Digital Marketing Tips, SEO Tricks - E-Marketing Guide Blog » Web Marketing Tools

Are We Over with Facebook?

Ankush Kohli — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 12:05:25 +0000

As soon as a brand name turns out to be famous, we assume it’s there to stay. So for years now, we’ve been Googling to show we are well-informed, Tweeting to remain through what’s occurring around us, and Facebooking for exhibitionism and voyeurism.

Nevertheless, with Facebook bringing new policies, and Google trying to surmount yet another aspect of our lives with Google+, there seems to be a sense of discomfort among netizens. The question rises, ‘How much do these networks know about us, and how will they use that knowledge?‘ is at last becoming significant.

So why should we get worried now? It is a known fact that Google has been privy to the content of supposedly private emails ever since they began to display targeted advertisements on our sidebars.

The adverse effects of Facebook become a topic of debate every time a post has a drastic effect. Earlier, the site was held responsible for ramifications ranging from divorce to denial of medical benefits.

The Facebook debate intensified when it was discovered that Facebook was using cookies to keep track of sites a user visits even after s/he logs out of the network. A huge number of Facebook friends began to post on each other’s walls, cautioning that the network was going to start charging money for its use, except one spammed all of one’s friends with the notice. Others began to sending notes on the dangers of Timeline – such as, that people will be able to see you’ve ‘unfriended’ them. Just in case they didn’t get the hint, now they can rub their faces in it!

It was also assumed that the amount of information and connections one has on Facebook will keep one ‘locked in’ for decades made everyone disgusting at the idea.

Do we recall that Mark Zuckerberg and his buddies didn’t bang on our doors with guns and forced us to sign up. Neither did they make us update their friends with every bit of detail of their lives. Also, they haven’t deprived anybody from the freedom of deleting posts, or even deactivating their accounts.

There appears to be a long-lasting fear that Facebook will expose undisclosed stalkers by allowing stalkees discover the people who are checking out their profiles. Every once in a while, one finds a wall post linking to a page that will allow one to “see who’s viewing [one's] profile!”. Never mind the fact that a user can block people from finding him or her, and filter what people see even if they do find him or her.

Also, users appear annoyed by Facebook’s decision to prioritize updates from people they interact with the most. Why does Facebook get to decide whom we want to see updates from? Thus people would like to be updated on the lives of people they don’t remain in touch with?

As soon as Google made an effort to seize Facebook’s grip on social networking by launching its e Google+, Facebook reacted by replicating its one attractive feature – circles to determine the visibility of each post.

A great deal has been made of Twitter‘s role in coordinating relief efforts after bomb blasts and natural disasters. Many of us are grateful to Orkut, and later Facebook, for enabling us to get in touch with long-lost school friends. Blogs and websites have done for intelligent people what shopping malls and reality shows did for beautiful ones – authors and journalists have got unprecedented publicity through their web forums, and cartoonists, humorists, and even artists have been discovered.

Viral Marketing Ideas – Simple Techniques & Tips

Ankush Kohli — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 10:22:52 +0000

Do you know, with only a small initial investment you could even receive a lot of traffic on your webpage i.e. what exactly is Viral Marketing. The theory is that if the viral promotion is appealing enough, people will forward it, which in result will bring new visitors for free.

Here are some tips and suggestions if you are thinking about trying to use viral:

Use of Forums

Forums are excellent way of revealing the first few people to your campaign, but forum moderators can tear down your viral campaign simply. It’s vital to remain on the good side of the moderators in case you want to use forums to commence the campaign.

Post your campaign in related forums only and even then only in relevant categories. Preferably, don’t use affiliate marketing links in your posts. Viral campaigns are best used to generate traffic to one place, not for already making money on the way over there.

Keep yourself away of the discussion that arises after you launch the campaign. The disadvantage of the free traffic a viral campaign can fetch is that you don’t control how your campaign will be dealt with on the net. You have to acknowledge that the online community can very well do as it pleases with your campaign. Trying to indulge thereafter more often than not reflects negative upon the campaign.

