I attended Pubcon last week and learned a lot about where the marketing industry is headed. Here are a few trends (that were discussed in nearly every session) that companies should be thinking about moving forward into 2012:

I recently viewed a TED Talk by Eli Pariser called Beware online ‘filter bubbles’. In this segment, Pariser discusses how web giants like Facebook, Google and Yahoo are personalizing your online experience to only include content they perceive to be of interest to you. Instead of filtering content based on keyword searches alone, these giants use things like cookies and browsing history to provide you with your own “filter bubble.”

The problem with this type of internet personalization is that consumers do not get to decide what information comes their way. “[T]he Internet is showing us what it thinks we want to see, but not necessarily what we need to see.” Content we may want is edited out and we are surrounded by “information junk food.” When we are in our own bubbles, we are unable to view content that is relevant to our searches.

Filter Services

For example, I use Google Alerts to monitor news about our clients and their products. I have very specific keywords for each client, however I receive many alerts that have no relation to our clients. Instead of expanding my search, Google has filtered out information leaving me with content that is irrelevant. Google Alerts are also personalized based on who is managing them. I can have the same keywords for a client as a coworker, yet we receive completely different results.

Pop the Bubble

We need to break through our filter bubbles so our internet experience includes other people’s perspectives, opinions, and points of view. We want search engines that are transparent enough to let us decide what enters our individual bubbles. Here are a couple of ways to pop your bubble:

• Delete your cookies and browsing history OR
• Set up your browser so every time you exit the information is cleared allowing you to start with a clean slate

By popping these “filter bubbles”, we can connect and reach out to consumers outside our normal comfort zones.

Let’s face it. Online marketing IS keyword research. Without hours of research (and ensuring your research aligns with your goals), how can you expect to have success with PPC, generate quality traffic from SEO or monitor the correct conversations in social media? This isn’t a post to discuss the basics of keyword research, but instead will introduce some often-overlooked tools that can add value to your search and link-building campaigns.

Delicious

Delicious is a great site that can help you discover terms you may not have originally thought of within particular niches.

Let’s say you’re trying to find keyword or content ideas for a children’s health blog. Enter ‘children’s health’ in the Delicious search field to yield results related to children’s health—those that have been bookmarked by Delicious users. Those sites are potential link building opportunities.

The search results will also clue you in on the other tags people used to categorize posts related to children’s health. For example, “adolescents,” “antibiotics,” “fever,” “vitamins,” and the list goes on. Here you can gather ideas around current events and gain a better understanding of what type of content users find interesting.

Wordle

People use word clouds to show a visual representation of common keywords. You typically find them on blogs as a way to dig deeper into tagged content.

Did you know you can use Wordle to get a visual representation of a competitor blog’s commonly used keywords? Simply visit Wordle.net/create and enter the blog URL.

One of the most popular hockey blogs, Puck Daddy, for example, is creating content around today’s free agency period. So terms that pop up in their world include “Free Agents” as well as the names of some of the top free agents available: “Jagr” and “Ehrhoff.” The now-defunct Atlanta Thrashers are relocating to Winnipeg: Naturally, “Winnipeg Jets” appears in Puck Daddy’s Wordle cloud.

Google Insights

One popular blog technique is to develop content related to current events. Current events are interesting to everyone, and while ‘everyone’ might not be your target market, if you can somehow relate your industry’s trends with hot news items, you may be able to attract loyal readers.

Google Insights and Yahoo’s “trending now” section are great places to look for popular current search terms. Just remember to choose a topic that will be relevant to your own content!

Keyword research isn’t all about finding terms that generate the highest monthly search volume. Always be thinking of creative ways discover new audiences.

Many b-to-b organizations have an abundance of technical and practical resources that can help them connect with their customer base. Unfortunately, much of this content is often buried within technical sales presentations and internal documents that only reach customers in one-on-one meetings and trade-event presentations. This exposure is valuable, but the impact evaporates quickly, the information is difficult to share and the reach is limited.

The Shift to Sharing

A fundamental change has occurred in buyer behavior — most now conduct the majority of their product research online. This shift has forever altered b-to-b marketing leadership practices. You can achieve marketing leadership by becoming a trusted resource for strong, practical information.

Large or Small — This Opportunity Also Represents a Threat

If your company is large, with a deep pool of technical resources, you can have a significant advantage. The move from yesterday’s model, however, requires an investment of both manpower and capital. Making resource sharing a priority requires buy-in from the C-suite; they must agree to share more information, endorse the assignment of new accountabilities and approve related spending decisions. So, with the exception of companies with marketing-savvy executives, large companies are proving to be slow to react — creating opportunity for smaller companies to improve their position.

If your company is a smaller, niche player, this type of resource sharing can be equally advantageous. Specialized product and service providers often have a very compelling competitive advantage when speaking to the right prospects. Sharing content in the right way enables customers and prospects to find you more easily. If you don’t claim your space however, you will miss out on buyers searching for your products or services.

