Search Engine Optimization - New Media Marketing

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic") search results for targeted keywords. SEO can also target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines.

As a marketing strategy for increasing a site's relevance, SEO considers how search algorithms work and what people search for. SEO efforts may involve a site's coding, presentation, and structure, as well as fixing problems that could prevent search engine indexing programs from fully spidering a site. Other, more noticeable efforts may include adding unique content to a site, ensuring that content is easily indexed by search engine robots, and making the site more appealing to users. Another class of techniques, known as black hat SEO or spamdexing, use methods such as link farms and keyword stuffing that tend to harm search engine user experience. Search engines look for sites that employ these techniques and may remove them from their indexes.

"The other widely used search engine marketing technique is Search Engine Advertising. A website can begin search engine advertising once, it has completely optimized itself in the search engine free listing. The advertising bit of the search engines, ensure a bonus exposure to the websites. Search engine advertising is a process of paying the search engines and other web directories for ensuring optimum exposure to the websites. PPC or pay per click is one of the paid listing techniques of search engine marketing. All top search engines including Google, Yahoo and MSN have launched such paid listing mechanism to ensure visibility to websites." - Promotion World

Covergirl - Queen Collection - H. Naylor Fitzhugh - Minority New Media Marketing

Proctor & Gamble’s Covergirl brand successfully speaks to minorities and especially to African-Americans and Hispanics. The Covergirl brand even has a brand extension that is specifically designed for women of color entitled the Queen Collection. Their Queen Collection site is great. The collection was named after one of their endorsers Queen Latifah and definitely speaks to its target. The home page of the site features different ethnic women discussing why they are Queen and Queen Latifah’s over arching slogan of “every woman is queen”. This essentially is a breakthrough for women of color given the small availability of cosmetics designed for their demographic.

I totally think it’s ethical for a company to specifically market to minorities. Minorities spent years without being marketed to as if minorities did not exist. Now that it makes sense economically minorities are receiving much needed attention. That aspect may be an issue but it’s a good day when major companies are producing and marketing products with minorities in mind. Because we are on such a topic, I think it’s important that I highlight the most famous marketing Black pioneer, H. Naylor Fitzhugh.

Mr. Fitzhugh was a pioneer in the field of target marketing, the target in this case being the black consumer. His methods were adopted by large corporations who sought his advice. He was dubbed "the dean of black businessmen" by Black Enterprise magazine in 1974. Vice President Nelson A. Rockefeller presented him with a special black enterprise achievement award the following year in a White House ceremony. Naylor was the first black student to graduate from Harvard School of Business. H. Naylor Fitzhugh, who became vice president for special markets at the Pepsi-Cola Company after a long career as a professor of business at Howard University. His legacy is the development of our discussion.

There are concerns that could arise as our society became more integrated and social norms become relevant in marketing. Marketers have to truly understand their target or segment rather than just throwing an minority person in their advertising. Companies need to do more when marketing using new media to reach minority markets.

Source:
http://www.everywomanisaqueen.com/home.do

Podcasts Marketing - New Media

What's The Big Deal

Podcast subscribers, like podcasts because it automates the downloading process AND it allows them to have their favorite audio To-Go. People love it because it frees them from manually checking their favorite audio enabled websites to download new files. But Podcast listeners aren't only attracted to the mobility factor but also the ability to have the MP3 already downloaded onto their PC and ready to listen to whenever they are - it's like Tivo for MP3's.

What It Means To Marketers

If a company publishes audio files of any kind whether it is audio newsletters, teleconference calls or interviews regularly, the company can now put their messages directly onto customers' desktops. Popular podcasts could also be sponsored by advertisers that would input a brief ad for different products or services.

Podcasts are a quick and easy method of publishing, it's personal and can target a specific market with ease. The personal aspect is great for building consumer relationships. A company can easily distribute their to consumers in a timely fashion without concern about spam, filters or other things forms of message blockers associated with marketing.

via Tech Based Marketing

Perceptive Pixel - The Future of Computer Interface - Widget Marketing

"Perceptive Pixel is a startup founded by Jeff Han. Working all but alone from his hardware-strewn office, Jeff Han is about to change the face of computing. Not even the big boys are likely to catch him. Jeff Han and Phil Davidson shows how a multi-touch computer screen will change the way we work (and play)." - Multi-touchscreen.com

How will this change marketing?

