Many businesses are afraid of social media for a variety of reasons. For instance, some industries such as finance and healthcare just have a harder time integrating social media for compliance reasons. Other businesses are concerned with potential negativity and time management. The good news is that those fears can be turned around.

It is true that some businesses have an easier time implementing social media as opposed to others. For businesses that are heavily regulated, bring both the legal and compliance teams together to establish a strong set of guidelines. This will help businesses know from the very beginning what they can and can't do.

Continue reading...

Popularity: 4% [?]

At the  Search Marketing Expo in New York earlier this week, search engines Google and Yahoo made a couple of shocking revelations. The first announcement pertains to the canonical tag, which is a collaborative effort from the engines.

Google, Yahoo, Microsoft's Bing, and later Ask, all joined together to allow users to dictate which of the duplicate pages on their site they want the search engines to list. While users find the tag useful for internal purposes, users have been asking for an external solution for many years. Users want to be able to control which page is listed across multiple domains as well.

Continue reading...

Popularity: 5% [?]

Although email marketing is one of the oldest forms of Internet marketing, it is still one of the most effective marketing strategies. Growing a valuable email list is a challenging process, but in order to be successful, marketers must be creative and integrate popular media into their email marketing campaigns.

A lot of people's initial impression of email marketing efforts is negative. However, the market has evolved and become so sophisticated that many marketers are not even trying negative efforts due to the bad results they produce.

Continue reading...

Popularity: 4% [?]

A growing but controversial trend on the Internet is receiving a great deal of scrutiny from the government. The trend involves paid or sponsored endorsements, testimonials, and more on blogs and various social media sites. The Federal Trade Commission began investigating these practices earlier this year and announced it would release new rules and guidelines to update the current legislation.

As a result, marketers, advertisers, and bloggers alike are all raising concern. Is it necessary for the government to intervene? A problem does exist since consumers are directly affected by paid and sponsored posts, but is government regulation the answer?

Continue reading...

Popularity: 7% [?]

Twitter is reportedly releasing commercial accounts later this year. The accounts will be paid accounts specifically for businesses and will include statistics and analytics that are not currently offered.

The microblogging service has yet to make money, but will this new business product ultimately provide the monetization model that the company so desperately needs? Although details of the pending product are scarce, early speculation reveals concern.

Continue reading...

Popularity: 5% [?]