It’s been quite a while since I can announce a start-up social media service that I really believe has the power to take on the established social media companies. Those who run bookmarking sites such as del.icio.us, Digg or Multiply better mind their bank balances!
The new kid is PinInterest.com
Pinterest Social Media Newbie
Pinterest is an online bulletin board for your favorite images, launched in 2010 and is already experiencing wild growth. It has gone thru a soft launch where you can become a member after only receiving an invite. I did this last week and it took about 3 days before i was sent a link to activate an account. I would try it yourself as actions speak louder than words on how it works.
The growth of the service is simply exciting and for small businesses it presents a fresh opportunity. You can post images of your company’s products on your Pinterest board and link them back to your website. It works as a sort of virtual store catalog.
Pinterest site registered more than 7 million unique visitors in December 2012, up from 1.6 million in September. And it’s driving more traffic to company websites and blogs than YouTube, Google+ and LinkedIn combined, according to a recent report from Cambridge, Mass.-based content-sharing site Shareaholic.
A New Digg?
Digg : The social news site changed the Internet, Digg’s offers high power authority and a listing in Digg for a site, even if it only has a couple of votes, will rank highly on Google and other search engines for certain terms. I believe that same power and authority is about to be transferred from traditional sites to Piniterest.
Women just love Pinterest!
According to Alexa Pinterest is attracting women by the droves aged between 25-34 years of age , Pinterest is attractive , pictures speak a thousand words and you will find lots of shoes, handbags and pins of good looking celebrities.
Like all these things get in early and establish your brand Google respects old pages and old posts so get your company on Pinterest now and reap the benefits later. A word of warning self promotion will need to be limited as the sites policies does not encourage self promotion. The best way to determine if Pinterest could attract buyers is simply to give it a go
Pinterest is designed to curate and share things you love. If there is a photo or project you’re proud of, pin away! However, try not to use Pinterest purely as a tool for self-promotion.
Install the bookmarklet. It lets you add a pin from any website with just one click.
Follow a few more pinboards. After all, Pinterest is as much about discovering new things as it is about sharing.
Pin carefully! As one of the first members of Pinterest, your pins will help set the tone for the whole community. Use big images, write thoughtful descriptions, and pin things you really love. Also, no nudity
Celebrities generate huge audiences that they can sell too
A recent post by celeb gossip blog Richcrib.com highlights the fact that social media has become a promotional play ground for the rich and famous. Its no surprise that with their huge audiences celebrities succumb to selling promotional tweets. The audience sizes beat many TV stations, newspapers and other traditional media. The cost to tweet to an audience of millions must run into tens of thousands all for a tweet less than 140 characters. I have no doubt this extra stream of revenue comes in handy especially when the actual process is not actually managed by the celebrity themselves.
Twitter is a social tool so you need to be social most celebs post updates designed for no interaction, it seems that these tweets are more like a warm up act before the big show. The odd tweet here and there just to keep the account fresh and the audience interested. When it comes to a new film, book or other promotion then we see the celebrity increase tweets and Hash tags.
So excited to announce that I’ll be working with #Hasbro on their new game called Twister Dance. You guys are going to love it! @HasbroNews
We can all learn from celebrities
Over selling in a tweet can be the most boring and unattractive thing you can do! If we watch how celebs conduct their accounts you will see that talking about everything else other than the next promotion keeps an interest by followers. This makes it very effective as when the promotional tweets are launched followers will listen.
Twitter is a Promotional Opportunity
Businesses can access large audiences using the numerous services available to get your message noticed. Here are some services that help you promote to large audiences
More followers means you may be able to sell like a celeb
By attracting more followers to your twitter account you are creating a potential audience that you can promote too. The value of a huge twitter audience can turn into real money as advertisers target niche twitter accounts. Here are some services that may actually buy advertising from your twitter account
Their is a huge range of services that will help you increase followers, some of these services involve fake accounts and robotic follows. These are worthless for social media interaction but good to show others how many followers you have. Those that buy tweets will want to see the level of activity your followers generate so these fake followers are near useless for this purpose.
You will find a host of low cost social media solutions at FiveQuidExpert.com
I am going to predict that Facebook Initial Public Stock Offering will help start ups and entrepreneurs launch new models that will eventually harm Facebook’s offering. The timing and the risks associated with Facebook privacy policies could spell the beginning of the end.
You may be wondering have I lost the plot after all look at these impressive Facebook facts:
845 million monthly active users.
80% of monthly active users are outside the U.S. and Canada.
