfog, pingwire, Social media, twicsy, twitcaps, Twitter
Posted in Blog Posts | No Comments »

6 Ways Online Marketing is Like Marriage

Monday, July 13th, 2009

Keeping a marriage going, or any long term emotional relationship, can be a major undertaking, full of trial and error. In that sense, a marriage isn’t unlike an online marketing approach.

While you probably don’t do “market research” on your spouse before getting married, you do hopefully spend some time getting to know them and getting a feel for what they’re about.

It’s kind of like testing the waters for a marketing push. After doing some research on the various platforms you’d like to use and the messages you want to send out, you take the plunge (tie the knot).

But there’s plenty more that goes into a marriage that can be likened to your online marketing.

Step 1: Have completely open and fair communication.

Just like you would with a spouse, to make an online marketing campaign flourish, you’ll need to not just be broadcasting your point of view (message), but also spend a lot of time listening and responding.

Ask yourself what people are saying about your industry and your company. What are they saying about your competitors?

Always keep your communication with your audience professional, but make it personable too.

You wouldn’t give your husband or wife a textbook answer about how your day went, and you shouldn’t with someone interested in your company.

Remember: communication isn’t a one-way street. Listen more than you preach, and you’ll do just fine.

Step 2: Build trust.

Trust usually starts with step number one – communication. If you say you’ll do something for client or a consumer or your spouse, stick to your word.

Relationships will not work if one party doesn’t trust the other, so handle your marketing with care. Don’t over-promise and under-deliver, or you’ll never see that consumer again.

Trust and communication go hand in hand, so with every message you publish and every response you make, be sure you’re being completely forthcoming.

Step 3: Keep it fresh.

Relationships will go stale if efforts aren’t made to inject fresh ideas and activities now and then.

The same is very true for online marketing and SEO. We know content is king, but FRESH content is even more important.

Whether you use just a website, have a blog, or use Twitter and StumbleUpon – keep your content and your online marketing fresh.

That’s wonderful that you wrote a powerful blog post, or posted a funny Tweet that got retweeted multiple times. Just like that trip you took for your honeymoon was a great experience, right?

But you don’t want years and years to pass by before you and your spouse get away together again, and you shouldn’t let weeks and weeks pass by before you freshen up your website, blog or Twitter account.

Step 4: Have patience.

Whether you’re married or not, you probably realize that patience is a *must* to make any relationship last.

Inevitably your spouse will do something that will drive you up the wall, but if you have patience, you can bite your tongue and wait for them to stop.

Patience is important with online marketing as well. Search engine optimization experts always caution against expecting results too quickly on the SERPs because these things simply take time.

Unless you opt to pay for your Twitter followers or you’re already famous, it will take some time to build up a following. Have patience, engage the people you follow and who follow you, and the people will come.

Step 5: Acceptance from friends and family.

This might be a stretch, but inbound links to your site/blog are similar to your friends and family accepting your spouse.

Marriages run a lot more smoothly if your spouse has positive relationships with the other people in your life.

By the same token, getting inbound links to your content (message) is a way the community will pass judgment and recommend what you’re saying.

Links to your site are incredibly important for SEO, but they can also give you an idea of what messages you have are being digested by your audience. If list-based blog posts are what tend to get the most recognition, then perhaps that is what you should focus on!

Step 6: Common interests.

Blah blah blah…opposites attract, right? Well I don’t think you’ll find a couple that has been married for 50 years that doesn’t have some similar interests.

There *must* be something that you mutually agree on and enjoy doing for the relationship to go any further.

For an online marketing campaign, that simply means framing your messages so that your intended audience will be receptive.

If you’re in the flower business, don’t tweet a link about how to get 1000s of followers every week and expect to boost business.

In a client/business relationship, the mutual interest should be getting your client the exposure/links/media mentions/business they’re paying you for.

Relationships, like online marketing, can be a fickle thing. One moment everything is perfect, and the next you forgot the oranges and have an upset spouse on your hands.

The same is true for online marketing. One day you’re riding high on the first page of Google for your targeted keywords, and the next Google changes their algorithms and how they calculate page rank.

