Marketing Pilgrim

It appears as if it’s not just the poor businesses in Europe but now sites of all different kinds that have a funny view of Google as a search engine. I say funny because they apparently have decided that in order to get ranked (or retain rankings that they have lost) they need to implement the latest technique in SEO which is complaining about fair treatment from Google.

An article in the Wall Street Journal this past weekend reports

Google Inc. increasingly is promoting some of its own content over that of rival websites when users perform an online search, prompting competing sites to cry foul.

The Internet giant is displaying links to its own services—such as local-business information or its Google Health service—above the links to other, non-Google content found by its search engine.

Occasionally I like to bring to our readers attention something very different that will create some thought or reaction. Since it’s a Sunday, what better way than to bring you an interview with Jon Swanson who takes as one of his titles, Social Media Chaplain.

Now most people have heard of hospital chaplains, fire department chaplains, police department chaplains, army chaplains etc but this is truly a unique claim in the world of chaplains. That works well because Jon is a unique guy and has been kind enough to answer a few questions regarding his calling in the social media space.

I think one of the hardest things for every entrepreneur, is to know when they have peaked. Too often I see entrepreneurs experience a quick boost in traffic, media attention, and sales at the beginning, and as a result they assume that they have reached the top. They end up getting lazy and spending money like there’s no tomorrow. This happens a lot with internet start ups. Fame is dangerous in business and life.

Alternatively, I also see entrepreneurs that think no matter what happens, there’s going to be something bigger right around the corner. It doesn’t matter if the largest corporation in their industry wants to buy them out, they think they are worth more.

Click.

That’s the sound of another consumer moving from the webpage they’re on to your page via a display ad they found in the sidebar. Hooray!

Unfortunately, these days, the sound of the click, click, click is less of a tap dance and more like the lazy snap of a pleased beatnik. ComScore says that the average click rate on a display ad is 0.1%. Compare that to the average click rate on a paid search ad campaign (3.5%) and it’s easy to see why the digital intelligence company is calling for an end to counting clicks.

With only a few weeks left in 2010, it looks like the trailer for Twilight Eclipse will take the title of Most Viewed Video of the Year with more than 220,000,000 hits.

Every week, AdAge posts a list of the most popular viral videos. Since they’re primarily interesting in brand marketing, they don’t include movie trailer and game trailers because they’d take top numbers every time.  This week, however, they decided to switch it up and let the chips fall where they may.

Below is a chart that shows the dominance that Facebook has worldwide as the leading social networking site. The chart was brought to my attention by Robin Wauters of TechCrunch.

The next chart shows the place and show networks for each area of the world.

So let’s try something a little different today. Rather than you read about my take, opinions, ramblings or whatever you might call them, let’s have you tell us what your reactions are to pictures and charts like these?

So you know the numbers come from Vincenzo Cosenza’s World Map of Social Networks. Nice work, Vincenzo!