This Week's E-Marketing News Round from Around the Web

In the idea of bringing up fresh and curious E-marketing News worth being aware of, I've listed below a roundup of today's search and new media headlines from around the web. This is a new practice which will be "aired" each Friday. Happy reading!

Search Marketing News (SEO & PPC):

Facebook, Google mull Skype deals (Reuters);

A world of curiosity: a peek at searches around the globe (Official Google Blog);

Fat Pandas and Thin Content (SEOmoz)

Can coding errors affect how a page is indexed? (GoogleWebmasterHelp YouTube Channel) - Recommended Read;

Six Common Mistakes to Avoid with Google AdWords (Capture the Conversation)

Should Your Paid Search Account Care About Bounce Rates? (Certified Knowledge) - Recommended Read

Measure page load time with Google Analytics (Google Analytics)

Google Steps Up Privacy Requirements For AdWords Advertisers (SearchEngineland)


Social Media Marketing News


ComScore reports: Facebook Takes 31.2% of the U.S. Ad Display Market (Mashable)

Twitter Begins Sending @ Replies to Users - Not All of Which Are SFW (ReadWriteWeb)

Still having thirst for news? Find us next week on our next news round. Any further E-marketing Food for Thought is highly welcome!

Best,
@Digilunch

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Is Google Launching a New "Facebook" alike Site?

The below screen shot was taken today while accessing the new Google blog post regarding Google eBooks application :



Would that be a testing of the new social networking "wizardry" crafted by Google for the nearest future? Or it's an "accidental error" on Official Google blog page, which was updated in real-time?

I'll leave it to your own judgement - but if anybody can explain this I'd be eager to find out.

Yours,

@Digilunch

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The New Facebook Profile - Explained

Until now, the Profile has included basic information about the user: our name, hometown, schools we attended, the place where we work. In the new features, which will be gradually rolled out to the user base over the next few weeks, the Profile now includes the last five photos in which the user was tagged. If you're wondering why would photos come in the limelight first - here's the motivation Facebook supports: “There's often no better way to learn about a person than through photos,” as mentioned by engineer Josh Wiseman on the Facebook blog. Also, according to Facebook - every day, a staggering 100 million photos are uploaded on to the site. You may see an example below:



New Options?

The new profile lets users list a wider variety of experiences. For example, under the Education and Work section, you can list more than just the schools you’ve attended and the jobs you’ve had. You can also list meaningful projects you’ve worked on. And the top interests on your profile page will now appear as a row of images, instead of just text.



"You can see all the things that you have in common with that person," Facebook CEO
Mark Zuckerberg told "60 Minutes" interviewer Lesley Stahl Sunday night. "It gives you this amazing connection with that person in a way that the current version of the profile that we have today just doesn't do."

At the same time Facebook becomes increasingly bloated with user-created content, which means that it also becomes easier for users to feel overwhelmed and view "Facebook as a time suck" (Kit Eaton, www.fastcompany.com.)

You may now wonder:

So What's Different about the new profiles?

Current Facebook profiles list personal information such as birthday, relationship status and city of residence in a left-rail column underneath the user's single profile photo. The new design moves that information up higher, in a more conversational format - offering basically a "mini-portrait" of a person.

Another new feature, called “the friendship page,” pulls up a history of your relationship with any of your Facebook friends. It displays such details as comments you've exchanged and places you've visited together.

Moreover, Facebook engineers have came up with several new features, including a new section, located on the left of the profile page: where you can now list the important people in your life, like your parents, siblings, spouse, roommates, or friends.

So - Does my profile page have to change?

Eventually, yes.

The new profile page will be rolled out over the next month or so, according to a blog post from Facebook. If you do nothing, you'll log on to your profile page one day soon to find that Facebook has rearranged your information to fit the new layout.
But users who want to update now can do so by following a prompt from their profile pages.

How will this change impact the information I choose to share on my page?

According to Facebook blog, the change does not affect users' existing privacy settings. A quick attempt to web-search for a user's Facebook page (which had been updated) on Monday revealed the same information that was public before the switch.
And if you don't like the five photos of you that appear near the top of your page, you can hide them or swap them out for different ones.

What should I do to update my profile?

• Log in to Facebook and go to www.facebook.com/about/profile/.

• Click the green "Get the New Profile" box.

• Your new profile page will appear. At the top, you can update personal information about things like your job, current city and relationship status.

• You can click the "Edit Profile" link to change any other information.