Offer a FREE Service/Product

One great way to spread awareness about your product is “Give Free“. Offer a free product or service to capture the users’ attraction. There are more chances that people will buy your product if they are satisfy with the free offer or product/service quality.

Be Unique From Others

Being unique or standing out from the crowd is the name of the game. However the most familiar gaffe is to make something that is too far-fetched. The straightforward an idea is, the better it most likely will work. But obviously, too simple won’t work either. Shun suggesting cheap emotion.

Stay away from using customary ways of advertising. You can employ existing platforms such as Youtube for sure, but if you can uncover a way of using a platform in a new and creative way, go for it. Make an effort to find ways to mash-up platforms even.

Make it Shareable

The basis of a viral campaign is that online community can share it. If possible, your whole campaign could be reduced to one URL, one e-mail, one video or even a single image. People these days prefer social networks much more rather than forwarding e-mails to others. Make certain that your campaign is easily shareable on the most widespread social networks.

Be Your Own Parody

If you able to run and launch a successful campaign, try taking advantage of that success by creating your own spin-offs before someone else does. Gaffes, deleted scenes, parodies, any unpublished bit of content you have on a successful campaign, can turn out to be another successful campaign on its own.

How Do I Get Twitter Followers

Ankush Kohli — Wed, 11 May 2011 06:32:48 +0000

My last post was about “How to Create a Facebook FanPage” and now, it’s time to write about a strategy to attract twitter followers. Get thousands of Twitter followers quickly everyday and increase your Twitter influence. Twitter is an incredible way to get traffic to your site(s), network, stay in contact with your friends and family by creating new friends.

Twitter a place, you go to entertain yourself and to be entertained by those who follow. You can have all the credit and benefits of more Twitter Followers without having to pay someone else, and without having to give up your login and password to a third party. With quantity of followers throw out, focus instead on quality – attracting and keeping those who find some tiny measure of joy in every-so-often 140 characters of wreckage.

Be ready to follow these twitter tips:

The most easy way to get twitter followers is to simply follow others! Seems simple, yet not many people are doing it. All you do is search Twitter for the “gurus” in your niche, and follow the people that are following them. You will find the bulk of your target market, to follow their followers.
Get great stories from other people and share them with a link & attribution.
Push your followers to retweet your links by briefing it. Retweeting pushes your @username into foreign social graphs, resulting in clicks back to your profile. Track your retweets using retweetist.
Follow 1000 Twitter users, how many do you think will follow back – 60%, maybe 40%, or maybe even lesser at 20% you say. Means if you start to follow 1000 new people, at least 200 will follow you back – and if you keep on doing that on a consistent basis you can have thousands of Twitter followers for free!
Your bio should display on Twitter’s Suggested Users page. Leaving it blank or non-descriptive doesn’t encourage people to add you. Your latest tweets and @replies don’t mean much to someone that doesn’t know you.
Include a link to Twitter in all email signature, Digg, LinkedIn, Facebook, blog, send out to your list. At the end of the email, just say “Follow me on Twitter” with your link, everywhere else you live online
Managed to get on the Twitter suggested users list by hook or crook, you would never have to look for twitter followers ever again. You will gain twitter followers at the rate of thousands per day!
Participate in online events that use #hashtags memes, search.twitter.com lists the hot ‘trending topics. And jump in on the conversation.
Pictures are heavily retweeted spread around. Use iPhone apps for mobile pic such as Tweetie or Twitterific, which support you in uploading.
Respond to OTHER PEOPLE using the @reply method. Don’t overtweet (more than 20 a day to most people)
There are many popular Twitter lists & top twitter users. Watch what they tweet out there in different niches, try to get on them and become famous. Get your name listed in the Times 50 most popular Twitter celebrities, to get a few thousand audiences at once.
Use Twitter Search (http://search.twitter.com) to find people talking about the things YOU talk about, and follow them!
Start a contest. say I will give one $200 Amazon gift certificate offered if he reached the #1 most followed spot one would not mind following one more person. And add thousands of followers…brilliant.
Track your results. TwitterCounter will show you how many new users you’re adding per day and Qwitter will email you when someone unfollows you after a tweet.

