Create Your Profile

Creating a Google+ page is easy. After you create your Google+ profile (which you can sign up for with a Gmail address), you click the HOME button up top and look on the right hand side for the link to Google+ pages.

Pick a business category (you have the choice of local, brand, organization, arts or other), and add your product and brand information. That’s it.  Now you have a Google+ business page.

Back at your profile page, under your name at the top, you’ll see a link for your new Google+ page, and you can click on it to manage your page.

You can share this page with up to 50 other administrators as well by clicking on the gear at the top right, then settings, then looing for the manage link on the left.

After you have dragged and dropped photos and added as much information as you like to your profile, you can start sharing comments.  In order to engage as many people as possible, you should add all your employees, friends and customers in your circles. Encourage them to suggest feedback and engage in the conversations on your Google+ page.

Promoting Your Google+ Page

In order to promote your page, you will want to follow as many influential people as you can by adding them to your circles.  Circles can be segmented to keep your followers and influencers separate. You should encourage the people in your circles to share your page with their own circles. You should customize your discussions to your different circles.  For instance, if a certain customer has a complaint and airs it on your Google+ page, you are able to respond only to that user, and this helps in reputation management and branding.  In addition, one way to start getting noticed on Google+ is to “+1″ other people’s posts, which not only gets your avatar out there, but also is a nice thing to do.

Make sure to add the Google+ button prominently on your website, mobile website, and newsletter.  It should be near the Facebook and Twitter icons. Google+ users can then click this button to +1 your web page content.  This will ultimately help to improve your SEO and could increase your website traffic. It is easy to copy and paste the code into your web pages.

You can also download the Google+ app so that you can use Google+ from your mobile device.  However, as of this post, page administrators can not post via the mobile app yet, you have to be the creator of the stream to post.

What and When to Post

Just like Facebook or Twitter, you should plan to regularly post updates on Google+ with content that your customers would find interesting.  You can share content from other people here as well.  Remember that Google+ is for socializing, not totally marketing, and you will drive people away if you only make posts about your services and products there.  People want to join your circle in order to have conversations with you, get coupons, or other information.  They also expect you to respond to their questions promptly on Google+.  If you want to engage more people, make sure to “post to public” so everyone can find your content.

You will want to add keywords to your posts by creating a title for them, and then adding in the URL you want to link to. You can also add hashtags to your posts if that makes sense.

Make sure to turn on the “authorship” for your content, so Google begins to note that you are the creator of your own content. In order to do this, click your name in Google Plus to show your profile and then in the upper right corner look for the “Edit Profile” link. Once you are there, look on the right for “contributor to” and click that link.  Now you can type in the URLs of the websites where you want to claim the content you have written.

Social Etiquette

You will also want to make sure you can respond in a timely manner when someone adds a comment to your post.  If they +1 and share your post, it’s a good idea to thank them.  If they +1 your post, a nice acknowledgement is to add them to your circles.

Google+ has a function (@name) that allows you to ask people to respond to your posts.  It is one way to put your content in front of people that will likely contribute to the discussion but it should be used with care, because you may seem too demanding, and loose followers by overusing it. You can add people who frequently comment on your posts to a circle you use to start debates.

Create comments with more information than “great post”.  Your comments should add value or spark more of discussion.

Using Google Hangouts 

Anyone with a Google+ login can create a hangout or join a public hangout. Hangouts are live videoconferences where users can interact.  Similar to hangouts in Facebook that use Skype technology, Google+ Hangouts also allow the conference session to be published to YouTube almost instantaneously.

Don’t worry if no one comes to your hangout right away.  You can send anyone in your circles an invitation to hangout and join you.  The first time they hangout, they will download an app that allows them to video and chat, as well as screen share.  There is a  Google video that explains hangouts.  Businesses can use hangouts for question and answer sessions, sales calls, customer service interaction, networking events, concerts, meetings, and many other useful sessions.  Since Google records all the participants in a hangout, businesses can check the Google+ profiles of the attendees and add them to their circles.

As more and more people begin using Google+ the opportunities for businesses will grow exponentially.

As of yesterday, Google launched an update  “Search Plus Your World”, a continuation of Google+ integration into Google’s other products.