• If you don't like the photos that appear, hover your cursor over them one at a time. A box will appear at the top right that you can click to remove that photo.

This will not make the photo disappear entirely or remove your tag; it will just mean it won't be one of the ones people see at the top of your profile.

Ok, so the info can be edited - a relief. Still, I'm just wondering who would rate their friends, relatives, etc - by matter of importance? Isn't that just too private to make it public? Or, should there be in time options to create Tier 1 TOP Friends List, Tier 2 TOP Friends List? As ridiculous as is sounds..is Facebook just getting too bloated or it's becoming a "necessary evil" we have to keep up with but know how to protect ourselves from?



Curious to hear your say,

Yours,

@Digilunch

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Facebook - launching "New Generation Email"

In February we've heard about a new project Facebook was secretly working on, called "Project Titan" (a web-based email client) which according to TechCrunch findings was internally unofficially referred to as “Gmail killer”. This has now officially turned into a personal @facebook.com email addresses for users!


As Telegraph mentions - "Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder and chief has effectively hailed the end of email for the next web generation calling the system ‘too slow and formal’, while launching the social network’s new messaging service".

Although it might be too early to end a long-lasting dispute of Facebook vs. email vs."battle", the social network founder insists on its several competitive advantages:

- the new system will combine Facebook’s instant messaging system, SMS, Facebook messages and email in one place,
- it will also keep all conversation history in once screen shot (on both emails or IMs);
- also, it would allow people to reply seamlessly across multiple devices to different types of messages.
- an finally - the new system will be based on the premise of the ‘social inbox’: it would have certain "filtering options", which are announced to be able to work better than email spam detectors and will prioritise key contacts’ messages. Quite frankly, this statement reminds of Google's Saint Graal "relevancy, relevancy and again - guess what?.."

Thus, the intended aim is to combine all types of messaging in one place, allowing people to reply in real-time.

In terms of future plans, Zuckerberg has announced that the system is intended to be able to sync with other email accounts in the future - in which case an alliance with current competitor Google would be inevitable?

Keeping an eye on e-curiosities,
Yours,
@Digilunch

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Exclusive: Facebook deep-integrating with Skype

What does Facebook lack in to make its communication platform more..catchy? Its founders are now proudly announcing that the time people spend on Facebook worldwide is longer than..on search engines! Why not enhancing user experience by adding to it a competitive advantage - a bonus that would make us spend our time even longer on Facebook, since we'll be able to hear, apart from mearly see. So, how about - video chatting? apparently that's just a slice of a pie..

Facebook already integrates with GMail, AOL Instant Messenger, ICQ Chat, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger… and now Skype. And for Skype, Facebook has specifically promoted the integration very carefully.

According to the Wall Street Journal Facebook and Skype are poised to announce a significant and wide-ranging partnership that will include integration of SMS, voice chat and Facebook Connect - all that as part of a one-stop shop.

Facebook’s goal, according to sources is : To mesh communications and community more tightly together and add more tools to allow users to do so.

Since it was not going to create an Internet telephony service of its own, Facebook has apparently turned to the Web’s Internet telephony leader.

The curious fact is that Facebook has previously tested a video chat product, but so far with no vsisble effect.

So what are the projections? Skype had 124 million people using it at least once a month and 560 million registered users, which will be bolstered by the 500 million Facebook users who will now be able to use it more seamlessly within Skype.

That will include allowing users to SMS and call Facebook friends from Skype, which will now deploy Facebook Connect.


Take a look below at a screenshot displaying the future Skype' look on Facebook:



Also, according to All Things Digital, here's what Facebook will look like on Skype:



Finally, same sources insist that this trial will be available in Skype’s newest version, 5.0, which emerges from beta in a few weeks.

Any thoughts? What do you think - is it a good idea? Eager to hear.

Yours,
Always positive,

Nadya @Digilunch

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Email Overload? Google unveils Priority Inbox

What tools do we tend to really appreciate today while managing our workflow? To mention just the most "appealing" ones: optimisation and time-saving solutions. No wonder: the reason lies in - data overload.. Are you feeling overwhelmed with the amount of data received via email inbox? Too many letters to read - and thus..quite a lot of them - to skip?
Google has come up with - Google Priority Inbox = a tool designed to:

1. filter out your spam (bad news for spammers!) - this promises to become more efficient than before: it uses some of the same algorithms used for Gmail's spam filtering, but for the opposite purpose: to triage, to see just how important each email is..

