That’s G … od-awfully Complicated

Over the past year, Gatorade has released a suite of new products, and through the process, attempted to reposition itself as a source for sports nutrition, rather than just a beverage brand. Intended to provide sequential value during a single athletic activity, the products range in name and formulation from warm-up (Prime) to post-game (Recover). Although a coordinated line, Gatorade is encountering difficulty in ensuring that the products will be featured within a single display. Many retailers are merchandising the products in separate sections, leaving the brand in a marketing conundrum. Gatorade is now attempting to educate retailers about the products’ unique value, while providing select retailers with elaborate, and expensive, in-store displays.

Insight: By attempting to expand its product line, Gatorade seems to have overcomplicated its brand, suffering from subtraction through addition. By moving from a simple product category (beverage) to the more complex sports nutrition arena, Gatorade may be sacrificing its mass-market appeal for the niche market of ’high performance athlete’. Hopefully, the brand can salvage its efforts, as success often comes to brands who follow the KISS strategy and keep the customer experience - whether product, distribution, messaging, or user interface - simple.

Understanding Modern Web Browsers

Israeli developer Tail Garsiel extensive research into today’s most popular browsers and how each works is the focus of a recent article from html5rocks.com. According to the study, the top five most used browsers include: Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, and Opera. As each has its own requirements and constructive elements, it is necessary for developers and designers to undertake attentive (and at times, challenging) efforts to ensure that back-end structure results in a positive on-screen presentation.

Insight: The inherent differences found amongst today’s browsers require not only in-depth knowledge during the creative process, but also a dedication to comprehensive compatibility testing for every update implemented. Developers and designers must consistently study the newest browser iterations, making sure that every client and subsequent site visitor experiences the best online presentation possible. The findings of this study help iterate and justify the importance of establishing and adhering to our browser best practices.

Japanese iPhones Warn of Earthquakes

Dating from long before the devastating events of early 2011, Japan has had the world’s most advanced earthquake early-warning system. Now, thanks to iOS5, the announcements (which typically arrive from mere seconds to two minutes before the event) will be more accessible than ever before. All that a user has to do is adjust a basic setting to begin receiving the notifications directly to their Apple device.

Insight: Consistently, Apple has shown a mutual dedication to form and function – creating aesthetically-pleasing products that provide true customer value. However, the addition of the Japanese earthquake notification option shows further care for the needs of individual geographic locations and social groups. There is no doubt that this commitment to product users will continue to draw brand advocates, while exemplifying the power of ‘technology for good’.

Google Beefing Up its +1 Button

A recent announcement on the Google+ Platform Blog details an integration of two of Google’s closely related products: the +1 button for websites and Google+, its new social network. The integration of the two products allows Google+ users to share stories with social ‘circles’ by simply clicking a +1 button integrated on websites across the Internet.

Insight: With reports flooding in about the simultaneous success and failure of Google’s ambitious social network, the company continues efforts to enhance the platform and compete with Facebook, its largest competitor. The integration of the +1 button with Google+ imitates Facebook’s ‘Like’ feature, which allows users to share stories with one click. By integrating Google+ functionality into any site that utilizes the +1 button, Google can feed its search algorithm social sharing data and improve retention rates on the Google+ network.

The Battle for Location-Based Supremacy

Although Facebook remains the social media arena’s dominant powerhouse, when it comes to location-based features, Foursquare is the clear winner. Facebook has announced the abandonment of its relatively new “Places” feature, which sought to take advantage of the growing popularity of ‘check-in’ opportunities. Instead, the outlet will only incorporate location information as a standard aspect of mobile updates, leaving more in-depth event and list functionality to Foursquare.

Insight: Out of the gate, Foursquare positioned itself as having one primary motive in mind – location documentation. This clear positioning has allowed the brand to grow its status-based offerings, while maintaing focus on and dominance over a single objective. While there is no doubt that Facebook is the all-encompassing leader of social media offerings, its “we offer it all” approach has presented a challenge when taking on such a single-minded competitor.

Game on For Google+

Google is slowly rolling out a new gaming element to its fast-growing social network, Google+. The search giant has made deals to bring popular titles such as Rovio’s Angry Birds, Zynga Poker, Bejeweled Blitz, and Sudoku to its platform. In an effort to further differentiate from Facebook, game activity will be isolated from the main social stream to avoid unwanted conversations from uninterested users.