You’re going to start seeing automatically personalized results (to a greater degree, as Google has already started to do this) with signals drawn from your Google+ account and Circles, highlighting things you or your friends have shared.  These personalized matches will appear alongside your “normal” Google search results. Google will also start to pull photos shared via Google+ or Picasa—even if these images have been marked as private, they’ll show up (but only be visible to you).

What is Google Doing?

Google’s search has always been about putting the best and most relevant results in front of you—sometimes this means from the public web, sometimes this may be content and personal information shared by yourself or the people you know and care about.  Although Google search is currently still limited to public web pages created by people you haven’t met, Google’s goal is to start bringing your own personal world, people you know and personalized relevant information into search.  Google wants you to be able to find your own stuff on the web, including your contacts and the things they’ve shared with you, also people you don’t know but might want to as well.

Here are three new features to watch out for:

1. Profiles:  You’ll be able to find profiles via both autocomplete and results, enabling you to find people you’re close to or who you might be interested in following.
2. People and Pages:  Google will help you find other users Google+ page related to your topics of interest—you’ll find a community behind almost every query.
3. Personal:  Google will help you find information just for you—Google+ posts and photos.  Both your own and ones shared with you will be found in results pages.

A Brief Example…

Here’s an example of how the new Google search will work.  Say you are running a query for a recent movie – for most people, a search like this will bring up film information, a book if relevant, movie times, videos, sometimes even fan sites.  In addition, your Google results may now display Picasa albums and photo results from friends albums, should they have gone to the premier, taken pictures, or shared any related content and blog posts via Google+.  All these will show up in your results too.

Foreshadowing…

This isn’t such a big deal as of now, but it does foreshadow a bigger Google change in the works – Google is transforming into a search engine for your stuff—your images, your content, your writing, and sometimes personal results.

This is starting off small – as mentioned, Google+’s integration with Picasa.  But soon you’ll start to see results from Gmail, Music, Voice, Contacts, Google Docs, etc… Should you go to Google and type a search for whatever you’re looking for, you’ll stat to see your own information and content displayed alongside the web results you’re familiar with.

As of yet, Google has not confirmed any of this and a broader and more personal search functionality is still a ways away.

Here are several other changes that are being introduced now:

Google is promoting certain Google+ users within search results—if you search “music”, you’ll see profiles of prominent musicians—and you’ll have the ability to add these people to your circles.  This is one way Google is promoting Google+ to users who have yet to sign up.

Several new features and options have also been included—a new tab will let you select “Search Plus Your World” and you can toggle back and forth between unpersonalized, “old fashioned” results and the new.  Google also makes it possible to opt out of the new experience entirely.  However, this SSL is now default for all users who are signed in and personalizing results.

Just to be clear, Google has been personalizing results for a while and social integration with search isn’t unique to Google—Bing’s partnership with Facebook has allowed them to display Facebook data in results and will share your friends statuses and posts within search results.

The future.

The key takeaway is that Google continues to improve at figuring out when to display socially relevant data—they want to show you content not because your friend posted it but because it’s actually relevant and helpful.  This is just a taste of what we expect Google will continue to roll out – Google+ integration will continue, and more of Google’s services will be accessible via search.

1.    Google & Bing win over “spammy” websites with the Google Panda Update.
In February of 2011, Google’s Panda update was developed to minimize low-quality and duplicate content that ranked highly in search engine results using unethical methods. Today SEOs and Internet marketers everywhere are still adhering to Google’s algorithm, which has affected 12% of web search results in the U.S. (a higher percentage than any of Google’s past algorithm changes). The threat that content and linking farms have faced this year is illustrated in an issue of New Scientist magazine, explaining how the major search engines have cracked down on spam.

2.    Yahoo search results powered by Bing.
The highly buzzed about merger of these two top search engines finally came to fruition this year. To challenge the dominance of Google, Bing now powers all web, image, and video searches on Yahoo, while Yahoo still has control of other features such as Yahoo Mail and Yahoo News. To figure out what your search rankings look like in the new Yahoo search results, consult Bing rankings, as they will be similar. It’s also doubly important now to have your website set up in Bing Webmaster Tools.

3.    Google+ Impact on search.
As Google+ grows in popularity, impact is being shown in natural search results – and ranked fairly highly. This behavior is expected to increase in 2012 as Google+ continually rolls out new features that allow businesses to become more interactive. So far Google+ has had an underwhelming effect on the social media market, but its future significance is found as the whole of Google increasingly becomes more social.