2. filter by importance: the Priority Inbox tool will be an item in the left-hand column, right above Inbox, and will be divided into three sections: Important Unread, Starred, and Everything Else.



Worth mentioning:

- Important and Unread emails will include correspondence with people you always respond to right away, as well as
- Emails that include keywords that usually grab your attention (quite an inovative approach, based on Google's search principles). Also,
- Email sent specifically to you, and not to others as well, will receive preferential placement.



This system is a thoughtful one, - a simplified way to quickly see what needs immediate responding and what can wait--provided the algorithms are effective...

What's Google's strategy behind this tool? Google is positioning it's new product as your personal assistant, helping you focus on the messages that matter without requiring you to set up complex rules (which we're now used to with MS's Outlook).

I'd say well done for now and let's see the usability of the new tool when it comes to complex issues - such as filtering emails per personally selected categories (say product types - if you're a manufacturer, clinets' list - if you're an agency/supplier or other channels)..

Hope that helps:)

Always positive,

Yours,
@Digilunch

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How Blogs Can Become Public Relations Tools?

This post has been written by a guest contributor - Kristin Gabriel, Social Media Professional at MarComNewMedia.com.

Marketing and PR has morphed into a combination of old school traditional media, and the latest social media marketing strategies. I have been blogging for a variety of different clients over the last eight years. Some of the first tricks that I first learned still apply.

Many are forming all over the Internet, and blogs increase the search visibility for online audiences. The following blogging tips to work very nicely for our clients including:

1. Use newsworthy topics that tie-in to local, national or industry news if possible. Always include these key words in your headline and body copy.

2. Link your key words and phrases in blog posts to a page on your website with relevant content.

3. Use about three links per blog post -- beginning middle and end. Also always link towards the beginning middle and end of each paragraph and/or sentence if possible.

4. Research and use statistics, site studies, and science when you can to lend authority to each blog post.

5. Add photos, diagrams, charts and videos, which should all be uploaded with names that include your keywords.

6. To be clear about a process needing an outcome, use steps or numbers.

If you are a company that is trying to get covered by the media, you have to be all over the Internet so the media will find you. The press room on your website must have everything they could possibly need to begin writing about your company right away.

The items in a press room should include:

a company backgrounder,
press releases,
a frequently asked questions document (FAQ),
product profiles, and
photos, videos, etc.
Plus today's press rooms also might have RSS feeds or links to Twitter and Facebook fan pages.

If you have a blog but need help writing and performing the right search marketing strategies and tactics for better visibility, look for someone to can ghostwrite your blog, or train you on how to get the best return for blogging on the Internet.

Most businesses that are using Facebook already know about the little "Like" feature, which enables you to click on something someone posts that you like and then share that with your Facebook friends. Facebook wants you to share your likes from other places on the Internet, such as blogs and other websites. Start watching for other web publishers to begin installing the FB Like button everywhere. More than 1,500 Type Pad bloggers installed Like buttons on their blogs when the widget first launched.

More than 2,400 bloggers added this feature soon thereafter and started enjoying a 200 percent growth spurt in their referral traffic from Facebook according to Type Pad. We test out most all of the revenue boosting social media tactics that we hear about. We have also seen some good results with Facebook ads.

These are Facebook's pay per click (PPC) revenue center, but the ads usually work and are low cost.

Hope you'll find it useful. For further post ideas and contributions, don't hesitate to get in touch!

Yours,
@Digilunch

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LinkedIn - Enters Social Recommendations' Market

The 75-million subscribers-rich professional network LinkedIn has acquired social recommendation technology mSpoke. Although the terms of acquisition were not yet made public, place your bets - LinkedIn is heading towards greater relevancy and more engagement. Apparently social recommendations' trend is skyrocketing (e.g.search engines have already started to integrate social features to be able to leverage "community wisdom" - more on: Google Star Ratings article)

mSpoke is a provider of an adaptive personalization engine which aligns machine learning technology with consumers implicit and explicit feedback to deliver relevant content. The result is that consumers see content relevant to them personally, as well as advertising on related products/services (great news for e-commerce vendors) as the reccomendation algorithms are individualized to the user. An other curiosity is that the individualized algorithms are constantly adapting and improving over time. You can see an example by checking out on Feedhub.

