TopRank Digital Marketing News

As loyalties shift away from traditional media as a preferred communications channel, there will be those who approach this evolution with fear and those who approach it with an embrace.

While many consumers embrace social media channels such as blogs and microcontent as legitimate sources of news and information, public relations professionals are oftentimes fearful to make a similar leap.  Those that brave the new online landscape, however, find they are able to significantly and positively influence the public relations goals of their clients or companies.

TopRank Account Manager & Social Media Pro Adam Singer

Online reputation management is equally important for businesses, highly visible executives and even team members.  As business becomes increasingly digital, online brand reputation quickly becomes a real world reputation.

It’s been reported that over 50% of adults Google each other and over 90% of B2B buyers use search when starting the buying process.  In other words:  if your brand has online reputation issues, they will be discovered.

Below, find two proactive approaches that can help protect – and in case of emergency – defend your brand:

Following the birth of real time search, the proclivity of search engines to prioritize rankings based on new, newsworthy and social content, is real time Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

So what type of content can businesses develop to take advantage of real time search?  Below, find three types of content TopRank® Online Marketing helps develop to support traditional and real time SEO programs for its clients:

1. Optimized Press Releases: More and more, search engines will quickly position newsworthy content atop search results.  News and press releases, optimized for search and published through authoritative newswires, can help companies both achieve higher rankings and ensure positive messaging is found atop search results.

Today’s 24-hour news cycle means, more than ever before, journalists and bloggers turn to search engines and social media to quickly find stories and sources.  Despite this, many media placement and article syndication companies guard content behind lengthy log-in processes.  The five minutes it takes a journalist to log-in is, oftentimes, five minutes spent finding a more convenient source.

One company that has evolved to meet the needs of its prospect and client base is NewsUSA.  The social media and Twitter case study below details how TopRank® Online Marketing is helping NewsUSA meet business objectives by freeing up and expanding the availability of media content into channels frequented by customers and prospects.

Twitter remains a compelling enigma for online marketers.

In a post to Online Marketing Blog, copywriter Michelle Bowles equated the delicate balance needed in a Twitter Marketing Recipe to that of a guacamole recipe where one false dash could destroy the whole dip.

Michelle’s advice to marketers seeking to receive more value from Twitter can be boiled down to two words:  be valuable. While this may read as very ‘in the box’ advice, the approach you take is what will carry your marketing efforts out of the box.

When the world’s foremost experts on social media, search marketing and online public relations gather to attend an event, the challenge to present compelling and actionable information is clearly on. Dating back to the beginning of this decade, the team at WebMasterWorld have met this challenge again and again with the PubCon series of conferences.

This November will be no different as WebMasterWorld hosts an elite collection of speakers and panelists at PubCon 2009: Social Media, Search, Affiliates in Las Vegas Nevada. Contributing to this event will be TopRank® Online Marketing, who will be represented on three panels by CEO Lee Odden and one by Account Manager Adam Singer.

Twitter, a popular microblogging site that lets users communicate messages in 140 characters or less, has exploded in popularity. Twitter has become so popular, many companies feel they must have a presence there, if only to stay ahead of the curve.  But is this really the case?

As much as it may seem everyone is on Twitter, this simply isn’t true.  CNET reports that while 99 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds have profiles on social networks, only 22 percent use Twitter.

Both gut feelings about the number of Twitter users and statistics detailing exact numbers are fairly irrelevant to the question at hand.  What’s truly important is the percentage of your audience that is on Twitter.

ClickZ Online Marketing Summit
June 2, 2009 Minneapolis, MN

Coming soon is the Online Marketing Summit Summer Tour, hosted by ClickZ.  Online marketers, from novices to seasoned veterans, will gather to network and sharpen their marketing abilities.   Each attendee will walk away having learned cutting-edge, hands-on skills related to everything from social media to paid search.

On June 2nd, Online Marketing Summit will be making its  stop in Minneapolis, MN.  On hand for two sessions, including a “super panel” to conclude the day, will be TopRank® Online Marketing CEO, Lee Odden.

The buzz in the online marketing industry continues to gain momentum around social media marketing and content sharing networks. Today, many businesses have taken the plunge head first into the social media landscape by creating a Facebook account or YouTube channel to further expand their online reach. Micro-blogging through services such as Twitter, offers yet another way for you to increase visibility online.

So, what is Twitter?

As a social media platform, Twitter has networking and messaging features that facilitate many to many communications as well as one to one. Companies like Dell, Zappos, Comcast, Apple and Home Depot are using Twitter to listen and communicate directly with customers.

In the lead up to the SES Toronto conference, TopRank’s CEO Lee Odden was interviewed by Canadian blogger and “new media maverick” Rahaf Harfoush on search engine optimization, social media trends and Twitter.

The social media space is becoming quite saturated as companies begin to introduce social networking platforms and corporate blogs. How does the increase of activity in this space affect someone’s online strategy?

“At first glance, the array of options can be very intimidating to a company that wants to get into the social media space as a way to grow brand awareness and revenue.”