September 17, 2007
Social Marketing
Since the climax of the Internet, millions of e-communities have formed, and still do on a daily basis. There are groups, such as Yahoo Groups or Google Groups. There are blogging communities, opinion groups, and so on. The list is literally endless, as are the possibilities for you. Individuals are drawn to these online “neighborhoods” to become a part of a bigger picture, as well as the opportunity to be heard by others, and have their opinion respected.
The popularity of the group and the relevance of the content is vital, as people like to talk and pass on information about things they adore or detest. However, to invest your time into some really profitable PR, there are certain target communities that have formed specifically for the clever e-commerce marketer. The more popular ones are Digg, StumbleUpon, Fark, FeedBurner, and PRNewswire.
Regarding the manner in which these communities can benefit your site. Consider the possibilities. One person reviews your site in a positive manner. Two people read that and do the same. Two people read each of theirs, leaving four positive remarks. It goes on and on, your traffic increasing exponentially throughout the process.
For more on this visit www.halomark.biz
Posted by marketplacesna at 04:39 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 31, 2007
The Power of "Runaway Content"
One of the most important things in any kind of viral marketing is the content itself. Even the best well-planned SMO campaign will fail if the content or message you are trying to spread is not strong, funny, controversial or emotional. People don't repeat boring things. Rather than force your next SMO campaign, watch and see what is popular, what gets passed around already and focus on that type of content. A lesson learned for us over and over. SMO starts with the content.
Posted by Yovia SMO Report
Posted by marketplacesna at 11:03 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
August 10, 2007
Social Media Index
After 12 months of research we have developed a mathematical equation that describes social media optimization and describe it in more detail here:
The theory is that like any network, the power of the network increases exponentially as the nodes increase. In this case, there are some other variables, including the value of the content, the virality index and, like a typical network , the number of nodes.
Posted by marketplacesna at 02:41 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 12, 2007
Can Blogging Drive Traffic?
We've been experimenting for some time with the concept of blogging. Can blogs drive traffic, just by being blogs? What is the difference between a blog and just a normal website?
Really, a blog is just a form of a website. It just allows for easy publishing, and a few other 'widgets' that make it friendly with the search engines.
This is what we are finding....without 'real' content, the blog is worthless. Sure, maybe it will get some traffic, and the occasional un-suspecting person will stumble on it and maybe even click on an ad, but the day's of poor quailty content are over.
If you are going to take the time to post something to blog, post something meaningful.
Posted by marketplacesna at 04:30 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 07, 2007
The Power of Social Media
Youtube, Blogs, Social Media....the web 2.0 is here, but what does it mean?
Researchers at the Marketing Experiments Journal recently released a study where they compared Social Media Optimization (SMO) with paid search advertising.
What they found was that they could drive over 1400% traffic per dollar than with traditional PPC marketing.
The question is, how targeted is this traffic and what can you make in terms of advertising.
Not very much thus far, but an interesting marketing experiment just the same.
Posted by marketplacesna at 03:44 PM | TrackBack
February 13, 2006
Creative Grace
Now the independent artist has a voice.
Posted by marketplacesna at 05:09 PM | Comments (165) | TrackBack
May 02, 2005
Megan's Law Allows for Easy Avaliablity of Registered Sex Offenders
I found some good resources for searching your neighborhood for registered sex offenders. I found 23 within a mile of my house, one lives right down the street.
The first registered sex offenders list was here RegisteredOffendersList.org
The second resource lists the states that offer free child predator lists.
Posted by marketplacesna at 02:25 PM | TrackBack
April 03, 2005
Here is a Javascript Version of a Moveable Type Blog RSS Feed
Posted by marketplacesna at 11:54 AM | Comments (1074) | TrackBack
April 02, 2005
What is RSS?
RSS is a format for syndicating news and the content of news-like sites, including major news sites like Wired, news-oriented community sites like Slashdot, and personal weblogs. But it's not just for news. Pretty much anything that can be broken down into discrete items can be syndicated via RSS: the "recent changes" page of a wiki, a changelog of CVS checkins, even the revision history of a book. Once information about each item is in RSS format, an RSS-aware program can check the feed for changes and react to the changes in an appropriate way.
http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2002/12/18/dive-into-xml.html
Posted by marketplacesna at 01:01 PM | TrackBack
March 25, 2005
Are Blogs Really Spider Food?
My friend and colleague posted this and I thought it was interesting:
Blogs, are they really "Search Engine Spider Food"?
As blogs have caught on like wildfire, there seems to be a constant two-part explanation around internet circles for the explosive growth.
First, they are super simple to set up and post, and unlike with traditional HTML, coding ability and/or software is not necessary.
Second, blogs are being referred to as "search engine spider food." The search engines appear to like blogs a lot, perhaps more so than HTML websites.
While I agree 110% with the first part of the explanation, I find myself asking why blogs are considered "search engine spider food."
Is it that they are compiled primarily of text content with text navigation and combined with clean code? ie most everything you would want in order for a spider to find, crawl and navigate a site. Or is it that with the ability of trackbacks and pinging other sites, blogs have become the easiest and most efficient method of collecting backlinks? I am starting to feel it is the latter of the two explanations.