Just remember to have patience, and continue to keep it fresh!

By: Zack S.

Tags: communication, Google, internet marketing, marketing push, online marketing, relationship marketing, SERP
Posted in Blog Posts | No Comments »

The World’s Top 25 Communicators Shun Twitter

Friday, July 10th, 2009

Last week PRWeek, one of the leading public relations publications, released a “power list” of the top 25 professional communicators.

The companies represented by the 25 were spread across a wide range of industries – from General Electric to IBM to Waggener Edstrom Worldwide. They are all major players in their respective industries, and each undoubtedly has a team or two (or more) of marketers, public relations experts and communication specialists.

But with titles like Vice President of Communication, Ford Motor Company, you’d think Mr. Ray Day might like to stay plugged in to what was being said about the company.

Right?

Well I did some research and found that a disturbingly low percentage of the “top 25 communicators” had a presence on Twitter. [Note: I’m referring to a visible presence. They may well have a username that isn’t easily searchable by a name or company search]

In fact, only eight percent (that’s two people) on PRWeek’s list were on Twitter. An astounding 44 percent of the companies that these people represented weren’t on Twitter either!

Maybe I’m simply too “new-school”, but I was very surprised to not find FedEx on the microblogging site. It seems to me like that would be a great avenue to connect with clients…you know – field complaints, handle inquiries, and direct traffic to the homepage?

So without further ado, I give you the “25 top communicators” as rated by PRWeek:

Name on Twitter? Company on Twitter?

1. Harris Diamond,CEO
Weber Shandwick Worldwide
and IPG’s Constituency
Management Group.
Not found on Twitter.

Company?
Yes. (@WSUSA) – 623 followers, 85
updates. +4 other accounts like
@WSCanada.

2. Richard Edelman, worldwide
president and CEO, Edelman.
Not found on Twitter.

Company?
Yes. (@EdelmanMIA) – 985 followers,
371 updates. +5 other accounts like
@Edelman_India

3. Charlotte Otto,
chief global external relations officer,
Proctor and Gamble.
Not found on Twitter.

Company?
Yes. (@PGNewsUS) – 523 followers,
0 following, 44 updates.

4. Leslie Dach, EVP, corporate
affairs and government relations,
Wal-Mart.
Not found on Twitter.

Company?
Not really. There is @RVwalmart and
@WMsoundcheck, but not a true Wal-Mart
account.

5. Jon Iwata, VP, marketing and
communications, IBM. On Twitter –
@coastw – 449 followers, 49
updates.

Company?
Yes. (@ibmdesign) – 3705 followers,
832 updates. + at least 20 more accounts
like @ibm4bloggers.

6. Robert Gibbs, White House
Press Secretary.
Not found on Twitter.

Company?
Yes. (@whitehouse) – 646,970 followers,
259 updates. +1 @WhiteHouse_blog and
@BarackObama.

7. Sally Susman, SVP and chief
communications officer, Pfizer.
Not found on Twitter.

Company?
Nothing official.

8. Ray Day, VP, communications,
Ford Motor Company. Not found
on Twitter.

Company?
Yes (@Ford) – 10,476 followers, 1,594
updates, 10,014 following. Managed by
Sotty Monty, head of Ford social media.
+6 other accounts like @FordCustService

9. Ken Cohen, VP, public affairs,
ExxonMobil.
Not found on Twitter.

Company?
Not found on Twitter.

10. Mark Penn, CEO,
Burson-Marsteller
On Twitter - @Mark_Penn – 166
followers, 24 updates.

Company?
Not found on Twitter.

11. Bill Margaritis, SVP, global
comms and IR, FedEx.
Not found on Twitter.

Company?
Not found on Twitter.

12. Dave Senay, CEO,
Fleishman-Hillard.
Not found on Twitter.

Company?
Yes. (@Fleishman) – 1713 followers, 49
updates. + individual employee accounts
like @RachelleLacroix.

13. Gary Sheffer, executive director,
comms and public affairs, GE.
Not found on Twitter.

Company?
Yes. (@GE_Reports) – 2843 followers,
474 updates, 2225 following. + at least 2
more accounts like @GETech_Infra.