Insight: One of the main catalysts of Facebook’s growth over the years was social gaming, an aspect that Google+ lacked up until now in its initial field trial. According to developers, Google is committed to the platform, and has incentivized its partner companies by offering deals that significantly undercut Facebook until the end of the year, making the platform extremely enticing initially. With social gaming currently representing a $500 million industry, we could see more growth and new expansion opportunities through 2012.

Hyperlinked: HTML5 Films & Comics

Announced at last month’s Comic-Con International, HTML5-based delivery platform EtherFilms from LA production house Halo-8 Entertainment will bring new layers of interactivity to film. The platform will grant narrative control to the consumer and “turn films and comics into hyperlinked worlds of story you can interactively navigate based on your interest”, according to Halo-8 president Matt Pizzolo. For example, links within the story will allow users to jump from the primary narrative to a character’s origin story or to a documentary on a related topic, making the film the vessel through which a content-rich world is navigated.

Insight: Currently found in open world games, nonlinear storytelling (where the consumer is in charge of the narrative and explores a world of loosely interrelated content) will be brought to an increasing number of media formats. When combined with user-generated sources, the expanse of content worlds is nearly limitless.

Technology & Learning

By way of infographic, Onlineeducation.net has released some fresh insights into how college students are using new media to study, organize, and stay connected. Metrics in the report include the finding that 98% of students own a digital device and 38% say that they “can’t go more than 10 minutes” without using one. As for more specific tools, just under 90% believe that tablets increase study efficiency, while just under 50% believe tablets will completely replace texts within the next 5 years.

Insight: Today’s college students have more information at their finger tips that ever before. A decade ago digital card catalogues replaced paper and wood. Now, tablets and laptops threaten to replace the brick-and-mortar library construct. Students perceive this growing access as increasing project efficiency and study effectiveness; however, is there a downside to the constant connectivity? Only time will tell…

What is Google’s Real Market Share?

Comscore and Hitwise typically peg Google’s market share around 65%; however, the real market share may be closer to 80-90%, according to high-traffic website analytics. Additionally, the behavior displayed by Yahoo! and Bing users may imply that search is used in an entirely different manner. Yahoo! and Bing searches account for a disproportionate amount of navigational queries, such as [facebook] or [twitter.com], sending a high percentage of its traffic to only a few websites.

Insight: Market share numbers for Bing and Yahoo! seem to be potentially artificially inflated, as internal searches (e.g. web search on Facebook ‘powered by Bing’ that sends traffic to Facebook pages) are included. Numbers indicate that Google’s hold on the search market may be stronger than the media portrays, and that its ‘actual’ market share is more than 1/3 larger than reported. In reality, for traffic to websites sent from search engines, the real numbers for Yahoo and Bing may be 11% and 8%, respectively.

From a marketing perspective, it’s easy to love social media: it provides increased traffic to the things most important to you, is relatively inexpensive compared to traditional methods of advertising, and encourages a very natural way of communicating – peer to peer referrals through sharing links or retweeting.

It is the sharing of ideas between friends that makes social media so successful. Social media websites encourage people to share how they feel about their friends and family, current events, and products they use. By sharing our ideas, we build communities through posting and following until we have created our own networks.

Social Media Day was created as an international program intended for online networks to meet in person with other members in their own cities. In New Orleans, Mudbug Media celebrated the second annual Social Media Day by inviting our online networks and all networks in New Orleans to meet us at the Avenue Pub, a neighborhood pub specializing in specialty beers, for a night of sipping and networking.

The Mudbug team came out with potluck style snacks and enjoyed networking and chatting without an interface, while receiving a top quality education in specialty beers. It was quite refreshing to unplug from our devices and simply catch up with friends, hang out with coworkers, and make new friends with fellow social media fans from throughout the city. Through casual chatting, we all gained a new perspective on our city and how social media will change and has changed over the years.

We are so thankful for the turnout we had for Social Media Day in New Orleans. What are your plans for the Social Media Day 2012? I’m sure that, with the increased popularity and interactivity of social media websites, we’ll have even more to celebrate next year.

Has Foursquare Found Some deal Revenue?

