Who you know and what you like.  Your Social Graph and your Interest Graph.

Are they mutually exclusive…or complementary?  The DigitalEYE Media team thinks you might want to know more about this topic.  So here you go…

Brands need the information contained in these graphs if they’re going to effectively market to you and through you.

Up until recently, the emphasis has been on the differences between the Social Graph (which defines who we know and interact with)  and  the Interest Graph (which defines what we like and, more importantly, what we are most likely to buy).

In his Social Media Today post “Why Online Businesses are Moving from the ‘Social Graph’ to the ‘Interest Graph,’” author David Amerland states that, as social media expands further and becomes more fragmented, it is the Interest Graph that should guide retailers and marketers rather than the social one.

“After all, we never buy anything just because some friends we knew from school bought it too, but the mere recommendation of people we regard as authority on a subject we are intensely interested in, is received, practically, as gospel,” says Amerland.

In “5 Key Components of a Successful Interest Graph,” entrepreneur Moataz Rashad notes that the Interest Graph has been gaining increased attention recently.

“With Google transforming itself into a social company, and even pushing personalized search, it’s clear that the curated Web is a reality,” he says.  “Furthermore, the Interest Graph has much more expressive power in the case of the mobile Web.  Many mobile interest indicators simply don’t exist on the Web, for example, checkins, location data, near field communication, etc.”

Facebook and its Social Graph

But there’s still that little thing called Facebook, which has at its core what they call the “Social Graph” — people and the connections they have to everything they care about.  The Social Graph is not a count of all the people in the crowd.  It can be represented in a map of who is connected to whom.  A  diagram can graphically illustrates a Social Graph system — a spider-web network of interrelations among two or more people indicated by numerous distinctive, connecting dots and lines.

In his ShopIgniter blog titled “The Interest Graph is coming – but don’t forget the Social Graph,’” Matt Compton seeks the preservation of the Social Graph.  He says that the emerging Interest Graph is opening up some very exciting new targeting and segmentation opportunities – but,

“We shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.”

When looking at the Interest Graph vs. Social Graph debate, the fundamental question is: which is more influential – your friends who know you well or people you don’t know who share your same interest?

Of course the perfect influencer would be someone who did know you well and also shared your interest. Because we tend to create our friend networks around our interests, it’s likely that these “perfect influencers” are already part of our Social Graph

“The personal and trust components of a Social Graph can be so much more compelling than that of an Interest Graph,” asserts Compton.

“Even if someone in my Social Graph isn’t an expert in my area of interest, I might be more inclined to trust them with a recommendation for a product because they know me.  And I would argue that knowing the characteristics of a person are more important for getting a brand-product-person fit than just having a data value match on interest — skiing, for example.  Secondly, the trust factor is powerful driver of actual purchase.”

In the “Attention Economy,” the challenge facing marketers is finding ways to concentrate consumer minds – amidst billions of competing stimuli – on specific products and brands in order to prompt eventual purchasing decisions.

The DigitalEYE Media team of Orange County Internet marketing specialists wants businesses to know how to develop a sound Content Marketing strategy.

Inbound Marketing means attracting customer attention to you. This approach contrasts with the old-school Outbound Marketing technique of capturing attention through interruption (ads, commercials, etc.).

Instead of using traditional media like radio, print, TV, direct mailers, etc., you instead market via the Internet, creating powerful Web content strategies and using blogs and social media to attract qualified leads to your website and business.

Content marketing is a key component of Inbound Marketing. You need to create the content, monitor it for effectiveness and continuously refine it to meet the needs of your targeted prospects.

Says the Content Marketing Institute:

“Content marketing technique involves creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience — with the objective of driving profitable customer action.”

Effective content marketing uses informational blog posts, videos, etc. to teach consumers and earn the trust of search engines and customers, ultimately resulting in more business and sales.

