Another windy morning in Chicago last Thursday ushered in an intrepid LoSasso quartet to The Drake Hotel. Awaiting LoSasso President, Scott LoSasso and Vice President, Mark Hollingsworth were professors from colleges and universities around the Midwest, plumbing the depths of LoSasso’s interactive marketing expertise at the 2011 Spring Marketing Management Association Conference. The talk was organized by Don Jones and resulted in great dialogue between area professors and our LoSasso team.

The presentation addressed changes in the marketing industry and what businesses are looking for in new hires, especially those undergraduates hot off the presses. Particular attention was paid to content driven interaction: the driving force behind creating a space for consumers to interact with one another and with businesses. Industry forums and social media (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, FourSquare) have become the new quilting circle or local watering hole where information is readily exchanged, available and digested at a rapid pace.

The message was clear: the toolbox has changed but the fundamental principles of marketing have stayed the same. Developing a relationship with a client is still at the core of those principles; it is the way in which we enhance that relationship that has grown to include social media, SEO (search engine optimization) and the need to build a presence both physically and virtually for every client.

Frequent and consistent messaging continues to be of utmost importance but a close second is the need for silos within businesses to break down. More than ever, direct marketing and public relations are completely meshed together: communications and marketing departments have to interface constantly to maintain that consistent messaging for optimal success in their campaigns.

The discussion was also centered around best practices for hiring and what makes a new hire successful. Scott LoSasso initiated the conversation by outlining optimal job candidates that contribute to a team work environment. Incoming new hires are strong writers, positive team players, involved in an array of social media platforms, creative thinkers and detail-oriented. For more information about skill sets businesses look for in new hires, visit iMedia Connection.

Thank you to the Marketing Management Association, Don Jones, The Drake Hotel and all in attendance for a great open discussion about our evolving industry!

You can create and design a great website, but if no one can find it then it doesn’t have much value.  At Losasso we try to impart the importance of SEO to our clients.  We are not in the camp of “all traffic is good traffic” but rather we believe that driving qualified traffic to our client’s sites through solid search engine optimization is what is important.

There are some fairly simple steps you can follow to make sure your website is optimized and easy to find.  In an interview with USA Today, Google’s Matt Cutts imparts some of his SEO wisdom to the masses.  From making sure you are properly utilizing you “tags” to creating a blog, take a look at this article to read all the simple steps Cutts suggests in order to get your site in good SEO standing.

While 106.5 million viewers tuned in to the New Orleans Saints Super Bowl XLIV victory, a great majority also anticipated the creative commercial debuts. This year, many companies topped the list: Snickers featured a football-playing Betty White, Denny’s urged Chickens to lay low, Budweiser created a house completely made of Bud Light cans, and a life-long friendship between a Clydesdale and bull.

But it was Google’s low-production, highly emotive “Parisian Love” that made the biggest impact in the online viewing aftermath. As of February 11, the commercial gained over 3.4 million views on YouTube; the next in line with 1.7 million YouTube views is Doritos “House Rules.”

This year’s Super Bowl boasts viewer numbers so high, it ended the 27-year reign of the M*A*S*H series finale as the most-watched U.S. television broadcast ever. (There were 70 million fewer Americans back in 1983, making Sunday’s Super Bowl technically lag behind the M*A*S*H finale in share numbers.) Still, it’s an impressive feat: as record-breaking numbers of viewers tuned in Sunday, and word spread online, Google’s Parisian Love spot received the most hits.

It’s no surprise that the Google name is so highly recognizable it trumped brand giants like Doritos, Budweiser, Coca-Cola, Volkswagen, Dodge, and Dr. Pepper. As our society forges on with the online revolution, it seems only fitting that Google, the brand that just happens to be a powerful search engine, was viewed more than any others on the Super Bowl 44’s YouTube channel.

This week Google reps revealed the latest development in their search portfolio — social search. This latest feature displays social search results at the bottom of the search results page.

Users can access this feature in the Google Labs section of their Google account. Once activated, Google pulls their social circle from their Google profile. The results display relevant data retrieved real-time from their social networks.

When designing the feature, Google was careful to protect users’ rights – they will only pull information users’ choose to include on their Google profile. Google gives users the option to individually add the social networks they want included in their profiles and thus their social search.

Right now, Google has a contract to include Twitter posts in the social search results, but I wouldn’t be surprised if additional social networking platforms will follow in coming months.

Social Search Result:

Google results also allow users to see how they are connected to the social search results. For example, I did a social search for “Chicago Marketing” and the first result to appear is jslchicago – connected to his Twitter page via Gmail.

Google’s social search allows results to appear in real-time and without violating users’ privacy. Their strict parameters of choice and transparency ensure that users only share the information they choose to share.

Here’s an in-depth demo from Google:

I tried several social searches and was very impressed with the results I saw. It combines the granular search of Google with the real-time aspects of Twitter.

The fact that it only pulls information from users social networks ensures that the data users get in their queries is from a known source – not just another random insight from an unknown “expert.” Well done Google.

This week Microsoft’s Bing.com goes live to the public. According to Mashable’s Stan Schroeder, the site offers decent search results, but is very similar to Live.com (which now redirects to Bing.com)

As far as being an effective search tool, Schroeder had mixed results “If you’re used to entering precise queries, such as ‘Starbucks menu’, you’ll never see them. If you prefer entering a broader query ‘Starbucks’ and then choosing from subcategories such as Recipes, Menu, Franchise, Nutrition and Coupons, Bing will work great.”

I decided to test his results by doing a search of my own. I chose “Chipolte.” I did like the way Bing categorized the results into subcategories on the left, all results in the middle and related search items on the right. As far as breadth of coverage,I compared Bing’s search capabilities to Google’s. Bing pulled 92,900 results, while Google pulled 133,000.

Overall, it was an impressive display for a beta search engine, but I do agree with Schroeder in saying that Bing falls short of revolutionizing search. I’d say it will be a while until we can really access its value. While I liked Bing, I think I will stick with Google (for now at least…)