"mSpoke and LinkedIn's shared focus on generating relevant content make this acquisition a natural fit for us," says Jeff Weiner, chief executive officer of LinkedIn. "We're actively investing in solutions that help deliver valuable professional insights to LinkedIn members"

Note: mSpoke is based in Pittsburgh and was founded by chief executive officer Sean Ammirati, chairman of the board Dave Mawhinney and chief technology officer Dean Thompson.

Your Social Recommendations Spy,

@Digilunch

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Facebook tapping into Search - by letting you Ask Questions!

It's now official: you'll be soon able to post your questions on any topic to an audience of over 500 million people, as promissed by Facebook. Facebook has introduced a new 'ask a question' option, which will allow you:

- to post questions;
- upload photos;
- create polls and get:
- personalized answers,

and all that in an attempt to leverage "collective wisdom",to which I'd add: worldwide wisdom! Wondering about the benefits? To name just a few:

- all questions will become visible to all Facebook users (although you'll still have the option to restrict the option and make it visible only among your followers/friends;

- all questions will become browsable and thus...- searcheable!!

- they can also be tagged with specific themes so that people with interests in those areas are more likely to see them!

- also, to ask a question to the community, you'll just click the "Ask Question" button at the top of the homepage. You can also ask questions about your friends from their profiles, similarly to how you would post on their Walls:



- Moreover, you'll be able to browse answers from people with deeper knowledge on a topic or click "Follow" under any question to receive a notification each time someone submits a new answer.

So, basically you'll now have a blend of some Twitter options (in terms of broadcasting) and a bit of LinkedIn and Yahoo!Answers with their Q&A tools and polls..Nice having it all under one umbrella, right?

Anyway, the service is only available at the moment to a small number of beta testers (50 000 selected users), who will provide a feedback, based on which we'll see the final product on our "update profile" tables:)

As for the opportunities to make your voices heard - either as a merchant, an advertiser or just any random user - remember to craft your questions neat and nicely, so that you'll get your audience and why not - follow it!

Have fun and see you on Facebook Q&A!!

Cheers,
@Digilunch

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Facebook Can Now Tell Who "Likes" What!

If you're tapping into the online business world - having good analytics is always key. As announced recently at the f8 conference, the new tool brought by Facebook - Insights Dashboard is a revamped set of analytics on (anonymized) user data. Hereby, Facebook promissed that its new tool may provide you with better metrics for your Facebook applications, websites, and also Pages:



What is it useful for?

Well, the new Insights dashboard claims to be your single source for all your Facebook analytics:

• Websites: Fully-integrated sites and those that use social plugins or add a non-integrated domain in one easy step
• Applications: Including canvas, mobile, device, and desktop applications
• Facebook Pages: Including Pages created on Facebook.com and (which created quite a lot of stir recently, being thought as a next big "social innovation") those that are part of the Open Graph protocol

Following Google Analytics model (although in a less extended manner), Facebook's new tool offers analytics around specific stories liked on your website, or how many users commented on posts made on your Page .

Thus, the tools show mostly sharing data, in terms of broad demographics- (eg. certain stories emailed or "Liked" by males/females of a certain age) . The demographics include gender, age, country, city and also language, being accompanied by some nice-looking charts and graphs.

It's a nice tool especially for content owners and developers, who can now tell who referred their app to customers, how long customers use their software, and get some hints on how to market it.

As for the deriving privacy issues, Facebook assures "this is anonymized aggregate data and does not include personally identifiable information," so try not to worry too much and focus on your audience instead.

Best of luck!

Always yours,

@Digilunch

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Local Search on Mobile drives New Loyalty Solutions

There’s been a lot of buzz recently about Foursquare among advertisers trying out new mobile tools to reach their audience.You must have heard about it by now (for those who haven't, here’s a short overview of Forsquare). I’ve heard many people predicting a great deal of advantages that Foursquare and other location-based services (Gowalla,Loopt in,etc) will bring along for Social Media marketing and local businesses. While the predictions seem to have solid grounds, I'm more inclined to think that main beneficiaries are going to be small, unique businesses with a niche market or very targeted offering.

The truth is that we've already witnessed examples of successful integration of geo-location tools into big brands' marketing/promotional strategies:

Loopt, for example, which has established a suite of tools tailored for social media and mobile phones, is currently rolling out an app, Loopt Star, which basically acts as a "virtual loyalty card":

• Starbucks – The person who checks in to any individual Starbucks the most becomes the “Honorary Barista” of that Starbucks (similar to Forsquare model for "the city/location mayor")
  
• Universal Music Group – By checking in to any qualifying bar in the United States with two other Facebook friends, you'd get access to five free MP3s from popular Universal Music artists, such as Rihanna, Lady Gaga, and Mos Def.
• The Gap – By checking in twice to any Gap adult store you would instantly receive 25% off your purchase (within a set timeframe).