According to a March 2012 report from ContentWise and the Custom Content Council, North American marketers spent $40.2 billion to produce and distribute content marketing last year, up slightly from $40.1 billion in 2010.

Keeping with tradition, print garnered the majority of budgets (58.7 percent) in 2011. Investment in electronic content formats, such as websites and email, were down slightly, yet spending on other forms of content marketing – which includes events and video – rose 44.4 percent.

Custom Content Council and ContentWise found 52 percent of North American companies used video for content marketing in 2011, a number that has increased sharply since 2009, when it accounted for only 37 percent of North American marketers’ content investment.

A good portion (35 percent) of North American companies planned to invest more in website content this year, with an even larger percentage (54 percent) expecting to do so with video.

One area of opportunity for website updates and growth is mobile. As U.S. consumers continue to adopt smartphones and tablets at a rapid rate, mobile website traffic is bound to increase. For example, the portion of paid search clicks coming from mobile devices in the U.S. rose from 5.3 percent in January 2011 to 12.3 percent by December of the same year, according to Marin Software.

Internet marketers need new content to enforce and build upon keyword strategies, acquire links and attract attention in social media.

Marketo has published an Infographic: “Is Content Marketing Traditional Advertising’s New Rival?” The graph attempts to answer the question: “Why should companies use content marketing?”  The answer:

— Risk mitigation: Content marketing develops trust by providing buyers with information that will help them make the right decisions, thus reducing organizational and      personal risk.

— Lead Generation: Content drives traffic as well as captures leads through forms.

— Lead Nurturing: As a lead develops, strong content will educate and inform, developing a robust lead nurturing program.

— Lead Scoring: This metric is based on how a prospect intereacts with content as well as through nurturing campaigns.

Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Google+ — whether it’s social networking, video sharing or microblogging, your customers are using social media, and you need to know how to work with this new media to reach them and draw them to you.

Social media marketing is a linchpin of any strategic inbound Internet marketing program.

The DigitalEYE Media team of Orange County Internet marketing specialists wants businesses to know:

—how to leverage Internet commerce, social media and digital marketing.

—how to get prospects to find you through blogs, search engines and social media.

—how to get found on the Web by the right prospects and convert more of them into leads and customers.

Inbound marketing is about operating your business as a sort of a mega-hook, a grand attractor pulling in the interest of online prospects who are trying to find products or services in your industry.

All about ‘Pull’, not ‘Push’

The easier you make it for potential customers to find you, especially at the exact point when they want to find a company like yours, and the more educational, engaging or entertaining you make your content, the more successful you will be.   Inbound marketing is a permission-based methodology that focuses on driving relevant traffic to your website, converting that traffic to leads and, finally, turning those leads into sales.

Social media — supported by effective search engine optimization (SEO) techniques and dynamic content creation — can drive relevant traffic to your website. This method of attracting qualified traffic is much more effective than the alternative — blasting marketing messages to uncounted numbers of uninterested people in the hopes you’ll have a return rate of around two percent.

Marketers who are embracing inbound techniques have available to them a variety of resources for learning how to manage the process.

“Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media and Blogs” by HubSpot’s Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah is a primer for those looking to learn how to make the most of social media to pull in customers.

“Seven Reasons Your Inbound Marketing Needs Social Media” by Sean Johnson says that if you are having doubts about the value of social media, consider the following statistics:

— U.S. Internet users spend 3x more minutes on blogs and social media than they do on e-mail (Source: The Neilson Company, November, 2010).  When folks have downtime, they are turning to social media to keep up with what’s going on both professionally and personally.

— 63 percent of the companies using social media say it has increased marketing effectiveness (Source: McKinsey Global Institute, December, 2010).

— 48 percent of businesses using social media reported that it improved their search results by driving inbound links (Source: BTOB Magazine, July 2010). A critical component of Inbound Marketing is increasing inbound links to bring prospects into your sales funnel.

— 57 percent of companies using blogs reported that they acquired customers from leads generating directly from their blog (Source: HubSpot, The State of Inbound Marketing Report 2011).

