Bruce Clay Blog - Matthew Young
February 10, 2012Is Pinterest the New Social Media Echo Chamber?
Move over, StumbleUpon. There’s a new aggregator in town. No longer will users aimlessly browse for random gems of content. That’s so 2009. Now, old math is applied to present content in a new way: content + interest = Pinterest.
Pinterest does not represent a revolution in content curation by any means. The newness of Pintertest comes in the form of content consolidation. All content, all the time. Every social media site under the sun has some way of allowing its users to easily share content with one another. So why are pins so interesting and why are online marketers, specifically, SEOs so giddy with excitement? I’ll give you a hint: it’s two-parts shiny new object and one-part traffic generation.
In January, Pinterest drove more referral traffic to websites than Google+, YouTube, Reddit, and LinkedIn combined. And the growth shows no signs of stopping, but that doesn’t always mean more traffic for your site.
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November 16, 2011
The Endurance Contest: Tips to Maximize Social Media Staying Power
If the name of the social media marketing game is to reach as many people as possible in a number of communities, then the strategy must include maximizing the longevity of that content before it is forgotten and relegated to the past. To say that things move fast and people and brands share a lot [...]
October 14, 2011
How Social Networks Influence Online Advertising
Back when a facebook was actually a book comprised of pictures of college students and Google wasn’t even a word, it was Leo Burnett who said , “A good basic selling idea, involvement and relevancy, of course, are as important as ever, but in the advertising din of today, unless you make yourself noticed and believed, you ain’t got nothin’.”
Fast forward 40 years after Burnett’s passing, and we find ourselves in the Age of Social Media Marketing, where involvement and relevance are the currency of the land, especially for businesses, small and large. A lot of their money is spent on advertising and marketing in ways that would have seemed alien to someone like Leo Burnett in the days of yore. We’ve gone from radio spots and periodical ads to targeted brand presence on Facebook, bidding for PPC words, and creating display ads. The advertising times have changed, indeed.
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September 7, 2011
Who’s Manning the Store: Securing Your Google Places Page
In real estate they say that location is everything, which is true to a large extent. But the same also applies to digital space. That’s why there’s such thing as a search engine marketing industry. Location gets you seen, location can make you money, and location will make competitors desperate. In the case of Google Places, having a business catalogued as permanently closed can mean the loss of loyal customers, online traffic and revenue-much-needed-revenue in today’s economy.
Recently, fraudulent closings on Google Places have become a commonplace tactic employed by business competitors, and it turns out it’s rather easy to do. On a Google Places listing, you’ll find basic business information: name, address, hours of operation, reviews, etc. At the bottom of the listing, there is a link to “Report a problem.” From there, you can report that a business is permanently closed, which for all intents and purposes, serves as an important function. What is being discovered is that if enough people report a business as being “permanently closed”, the business is closed, in an online sense of the word.
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August 19, 2011
Friday Recap: Post-PC Era Edition
It’s that time again boys and squirrels, ladies and germs. Another Friday recap from your friendly neighborhood SEOs at Bruce Clay, Inc. And what a wild week it was, too. Full of drama, suspense, espionage and slightly dysfunctional humor. Without further procrastination, the news of the week.
For those of you who are political junkies and are as fascinated as we are with social media infusion, I have good news and bad news. The good news is the White House joined Foursquare this week. Now we can see the president check-in all over Washington, DC and this great nation of ours, which will be kind of cool once campaign season is in full swing. The bad news is Barack Obama is not the mayor of the Oval Office quite yet.
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August 12, 2011
Where We’re Going, We Don’t Need Page Numbers: Google & Infinite Scrolling
Google seems to be in constant flux with all the changes they’ve made in the past month. We’ve witnessed the introduction of Google+ and all the fanfare that came with it. Streamlined changes were made to the Google Search interface. Gmail has a new preview pane. Google News added badges and editor’s picks, and it’s hard to ignore those click-inducing +1 buttons. To say that when it rains, it pours, is an understatement.
There is something else that’s pending implementation. It’s not a new idea. In fact, Facebook, Twitter and Bing currently have it, but the major players aren’t planning to use it the way Google will. If history teaches us one thing about Google, it’s that they can’t resist taking one idea and applying it to everything else. Plainly stated, Looks like Google is currently testing a sticky bar and infinite scrolling feature for its search engine.
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July 22, 2011
Friday Recap: Leisure Diving is the New Owling is the New Planking Edition
Happy Aloha Friday, no work ‘til Monday, as they say in theIslands.
We’re a diverse and multi-cultural bunch here at Bruce Clay, Inc, so in honor of our Spanish speaking amigos y amigas around el mundo, planking esta’ muerto. For those of you who speak the King’s English and are as obsessed with memes as we are, and haven’t heard, planking, which apparently Tom Green started in ’94, is dead!
In just a few short weeks, planking has become an artifact of a bygone era — relegated to the past tense like boy bands, scrunchies, and the Macarena, all of which have an existence that is way too embarrassing to acknowledge.
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July 5, 2011
Why the Daily Deals Business isn’t as Simple as it Appears: an SEO Perspective
Coupons have returned, though prudence never goes out of style. With the market for collective buying power becoming more and more competitive, companies that make it possible for bargain hunters to shop and eat to their heart’s delight for bottom dollar, may need to redevelop their revenue stream. Daily deals can benefit businesses by providing a new outlet to reach new customers they otherwise wouldn’t be able to, but can daily deals be a source for continued business?
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