How many followers do you have now? I am sure these Twitter tips will help you gain Twitter followers easily and follow me on Twitter (@ankushkohli) to keep getting such tips.

How to Create Fan Pages on Facebook

Ankush Kohli — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 05:14:43 +0000

Some people create Facebook Fan Page for branding, entertainment, representing their business etc. Brands today have the incredible opportunity of interacting with consumers on the social network & marketing plan in the world of Facebook.

It is the public’s wish and feedback that will decide the brand’s fate in the end. Creating relationships with them that are long lasting, personal and relevant.

Let’s Decide a Group or a Fan Page?

Groups are grand for organizing on a personal level and for smaller scale interaction around a cause. Unlike a Group, developers who build applications have some of them available for your Page. This means that you can elect to have an RSS feed box to show your latest blog posts on your Page.

You can develop & grow fan page as per your wish with updates to an unlimited number of people, and keep the focus on the organization without revealing the administrator (unless you want to).

Simple Steps to Create a Fan Page:

Login to you facebook account and if you don’ have account create an account on facebook.
Look a little end of your home page at the right and click the “Create a page” link
It will now ask you demographic information. Choose suitable category for your page, it will show you options like product or service, country wide or worldwide?
Fill this out, and type in desired info, contact details & the name of your Facebook Page. Choose wisely, because you can’t change it.
Proceed as prompted!
To activate your page, you will need to “Publish” it. There will be a link to prompt you to do this.
Next steps will be adding different applications to the page to jazz it up a bit.
To manage it, a link called “Ads and Pages” will always be on the left under application. Follow these same directions to create one of those Facebook social ads. You can use “Share with friends” link also.

Define Your Purpose, here are three questions to consider:

Why Do You Want a Fan Page?
How Will Your Fan Page Differ From Your Website?
What is Your “It” Factor?

Answer these questions it will help you figure out what you bring to the table that’s different from your competitors and uniqueness build on that within your Fan Page strategy.

Once you’re clear on why you want to create a Fan Page, you’re ready to create a plan of action. The Fan Page is part of your business strategy and you should approach it just as you would any other business endeavor. Here are Some Tips:

Open Page – For the Social Media Examiner Fan Page, although we jump in and engage with our fans at all times throughout the day, we’ve designed time chunks for specific content. Facebook has created Facebook pages for commercial companies to be able to carry on conversations with their consumers. Upload a logo or photo with a web address at the bottom. It won’t be clickable, but fans can see where to go if they want to visit your website.
Use FBML to create a landing page – A landing page is just good direct marketing. FBML is Facebook’s version of HTML, which you can use with an application called Static FBML. The idea is that instead of sending people to your wall, as most people do, you send them to a landing page with whatever message you want to provide. This lets you render basic HTML in a box or tab on your page. You won’t find it in your default applications, or you can search in the application directory.
Content Strategy – When you’re initially building your Facebook page, fill it up with interesting and relevant content buy adding dynamic content. Make sure to regularly upload good content to your so that fans will want to see your page on when they open up their Facebook in the morning. Make sure that before you start inviting people to your page, you’ll have good & high quality of content to show them.
Target your audience – Those brands that have understood this point and are reaching out to their target audience within Facebook . Finding the relevant audience within Facebook and let them know that you’re there, that will take an interest in your brand and in your campaigns.
Conversation awake – Always make sure to be attentive, patient and reply as promptly as possible. Get your fans involved in your discussions, ask for their feedback, and show them you care about what they have to say.
Link your page from sources – Put an icon or link in your newsletter, on your website or blog, in your email footer, everywhere. Email and blog it does an email blast driving subscribers to your fan page. This will increase your exposure.
Create a Welcome tab – Welcome new fans to your home on Facebook. Welcoming to all the new comers and a good opportunity to let them know what they can find on your page. Through a Facebook page that says “Howdy”.
Utilize Facebook’s Insights – How many interactions did you have with fans this week? How many people commented on your posts? Where are your fans located? Are they mostly female or male? The answers to these questions will of course enable you to make better use of your page plan of future activities.

