New Communities on Google+
A recent addition to the Google+ platform is Communities. This latest feature integrates with other features such as Google+ Hangouts to allow you to gather members in either public or private communities to hold discussions. Google’s official blog touts the new Google+ Communities as a great opportunity for its users to reconnect with loved ones during the holiday season. Google+ aims to make these new communities as accessible for sharing as communities in real life are, allowing...
Growing Your Email List with Twitter
Email marketing, when done correctly, can be beneficial to your business. Whether it is a monthly newsletter that you send out on a regular basis, or the occasional coupon, unless you have many people opting in to the email list, it will not be very beneficial. One way you can grow your email list is by turning to social media. Some easy ways you can use Twitter to help grow you email marketing lists include: Linking Your Twitter Bio to an Opt-In Page Most Twitter users realize they should...
Are You Properly Using Pinterest for your Business?
We’ve told you before that Pinterest can be a great marketing tool for your company. But are you using it properly? There are a few ways that you can use Pinterest in order to attract customers to your site and make conversions. Think About Your Ideal Client Think about what kind of visual content would attract them - would it be a photo of a beautiful beach for a timeshare company, or an infographic about the current job market for a job placement company? The photo attached to your pin...
Panda Update 21 Released
It was expected - on November 5th, Google added its latest Panda Update to its search engine algorithms. This led to a slight shaking up of the Google results, as there was a worldwide impact on about 0.4% of inquiries, and 1.1% of those inquiries in the United States in the English language. As the 21st Panda Update, it fell into Google’s usual trend of releasing an update every four to six weeks. The 0.04% impact is lower than many other updates - the first Panda Update in February of...
Instagram Launches Web Profiles
We already know that Instagram was bought out months ago for a high price by the people at Facebook. Up until this week, Instagram remained a mobile-device based application. But now, Instagram is slowly rolling out web profiles to its users. These profiles look shockingly like the Timeline we are already familiar with on Facebook profiles. With a cover photo of rotating photos from the users Instagram feed, it is slightly different than the static cover photo offered on Facebook currently...
Yelp Cracks Down on Fake Reviews
At Sales & Marketing Technologies, we understand the importance of review websites, and making sure your company is portrayed properly. We already work with many different organizations on their reputation management. One of the biggest parts of reputation management is monitoring what users are saying about your products and services online at review sites, such as Yelp.com. Recently, Yelp announced that it will be increasing its efforts in making sure that consumer reviews are all...
Online Social Media Security Tips
One of the biggest things people worry about is their online security. It can be scary – with the amount of personal information we are putting on the internet through social media sites, we often wonder who is able to access everything. Some people’s minds have been eased, as according to Mashable, Facebook recently announced that deleted photos will now also be removed from their servers previously, even after the photo had been deleted, they could be accessed by entering the...
The Cost of Cheap SEO & Social Media Labor
Like almost everything else in the world, you really get what you pay for when it comes to SEO and social media marketing. You might want to try to save money, scrimping and cutting corners as it can be costly to launch, maintain, and grow an internet presence for your business. But think of this internet presence much like the physical building your company is located in – you wouldn't hire a too-cheap or inexperienced contractor to build the building, or look for the cheapest materials...
How to Utilize Facebook Lists
Facebook lists aren’t new, but many people do not realize the many ways they can utilize them. Normally, if people utilize Facebook lists, they are using them to manage their privacy settings – making lists to decide who can see what items on your page. But now that Facebook has launched the subscribe feature, lists can be used for a variety of different social media marketing and social networking purposes to help separate out business, entertainment, and friends feeds from one...
Google Results: From 10 to 7 Links?
It appears that Google is testing a new way to show its search results, with only 7 results instead of 10 on the first page. It also seems that it is easier for one site to dominate these results. Together, these two things could change the face of Search Engine Optimization SEO, as sites have to fight even harder to get onto the front page. An article at Search Engine Land shows examples of the new search results, depicting how the top Google result now not only features the main page of the...
How Can You Increase Your Engagement on Facebook?
So, you created a Facebook page, got some fans…now what? There are some simple tactics you can use to keep up your engagement on Facebook. By using calls to actions, you are able to create an incentive for fans to interact with you on Facebook. Tailor your status updates to ask your fans a question. Whether it be their opinion, a call for stories, or even for advice. The more comments a status update receives, the higher it will be placed in news feeds by Facebook’s EdgeRank...
How to Understand Your Social Media Audience
One of the most important parts of crafting a workable social media strategy is understanding your audience. Unless you are providing your social media followers with information that is useful and relevant for them, they will not be engaged with your social media accounts. So how can you better understand your social media audience? There are a couple questions you can ask yourself when considering your targets. You should focus on the details and demographics of your audience. Where do they...
Google Places Taken Over by Google Plus Local
Over recent months, Google has changed Google Places for Business into Google+ Local. These pages serve as a directory listing for your business that can place prominently in Google search results. They allow you to display photos, videos, reviews, and other essential facts about your business like your address, phone number, and hours. You can also utilize your Google+ Local page to offer your customers real time updates about your business as well as offers they can take advantage of. There...
Instagram Management Added to Hootsuite
Are you using Instagram to reach your customers? Instagram is one of the latest crazes in social sharing, allowing users to share photos with friends and family, adding filters to transform their look and feel, and share to other social networks like Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr. It also allows its users to tag their photos, and search hashtags so those with similar interests can find you. If you are using Instagram, or are thinking of adding it to your dossier of social networks, HootSuite...
SEO Challenges Will Continue To Rise
The world of SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is getting more challenging to navigate. Updates to the Google search algorithms, Panda and Penguin, have sent those companies who rely on search engines to lead their customers to their business into a panic. SEO companies are scrambling after spending thousands of hours learning about, applying, and perfecting SEO practices to websites, only to find that Google is changing the game once again, making it difficult for companies to regain...
Getting Your Company Behind Your Social Media Strategy
One of the biggest roadblocks to utilizing social media for your company is the company itself. You have to make sure everyone supports the process, and understands why social media is so important. To have a successful social media campaign within your company, your employees have to understand not only what social media does, but why it is useful and how they can play a role in its success. Social media is a team process. It is important to realize that the entire staff has to buy into its...
How Will Google's Social Search Affect Your SEO?
We’ve told you about Google’s shift to including Google+ results in its searches, and also the controversy that has come from it as other social media outlets fight back. What will it mean for your company’s website, and your SEO? Already, sources are speculating that this social switch to search results could have a bigger impact on Google than even the infamous Panda update, which aimed to remove lower-quality content from search results. This is because not only will...
Google Intergrates Google+ into Google Search
In their ongoing climb up the proverbial social ladder Google has now merged Google+ into its search results. What this means, moving forward any Google + member who is signed in will be able to search the entire web as well as their own Google+ circles. This includes photos and content posts from the Google+ circles of that user. Google is calling this search update Search, plus your World. Their goal here is to try to transform Google into a search engine that not only understands content...