Foursquare originally found success as a location-based social network, attracting one of the largest user bases of all mobile ‘check in’ apps. The company’s explosive growth in 2010, combined with the heightened popularity of local daily deal sites, has resulted in an agreement between Foursquare and LivingSocial, which is backed by the online retail giant Amazon. LivingSocial will supply Foursquare with discount offers from its partnerships, giving consumers a compelling reason to check in on Foursquare.

Insight: Despite its small size compared to social network behemoths like Facebook and Twitter, small business owners looking to build buzz using social media should consider Foursquare as an effective, multifaceted promotional channel. Foursquare users are eager to share their consumer experiences with friends online and take suggestions from the network’s users. Foursquare’s partnership with LivingSocial will give businesses that offer a discounted deal even greater exposure, and should facilitate a bigger conversation around the brand as well.

The Fight For Your Friends: Google vs Facebook

Surfing the merger of Gmail address books, early adoption, and the “and she told two friends” phenomenon, Google+ has accumulated 10 MM users a week after launch. While this pales in comparison to Facebook’s 750 MM users, at this pace, Google+ will reach Facebook’s current user figure around Christmas 2012.

What Google is after is your and your friends’ information. This year, Facebook is expected to become the single-largest seller of online display ads with a haul of approximately $2.2 billion. Facebook can attract the interest of online display dollars for several reasons, including the amount of time people spend on the website, the ability to “like” or share an ad, and, primarily, the ability to hyper-target based on the information provided in users’ profiles. Google, in contrast, makes the majority of its revenue through AdWords, which targets users based on keywords within a search query.

Insight: While content may be king online, for marketers, personal information is the Holy Grail. Facebook profiles provide both demographic and psychographic insight into its users, an asset that Google covets and is actively trying to obtain.

Google’s New Photo Sharing Service

Later this month, Google is expected to start distributing user invites for its new photo sharing service, Photovine. However, by and large, the service is still mostly enigmatic, and many have not even heard of its upcoming release. According to its online teaser video, Photovine will offer users the ability to thematically share photos with others, adding according to topic relevancy. Unfortunately, as of now, we still know very little about how the service inherently functions, as well as if it will align with one’s existing social networks.

Insight: With the rollout of new products, such as Google+ and Photovine, the interactive powerhouse is proving that ‘shareability and exchange’ are both brand priorities. It will be interesting to see how Google’s various initiatives align – providing for consumer engagement, while benefiting the company’s larger ‘information collection’ goals. Regardless, as more and more people learn about the upcoming service, the rush to garner a coveted ‘Google invite to use’ will likely ensue.

Unleashing the Value of Hashtags

When used strategically, Twitter hashtags can streamline disorganized online comments into full-fledged conversations. While television series, news stories, and sports events are popular topics for hashtag focus, PR professionals and marketing teams have also harnessed the power of user interest to drive conference-style dialogues and brand campaigns. In addition to providing these valuable exposure opportunities for both companies and individuals, thoughtful hashtag use can also be utilized for promotional or focus group purposes.

Insight: While Twitter’s inherent stream-of-concious style can be somewhat overwhelming, when successfully harnessed, the results can be both approachable and effective. Keys to hastag success include clear topic focus, purposeful dialogue, and a conscientious participant group. Likewise, dedicated conversation management and leadership can also prove valuable to ongoing or repetitive success.

Don’t Be a Social Media Spammer

We’re all accustomed to discussing the CAN-SPAM Act in regard to email marketing; however, attention should also be paid when it comes to social media campaigns. For any commercial messaging, PR Web recommends that some basic rules be followed, such as: avoid deceptive titles and headers, acknowledge that your message as an ad, and make sure the recipient can easily identify the sender. As of yet, the United States has not experienced a large share of social media-related court cases; and to avoid such, marketers should be attentive in respecting these basic guidelines of online advertising etiquette.

Insight: While many individuals and corporations use social media for straightforward self-promotion and branding, others attempt to be more evasive with their marketing attempts. No matter how tempting the alternative, opt for honesty when portraying both your role and reason for social media presence. It’s better to have readers’ respect, and potential support, than to run the risk of being considered fraudulent in your efforts.

Bug Bytes is a weekly roundup of the Web’s best links, blog posts, and news articles related to web design, application development, and online marketing. Continue the conversation and share your thoughts on these stories in the comments below – we’d love to hear your own insights!