4.    Death of Yahoo Site Explorer.
This came as unfortunate news as Yahoo Site Explorer was a popular free tool for SEOs to find various metrics (quantity and quality of back link information) pointed out against any particular website. SEOs now need to find paid databases of link information such as SEOmoz and others.

5.    Merge of Google Local and organic search.
Not having your business listed in Google Places can now damage website rankings in natural search results. In 2011 there was a 20% marketshare increase due to a large percentage of searchers using mobile devices for local search queries. In addition when a search is performed on Google Maps, organic search results for that query are also listed.

6.    Introduction of Google Speech and improvement of suggestions.
Google Speech was introduced on the Chrome browser and on the Google mobile app, allowing searchers to speak their queries out loud by clicking a microphone icon or simply holding the mobile device up to their ear. While the speech recognition itself improved, SEOs also began studying how people search when speaking. For example, searchers use more descriptive language speaking than typing.  

7.    Death of Digg.
Digg was at one time one of the most popular social bookmarking sites and was considered the future of online content discovery. Yet its popularity fell once they released a new interface. Reddit, another social link sharing site, has picked up traffic by 230% in 12 months after Digg’s end.

8.    Google Query Encryption Update.
Google has promoted more secure Internet browsing by introducing updated query encryption for users searching while signed into their Google account. While providing enhanced user privacy, Google Analytics numbers are inaccurate – since cookies aren’t tracked with the update, keyword data is lost. Many marketers are turning to alternative web analytic programs.

9.    New version of Google Analytics.
Toward the end of the year Google rolled out a more flexible and advanced version of Google Analytics. Google has incorporated an advanced dashboard facility, keyword clouds, real time search results, integrated Google Webmaster and analytics tools, event tracking and many more features. Some marketers do not agree with the new interface, but it should improve as more data and features are tweaked.

10.  Duckduckgo.com and Blekko Search Engines gain market share.
In 2011 these two search engines have made their presence felt. Through the year Blekko has improved its indexing system, come out with more slash tags, and also a new layout. Duckduckgo.com has a user-friendly interface and has adopted a no-tracking privacy policy. Both search engines – perhaps climbing above AOL and Ask – claim to be spam-free to make a positive impression on Internet users.

Of course there were plenty of other notable stories– Google has claimed to have made about 500 updates just this year. As search engine marketers, these are the top changes that have influenced the industry greatest. 2012 will bring about new changes, new search channels, and new objectives that we’re eager to tackle. What do you think should be in the Top 10 biggest organic search changes of 2011? Comment below!

Many companies have either already allocated more of their overall marketing budgets to Internet Marketing, or are in the process of doing so.  This is because more and more people are using the Internet for longer periods and the average person spends between one and three hours online every day. Of the 300,000,000 people in the United States, about 165,000,000 are Internet users.  57% of these users search the Internet every single day.  While online, they check emails (94%), search (87%), research products (78%), buy products (66%) and social network (61%) – source eMarketer.com.

Invest in SEO and Social Media – Blog, LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook

A corporate Internet Marketing budget often depends upon the industry.  However, in general companies are currently allocating between 17 to 25% of their total marketing budgets to Internet marketing.  Last year, companies that spend money doing Internet marketing allocated more than 70% of that online budget to SEO and Social Media marketing.  We see this trend increasing for 2012 because the return on investment is still very high.  One of the big changes in SEO last year was due to the crackdown on duplicate content on the Internet.  We think that search engines, in their effort to show the most relevant content, will continue this trend and begin giving more weight to respected author’s content.

Social media continues to grow.  64% of companies will increase their social media budgets (particularly in blogging and review gathering efforts) in 2012. Over 700,000 local businesses have active Facebook pages.  More than half of all the companies that used social media in 2011 said that their blogs and LinkedIn were their best online lead generating tools. Twitter and Facebook were also mentioned as lead generating tools.

Invest in the Corporate Website and Make Enhancements for Better Conversions

Since most Internet marketing hinges on the corporate website, part of the marketing budget should be spent analyzing and perfecting this website so that it converts visitors to leads or customers.  The new version of Google Analytics makes assessing the effectiveness of both your Internet marketing efforts and web pages much easier.  There are several questions to ask in respect to your corporate website performance:

• Are you doing SEO, and if so, how is it working?
• Are you doing PPC, and if so, how is it working?
• Are you getting leads from social sites?
• Are your visitors converting into customers on your web pages, or are they exiting before doing so?
• Do you have processes in place to retain customers who leave your website at the time of checkout or lead conversation?
• Do you have a rating tool or mechanism to get user reviews and feedback on your services or products?

