Posts by InsightsDigital

I just read that Google have added new filters:

Here's a list of the new filters:

* Past hour
* Specific date range
* More shopping sites
* Fewer shopping sites
* Visited pages
* Not yet visited
* Blogs
* News
So how do you think this will affect your SEO tactics?

I just read a Comscore report stating that the click through rates for display ads have gone down throughout the years. Hence, if this revenue stream is being diminished, will this push companies to start charging members for membership? I remember this was done in the early 2000s and those charged communities just died or adopted a freemium or free model. So if your online community is facing extinction, would you pay not get ads?

Being on social media, I have noticed there are certain "twitter celebrities" or even Myspace celebrities like Tila Tequila. Thus, I wonder what makes someone into an online celebrity, does it matter, and does it help you from a professional standpoint? Perhaps I am already a celebrity here on DaniWeb? ;)

Hi

I know I am not the only one who blogged and then one day, realized, why am I doing this and why should I continue lightbulb revelation. So I wonder who else also had this type of epiphany?

Online social media communities just provide a digital extension of real-life behavior... Just that...

I just read an interesting report on eMarketer.

http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007303

It found that over 48.5% of tweets that menitoned companies were comments. It is no surprise. What do you think?

AS we al know, there are millions of online communities and presence, yet only a few actually were able to penetrate and influence people to join and engage, like Facebook and Myspace. so my question is: How did these online communities set themselves apart to make them so widespread? Why others prosper while other fail and fade away? What do you think?

I just read an article that Google has removed Pirates Bay from its search results. Okay, Pirate Bay may have violated a few rules here and there. ut what happens if your online community encounters similar roadblock? What would you do to grow it?

Oh Myspace... Myspace may have actually attracted a higher response rate due to its demographics. I have not even visited myspace for eons.

As Im reading this, what comes into my mind is that, should the player be more concentrated in playing the game in the first place? Just a thought...

I do believe any form of new social electronic communication has its strengths, weaknesses, and threats. For example, pharmaceutical companies are hesitant to use the two way social media chat component because this type of conversation can open a can of legal worms which can hit companies with multimillion or even billion dollar penalties from the federal government.

It all depends on the wiki platform as well as the type of membership the wiki has and the admin settings. Perhaps the settings are set in a way that does not allow users to perform the type of edits you want to do.

I have done similar ones and sure, I got a few hits, but the most important aspect here is to be able to link this promotion/marketing tactic with actual lead generation - most likely through website analytics.

I actually have used both as well as an ancient one called TypePad (I dont think it exists anymore) and a previous one on Lycos I think. Anyway, I actually like WordPress and Blogger for different reasons. But if I have to give the awards to the best - well I need to create award categories:
1. Best "Easiest Blogging System" - Blogger
2. Best "Flexible/Adaptable Blogging System" - Word Press

I also noticed that companies who never really advertised before and not only using a CRM program now on their website to capture emails but also are using social media to engage with consumers and increase sales. Just a look on facebook, you will find many sales oriented pages for some fancy danshy shops. Even a few years ago, these shops would have never ever created such a presence. Hence, this recession have stirred many business owners to shift their attitude to embrace any tactic that can help save their business at the end of the day.

Yes, many companies and people are jumping into the "social media bandwagon". I was actually commissioned a few months ago to develop metrics for social media due to its strong qualitative nature. These metrics per se may not necessarily drive financial business decisions but it does help assess if the tactic is working or not.

Oh yes... Especially with people who are from the traditional marketing mindset or even the bloggers' mindset. There needs to be a change of attitude first for your client to really modify his behavior. I dont think your client is the only faulty one. Just a look at many tweets in the tweetosphere and you will see many are still in this boat. So how can this be changed? Good question. I recommend sending him short email snippets or examples of how other businesses successfully created a two way conversation and generated more money!!! That may be the remedy.

I agree. Just looking at many of the twitter business profiles, these profiles are replete with self promoting url tweets and not much two or multiple way engagement. Where is the conversation here?

I just wonder in the near future, what will take over social media ads. I don't know yet. Does anyone have any predictions?

Yes, the user generated content material on social media is a gold mine for any type of research. My colleague research new members of the team. My friend research potential dates, etc, etc, etc. Thus, for divorce, there are not only monetary but also emotional painful ties, so for many divorcees, the attitude is "Let's get him!!!" with the kindly help of their attorney. So social media provides the landscape to enable this mission.

This is no surprise to me. Look at the USPS, I read somewhere that it will be run by private company soon and mostly computerized kiosks. I went to a post office in the 90's that is like that. Anyway going back to this blog post, this buy can start a trend among government sites and properties. What do you think?

Though I have not seen an app for this, I have seen other professional social media sites trying to be exclusive based on industries. You know what happened to them? They are not around nor did these companies achieve the status of LinkedIn. Actually, I was an early adopter of LinkedIn eons ago when the majority of professionals on LinkedIn were from the technology community. So you can send Linkedin created a site (or an app if you call it that way eons ago) for technology professionals and it just grew and grew and grew.
Also, think of it, with the status of our economy, so many professionals are changing jobs or careers. So an exclusive app may exclude these type of switchers.

Definitely!!! I personally have used social media as a research tool to develop qualitative findings on consumers' intent, mindset, sentiments, atitudes, and most of all plan/shape their buying behavior or attitude towards a brand. I did this manually back in 2007 and earlier before the advent of many research tools. Now, there are many tools that does this, however, even if these tools are still very good, there are certain results which should not be in those categories.

Some of the tools out there are: Radian6, Techrigy, BuzzMetrics, BuzzLogic, to name a few

First of all, I believe that tweeting attracts a certain type of behavioral profile of a person who enjoys constant updates on themselves and other information. From a business perspective, the endless stream of tweets may seem like an attractive way to "put it out there". My issue is that most people may not even be reading the tweets from an hour ago. It is like a soap bubble. It is ephemeral.

