January is always the dawn of a new year with new possibilities. The Consumer Electronics Show from Las Vegas dazzles us with the latest technology available and on the market and Google potentially completely opens up the privacy of all its users with new policies under a personalised search initiative called SPY World, or more discretely Search Plus Your World. While there are numerous articles online regarding Google possibly becoming the modern equivalent of George Orwell’s 1984 “Big Brother”, I’d like to analyse more the implications of how SPYW affects digital marketing in regards to strategy and reach of efforts already in place by social media and SEO agencies. The premise of SPYW is the melding of the search giant with its fledgling social media platform Google Plus to create an integrated system that provides users with a user centric search algorithm that changes the results heavily dependent on the user.

There is an ongoing war for social media dominance and even when social media platforms aren’t in the same race, the struggle continues on the grounds of integrating features between these platforms. Google is putting all of its efforts into obtaining a piece of the social media money maker and so it recently launched Google Plus. This of course after its previous unsuccessful attempts with Wave and Buzz and also, although not a social platform, Realtime search. However, resurrection seems to be in the order of the day with the announcement of the re-launch of Realtime search results.

Google last week announced the launch of 2 new social engagement reporting tools that have been included in Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics. This comes shortly after the launch of “Me on the Web”, Google +1 and Google+ which have been great motivators of getting more and more people to sign up to a Google account, effectively giving Google access to a lot of the information necessary for enabling social engagement tracking in Webmaster Tools and Google analytics.

Let’s take a brief look at the latest reporting tools introduced by Google:

1. Google +1 Metrics in Webmaster Tools

Google has introduced what they’ve called the “+1 Metrics” section to Webmaster Tools. This section essentially gives webmasters the ability to see how Google +1 is affecting the traffic coming into their site from Google’s SERPs. The +1 Metrics are split into 3 sections:

With the recent news that social media platform Twitter would be introducing promoted tweets to its streams, internet marketers are wandering how this will affect marketing and how it can be used to a marketer’s advantage. The promoted tweets are expected to start showing up in users’ Twitter streams within the next couple of weeks, although some are already live. But what does this mean for any search marketing agency worth its salt? Let’s have a look.

Let’s begin by discussing what a promoted tweet actually is. It is similar to a Google AdWords ad in that it is a paid for ad. The promoted tweet is, however, a tweet that will be placed at the top of the search results in a user’s Twitter stream and will be identified by a different coloured background and will be labelled that it is a promotional tweet. Users can then retweet, reply or favourite it as they can with any other tweet. A benefit of promoted tweets is that advertisers are able to send their message out to users who don’t necessarily follow their account.

Moderator:
Christine Churchill – Key Relevence

Speakers:
Patrick Altoft – Branded 3
Rob Millard – Distilled
Kelvin Newman – Site visibility
Pete Wailes – Strategy Internet marketing

This session was about the age old topic of link building and various panellist’s tips and experiences.

Patrick Altoft – Branded 3

In their experience page rank from social sites does NOT flow throughout the linked-to site and will not carry trust, etc to the rest of the site. The great thing about twitter is many people syndicate their tweets on their websites and sidebars so your link is not only on twitter but also on many other sites. This is great for getting multiple IP’s and TLD’s. In this way you can get loads more links and traffic than you could ever get from dig or delicious.

Online petitions aren’t something that everyone is entirely active in but most are aware of. Many of us receive a constant stream of emails asking us to save this or stop and prevent that and most of the time, these online petition requests end up in our dusty spam folder, never to be read again. On the other side of the spectrum lies the over-petitioner – the person that clicks and signs everything in sight, hoping that their contribution will make a difference in the world. Online petitions are a somewhat grey area with some enthusiasts believing that their click is making a difference and others believing that all online petitions are a sham and that no affect comes from these causes. Do online petitions make a difference or are you signing your life away for nothing?

Twitter Tales is the latest “stories” site to be launched by a social networking platform with the aim of sharing its users’ personal experiences. All users are encouraged to share their stories on Twitter Tales, whether they use the network to connect with others, inspire their communities or simply to find solace in 140-character self-expression.

This year, the Google marketing department surprised us by airing a TV commercial during the Super Bowl championship. However, this was by no means a sign that Google would be breaking from their traditional advertising methods. The Parisian Love video had been available on Youtube for some time, and heralded the launch of a series of gorgeous Google “Search Stories”. Twitter Tales aims to promote user interaction in the same way, by demonstrating the creative uses of the platform and how the technology integrates with users’ everyday lives. The Twitter Blog describes Twitter Tales as “a growing set of articles that highlights creative individuals and businesses from all corners of the world that help make Twitter awesome”.

At 12 noon on the 9th of June, traffic around South Africa came to a standstill as citizens everywhere spent five minutes producing a joyful racket, celebrating the approach of the soccer World Cup by blowing their vuvuzelas. The plastic soccer horns have been loved by local sports fans for many years and have become one of the most talked-about features of the 2010 soccer World Cup.

Those involved in search marketing services noticed the immediate effect of the “vuvuzela moment” on social networking platforms, particularly Twitter, as the vuvuzela suddenly became the focus of attention throughout South Africa. Hundreds of local fans anticipating the soccer World Cup changed their tweets to “PAAaaAaAaaArrRRrP” and “BzZzzZZbzZZbzzZ” as they joined in the vuvuzela moment. Others tweeted more coherently about welcoming the soccer World Cup and being proudly South African.