How Google’s Panda Update Chagned SEO Best Practices Forever

Google’s Panda update has been covered extensively over the past few months since its initial implementation in Q1 2011. The Panda update worked to push lower quality sites down in rankings to make room for higher quality sites, and focused mainly on sites with ‘thin content’. In this past week’s edition of SEOmoz’s Whiteboard Friday, Rank Fishkin explains that Panda’s introduction of ‘quality raters’, factors that aren’t as concerned with keyword density or semantics, but rather, usability and quality of experience.

Insight: SEO has traditionally been about the same concepts: creating quality content, making it accessible to search engines, and trying to get links pointing back to it. Now, after the Panda update, search engine marketers need to take a more holistic approach to web design. Usability and perceived trustworthiness are less tangible factors that should be considered. With the advent of Google’s ‘quality raters’, questions like ‘Do I trust this website enough to give it my credit card number?’ or ‘Would I trust the medical information on this website with my child?’ indicate that SEO is more than just content creation and article submission.

Facebook Ads Creating Conversations

Facebook has been trying for the past year to find a way to mix traditional advertising with the social media conversations that occur every day. The first step Facebook took to turn their ads into conversations was to show user interaction with brands through checkins and likes. Facebook’s newest attempt is Comment ads in which Facebook users are encouraged to comment on a questions asked by the advertiser.

Insight: Social Media has been successful for businesses because it creates a dialogue between the business and the consumer. The advantage of the new Comment ads is that they have the ability to continue the conversation beyond the business’ page. Although dialogue will increase, so will the amount of risk that comes along with people’s answers. Protecting your brand’s image can be risky when opening up a public two way conversation, but the pay off of consumer awareness and increased positive dialogue can outweigh the risks.

Medical Technology: There’s an RX For That

In a TED presentation, Daniel Kraft provides a quick overview of the many ways technology will make the future of medicine more predictive, preventive, personalized, and participatory. From internal monitors that update to your smart phone to an AI-assisted virtual colonoscopy, technology will allow healthy humans to remain that way. Likewise, full EMR integration, telemedicine, and crowdsourcing will allow doctors to accurately diagnose patients without requiring a trip to the hospital, allowing more time for the patients truly in need. Furthermore, more accessible genome sequencing will allow treatments personalized to the individual patient.

Insight: Similar to pilots using iPads to replace a mountain of manuals and maps, technology will allow doctors and patients to more easily access medical information, diagnose illnesses, and personalize treatments. Advances in technology will help confront our current healthcare issues, such as rising costs, fewer doctors for more patients, and an aging population, and make medicine’s future exponentially faster, smaller, cheaper, and, most importantly, better.

The Power of Infographics

When it comes to breaking through the digital clutter, infographics provide a great way to simplify data into appealing visual presentations. Last week, Mashable posted a list of ’10 Beautiful Social Media Infographics’ that provide insight into the hows of whys of what we do and think. Topics of focus varied from the potential for a NFL lockout and men’s fast food habits to how we use social media during emergency situations.

Insight: It is becoming more and more critical to make information not only easily digestible, but pleasurably palatable as well. No matter how short your reader’s attention span, the first obstacle will be to pique even the slightest interest and desire to ‘learn more’. The next time you are tasked with presenting robust analytical information or the telling of a brand story, consider utilizing an infographic to dress-up the details you want to share.

Google’s +1 Button Launch

This past week, Google launched a ‘+1 button’ to challenge the Facebook ‘Like’ feature, which has allowed websites to integrate content into the social conversation. Once implemented, the +1 button will appear on websites and blogs, allowing visitors to ‘upvote’ the content, and could potentially act as a signal to improve organic search rankings. Additionally, Webmaster Tools will receive a minor update to include information on which pages received +1 votes, clicks, and search impact due to the +1 button.

Insight: The +1 button is part of Google’s overarching strategy to reconcile heightened interest in social products with Google’s traditional search engine. The +1 gives Google proprietary social click data to use in spite of Facebook and its ‘walled garden’ approach to data. The analytics dashboard will also provide webmasters with hard data to justify the button’s placement and communicate its added value.

The Paperless Cockpit

Alaska Airlines has decided to begin replacing traditional pilot flight manuals with iPads, while the FAA and a handful of other airlines also look to keep with the times and take advantage of the new tablet technology. In a similar example, a charter airline company has switched to the iPad as a lighter alternative to the roughly 25lbs of charts and manuals needed for a current flight. Electronic devices in cockpits are nothing new; however, previous models could meet the demands of small, fast, and reliable, as completely as the iPad. One lingering concern of airlines is pilot distraction, and guidelines from the FAA for iPad use during flight are expected in the coming months.