14. Rachel Whetstone, VP, public
policy and comms, Google.
Not found on Twitter.

Company?
Yes. (@google) – 1,097,659 followers,
488 updates. +at least 16 more accounts
like @ChromeBrowser.

15. Jack Daly, SVP of corporate
relations, McDonald’s.
Not found on Twitter.

Company?
No. But there are localized accounts like
@SanDiegoMcDonalds (607 followers) and
@McDonaldsBrazil (548 followers).

16. Ray Kotcher, CEO, Ketchum.
Not found on Twitter.

Company?
Not found on Twitter. However, Pamela Rocco
Von Lehmdem, an SVP can be found, if you
search really long and hard.

17. Ray Jordan, VP of public affairs
and corporate comms,
Johnson and Johnson.
Not found on Twitter.

Company?
Not found on Twitter.

18. Simon Sproule, VP, corporate
comms, Microsoft.
Not found on Twitter.

Company?
Yes, broken into segments like
@MSWindows (27,631 followers
1,099 updates, 27,029 following) and @bing.

19. Julie Hamp, SVP of corporate
communications, PepsiCo.
Not found on Twitter.

Company?
Yes (@pepsico) – 2668 followers,
1,080 updates, 1,414 following

20. Joele Frank, managing partner,
Joele Frank, Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher
Not found on Twitter.

Company?
Not found on Twitter.

21. Maril MacDonald, CEO,
Gagen MacDonald.
Not found on Twitter.

Company?
Not found on Twitter.

22. Steve Lipin, senior partner,
Brunswick Group.
Not found on Twitter.

Company?
Not found on Twitter.

23. Joseph Evangelisti, managing
director, corporate comms,
JPMorgan Chase.
Not found on Twitter.

Company?
Yes (@JPM_News) – 590 followers, 289
updates.

24. Margery Kraus, CEO, APCO
Worldwide.
Not found on Twitter.

Company?
Yes (@APCOJobs) – 494 followers, 74
updates, 706 following.

25. Melissa Waggener Zorkin, CEO,
president, and founder,
Waggener Edstrom Worldwide.
Nothing that appears legitimate on Twitter.

Company?
Sort of. (@WaggedHK) – their Hong Kong
branch. 204 followers, 4 updates,
217 following.

Congratulations to Jon Iwata and Mark Penn. They’re the only two that could be found on Twitter.

So why is that? Is it because these C-level executives are simply too busy to spend time on Twitter? Is it because they have squadrons of employees who manage the accounts for them?

Or is it because no one on the list is under the age of 35?

There’s no denying that younger demographics tend to be early adopters of new social networks much sooner than their older counterparts.

After all, Quantcast statistics show that the main age demographic for Twitter users is 18-34. But maybe it’s more than that.

I’m not suggesting that the people on this list aren’t excellent at their jobs. A full-scale marketing/PR/communications plan for a company the size of JPMorgan or Johnson and Johnson goes far, far beyond little ‘ol Twitter.

But Twitter has proven itself to be a valuable listening tool for companies who DO adopt the service. I’ve read a lot of positive news about @SouthwestAir and how they’ve managed customer relations on Twitter. Why can’t McDonald’s do the same?

In fact, I would think McDonald’s would be a Twitter power user by now – tweeting to its followers about new meal deals, sharing it’s latest advertising videos on YouTube, and directing traffic to its homepage.

At the very least, I would think Jack Daly would want to keep an open channel for communication on Twitter and listen to what was being said.

The same goes for companies like Johnson and Johnson. They could monitor trends about people complaining about cold and flu symptoms. “What are people saying about how they feel?” “How can we use this information to make better products, better advertising and a better company?”

Granted, that shouldn’t fall on Ray Jordan to actively monitor what Sally SoreNose is saying on a daily basis – but SOMEONE should be listening!

As far as the lack of presence on Twitter for these executives…It’s my opinion that they should have an account (that is easily found) if ONLY because someone may be looking for them someday and have a question about the company.

At the very least, they would be able to redirect the person to the proper information source.