— B2B companies that blog generate 67 percent more leads than those who do not (Source: HubSpot, State of Inbound Marketing Lead Generation Report, 2010).

— LinkedIn drives nearly 1.5X more referrals for B2B sites than any other channel (Source: Leadforce1, June 2010).

— 86 percent of B2B companies are using social media, compared to 82 percent of B2C companies (Source: White Horse, March 2010).

Your competitors are out there.  Can you afford not to be?

“The search for truth is more precious than its possession.” — Albert Einstein

Search engine marketing (SEM) is the practice of marketing or advertising your website through search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo or MSN.

SEM is a key component of any Inbound Internet Marketing strategy.  It helps convert prospects into warm, pre-qualified leads and drive them toward your sales funnel.

As a form of Internet marketing, SEM promotes websites by increasing their visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) through OPTIMIZATION (both on-page and off-page) as well as through ADVERTISING (paid placements, contextual advertising and paid inclusions).

SEM may consist of one or more of the following components:

— Organic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – the practice of applying techniques to maximize your ranking in natural, organic natural search results. SEO adjusts or rewrites website content to achieve a higher ranking in SERPs or paid components.

— Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC) – Ads you place for your website with a search engine. You bid the amount you are willing to pay per click. The more you bid, the higher your ad will appear in the search engine results.

— Pay For Inclusion (PFI) – In addition to search engines, numerous directories also exist on the Web. These include DMOZ (free), Verizon’s SuperPages and Yahoo Directory.

Steve Wiideman, SEO Expert

SEO has become more than just a way to create additional revenue from the Internet, according to Website optimizer, consultant, strategist and SEO expert Steve Wiideman.

SEO is the primary source of affordable online marketing.  Beyond best practices, businesses must now become creative to compete using SEO, and do so in a way that keeps costs low.

“An SEO Expert is charged with understanding the various algorithms of the search engines and to design and or modify Web pages based on the ever-changing standards of Google, Yahoo, Bing, as well as many other major search engines,” states Wiideman.

Regardless of whether you are a Fortune 100 business or run a small mom-’n-pop store, natural search engine traffic could be the main source of most of your online revenue.  Having the right creative strategy will be the one element that points you toward success.

Most companies don’t stop to think that their competitors may be watching every move they make online.  For example, perhaps a company invested a year creating dozens of keyword-rich Web pages, invested time and resources acquiring keyword-rich links to those pages, and possibly even invested in sponsored advertising.

Thanks to online tools, within one day a competitor can find and list every single keyword the competition is targeting and each and every link they have acquired, thus rendering a year of hard work nearly in vain.

The same creativity could lead a business to crawl a competitor’s website, index keywords in page titles, meta data, headings, HTML site maps, page nomenclature in XML site maps, and scrutinize internal linking structures. Aggregated, categorized and emulated with better content, the on-page search engine optimization playing field has just been leveled.

Creativity of a Website

With tools such as Wordtracker’s Link Builder  and others, an advertiser can not only find and prioritize links acquired by the competition, but also catalog the keywords used within the link text and the actual pages being linked to. (Search engines prefer a diversity of activity as opposed to a pattern of influence.)

And here’s a key bit of advice:

Never choose an SEO Expert who doesn’t practice what he preaches.

Part I: Inbound Internet Marketing — Generating Leads, Building Brands

Part III: Social Media Marketing — Attracting Attention, Encouraging Sharing

Part IV: Content Marketing — Powering Online Marketing Success

Getting found by customers.

That’s the goal of inbound “pull” marketing efforts–bringing warm, pre-qualified leads into your sales funnel rather than needing to be constantly reaching outward to cold, uncertain targets.

The DigitalEYE Media team of Orange County Internet marketing specialists always emphasizes the advantages of inbound vs. traditional (outbound “push”) marketing – old-school cold-calling, print and TV advertising, junk mail, non-solicited email and trade shows, which are becoming increasingly more expensive yet ever less effective sales tools.

