Marketing Intelligence™
If you're a small local business, having a Google+ Local profile is a key part of putting your brand on the map. Google+ Local listings now show up in Search and Maps results on mobile devices and traditional browsers, and allows for a dynamic, social experience.
If you use Google Catalogues as a way to display your products, be advised: Tablet users interact with Google Catalogues in a far different way than desktop users. Adoption of even a few design changes when transitioning a print catalog to a digital catalog will make a substantial difference in consumer’s experience and, thus, engagement.
This Christmas, you won't be able to find Santa on Google Maps-- NORAD's annual Santa Tracker has been moved to Bing, as Microsoft is the new lead partner for NORAD's site. Savvy marketers would be wise to move much of their Christmas Eve efforts to the Microsoft search engine: It appears that Google is no longer part of the Santa squad, as the NORAD Tracks Santa "team" page lists Microsoft, not Google, on their corporate sponsors page.
Google CEO Larry Page met in Washtington yesterday with U.S. Federal Trade Commission officials over the 19-month investigation of Google's business practices. According to those close to the discussion, Google is seeking to persuade the FTC that it hasn't broken any antitrust laws.Google has been engaged in settlement talks with the FTC for about a week, including an effort to define whether there’s a market where Google has a monopoly.
Google, Bing and Yahoo! have put their differences aside to roll out a new initiative to apply a common set of schemas for structured data markup on websites.
A bit more Arnold, a bit more scandal, some reality TV drama (imagine that), and a smidge of religious extremism to boot.
Without further adieu, here is how May 17, 2011, will forever be remembered.
This seems to be turning into a gossip column, but the search engines don't lie. So, without further adieu, here are today's Hot Google Searches.
1. Dukan diet: “It’s not a fad diet,” said the French author of The Dukan Diet, which was released today across the world. The diet is similar to the Atkins diet, allowing dieters to eat meat but limits other foods.
Google is rolling out its new '+1' feature, an immediate relative to the Facebook 'Like' button, which was met with resounding popularity when it was launched last April. Google users will soon be able to click the +1 button to recommend search results to friends and connections.
When users 'Like' something on Facebook, the action immediately enters into the News Feed so users can see what their friends are 'Like'ing. When users '+1' a search result, their action is indexed -- placed on a back burner -- and viewed only when their social connections perform the same or a similar search.
This was a pretty eventful week for us at Volacci (DrupalCon and South by Southwest Interactive: AHH!), and the social media industry was not far behind. Quite a few of the big players announced new features to their sites. Too busy to read up on all of them? Well, here's a quick rundown to keep you up-to-date.