Your corporate website should be search engine friendly, effectively promote your brand value, showcase and detail your products and services, be easy to understand and navigate, highlight your blog and link to your company social profiles.

Invest in a Mobile Website and Local Search Marketing

Another important marketing budget consideration is a mobile version of your website.  On average, most websites receive between 5 and 20% of their visitors from mobile devices such as phones and tablets.  This is expected to increase in 2012 as more and more mobile phone users purchase smart phones. By 2013 there will be over 600,000 smart phone users in the United States, and this will decrease desktop Internet browsing.  Websites and applications for mobile devices will become increasingly important as consumers begin to do more and more with their phones.  Mobile SEO will become more and more important, and this means that having a local map listing presence is also essential, especially for local businesses.

Invest in Visual Marketing

More and more people are searching videos and images, and many companies are investing in infographics, image sharing social media sites, YouTube channels and videos. Investing in content marketing, including visual content is expected to increase again in 2012, mainly because the majority of people learn visually, and the old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words” holds true in marketing. 27% of companies expect to increase their online video budgets in 2012.

Invest in enhanced Email Marketing

Email still delivers one of the best returns on investment of all digital marketing. The email challenge for 2012 will be to tie it into the company’s mobile and social marketing strategies.  More personalized, timely and targeted emails that include user-generated content like testimonials are proving to be more effective. For example, automated cart abandonment programs are proving to be worth the time and effort it takes to implement them.  Email subscribers are valuable and each should be treated as such.  The more personal and timely emails are, the more effective they are.  As far as mobile email goes, emails read on tablet devices convert about five times better than those read on smart phones.  It is important to send emails with smaller file sizes so that they load quickly and to make sure that call-to-action buttons are big enough for users to tap on mobile screens.

Invest in Analysis

Competition in Internet marketing continues to increase.  For this reason it is more and more important to continually track attributes lead sources and conversion rates.  Ramping up marketing initiatives that are working, and filtering out those that are not remains the best way to achieve the highest return on investment.  With so many options for digital marketing, it is a safe strategy for companies to carefully track the return on investment from all these lead generating sources.

Smart businesses are already capitalizing on this immense audience, and they are including video in their marketing plans and budgets because it drives sales.  In addition, YouTube continually updates their software to entice more brands and viewers.  The result is that YouTube channels are beginning to be watched like television, but the cost of advertising online remains much cheaper.

Create a Video Based on What Your Audience Wants

The strategy starts with any good Internet marketing plan basis: giving consumers what they are looking for.   A Video Marketing Strategy should meet the needs of consumers.  Using Google insight and keywords tools (because let’s face it, Google dominates the internet search, and they make their database open to the public, so let’s use it) the first step is to figure out what your audience is searching for, and give it to them in the form of a video.  Let’s say that your company sells living room furniture.  You do a search on Google keywords tool and find that a number of people are searching for “living room decorating”.

Next you search Google for that term to see how many videos already exist for that phrase.

You select the first organic video showing and see that it received almost 350,000 views in 3 years.  The next video on the list received over 11,000 views in only 3 months.  You decide to make a video with your own tips on Living Room Decorating Ideas.

The video might just be the first step though.  You might want to supplement the video with blog posts, articles, ebook downloads, specials, and carefully constructed landing pages – but we’ll get to that later on in the article. In this way the video marketing strategy also helps with search engine optimization and branding because web pages will get links and visibility from social sites, article sites, blog sites, Youtube and other video sites.

Your video should be very focused on answering the question.  The more specifically targeted the answer, the better your target audience will receive it.  In the video, you can make use of captions and text bubbles to try to entice viewers to leave comments or take action on your website.  Once your video is created, you can upload it to your video channel and optimize it for the phrase you want.

Creating Your YouTube Channel

YouTube provides you with the ability to customize your YouTube channel so that it is an extension of your brand.  You can add a custom image background, offer specials, choose a featured video, post channel comments, set up your featured channels, and organize your videos into categories and playlists. There are four options to choose from when displaying your featured videos: creator, bloger, network, and everything, so you can customize the navigation through your videos on your channel.