You will see the value of planning out your strategy ahead of time. Building a good, solid Facebook page may look easy and it is the best Facebook pages. Let us know your comments & thoughts.

Google Analytics Upcoming Interface – Design Snapshots

Ankush Kohli — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 12:46:51 +0000

Google shared a new look version of Google Analytics in at the Google Analytics User Conference in San Francisco. This new research came from a small group of Analytics users who participate in the testing. Google said to users “If you’re part of this group you’ll see a link to the new version in your Analytics account.”

Google announced in their blog about this upcoming future. This new version will help users to build analytics easier and faster to get to the data they want and to boost the Google Analytics platform to bring major new functionality to them. Many of the changes in the new version are the result of user feedback. For example, now user can view multiple advanced segments without needing to also use All Visits. You’ll find some of the other most requested features like multiple dashboards in the new version as well. As user will start using the new Google Analytics, they should also check out the updated Google Analytics Help Center, which will show where to find your favorite reports in the new version. Google also said “We’ve also set up a new category in the Help Forum where you can ask questions and discuss the new version.” which will assist user to get routine of new version of Analytics.

Google Analytics blog paying attention exclusively on the new Analytics will be sharing many more details about what’s new along the way with a new series in the meantime, if you want to be considered for the test, visit the beta sign-up page. Using the new version won’t change how Google Analytics reports your website traffic, and you can continue to use the current version while testing the new Analytics.

Source – Google Analytics Blog

Update: Today, I got the Google Analytics beta invitation so I captured few snapshots. Here they’re:

Videos – Must for E-commerce Industry in 2011

Ankush Kohli — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 12:00:11 +0000

Probably, this is my last post of 2010 and also the final post about 2011 best marketing predictions practices. This post is about videos, which really helps almost every product or services in the industry. The only goal behind marketing or business development is to increase the sales and video is the best way, which really helps to boost the sales figures.

I’m a big fan of reelseo and I also read their articles. Last year, they predict the video marketing and everyone can see the reaction. Now, they’re predicting video importance for each retailer in 2011. Here are the reasons, why:

Video will maintain Retail Prices:
Video galleries not only keep visitors on sites an average of two minutes longer than pages without video, they support inbound traffic efforts with powerful SEO juice. All these factors add up to more sales at a higher average price, helping reverse downward pressure on margins. Ecommerce video also provides retailers with flexibility to enhance the online shopping experience, raising the chances of engaging comparison shoppers.

Mobile users easily accustom to Video:
In 2011, iPad sales are projected to grow by 127% and consumers are likely to reach for their phones. As mobile devices become more popular for shopping so buyers want to see the demo / video and purchase products.

Video will expand Social Presence:
As the top flash-sales sites are expected to generate $900 million in revenue by the end of 2010 so video will naturally become a key component of social communities.

Multiple Business Objectives, boost with Video:
Videos fit not only on the product page, but on the category page as in video galleries, and in email campaigns. Businesses will also begin using video more actively for other purposes like: in customer service. Retailers that have tested and proven video and will begin larger deployments, while retailers who have been slower to adopt will face the problem of catching up quickly. In 2011, retailers take advantage of video’s flexibility by using it for additional purposes.

Videos response was excellent in the year 2010 and I’m sure it’ll be very helpful to retailers in 2011. To keep ahead in the race, you need to adopt the latest technology & their improvements otherwise you won’t be the winner of the game.

