Marketing

There has been a lot happening with social media recently, one of the largest stories featuring a video with over 79 million views on YouTube as a part of the "Make Kony Famous" campaign. LinkedIn also hit another mile stone by passing 3 million users in Australia, covering over 60 per cent of the Australian professional population.

Google's SSL search and local search on mobile changes, and a new iPad have made this week anything but dull. The new figures about browser market share also make good reading, and certainly highlight by cross browser compatibility is important for web design. SSL search does promise to have the greatest impact of the stories mentioned below, as dealing with '(Not Provided)' becomes an important challenge for Australian site owners.

It had to happen eventually. Yesterday Google announced that SSL search will soon be available on more than just Google.com. This means that SSL search will begin to affect Google.com.au users who search while signed in very soon.

This week's big news was Facebook releasing Timelines For Brands. Business pages on Facebook can now create a timeline just like a normal user. If it was not for this, Google's new privacy policies coming into effect on the first of March would have been this week's big story. Even if it has not gotten the same coverage as Facebook's new changes, Google's new privacy policy will probably have a greater effect over time, as it effectively allows Google to use user data from each service across their entire range of products.

This week here at Aspedia saw a story about statistics, datamining and baby goods get shared and discussed on our Twitter, Linkedin and Google+ accounts. Facebook also appeared in a number of stories, and we read some interesting stuff about interest-based social networks like Pinterest.

It takes more than customer service to build a great relationship with your clients. A great product, solid support and the perfect price all help to make a product or service a success.  For many companies, it is Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software that allows them to bring it all together.

In fact the full benefits from integrating CRM software with your business are not just limited to managing your clients more effectively. CRM software can help businesses manage costs, staff resources and compete against larger or more established businesses. 

This week Google has released more options for managing your own personal account as well as new ways to promote your site in Adwords. Pinterest's business model has become a lot clearer and Google's official blog gives us some insight into what was happening in search this Valentine's Day.

Social media is the theme this week with the dominant company in this space finally entering the open market with a long anticipated IPO. Google has also announced new policies across most of their products and Microsoft has responded with an ad campaign promoting their own products. Even with all this activity from established online brands, the emerging social network Pinterest has started to get attention from the online marketing media.

What is in Google's $37.9 Billion in 2011 Revenues?

Google released a 'disappointing' earnings announcement with a revenue figure of $37.9 Billion. The biggest contributors to Google during 2011 can be found in the finance and insurance, retailers and general merchandise, travel and tourism and jobs and education industries. Even in the current economic climate, many businesses are still finding the money to advertise in paid search.

We all know that space at the top of the blended search results is massively at a premium.  Therefore as a result anything you can do to either improve your ranking or increase your listing's footprint in the search engine results has a benefit. Google's blended results has already given businesses another shot at a front page listing through Google Places, YouTube and image search results appearing with their standard ten blue links. Linking your fans and customers to your Google+ page is another chance to rank well in search.