Hence, to answer your question after my soliloquy. Yes, I have actually started a few different twitter accounts, one for myself, one for a karma project, one for a web show I was doing, and one for my business. At the end, I noticed that even though I had so many followers in each group and I tweeted and tweeted, I just lost the novelty of it. I felt like Forrest Gump while he was running and realized, why is he doing this and just stopped.

If you are not aware, recently, a picture of Obama and his wife taken with Spain's presidential family was shared online. The picture was removed quickly after the First Family of Spain complained since it contained their teenagers. So what do you think?
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/09/29/shocking-photos-spains-first-daughters-appear-to-be-teenag/?icid=webmail|wbml-aol|dl2|link3|http%3A%2F%2Fwww.politicsdaily.com%2F2009%2F09%2F29%2Fshocking-photos-spains-first-daughters-appear-to-be-teenag%2F

We know that when school is in session during the Fall, it can also be a season of communal flu and the cooties. Thus, what do you think of Google's FluTrend - http://www.google.org/flutrends/ ? It is good for writing a blog posting or a report for a kid, but from a bigger perspective, do you think it can help nations prevent flu by looking at the trends?

The times of generating profits via blogs are probably limited. I remember even a few years ago when many bloggers touted making beyond 6 figure just by blogging. What do you think?

Web 1.0 consisted of mostly static web pages full of lengthy text that did not follow "above the fold" rule. Thus, many of these webpages felt like lecture notes. So what do you think of how businesses use social media which is now part of Web 2.0?
It seems that many business users use social media to "lecture" rather than converse. This can be seen in the form of self promoting tweets and no two or multi way engagement with followers. What do you think?

Even though most people are familiar with Wikipedia, many may not realize that creating a wiki is another social media tactic that business can leverage. Thus, have you used a wiki to build your client's online presence? I have managed a few wikis in the past and it takes time to build and keep it active. It does require lots of user generated content to make it a rich and engaging experience. What do you think?

Oh adult stars and Sarah Palin. Hmm.. Anyway, this is interesting because such connections may lead for misinterpretations by others who may not directly know you. That is why it is important to be careful with whom you connect with.

The mentality of "Build and they will come" may not be true in social media. Yes, you can build it but you also need to make it alive. It is like getting a plant and not watering it.

This is a very interesting situation you bring up. I can see this as a major issue. Even though accounts should not be jointly operated, this does happen.

I actually commented to a similar post on Daniweb a moment ago. But my point is that most businesses and users want to leverage the good and business driving power of social media. But like anything good, if taken by excesses, good can become very ugly. It is also sad that the action of one impacts, in this case, millions.

President Obama has successfully used social media to launch his campaign. But perhaps too much of a good thing can back fire. It is just awful that users will post such negative user generated content against him or against anyone. But actually Newsweek posted an article some time ago about the not so nice side of social media and gave a few examples.

It may damage fan base but I can see why the leagues are doing so. Such tweeting behavior by the players can lead to illegal sports betting. Such accusations can further hurt a league, both publicly and financially.

It also depends on which niches these politicians may want to target and go after these online communities that cater to these niches. It may not go be pure social media marketing but it can consist of a combination of a paid campaign and stirring up some sponsored rich media widget - in the form of a poll. Such social media tactics can generate some social media buzz and help increase votes.

Yes I can see your points about couples and who cares. But at the same token, I do believe that couples should have some privacy and this includes email accounts and logins. Couples were not born attached so if there is a breakup, then vindicative actions by one of the partners is avoided by not releasing all social media logins.

Oh Im not surprised with this one. Wherever there are people, malevolent thinkers will create something against them.

Yes, I do agree with some of those points. Most of all, I do believe that the same points were said the same about email. Now it is social media. Who knows what is going to be next?

These results will not deter many businesses who are looking for any way possible to gain sales and reach, especially in this economy.

I do like your list. I also would add:
1. Not contributing to comments
2. Not giving credits to tweets and retweets

Oh I liked your Zune comment. It be interesting to use LookingGlass to monitor social media buzz. This Looking Glass can be a competitor for Radian6 and other tools.

I do agree with this article. Social media marketing is more of an engagement and ongoing. Many people think that a business should just create profiles and put it out there on social media. I totally disagree - these profiles only help to create an initial presence.

Just like any other social crowd, social media is no exception. There will be cliques, consisting of leaders, followers, and missing links. To answer your question, I know of friends in the internet marketing space who have complained about this.

This is truly scary. Though Google is the leader for paid search, such Google practice will definitely alienate customers and they will instead advertise on Yahoo/Bing. I am also looking forward to members sharing their stories.

I strongly suggest you to re-optimize your site via:
1. content optimization - create fresh and relevant content
2. also remember with adwords, if the keywords you use are not relevant to your site, it will not only get a poor score, but it will also not have the first rank.
3. Promote the site offline at events. Create a business card plugging your site and network like crazy at Linux related events.

Web analytics only provide insights for your own site but what if you want to know what your competitors are doing. Comscore or Nielsen only helps for sites which attract large about of traffic, over 50k monthly visitors. So which tools do you use to gather insights on the traffic of your competitors?

Hi
Im composing a paid search campaign report and never done one before. What would you recommend me to do it on? Powerpoint or Excel? or even Word? Please advice. Thanks!

Let say you are creating your first marketing report, what do you include? I recommend adding or focusing on KPI. What do you think?

Almost every user on this board has an alias that is unique and descriptive. But also, many users create multiple alias to fit in different environment. So my questions for the members here are:
1. What does your name/alias mean?
2. What else would you like to share?
3. Does this name permeate to your offline world?