Getting the Media to Cover Your Business
- Posted by Chris Crum in MAKE MONEY ONLINE, WEBSITE SEO |
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Arketi Group has released findings of a study on how journalists use the Internet. The web provides a great many resources to both online and offline journalists. Here are some ways that most journalists use the web:
- 95% say search
- 92% say reading news
- 92% say emailing
- 89% say finding story ideas
- 87% say finding news sources
- 75% say reading blogs
- 64% say watching webinars
- 61%say watching YouTube
- 59% say social networks
Social Media and Sources
88% of journalists say they spend at least 20 hours a week on the Internet. 85% have a LinkedIn account, 55% have a Facebook account, and 24% tweet.
92% say they get story ideas from news releases, 85% say they turn to industry sources. 85% also say they turn to PR contacts. Surprisingly, only 12% turn to Twitter for sources or story ideas. I find this particularly interesting, because it seems like Twitter is mentioned very frequently by reporters in all forms of media.
Another interesting stat according to Arketi Group is that over half of journalists surveyed consider citizen journalism to be a positive thing.
What Businesses Should Pay Attention To
The findings should be considered by companies looking to gain exposure from media coverage. Being visible and available for comment can be key to a story about your business getting picked up by a publication.
"While high-profile social media tools like blogs, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are of interest to journalists, our findings indicate BtoB marketers should not discount tried-and-true Internet technology," said Mike Neumeier, principal of Arketi. "Search engine optimization and building media-friendly websites site remain vital to reaching the business media."
In fact, Arketi says that corporate websites make a difference in how journalists view an organization. 80% of those surveyed say that companies without a site are less credible. This is not such a surprise. I would go a little further and suggest that poorly designed and maintained sites can have the same effect.
If you read WebProNews, you more than likely have a site. Still, there are a great many businesses out there that do not, and are missing out on tons of opportunities. Even with regards to just media coverage, there are a lot more people to potentially write about your business online than there are offline, and it’s a lot easier to network with them.
Of course, if you’re looking for media coverage, it helps if your company does something newsworthy. Do something worth talking about and somebody will talk about it.
Amazon Kills Affiliate Program In Rhode Island
- Posted by Mike Sachoff in MAKE MONEY ONLINE, WEBSITE SEO |
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Amazon.com has killed another affiliates program due to proposed legislation that would force the company to collect and pay sales tax in Rhode Island.
The move comes less than a week after Amazon notified its affiliates in North Carolina it would be ending its program there due to similar proposed legislation.
The affiliates are members of a program called Amazon Associates, which allows them to place ads for Amazon items on their websites. Users can click through to Amazon’s site, and each affiliate receives money if a purchase is made.
Sucharita Mulpuru
Rhode Island affiliate Rick Wilson posted Amazon’s termination email on his blog.
"We are writing from the Amazon Associates Program to notify you that your Associates account has been closed as of June 29, 2009. This is a direct result of the unconstitutional tax collection scheme passed by the Rhode Island General Assembly with a veto-proof majority."
"As a result, we will no longer pay any referral fees for customers referred to Amazon.com or Endless.com after June 29. We were forced to take this unfortunate action in anticipation of actual enactment because of uncertainties surrounding the legislation’s effective date. The governor could sign the bill - or have his veto overridden - any day now."
The email goes on to say, "In the even that Rhode Island repeals this tax collection scheme, we would certainly be happy to re-open our Associates program to Rhode Island residents."
Forrester Research analyst Sucharita Mulpuru estimated that 10 percent of Amazon’s sales could come from its associates, but the move to pull out of Rhode Island was unlikely to significantly impact the company’s bottom line.
"It couldn’t have been such a materially significant part of their revenue in the first place, that’s what it comes down to," she told Reuters. "Affiliates are nice to have but by no stretch of the imagination are they going to make or break Amazon’s Web site."
Other states considering similar tax laws include California, Connecticut and Hawaii.
 
 
Facebook Meets Google Checkout
- Posted by Chris Crum in MAKE MONEY ONLINE, WEBSITE SEO |
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Back in May, it was reported that Facebook was going to begin testing a payments system. This inevitably led to discussion about how Facebook might be preparing to take on products like PayPal and Google Checkout.
Now, some more interesting news has surfaced. Facebook has hired a new Director of Product Management for Facebook payments - Prashant Fuloria. Guess where he comes from. He spent six years at Google, where he was a Director of Product Management and worked on Google Checkout.