Who knows…maybe Pfizer would want to monitor tweets like this one to gauge public sentiment. (By the way - congratulations to Ford, GE, Microsoft, Pepsi, APCO Worldwide and Waggener Edstrom. They’re the only ones who were following a respectable number in proportion to their followers.)

Or maybe not. If it were my communications strategy, I’d at least have someone listening in.

By: Zack S.

Tags: Ford, GE, Johnson and Johnson, Microsoft, Pepsi, Pfizer, PRWeek 25, top 25 communicators, Twitter
Posted in Blog Posts | 3 Comments »

Google Not the Least Bit Worried about Bing, Microsoft

Wednesday, July 8th, 2009

Microsoft New OS Fail

Make no bones about it – Google and Microsoft are playing hardball these days.

The two tech giants continued to launch shots across each other’s bow late yesterday when Google played a trump card with its Chrome operating system.

Microsoft has been building noise for its Gazelle browser/OS hybrid for a while now, but Google published news last night that appears to have stolen Microsoft’s show.

This news comes on the heels of the Bing versus Google “battle” for search engine market share.

I say “battle” because it really isn’t a fair fight. Sure, Microsoft has thrown reportedly tens of millions of dollars behind Bing for a marketing campaign – but has it worked?

Tongues were sent wagging across the internet when Bing overtook Yahoo for second place in the search engine race. For. A. Day.

Furthermore, there has been a lot of commotion about Bing scooping of market share throughout the US from Google, Yahoo, AOL, Ask and others.

Let’s make something perfectly clear. While the US is a large, and albeit important, chunk of the global search engine market, it is only a portion.

World Internet Usage

In fact, of the estimated 1.59 billion internet users spread out across the globe, the United States represents only about 14 percent of them.

The geographical section of Asia (China, Japan, India, South Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Pakistan, Malaysia, Taiwan – as defined by InternetWorldStats) comprises a staggering 41.2 percent of the global internet users.

And guess what search engine is most used by the world? Yup – Google.

Global Search Engine Usage

While Google holds a “mere” 81.08 percent of the search engine market share in the United States, it has a stranglehold of 89.05 percent globally (as of July 6, 2009).

And here’s another fun statistic: While so much has been written about Bing and the impact it might have on the industry, from July 1, 2008 to July 6, 2009 Google has actually INCREASED its global search engine market share!

But in the US – where Bing has supposedly made such a splash? Google grew its market share from 79.03 percent from July 1 2008 to 81.08 percent on July 7 2009.

US Search Engine Usage

So why is Google not concerned about Microsoft? Because Google is the internet’s leading search engine, and the internet is global. Decision engine or not, Microsoft has to be running scared.

They aren’t winning any share of mind in the search engine industry, and now Google is going right after their bread and butter – the operating system market.

I’m not about to write off Microsoft and their share of the OS market just yet. Linux-based operating systems are nothing new, but they have yet to make much of a dent in Microsoft’s near monopoly of the industry.

Nevertheless, Google is right where it wants to be…on top of the search engine market share, on the top Twitter trending topics, and keeping Microsoft off balance and running to catch up!

Google OS Twitter Trending Topic

By: Zack S.

Tags: Bing, Chrome OS, global internet users, Google, Google Chrome OS, Google on Twitter, search engine market share
Posted in Blog Posts | 1 Comment »

Social Media Spam Saturation: An Event Horizon for Online Networking

Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

Okay so by this point, most people between the ages of 5 and 55 who use a computer at least once a week have probably heard of social media and social networking Web sites.

Even if you aren’t on Twitter, you’ve no doubt heard about it. You’ve probably heard your friends, co-workers or kids mention Facebook too. And MySpace continues to make the news thanks to sexual predators. Facebook has also dealt with its share of predators on its social networking site.

Social media and networking sites have been around for a while, but like with many things, it sometimes takes time for the general public to adopt them.

It can also take some time for advertisers to adjust to the hottest new social media site too. Twitter has been around since 2006, but it’s only recently (think Ashton Kutcher versus CNN, and Oprah) that the real mainstream has embraced it.