483 million daily active users on average in December 2011.
425 million users who using Facebook mobile products
The social network’s expected market value, projected by some to be as high as $100 billion. The IPO will be enough to make about 900 people millionaires from longtime employees to a freelance graphic artist who once painted Facebook’s real walls – instant millionaires, at least on paper.
Why Facebook IPO could be its downfall
Its obvious to me that when a company has reached its peak and all avenues have been explored its time to get out for its owners. The timing of Facebook IPO is no accident and their maybe now a lack of momentum to take the giant any further.
Potential Investors Answer Me This
Does the IPO indicate that those who created Facebook may have lost the will to take it further? Have the threat of increasing demand for privacy by consumers worldwide now too much of a threat to the business? Could new privacy laws in the US kill Facebook? Have they tried everything and failed to find fresh innovation?
Will You Suffer Pain Without Facebook?
My thoughts are that we can all live without Facebook if it died tomorrow its not a necessary feature of my life its an added extra, compared to say search engines, or mobile phones and tablets Facebook does not help me.
New Kids On The Block
The biggest threat is having taken on investors the new masters will want to see increased advertising revenue. Facebook could end up as annoying place to be sold too. Every time you turn on your phone, tablet computer and Smart TV, Facebook could be selling you something. This for me is a huge threat to its future, member will leave in their droves. When the pressure for return on investment increases its not unreasonable to consider a subcription model for membership. Adding a monthly fee for members would satisy the investprs but may eventually kill the business.
Consumers Want Free Internet
This change will allow advertising free services to offer something different. I will give you a real life example that backs up my theory.
MTV Germany changed it business model to offer pay TV, this has resulted in alternatives popping up as consumers avoid the charges. This move marked the first time a German free to air broadcaster moved into the encrypted TV area.
Small time competitor Tape.TV seized the moment and is now busy taking market share in music TV in Germany potentially killing off German MTV’s dominance.
This proves consumers will always vote with their feet and Facebook faces a huge challenge ahead.
Facebook IPO Good For Business
Its without doubt a positive event when such an IPO is launched, its shows the world that 2012 maybe the year of change from the global financial crisis.
This event will help others who need funding get the money they need for rival projects.
“A Facebook IPO will be a mammoth seismic event that will start a small tidal wave,’’ said David Menlow, president of IPOfinancial.com, a Green Brook, N.J., firm that tracks IPOs. “Facebook will embolden a lot of companies to feel that the technology sector is on an upswing.’’
Whatever the result of the IPO Facebook will never be the same
Marr International is behind the celebrity gossip website Richcrib.com . The blog intends to concentrate on celebrity houses, mansions and luxury homes as well as all the latest entertainment news. Richcrib coined from the terms MTV Cribs also has sections dedicated to black celebrity gossip and UK celebrity gossip. The site has its own dedicated team of writers and seeks to employ more writers who love celebrity gossip and are up to date with all the top names in Hollywood .
Working For Richcrib.com
Marr International is encouraging writers to contribute to the site by offering free coaching and SEO training. CEO of Marr International is rewarding good work with work references which can be so important in today’s competitive employment environment.
Celebrity Houses – Rich Cribs & Mansions
Richcrib carries latest news & rumors about celeb homes or celebrity cribs, see pictures & photos that will help you get a view inside celebrity houses. Richcrib will help you understand how the rich and famous live, learn that being rich does not necessarily buy class.
In fact some celebs homes are tacky, cheap, without style or any class at all. Millionaire mansion owners don’t all have style!.
New figures from a leading retail consultancy have found the Brits spent a record amount with online retailers in 2011. 16 per cent more was spent online in 2011 than in 2010 as increased numbers of shoppers bought goods and services on the web.
So, can you afford not to sell your goods and services online?
Online sales expected to increase by 13% in 2012
According to the research by Capgemini, a record £68 billion was spent online in 2011, up 16 per cent on the previous year with online shopping now accounting for 17 per cent of the British retail market.
The Guardian reports that ‘growing numbers of retailers are launching or expanding online businesses, leading Capgemini to predict that total online retail sales will jump by 13 per cent in 2012 to reach £77 billion.’
One analyst said: “Online is such an integral part of the shopping experience now that it generally plays at least some role in most purchases, whether through research and comparison or social media and product reviews.”
Increasingly important to market yourself online
Nick Marr “It seems that only the very rich do not need to sell online , its a low cost method to maximising your returns. Those who who can get free search engine traffic are making huge returns on investment”
If you want to ensure your business is a success it is becoming increasingly important that you market yourself online. This may be through your own website although portals which allow shoppers to access a wide number of independent sellers on one website are becoming increasingly popular.