Inbound marketing is the essence of Internet (Web, online) marketing or e-marketing — promotion of companies and their products or services over the Internet.  It involves connecting various marketing methods and channels together to develop a stronger online presence and build a more powerful brand. The main benefits of Internet marketing include a global audience along with lower costs to disseminate information as compared with traditional media.

Companies in all industries have no choice but to compete in today’s online “virtual” cyberspace marketplace, adopting Web marketing strategies to find new customers. The Internet’s ability to provide measureable results make it an ideal venue for coordinated, targeted marketing campaigns with specific commercial goals.

Success begins with steady increases in traffic to a company’s content-rich (text, images, video, audio) website — homepage, landing pages, microsites, newsrooms, blogs and more.

E-commerce websites seek transactions — product purchases.

Business websites seek “conversions” — casual content views or website visits turned into desired actions.

In Internet marketing, conversion rate is the ratio of visitors who respond to appeals from marketers, advertisers and content creators. To content creators, a successful conversion may refer to an email address provided in a form, a membership registration, a newsletter subscription, a software download or other activity that occurs due to a direct (or more subtle) request from the content creator for the visitor to take the action.

Ultimately, it’s all about brand building and LEAD GENERATION in advance of an eventual sale.

Inbound Internet marketing strategy needs to focus on attracting prospective customers by offering useful (and actionable) information. As such, this strategy centers on three main marketing tactics:

— Search Engine Marketing (SEM/SEO)

— Social Media Marketing (SMM)

— Content Marketing (CM)

We will discuss each category in upcoming blogs. In the meantime, check out UnBounce’s “The Noob Guide to Online Marketing Infographic” for a great take on Online Marketing.

Part II: SEM — SEO a Key Step in Online Promotion

Laptops, tablets, netbooks, notebooks, subnotebooks, handheld PCs, PDAs, smartphones…computing has gone mobile, raising the question of whether or not the”desktop” version of websites — with the ability to zoom and pan the touch-screen — can go along for the ride.

Users are visiting websites from an increasing array of devices and browsers, so designers and developers are working with different screen resolutions in order to guarantee that a website looks good from all angles.

Can websites be optimized for the kinds of actions that mobile users might typically perform?

Yes, says author Ethan Marcotte in his book “Responsive Web Design,” published by A Book Apart.

And the team at DigitalEYE Media, a leading Orange County website design firm, agrees.

The concept of responsive design refers to the process of designing and developing websites that react to a user’s actions and detect the device or medium on which the site is currently being watched in order to provide the best experience possible to the user in terms of navigability and readability.

The theory behind responsive design involves the utilization of several grid and layout systems, image optimization and CSS media queries. So, no matter how many devices are released in the future, a responsively designed website will always be able to provide a proper response to any viewer’s particular device or browser.

Responsive web design is not simply about reducing font sizes and shrinking a picture to make it fit a new format. This concept requires a thoughtful process whereby designers and developers work together to determine how to redistribute a website’s elements according to resolution, how to decide which elements may be eliminated and how to maintain the concept while simplifying the structure.

The challenges are obvious. For example, Web pages that include data tables present special difficulties for the responsive web designer. Data tables are very wide by default and when you zoom out to see the whole table it becomes too small to read. When you try to zoom in to make it readable, you are supposed to scroll both horizontally and vertically to look through it. Workarounds include reformatting the data table as a pie or mini-graph, which fixes even in narrow screens.

There are three key elements to Responsive Web Design:

1) Flexible Grid

Most websites have been designed using a fixed width style and centered content, an effective method since most computers worked under the same screen resolution. Now that screen resolutions have changed so much, a fixed width design is not the best solution for designs, which leads to the concept of “liquid layouts.”

Liquid layouts are based on percentages of the current browser window’s size. They flex with the size of the window, even if viewers change their browser size as they view the site. Liquid width layouts allow a very efficient use of the space provided by any given Web browser window or screen resolution.

