File this one under “Who Knew?” So not only do those slow, wack, duct tapped together websites that take forever to load make you roll your eyes when you stumble across them, but they may even be causing you stress and agitation.  According to what may be perhaps the goofiest study I have yet to find online, busted websites could be potentially dangerous.  A devoted team of volunteers at Foviance in the UK subjected more…

The introduction of Bing to the search engine field has brought with it a flurry of new search engine features. Google, Yahoo! and Bing are all trying to out-do each other with the ultimate prize being an increase in search share. The question is, are they fighting the right fight? While they are busy trying to outdo each other, other online sites are quietly moving into the search field. YouTube is the second biggest search vehicle for users and Twitter and Facebook are not that far behind. The outcome of this increase in activity by search engines and social media sites may have serious ramifications for future online marketing strategies, particularly search engine marketing.

The recent introduction of ‘real time’ indexing of content will bring about a renewed interest in social media marketing. Search engines love to index fresh content and it has been noticeable that content that gains rapid prominence on bookmarking sites like Digg or StumbleUpon, has been indexed by Google quite quickly.  Twitterers and bloggers have already acted by putting their posts on ‘auto-Tweet’, thus being open to fresh content indexing. Twitter has become the most prominent instant communication tool around and while bloggers have been quick to utilize it, it has has opened up possibilities for many other areas of marketing.

What effect will this have when it comes to  online marketing? This is the gray area at present. Tweets that carry links to content may lead to that content being indexed quite quickly. This may help under-utilized strategies like press releases increase in popularity. It may also lead to content being accessed directly rather than through search engines. If that’s the case, will search engines become redundant when it comes to real time information?

Article marketing is another area that may gain in popularity. It has been the realm of spammers for a long time. However, if high quality articles can be indexed quickly using tools such as Twitter, spam may finally get the boot. Popular article sites like Ezine Articles are already undertaking tough anti-spam campaigns. This is even leading to paid members being removed.

Is it time to rethink online marketing strategies? Perhaps. The online marketing tools that have been successful in the past are still useful. Blogs, traditional social media marketing, article marketing, press releases, SEM, SEO are just some of these tools. What may change in the future is the mix. Up until now,  SEO has been the tool of choice by most web site owners. Many have dabbled with article marketing, even fewer have ventured into press releases - the time may right to revisit these and many of the other online marketing tools that may have been scorned in the past.

While it is hard to envision a time when the main focus wont be on search engines, I think we may in for a period where it’s dominance could be threatened by social media tools like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. What do think - are times changing when it comes to online marketing? Will the focus move from search engines to other media outlets?

What makes good content? I can wax on and give you the latest ten tips for making great content, but instead I’m going over simplify it because I’m in that kind of mood. Content is just like art. There’s good art and there’s bad art, depending on your perspective. My perspective is I like the kind of art that takes an everyday object and gives it a twist that in turn gets a reaction out of me. Any reaction will do. Here’s an example; I came across a post that documents unique street signs in Lyon, France.   I’ve passed street signs with the international cross-out symbol like these in my travels abroad and here at home as well, yet I have never stopped to take notice of the design. In a matter of milliseconds, my eyes see the sign, synapses fire off registering it as a sign, I may or may not heed the instruction, then the eyeballs get bored and find something else to feed off of. Poof, forgotten seconds after the experience. But these French signs are memorable. There’s a lesson here. Content should be thought of in the same way. Why not approach your next article, newsletter, video, social media campaign etc., with the same kind of goal? Take the everyday concept and put your own personal spin on it. Recycling the same old information that anyone can find on the intertubes is easy. Coming up with a unique angle on a concept takes a heck of a lot more effort and creativity. Do the latter. If you do it right, people may just stop and take notice.

Yahoo! championed the idea of banner advertising in the early to mid-90s and many small businesses have spent the money on the ads - at Yahoo! and elsewhere. But a recent survey shows that more than 50% of small businesses are ready to ditch banner ads in favor of other forms of Internet marketing such as SEM, e-mail marketing, and social media. Are you one of them?

It’s easy to see why banner advertising is out. Small business owners are really starting to see what the rest of us have seen for some time. People just don’t click on those ads or they have trained themselves to ignore them, causing what some industry experts call ad blindness.

As more and more Internet users became more sophisticated and educated about how the Web works, click-throughs on banner advertising has declined. So what does this mean for other forms of digital media? Will PPC advertising and search engine marketing experience the same fate? How about video marketing? What do you think?

Want a real human being to talk to when seeking out customer service online? How do you know you’re not chatting with a bot? Wouldn’t it be nice if you could actually see the customer service agent you are chatting with online? Well, you may get just that. According to a recent PR Newswire release, Vee24 is launching veedesk,

“a system that is set to fundamentally change the way in which customers shop online. Customers browsing websites will, for the first time, be able to both see and talk to a customer service assistant in real-time, to ask questions, discuss products, and request help with form filling and the checkout process. A ‘vee-assistant’ can be available 24/7 and can offer the same kind of personal service found on the high street, but from the convenience of a website.”

The service is already being used by Lexus Germany and I can see how it could catch on for other brands. Knowing that my customer service rep has real flesh is somewhat comforting to me.