Sites such as Etsy and Not on the High Street now offer a range of handmade gifts and goods from thousands of sellers in one place whilst you can buy services from professional websites such as Elance and People per Hour.
Another excellent place for you to market your services is on Five Quid Expert. This new site offers a unique service where you can market anything from IT help to translation services to buyers at a price of £5. Five Quid Expert is a ‘one stop shop’ for buyers looking for inexpensive goods and services and offers you a great opportunity to be part of the online shopping boom.
Marr International provide custom mobile app development for businesses with an eye on the bottom line. Our team can provide savings owing to the technology that is being used. Our mobile apps unlike many other providers are made for iPhone, iPad, Android, Windows Mobile Phone and BlackBerry devices from a single app.
We are helping companies save money with our multi platform mobile apps, no need to shop around having several apps developed by different companies . We can arrange the entire mobile application from start to finish without the need to find separate apps for different platforms.
Mobile Apps For Business
Our digital marketing background results in an app that is designed to create more businesses for you , we have lots of experience and may be able to suggest new ways to help your app become a real business generator.
CEO Nick Marr ” Include push notifications in your app and you can bring your visitors to your business, no longer do you need to be passive and wait for visitors. Create new peak times when you want visitors to see what you have to offer, ensure social media is threaded throughout your app and see your audience grow”
Our apps aim to reduce navigation that the users have to do by taking them directly to the content that they’re want to see.
Any organization that wants to stay connected with their consumers at a very personal level by offering convenience is today venturing into the world of mobile application development.
Iphones Android or Blackberry?
In the world of apps, Apple are king. The apple store has over 350,000 applications available – and there have been more than 10 billion downloads since they launched. In an ever-expanding market place, apple has a huge share and perhaps the simplest and most effective delivery method.
The most popular mobile devices are the iPhone, the Android, the BlackBerry, Symbian and a few others. With so many different OS’s to cater to and with new smart phones on the rise, organizations have to start developing mobile applications for each of these mediums. If you are not present on one handset or one marketplace, there is a chance that your competitor will take the lead and will remain top of the mind recall for a large base of consumers that use the smart phones you are not catering to.
Speak to Us
By speaking to us about your requirements we can help you develop your ideas and to give you a quote for our money saving mobile apps designed for business
Most business dream of building up a business so attractive so unique and so valuable that a huge corporation comes along and makes you a fantastic offer. This sounds like a dream come true, I know if this happened to me I would never see an English winter again . I would put the money I made from the deal to start another fantastic business. I am sure the majority of entrepreneurs dream of the big approach, the sale and the life after.
Well this did happen to Groupon but unfortunately there was no happy ending.
Billions Of Dollars Offered
Google made an offer to buy Groupon for $5.3 billion dollars at the end of 2010. Guess what the people at Groupon rejected it what were they thinking?
Did they think that Groupon’s model was unique and could not be created by another business? Wrong we now have hundreds of discount coupon sites starting up. In fact Groupon clone scripts can cost you less than $300.
Maybe the thinking behind rejection was that they were so big that no other could replace them in the market place. Wrong Google Offers is now backed with all the power money and infrastructure of the world largest search engine, they can match Groupon in a short period of time
Maybe they thought lets upset Google and get some more money out of them. Wrong every business has its price, Google must have known the cost to recreate the model and pushing hard could make the deal not viable.
Google will integrate Google Offers with Google Wallet so you can pay with your smart phone and show the shopkeeper the coupon on it. I’m sure they will eventually integrate Google maps, email, and search as well.
Groupon Profits versus Living Social
Groupon’s gross billings totaled $154 million in November 2011, up 6 percent from the $145 million it collected in October, Yipit estimated.
LivingSocial’s gross billings declined 5 percent to $52 million in November, versus the previous month, Yipit also estimated.
Gross billings are a closely watched measure of how much money Groupon and other daily deal companies collect from the offers they run with merchants. A chunk of this money is shared with participating merchants and excluded from revenue.
What will the story be next year? I predict that Google Offers will be Groupons major competitor taking bigger market share than Living Social.
So you have a great real estate website or do you? One of the mistakes that many real estate agents and developers make is thinking that a great looking website will equal lots of sales. Some web designers are still ignorant of how best to create an effective website from a search engine point of view.
A website is like a brochure that will only be picked up if seen and there lies the problem. Millions of websites are all competing for attentioan and great search engine placement. Implementing SEO services is not really an option its essential.
