Mar
1st

Oneupweb : PPC Expansion & Exploration

Posted by Bob on March 1, 2010 at 10:27 am

Google AdWords is a huge piece of your Paid Search (PPC) campaign, eh? I suppose that Yahoo! and Bing also contribute to your efforts, or you plan to include them at some point on the horizon. But is that the end of the road? Are you exhausting all of your PPC resources?

If you haven’t already, it’s time to branch out and explore some new PPC marketing opportunities. Don’t get me wrong, Google is still the king when it comes to getting your company in front of a large and qualified audience. But there are other opportunities that allow you to get your message in front of other large audiences.

With social sites like Facebook and LinkedIn, you can target very specific demographics, while comparison shopping engines like Google Product Search and PriceGrabber allow you to place your product in front of interested consumers.

Both Facebook and Linked in allow you to create specifically targeted PPC ads that you can display to the demographic of your choosing. The targeted demographic can be as large or as small as you want it to be. Though these are placement ads, and the person seeing the ad is not actively searching for your product or service, the granular control over demographics helps to ensure that your message is reaching qualified prospective customers.

Expanding into shopping engines like Google Product Search allows you to highlight your product in a shopping environment. People conducting searches in shopping engines are usually deeper into the conversion funnel, meaning that it’s likely they have already done their research and are ready to purchase. This places your product in front of motivated buyers. If you’re a price leader, or offer good purchasing incentives, then shopping engines are a great place for expansion! Best of all, Google Product Search is free and can be integrated into your existing AdWords campaign.

It’s really an exciting time to be involved in PPC. There are so many opportunities, outlets and channels to leverage and explore. Expanding your campaigns outside of traditional search engine platforms and into other areas could supply the boost you’re looking for, and take your campaign to the next level!

Is your company ready to break through the boundaries of its current PPC efforts? Or are you ready to take your performance to the next level? Contact an expert like Oneupweb. Growing businesses is what we do, and we would love to help you reach your goals.

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Feb
23rd

Oneupweb : Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics Get Social

Posted by Adam D on February 23, 2010 at 9:53 am

The 2010 winter Olympic Games have been full of exciting ups and downs. From Shaun White’s snowboard run for the gold, to the interesting outfits of male figure skater Johnny Weir to Apolo Ohno’s near crash with the Chinese, there have been plenty of exciting moments for fans to dig into. And this year, the Olympics have become more integrated with social media than ever before, resulting in the creation of some pretty cool new social tools.

Meet the Olympic Pulse.

Here you’ll find many different ways to stay updated on all things “Vancouver 2010″. You can view the “Tweet Sheet”, where tweets from athletes and NBCOlympics.com are posted.

Or you can try something a little more abstract like the Olympic Tracker. This neat tool uses images of a topic to sort tweets by popularity. The larger the image is, the more tweets it has received. You can also choose the time period you want to view. So you can view popular topics by adjusting the slider on the right side.

You can also see what’s being dug up on the Olympic Games from Digg.com, embed a widget into your social profile or use RSS to get your proverbial IV drip of “Vancouver 2010″ if you prefer. There are also some pretty slick photo and video interfaces where you can view celebrity sighting photos at the games and receive email and mobile alerts.

You can also just use Vancouver Olympic Games official Twitter and Facebook pages to keep up with the games. Are you an Olympic enthusiast? If so, let us know how you like to use social media for the 2010 Olympic Games!

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Feb
9th

Oneupweb : Apple Is Destroying The Way We Do Business: A Love Story

Posted by Paul on February 9, 2010 at 2:30 pm

I remember a time back in college, back when the internet was in its infancy, there was an ad on TV for Butterball turkey. And at the end of that commercial they showed this newfangled thing called a URL. I remember thinking to myself, “Now why the heck does a poultry company need a web site? That’s just pointless.” Only now can I look back and see just how wrong I was and how right Butterball was: if you are a business, you need a website. Period, paragraph, end of statement.

Since the explosion of the internet, having an online presence is no longer something that you get around to, or even an option. It’s a must-have.

Jump ahead to 2006. A little website called Twitter is released into the wild, allowing people to send out 140 character updates into the ether, freely available for anyone who wants to listen. Once again, I found myself thinking, “140 characters? I guess it’s a neat concept, but it’ll never take off. That’s not enough space to say anything of substance.” Nostradamus, I am not. With tens of millions of users, Twitter has emerged as a juggernaut that shows no signs of slowing.

Fast forward to now—everyone has a website, your grandmother’s on Twitter and you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting someone who owns a “smartphone”. And what’s the number one “gotta have” smartphone out there? You guessed it, Apple’s iPhone. Released in 2007, and with over one hundred thousand apps available to download and over two billion (yes, with a “b“) downloads and counting, Apple is forcing companies to once again reconsider how they do business. It’s no longer enough to have a website, heavens no. To be truly successful in this Web 2.0 world, one must have a social media presence, mobile-optimized sites and yes, even an iPhone app.