"Fuloria has his work cut out for him as he oversees the development, testing, and wider launch of Facebook payments services over the next several months," says Inside Facebook’s Justin Smith. "While Facebook only accepts credit card payments today, it is likely to expand its payments tests in the future, as the company seeks to monetize users across geographies and demographic profiles."
"Managing the integration of payments methods and systems into the Facebook experience is an increasingly important challenge for the company as it seeks to create a new, substantial direct-to-consumer revenue stream in a market that is known for its high operational costs, major fraud challenges, and international complexity," he adds.
As you may be aware, Facebook has already been offering virtual currency within its network. It is even expanded upon the number of currencies that it deals with. Facebook taking a payments platform outside of its own network and onto the entire web could be huge.
Think about how Facebook is already integrated into so many web properties, whether it be through Facebook Connect or Pages or just sharing capabilities. Everybody already has a Facebook profile (many, many people do anyway). They’re going to start out with some level of trust.
The concept has a lot of potential as a big moneymaker for Facebook, and as a convenient way for consumers to make online payments. You have to wonder if purchases made would have any effect on ads Facebook shows you. We might be heading for some very interesting developments in Facebook monetization.
Yahoo Getting Rid of Maven Video Business
- Posted by Chris Crum in MAKE MONEY ONLINE, WEBSITE SEO |
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In February, 2008, Yahoo acquired Maven Networks for $160 million. Maven is a supplier of online video players and video advertising tools.
A year and a half later, Yahoo is already ditching it. The company has said that it is planning to "wind down its customer base."
"This decision will allow us to focus our resources on the continued improvement of our core video offerings, such as enhancing the consumer video experience on Yahoo!," the company said in a statement. "Since Q4 2008, we have closed or announced our intention to close, nearly twenty Yahoo! services– such as Yahoo! 360, GeoCities, My Web and Yahoo! Briefcase. We continue to evaluate our portfolio of products and services on a regular basis, and plan to share details of further changes with people who use our products in the months ahead."
Maven has been integrated into both Yahoo’s video player and the Yahoo video advertising platform. It is unclear what will be used as an alternative at this point.
Yahoo’s video ad products include in-player video advertising (pre- and post-roll), In-banner video advertising, and original video content sponsorships. They also offer opportunities for publishers.
The company says that while video initiatives are still a priority for its consumer and advertising experiences, they are increasing investment in some areas while scaling back in others.
Other video-related products that Yahoo has parted with include Y!Live and Jumpcut.
Oxford University Press Endorses Google Book Settlement
- Posted by Doug Caverly in MAKE MONEY ONLINE, WEBSITE SEO |
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The world’s largest university press has sided with Google in the ongoing Google Book Settlement debate.  Yesterday, Tim Barton, the president of Oxford University Press, spent about 2,700 words explaining that he believes even a flawed settlement is better than nothing.
The phrase "if it’s not online, it’s invisible" best sums up the position Barton outlined for the Chronicle of Higher Education.  Barton’s observed students ignoring important modern books in favor of old, out-of-copyright stuff that can more easily be found on the Internet, and feels making texts available online is critical to keeping "written wisdom" alive.
Barton isn’t ready to blindly support Google, however.  With regards to so-called "orphan works," he wrote, "Making those books available again is a clear public good.  Google’s having exclusive rights to use them, as enshrined in the current settlement, however, is not."
Barton then encouraged Congress to get involved, continuing, "If the parties to the settlement cannot themselves solve this major problem, then at a minimum Congress should pass orphan-works legislation that gives others the same rights as Google - an essential step if Google is not to gain an unfair advantage."
This development represents an interesting half-win for the search giant.  Hat tip goes to Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson and Richard Waters.
U.S. IT Spending Set For Rebound
- Posted by Mike Sachoff in MAKE MONEY ONLINE, WEBSITE SEO |
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Growth in U.S. IT spending is expected to rebound in the fourth quarter of 2009, and 2010 is on track to bring a revival of IT buying in other markets as well, according to an updated forecast by Forrester Research.
Global spending on IT services by businesses and governments in 2009 are projected to decline by 10.6 percent, compared with a 3 percent decrease previously projected at the beginning of the year by Forrester.
Andrew Bartels
IT spending in the U.S. is projected to decline 5.1 percent this year, compared with a 3.1 percent decrease previously forecast. Forrester says new data about large declines in business technology investment during the first quarter prompted it to update its outlook on technology spending.
"While Q1 2009 saw a scary drop in purchases in the US tech market, ironically that is good news for the long run and we expect to see a stronger rebound sooner," said Andrew Bartels, Forrester Research vice president and principal analyst.
