Freshness is a word we preach often in the custom content biz. Fresh and timely blogs, articles and social media updates are king in online marketing because they help readers and consumers find brands. Now Google’s latest algorithm overall includes a freshness update which is bound to confirm the power of keeping it fresh.

Google conducts hundreds of algorithm updates a year, but this current batch of ten updates is creating a buzz in the content marketing world. The freshness update in particular is causing marketers to salivate because of its proposed power. The update will impact 6 to 35 percent of web search results and it includes searches for up-to-the-minute events, news stories, blog posts and hot topics. For small business owners, the update is titillating because it will also push up the ranking of product and service reviews. According to Google’s official blog, the freshness update will allow searchers to find the latest information about a topic first. This means if you typed in “online marketing” the most recently updated blogs and articles would rank higher. Likewise with current news stories. If you searched for Demi Moore, news stories about the newly single actress would appear before biographical information, with many of the items being just a few minutes old. Basically, your new Google searches will have faster and more recent results than ever before.

Freshness is now not only ideal for our businesses content but a necessity. In order to stay relevant, our content has to be fresh and interesting — and this a good thing. Bloggers and article marketers and small business owners now have the opportunity to keep their followers up to date with the latest happenings in their world. Content creators are now not only spreading the word about their business but providing news.

It’s the end of the week, which I think calls for a cheer. Hooray for Friday! Hooray for weekends! Hooray for not being part of the PR team at Penn State! And hooray for our weekly list of five things you might have missed!

1.) Like Wal-Mart, but Smaller and Without All the Stuff: A tiny Wal-Mart? Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of being a Wal-Mart? Nevertheless, San Diego has a Wal-Mart Pop-up store where shoppers — get this — can’t actually purchase anything from the store. But they can order online from Walmart.com. This makes our list for being the first in-person online store we’ve ever heard of — and for being the branding WTF of the Week.

2.) My Latte’s Animated: Leave it to Starbucks to find a way to make your coffee cups even more interesting. The online marketing and mobile masters announced an Augmented Reality app that brings to life special holiday characters on the company’s signature red cups. Snowflakes and frolicking creatures appear on your smartphone when you aim it at your cup, and each Starbucks store has displays specifically set up for more real-life animated fun.

3.) Facebook Gift Giving Made Easy: Etsy may have changed the way we play the holiday game forever by introducing a gift recommendation guide through Facebook. Friends on Facebook who like items on Etsy create a list of must-haves for their followers to see. Meanwhile, Etsy strikes gold by bringing in new shoppers, too. Online shopping and marketing genius!

4.) Ordinary Days No More: The Amazing Everyday ad for Nokia Lumina may have been created for Euro audiences, but its clip on how folks make humdrum days more exciting is the kind of thing people everywhere can love. The clip is gobbling up some big hits on YouTube and is list worthy for its infectious music and lighthearted message.

5.) Ashton Stops Tweeting: Señor Kutcher, social media icon, actor and cougar lover, hopped off Twitter for a while after a mega-mistake. Kutcher tweeted dumbly about the firing of Joe Paterno without acknowledging the horrible sex abuse scandal behind the termination. As Rick Perry says, “Oops.” He was then digitally bitch slapped by tweeps with an ax to grind. He later apologized, deleted the tweet and hopped off the site for a few days. Thanks, Ashton, for providing us with another example of why we should think before we tweet.

Google is the touchstone when it comes to brand engagement, online brand management and general world domination. The search engine mega-brand is often looked to by professors, sociologists and advertisers for clues as to what will happen next in world of online marketing and business. Yet for all of Google’s assets, beauty has never been one of them. Lady Google is useful — even beloved — but she isn’t cute. So when recently-anointed CEO Larry Page announced last week that the brand was going to get an image makeover, we wanted more details immediately.

Here’s what we learned: According to Silicon Valley’s top rag for tech dish, MercuryNews.com, the universal redesign will be the first in the company’s 13-year history. The sparse, organized look of Google+, which launched in June, will set the tone for how the rest of the facelift will go down. The same uncluttered look is slowly being integrated into Google products like Documents, Gmail, Calendar and Search.

“Our ultimate ambition is to transform the overall Google experience, making it beautifully simple, almost automagical, as we understand what you want and can deliver it instantly,” Page told Wall Street analysts in a pow wow last week. Clearly, Google is responding to consumers who are becoming more and more obsessed with sharp design.

Whenever a brand changes its “look,” there is always room for concern. Last month’s Facebook makeover and last year’s Gap logo disaster have shown us that when you change things up on consumers, they don’t always love it. But it’s high time for Google to mix it up and get a sleeker image. Readers, what do you think? Is now the hour for Google to go under the knife, or do think the company shouldn’t fix what isn’t broken? Tell us more in the comments section!

While the face-to-face customer service for most airlines remains largely a highly unsatisfying experience, we can’t help but fall in love with the way the big old jet airliners use online marketing. Jet Blue and United might be the headline grabbers with savvy social media campaigns, but when it comes to overall digital engagement, Virgin America leaves the competition in the dust.