Insight: . The tablet revolution continues as industries across the board find uses for portable information management. Immediately accessible information, as compared to flipping through pages in a manual, will drastically change how instructions and protocol are provided, all in an eco-friendly paperless manner.

YouTube As History Teacher

Late last year, Mashable ran the article ’10 Incredibly Inspiration Moments on YouTube’, which has since garnered 2,000 Facebook likes, as many tweets, and countless reads beyond. The ten videos range in topic and come to us from across the years of film footage production. Some are events: the first Moon landing (1969), the Tiananmen Square protests (1989), and Jesse Owens’ 1936 Olympics appearance. Others feature great speeches and stands: Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘I Have a Dream’ (1963), Gandhi’s Dandi Salt March (1930), and President Obama’s Victory Speech (2008). Regardless of specific focus, each is captivating in its own unique way.

Insight: The way in which we learn history has forever changed. While classroom videos were once an occasional respite from text-based accounts, today’s students (young and old) can experience history with first-hand immediacy. Furthermore, rather than hearing from others ‘what happened’, they can witness and judge the content (and therefore, the historical implications) for themselves.

Facebook Success: Brands to Learn From

Recently, Mashable posted an article by Dave Kerpen, CEO of social media agency Likeable. In the piece, Kerpen focused on 8 brands that have successfully navigated Facebook marketing and what we can learn. Some of the insights were basic: start by focusing on people who already like you (Pampered Chef) and promote your page through as many non-Facebook channels as possible (1-800-Flowers.com). Others provided brief intros to what are full-fledged social media case studies, such as LOFT’s decision to post photos of its own staff members, following backlash regarding previously used images of ‘super-thin models’.

Insight: Social media is a complex communications outlet, and any platform-based marketing efforts should be both attentively planned and well managed. However, as with any project, don’t overlook the basics when attempting to execute a more lofty plan. Insights such as use Place Pages, share photos, and be responsive remind us to (whenever possible) keep it simple, or you might just miss a valuable opportunity.

“Superb Infographic” : Motion Graphics Showcase How the Internet and User Experiences are Evolving

NeoLabels and Inés Leopoldo of Mitsue Venture compiled as much statistical data as they could find from a variety of reporting sources in the online industry. Outlets included the International Telecommunication Union, several mobile manufacturers, social networking giants, and multiple others. In doing so, they created the startlingly calm and mellow motion infographic “Digital Life: Today and Tomorrow” predicting the outcome of the fast-paced and overwhelming evolution the world is already encountering in their day-to-day experiences with the internet and data consumption. Every aspect of our lives is going digital, and the future is only 4 years away, according to the projections.

Insight: From the massive growth of the mobile market to expansion of user experience capabilities, the digital world is changing. This beautiful motion infographic forecasts that the “Mobile-Only Internet Population” is expected to overtake Desktop Internet users by 2014, which is only a short 2.5 years away. No doubt, the number of requests for and importance placed on mobile-friendly sites and applications will only continue to increase.

Error into Opportunity

Smashing Magazine illustrates a number of clever ways to use analytics reporting and design to engage users and improve user experience when errors take place. The article provides tips for using Google Analytics to easily identify and monitor traffic to 404 Error pages, suggestions for creating an engaging 404 Error page, and how to optimize maintenance pages to promote other marketing channels.

An Innovative URL Shortener: Bre.ad

The use of URL shorteners has become commonplace, especially amongst social media marketers. Now, Bre.ad is putting a new spin on the tool, turning it into a full-fledged branding device. If you click on a Bre.ad link, you will be taken to a web page created by the brand or individual who shortened the link, rather than the specific page to which a shortener would normally direct. For five seconds, before being re-directed to the appropriate page, the visitor will be inundated with a short text message and 720×300 billboard image.

Insight: These quick ‘mini-marketing presentations’ are suitably called ‘Toasts’; however, marketers should not overestimate the patience of visitors clicking on their shortened links. Appreciation for these efforts will vary by audience, ranging from being seen as a informative treat to an outright nuisance. If not used thoughtfully, link creators risk that no one will visit their links at all. Before taking advantage of Bre.ad, consider your ultimate messaging goal – for visitors to read your ‘Toast’ or the final destination page.