Stop Guarding Your “Secrets”

The only people you are hiding your best content from are your customers. Chances are, your competitors already have most of the information you’re afraid to share. Today, you need to leverage your valuable content—through every channel you have at your disposal. This becomes very dynamic, as you link content to and from landing pages, ads, email, websites, blogs, social sites and others. You need a staffing and marketing mechanism in place to provide constant support for information dispersal and management across the web.

PR, DR and Branding — The Walls are Melting

The big difference today, compared to years past,

is that your control is gone—until prospects experience your brand first hand, they build their perceptions based on the results of their online research—from trade magazines, peer reviews, forums, websites and any number of sources. This is why having a strategy for quality content is vital; it is also why PR, advertising, email marketing, social media, paid search and SEO are now so completely intertwined.

Some of the boldest business successes of late come from unveiling what many would regard as a competitive advantage that should be protected. In this way, companies such as Google, Apple, Lynux, WordPress, Amazon and many others have changed the game. People want to do business with approachable, transparent and resource-rich companies—and this often requires a change in the way organizations approach marketing and business. In the age of information, sharing yours is the ideal way to build trust, credibility and brand equity.

Scott LoSasso is President of LoSasso Advertising Inc., a Chicago based interactive agency specializing in content marketing strategies and customer acquisition for leading B2B and consumer brands. (See more posts by Scott)

Last month Google released a new Automated Rules feature in AdWords, only available to a limited number of advertisers.  Google is in the process of releasing it to all advertisers.  With this feature, advertisers can create rules to automatically change their budgets and bids, among other things, which make simple, but timely, daily maintenance very quick.  These rules can be set to run at certain times of the day, and advertisers can even set up e-mail alerts to let them know when these rules run so they can go into AdWords to see what might have been changed.

To see if your Google AdWords account has the Automated Rules feature, you will see an “Automate” drop down menu next to the “Alerts” drop down menu on the Campaign tab.

There are lots of costly platforms out there, like Acquisio, which offer similar automated rules, so it will be interesting to see if they will try to differentiate themselves further from what Google AdWords is capable of doing.  And, on the other side, it will be interesting to see if and how Google will grow this feature to continually simplify these tasks.

‘Twas the week before Christmas, when on the internet

Many creatures were Tweeting, even Will Arnett;

Groupon’s stock soared high up in the air,

In hopes that Google’s bid soon would be there;

SEM’s nestled all snug in their beds,

Verified by Foursquare and many check-ins.

Mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,

Had just settled in with our iPhone Sleep app,

When over on Mashable there rose such a clatter,

I grabbed my iPad to see what was the matter.

A post on 2010 trends appeared on the screen

Some came true, others: yet to be seen.

When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,

But an article on Media trends for next year!

With an author’s pen full of info and wit,

I knew in a moment it must be Vadim Lavrusik.

More rapid than Bieber fans, his predictions they came,

And he numbered, and listed and called them by name;

“Now, Leaks! now, Mergers! now, Tablets and TV!

On Location! Curation, And Smarter News story!

Goodbye foreign corresponder, Social’s king of you all!

Now Tweet away! Tweet away! Update us all!”

With Vadim’s forecast LoSasso agrees,

Fresh marketing concepts are one of many keys.

As we close out the year, our spirit is bright,

“Happy Holidays to all, and to all a good-night!!”

From all of us at LoSasso Advertising Inc., we wish you a

Happy Holiday Season and exciting New Year!

(Pssst, check out our Christmas Card…)

Most superheroes come with supernatural powers acquired in scientific accidents. But when it comes to Batman, his flair for heroics often starts with his tool belt. Much like Batman, us search engine marketing mortals depend on tools for success.  With so many marketing concepts under one job description, efficiency is always the goal, but not always the result. With that in mind, I’m always on the lookout for helpful software and programs to increase the effectiveness and productivity of my campaigns. Note Anywhere, a plug-in for Google Chrome, is a creative tool that meets these goals.

Notes for Marketing

The air of mystery surrounding the SEO industry makes meticulous attention to detail imperative. Website optimization is a practice in continued evolution and organization, which makes Note Anywhere an incredibly valuable tool.  The plugin allows the Chrome user to place a digital sticky note on a webpage for future reference.  These notes can be used for fun (like leaving a reminder on BestBuy.com to check sale prices) or for business and SEO purposes.  Below are some ways to use Note Anywhere to become a super hero SEO.

Link Building – Leave a trail of notes on directories, blogs and news sites reminding your future self the status of your link request. No more sheepish, apologetic emails after asking for the same link twice.

History –Keep track of your competitor’s SEO strength by recording a few key stats like indexed pages, SEOmoz’s Domain Authority and Page Authority. The inherent value of monitoring your competitors is complemented by the organization and tidiness of Note Anywhere.