When Facebook first started, it was only for Harvard students. It then expanded to Standford and Yale – then to most colleges. Now anyone can have a Facebook page: individuals, companies…even television characters.

There is a definite correlation between mass adoption of social media sites and the amount of spam and advertising that appears on these sites.

Of course, you say – that’s logical. The more people on a site, the more reach an advertisement has. Duh.

But there also appears to be correlation between the arrival of mass advertising and spammers, and the decline in popularity and reach of social media sites.

Let’s start with Bebo. I personally have never used the site, but I know it used to be very popular. It never reached MySpace or Facebook popularity, but there was a point in time – 2006 through early 2008 - when the site had a respectable global reach.

This is what the Bebo homepage looked like in January 2006.

It’s clean, simple, and the call to action for members to join, build a profile and log in are the main focus of the site. There’s virtually no advertising on the homepage, and the focus is on the members who make up the site.

This is what the Bebo homepage looks like in July 2009.

Whoa! It looks like Bebo took a page from the MySpace playbook and made their entire homepage a branding opportunity for advertisers. While this particular advertiser (the anti-smoking campaign Truth) has a good message, it’s still advertising nonetheless. The focus has obviously shifted from users to advertising dollars.

Enter the decline in popularity.

Unfortunately, the Alexa stats only go back to late 2007 on this graph, but it’s quickly apparent that Bebo is losing market share. Oops!

How about MySpace? That site certainly took right off, didn’t it?! The site has had well over 120 million profiles created and at one time it was the most popular social site on the Internet.

This is what the MySpace homepage looked like in October 2007.

It’s fairly clean and has mostly member-related content on the page. There isn’t an over-burden of advertising on the homepage – just a trailer for an upcoming movie and the MySpace Music section. Again, the focus is on the members.

Fast forward to July 2009.

This is actually an improvement over their total-page branding that they were doing a few months ago, but there is still a large amount of page space dedicated to advertising. The World Poker Tour online eh? Didn’t the US government just freeze a bunch of online poker assets?

Enter the decline in popularity.

Whoops! The decline in MySpace popularity and profitability has been widely documented, largely because of the corresponding rise on Facebook.

NewsCorp bought MySpace in 2005, and many users blame the large corporation for turning its attention from users to advertising dollars.

Now let’s look at Facebook. It’s now the most popular and highly visited social networking site, after taking the crown from MySpace in 2008. While MySpace was purchased by NewsCorp in 2005 for $580 million, Facebook has been valued as high as $10 billion!

This is what the Facebook homepage looked like in October 2007.

It’s obviously very clean, crisp and simple. There’s not a lot – or any! – clutter, and it’s a simple portal for users to access their accounts. The focus is clearly on the users.

Here is Facebook in July 2009.

Not a whole lot has changed. They’ve added a snazzy global image, but other than that, it’s still a very clean, simple homepage. There isn’t any advertising or branding on the page. There isn’t the latest movie trailer on the page. The focus is still on getting the user to their account.

Guess what? Facebook is still booming! There are over 200 million users, and despite some issues like the click fraud that they’re dealing with, Facebook shows no real signs of slowing down.

Twitter is the next obvious site to target, but it’s a little different than the others. Rather than being a place to post a bunch of pictures and share your favorite “I love my sorority sisters” gif, it’s a micro-blogging service.

You can find plenty of individuals, businesses and advertisers on the site, but thus far, Twitter management has resisted putting actual advertising on the site.

Users are free to decorate their page however they like, and I have yet to see a movie trailer on the login page.

That’s not to say that there are spammers on Twitter. In fact, it’s a growing problem. But we have a choice in whether or not we follow the spammers. We don’t have to be inundated with spammers if we choose not to be. The focus is still on the users – not the advertising.

So what can we take away from all of this? It’s pretty obvious that so long as a social media and networking site maintains its focus on the user, they’ll be okay.

But the moment the attention turns to growing the advertising revenue, the site starts to lose appeal. And in turn, advertising revenue starts dropping.

Isn’t irony fun?

By: Zack S.

Tags: advertising, Bebo, Facebook, MySpace, online networking, Social media, Twitter
Posted in Blog Posts | 2 Comments »

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