Likes Are Not Loves – How To Waste Time “Marketing” In Facebook

Social media has taken on greater importance in recent years, with Facebook pages and Twitter messaging maturing into marketing platforms vital to any campaign or promotion. With so much buzz surrounding Facebook and its 600 million users, businesses sometimes take a myopic approach to social media optimization. It’s easy to obsess over Facebook Likes; however, it is important to step back to see whether Likes translate to sales and positive engagement.

Insight: Social media optimization is becoming increasingly more relevant as brands realize Facebook and Twitter can attract large audiences. However, if the additional traffic being driven to the website converts at a sub-par rate, brands should examine the quality of visitors obtained via social media campaigns. Quick ‘Likes’ don’t necessarily translate to positive ROI. Instead, Facebook Page administrators should focus on genuine conversation with fans — answering questions, being helpful and engaging. Additionally, Page administrators shouldn’t push sales messages so heavily – instead, sales pitches and promotions should be limited to 10% of messages.

Increasing Social Giving By Increasing Social Media

This infographic covers not only the social good ecosystem but also online fundraising statistics for the U.S. Other information displayed includes the average donation and fund raising methods used along with what type of motivation works best for different causes.

Insight: The increasing trend of companies focusing more on corporate responsibility and philanthropy has led to an emphasis on new and effective ways to meet goals. Not only is social media a great source to reach customers and have customers reach you, but is also a great platform to display the “personal” side of the company and its’ values. The advantage of using social media for philanthropy projects is that social media users are active participants who enjoy being involved.

Aveda’s Social Media Nightmare Turned Opportunity

At the end of last year, Aveda utilized its Smooth Infusion Sampling App, marking the brand’s first use of Facebook for a sample giveaway. The ultimate goal of the promotion was to drive product trial, increase page ‘likes’, and encourage year-round product purchase. Unfortunately, things went awry. Not only did the app continue to confirm samples beyond the pre-set 5,000 mark, identifying information for the entrants was lost. Aveda responded by notifying its Facebook followers of the glitch, proceeding to launch a new giveaway of 20,000 larger trio pack samples.

Insight: While social media is increasing in promotional popularity, there are still risks associated with executing a digital giveaway or similar marketing effort. Whether things go flawlessly or disaster strikes, transparency is integral for guaranteeing a positive customer-to-brand experience. Be clear about promotional guidelines and limits from the start, and if something goes wrong, don’t hesitate to apologize, explain, and offer an actionable solution. Aveda proved that an initial social media failure can be turned into an advantageous engagement opportunity.

Facebook’s “most recent” news only displays a small portion of the “social stories” generated by your Facebook friends. Every Facebook Fan Page owner wants his or her story to be published on the news feed of each fan they have. What dictates their success is an algorithm called EdgeRank.

There are three important components to EdgeRank:

• Affinity score between viewing user and edge creator.

A fan that interacts a lot with the “Business Page” would have a higher affinity score than a fan that never interacts with the Fan Page.

• Weight for this edge type (create, comment, like, tag, etc.)

Facebook weights the edge type. For example, a comment will have more weight that a “like”.

• Time decay factor based on how long ago the edge was created.

The edge becomes less important over time.

The multiplication of these factors, and addition of each edge score together, will provide the “Object’s EdgeRank.” The higher the EdgeRank, the higher the object will appear on the News Feed.

5 Tips For Facebook Fan Page Owners

1. Write fresh Content

If previous content did not perform well, move on and create new fresh content.

2. Encourage Interaction

Simple status updates are not going to make the cut. Facebook Pages need to publish content that will make fans respond (i.e. jokes, trivia, and contests). This method will build affinity with new users, as well as the existing ones.

3. Create “Questions”

People love to comment and debate on trendy topics. Create interesting topics that are trending and relevant to your brand.

4. Share good Links

This will encourage Fans to click on the object, making it receive a higher edge score and also potentially driving the visitors to your site or other sites of interest.

5. Take Advantage of Videos & Photos

Videos and Photos are always displayed on their thumbnail size, requiring fans to click to view the entire image or video. However, including a comment to trigger them to click is vital for the success of this tactic.