Few Web Updates / Insights – Part 2

Ankush Kohli — Tue, 23 Nov 2010 14:04:00 +0000

Chrome Surpasses Firefox To Become Second Most Popular Web Browser.
“iPhone” topped Yahoo‘s U.S. top searches list for 2011, edging out Casey Anthony, Kim Kardashian and Katy Perry. Previously, it happened in 2002, when PlayStation 2 took the number one spot.
Google+ is rolling out a feature that allows its users to make free conference calls within Hangouts.
According to ComScore, YouTube passed 20 billion Video Views in October 2011.
77% of job seekers are using mobile to look for work in US.
Facebook launched a seamless messaging system. Mark Zuckerberg talked about conversation history and social inbox lists to aid filtering. This new system integrates other messaging systems, sms, facebook, chat in one. An iPhone App is available now.
In addition, you can now get an @facebook.com e-mail address if you want it. Mark Zuckerberg said: “This is not an e-mail killer,”. This will be rolled out over the next couple of months via invite system. For more detail: Facebook Blog.
Yahoo Contributor Network: Yahoo is inviting people to contribute to many of its most popular sites with the launch of the Yahoo! Contributor Network, a new platform for people to publish their creative content on Yahoo!. The Yahoo! Contributor Network is an evolution of the Associated Content platform and will bring contributions from more than 400,000 writers, photographers, and videographers to the Internet’s largest media destinations, including Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, Yahoo! Sports, and even the Yahoo! homepage, among many others.

“The launch of the Yahoo! Contributor Network is a great example of how Yahoo! is executing against its content strategy. In less than six months since the acquisition of Associated Content, we’ve completely retooled the platform in order to bring the people’s voice to Yahoo!,” said Carol Bartz, CEO, Yahoo!.
Ask.com is dismissing search engine and concentrating on question and answer service.
The Internet search engine that media mogul Barry Diller acquired for $1.85 billion to compete with Google Inc., is cutting 130 engineering jobs and conceding much of its search business to competitors. Ask.com, a unit of Diller™ IAC/InterActiveCorp, is dismissing engineers based in Edison, New Jersey, and in Hangzhou, China, and ceasing work on its algorithmic search technology, according to Ask.com President Doug Leeds.

The search unit will consolidate its engineering operations at its headquarters in Oakland, California, and focus its resources on developing its online question-and-answer service. Twenty of the engineers currently working in New Jersey will be asked to relocate to Oakland, the company said. BLeeds said that Google has become too powerful a competitor to justify Ask.com continued pursuit of those search users. More details: Bloomberg
Google entered into fashion based e-commerce Industry with the launch of www.boutiques.com.
Google wrote in their blog: “Today, we’re excited to share with you our first step towards realizing this goal. It’s called Boutiques.com: a personalized shopping experience that lets you find and discover fashion goods, by creating your own curated boutique or through a collection of boutiques curated by taste-makers—celebrities, stylists, designers and fashion bloggers. Boutiques uses computer vision and machine learning technology to visually analyze your taste and match it to items you would like.” See here: Google Blog
Google Hotpot: Hotpot is an online, friends-based recommendation engine that takes scores you give places using Google Maps and uses that information to improve your own place search results and those of your friends.

Will post a detailed write-up on Google Hotpot as it’ll be an upcoming trend for search so be ready for it.

Why Local Search Marketing is Getting More Importance

Ankush Kohli — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 13:41:18 +0000

From last few months, I was experimenting on local search marketing and finally after a lot of research and education, I believe the power of it and I’m sure you’ll also believe it. Here, I’m sharing my experience with you.

What is Local Search Marketing – Local search is one of the most potential and least understood digital marketing strategy, even though it’s one of the most cost effective and upcoming digital marketing trend.

The above search result page is showing total 12 results on Google’s 1st page:

First 7 results are the local search results
Rest 5 are the general web results

I hope, above snapshot shows the power of local search. Sixteen billion search queries a month are conducted on the Internet in the U.S. in the month of July (source: searchenginewatch) and one fifth of those searches were local searches. More importantly, ideally, conversion rate is high on these Geo-specific searches as customers keen to buy a product or service from local vendor.

How it’s different than usual Google Search Results:
In usual SERP’s, Google shows you the universal results, which are not location based but when you search any Geo-specific search, it shows the city specific results and if not then your nearby location based results. You’ll see blended results, which includes:

Google Local (Google Places)
Yahoo Local
Bing Local
Other Popular Local Sites Results from:
- CitySearch
- InsiderPages
- Yelp
- Yellow Pages
- SuperPages
- MerchantCircle
- And results from location based many other sites

As these search results will be location basis so if a website is not related to your location, it wouldn’t come up in your search results.

This is my first general post about local search marketing. Now, I’ll post my practical experience in few another posts so keep reading and contact me for your local search marketing campaign.