"The big drops are not precursors to further declines; rather, we think they are evidence of a temporary pause in US tech purchases, which we expect to start recovering in Q4 as businesses realize that they overreacted in the first quarter." He added, "We also expect that tech markets in Europe and Asia will start to recover in the first half of 2010."
Looking at the 2009 global IT spending outlook by sector, Forrester anticipates lower investment than previously expected across all categories. Purchases of computer equipment is projected to be down 13.4 percent, communications equipment buying will drop 12.4 percent, software spending will dip 8.2 percent, and purchases of IT services will be 8.6 percent lower.
 
Google Showing Altered SERPs
- Posted by Chris Crum in MAKE MONEY ONLINE, WEBSITE SEO |
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Google appears to have rolled out (to what extent we’re not sure) a design change to its search results pages. The change seems to be very minor and insignificant, but Google altering SERPs is just something that can’t be ignored by the search industry.
The (hardly) noticeable changes are a little bit of padding on the left-hand side, and a slightly smaller version of the Google logo. It’s just enough to make you wonder if it’s changed or if you’re just crazy.
It is unclear if the changes are widespread or just experimental. Phillipp Lenssen at Google Blogoscoped points out, "I’m currently seeing a slightly changed layout for Google results. The Google logo has gotten smaller, and there’s more padding to the left. In Firefox, the file holding the logo for the new layout is called nav_logo6.png (when I open the old layout in Chrome, it’s nav_logo4.png)."
How many of you are seeing the changes? Have you noticed anything else different? Please share.
Generate Traffic to Your Affiliate Marketing Programs with Articles
- Posted by Taylor in MAKE MONEY ONLINE |
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Ads Convert Better on Bing Than on Live Search?
- Posted by Chris Crum in MAKE MONEY ONLINE, WEBSITE SEO |
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Online marketing firm the Search Agency says that based on analysis of its own accounts, Microsoft search ads appear to be performing better since Bing launched.  The firm looked at the final three weeks of Live Search’s existence, and the first three of Bing’s.
Click through rates, conversions, and conversion rates all increased. One would be tempted to chalk this up to the initial burst of Bing enthusiasm that came along with its launch. In other words, just because Bing is seeing a lot of action now, doesn’t mean it will be a year from now. The Search Agency is quick to point out however, that impressions have actually been fewer.
"Although Bing’s search volume has increased on the heels of their aggressive advertising campaign, Microsoft has been more selective on which ads they serve on each search results page, often times electing not to serve any ads at all," says Frank Lee on the firm’s blog. "As a result, we saw a 22% drop in total impressions.  But Bing has significantly increased the relevancy of those impressions, yielding double digit growth in CTR and conversion rate."
The rates found from the Search Agency’s analysis:
- Click Through Rate (CTR) up 15%
- Conversions up 6%
- Conversion rate up 18%
- Cost per Acquisition (CPA) down 3%
Lee does acknowledge that the "curiosity factor" could have played a big role in in the numbers above - "explorers clicking on all sorts of listings to see how the new engine performs."
Still, conversions are conversions. Thinking back to my first experiments with using the Bing search engine, I did not find myself clicking through on ads, and if I had, I likely wouldn’t have made any purchases. If people were just messing around to see how Bing works, I have to wonder how many conversions this would have inspired. Perhaps there really is something significant in these numbers.
Facebook Hires New Financial Chief
- Posted by Mike Sachoff in MAKE MONEY ONLINE, WEBSITE SEO |
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Facebook has announced it has named David Ebersman, as its new chief financial officer.
Ebersman is the former executive vice president and chief financial officer of biotechnology firm Genentech. He replaces Facebook’s former financial chief, Gideon Yu, who left the company in March.
Ebersman will report to Chief Executive and Founder Mark Zuckerberg. He will be in charge of Facebook’s finance, accounting, investor relations, and real estate functions. He also becomes a part of the company’s executive management team, which runs all aspects of company strategy, planning and operations. Ebersman will officially start in September.
David Ebersman
"We received a lot of interest in the CFO position and had the opportunity to meet with many impressive candidates," said Mark Zuckerberg.
"We quickly recognized that David was the right person for Facebook. He was Genentech’s CFO while revenue tripled, and his success in scaling the finance organization of a fast growing company will be important to Facebook."
In March after the departure of Yu, Facebook said it was working towards its "next stage of growth," which led many to speculate about a possible IPO.
Facebook also said it was "looking for someone with public company experience," which it gets with Ebersman. He worked at Genentech for nearly 15 years and was the firm’s executive vice president and CFO from 2006 through April 2009, when the Roche Group purchased the company.
 