Your channel design should reflect your brand and message. If you base your channel around your website, and make it look like your website, you can achieve brand consistency.   In the profile of your channel you should include references to the type of content on the channel and a link to your website – or a particular landing page of your website that relates to your channel.  Make sure to tell your users to rate and comment on your videos, subscribe to your channel, and share your videos.  You can read more on how to make use of the new 2011 YouTube channel design in our blog.

Creating Your Video Content

Using phrases that people are searching for, or content that you know your audience wants to see, create videos with a clear message.   Try to upload videos on a consistent basis to keep your subscribers on a schedule. Make sure to change the featured videos often, and organize your videos using the playlist feature.   If you base your playlist on subject categories, your subscribers will be able to easily find more of your videos that interest them.  In our living room decorating example, you may want to include videos on how to position a couch for conversation, how to take advantage of the principles of feng shui, and cost effective living room makeovers.

In each of these videos, make sure to include information on how viewers can purchase the items they see in the videos on your website. Make sure to optimize each video by including the search phrase in the video title and description.  There are other steps you can do to further optimize videos.  For instance, you can include the link to your website at the beginning of your video description so the link will show up right below your video title, encouraging viewers to click over to your website. You may also want to make a list of credits including everyone who helped or participated in the video so that people can search using these names as well.

Transcribing and Annotating Your Videos

You can take advantage of the search engines even further by transcribing your YouTube video and creating subtitles for a video.   Use the video annotation feature to add comments in bubbles or screen overlasy that appear as your video plays. Using YouTube annotation, you can control the text in the annotations and when they appear and disappear in the video. The best part about an annotation is that it can be used like a call to action button on your website, containing a link to a corresponding landing page,
shopping page, or other video.

As your video channel grows, you will begin to be able to use the statistics of your older videos to see which formats and subjects get the most views, comments and ratings, so that you can pattern future videos on these successes.

Marketing Your YouTube Videos

Like any other social site, the first step in marketing on YouTube is to build up subscribers to your channel and views to your videos. Your channel subscribers are more likely to rate and comment on your videos and share them with their friends.  In addition, the more subscribers your channel has, the more likely that your videos will rank higher in search.

Every YouTube member actually has their own YouTube Channel that contains all the videos they have uploaded.  So one way to get more subscribers is to subscribe to other people’s video channels, watch their videos, comment on them, and suggest that they subscribe to your channel.  You can use your Google + circles, Facebook, and other social sites to share links to your new videos, and ask people to subscribe to your channel.   You can also get subscribers by adding a subscribe button on your website or blog. There are even promotional services you can pay, that will help you gain subscribers on your YouTube channel.

Engaging Subscribers

The new version of YouTube makes it much easier to engage your audience, because it interfaces with Facebook, Twitter and Google+.  Make sure to enable comments on your channel and videos.  Then make a concerted effort to use other platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Google+ to engage your audience.

Promoting your YouTube channel on your blog, Facebook and Twitter

If your main goal in YouTube video and channel work is to drive traffic to your store or website, you need to set up a strategy that works to engage your viewers and subscribers.  After you have around ten videos and your channel is set up on YouTube, you can begin using your blog, Facebook, Twitter and press releases to attract targeted traffic to your videos.  The videos should entice viewers to click over to your store or website.  Embed your videos on your blog posts, in your Facebook posts, and using the TinyURL structure, in your Tweets.   Create a press release about each video (or about your entire channel) too.  Promote the press release in as many places as you can.  On Facebook you can also set up a video gallery page similar to this one: http://www.facebook.com/youtube?sk=app_165271560172150

You can also browse social sites like Facebook and LinkedIn to find groups that might be interested in seeing your video. There are also video bookmarking sites where you can post your videos, as well as video sharing sites like MSN Video and Yahoo Video.  You can even look for relevant discussion forums and post your videos in these.

Finally, after all this promotional work, you will want to make sure to see how successful you have been by looking Both YouTube analytics and in Google Analytics for the number of visitors that came from YouTube views.

The Use of Paid Video Ads

While 2011 showed 97 percent video view growth, video ad views grew even faster at a 128 percent increase.