This recession is killing me. When I was recently hunting down a new iPhone case, I came across the very affordable iPhone Recession Case. At under a couple of bucks, you get all the fixin’s….it’s just the fixin’s are made out of cardboard. Case-mate, the geniuses behind the Recession Case, are taking the marketing of their product one step further by announcing the Recession Case Photo Contest. Anyone can enter and the winner will get an authentic 1980’s moped that they can tool around town on and sport that cardboard case in style. It’s easy, just customize your case and get your friends to vote on Twitter and Facebook and you’re on your way. Here’s the call to action on site,

You’ve heard of the recession case and you have bought ‘em! now is the chance to show the world your drawing skills and arts & craft skills on the recession case! submit a pic of them to the gallery and share with your peeps on facebook and twitter, the pic with the most votes wins a sweet Suzuki moped from the ’80s! so upload, vote and spread the word!

You’ve looked between the couch cushions and still can’t come up with the funds to purchase a case? Not to worry, because the recession-friendly Case-Mate people are giving away their trade secret template design you can download so you can make your own case at home-–just supply the materials yourself. Check out the gallery for some inspiration.

The Brandsplat Video Report discusses what’s going on in the world of online branding and digital engagement. In this episode, Brandsplat takes a look at an innovative campaign that uses a skunk as a spokesperson who wants to help you clean up your act. Check it out by clicking on the video below.

Social media is all the buzz. Marketers are scrambling to harness the power that sites like Twitter and Facebook offer. So if you want to effectively market online, you had better get on the bandwagon. Not so fast, suggests a recent report from ForeSee Results , a leader in online customer satisfaction measurement headquartered in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The report findings are based on data, collected in the spring of 2009, from more than 22,000 respondents who had visited the top 100 online retail sites within the previous two weeks. According to the report, the most effective means by which e-tailers influence purchasing decisions was familiarity with the brand. It makes sense that if you’re shopping online, the first place you will go to buy are the brands you are already familiar with. These findings suggest that branding and brand perception are main triggers that drive traffic and purchasing decisions. That means more traditional forms of advertising and marketing are the primary driver for customer aqcuisition. The next two major factors that drive customer acquisition are tried-and-true online strategies like promotional e-mail and Internet advertising. Sounds boring, but these tactics bring in the customers. But how does that compare with social media? According to the report,

“the most lucrative website traffic is still coming from promotional emails and Internet advertising rather than from the latest trendy social networking sites. It will be important for each individual site to monitor the quality of its own various aquistiion sources in order to get the best return on investment.

This may be because social media marketing strategies are fairly new and is unfamiliar territory for many online buyers. As social media grows, I believe this tactic will gain more traction in the arena of customer acquisition.

To download the ForeSee Results, “Online Customer Aquisition: Quality Trumps Quantity” click here.

Want repeat visitors coming to your site? New data coming out of Chitika Inc., an online advertising network with over 30,000 sites and over 2 billion monthly impressions, suggests that Facebook and Digg delivered repeat traffic at much greater rate than Google, Yahoo!, Bing, and Twitter.  Google delivered overall numbers, but when it comes to driving repeat visitors,

“over 20% of all visitors from Facebook visited the site four or more times per week. Digg came in second place with slightly over 16%.”

Note that Google, Bing! and Twitter came at the bottom of the “repeat traffic” list hovering around 11% each. Google, obviously delivers the most traffic overall. But for loyalty, you can’t beat Facebook. This is why it’s important for brands to engage customers across multiple networks to satisfy multiple strategies. If you want repeat visitors coming to your site, you may want to consider putting a little more elbow grease into your brand’s Facebook effort. To see the data in chart format, visit Chitika here.

Don’t expect people to come knocking down your door just because you have a website. The bottom line is you must have products and/or services people are interested in first and foremost. No duh, right? Let’s say you know there is a demand for what you’re offering and you are ready to attract traffic to your site. This is where Brandcasting comes in. Think of Brandcasting like casting a bag of seeds across a vast field (the Internet). Each seed that is cast will need to be nourished and watered in order to grow tall enough to have a presence. But once a presence is established, you will see many iterations of your brand sprouting up for any passerby to come across. The longer you nourish the seedling, the higher and more prominent it grows.

There are lots of ways to deploy intelligent brand marketing online. We’re just scratching the surface here. I haven’t even touched on press releases, banner ad campaigns, viral videos, ppc campaigns, newsletters, affiliate programs, email marketing and a whole slew of other tools a business or an individual can apply for effective Brandcasting.

The metaphor of scattering seeds and then nourishing them is an apt one. For example, lets say one such seed is intended to grow a branded blog for your company. Having the best blog or writing the best entries doesn’t mean diddlysquat unless someone is interested enough in what you’re offering. So it is really important that you nourish your blog with quality content and engaging information and “water” your blog daily, that is, add content to it daily.  Having a good mix of seeds is helpful too. Having a multi-level marketing strategy that employs the best combination of “seeds” may be the best way attract different niche audiences. So one set of seeds may be intended to grow the company blog variety, another seed is intended to create a presence via article marketing, another seed may be intended to give your brand a video presence, and so on. Ultimately, you want the right mix of seeds to catch the attention of the right mix of customers.

Whether you do it yourself, or hire a company like Brandsplat to deploy an intelligent online branding campaign, you have to choose a strategy and remember to manage your strategy as certain milestones are met. Brandcasting can boost your company’s visibility and over time can give your brand a lasting footprint on the Internet. Just remember that it takes time to build your presence online and don’t get frustrated if you don’t see results right away. Cast those seeds, water and feed them and watch them grow your brand into one that has a healthy presence on the web. Happy farming.