Internet Marketing Blog

Weekly Blueliner Newsminer

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Welcome to the first edition of the Weekly Blueliner Newsminer.  We aim to bring a collective viewpoint on the recent news in digital media, putting it into accessible terms.  Across different angles, we can understand the present and future of internet marketing over a period of time.

We will look at the top five news stories, then discuss their impact.

1.  Google and Verizon Discussing Net Neutrality.  The latest on this story is that both firms are denying that a deal is in the works, but when there’s smoke, there’s fire.  This would be a huge determent on the business front.  It would really monopolize website optimization in terms of e-commerce and keyword search.  Larger firms would receive the bulk of advertising since they would be able to afford the delivery fees that Google and Verizon propose to regulate traffic.  Venture capitalists would struggle to research for innovative technologies.  The internet, on principle, would be undermined as an depot of information.

2.  UAE Set To Ban Blackberry Use In October.  Speaking of information depots, this story continues to build up steam, as the U.S. government looks to defend RIM’s data monitoring practices.  Earlier this week, the United Arab Emirates announced that it would ban Blackberry use in its borders starting this October due to security concerns.  The Canadian firm has superior encryption standards and routes data services through its proxy hubs in Canada.  The Middle Eastern government wants Hillary Clinton has went on public record, describing the behavior of UAE’s government as a threat the innate right of free internet access.  Undeniably, the potential for hegemony of content exists, especially in such a volatile region.  RIM is also in dialogue with India about similar concerns, so monitoring continues.  As of this syllable, Blackberry phones are still in use for all the aggravated investors in Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

3.  Twitter Launches Suggestions Feed.  The Suggestions feed was rolled out this Monday by Twitter, and it looks to segment Twitterati into similar tastes and preferences not unlike social media rival Facebook.  So far, few people are in love with it, including myself.  The service, in my mind, is unique with its minimalist website design and character limits.  The suggestions feed uses an algorithm based on people you follow, their followers, and unconnected followers who you may find interested. Kinks are still being worked out, as the feed has crashed several times.  I feel that the suggestions feed suggest a desire to engage in a personalized relationship, which is the antithesis of a follower.  Nobody wants to be seen in this context.  One writer of the blog TechCrunch thinks this is just the beginning for Twitter’s social extension.

4.  Facebook vs. Google.  The battle for web advertising supremacy is going unnoticed by the general public, but digital media executives are watching really closely.  The search-advertising giant has made several efforts to enter the social media industry with applications like Wave and Buzz, only to watch them peter out due to privacy issues.  YouTube is one obvious success, but it was purchased by Google rather than developed from within the lab.  Facebook, on the other hand, has aligned with Microsoft Bing to leverage its superior depth of interpersonal connections.  It also acquired some patents from Friendster, which has been Apple’s strategy with mobile applications.  Google’s open source platform has been better received, with Android as a shining example.

Google is fighting different battles with China (firewall proxies), Apple (content syncing, television programming), Microsoft (office software, search), and the federal government (antitrust issues).  That is the reality of life when you gain accolades.  I feel like Google should place focus on development of certain programs, especially Analytics.  We use it as part of our SEO methodology, and the emergence of web and mobile advertising only intensifies the necessity for keyword tracking.  Google Reader is another program used by academia to conduct internet research for rare library content. A recent antitrust case concerning the application was closed, foreshadowing an opportunity.

5.  RIM releases the Blackberry Torch on AT&T.  Alongside the tiff with the UAE, RIM releases the Blackberry Torch on the AT&T network. The AT&T partnership is peculiar for several reasons.  Their inept coverage and network capacity has kept me from reaching for the iPhone, and the aforementioned device is included in their phone portfolio which could siphon revenue for each party.  Overall, the mobile platform has been rated as an improvement by tech reviewers.  I have yet to see the phone personally, so I can’t make a thorough judgement.  At first glance, it looked like a parody of the fallen Palm Pre, which this author views as a foreshadowing.  The smartphone race gets even more intense.

This is a wrap for the news.  Log in next week.

Posted by Abdul Fattah Ismail
Posted in Blog Marketing, Business News, Interactive Marketing, Marketing, Mobile Marketing, Video Sharing, blog, search engine marketing | No Comments »
Tags: abdul fattah ismail, Blueliner, Blueliner Marketing, digital media, internet marketing ny, new york interactive marketing agency, seo media agency, weekly blueliner newsminer

Interactive PR as part of your Internet Marketing Campaigns

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As we all know, commercial businesses, organizations, not-for-profit associations and other high profile individuals maintain their public images using the well-known field of Public Relations. PR is all about shaping the appropriate message to the public and it involves a lot of functions that include: crisis management, publicity and maintaining a steady relationship with customers, communities, employees, investors, media, government and others with the industry.