Viewers not only watched more ads, but also continued to watch videos even though more ads have been added per video.  Most people watched videos between 2 and 4 pm and between 9 and 11 pm.  Businesses should take note of this increase, because as online video becomes more and more like TV advertising, online video ads will become an integral part of a business’ marketing budget.

Creating and Running a PPC Video Campaign on YouTube

Using Adwords, Google Analytics and YouTube analytics, you can track the success of any video campaign.  The YouTube ads you create will be videos that display as sponsored listings or header videos.  In our “living room decorating” example, ads can be created for special offers and as general information such as tips on interior design.

Ads can be shown in several manners:

• As headers on existing Youtube videos using Individual Video or Channel Campaign- This system allows us to identify specific videos, channels or categories to place ads on.
• Uploaded to YouTube and listed in a very similar way to search engine ads encouraging users to click through and watch the video.  Videos are triggered by keywords, ensuring that only the most relevant users click through.
• Using the Partner Watch feature of Youtube. YouTube has a huge range of content creators. Ads can be placed beside specific content providers, again ensuring that relevant viewers will be exposed to the ad.  Ads can be flash, rich media or static.

Ads can be targeted to groups based on:

• Demographics
• Geographical targeting
• Keywords.

By using a combination of organic and paid video advertising in your marketing strategy, you can not only capitalize on the exponentially growing video viewing growth, make use of the second largest search engine (YouTube), but you can capitalize on the social aspects of video marketing and the targeted approach of tailoring videos around the needs of your audience.

You might have noticed that the YouTube team has recently introduced a new homepage design – just last week they unveiled these new changes. YouTube’s new changes received mixed reviews from users – one source described the new design to be channeling “a social network that got married to TV guide and had DirectTV as a baby”.

More than 3 billion videos are viewed each day on YouTube – nearly 8 years of new content is uploaded every day.  In addition, YouTube announced last month that many new channels are coming soon from well-known content producers and personalities—YouTube’s new updates make it easier for users to find and keep tabs on who and what they want to watch.  You may want to check out the new video (provided by YouTube) that offers a tour of the new YouTube homepage and changes.  This also offers new insight as to how users can create their own custom YouTube channels. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-ajXnrpkio&feature=youtu.be

Take the time to explore the new YouTube design – look for the following changes.

The overall look and feel is much darker, with more grey and black—the design is focused on social activity around video watching and sharing, also letting viewers customize their home pages.

Social Media Emphasis:  Because Google owns YouTube, they intend to use this channel to give Google+ an edge on Facebook.  Because almost 35,000 hours of video are uploaded per day (and there are more than 3 billion YouTube videos per day) this social element may prove a winning factor for Google down the line.  The new Facebook tab may also indicate a more social YouTube experience.  Once users engage in the YouTube experience (if logged in via Facebook), they can introduce them to Google+ –YouTube’s customizable Google+ options may convert Facebook users as well.

New design:  To unify the new homepage and Channel designs, YouTube has rolled out a new design across the whole site.  Back in July, YouTube first shared this experimental design (referred to as Cosmic Panda) with users.  Using feedback from visitors, they’ve improved upon this design and have updated to a clean and simple design with a more streamlined watch page and larger video thumbnails on a consistent gray background.

Your homepage:  The new YouTube homepage design makes it even easier to follow and find user Channels.  You now have the option to create your own, customizable personal YouTube Channel line up – if you have a YouTube account.  You’ll have the option to browse your recommended Channels, customize your YouTube homepage feed as you wish, and link your Facebook and Google+ account to your YouTube feed to share your favorite videos and see what friends are sharing.  You also have the option to switch between different YouTube feeds by selecting different “Channels” on the left side of your page.  More like a social livestream –what we’re familiar with on Facebook.  You have the option to check a box and have only subscriptions show up – a very convenient feature.

Your Channels:  The YouTube home page new design helps YouTubers find and organize their favorite Channels – the look and feel of Channels has been updated as well. Because different uploaders have different marketing goals, YouTube’s new Channel templates help meet these needs.  For example, if you update your Channel just once a week, there’s a template for that works best for you.  Or if you create thousands of videos for your fans to browse, there’s another template for you and your marketing goals.

Following activity on your favorite channels and keeping track of what your friends likes just got easier thanks to the YouTube activity feed.  Also, revised YT analytics make checking out demographics, user engagement activity, and data drill-downs easy.