• Stanford University – By checking in to qualifying 2010 Commencement events you get a chance to win a special graduation gift, etc.

In terms of the results, you'd be amazed to find out that Gap alone made its application available to an audience of 3.4 million members. Additional benefit was the fact that mobile phone owners could sign up to Loopt Star via Facebook Connect, meaning they could share information on the social network. Ineterstingly enough, Loopt geo-location app is linked directly to Facebook, so that the user doesn't have to leave the platform for additional connections:




"Local is different from search in that you're not looking for new things. It's more about turning existing customers into better customers, rather than gaining new customers as in search ," said Sam Altman, chief executive of Loopt.

"It's more about going to the local place you've been to before, like Starbucks or Burger King. It's more about turning existing customers into better customers, rather than gaining new customers as in search" ,said Sam Altman, chief executive of Loopt (as reported by WARC):


In conclusion, here're my 5 take-aways for the benefits of using geo-location tools in the overall marketing strategy:

• turning potential customers into more loyal ones (aiming to stir both check-ins (similar to clicks in PPC) and purchases );
• personalized offers to the tastes of clientele (entitling customers to receive exclussive deals and rewards (e.g."Mayor" at Forsquare, "Honorary Batista" at Loopt, etc)
• strong "gaming" element - entertainment is key (when mixed up with "social" element - becomes even more effective);
• relevant offers based on previous purchase history data (when your mobile purchases are being tracked);
• exclussive opportunity to analyze consumers' buying behavior.

Anyway, using social media is a no-brainer. All you need to consider is your audience and where they're "hanging out" be that online,offline or mobile. Than - joining the conversation is more than recommended (a dynamic brand doesn't need a "special invitation" to jump out when an opportunity shows up). Remember, you need the skill to create awareness of your products without even mentioning that you have something to sell in the first place.

It's all about talking to your consumers & engaging with them (using tools that are both relevant and entertaining) and not broadcasting to them.

So, what would you say? Would local services integrated into mobile devices deliver new loyalty solutions?

Eager to hear. Don't forget we're always welcoming your ideas on the menus for future digital lunches!

Yours,

Nadya @Digilunch

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The Official "Quit Facebook Day" - on May 31st!

Not sure if there's anyone yet who'd receive any greetings on this occasion, but it's curious to know that privacy issues which Facebook has been facing almost from its inception has stimulated someone to actually set up a "Quit Facebook Day":



Reasons behind? The group which now counts over 11000 subscribers consider that even you update your security settings on your Facebook profile, that doesn't really save you from having your data exposed publicly. Moreover, you may now see over 33 million search queries on Quit Facebook term, while on Facebook itself you may join over 5000 fans of Quit Facebook Day. All you have to do is..click ony any Facebook apps or "suggested links" and you're there! Anyway, quiting Facebook might not be an option for those who make their data public on Internet anyway:) Out of curiosity - you may now see over 33 million search queries on Quit Facebook term, while on Facebook itself you may join over 5000 fans of Quit Facebook Day.

Finally - additional precaution wouldn't harm, so beware of where Farmville may lead you to and enjoy your online well-being!!

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Levi's Introducing the new "Social Shopping" trend

What would you do if you'd want to sell your products/services in a more "socially creative" way? Besides, a bit of buzz wouldn't harm, right?:)

Levi's have recently integrated Facebook's new "Like" feature into their website and linked it to each product category. Moreover - they went a bit forward by integrating consumer reviews, which shows what other products your Facebook friends have liked,too. Pretty innovative, right?

Take a quick look below:




Any thoughts on the new "social shopping" trend?

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How to "Delete" Your Social Networking Identity & Create a New One?

So you've set up for yourself a fairly visible online presence, but you haven't really made it on purpose: perhaps you may have followed your friends' advice and joined a whole range of social websites: Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc and yes - you've even opened a LinkedIn page (since most of your new colleagues have one)... but the truth is - you aren't really happy about your "online looks" as it doesn't tells the right story about you and it doesn't make you stand out from the crowd either, right?