EdgeRank is definitely something to keep in mind when deploying a Facebook Strategy; however, the most important focus should always be on the fans. If the content provided is not user-friendly, and does not appeal to the fans, they are not going to click or interact with it.

Using Google Analytics to Identify Problems & Opportunities on your Website.

Google Analytics’ “In-Page Analytics” feature, formerly known as Page Overlay, allows users to visually identify which objects on a given page get the most attention and which ones do not get any. This feature is great for user experience troubleshooting to determine what components on a website require optimization for maximized conversions. Are visitors fully utilizing the detailed navigation menu, or instead using other call-to-action tools displayed on the page to navigate? Use In-Page Analytics to determine what works best for your website and your customers.

Insight: Measuring and reporting on conversion rates can be frustrating if customers seem unresponsive to carefully planned promotional pages – especially with e-commerce, as a missed conversion translates directly to lost profits. Using In-Page Analytics, along with other UX tools from Google, such as Browser Size, a Google Labs program, can help put the developer or Internet marketer in the position of the user to determine what is hindering conversions in an easy-to-understand, visual manner.

32 SEO Tactics to Avoid in 2011

To start things off on the right foot, SEOmoz has provided a great list of tips to keep your search marketing campaign fresh in the New Year. The list covers a number of classic black hat techniques, including basics like stuffing and hiding keywords on-page, as well as “sketchy link building.” Additionally, the list also covers the topic of quantity vs. quality in the SEO realm. Overall, the list is a good place to start for SEO beginners who may have been misinformed by the wealth of SEO “tips” published as late as ten years ago that still, ironically, rank well in search results.

Insight: One of the problems with SEO information online is the credibility and relevance of the material published. SEO tactics change from day to day, so outdated information is easy to come by. SEOmoz’s blog is an extremely valuable source for up-to-date SEO case studies and tips, and can help ensure your agency isn’t implementing year-old tactics that penalize your website in search engines rather than help bolster rankings. Reflect on the list of bad practices and compare to your own SEO tactics to ensure a strong and successful campaign.

How to improve your site indexation

The best place to start when submitting and working with a Sitemap is Google Webmaster Tools. This tool gives you a great indication of how Google views your website, and if its search spider has any problems crawling and indexing. The best way to quickly improve your Google page indexation is by submitting an XML Sitemap to Webmaster Tools. The Sitemap provides Google with a list of the pages that should appear in its index, as well as the weight, or importance, they each have in relation to each other. Google will not miss an important page nested within the site, or give it less authority than you would prefer, as you can dictate what you feel it is worth. This case study, provided by SEO guru Bruce Clay, will help get the most out of your site’s indexation.

Insight: As opposed to paid search marketing, which is something you have direct control of, search engine optimization is something you affect. By making changes to your site, you can affect the way search spiders view it. Using a Sitemap is one of the few ways in which you can direct and dictate to a search engine how you want your site to appear in search engines. Correctly implementing an XML Sitemap lets you specify what pages are most important, and which should be restricted from search engine indexes.

Social Networks to Capture 11% of Online Advertising Spending in 2011

According to eMarketer, U.S. Internet marketers will spend $3.08 billion to advertise on social networking sites in 2011. This represents a 55% increase over what was spent on social networking sites in 2010. Overall, the social networking spend represents 11% of what online marketing professionals expect to spend on all online advertising in the country over 2011.

Out of all the social networks, Facebook is the one that will most likely take the biggest share of those ad dollars. Facebook pulled about $1.86 billion in 2010, and eMarketer expects that number to at least double in 2011.

Insight: Many online ventures survive solely on Internet advertisements and pay-per-click ad placement – such as Google, the search behemoth that built the AdWords / AdSense platform that supplies as much as 97% of its total revenue. If online advertisers are taking more of their money to social networks, Google needs to make sure it continues profiting off its golden goose.

10 Useful JQuery Plugins For Images

jQuery is one of the most popular JavaScript libraries in use today. It gives developers great flexibility and has an incalculable amount of implementations and uses; however, some of the most impressive uses involve displaying images. Implementing a tasteful jQuery plugin for images on your blog or website can take the design from modest to impressive in no time. In this article, ten of the most helpful image-based jQuery plugins are reviewed and compared. Featured jQuery plugins include coda sliders with impressive transitions, face detection tools, and a background image resizer that keeps your background image in the preferred position and ratio, no matter the browser setting.