Note Taking – This program provides a convenient way to keep your notes next to articles, blog posts or web series. Pull the important points and archive the URL to visit later. You can review the main points of the post in an instant.

Next Generation

LanceHub, the development team for Note Anywhere has big plans for future editions of the extension. Users will be able to share notes amongst peers, resize the notes, and sync notes with other computers.  If there’s one thing that makes digital marketers happier than a new tool, it’s a new tool that facilitates conversation.

Let us know how you’re using Note Anywhere in the comment section below!

We love the passion we see in the interactive advertising industry. The field is filled with dedicated, intelligent, positive thinking and we always enjoy the chance to interact with our peers. Social Media Breakfast Chicago, the local chapter of the national social organization, gathered last Tuesday at Event Architects in downtown Chicago and a few members of our team were lucky enough to attend.

Social Media Breakfast Chicago, founded in 2009 by Craig Bagdon, Scott Bishop and Mike Pilarz, shatters the “Panel vs. Audience” model. Education and awareness about digital topics come from in-depth discussion and conversation.  Each breakfast – this was the seventh held in Chicago – opens with a 30 minute networking and breakfast gathering of all participants. Then the group breaks off into smaller clusters of 5-10 people to participate in discussions led by moderators on topics chosen before the event.  Seats for each topic are available through the SMBChicago eventbrite page. Tickets are free for everyone but are limited in order to promote friendly discussion and debate. The Breakfasts have become so popular, tickets typically sell out in under 15 minutes!

Measuring Community Engagement

There were five topics at last week’s Breakfast and I was lucky enough to snag a seat at Amy Le’s table to discuss the true value of community engagement at the start up level. Amy is the social media manager at GrubHub.com and opened the lively discussion by explaining the nature of social media engagement: “With each follower or fan, you must emphasize quality over quantity”. In this new era of digital marketing, it’s important to look beyond the major categories like Facebook Fans or Twitter Followers and understand the value of your community engagement.

Here are some metrics that Amy and her team record (in an Excel spreadsheet) at GrubHub as they strive to turn followers into Brand Evangelists:

• Outbound Tweets per week
• Followers Added or Lost per week
• Retweets by Followers
• Reason for ReTweet
• Click throughs
• Customer Service Tweets
• Mentions of Brand name
• Conversions & Direct Sales

By collecting this data over time, Amy is able to deliver well-founded feedback to the marketing team which is then turned into effective and targeted marketing campaigns (ROI anyone?). This analysis of social media engagement also helps Amy establish branding and linkbuilding through the GrubHub blog.

Strategy First

Throughout the discussion, Amy made sure to emphasize the importance of strategy in social media. Each engagement – whether on the blog, Twitter, Facebook or email – is founded in a comprehensive social media marketing strategy. Here are a few strategic points to keep in mind before starting a social media campaign:

• Consistent tone: Is slang appropriate? Or is a professional approach more in line with your goals?
• Teamwork: How will you keep your team on the same page and working together? Social media departments have grown beyond one person outfits. How will your company maintain a consistent outreach?
• Measurement: How often will you record data? Is a tool like Radian 6 necessary or is an Excel spreadsheet all you need?
• Tools: There are hundreds of free tools to help you manage your social media accounts.
• Platform: A Facebook feed isn’t right for every company. Likewise, Twitter won’t work 100% of the time either. Is FourSquare right for your business? Save time and money by choosing the right social media platform

Discuss Amongst Yourselves

All this knowledge at just one table! The other tables discussed the following topics:

• Embracing “The Shift” – Why Social Platforms Don’t Matter
• Social Media’s Role in Event Marketing
• Google Instant Impact: Is SEO Dead or More Important than Ever?
• Mobile Marketing: Social Gifting and Social Buying The Newest Form of Social Marketing

For more information on Social Media Breakfast Chicago or to find the chapter in your city, please visit the SMB Cities page. Co-Founder Mike Pilarz has indicated that the next event is planned for November. Hope to see you then!

GrubHub Social Media Presence:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Flickr
• Foursquare

Google launched their new Instant Search on September 8 and internet marketers everywhere collectively raised one giant eyebrow,

“Is SEO Dead?”

As is often the case, the answer to this internet marketing question is relative, depending largely on how you or your company defines search engine optimization (SEO).  If your search team focuses exclusively on gaming the search engines to achieve rankings…watch out.  Search engines are constantly working towards eliminating this type of SEO and Google Instant is a large step in that direction.

