Archive for September, 2009
Focus on Your Core Community
by Eric Brown
So, You have a Company Blog, are your getting the results you expected?
And, what about when your company blog is NOT about your core product.
Perhaps a company blog that has nothing to do with your Core Product,
but everything to do with your Core Community is the best choice.
Your Core Community
That is the approach we took with our company blog, the Urbane Life Blog, Focus on the Core Community. Our blog posts have nothing to do with our apartment business, Urbane Apartments. In just over a year of blogging, we have doubled our web site traffic. And, despite a down economy, and operating in Michigan, the highest state in the union for unemployment, our year over year rental traffic and our net rentals have over doubled.
Pretty significant return considering not one of the over 360 posts, and 1,501 comments has ever been about our core product offering.
How Is This For a Page One Google Ranking
So what impact do you think we have with potential customers when looking for an Apartment in Birmingham MI, and the Urbane Life Blog Posts come up on Page One of a Google Search, and hold the first seven spots, which is the first third of the Google Page.
After all, it isn’t, in this case our web site, it is our blog site (as
designed) that comes up. The prospect has yet to get to the actual web
site, you are really spreading thick your Brand Awareness.
Prospects Are Looking For Much More Than Your Product
We
believe that prospects are looking for much more than just an
apartment. They are staking out what they will be doing, where they
will be doing it, and what type of life can they expect for the next
year or so. Frankly, the apartment itself may well be far down on the
list of priorities when selecting a new place to call home.
Does Your Product Matter
Of
course your product offering matters, sort of. We all get grouped
pretty quickly into silos with similar product offerings as seen by the
prospect, but what else can you do to separate you from the pack, Focus on Your Core Community.
Check out our small business news site.
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Question Box Aids Search in Developing Areas Without Web
If you’ll join me in crawling out of our connected lives for just a second, let’s remember that there are still parts of the world that still don’t have the internet. These areas more than any other are in dire need of answers that search can provide. Answers related to farming and entrepreneurship. Answers that could transform a community, improving its economics and health.
The New York Times featured a nonprofit organization called Question Box is determined to bring those answers to such communities. Founded by Rose Shuman, Question Box staffs calling centers who receive questions, via cell phone, from developing villages in Uganda. Though the internet remains slow and elusive, cell phones have taken hold in Africa.
Question Box got its start in India, where people have access to an actual box containing a phone. Question Box isn’t alone. Google launched a similar effort in Uganda through its foundation this past June.
Baidu Launches Wireless Search Service in Beta in Japan
Chinese search engine Baidu has launched a wireless search service in Japan. The beta search service will build upon Baidu.jp including image and video search as well as special features developed specifically for the Japanese audience.
Wireless internet is widely used in Japan. Over 80% of Japanese Internet users log on wirelessly. 3G adoption has reached over 100 million, more than 90% of Japan’s population.
“We are very excited to launch wireless search in Japan, where we believe there is huge demand for a high quality wireless search service,” said Xuyang Ren, Baidu’s Vice President of Marketing and Business Development. “With the launch of this beta wireless search service we hope to give users in Japan a convenient tool for finding the information they need. We look forward to developing this service further and tuning it to user preferences over the coming months.”
Baidu entered the Japanese search market in January 2008. Baidu already has partnership with wireless carriers in Japan to be the official search provider for various handsets.
Google Adds Hot Trends to Search Results
If you happen to be searching one of the 100 hottest trends on Google Search, you’ll now see a Google Trends graph of the keyword at the bottom of the search results.
Meanwhile, Google Trends will now only display the top 40 trends instead of the top 100. And they’ll get Ryan Seacrest to deliver the results on his radio show. Just kidding.
Despite the reduction of displayed top trends, the new search results feature will still affect the top 100 trends.
120.5 million viewers watched nearly 10 billion videos on YouTube in August 2009
comScore has just released August 2009 data from the comScore Video Metrix service, showing that 161 million U.S. Internet users watched online video during the month, the largest audience ever recorded. Online video reached another all-time high in August with more than 25 billion videos viewed during the month, with YouTube accounting for nearly 10 billion.
Other notable findings from August 2009 include:
* 81.6 percent of the total U.S. Internet audience viewed online video.
* The average online video viewer watched 582 minutes of video, or 9.7 hours.
* 120.5 million viewers watched nearly 10 billion videos on YouTube.com (82.6 videos per viewer).
* 44.9 million viewers watched 340 million videos on MySpace.com (7.6 videos per viewer).
* The average Hulu viewer watched 12.7 videos, totaling 1 hour and 17 minutes of videos per viewer.
* The duration of the average online video was 3.7 minutes.
As I mentioned last week in “How To Pimp Your YouTube Channel and Other Miscellaneous Advice,” I’ll be speaking at a session entitled, “YouTube & Video Optimization” at SES Chicago 2009 on Monday, December 7.
Online video marketing is crucial in today’s marketplace. With 161 million Americans watching an average of 9.7 hours of online video during August 2009, marketers can reach more viewers than the 151.6 million Americans who watched Super Bowl XLIII, which reached the largest television audience in U.S. history.
YouTube Merges Content ID with Insight Analytics
YouTube’s Content ID is an identification and management tool that allows content providers to determine how their videos will appear on the popular online video site. As of last week, over 1,000 partners had signed up for Content ID. However, the tool only provided limited stats on videos.
Today, Content ID is being combined with YouTube Insight to provide more robust analytics.
For example, Sony Music can view analytics on the JK Wedding Entrance video, which, though uploaded by a third party, uses a song by Sony artist Chris Brown.
This is a great tool for companies and marketers who want to track their viral content, such as songs and videos.
Yahoo! Unveils First Y!ou Ad
Yahoo! begins its new global advertising campaign today and part of that campaign is a new television ad. Check it out:
The ad will air on all major broadcast channels plus major cable networks such as AMC, ESPN, USA, Comedy Central and Bravo.
Advertising seems to be working for Bing, which has steadily gained market share since launch. It will be interesting to see if Yahoo! gains back some search share, despite their advertising campaign focusing on content.
What do you think of Yahoo!’s new ad? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.
CitySquares Offers Local Feeds for Online Publishers
Local search site CitySquares has rolled out new local feeds for online publishers. This is a great feature to place on your site if you have a local blog, newspaper or community site.
With the local feed, you can do things like list local restaurants on your website. The feed is free. Here’s how to do it:
1. Go to CitySquares.com and type in your city.
2. Look for the categories listed on the results page.
3. Click on a category you’re interested in
4. Click “Get this feed” at the top right corner in the results column.
5. Plug the feed into any widget platform (or build something yourself, web developer).
Ta da! Now you have local content. CitySquares says they plan to rotate the list of businesses in the feeds, so you’ll periodically be getting fresh content as well.