Breaking Stories and Top Articles for March, 2015

Here are the Stukent “Goodbye winter, hello spring” news picks for March.

Our hope is that you find something here that will either improve your current skills or encourage you to develop new abilities. Successful internet marketers find an area of concentration, yet they must stay aware of developments that affect that focus.

Here’s an overview of the news we think most important to online marketing this month. Did we miss one you think should have made the list? Let us know!

1. SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING ON MOBILE – POWERFUL STRATEGIES

Topic: [highlight type=”dark”]Social Media Marketing [/highlight]


cell phone iconKey Point:
 To say “Mobile is growing” is to master the understatement. Mobile is booming. And while the fundamentals of marketing remain constant, regardless of platform, there are specific tactics you should learn in order to compete. Proximity, for instance, can be crucial. What if a pizzeria could serve targeted ads to nearby searchers? If you’re hungry, and you discover there is a place around the corner running an internet special on hot pizza … wouldn’t that be enticing? Find out more about the twists and turns of social media mobile marketing in this article by Zoe Summers: Mobile Marketing Essentials

A Note from Stu: While mobile use is on the rise, mobile sales aren’t keeping pace. That situation has marketers scrambling for answers. You are living in online pioneer days, and your idea could be the one that opens the door to a mobile marketing breakthrough!

 

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2. YOUTUBE NEEDS YOUR FEEDBACK

Topic:[highlight type=”dark”]YouTube Marketing[/highlight]

youtube iconKey Point: YouTube says their users talked, and they listened. You no longer need to struggle with annotations; YouTube introduced a mobile-friendly solution this month: CARDS. Calling the new feature “as beautiful as your videos,” cards are designed to help get your chosen message out to viewers with style. The longer-range plan is for cards to replace annotations altogether. Meanwhile, YouTube is asking for more feedback: What do YOU want cards to do? Here’s that link: CARDS

 

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3. TWITTER ROLLS OUT PARTNER AUDIENCES

Topic:[highlight type=”dark”]Twitter Advertising[/highlight]

Key Point: Twitter Revenue Product Manager, Kyle Boston, says the platform’s advertising acuity has ratcheted up a bit, thanks to the introduction of “partner audiences.” Here’s how it works: Twitter Marketing Platform Partners now make targeted audience selections available to advertisers from the Twitter campaign creation page. You choose “Add behaviors,” then choose categories and subcategories of behaviors (e.g. target those who buy retail sports drinks), and save that criteria for the campaign. Twitter says @Butterfinger boosted engagement by 52% by leveraging partner audiences. To find out more, login to your Twitter ads dashboard or ask for help. Here’s that announcement: Twitter Ads Get Better Targeting

 

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4. A NEW SHOPPING ASSISTANT FOR ADWORDS

Topic:[highlight type=”dark”]PPC[/highlight]

shopping cart iconKey Point: Google says retailers are way wrong when they lambaste smartphone users and call them “showroomers.” Citing an October, 2014, report Inside AdWords says in-store shopping is still the favorite mode for shoppers. Moreover, the new Google Shopping Assistant delivers “mobile optimized, locally relevant, personalized search results” to smartphones. Tests show in-store visit value doubles and customers are more satisfied with the shopping experience – all thanks to Shopping Assistant technology. To jump on the bandwagon, read this article, and then do the “5 things brick and mortar stores should do now.”

A Note from Stu: Check the statistics mentioned in this article. They are impressive. Are they accurate?

 

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5. A WORDSTEAM FIELD GUIDE TO THE SERP

Topics:[highlight type=”dark”]Search Engine Marketing[/highlight]

 

Key Point: The search engine results page (SERP) is where we go for information in the Digital Age. Get on the first page, and you will be noticed. Don’t, and you’re buried. Do you already know your way around the SERP? WordStream says you need a guide – so they published one. It covers the history of the SERP, the components of the SERP, contextual information results and takes a close-up look at one valuable piece of real estate. How to get your copy? Click Here.

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6. NEW GOOGLE ALGO CHANGE BIGGER THAN PANDA OR PENGUIN

Topic:[highlight type=”dark”]SEO[/highlight]


Key Point:
 Mobile is big, and Google isn’t planning on letting poorly constructed webpages throw a damper on the party. They’ve drawn an April 21st line in the sand that says you had better get your mobile act together … FAST. To ice the cake, Google’s Zineb Ait Bhajji told the crowd at SMX Munich that the mobile-friendly ranking algorithm will have more impact on search than did Panda or Penguin. And that’s huge. Now, analysts are trying to figure out exactly what Bhajii meant by that statement. Any way you cut it, though, this is NOT a Google announcement to ignore. Tell your clients, tell your friends, tell anyone you know who may be impacted to check their site for mobile friendliness. Here’s the story: Big News About Mobile.

A Note from Stu: Do you see a marketing opportunity here?

 

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7. HOW TO GET MORE CLICKS – 10 CASE STUDIES SHOW YOU HOW

Topic:[highlight type=”dark”]Email Marketing[/highlight]

 

click iconKey Point: Every marketing message is meant to get the recipient to think something, feel something, and – most of all – do something. In the end, marketers want people to buy their service or product. Normally, though, there are intermediate steps along the way, and the most prevalent means of succeeding at an online call to action (CTA) is by getting the visitor to CLICK. Entire campaigns can live or die by the click-through-rate (CTR). It stands to reason, then, that internet marketers should study the science of getting clicks. AWeber knows the business well. That’s why this release of 10 Case Studies is well worth the read. Here’s how: CLICK HERE.

 

 

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8. GOOGLE’S BLOCKED RESOURCES REPORT IS A BLOCKBUSTER


Topic:
[highlight type=”dark”]Google Analytics[/highlight]

Key Point: New to Google Webmaster Tools is the Blocked Resources Report. You can use it to find out which parts of a website are being blocked from GoogleBot access. Along with that announcement, Google says the Fetch & Render Tool has been updated and now shows a comparison between how the bot sees your page and a visitor sees your page. These are huge advances for savvy marketers. SEO results depend on the reports from GoogleBot. The bot is your friend. Find out more about it here: Webmaster Tools Gets an Update

[line] That’s how March internet marketing news panned out. If you see something crucial we missed, please let us know in the comments below. And don’t forget to keep your eyes and ears open in April for fresh developments. We love reports from the field. See you next month!
Be a Stukent field observer: When you find a news tip, send it in. Let’s help one another stay current. The internet won’t slow down for us … we have to keep up!

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