The internet is much more than just a channel of communication. In the present scenario, the internet has become the fastest and most convenient way to communicate and to spread the message to the public in a cost effective model. Often called Interactive PR, Online PR or Digital PR, this process is helpful for companies of any size as it is a two-way communication that aims to build better relationships. When compared to the traditional PR, this method helps organizations build reliability with the target audience directly.

VSS data shows that PR spending in the US grew by more than 3% in 2009 to $3.7 billion. Also PR spending in America is predicted to go beyond $8 billion in 2013 with increased usage of corporate blogs and social media.

The important components of Interactive PR include: distributing press releases online with relevant keywords and optimizing for search engine rankings, news wire services, defining a new blogging strategy to engage prospects and customers in conversation about the products or services, effective podcasting, organizing webinars, starting discussions and following up in forums, creating news and events page in the website to cover the old and latest information about the company.

There is a greater demand for Interactive PR services than in previous years and firms of all sizes are looking at the ways they communicate with their prospects and customers. There are companies that do not practice PR on its own and may request help or outsource their needs for Online PR activities. This way they can build an ongoing relationship with the public and the media in a very cost effective manner.

Posted by Mohamed Mohideen
Posted in 7 Pillars of Internet Marketing, Blog Marketing, Content Marketing, Email Marketing, Interactive Marketing, Interactive PR, Marketing, Marketing Agencies, Podcast Production, Public Relations, Search Engine Optimization, Small Business, Social Media Marketing, Video Sharing | No Comments »
Tags: Blueliner Marketing, Content Marketing, digital marketing, Digital PR, Interactive PR, Mohamed Mohideen, Online PR, Online Reputation Management, podcast marketing, Public Relations, Social Media Marketing, Video Sharing

Internet Week, Sponsored By Yahoo!

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Yahoo’s Internet Week has been going on since Monday here in New York, showcasing the city’s vibrant tech community. The expo, as expected, is a smorgasbord of media platforms, complete with Twitter feeds and a live stream from the headquarter site in Chelsea. The website also has an abundance of information on workshops, press releases, and photography. Those interested in attending the HQ expos can do so for a $10 fee. Since the corporate sponsorship is filled with heavyweights, the gifts may be real interesting.  If anyone attends, please post your thoughts.  Click the apple to reach the website.

Posted by Abdul Fattah Ismail
Posted in Business News, Interactive Marketing, Marketing, Mobile Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Video Sharing, search engine marketing, web development | No Comments »
Tags: abdul fattah ismail, Blueliner Marketing, Interactive Media, internet week chelsea, internet week new york, new york interactive marketing agency, yahoo internet week

Internet Traffic to Quadruple by 2014 – Thanks to Online Videos

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Cisco Systems in its Annual Visual Networking Index Forecast has predicted that Internet Networking Traffic will be quadrupled by 2014, of which online videos will be the primary driver of that growth. Cisco’s report says that 767 exabytes of data (one exabyte is the equivalent of one billion gigabytes) will be transferred online in 2014, and that 91% of consumer traffic will be online video, which will include both traditional web video and video-on-demand provided by television providers.

According to comScore’s statistics, U.S. Internet users watched 28.1 billion videos in February, with Google Sites ranking as the top video property with 11.9 billion videos, representing 42.5% all videos viewed online. YouTube.com accounted for more than 99% of all videos viewed at the property. Hulu ranked second with 912.5 million videos, or 3.2% of all online videos viewed. Microsoft Sites ranked third with 623 million (2.2%), followed by Yahoo! Sites with 455 million (1.6%) and Turner Network with 318 million (1.1%).

Cisco has developed the Cisco VNI Forecast to estimate future global IP traffic growth. Highlights of current forecast include the following projections:

• Annual global IP traffic will reach almost three-fourths of a zettabyte (767 exabytes) by 2014. A zettabyte is a trillion gigabytes.
• The various forms of video (TV, VoD, Internet Video, and P2P) will exceed 91% of global consumer traffic, and global online video will approach 57% of consumer Internet traffic (up from 40% in 2010).

Posted by Sandeep Bhandwalkar
Posted in Social Media Marketing, Video Sharing, online advertising | No Comments »
Tags: Blueliner Marketing, digital marketing, Internet Marketing, online advertising, Sandeep Bhandwalkar, Search Engine Optimization, social media agency, Social Media Marketing

Social Media Marketing to Increase Sales

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Social Media Marketing is another internet marketing tool that is being widely used as part of many integrated marketing campaign to reach target audiences. With the emergence of Web 2.0, the web provides ample opportunities for people to build connections and share valuable information. Social media platforms can be easily accessed by anyone and thus can help organizations to create brand awareness of their products or services and to engage the audience in conversations.

The following are some of the benefits associated with Social Media Marketing, which include: Building exposure to businesses, higher rankings in search engines, increased traffic, qualified leads, new business development and relatively low expenditures. The top social media tools used commonly by marketers are Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and blogs.

