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Facebook Offers Now Free with Purchase

posted on September 20, 2012

Facebook Offers is a neat tool that allows you to easily send promotions and discounts to your Facebook fans. Send a 10% off coupon, a voucher for a cookie, $5 off dinner for two — you create it, they send it, you get more business. Best of all it’s free to use — and it kind of still is.

Sometime in the next month, Facebook is going to start requiring a Facebook ad purchase of at least $5 for every offer you send out. So, technically, the Offer is free with purchase. Come on, you’re a merchant, you get the concept, right?

I could sit here and wave my fist and exclaim, “how dare they!” This is America. What right do they have to make me pay for something I used to get for free.

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5 Ways To Capitalize on TV in SEM Campaigns

posted on September 20, 2012

Recently Google quietly changed the geo footprints formerly called “metros” into Nielsen® DMA® regions. This means that these metros are 100% aligned with television advertising footprints.

This change got me thinking about the interaction between TV advertising and SEM and its increasing significance as more and more people watch TV with a device in hand.

For large brands that actually do national TV advertising, the lift to SEM (particularly on brand) driven by TV adverts is clear and easy to read. However, even if you don’t have the budget or resources to run TV ads, there are still ways that TV affects your SEM account. Here are some ways for you to capitalize:

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Brits Say Apple Maps Not Their Cup of Tea

posted on September 20, 2012

One of the biggest question marks surrounding the release of the iPhone 5 and iOS 6 was the removal of Google Maps as the backend of the native Maps app for Apple and its replacement with Apple’s own homegrown or ‘mashed up’ version of maps.

Would it be as good as Google Maps? Would it be better? Or, dear lord please no, would it be worse?

Well, if this article from the BBC is any indication, the early results are less than favourable (or favorable depending on which side of the Atlantic you are reading this from).

Inaccuracies and misplaced towns and cities in Apple’s new map software have provoked anger from users.

In June Apple announced it would stop using Google Maps in favour of its own system, created using data from navigation specialist TomTom.

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Google Displays Dominance in Display Ads

posted on September 20, 2012

You gotta love Google.

Everyone wants to hate them for any number of reasons. They are evil. They are anti-competitive. They are this. They are that.

That’s fine because people still have a right to express their opinions freely (for now). But what the real story is about Google is that they keep chugging along and leading in categories that do one thing really well: they make money.

The search dominance we know. The mobile dominance is a matter of opinion (iOS is the premier platform but Google owns over 90% of the mobile search market. You decide which one is more important.). But the one area that we often overlook is their leadership in display advertising.

eMarketer is reporting that the display lead which they say belonged to Facebook last year, is now Google’s AND the future is looking like that lead will only grow.

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Shazam Expands Their Reach from Just Music to TV

posted on September 19, 2012

Shazam has made a name for itself as the tool for identifying music on the radio, TV or a DVD. Using a magical audio matching system, the app listens to a song, then tells you the name, who performed it and gives you a link to download it.

Currently, the app has more than a quarter of a billion users worldwide and now they’re striking out on a new path in hopes of gaining even more.

Shazam for TV uses the same audio matching technology to deliver all kinds of information about your favorite TV shows. I put the app to the test this morning with an old rerun of Rizzoli & Isles on TNT and look what I got.

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SPONSOR: The Future of Social Media Lead Management

posted on September 19, 2012

Is social media more than likes and followers and connections? It better be if you are doing it for business.

While it’s nice to have large numbers of people showing some level of interest in your product or service, where the rubber meets the road in the social space is whether those likes, follows and more turn into leads that can ultimately turn into bottom line results.

Our Inbound Marketing channel sponsor, HubSpot, has mastered the art of gathering leads in the social space. As a result, it is reasonable that they would be experts enough to produce their new ebook “The Future of Social Media Lead Management“.

Are you interested in learning where this critical business function is heading?

Get your FREE ebook right now!

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Feeling Heat, Google Maps Makes Panoramic Business Interior Views More Prevalent

posted on September 19, 2012

Google Maps knows that they are in for a fight. Even with the early reviews of Apple’s new Maps app being somewhat disappointing. Here is what All Things Digital’s Walt Mossberg had to say about the Apple Maps functionality in an otherwise glowing review of the new iPhone 5

The biggest drawback I found is the new Maps app…….the app is in other ways a step backward from the familiar Google app. For instance, while Apple’s maps feature a 3-D “Flyover” view of some central cities, they lack Google’s very useful ground-level photographic street views. And they also lack public-transit routing. Apple will instead link you to third-party transit apps.