Allow me to introduce you to Widget Marketing. Widgets are a portable chunk of web. Widget marketing exists as small applications that are added to ones internet experience or consumer interface for marketing or entertainment purposes. For example, we all have seen the numerous add-ons that Facebook now allows. Some of these widgets are marketing a previous product or service such at 123greetings.com offering greeting cards. Now also think about Microsoft widgets who offer convenience tools for computer interface. Put all this together with the technology that Perceptive Pixel is developing and you have a innovative, personable and extremely interactive method of marketing to consumers.

Nokia - Future Design Campaign

Nokia has released a series of graphic videos regarding some possible future phone prototypes. The videos explore how mobile phone design may change in the next three or four years. The sense that main purpose for Nokia in releasing these videos is to encourage discussion and consumer feed back on videos.

"The videos are not showing prototypes of actual phones or devices that Nokia is currently working on or plans to launch. They are exploring futuristic concepts and potential new ideas that may or may not be produced in years to come. They are designed to inspire and stimulate discussion around how the mobile device of the future might look and function in our lives.”

via experientia

Blog of the Month - The Glamorous Life

The Glamorous Life
Every month 2nd 2 None will highlight a blog that's pushing the limit on creativity and consumer activism. Within every culture, a sub-culture emerges. Its easy for a marketer to view a blog and relate the individual's interest to a current product or service but it's totally different story when a marketer has to listen to the voice of the consumer and develop a new product or design. For instance, there is an emergence of clothing designers that their core inspiration stems from tattoo and graffiti artist. How can a marketer relate to this sub-culture? Blogs have created a loud consumer voice within any market for a creative marketer to be inspired.

The Glamorous Life is a window into this world that has been transcended to clothing, shoes and incredible art. Its a urban voice of a sub-culture that is rarely discussed. This blog has grown from a voice to a rare distributed magazine highlighting one of the nation's most creative sub-cultures.
The Glamorous Life

Blogs have opened the voice of the consumer and we're listening.

Christian Audigier - I wonder what was his inspiration?

Microsoft tries to muscle Yahoo

Microsoft tries to muscle Yahoo and kick start the future of communication. On Monday Microsoft publicly announced the virtues of its 44.6-billion-dollar bid to take over the Internet firm as Google maneuvers behind the scenes to stop this takeover. Microsoft Corp.'s $45 billion takeover bid appears to have backed Yahoo Inc. into a corner, leaving the struggling Internet pioneer with the unpleasant choice of selling to a detested rival or pursuing other agonizing alternatives likely to require the help of an even fiercer foe, Google Inc.

The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post reported Friday that executives of the two companies are in early-stage discussions of a merger or some other kind of collaboration, although Microsoft officials would prefer to acquire the company outright. The companies held similar discussions a year ago, but no deal came to fruition, the newspaper reported, citing people familiar with the talks.

The deal would be the largest ever acquisition for Microsoft, but certainly manageable. Yahoo's market capitalization before the deal was announced was $38 billion, and the speculation is that the purchase price would be around $50 billion. Microsoft's market cap is nearly $300 billion and it had $28 billion in cash and short term instruments on its balance sheet as of Mar. 31.

Among bloggers on the Net, there is plenty of skepticism about a merger because of the size of the deal, the differences in culture, the abundance of executive egos, and the redundancies in technology. "If Microsoft buys Yahoo, Microsoft should immediately spin the Yahoo-MSN business out as a separate company," says Henry Blodget, the one-time analyst at Merrill Lynch, who now writes the Internet Outsider blog. "If it doesn't, both Yahoo and MSN will die." (see BusinessWeek.com, 5/4/07, "Yahoo, MSN "Will Die"").

Future of Communication

This video is the premise for this blog and the future.