Most companies are still trying to find the best ways to make use of social media platforms to market their products or services. An Omniture survey indicated that only 14% of businesses use mobile, video and social media marketing as part of their marketing programs. Recently, a number of companies have been outsourcing their social media marketing to specialized digital marketing agencies. Currently, about 25% of companies are outsourcing their social media programs in order to increase ROI and increase sales.

Charts from a CMO survey show that there is an increase of 60% in the overall social media marketing spending from 3.5% (August ’09) to 5.6% (February ’10). There has been significant growth in the field of social media marketing with a gradual increase in the budget allocation in recent years.

Blueliner Marketingis a full service internet marketing agency based in New York with offices in India and Bangladesh. Blueliner help clients place their products and services in front of their target audience through various social media marketing efforts that drive results.

Posted by Mohamed Mohideen
Posted in 7 Pillars of Internet Marketing, Blog Marketing, Content Marketing, Interactive Marketing, Interactive PR, Mobile Marketing, Public Relations, Social Media Marketing, Video Sharing, World, online advertising | 1 Comment »
Tags: Blog Marketing, blueliner india, Blueliner Marketing, Content Marketing, digital marketing, Interactive Marketing, Interactive PR, Internet Marketing, Mohamed Mohideen, social media agency, Social Media Marketing, social media optimization, video marketing

Turning Prospects into Buyers with Content Marketing

(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)

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What do most marketers need when they want to attract, acquire and engage customers and potential accounts for their business? Consistently sharing information about their products or services can keep existing customers and the potential ones informed, thus creating a unique brand awareness which can result in increased sales and customer loyalty. In order to do this, you need to create and share informative and valuable content about products and services via different media.

This form of marketing is often referred to as Content Marketing, which is defined as “words and data to create unambiguous content that support meaningful, interactive experiences”, is now evolving as a new discipline. In addition to all your traditional marketing techniques, this form of marketing uses content to achieve higher sales through profitable actions from the customer and prospect sides.

What it takes, is an effective content strategy. Content development, delivery and administration are the three major points that need to be kept in mind when you define content strategy for any marketing plan. Rachel Lovinger explains more about content marketing in her article, Content Strategy – The Philosophy of Data. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted by Mohamed Mohideen
Posted in 7 Pillars of Internet Marketing, Blog Marketing, Content Marketing, Email Marketing, Interactive Marketing, Interactive PR, Marketing, Marketing Agencies, Mobile Marketing, Photography, Podcast Production, Public Relations, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing, Video Sharing, Website Analytics, Website Design, World, online advertising, search engine marketing, web development | 1 Comment »
Tags: Advertising, Blueliner Marketing, Content Marketing, digital marketing, Interactive PR, Mobile Marketing, Mohamed Mohideen, social media

Voices For Tiger

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The Internet is abuzz with the latest Tiger advertisement from Nike.  It has a voiceover from his father, Earl, who is deceased, while Tiger looks ashen with a wrinkled forehead.  He speaks as Tiger’s moral conscious, which opens up another Pandora’s box of questions.  How would his father react to Tiger’s infidelities if alive? He was also known as a philanderer in the golf world.  Would he advise to repair his marriage and save face with leading advertisers, or just divorce?

Pushing judgement aside,  the ad is an illuminating portrayal of a brand that stands behind their guy. Nike has a history of pushing controversial advertising and operations, so this will do little to their public reputation.  At the same time, I feel like Tiger is simply using the one advertiser that didn’t desert him to get sympathy. They’re all in it together, and where they fall remains to be seen. Here’s the clip:

Even more interesting are the remixes that have sprung up. This one is called “David After Dentist”, to show what Tiger really had on his mind. Here’s the original David.

Besides the humor, it shows the extreme subjective nature of advertising in new media. The blog remixes clearly signal that few people take Tiger seriously these days, although this spot was created from a renowned brand machine to ilicit remorse and approbation. The original’s intent has been rendered worthless, despite the investment of time and money by agency wonks. We still don’t know what represents Mr. Woods’ true thoughts and never will. The battle between traditional and new media advertisers is fascinating, and continues on.

Posted by Abdul Fattah Ismail
Posted in Blog Marketing, Business News, Marketing, Marketing Agencies, Video Sharing | No Comments »
Tags: abdul fattah ismail, Blueliner, Blueliner Marketing, earl and tiger woods nike ad, earl woods, green marketing agency, internet marketing agency, seo media agency, tiger woods, tiger woods nike ad

The Art of Outsourcing: Phase 2

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Two years ago, after returning from trips to our India and Bangladesh offices, I wrote a series of posts on Offshore Outsourcing, from an agency perspective.  Those posts are here if you want to browse them:

• A Contribution to the Offshore Outsourcing Debate: Part 1
  
• On Offshore Outsourcing: Part 2
  
• On Offshore Outsourcing: Part 3
  

Blueliner was also featured in Crain’s Magazine for being one of the first US web development companies to outsource to Bangladesh.