Luckily, all of these are things that we fine folks over at Oneupweb can help out with. Whether you need your Facebook fixed, your Twitter tweaked or your main site mobile-phone-ified, give us a call at 877.568.7477 and find out what we can do for you.

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Jan
26th

Social Media Site Traffic Increases 82% Worldwide

Posted by Keirsun on January 26, 2010 at 10:36 am

Wondering if marketing via social networks is worth your company’s time? New stats from Nielsen should help you answer that question.

According to Nielsen’s recently released research data, consumers worldwide spent more than 5 ½ hours on social networking sites in December 2009. That’s up from a little more than 3 hours in December 2008, and 2 hours and 10 minutes in December 2007.

So according to Nielsen, time spent on social networking sites by people around the world has increased 82% in just one year. In addition, overall traffic to social networking sites has significantly spiked as well.

But wait, there’s more!

Nielsen says Facebook captured 67% of the global social media audience last month, with 206.9 million unique visitors. In the United States specifically, Facebook towered over its peers on the list of most visited social networking sites.

Similar to the data for global users, U.S. users are also spending much more time on their favorite social networks:

People in the U.S. continue to spend more time on social networking and blog sites as well, with total minutes increasing 210% year-over-year and the average time per person increasing 143% year-over-year in December 2009. Year-over-year growth in average time spent by U.S. users, for both Facebook and Twitter.com, outpaced the overall growth for the category, increasing 200% and 368%, respectively.

Interesting Stat: Australians top the list of most time spent on social media sites, spending an average of almost 7 hours in December. (That’s a lot of G’day, Mates!)

For some reason, I don’t question Nielsen stats as much as I do stats from other research companies—probably because of the company’s history of measuring broadcast media audiences. But if, like me, you’re interested in how Nielsen acquires its data, you can learn more about it here.

This Nielsen data helps paint the picture of what we see happening online: social networks are becoming the user’s window to the Internet. Social networks are providing the content, information, recommendations and engagement that online audiences want and need.

Still wondering if your company should engage customers via social media? We can help. Check out Oneupweb’s Social Media Marketing Services to get a better idea of what we do, in addition to where we like to be social, too.

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Jan
8th

2010: The Year Of Fun For B-to-B Marketers

Posted by Carly Wujcik on January 8, 2010 at 10:45 am

That’s my prediction. This is the year that business-to-business marketers will decide that they’re tired of standing on the uninspiring, tried-and-true sidelines while watching the consumer brands have all of the fun. They want in on some of the cutting-edge action. And they’re tired of taking themselves so seriously. As they should be—it can be taxing.

Personally, I’ve never been able to understand what the fear of new marketing initiatives is all about (hence my line of work, I suppose). None the less, 2009 brought about many of the same arguments from our b-to-b prospects and clients, some of the most common being:

“Social media looks great. But we’re marketing to businesses; we’re not a consumer brand. It’s just not for us.”
“Sure, iPhone apps are intriguing—but we’re not selling deodorant—we’re selling medical supplies.”
“Augmented Reality—looks great, but our steel manufacturing technologies really don’t lend themselves to that kind of interaction.”
“We’d like to wait.”

Wait for what? For your competition to do it first?

Don’t get me wrong, I can see some of the reasoning behind the concern, especially with the restricted and closely monitored budgets of last year. And truth be told, it’s still hard to show a business-to-business company concrete case studies of their peers embarking on trailblazing marketing strategies and reaping enormous rewards. But only because most b-to-b companies are still hesitant to make the leap.

So here’s my rebuttal—my case for trying out new marketing initiatives in 2010, if you will. You’re marketing your products and solutions to organizations. Not to be confused with moms, avid golfers or movie fanatics. You’re marketing to businesses.

Who is it within those businesses that ultimately decides to purchase your product, or hire your company?

I know, when you type it out, it sounds ludicrous and a touch patronizing—but listen up, Business-to-Business Marketers (and I can call you that because I am one): you’re targeting decision makers. Decision makers are people (at least for now). People are the reason why technology continues to advance and evolve. It’s because people are using it and demanding more of it. People, like you and I. The moms, avid golfers and movie fanatics of the world.

So let this be your year. Embrace the utility an iPhone application can bring to your prospects. Jump into Facebook. Go mobile. Launch a YouTube channel. Get crazy and test out a widget! Sure, your message will be different than that of consumer brands—but the medium is there. Ready and waiting.

You’re marketing to people. So Be Relentless™ in 2010. Make it fun, make it useful and make it personal. And the case study will write itself.

As always, if you need help getting started, contact Oneupweb.

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