Insight: Implementing a new coda slider is one example of a quick and easy way to give your website a refresh without bending over backwards to do a full redesign. Web Design Ledger’s list of ten impressive jQuery tools for image display gives web designers a great set of plugins to choose from that will instantly give your site a new look.

Yelp Targets Foursquare, Facebook With Check-In Offers

Yelp continues to update their platform by adding new, competing features —“check-in offers.” This is similar to what Foursquare and Facebook offer, in which users check in to local business and broadcast to their network of friends. This “check-in” feature essentially gets consumers to advertise the businesses they patronize and rewards them accordingly. Foursquare has had success establishing check-in deals for “mayors,” securing partnerships with Starbucks, Pizza Hut, and many other businesses. Facebook, since introducing its “Places” platform, has successfully brought local social networking to the mainstream, and is in the process of working out deals, as well.

Insight: Yelp is jumping into a market that already has two huge players; however, they also have a solid platform with a loyal fanbase, and a mobile marketshare that could rival Foursquare’s. While mobile has been ‘the next big thing’ in the Internet marketing arena for well over a year, the competition in local social networking shows that more and more businesses are taking it seriously.

Not Optimizing For Bing-Yahoo Means Loss Of Traffic

SEO is a constantly evolving process that works to rank websites higher in search engines. Because Google has had a stronghold on the search marketshare for a decade, most SEOs have concentrated efforts on Google, neglecting Bing and Yahoo!, the other two significant players in the game. Now that the Bing / Yahoo! merger has been completed and Yahoo! web properties use the Bing algorithm, it’s finally time to take Microsoft’s search engine seriously. According to Chitika ad network, Google has 72% of search engine traffic share, and Bing / Yahoo! collectively hold 24%.

Insight: Good search engine optimization should take into consideration the evolution of search engines, and because Google had held strong dominance for so long, it was easy to focus on Google optimization without losing significant search visits. Now that nearly a quarter of the search market uses Bing’s algorithm, neglecting the search engine will mean lost search traffic.

Beginner’s Guide To Web Data Analysis: Ten Steps To Love & Success

When “benchmarking” a website’s traffic data and other web metrics, there are a few things to consider. Most people go directly to the analytics report and dig up the clicks, visits, conversions, and other key performance indicators. This plan of attack leaves the researcher blind to the website’s core functions, and without an idea of the true user experience. In this blog post by Google evangelist Avinash Kaushik, the author asserts that the first step should always be getting a general feeling of the website by acting as a new visitor, familiarizing yourself with it like any other potential customer would. After getting an understanding the website’s purpose and specific goals for conversion, check the website’s analytics suite to determine how successful the website really is.

Insight: When analyzing a website, it is easy to neglect important pages for a number of reasons. If the analytics script is incorrectly installed on a conversion page, the page won’t appear in the analytics reports at all. Remember to visit the website, view the statistics, and then use the insights gathered from the charts and graphs to paint a picture of how well the website performs. This will create a better-informed, qualitative report for whomever reads it, as opposed to mind-numbing number crunching.

Remarketing: Recycle Your Web Traffic

“Remarketing” is one of the hottest advertising topics of 2010. As of this past week, remarketing is available to any small business that would like to hop on the trend and bring extremely segmented and targeted traffic back to the site. By “tagging” visitors that come to your site with a unique tracking pixel, anyone who visits a page on your site will be served your ads when browsing a large network of websites. Because these visitors have already been to your website and are showing repeated interest, they become more likely to convert.

Insight: In some cases, such as travel tickets, remarketing can increase the likelihood of conversion by 2600% (26x). While many small businesses have taken on pay-per-click advertising with great success, remarketing acts as a new channel for promoting products and services online. Additionally, remarketing may provide for continued growth in the online advertising sector during the coming business year.

Google Wave to become Apache project

Google Wave, touted as what email would look like if it weren’t developed in the ‘60s, was considered a failed product by most because of the poor rate of adoption. Because of community interest in continuing this platform, a proposal was submitted to Google to migrate portions of the code base to the Apache software foundation.

Insight: Google Wave is an impressive feat in computer science, and its community of loyal users saw the usefulness the web application had, especially in project management. Mudbug Media’s team of application developers use Google Wave as a productivity tool, and is excited to see the project live on in “Wave-in-a-Box” form.