Presently, as I write this post, I’m sitting in Blueliner India’s air-conditioned office in Hyderabad, complete with high-speed Internet and power generators to support electricity outages.  Conditions have vastly improved over my last trip here, for businesses as well as the local people of Hyderabad.  If you’ve read The World is Flat, by Thomas Friedman, you’ve got the sense.  The Hi-Tech City area, where we are located, really feels like Silicon Valley, with all the big companies, from Microsoft to Dell to Oracle to Google, right down the block.  I’ll be documenting the trip with video as well as pictures, which you can follow on Blueliner’s YouTube Channel.

Phase 1 of building an offshore company was about infrastructure.  The reason for the title of this post being “Phase 2″ is that we’ve just passed five years in the agency outsourcing model, and with infrastructure now well in place, I feel that it’s time for something different.  Phase 2 is all about team building. Team building is always important, right from the get go in any new location.  If you can’t find those first one or two good local leaders, the whole venture becomes that much harder.  I was fortunate enough to find two good leaders – one in India, one in Bangladesh – who have helped Blueliner build great SEO, social media and web development teams.  I’m using this opportunity to get to know our staff on a personal level.  It’s amazing to meet people, like Siva Dosakaya, who have worked for me for almost three years, for the first time.  He and fellow SEO Specialist Satya Dev (1.5 years with Blueliner)

Several days later, I presented Prasad Sistla, Blueliner India’s fearless leader and General Manager, with a small token of my gratitude for what he has done to put us on firm footing in an ultra-competitive and very exciting city.  As Blueliner continues to build its reputation globally as one of the top SEO, Social Media and Web Design agencies, I want to see those who have been through the tough times with us be properly rewarded.  Prasad is one of those special people.  See this interaction (video) as well as a welcoming of our first operational staff member to Blueliner India – MVN Guptha, a very experienced bookkeeper.

I cannot stress enough the importance of these moments.  Building personal relationships with your co-workers that live half way around the world is as important as those relationships with your local, day-to-day co-workers.  The reason being that there is a tendency to treat “off-shore workers” as if they are just user names on a Skype interface.  Since you don’t see each other, the work connection is generally less personal and completely results-oriented.  There is no personal touch or real connection unless you make the effort.  That is why it’s important to travel and experience what it is like to work in their offices, eat their food (even if it gives you an occasional stomach ache, like the one I had yesterday) and spend time together, both in and out of the office.  I’m not a subscriber to the “work is work” or “business is business” philosophy; to me that is a convenient way of detaching from the realities of life and importance of human relationships.

The Art of Outsourcing is akin to The Art of Living.  Treat people well, work hard, listen consciously and learn from your observations and experiences.

Posted by Arman Rousta
Posted in Marketing Agencies, Offshore Outsourcing, Search Engine Optimization, Video Sharing, online advertising | 1 Comment »
Tags: arman rousta, art of outsourcing, dell india, friedman, google india, india outsourcing, microsoft india, Offshore Outsourcing, oracle india, seo agency india, social media agency, world is flat

YouTube Delivers Demographical Insight

(4 votes, average: 4.25 out of 5)

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One of the things we love about the Internet is it’s ability to create new opportunities. Uploading and optimizing videos on YouTube to market products and services is now the norm in the leading Interactive Marketing Agencies.

Over 170 video sharing sites have made video more than a strategy; shooting videos for popularity has become more than fun because there’s money involved. It seemed to start with the Coke / Mentos geyser videos.

According to the Digital Inspiration blog,

The duo uploaded their creation on Revver which shares advertising revenue with the content creator. The video was a viral hit and viewed about 2.5 million times on Revver.com and generated $30,000 in advertising – $15,000 for Revver and $15,000 for its creators.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted by Arman Rousta
Posted in Interactive Marketing, Video Sharing, blog, online advertising | No Comments »
Tags: analysis, demographics, statistics, video, YouTube

Geo-tagging on YouTube Effects

(3 votes, average: 4.67 out of 5)

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Web 3.0 has been called the semantic web. As the content we’ve been tossing online gets properly tagged, we’ll continue mashing the data into more useful applications. One of those more useful apps is the advanced search tab on Youtube. I would have to guess that capturing even a small percentage of their 74 million users with your geo-tagged video could evoke smiles.

Insuring that your videos are tagged properly for local content is key. It’s like making sure your zip code is easy for the Google bots to find on your pages. The flip-side of this is the Google Earth YouTube layer.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted by Arman Rousta
Posted in Interactive Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing, Video Sharing, blog | No Comments »
Tags: earth, geo-tagging, google, video, video marketing, web 3.0, YouTube