This week, the internet marketing community was buzzing over new search developments from market leaders Bing and Google, as well as data on the continued rise of social media behemoth, Facebook. Content marketing was also a leading topic of discussion for the week ending February 25.
As Brafton reported, comScore's Digital Year in Review reveals that Facebook is now one of the top 10 ad platforms on the web. Ads on the social site now reach 72.3 percent of U.S. online consumers.
The social site's increasing advertising reach is mirrored by its growing user base. EMarketer says that Facebook currently reaches the majority of online Americans, with 135.2 million American consumers expected to use Facebook this year – a 13.4 percent increase over last year. The research firm expects Facebook to continue its growth in the coming years.
As it expands its user base, the social network is also expanding its search features. Brafton reported that Facebook has redesigned its search results. Now, when users conduct queries on Zuckerberg's social site, results are organized according to type – from brand Pages and shared links to community questions. This may be a cue to marketers that they should produce social content that will catch Likes among users in order for it to be discoverable via Facebook search.
This week's headlines suggest that social content is a competitive necessity. A report from ExactTarget indicates that lack of fresh content is one of the leading reasons consumers “unLike” or stop following brands on social media. Plus, Brafton covered a survey from the Content Marketing Institute indicating that social media content investment will rise among marketers in B2B professional services. Notably, the survey found these marketers are highly likely to use LinkedIn to distribute social content, which supports Brafton's report about the rise of LinkedIn as a B2B social channel.
A study found that LinkedIn's B2B site sign-ins are rising dramatically this year. Just 3 percent of B2B social logins were represented by LinkedIn in July of 2010, but by January of 2011, LinkedIn accounted for 20 percent of B2B social logins. Additionally, comScore reports that LinkedIn membership rose 30 percent last year.
The Content Marketing Institute's survey further suggests that LinkedIn is an increasingly important channel for B2B social content marketing, but it also reveals that overall content marketing is on the rise. The institute released a last month suggesting that 94 percent of B2B computing and software marketers use content marketing, and now it indicates that 84 percent of B2B professional service marketers use content for marketing purposes. Content marketing spend is expected to increase this year in both of these sectors.
Other industries may follow suit and boost investment in content marketing to reach online audiences. Brafton reported that blog readership is on the rise, with niche industry blogs proving as popular as blogs associated with mainstream news sources. Although The New York Times recently reported that blogs are declining, the newspaper seemed to measure consumers' tendency to create blogs – not their penchant for reading them. Indeed, optimized blog content may be an ideal way to reach internet users, with nearly 50 percent of affluent millennials reading informational blogs daily.
Beyond blogs, search optimized content is proving a priority for businesses this year. According to a report from Forrester, 85 percent of marketers will use SEO strategies within the next year.
Brands looking to boost their search engine optimization should remember that there is a right way and a wrong way to generate inbound links – something Overstock learned the hard way this week. As Brafton reported, Overstock.com was penalized by Google for an SEO link scheme. The company offered universities discounts in exchange for links to relevant keywords from .edu sites (which are reportedly some of the most authoritative sites on the web). This is the second recent link scheme that has cost a brand Google rankings, with the search giant penalizing J. C. Penney for spammy inbound links last week. These scandals can serve as a lesson to marketers that quality content is the best way to earn merit-based links that will be rewarded by Google.
Indeed, high-quality content is more important now than ever for businesses looking to boost their Google rankings. As Brafton reported, Google updated its algorithm to reward sites for original content that is relevant to searchers. The change will affect up to 11.8 percent of searches, and some companies will see their rankings shift – for better or worse – in the period to come.
Another development from Google this week that promotes quality content is its new recipe view search. The feature offers searchers rich information in the snippets of content displayed on SERPs. The search service is aimed at helping users find relevant recipe results faster via rich snippets, and marketers might consider that more rich snippet-based search products could follow.
Not to be forgotten, Bing also announced some search updates this week. The company launched new social search features this week. As Brafton reported, Bing will now offer Like data for all search results (instead of just designated “social results” featured at the bottom of results pages). This should encourage marketers to use social content to bolster their standard search marketing efforts.
Additionally, Bing is making search results more visual. The company is now offering “tiles” alongside results – visual indicators of thought leaders likely to provide highly relevant results. In the future, marketers may have the opportunity to submit their sites to Bing to have tiles featured for their web pages, and this could help increase clicks to their sites via Bing users.
Search marketing developments may be good news to marketers, as a report from the Direct Marketing Association reveals that brands increasingly see the internet as a valuable means of developing relationships with consumers. Marketers are also more readily experimenting with new online platforms, with nearly half (47 percent) planning to increase mobile marketing this year.
Investment in mobile marketing spend may be wise, as Pew reports that online audiences are increasingly adopting mobile devices. Businesses looking to catch clicks from mobile shoppers should check out the mobile SEO tips Google released this week.
Additionally, marketers will find that email content is a good way to reach mobile audiences. Brafton has reported that mobile email usage is on the rise.
Whether reaching subscribers via mobile devices or desktops, marketers should remember that fresh content is key to catching email clicks. Brafton reported that ExactTarget found nearly half of respondents (49 percent) unsubscribe to emails because of repetitive, boring content.
Next week, marketers might expect online conversations to continue to revolve around content marketing as the consequences of Google's latest algorithmic update come to light. Stay tuned!