I have personaly launched a handful of blogs since the first of the year, and while it took a while to get indexed, a couple of my blogs are beginning to show up well in those engines that most value backlinks (Google & Yahoo). However, in those engines that discount backlinks and pay closer attention to tags and content I have not done nearly as well.
Perhaps the explanation is simply that the combination of both the clean text code and the use of trackbacks is what causes blogs to appear to be "search engine spider food." My findings thus far may just be coincidence, but regardless, it is interesting the disparity in rankings. I would love to hear what others have to say.
You can comment on this here.
Posted by marketplacesna at 10:33 AM | Comments (1224) | TrackBack
March 22, 2005
Marketing Survey - Participants Needed
Here is link requesting participants in a marketing survey. Participants get a free copy of the report:
http://www.bairddirect.com/Promosparkreporte.htm
Posted by marketplacesna at 11:46 AM | Comments (1914) | TrackBack
March 15, 2005
Syndicating a Blog with a RSS Feed
Syndicating a Blog with an RSS feed
I am researching syndicating a blog with RSS feeds. Using MoveableType, how is this done?
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference 'How will RSS subscribers know that it's your feed?' from Dana's Blog - Internet Marketing and Sales Technology Ideas From the Trenches.:
http://www.aaron-rosenthal.com/2005/03/syndicating_a_b.html
Posted by marketplacesna at 01:18 PM | Comments (1180) | TrackBack
March 08, 2005
How do automatic track-backs work?
I am trying to automatically update other blogs. Anyone have advice?
Posted by marketplacesna at 05:26 PM | Comments (613) | TrackBack
Using Blogs to market Retail Sites
Using a blog to promote a retail store: Blog Product Review Sites
One of the newest ways of manipulating blogs by e-marketers, is to create a blog review site. Many times these are some of the most knowledgeable experts in the industry, but should these editors be conscious not to mislead customers. Is there a responsibility to customers to relay that the blog is in fact non objective. Here are a few examples of these types of "blog reviews." Note: They look to be "works in progress" but one can get the idea:
http://www.aaron-rosenthal.com/2005/03/using_a_blog_to.html
Posted by marketplacesna at 11:21 AM | TrackBack
February 11, 2005
Using Blogs to Drive Traffic to Retail Sites
This is a good example of using a blog to drive traffic to a retail site:
http://www.adjustablebedrating.com/1_twin_adjustable_beds/index.html
Posted by marketplacesna at 04:47 PM | TrackBack
January 24, 2005
Blog Search Engines
Seems like this is a useful list of all of the blog search engines that you can list to:
http://www.aripaparo.com/archive/000632.html
Posted by marketplacesna at 04:16 PM | TrackBack
January 21, 2005
27% of Web Users Read Blogs
From a recent Yahoo Article:
According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 27 percent of adults who go online in the United States read blogs. And blogs have greater impact because their readers tend to be policy makers and other influencers of public opinion, media experts say. According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 27 percent of adults who go online in the United States read blogs. And blogs have greater impact because their readers tend to be policy makers and other influencers of public opinion, media experts say.
Posted by marketplacesna at 03:39 PM | TrackBack
January 20, 2005
Good CNET Article about TrackBack Pings
Here is a good summary of TrackBack Pings and how they work. I 'Pinged' them when I wrote this and now they will show that I mentioned their article:
http://news.com.com/TrackBack+and+Pingback+supported+by+CNET+News.com/2030-9368_3-5462850.html
Posted by marketplacesna at 07:49 PM | TrackBack
January 15, 2005
Using Blogs to Get Top Rankings in Search Engines
Never Before has it been easier to create, manage and optimize a website. Platforms like MovableType make it so easy to create and publish your own blog. Blogs, because of their content rich nature and clean code seem to rank very well in engines like Google. Furthermore, creating a series of back-links to a blog creates even better rankings. In the first week of testing we were able to get first rank on google for 'spam conversion'.
Trying to get number one rank for 'email marketing research'. Checking to see if putting search results in body of blog does anything:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=email+marketing+research&btnG=Search
Posted by marketplacesna at 11:42 PM | TrackBack
January 10, 2005
i58Projects.Org - Helping Children around the World
This is our non-profit organization that helps the children of India:
Posted by marketplacesna at 09:20 PM | TrackBack
December 30, 2004
Commenting Now Turned On
You can now comment on this site.
See http://www.typekey.com for more info.
Posted by marketplacesna at 07:02 PM | Comments (1499) | TrackBack
December 28, 2004
What are Trackback Pings ??
I wanted to figure out what trackback pings are and why they are important:
This is a good article from the founders of MovableType:
http://www.movabletype.org/trackback/beginners/
Basically, the main reason you should use this if you are starting a blog is so that you can reference other blogs and have the content automatically referenced on your blog...I will write more as I experiment.
Posted by marketplacesna at 07:06 PM | TrackBack
December 24, 2004
To Blog or Not to Blog
Its 1:12 AM and I have to say setting up a blog is not the easiest thing to do if you do not have the correct documentation. My Blogger blog:
http://marketplaceexperiments.blogspot.com/
Took me about 10 minutes to set up and while it does have limitations it was FREE and easy to set-up. Movable Type has more features, that is for sure, and ultimately I need it for the long run, but it was a pain.
Posted by marketplacesna at 01:12 AM | Comments (1259)