It may be time to create a YouTube Channel and start taking advantage of YouTube’s new changes—they get 800 million unique monthly visitors a month.  Check out the new design and features – let us know if you have questions.

* http://www.kansascity.com/2011/11/30/3294024/for-1st-time-in-history-tv-ownership.html

Google has wanted to penetrate the social market – Google Buzz was a first attempt.  Will Google+ be the way they achieve this goal? We’re not sure if this can beat out Facebook but it’s still clear as marketers, we have a new platform to leverage and explore.

With more than 40 million users (and a growing search influence), Google_ has emerged as a key part of the online marketing ecosystem. 

Google+ allows businesses to create pages and develop relationships with customers and prospects on multiple levels.  Individuals are able to add their brand to a specific Google+ Circle, and share that page with their network, and interact with content posted by that company.  Users are able to +1 (or essentially endorse) company updates, upload photos, comments, and tag the brand.  Google+’s “Hangout” feature enables companies to engage with prospects, customers, and fans through video conference calls.

What You Need to Know about Google+

1. Pages cannot add people to Circles until that page is first added or mentioned.
2. You have the option to create paves for a variety of different entities (companies, corporations, etc…) whereas profiles are reserved for people.
3. You have the option to set privacy settings for your business page, but the default is “public”.
4. Google+ pages automatically unfollow you if you unfollow them.
5. Pages have the +1 feature as well.
6. Pages cannot +1 other pages – nor can they +1 web content.
7. Google+ Pages cannot mention you unless you are connected.
8. Local pages have special fields that help people find details and physical location.
9. You don’t have the option to share with “extended circles” for Google+ business pages.
10. Your page will not receive notifications – email, text, or Google bar alerts.

Sharing and Promoting Your Page:

Promoting a blank page isn’t a great way to get started or convince others that your page is valuable enough to add to their Circles. Take the time to optimize your page and share links of valuable content before promoting.

Regularly share fresh content, react and respond to your fans, be engaging, and optimize your page for lead generation.

Websites using Google’s +1 button get 3.5x more Google+ visits, so we recommend using social sharing buttons.  They serve as a call to action on your blog and website that might remind visitors that their connections may be interested in your content too.

Here’s how to optimize and get the absolute most out of your business presence on Google+.

Google+ is similar to other social networks when it comes to marketing, although there are unique strengths and weaknesses.  To get the most out of your Google+ Business Page (in terms of both leads and traffic for your website), we recommend these best practices.

1. Share photos.  These are very important on Google+.  A quick look at a Google+ feed will let you know that users share many individual images—slightly different than Facebook, where users typically upload entire albums at a time.  Think about your marketing visually—which charts, slides, and images can you upload to Google+ to start conversations and spread your content?  We think that Google+ is built for sharing images, so it’s important to take advantage.
2. It’s very important to add “Recommended Links” as well. Under the “About” tab of your Google+ page, you have the option to add recommended links in the right side bar.  It’s important to utilize this space.  Add links to important articles, blog posts, and other lead generation to drive leads and traffic to your business.
3. Promote your Google+ page on your website and blog.  To get actual value from your Google+ page, you’ll actually have to grow a community of people there to engage with your content.  In order to create this community and get people to add your + page to their Circles, you need to promote where you’re already attracting visitors.  This will include your blog side bar, home page, social media accounts.  Cross promotion is key to building your Google+ community.
4. Encourage people to share your posts – when you post a new photo, message, link, or other content to your Google+ profile, encourage subscribers to share this content with their Circles.  This is the essentially the same thing as “please retweet” on Twitter.
5. Analyze leads and traffic from Google+.  You can do this by checking out referrals from plus.Google.com to your site.

Keyword phrases – Make lists and check them twice.
Lists become your best friend as far as PPC is involved. List out everything that is potentially relevant in your keyword phrases. Do not be intimidated by the length of these lists; you want to cover all your bases for various search queries. List out the following:

-  The holiday your audience is shopping for (Christmas, New Year’s, Black Friday,
Cyber Monday, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, etc.)
-  All of your products – include any special holiday lines
-  Who your audience is shopping for (mom, boyfriend, niece, coworker, hairdresser,
dog walker)
-  All holiday promotions, whether or not you will actually use them (i.e. free shipping, coupon discount codes, two-day delivery)

Once you have these categories on paper, it’s time to combine then to make your phrases. For example:

“Christmas gifts for mom”
“Hanukkah presents for boyfriend”
“Cyber Monday luggage sale”
“iPad discount Black Friday”

Keyword research tools such as Google Keyword Tool, Google Traffic Estimator, and Google Insights are extremely helpful to determine additional phrases and get an estimate of their search traffic. Take into consideration that people will be searching on terms like “gift,” “present,” and “delivery,” which will enhance your visibility. Negative keywords can also focus your campaigns by filtering out search results that are not relevant to your business.