On the other hand, SEO is alive and well if your SEO team works hard on relevant keyword lists, curating great content, building strong inbound links, and finding qualified traffic.  For years, these types of activities have won results and erased the dubious reputation hanging over the SEO industry. SEOmoz’s latest research on Latent Dirichlet Allocation is one example of the great work achieved inside the SEO industry. But a few stragglers have remained and for those, Google Instant is a loud wake-up call: SPAMMY SEO IS DEAD. Let’s look at some ways for hard working SEOs to continue their craft amidst the Google Instant hoopla.

SEO’s Vital Signs

First and foremost, Google Instant triggered no massive changes to Google’s ranking algorithm. Still, some very earnest SEO practitioners have raised important questions about the launch this feature. Google Instant suggests topics and phrases in real-time, slightly altering the behavior of most searches, but that’s hardly reason to sound SEO’s death knell.  Rather, it’s time to reevaluate your online marketing practices with a strong focus on accountability.

Points of Contention: Viva SEO!

In response to several “SEO is Dead” proclamations, Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan explained: “SEO is the activity of ensuring you are well listed in any search results that are offered to a user for free”.   In that sense, SEO will be around for a long time, but the industry must continue to evolve as search engines progress.  Let’s look at some of the ways Google Instant will change SEO:

Emphasis on Local

Within hours of Instant’s launch, hundreds of screen shots (like the one below) were uploaded showing how organic listings are obsolete when it comes to geographical queries. Instant suggestions move the results further down the user’s screen, pushing organic listings “below the fold”, an area web users rarely scroll to. Therefore, the optimization of local listings must become a priority for SEOs, if it isn’t already. Local optimization includes claiming your business listing on Google Places, and building links from local directories like your Chamber of Commerce or local wiki’s.

Traffic Fluctuations

Even Google acknowledged that Instant will most likely change the distribution of traffic of organic keywords. For example, if the phrase “Cupcake store” brought 1,000 search visitors to your site in August, your September numbers may vary more than you’re used to. As the months go on, it’s important to track these changes and learn how visitors are finding your site.  These analytics numbers may uproot the keyword research conducted months ago, but that’s the life of an SEO, right? Each optimization strategy must be supported by actionable data.

End of Long Tail?

Long tail keywords are the phrases and search queries that generate very specific results for users. Long tail strategy is very important for SEO results.  The importance of long tail cannot be overlooked even in the era of Instant. Highly motivated searchers entering long tail phrases like “Cupcake stores organic frosting are unlikely to hit Enter after only typing “Cupcake store”.

Additionally, in the minutes after Instant was announced, Marissa Mayer, Google VP of Search Products explained how the new feature may actually increase the relevancy of long tail. In an interview with Evelyn Rusli of Tech Crunch, Mayer described how Instant led her to explore additional search suggestions, making the search process more of a learning process than ever before. Even if we factor in Mayer’s objective perspective, SEOs must keep the adventuresome searcher in mind, optimizing for both long and short tail searches.

Keyword Research

It’s time to add usability tests to your keyword research. With search behavior so varied now, it’s important to see what your potential customers will see when they search. Start by typing your key phrases and long tail terms into Google’s search box. What suggestions are made? When does your targeted term finally come up? Does another term come up first? Asking these sorts of questions can lead to low hanging fruit for your clients.

Google Loves SEO

Without a strong SEO community encouraging content creation, smart meta data and other best practices, Google would have some trouble finding the best websites to answer search queries. Likewise, what would the SEO community be without search engines like Google? This symbiotic relationship is one reason SEO is not dead at the hands of Google Instant.  As Mayer articulated in the Tech Crunch interview, optimized sites will continue to rank well. It is clear that Google Instant will change some of the fundamentals of SEO, but that’s exciting! Genuine, hard work will pay off now more than ever.

Marketers aren’t the only ones using SEO to their advantage.  According to a 13-month study recently released by Google, malware (short for malicious software) authors are using black hat SEO techniques to push fake anti-virus software to unsuspecting users.  Fake anti-virus programs account for 15 percent of all malware Google sees on the Web.  Malware authors have been running these fake anti-virus programs since as early as 2003, but with Google’s evolution to allow users more transparency with things like Google Trends, it has gotten extremely easy for malware writers to access trending data, stuff web sites with trending keywords, and increase the infected page’s search rankings.

Don DeBolt, director of threat research for CA’s Internet security business unit says, “They [malware authors] have perfected the use of Google trend data to build viable targets, because the content indexed is driven from popular searches at any moment in time,” he says. “In the past we saw mass keyword SEO, where static content was placed on compromised Web sites and later indexed by Google, but now that content has grown more dynamic.”

The study notes that fake anti-virus distributors rely a great deal on on-line advertisements and pages with trending keywords to do their dirty work.  They have also become quite savvy with their distribution networks, constantly rotating among “short-lived domains” so they don’t get caught.  So far, it’s worked pretty well for them, but Google is doing their best to fix the problem.  In the meantime, be cautious with what and where you click on the Web in order to remain unaffected.

You can read Google’s report here.