We nearly spit out our tasty morning beverages when we heard a recent Pandora online radio ad for Virgin America wherein the announcer quotes Yelp reviews of the company as if they were reviews from top critics gushing over some important film. The humor in the ad comes from the playful real-life copy that teases Yelpers light-heartedly while giving potential passengers an insight into what good stuff they can expect from a Virgin flight. Hilarious and smart, the ads are one of the few popping up on Pandora that don’t make you reach for your mute button — and that’s saying something.

The company fares equally as well on Facebook. The brand’s signature sly sense of humor is in attendance here, too. The current Chair Modeling Contest is proof Branson’s baby has its tongue firmly planted in its cheek. Facebook users are encouraged to post pictures of themselves modeling in chairs to celebrate the company’s Elevate Your Seat program, which allows flyers to transfer points from AMEX’s rewards program to Virgin mileage. Winners of the photo face-off can walk away with travel vouchers, WiFi passes and other cool stuff. Virgin America’s Facebook page also plays home to the Approximator, which calculates how much time you’ve spent on a boring airline and then gives you 20 percent off on flights to Dallas-Fort Worth.

Over on YouTube, Virgin America is running the beyond cute and quirky Twin Tested videos that feature real-life twins who fly on Virgin and a competitor to the same location. The twins later exchange notes that are of the standard “my flight had WiFi!” and “mine sucked” variety. While effective, the videos get grating. But all is forgiven once you’ve watched “We’re all in this together,” a brightly animated commercial with a catchy jingle. The sweet video confection is a joint commercial for Method products, which are in the restrooms aboard every flight.

Yes, Virgin America still has a steep ticket price, but the brand’s message is clear — fly with us and you’ll have fun; fly with them and it’ll suck. Based on the genius online marketing, consider us sold.

Whoa. What a week for news: Rest in peace Steve Jobs, sayonara President Palin and don’t let the door hit ya in the bunny tale, Playboy Club. And yet other things were a’happenin’ in the worlds of digital branding and social media marketing. Lucky for you we’ve combed in the Internet beach and came up with five gems to add to your knowledge collection.

For the best, brightest and most bizarre social media marketing, viral marketing and digital branding stories, you only need one thing: our weekly list of Five Things You Might Have Missed.

1. American Apparel’s big, fat backfire: We knew American Apparel was sleazy, but who knew the company had no sense of humor? The company was not laughing when Nancy Upton entered the brand’s sexist plus-sized model competition with hilarious photos which mocked the entire contest. And they really weren’t laughing when Upton won the contest with a landslide of online votes. In a grouchy statement, the AA-holes said they would be giving the prize to someone else. Upton emerges from this mess an online star and American Apparel looks old and out of fashion.
2. Winklevoss Watch 2011: Those beefy twins made famous for crying about how Mark Zuckerberg stole the Facebook idea from them are back! Los Winklevosses joined the ranks of fellow Z-listers like Snookie and Keyboard Cat when they appeared in a Get Crackin’ pistachio commercial. While the ad, which gently jabs Zuckerberg, is not funny, the existence of these social media celebrities continues to amuse.
3. Lego’s perfect puzzle: In a series of new print ads, Lego has created word searches that use Lego pieces to make things like spaceships and tractors. The result is a series of ads that ignite the imagination just like Lego’s products.
4. Candy Corn comeback: Let’s be honest here, nobody really loves candy corn. But the folks at Brach’s have done the impossible and made the seasonal treat seem cool, homey and essential to the season with this adorable online commercial.
5. Speaking of comebacks: Chrysler continues to roar back; the company cemented its status as an online branding giant with the launch of the new Fiat. Sure, we’re kind of over the J-lo thing, too, but her music and presence in the campaign signal that both the car company and the singer are doing everything just right.

Can Mountain Dew fuel another online gaming craze? Did a trillion people visit Facebook this summer? Did Twitter kill or reinvent the press release? The answers to these and other titillating questions in this week’s edition of 5 Things You Might Have Missed!

1.) VW Spins the Roulette Wheel: Oh, Volkswagen. Just when I think you couldn’t have possible another amazing online marketing trick up your sleeve, you pull out Roulette. Using Google maps, VW played a game of real-time roulette with followers who placed bets as to how long it would take for the new Golf BlueMotion to run out of gas. Players only got one guess, so they had to research the car and its fuel mileage. Winners won a new golf for themselves. Losers learned about a new product and had fun while doing it.

2.) Ready for Lift Off: We were intrigued and curious when we read about Lift this week. Lift is the vaguely-described app for achieving goals from Twitter founders Biz Stone and Evan Williams. We’re not sure what the heck it is… and the shroud of secrecy around it makes us salivate even more. But we are sure that Stone and company are expected to cause a PR firestorm once Lift takes off in the next few months.

3.) Dew it Again: Mountain is back with more highly-caffeinated online fun for their joint promotion with Activision’s Modern Warfare 3. Nobody does bro-tacular marketing like Mountain Dew, and this marriage is one made in marketing heaven.