I’m Google Analytics Individual Certified Professional (GAIQ)

Ankush Kohli — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 09:55:34 +0000

Yesterday, I’ve cleared the Google Analytics Individual Certification exam and got 85% score. Here’s my certificate:

It was a lovely experience. Questions were a bit confusing rather than tough but I enjoyed a lot!

You will find lot of exam tips and tricks on Google, however as eMarketinGuide.com provides you all practical tips so here are the collection of Google Analytics Certification exam tips and tricks:

Few Notes:

Google Analytics IQ test was launched in March 2009
Total 70 Questions
Total Time = 90 Minutes. On avearge basis, 1 min and 17 seconds for each question
Maximum time to finish the Exam = 120 hrs. but you can pause & play this exam N number of times.
Minimum Passign Score = 80%
Know the basics about Google Analytics relating to e-commerce and Google Adwords. There are plenty of questions relating to both like: campaign tracking & adwords integration module.
Keep an eye on the useful display that shows questions complete vs. total questions and remaining time.

Google Analytics Main Source:
http://www.google.com/support/conversionuniversity/bin/request.py?hl=en&contact_type=indexSplash&rd=1

Other Informative Sources:

Important Tools:

Regular Expression tool and information
URL Builder tool
One Google Analytics Account Profile which you own. If it’s E-commerce, better
http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=99118

Purchase & apply for test:
http://google.starttest.com/

All the best, if you’re thinking of giving this exam! Ask, if you’ve any questions…

Few Web Insights – eMarketinGuide.com

Ankush Kohli — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:30:09 +0000

Outlook Social Connect - Microsoft has struck deals with LinkedIn, Facebook, and MySpace that will bring your disparate networks of friends and colleagues to Outlook. It’ll give you power to bring status updates and user photos to your e-mail.
Search any specific folder in Gmail: As you search spam, you can also search any particular folder in your Gmail. For e.g. if you want to search only in drafts then use “in:Drafts (keyword)”. It’ll only give the search results from drafts folder.
Gmail adoption is growing faster internationally than in the U.S., Reinstein said on 14th March’10 in SXSW Interactive. He said, Gmail holds the top spot in email usage in India at the moment.
New Gmail Etacts plugin - This Etacts plug-in automatically adds detailed contact information to the sidebar of messages. You not only get links to any social networks that contact is a part of, and some of the information contained therein (such as their occupation and location), but you also get a detailed summary of your mailing history with them, complete with nice little graphs and charts as well. All this information is also available in compose mode as well, so you know exactly who you’re sending it to. Screen-shots & installation.
Linkedin Company Buzz Application: Under “More…” link, choose “Application Directory” & select “Company Buzz” tool that allow you to discover relevant trends and comments about your company from Twitter. The tool lets you customize/modify the topics to watch and displays charts to track activity.
Twitter introduced @anywhere, a tool to better connect third party sites to related Tweets. See here: http://twitter.com/anywhere
WordPress 2.9+ comes with recycle bin feature: Any post which gets deleted intentionally or accidentally by the users can be retrieved and restored from the trash area. The posts remain in the recycle bin for a default period of 30 days and get removed permanently there after. With WordPress 2.9 the users can also edit the wp-config.php file and have the option to control the trash bin.
Wikipedia.org is the No. 1 website in the race of organic traffic with 15,421,396 keywords however Google.com is receiving traffic only from 3,993,082. Source: semrush.
Track Facebook Fan Pages with Google Analytics. See here: webdigi
Useful Firefox Shortcuts, help you to increase productivity -
- Ctrl + 1 = select leftmost tab
- Ctrl + 2-8 = select open taba in their order from left to right
- Ctrl + 9 = Choose rightmost tab
- Ctrl + T = Opens new tab
- Ctrl + Tab = Select next tab in active window
- Ctrl + Shift + Tab = Select previous tab in active window
- Ctrl + Shift + T = Undo close tab
- Ctrl + F4/W = To close active window

Digital Marketing Tips, SEO Tricks - E-Marketing Guide Blog » Web Marketing Tools

Are We Over with Facebook?

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