SearchInfluence

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%)

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Facebook announced a new look to their News Feed yesterday, which aims to streamline its appearance and cut down on irrelevant stories. In fact, the tagline on their announcement reads “Goodbye Clutter… Hello bright, beautiful stories.” The new version will focus on images, and they will appear much larger and richer than they had previously. To many reviewers, the updated feed looks like a cross between Google+ and the Facebook Mobile app. For the first time, the platform will look virtually the same across different devices. This leaves just one big question for both Facebook users and brands… Where will the ads go?

PPC Questions & Answers for Small Businesses

I get a lot of questions from clients about starting or maintaining a paid search or Pay Per Click (PPC) campaign. While we at SI are undoubtedly convinced of the positive impact a paid search campaign can have on a small business, others need more information before committing. Some of the most frequently asked questions about a paid search campaign include:

• “What are the advantages and disadvantages of a PPC campaign?”
• “Why should I do PPC if I rank in the first position organically?” in the same sense, “Should I start a PPC campaign until I start ranking organically?”

Go see this movie! ...we know you want to...

I came across a kind of shocking figure the other day while reading about the Facebook IPO. It appears Facebook ad sales generated $3 billion in revenue in 2011. That’s as much money as JP Morgan appears to have lost recently. Whoops.

But here’s an even more brain-wrinkling number: traditional television ads generated $68 billion in revenue last year. You know what you could buy with that extra $65 billion? Bill Gates.

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.

The world according to Facebook.

Following advertisements for a contest where Facebook fans can enter to win a 60” 3D television, anchors’ guffaws at “The Facebook” and “The Twitter,” and the third run of a talk about how Facebook and social media peacefully brought down a dictator in 18 days, FOX8, our beloved Fox affiliate network channel, ran a special report on Facebook privacy which showed how confused people are about Facebook.

Lately I have been doing a lot of research on landing page strategy and as I read about what not to do and what you must do, I think someone needs to break it all down into a simpler form.  Where are we going wrong, maybe it’s all just too much?  Make it simple.  All you need are these 5 things arranged properly and it is most likely going to perform better than what you are using now:

Coming in for a smooth landing

1.)    Your Company Logo clearly marked in the top left corner of your landing page.

The tactics of Local Facebook Marketing just got a whole lot easier to understand. Sarah Smith gave up the goods in her presentation at the Local Search Summit. It turns out there are some very subversive ways to use current Facebook technologies. Marketing on Facebook just got a lot easier.

Local Search Summit 09

Don Campbell gives a great overview of the ideas presented in our “Using Facebook and Twitter to Drive Local Leads” session. And, I’m looking forward to Aaron Irizarry posting the rest of the video…

Editor’s note: this is the first in a series we’re calling “Don’t Believe The Hype”

Rocket Scientist or Pretender to The Throne?

“It’s OK, you’re not cheating on Google”, says the autopopulated search box on the Leapfish homepage. But is Leapfish, the new meta search kid on the block, just another flash in the pan as far as it’s search aspirations are concerned? Innovation and new applications are always welcome in the world of search. It’s obvious however, that except for their “click-free search”, Leapfish is offering nothing new.