Liquid layouts are often preferred by designers who have a lot of information to get across in as little space as possible, as they remain consistent in size and relative page weights regardless of who is viewing the page.

But the concept of flexible grid goes beyond liquid layouts. In flexible grids, the elements are essentially resized and rearranged. A flexible grid makes a complete overhaul in terms of proportions, ensuring that all the elements in a layout are resized in relation to one another when stretched or contracted.

2) Flexible Images

The second component in responsive design is flexible images. In regular liquid pages, images are simply resized through width and height attributes, which helps to keep the information organized but does not optimize the loading times. Another method for fitting images into different screen resolutions is using CSS’s overflow property for cropping them dynamically as the containers are modified to fit new environments.

3) Media Queries

The third element of the responsive design triad is CSS media queries, an approach more important to developers and programmers than designers. Media queries allow you to collect data about the visitor and utilize it to apply the CSS styles that can provide the best user experience for the visitor.

Responsive Design & SEO

Because of its fast-loading features, responsive design may also be great for search engine optimization. The Digital EYE team always tries to factor in page performance as part of our corporate SEO services. We believe this to be a long-term strategy that the search engines will continue to use as a ranking signal.

Contact DigitalEYE Media for information on how to Create and Manage your Social Media Marketing Campaigns: P: (714) 556-0576; sales@digitaleyemedia.com.

Google+ (pronounced and sometimes written as Google Plus, sometimes abbreviated as G+) is a social networking and identity service operated by Google Inc.

The service was launched on June 28, 2011.

At first, the Internet community thought of Google+ as the”social network flavor of the month,” offering features very similar to Twitter and Facebook, plus a few new elements we haven’t been offered before, such as video Hangouts and the ability to add anyone to a group (Circle) without requiring their acceptance.

Now that several months have passed, we’re beginning to see that Google+ is much more than a social network.  It’s becoming a layer that resides within many of Google’s products, including YouTube, Picasa, Gmail, and even Google.com search itself.

Google has introduced a its own version of the Facebook “Like” button, which Google calls “Google+1.”  This Google+1 button allows Google users to share and recommend sites, information, products, etc. with others. Google’s aim is to have all Google users introduce Google+1 to their sites.  This will have very important repercussions for SEO.

What’s more incredible is the ability Google gives users to actually see the Google+1 button’s impact to traffic, search engine rank (where circles are involved) and impression data within Google Webmaster Tools (see screenshot below).

The DigitalEYE Media Search Team will continue to watch and analyze +1 behavior–but it’s clear that creating a Google+ Page and adding +1 buttons to your website will become a standard in the design of a website and a pivotal component of search engine marketing.

Trade shows (aka, trade fairs, exhibitions or expos) were at one time supposed to disappear due to escalating transportation costs and improvements in sophisticated online meeting technology.

Nonetheless, as we head into 2012, the $12 billion U.S. Trade Show & Event Planning industry shows no signs of slowing down. You might even be headed to an expo sometime this year.

A trade show is an exhibition organized so that companies in a specific industry can showcase and demonstrate their latest products and services, study activities of rivals and examine recent market trends and opportunities.

Every organization has different goals and objectives for participating in trade shows, but doing business remains at the top of the list.

DigitalEYE Media specializes in helping companies maximize their trade show marketing efforts.

Whether you are participating in a major international trade exhibition, an annual industry event or a local trade fair, certain proven strategies can help you achieve your goals.

