Social Media Makes the News
USA Today recognized social media as a marketing avenue. In fact they reviewed it so highly it made the front page.
Read the complete article here.
Social-networking sites work to turn users into profits
By Jon Swartz, USA TODAY
SAN FRANCISCO — It is the burning question in tech circles, and Mike Murphy answers it before it is completed.
“I hear it every time I’m on a (tech) panel,” Murphy, Facebook’s vice president of media sales, says with a wry smile.STORY: Social networks vs. TV networks
He’s referring to the inevitable question on when Facebook and other social-networking sites will turn their steep market valuations into mounds of currency. (Invariably, Murphy answers that Facebook has a long list of major advertisers.)
Facebook, MySpace and other social-networking sites have been the rage of the tech industry for more than a year. Following investments by Microsoft and News Corp., the companies are valued in the billions of dollars and are considered blueprints for how to build a website. Yet a deeper question lingers: How are they going to consistently produce profits to match their soaring valuations?
It is a parlor game that has Silicon Valley buzzing. With online ad spending booming into a nearly $50 billion market this year, there is plenty of money to be had. Big-name advertisers are drooling over millions of young, affluent consumers who are spending more time on their online profiles than in front of TV and movie screens. They are particularly smitten with the prospect of tailoring ads to people’s specific interests.
But Google commands a sizable chunk of the market — especially in the USA — leaving dozens of social-networking sites to scramble for a piece of the advertising pie. Plus, there is the ticklish task of sites and advertisers pitching products without trampling the privacy of consumers.
Short of striking it rich with online ads or creating a new revenue stream, how can so many sites leverage their vast audiences? In many respects, it is the same query that dogged portal companies in the mid-1990s and search engines in the early ’90s. Some were sold. Some went public. Some went belly up.
The ongoing challenge is to concoct a potion — be it through banner ads, premium subscriptions or licensing agreements — that no one has perfected. Facebook, crown jewel of the field, is valued at $15 billion but barely turns a profit.
“You can’t have a $15 billion market valuation based on advertising alone,” says Bill Eager, co-founder of bSocial Networks, a maker of software that helps social-networking users market to each other. “It’s the single most-asked question in this field.”
Forrester Research analyst Charlene Li has pondered the next stage for social networks. She envisions the ubiquitous sites will, in five to 10 years, “be like air: They will be anywhere and everywhere we need and want them to be.”
Eager estimates there will be as many as 250,000 sites that call themselves social networks within a year, compared with about 850 today. “Everyone will reposition their site to take advantage of this phenomenon. It happened before with portals.”
To get there, though, there is that little matter of making money. “Facebook’s real problem isn’t privacy, it’s monetization,” says Dave McClure, a start-up adviser and angel investor in Silicon Valley. “It’s not too early to worry about how Facebook makes money.”
Murphy and other Facebook executives are well aware of that concern. “Advertisers follow people,” says Sheryl Sandberg, a former Google executive who recently was named Facebook’s chief operating officer. “We have 70 million active members. Once you have engaged users, the revenue will follow in that order.”
I have often discounted the long term impact of social media. In the short term social media can be leveraged to your benefit. The verdict is still out on the long term effect.
New Design
I have decided that the blue and neon theme of before was enough. I have switched to another. I am not 1 hundred percent behind this one either. What do you think?
Give me some feedback. This came off the shelf template from a free service. I preserved all the links if you want to go hunting for them.
Tell me what you think.
SEO Meta Tags
Meta tags are frequently talked about. Why? Meta tags are arguably the most important factor in Search Engine Optimization. There seems to be a meta tag for everything. But what do they really all mean?
The three primary Meta Tags for SEO and the others have little or no bearing for search engines due to past abuse or overuse.
- Title - <title>The name of your page should go here</title>
- Description - <meta name=“description” content=“The description of the content should be contained withing these quotation marks” />
- Keywords (less relevant in recent but may or may not be read by search engines so should be used with less focus) - <meta name=“keyword” content=“keyword1, keyphrase2, keyword 3″ />
By putting these between the head tags in the html source code give significant help to Search Engines. Using these tags should describe the page. A page about cooking oil should look like these:
- <title>Cooking Oil proper disposal</title>
- <meta name=“description” content=“Cooking oil disposial done correctly is environmentally safe and has the least damage to our environment” />
- <meta name=“keyword” content=“vegetable oil corn oil olive oil disposal” />
In the past there has been debate about whether to use commas or not in the keyword meta tag since they aren’t really all that important don’t get caught up in the debate. Do what ever flows or isn’t included in the other tags. Spend more time SEO copywriting the page than on the Keyword Meta Tag.
Meta tags are not required for display in a browser. Meta tags are invisible to the eye or at least relatively. You can see meta tags by right clicking a page and viewing it’s source. They are typically near the top of the page. So what makes Meta Tags important to Search Engine Optimization? The content in meta tags are displayed in Search Engine Results.
Displays:
In the case when meta tags aren’t used, search engines typically generate the description used in search results from text on page. For the obvious reason pages that don’t have the description meta tags don’t typically perform well.
Using the meta tags properly will come in another post later that you will be able to find over at Birmingham SEO.
. 07 May 08 | Business, Fellow Blogger, Online Marketing, SEO, Search Engine Optimization | Read on | Comment (1)
Google Page Rank Update
I am coming to you live from a hotel somewhere in the middle of nowhere Pennsylvania. This will be a quick blog as I have to get to sleep.
This might be a day or so late but it appears Google has done a Toolbar Page Rank Update. This is great to hear as this blog moved up from a page rank 1 to 2. I am sure in the next couple of days there will be more Google Smack Down talk and chatter about Nofollow. Stay tuned for more updates on Page Rank updates as it is always a fun time!
I did notice this one post from our friend Kimberly over at yicrosoftdirectorygirl.com. Congratulations!
Its raining its pooring
If you have been keeping track you know that I am in the process of moving. It was raining today and I was less than motivated to get on the road again. Thank goodness I decided not to go because of the storms that swept through the middle of my route. Tomorrow is the big day that my journey begins.
Last night and today I launched a new website, when I should have been packing. The site is still under construction and will be fleshed out in the next few weeks to come. The site will be owned and operated as part of SEO by Chris showcasing Birmingham, AL Search Engine Optimization Service. More information will be coming soon about the status of the new venture.
In tradition with the last few post about my journey here is a music video I found on Google Video Search.
Goodbye New York from yizzle on Vimeo.