4.) Tweet and Release: To celebrate acquiring social media marketing company One Forty, HubSpot blasted the web with a tweet-rich press release. The digital release featured built-in “tweet this” buttons so readers could take the news to Twitter. Soon the PR world was not only talking about the acquisition but also about the genius of the Twitter-rich press release.

5.) Facebook is a Trillionaire: Finally, Facebook celebrated yet another milestone this week when it was reported that the social media monster had more than 1 trillion page views in the month of June! The news inspires us to keep on keeping on with Facebook marketing, regardless of how crowded it seems.

We’ve been keeping on our eye on the specialized social media market this year, and with good reason: Niche social media sites — and the social media marketing that comes along with them — are exploding. From television watching to fashion to vampires, we’ve seen thousands of social media users who have something specific they want to talk about make the leap from Facebook and Twitter and give the specialized guys a try. So when GOOD reported on Healthcare Savvy, a site devoted to folks talking about healthcare triumphs and disasters, we had to see what the fuss was about for ourselves.

The concept is too brilliant to resist: The social networking site allows registered users to review and discuss healthcare. It’s kind of like your basic shopping or restaurant social media platform, but devoted to shopping for healthcare. Clearly neither the private sector nor the government is making these decisions easier for people, so the people are speaking back… and what they’re saying is funny, wise, proactive and interesting.

Everyone has been faced with shopping for healthcare, and this commonality is what binds the users of Healthcare Savvy together. The site just launched this month, so it isn’t loaded with content but it also isn’t bogged down with advertisements and sponsored blogs. There’s a kind of subtle rebel spirit on the site but the content generally (and wisely) avoids the great healthcare debates. We enjoyed clicking around Healthcare Savvy and couldn’t help thinking what other niche social networks could be next.

The boutique effect on social media and online branding is one we’ve just started to see. Technology and desktop publicity is as such that anybody anywhere can now sew together a network of folks who have something distinctly in common with one another. Niche networks allow marketers and bloggers to talk to target their audience just that much more directly rather than getting lost in a sea of social media drones.

There are a few negative things one could say about Al Gore — that he isn’t an engaging speaker (or even that he sounds like your most boring science teacher from middle school), that as a politician he didn’t have enough fight in him to really make an impact while he was in office or that he promotes just one side of the climate change story. But you can’t accuse the man of not knowing how to market himself and his pet projects.

Gore has long used the Internet to champion his cause of climate change awareness. For a decade, the former vice president has kept up with technology and like any brilliant marketer, using every new innovation to his advantage. His latest endeavor, which we stumbled upon thanks to Mashable.com, is no exception. Long exhausted from accusations which claim climate change isn’t real, Gore was inspired to create The Climate Reality Project. The project hopes to re-open an honest and unbiased conservation about the realities of climate change.

On September 14, 2011, “24 Hours of Reality” will be unleashed on the world. This global event will feature 24 climate change speakers and presenters from around the world. Partnering with Ustream means the messages can be seen from anywhere without interruption. The call to action also features a social element to help spread the word and ways for everyone to take action.

We’ve seen Ustream channels take viral video into the next phase: branded, independently-broadcasted programming. The ease and quality of Ustream means anybody with a cause or company can broadcast in ways YouTube never even dreamed about. Seeing as we’re in the blogging and marketing and social media biz, we’ll stay out of the climate change debate — but we do love the way good old Al is bringing attention to his cause.

Need a little spring in your step? Dying to name drop the latest, hippest stories in social media marketing, blogging and digital branding? Then our 5 Things You Might Have Missed list is just for you! And if not, you can’t blame for us trying, right?

1.) 5 Google+ Hangouts You Might Have Missed: Google’s serious social media contender has a standout feature you might be missing: Hangouts. Hangouts are cool virtual spaces where you and your Google+ homies can do things like learn to cook, start a book club or have a family reunion. You heard it from us first: Hangouts have serious branding and marketing possibilities, meaning we’ve only seen the tip of this social media iceberg.

2.) Creepy German Bowling Balls: This spooky ad for a German horror network has been getting serious YouTube play for doing the impossible: turning bowling into something terrifying. It’s cool, scary fun that reminds us fall is right around the corner.

3.) And Speaking of Spooky: Rob Lowe plus Butterfinger shouldn’t equal a truly scary ad campaign. But it does — and it achieves a whole lot more too. Butterfinger the 13th isn’t just scary, it’s funny, tongue-in-cheek goodness from a Facebook and viral candy campaign we can’t wait to see more of.

4.) A Little Bit More: Bit Rebels is straight up a geeky, gorgeous and great-to-read blog that inspires us to be better bloggers (while simultaneously teaching us how to make Pac-Man toast or show us brightly-colored photos of evil people holding Jell-O). In other words, it’s awesome.

5.) Going for a Digital Jog: Nike’s visual digital visualization project through Nike+run allows New York runners to make art while showing where they’ve been in incredible graphics. It’s a visual feast from a brand who continues to run ahead of the digital pack.