— Create and put into action marketing initiatives before, during and after the event that engage potential buyers and generate sales.
— Choose the best Exhibit Display Booth that meets your marketing needs and budgetary requirements. This includes evaluating different booth sizes, designs and configurations.
— Identify the most effective graphic elements for your exhibit that portray your key messages and fulfill your brand communications needs. Establish design parameters for trade fair banners, modular exhibition stands, brochures and other materials.
— Utilize unique booth ideas that create buzz on the exhibition floor and attract more sales prospects to your trade show display area.
— Choose the right materials for your exhibition stands and use compelling graphics for your banner stands that drive booth traffic.
— Effectively use exhibit accessories, lighting, trade show flooring, booth furniture, fixtures, and audio-visual effects to support sales needs. Choosing the right booth accessories adds polish and impact to all types of exhibits, from pop-up displays to custom-built systems to tabletop displays.
— Select cost-effective giveaways and promotional products that have high perceived value among your target prospects and complement your company image.
— Ensure that team members who are staffing your trade show booth always project a professional appearance and are well-trained to represent your company, generate leads, and secure sales.

If your resources for accomplishing these tasks and meeting your goals are limited, then seek the help of professionals. DigitalEYE Media’s team is always available to discuss your needs with you.

Contact DigitalEYE Media for information on how to Create and Manage your Social Media Marketing Campaigns: P: (714) 556-0576; sales@digitaleyemedia.com.

A company’s website — open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week — is an excellent business marketing tool for attracting customers and making sales.  The site gives visitors a way to “connect” with a company and learn about its products and services in a way that a phone book or newspaper advertisement never could.

The heart and soul of an online business is e-commerce—specifically, business transactions conducted on the Internet.  In addition to the purchase and sale of goods, e-commerce deals with the money-related aspects of a business such as preparing financial statements and setting financial goals.

In the case of online retail stores – also known as “e-stores” – an e-commerce website is meant to facilitate online product purchases.

DigitalEYE Media specializes in these types of websites.

Online stores are one kind of e-business dealing purely with trade of goods and services. For such sites, e-commerce is indispensible. Considering the volume of selling and buying transactions that take place every day through an online store, it becomes imperative that an online business uses the most accurate and speedy means possible for preparing receipts and trade statements in order to avoid confusion and mix ups among different transactions. E-commerce simplifies collecting orders from customers and supplying products.

There are many components that go into building successful e-commerce websites.

First, the website homepage must feature products—the different items that are for sale. The items should be attractively displayed and clearly identified.

A good example of this is Orii Gourmet, a maker of unique products for the kitchen and table.

Many companies which use e-commerce websites to sell a wide variety of items will have searchable categories that allow the user to refine and pinpoint the products sought. This information is often presented on the left side of the Web page.

When customers are ready to buy, they must add the products they want into a “shopping cart” –  a “virtual” version of the physical steel cart commonly used in a traditional retail store to hold the products that shoppers intend to buy.  Many companies allow customers to add to the cart through some type of “buy” button that can be found on the individual product page.

When customers are ready to pay for their items, they will use a “checkout” button, often located near the top right corner of the page, and sometimes found on the product page after it is added to the shopping cart.  In this process, customers will enter their shipping information along with their preferred payment and shipping methods.

E-commerce has become much easier in recent years as e-store operators have gained ready access to online credit card payment processing services. Sites that can accept credit cards online attract much higher levels of business.

There are two broad options to consider if you want to sell goods or services from your site:

— Use a third-party services company to handle all billing matters from the e-store website.

— Use your own merchant account to process credit card payments from your own website.

The first option is the easiest to implement, especially for companies just getting into e-commerce. The initial costs are much lower, and dealing with the technical issues is more straightforward. Once a merchant site enjoys higher volumes of business, the long-run cost savings often justify moving to your own in-house payment processing.

An e-store’s primary payment option enables customers to use the same credit cards they use in traditional “brick and mortar” stores. There are also third-party payment agents such as PayPal that allow users to link their bank accounts and multiple credit cards.

Many e-commerce websites offer the ability for customers to save their information for future orders. The information is stored through user-specific password-protected login data.

Contact DigitalEYE Media for information on how to Create and Manage your Social Media Marketing Campaigns: P: (714) 556-0576; sales@digitaleyemedia.com.