SearchInfluence

1. How Google Now Will Impact SEO & What You Can Do to Get a Head Start – Search Engine Watch

Google hosted their big developers conference this week, Google I/O. Although there were no big new products introductions, one service that has been getting a lot of attention is Google Now. Although this product was released over a year ago, it is now available for free download on Apple and Android phones and tablets. Guillaume Bouchard has some interesting ideas about how Google Now will affect the SEO community and what we can do to stay ahead of the curve.

For those of you who don’t know, before Hurricane Katrina ripped through the Gulf South, New Orleans was on a steady rate of decline. However, the city we love to call home here at Search Influence is in the middle of a major renaissance. News sources across the nation have reported New Orleans is the fastest growing city in America.

• Population in April 2010: 343,829
• Population in July of 2011: 360,740
• Change in population: 4.9 percent (national average 0.73%)
• Unemployment rate May 2012: 7.2%
• Unemployment rate December 2012: 6.8 % (national average 7.8%)

...

During this evening’s 85th Academy Awards, jcpenney used real-time marketing to capitalize on our here and now, instant gratification tendencies by launching a strong activation through social media. The goal of the Oscars campaign was to grab new viewers and continue to update their more-than-outdated, less-than-classy image.

To begin, their Twitter page, much like many Oscar attendees, put its best face forward with a glitzy makeover:

Before this evening it’s very likely that you, your wife, girlfriend, or 20 something daughter certainly didn’t think of jcpenney as fresh, on trend, glitzy, luxurious, or modern. Some of you may not have even thought it was still a surviving entity.

Super Bowl advertising spots are one of the most sought after 30 seconds in television each year. With the event having an estimated viewership of well over 110 million, many national companies view the hefty $4 million dollar price tag as money well spent. In fact, the New York Times reported that the ad spots were already sold out on January 8th, almost a full month before the big event. In recent years many companies have amped up their traditional television campaigns to include YouTube sneak peeks, dedicated websites, hashtags, Facebook campaigns, and apps designed to garner appeal and catch their audience’s attention on the second screen. Social media is a growing factor in many major corporation’s 2013 Super Bowl advertising campaigns, which is a huge change from the surprise element and secretive campaigns of years past.

• How To Blog Successfully About Anything — SEOMoz

Blogging is one of the key aspects of keeping your site fresh and your knowledge cutting-edge, but even the most experienced blogger occasionally has the well run dry. As a corollary to his recent Mozinar, Blogging Like You Mean It, Tanner Christensen takes us through the steps to approaching topics you may find uninteresting or distasteful and spinning them into a sparkling post that’s sure to wow your audience.

• Cover Your Backside in Social Media — Search Engine Journal

Being a gamer myself, I think seeing video games developing new uses is pretty nifty. We’ve all been exposed to the concept gamification by now — most people don’t call it that, but sites like Foursquare and Yelp! have relied upon the tactic to make their services a lot like level-building in games. Social media ranking site Klout relies heavily (and shamelessly) on the same gimmick. It’s a simple way to draw out the kid part of us that wants to make it to the next level before bedtime, and it works like a charm. But gaming has more relevant applications than just engaging consumers, as Google is proving with its newest offering.

Chances are, for the past couple years you’ve been hearing all about Pinterest, its popularity explosion since 2009, and the fact that you, as a business owner, need to get on it… yesterday.

Until now, a business on Pinterest had to use the same profile format as yours and mine. There weren’t many tools available, and there was no way (until recently) to verify your website. The terms of service actually prohibited commercial use of the site, but that didn’t stop some of the world’s biggest brands from capitalizing on the phenomenon. From Whole Foods to the Smithsonian, big brands and smaller scale bloggers alike are making the m ...

• Why Traditional Marketers Are at a Crossroads — Hugo Guzman

According to Hugo Guzman, the “Mad Men” days of marketing are over. Of course, marketers no longer smoke cigarettes and guzzle bourbon in the office (or do we?), but Guzman also asserts that marketing professionals are foregoing creative brainstorming sessions in favor of statistical, analytical approaches to advertising.

• Facebook’s New Custom Audiences: What They Are and How You Can Use Them – Part 1 — SEOMoz

Since I’m an Level 9000 bona fide nerd, I traveled to San Diego last weekend to celebrate Comic-Con. Of course, I took lots of pictures of what was going on when I was there. If you don’t already know, you can join the Twitter party of any major event by using the hashtag associated with it. This year’s Comic-Con used #SDCC — by hashtagging all of my related tweets, I was able to add my feedback to the public conversation about the convention, which anyone looking for the hashtag can read. If one of the people that reads one of my tweets wants to know more about me (or my business!), they might just follow me. What a neat way to network, right? (Don’t forget to check the “wrong” hashtags, too. It’s definitely not called “San Diego Comiccon“, but a lot of people searching the internet think it is.)

Over the years, I’ve seen many companies going into damage control for missteps that they took in pushing their message. To learn from the mistakes of others, I’ve compiled a few of the most memorable marketing fails. These companies tried to do something unique or different to increase their brand awareness or create social interaction — but sometimes, things do not go as plan. Below is a list of the top marketing backfires that some of the biggest corporations have faced, offending or even repelling their customers.