Search engine optimisation is a long term strategy taking time to see results. It can take months to see results and to see increase in Google Page Rank. However SEO has certain advantages over other types of online marketing.
Its cheaper form than purely Pay-for-performance programs like Google AdWords. .
It can create brand awareness – a property website that has a high rank among search engine listings means that more people will see the company’s name and become more and more familiar with the products as well as the company although they still haven’t made one single purchase.
A recent survey clearly shows that consumers are twice as likely to recognize businesses that are ranked high ( top three ) in the search engine listings in comparison to those that are appearing in the regular banner ads.
SEO services will bring paying customers right to your door step. These customers that we are talking about have entered your websites keywords or phrases into the search engines and the results showed your business.
The SEO services will help you transform regular visitors into real buyers by analyzing their behavior once they locate your site. By utilizing the content of your website you will learn how to transform these visitors into buyers in the most effective and efficient manner possible.
Too many adverts will lead to loss of search engine rankings
Beware! having too many adverts displayed above the fold could mean a stiff penalty as Google tweaks its algorithm. Is this move contradictory to its own recommendations? Will this move see loss of profits for Google as advertisers adjust how their ads and how they are displayed on a page.
We have yet another change in how Google selects which sites rise to the top in SERPS (search engine result pages) . Publishers who rely on search engine traffic to make money will have to stand up and take notice. Google calls the recent change a page layout algorithm improvement
The company wants to make sure that when searchers click on Google search results, they won’t be taken to a page where the content is hard to find. It appears this move is all about Googles determination to provide search engine users with the best sites.
I have always advised my clients that when creating a site or adding content you need to think like a search engine. Search engines think ” is this the best place to send my user? Search engines need to know its a quality page with lots of information this includes external links to more resources , video , images etc. The page payout algorithm will put into line those sites that use top heavy advertising before content read What makes great content
Google ad layout for adsense
Google May Lose Money!
I am wondering if this change will reduce the revenue of Google as publishers change how they display advertising? Google can afford to experiment but the cost to the company could end up being millions. Share holders must be nervous about the move , will the average website lose revenue from this? I am not sure it all remains to be seen.
At small screen resolutions, Google’s own search results page is one of the worst offenders when it comes to advertising clutter obscuring content. That seeming hypocrisy may leave some webmasters wondering what constitutes “a normal degree of ads” and how screen size affects what is defined as “normal.” Sticking simply with what Google has written about the change, copying Google’s search results page is probably not a good idea in this case.
The Change Means Ad Sensibly
Matt Cutts Google
Googles man Mr Matt Cutts said the algorithm tweak looks at the layout of a Web page and the amount of content a user sees on the page once they’ve clicked on a search result.
“If you click on a Website and the part of the Website you see first either doesn’t have a lot of visible content above-the-fold or dedicates a large fraction of the site’s initial screen real estate to ads, that’s not a very good user experience,”
“Such sites may not rank as highly going forward.”
Cutts was careful to note that Google recognizes ads placed above the fold perform well for Websites. Accordingly, Google isn’t punishing Websites that place ads at the top of Web pages “to a normal degree.”
Rather, he and his team are penalizing Websites that put what they deem an “excessive” amount of ads up top, or simply make it hard to find content on the page.
Is This A Big Change?
This algorithmic change noticeably affects less than 1% of searches globally. That means that in less than one in 100 searches, a typical user might notice a reordering of results on the search page.The algorithm analyzes adverts in fixed positions; the Pagerank for sites using pop-ups, pop-unders or overlays will not be affected. If you believe that your website has been affected by the page layout algorithm change, consider how your web pages use the area above-the-fold and whether the content on the page is obscured or otherwise hard for users to discern quickly.
Google Page Layout Video
I found this video which also explains the changes hope it helps
Marr International was created by Nick Marr, an entrepreneur, investor and online marketing expert.
His experience and expertise comes from running his own online businesses since 2000.
Nick Marr “Running my own online businesses means maximising revenue from every part of a website & learning methods that create huge exposure for minimum costs. My clients benefit from my expertise and that of my team. We love to take on the giants and then win!
Challenging Tradition
His online success began with his passion for helping home owners save money worldwide by helping them sell property online without an estate agent. He developed the overseas property portal Homesgofast.com (ranked in top 20 in the world) and the UK’s No.1 private house sale website TheLittleHouseCompany.com.
Marketing Like You Mean it!