If all of the above are a bit close to your recent online experience, then there's a solution you may want to hear about: Web 2.0 Suicide Machine (suicidemachine.org) - which enables you to delete your existing social networking profiles and even...kill your virtual friends:



Recent article in .net magazine featured an interview with the platform's chief euthanasia officer - Gordan Savicic.
It turnes out that 3 guys came up with an Out-of-Box idea (partying at night in one of Rotterdam's clubs) of colectively deleting your social networking profiles. All you have to do is to grab a pint of courage, fill out some forms and do away with your Web 2.0 alter ego.

How it goes? As soon as you click the "commit" button - The Suicide Machine kicks off and the next thing you will see is a pop-up Flash player containing a browser that will log in automatically to your account to..- erase it.


How's been doing so far? Over 2 million unique visitors, 1,170,263 friends have been unfriended and 504,978 tweets have been removed since launching. Delete or not to delete - that's your call, but if you want to make it quick and easy - there's a way to go. As for privacy concerns - just note that you won't have your passwords stored or shared later on.

That'll be it. For more Digital Lunch Menu ideas, don't hesitate to leave us your food and taste preferences!

All yours,

@Digilunch

P.S. Some Funny Bits from South Park - on theme (disregard the uncensored language, pls:):

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How Much is Too Much? - when it comes to : Data Overload...

Have you ever wondered what's the average daily exposure of commercial data per person? Researches claim that consumers' are exposed to nearly 3500 brand messages per day. I was surprised seeing a curious video reflection of what we call today "commercial overload": Studio Smack delivers an interesting execution captured in a black & white theme to help "notice the unnoticeable", via Blogilvy.nl. Enjoy the virtual trip:

KAPITAAL from STUDIO SMACK on Vimeo.

P.S. What might be the solution? Personalized data filters - our conscious efforts tailored to what we really want to see/hear. Here's what Clay Shirky mentioned on a recent Web 2.0 Expo in NY: http://ow.ly/1AbOW

Yours,
@Digilunch

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3 Major Twitter Changes - comming up soon..

1. News - confirmed: Twitter is just a few miles away from its new-look change. Appearantly the real-time micro-blogging platform is about to undergo a major redesign:



Details of the redesign have been disclosed as soon as Doug Bowman, Twitter's creative director, posted a picture showing a new-look which clearly indicates that a key element will be the use of more statistics.

"Terrific start" - was the overall online reaction to the new Twitter look posted on Dribble, showing a predominantly positive sentiment. Anyway that's not just it..
Twitter has proved its efficiency as a mainstream broadcast channel when it comes to massive word spread - a few cases a worth mentioning: Chinese and Chilean earthquake (signups spiked 1200%), Shashi Tharoor political moves in India (signups have increased nearly 100%, whereas Indian audience witnessed 550 million mobile phone users sending and receiving tweets via SMS in 2010 already) etc.

Today Twitter population expanded largely across the world, where 60% of registered Twitter accounts come from outside the US, making it incredibly culturally & geographically diverse. That means an entirely new play ground for advertisers and social searches. Here it comes the 2nd change:

2. Twitter launches a new advertising programme:

The new ad programme, Promoted Tweets, is based on a similar approach to Google, with marketers purchasing keywords, and their posts appearing at the top of a list when users enter relevant search terms.

If you're wondering what may've served as purspose to this initiative, then the answer is in the nature of online comments - Promoted Tweets will be basically putting forward the content added by source-companies about their products/services, making the "official" information come first (as in a press-release when you first learn the initial source' view).

Chris Bruzzo, vice president of Starbucks' brand and online content on Promoted Tweets: "When people are searching on Starbucks, what we really want to show them is that something is happening at Starbucks right now, and Promoted Tweets will give us a chance to do that."

Clearly, what brands are anticipating with the new ad offer is its: alarm & reach options, but also challenges, such as moderation of negative word-of-mouth, which would come much easier under a single umbrella (in this case - being triggered by the company-owned content). The initial charging model will be cost-per-thousand, planning to expand as soon as the programme catches on. And here it comes the 3rd new feature:

3. Twitter's new integration solution - @Anywhere, promises to tick the following boxes: traffic, engagement and insight. How? By embedding a Tweet box into your sites and enabling further sharing options:




Although we've already witnessed similar ideas with Facebook Connect and FriendFeed, Twitter's new @Anywhere platform hopes that publishers will find the integration options easier and choose to use the tools to keep site visitors more engaged: auto-linkification of usernames, hovercards (similar to ones we see on Twitter.com), follow buttons, tweet boxes and user login/signup options .