Configuring your budget.
By this point, you may have a pretty large list of keywords to target. The first step in whittling down the list is examining the size of your holiday budget. Using the Google Keyword Tool helps you determine the potential cost per click (CPC) for various phrases. In competitive markets certain phrases are expensive, so make sure you have a logical balance between these phrases and others with a lower CPC. Remember – as long as there is a considerable amount of search volume on these phrases you are still making impressions! When you multiply the CPC by the number of conversions needed to meet your goal, you will have a better understanding of what your budget will be.

Organize ad groups for easy management.
With so much activity during the holiday, the last thing you want to think about is switching ad campaigns on and off. The solution is organizing your targeted phrases into prearranged ad groups. Break them down by holiday, product category, and promotion. Examples of ad groups could include “20% off sale” or “gifts between $50-100.” Specifying these groups makes it easier to write accurate copy for all encompassing keywords. It’s also a good idea to keep a spreadsheet with the dates of running promotions along with the enabled keywords for each.

Take advantage of link extensions.
Google Adwords offers several ad extensions to maximize your click through rate (CTR). Depending on the services and/or products you offer, ad extensions point searchers to specific information directly from the ad. Utilize this feature by clicking the ad extensions tab on the Google Adwords toolbar.

Location extensions – enter as many as 9 map addresses of your business locations manually, or hook up your Adwords account to your Google Places account
Product extensions – connect your Google Merchant account to Adwords and add multiple products with images and price
Sitelink extensions – add links to deeper website pages within ad copy (i.e. a product name can be hyperlinked to that specific product page)
Phone extensions – a click-to-call phone number is listed right from your ad (ideal for mobile users)

You may also want to double-check the dayparts in which your ad displays. For example if customers receive a free stocking stuffer with purchase beginning Sunday at midnight, you may want to concentrate ads the Friday and Saturday before.

Feel free to share your past holiday PPC strategies in the comments below – what worked, what didn’t, and what you’re curious to try in the future. Creating a detailed holiday PPC campaign allows for better management today and solid groundwork to build upon next year.

This website has been around for just over a year, yet in the past few months has rapidly gained popularity among SEOs, social media pros, and other marketers. Time magazine named the social bookmarking site one of the Top 5 Social Sites in 2011, alongside Google+ and Klout. Pinterest is estimated to be worth $200 million while the founders currently work on developing a business model. The site was initially started as an outlet separate from blogging for people to express themselves online.

So what’s the deal – is Pinterest a reliable marketing tool and/or good link-juice?

As far as usability, the interface is attractive, fun, and easy, but there are some glitches to be worked out. Women are the primary users, but that could change as marketers catch on.

• Product, entertainment, and travel-based industries fare well by pinning their lines or promotions; Etsy.com, a major online shopping site, reports that much of their traffic is driven today from Pinterest.
• The site is searchable by content, implementing a search bar that aggregates image results by keywords
• “Pin It” buttons can be added to any product page or blog post to boost branding
• By searching for phrases within your industry, you have more outreach (similar to the Twitter search tool) – Pinterest currently has over 3 million monthly active users

Without knowing it, Pinterest serves as great link-bait as well as an effective social platform to share content with a greater outreach. Although it’s not widely used for commercial purposes yet, it looks as though Pinterest founders can expect a lucrative 2012.

Here at Boomtown Internet Group we’ve decided to switch over to using either the SEOMoz tool called Open Site Explorer with plans starting at $99 a month, or the link analysis tool from Majestic SEO that starts at around $45 per month for 60 domains.

You may want a more robust link-building tool like Link Research Tools , which starts at $29 for 72 hours of use.   Yahoo Site Explorer will certainly be missed.  Some SEO experts have suggested that Bing should reinstate the tool for free, and for that, they would willingly switch over from Google searching to Bing – at least while they were researching links.