Nick Marr utlised his expertise to help promote TheLittleHouseCompany.com with the BBC and has used his marketing skills to appear in Reuters worldwide news reports.
He developed a marketing campaign based on a term Extreme House Selling that resulted in extensive global media coverage, including Sky TV Australia and news channels in the Middle East.
Turning Experience Into A Business
Nick Marr developed Marr International into a digital marketing company in 2003, specialising in developing online businesses with a team of professionals with clients from numerous niche industries. His company work with online start ups and online media companies and has an extensive network within the digital media industry.
Areas of Excellence
Online Entrepreneur
Digital Media
Real Estate Marketing
Search Engine Optimisation
Extreme House Selling
Writer
Speaker
Media Commentator
Mobile Applications
Marr International
Learn more about the scope of services Nick and his team offer here : Marr International
You may have heard about Google PageRank (PR) and wondered what this has to do with your property websites performance. The official explanation is that PageRank is a link analysis algorithm that assigns a numerical weighting to webpages found on the internet with the purpose of “measuring” its relative importance within the set.
In practical terms Google page rank is a measure from 0 -10 of how important Google thinks a webpage is. So a webpage with a PageRank of 10/10 is very important and a web page with a PageRank of 0/10 is not very important.
To receive the traffic you need for a successful real estate website a good PageRank may help your web pages performance in the search engines results pages. It is important to note however that this is just one factor in how Google ranks your site.
It’s easy to find out your real estate websites ranking and that of your competitors by installing the toolbar on your browser. This will automatically tell you the PageRank of any webpage you are looking at with a green barometer
So what does all this mean for those trying to promote a property website? It can literally mean that websites with a higher page rank will get better rankings in Google’s search results.
Trying to increase your page ranking is not a short term task it can take years depending upon how active you are or the company you employ to help you. Google has a publicly available algorithm which indicates that they take in many factors when calculate PageRank. One of the most important factors is what sites link to yours. Sites that are deemed good quality by age, content and reputation in the eyes of Google will help raise your page rank.
Page rank is fluid and it changes about every 3 months, recently Page rank has been deemed not so important in the ranking of websites. You can see examples of property websites that have pages ranked higher than those with a lower page rank.
Warning
Not all links are counted by Google. For instance, they filter out links from known link farms. Some links can cause a site to be penalized by Google. They rightly figure that webmasters cannot control which sites link to their sites, but they can control which sites they link out to. For this reason, links into a site cannot harm the site, but links from a site can be harmful if they link to penalized sites. So be careful which sites you link to.
Don’t leave your search engine optimisation to chance Marr International can design implement and manage all aspects of SEO. Please contact us for more details
Check Page Rank
Check Page Rank of your Web site pages instantly:
This page rank checking tool is powered by Page Rank Checker service
USA TODAYGoogle ignores browser privacy settingsCalgary HeraldPrivacy advocates, lawyers and powerful rival Microsoft were piling on Google on Tuesday for sidestepping Web browsing software to tailor ads for people signed into its online services. The California-based Internet giant continued to staunchly defend ...Google, Safari and our final privacy wake-u […]
USA TODAYWeb Firms to Adopt 'No Track' ButtonWall Street JournalBy JULIA ANGWIN A coalition of Internet giants including Google Inc. has agreed to support a do-not-track button to be embedded in most Web browsers—a move that the industry had been resisting for more than a year. The reversal is being announced as ...Voluntary guidelines for Web priv […]
Los Angeles TimesCalifornia requires Google, Apple and other tech giants to enforce privacy ...San Jose Mercury NewsUnder the agreement, consumers should see prominent and easy-to-understand privacy disclosures before they download an app from Apple (AAPL), Google (GOOG) or any of the four other mobile Web kingpins covered by the agreement.Apple, Google and […]
BetaNewsMicrosoft Slams Google on PatentsWall Street JournalBy SHIRA OVIDE And IAN SHERR Microsoft Corp. is complaining to European regulators that Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. and its soon-to-be-owner Google Inc. are misusing patents to gain an upper hand in the mobile-device market.Patent row escalates: Microsoft points finger at Google, Motorola in EU […]
The growth of the service is simply exciting and for small businesses it presents a fresh opportunity. You can post images of your company’s products on your Pinterest board and link them back to your website. It works as a sort of virtual store catalog.
Like all these things get in early and establish your brand Google respects old pages and old posts so get your company on Pinterest now and reap the benefits later. A word of warning self promotion will need to be limited as the sites policies does not encourage self promotion. The best way to determine if Pinterest could attract buyers is simply to give it a go
