Online Marketing News this Week – Feb 4th 2011

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Combination of Google tools for local search

Consider how the how the following add up:

From the Google Mobile Blog:

“We first introduced Google Latitude to help you stay in touch with your friends and family by making it easy to share where you are. For the 10 million people actively using Latitude each month, this “where” has been a location on a map. Starting today (Feb. 1st 2011) in Google Maps 5.1 for Android, you can also connect that location to a real place by checking in there using Latitude.”

If you are using Latitude, Google knows where you are and you can now ‘check in’ to various locations either manually or automatically.  You can then see which of your friends are checked in and where they are.  The important thing for businesses to note is that people can then talk to anyone who is listening about what they are experiencing.  Note the review in the picture below:

latitude-search-result-with-review

From the official Google blog 2/2/2011:

“Back in November, we introduced Hotpot, a new local recommendation engine powered by you and your friends. Using Hotpot is simple: you rate places on google.com/hotpot—restaurants, hotels, cafes—and add friends on Hotpot whose opinions you trust. Then the next time you perform a search, Google will serve up personalized results, listing places based on your tastes, as well as recommendations from your friends.”

In conjunction with mobile AdWords which can now contain offers and ‘click to call’ response this all continues to point toward an emphasis on real time local search.  The competition is intense for this market in America with Foursquare, Facebook, Bing, Yelp and others.  The challenge for local business is how to develop as positive an online presence as possible.

From the Google Mobile Blog 1/2/2011:

“As we announced last November, millions of people have downloaded Google Shopper for Android to help them shop on the go. Today, we’re excited to let you know that Google Shopper, our popular Android shopping application, is now available for iPhone as a download in the App Store. Google Shopper turns your iPhone into a shopping assistant, so you can:

  • Learn more about products and read relevant user reviews
  • Compare prices at online and local stores
  • Save and share products for later consideration”

Up until this announcement many Google local search applications have only been available for Google Android.  An iPhone version hugely increases potential use.

Advertising on Facebook:

A recent Webtrends report shows the average CTR for Facebook ads to have dropped from 0.063% in 2009 to 0.051% in 2010.  0.1% would be considered an industry average.  Meanwhile the average CPC has increased from US$0.27 to US$0.49.  The report also states that social brands perform the best and that fans say they are primarily on Facebook ‘for fun’ .  This seems obvious for a social network like Facebook but it needs to be carefully watched if you are considering how to engage through Facebook and whether or not to advertise.  New trends could develop very quickly.

Bing ‘caught’ copying Google search results?

This one has reached the international press.  The two sides of the story make fascinating reading:

Google’s suspicions lead them to set a trap for Bing.

It is hard to read Bing’s response as anything other than a complicated way of saying ‘we are only doing what everyone else does’.

Related posts:

  1. Online Marketing News this Week – 6th March 2011
  2. Online Marketing News this Week – 17th Dec 2010
  3. Online Marketing News this Week – 7th Oct 2011
  4. Online Marketing News this Week – 16th Sept 2011
  5. Online Marketing News this Week – 18th Nov 2011
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