Do you think Twitter can affect your business?

Interesting article today in the Baltimore Sun about how the opening weekends of summer movies is being affected by people using Twitter to post their thoughts about the movie as soon as they see it or in some cases from in the theater during the movie.
Some smart movie marketers think they see a big connection and are taking steps to ensure that they are visible not only on Twitter but other social media sites as well.
So what about you? Are you paying attention to what's being said about your brand online? Even if your business is a single local retail operation, chances are good that something is being said about your company online. Be it in an online review site or yellow pages site or on Facebook, you need to pay attention to what's being said. If you haven't done so, Google you company name and see what comes up. It just might surprise you. If it's positive, great! If it's negative, you need to take steps to fix the problem. Direct message the person and see if you can correct the problem and once you do, ask them if they'd please amend their negative review.
You can and should take charge of your online reputation and the first step is monitoring what's being said in places like Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and review sites. Do it now!

July Search Engine Rankings

The ComScore monthly Search Engine numbers for July are out revealing that Bing made a 2% Gain in July 2009 again at the expense of Google and Yahoo.

As I mentioned last month when Bing gained 3%, it's early (only 2 months data) and the numbers don't show a real trend yet. We'll have to wait and see how it all settles out over a few more months.

Google searchers use search more than Yahoo! or Bing searchers do

In an analysis of the latest ComScore search engine numbers, there are some facts that could be easily overlooked. The numbers of people who use a search engine per month isn't really the metric that should be focused on but rather the number a searches those people perform.
In this Reuters story it's laid out pretty well. Google searchers conduct an average of 54.5 searches a month -- about double the number of searches that Yahoo! and Microsoft users conduct combined... only 26.9 times a month.
I honestly don't see that changing anytime soon. There are two very different groups of people using these search engines and people are creatures of habit. Google would have to really mess up and/or Bing would have to really get better for the habits of people to change enough to shift the trend.

Google Changes Policy on Trademarked Terms

Google posted this blog post today stating that they will no longer block AdWords users from using trademarked terms that they don't own.

On the positive side, that means retailers who want to advertise "Sony Cameras" can do so. On the negative side, that also means your competitors can buy your trademarked terms to more effectively compete with you.

Now, Google says that they are doing this to "improve ad quality and user experience" which it will actually do. But it is more likely that the real motivation is increasing revenue. My guess is that lawsuits will follow.

Google launches Ad Personalization

As we've been anticipating for a while now, Google today launched their new Ad Personalization. It's a limited program for the time being. They're calling them "interest based ads" meaning that when you do a search on Google or one of their sites for say, Golf, then you'll be cookied as being interested in Golf. The problem with this approach is that you may have done the search on Golf because you were buying a gift for your husband or father who is a golfer. It's not really one of your interests but Google won't differentiate. So after that, no matter what page you're on, or what you're looking for, you'll see ads for Golf.

Google describes the new offering here. Google has done something smart however and has set up an Ads Preferences Manager so you can see what they've got your interests set at and either edit or opt out of their interest based ads program. Since I do searches for my clients on a wide range of topics, I've opted out.

The biggest concern that I've seen about this new program is not so much for the end users, but from the publishers who have AdWords on their sites. They are very concerned that they no longer control the ads that appear on their sites. Potentially, each person who visits their site will see very different ads. The concern is that some of the interest based ads could be innapropriate for their sites and many are calling for a way to opt out of the program as a publisher.

And finally, here's a story that addresses the privacy concerns. I think the most interesting paragraph is toward the end of this story where they talk about the programs flawed implementation of their opt-out. It's done by cookies which are easily deleted by anti-spyware programs. The author also says, "The cookie opt-out doesn't work, it's a bad idea. People who care about their privacy enough to opt out also are the same people who delete their cookies."

So, what do you think? Drop me a note and let me know if you think its a Google goof or if its brilliant, and why.

RE: It's time to vote... for search results!

Good post Janine :) What I find most interesting about the article is the comment by Cedric Dupont, Google's SearchWiki product manager, about whether the company planned to build in that feedback loop, either directly as a signal to influence search rankings or indirectly as extra data that could help the company judge the relevance of its search results. "We don't close any doors. We constantly evaluate signals" that are incorporated into the search results algorithm. "Search is adapting to the Internet as it becomes a more participatory medium. Now you have people telling us specific things about how they'd like to see their search results."

If it becomes an important factor in ranking, this could be an area which search marketers could really exploit. And not necessarily in a good way. I hope Google takes a long look before making this an integral part of the ranking algorithm.

Flash content now indexable by Google

It's now possible for search engines to index Flash content. As you all know, Flash content has been "invisible" to the search engines and a huge problem in terms of SEO for sites with Flash.

Check out the articles here and please forward them to your developers. This will make all our jobs of getting traffic to your website MUCH easier!

Information Week
Webware

More info...

Google's official comments

From a Marketer's perspective: Arstechnica

Enjoy!

Yahoo & Google

It remains to be seen if this historic friendly pact between the two search engine superpowers will be permitted by US Federal regulators.