Publishers are welcome to start using the new feature - as of today: http://dev.twitter.com/anywhere

Finally, couldn't overlook this cute poster uploaded by Ev Williams - Twitter Co-founder on current Twitter stats - definetely some food for thought...- let's digest together:



Hope you've found this useful. Looking forward to hearing your new comments/suggestions on our next Menu choice.

Cooking for you, Digital Lunch Team

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London - the World's Top Twitter City

London leads a chart of the world’s major cities considering its highest number of Twitter user accounts, followed by Los Angeles and Chicago, according to research by Hubspot (based on Geolocation data).

Based on an analysis of 9 million accounts, Hubspot has revealed that Twitter accounts that include a profile picture have 10 times the number of followers than those without - a picture on Twitter undoubtedly relates to online trust and why not further engagement chances.

Using Hubspot’s Twitter grader tool, you can also score your own Twitter account for influence out of 100 points and see where it stands compared to more than 6 million accounts that have aready been graded.

So far, Top ranked Twitterers include CNN, BBC, NASA, Mashable, The New York Times & The Guardian.

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What Tag Cloud Are You?

The reason I refer here to personal brands is simple: our offline activity has been building our reputation for ages, whereas now it doesn't really have the final word to say - our online visibility isn't less important since it adds up a huge amount of features to describe our identity.

Thus, to manage our brands online we need an entire toolkit. Also, since things are evolving pretty fast, there's no point in trying to "absorb" all of them at once - selection is far better, when taken through the following filter: "what's your purpose and who's your target audience?".

One of the tools worth mentioning is: a bag of tag clouds. The more visible we are online, the bigger becomes our bag full of association words which describe us and our brands. Anyway, my point: quality always beats quantity in image contests:) and I'm sharing a few ones of value I've just recently discovered myself:

1. Wordle:

Blogs for instance, often include a tag cloud to help readers see what topics, interests they cover. I'm pretty sure you're going to love this website - although it's based on a thorough IBM research it doesn't require any technical skills to help you pick up the words and design to fit your blog page - I had some fun myself today while picking up the tags and design that would suit Digital Lunch:



or:



The website is incredibly easy to navigate and help you choose your own creative versions: be it for your child at school (helping him easily memorize history topics), be it a report, a review, a quizz or whatever your imagination leads you to in your working process:

Wordle Ideas

View more presentations from Jenuinetech.com.

An other cute e-device suggests what your Twitter account personality is like using the words from your Twitter followers' bio - clever, right? Besides, you'd be surprised to see some of your personal interests' reflections on it (such as favourite type of sports, food, places to visit, etc):

2. TwitterSheep:

I've searched for @Digilunch and beside a funny feeling of surprise, I've found some pretty fair "claims":



An other curious research has been made based on public speaches held over a certain period of time by the US politicians. Below for example are the most frequent words used by senator Gravel:



plus an other one showcasing Obama's speeches - source: pollster (you'll notice an obvious confidence - ):



So, as you see - our bag of "precious pearls" can hide a lot of curiosities about both: online and offline personalities.

Thus, the more social our search becomes, the heavier the bag will be showing its diverse collection of shiny pearls which - we may or may not pick by ourselves!

Happy colouring!!

Do you have any other curious tools to share?
Looking forward to hear,

Yours,
@Digilunch

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Are you on LinkedIn blacklist? Check out the Tips to help you stay out of it

You might not be well aware yet that LinkedIn has a blacklist, since the "punishment" installed hasn't been made too obvious: it's more an "implied suggestion" rather than a rule. LinkedIn tells you not to invite people you don’t know, but they don’t make the "side effects" clear.

See the page below which asks you about the "source of your connection" each time you hit an invite button:



The thing is that if 5 people say they don’t know you, you get blacklisted. How this may happen?

If your invitation is sent to someone on LinkedIn, the person has the option to Accept, Archive, or say “I don’t know this user”. It's enough for 5 people to say “I don’t know this user” and you are put on the "uncomfortable" LinkedIn blacklist. Thus, every time you want to invite someone in the future you will need to type in the person's email address, which is particularly disturbing when you’re trying to connect with:

* childhood friends;
* college friends;
* sales contacts;
* someone you've recently met on a busy networking event;
* anyone else you haven’t seen for a long time and LinkedIn appears to be the only source (particularly since you don't have a clue about this person's email)

Now the questions are:

1. How do you find if you are approaching to the "fearful 5" or if you've already exceeded your 5 IDNs?

2. How do you find who marked "I don't know this user" on your invitation?

Here are the steps you need to take to ensure your invite feature comfort:

* Open your LinkedIn home page;
* Access the Inbox on the left and choose Sent option;
* Go to the Inbox Sent page, click Status in the upper right to view the Invitations that you’ve sent;
* Now search for the status “Doesn’t Know”, which will appear in alphabetical order in the middle of the following:

* Accepted
* Bounced
* Doesn’t Know
* Expired
* In Progress
* Pending
* Replaced
* Sent

At this point you know the culprits. What can be done? Since you already know who denied your connection - get them to invite you instead (asking a referral invite: by means of your existing 1st level LinledIn connections or putting the effort to find their email addresses). This will eliminate the IDN restriction, which is only made slightly visible in the notice below, when you hit Find out Why button:



However, there's an other "anytime works best" option: sending an apology to LinkedIn’s customer service at cs@linkedin.com so that they reset your IDK’s unaware offence.

Remember to be mindful yourself before you click the IDK button. You can always click archive which:

* Will not put off someone’s credibility;
* Will allow you to think more about who the person is and come back to it at a later date.

Hope this was useful. Any comments and suggestions for the upcoming Digital Lunch Menu are welcome!

Cooking for you,

Digital Lunch Team

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5 Major Email Marketing Trends for 2010: Tips and Challenges …

Marketing budgets are shifting to digital - that's a fact. Along with the advancement of Web 2.0 we’ve witnessed the rise of online communications which many predict may substitute traditional communication tools: say the web will replace TV and social networks will substitute e-mails. Current research offers a solid answer: not so fast and maybe – not even at all.

Epsilon CMO Survey 2010 showed that regardless of any expectations – e-mail marketing is skyrocketing. Here are a few reasons why:

- Less expensive than direct mail or printed newsletters, plus more environmentally friendly;
- Speedy: you can update the information daily, even instantly for little or no cost as opposed to print mail;
- E-mail marketing allows you to target your audience proactively, sharing your news & information;
- Easy to track: Analytics’ metrics: Open-rate, click-through rate and delivery rate;
- It allows the opportunity to advertise on someone else’s e-mail newsletter (sharing their mailing list and thus, cutting costs).

Research findings - Main E-mail Marketing Trends for 2010:

1. E-mail marketing is the Cornerstone:



Analysts confirm: e-mail marketing and SEO are currently showing highest demand rates and the reasons are obvious: highest audience reach and accountability (being ROI - friendly and easy to monitor). Additionally - Epsilon CMO Survey shows that email remains Primary Tool for Personal Online Communications:



The graph above only shows that if you have a personal message to send you'd rely on email first, whereas social networks seem to be a community feature, apparently not so much personal/intimate.

2. Web Analytics - are an E-mail Propeller:

According to the figure below - analytics made it obvious that e-mail has been steadily acquiring relevance, by replacing the following types of communications:



As shown - 40% of the respondents have already replaced bills/statements by means of emails, whereas - 38% replaced their promotional mail, etc.

3. E-mail marketing Entwined with Social Media:

Here's the answer to : Will social networks replace e-mail - it looks like they will happily co-exist together, instead of fighting against each other:



4. E-mail Marketing Driving Multi-channel Behavior:

The following graph clearly shows that although users are not so keen to make immediate online purchases, as a result of opening their emails (perhaps, due to SPAM overload) they are more keen to make offline purchases instead - which confirms information-based support provided by E-mail services. It also confirms that: interruptive marketing is losing ground, whereas engagement marketing rises fast.The rest is for you to judge:



5. Getting Mobile:

Some of the useful examples of possible tactics:

- Offer mobile-only incentives for opting into SMS or e-mail alerts;

- Ask prospects to text for a free guide and encourage e-mail opt-in;

- Deliver your e-mail content via mobile to expand your reach;

How about the Challenges? the figure below rates e-mail marketing challenges by their importance:



An now - some Take-Away Tips:


1. Integrate: Create infrastructure necessary to encompass all available online channels;

2. Make it work simultaneously: Create messaging, offers and creative that can be used across multiple channels;

3. Customize: Employ customized trigger and drip e-mail campaigns;

4. Engage: Create long-term engagement through: personalization and transactional e-mails (e.g. bank statement e-mails showing relevant transactions over a certain time period)

5. If you're still wondering: How much is Too Much - remember that optimal frequency goes hand in hand with content relevancy.

Good luck,

Digital Lunch Team

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