Countdown to 2010: A Recap of Our Top 10 Posts of the Year

Image by atomische via Flickr.

For marketers in the digital space, 2009 was a whirlwind year. Twitter took off amid a social surge, Yahoo! and Microsoft partnered up in search and Google gobbled up a litany of companies. During this time we’ve used our blog to cut through the headlines and share insights into what the year’s top stories mean for marketers. Look to Digital Connections for more of this in 2010.

Below you’ll find our most widely-read posts of the year (we’ve recently counted down the top five on Twitter, for those of you who follow us there).

1. 360i Publishes Social Marketing Playbook

No surprise here. We harnessed brainpower from dozens of employees across the agency to put together this comprehensive 56-page report for digital marketers entering the social space. The result was a highly-regarded document that was shared across several social channels, garnering more than 50,000 downloads along the way.

» Download the complete Social Marketing Playbook.

2. Introducing @TweetingBar

Who could forget the inauguration of 360i’s very own in-house twittering tap? Sure, @TweetingBar might not be the most important thing we did all year, but we did have tons of fun figuring out the technological implementation and demonstrating the ways in which technology can spur social media in new and exciting directions. Not to mention he’s always good for a fresh, frothy brew – and a laugh to boot.

» Follow @TweetingBar on Twitter.

3. 6 Things to Expect if Google Decaf Gets a “Caffeine” Boost

Late this summer Google announced that it would begin testing a new “next generation infrastructure,” dubbed Caffeine. According to Google, the new architecture would help the world’s leading search engine enhance its size, indexing speed, accuracy and more. As buzz began to build, a team of SEO professionals at 360i set out to test the differences between Google “decaf” and Caffeine. You can read our six key takeaways for marketers in this post.

4. Google Changes “Nofollow” Policy, No Longer as Effective for SEO

In June, Google’s Matt Cutts pulled the rug out from under SEOs and Webmasters everywhere when he suggested that a previously sanctioned search optimization technique heavily relied upon by many site optimizers would not be supported in the same way. In short, he stated that the nofollow attribute that is considered helpful in preventing spam and even sculpting a site’s PageRank would no longer be as effective. This post takes a look at what the move means for marketers and the way they approach SEO.

5. The Social Marketing Playbook Quiz – Are You Game?

Quizzes aren’t known for their popularity, but our test of Playbook retention seemingly broke the mold. We challenged readers to take our quiz for a chance to win a free hardbound copy of the Playbook – and we followed through. Ten lucky quiz-takers received hardcover Playbooks for their efforts.

6. 360i Report on Social Graph Ad Targeting

Targeting is set to be one of the industry’s biggest buzzwords as we head into 2010. In this POV, we dive into the up-and-coming strategy of social graph ad targeting – that is, reaching consumers based on who they’re connected to within online social networks – and lay out the most promising opportunities it holds for marketers. As the report points out, social graph targeting can happen several ways (within a social network, across social networks and even across publishers).

» Read our complete report on Social Graph Ad Targeting.

7. 100 Ways to Measure Social Media

David Berkowitz, 360i’s Sr. Director of Emerging Media & Innovation, made waves with this column (originally published in MediaPost) that listed 100 ways marketers can measure social media. You can read insights from David every Tuesday as part of the magazine’s Social Media Insider blog.

8. 360i Releases New Report on Twitter for Marketers

This was the year businesses began embracing Twitter in droves. Whether they used it to build brand loyalty, drive sales or bolster CRM, brands interlaced the fast-growing microblogging platform into their broader social marketing programs. Our POV serves as a resource for marketers choosing to use Twitter to meet their broader objectives.

» Read our complete report on Twitter.

9. 360i Point of View on the Microsoft-Yahoo Search Deal

A search-shaking July announcement revealed the much-anticipated partnership between Yahoo! and Microsoft and shed light on what the deal might mean for digital marketers. Our assessment was that it signaled a smart strategic play by both parties to focus on their core ambitions and areas of expertise. The upshot? The partnership will build more scale and efficiencies in search advertising, enable marketers to make the most of Bing’s traffic.

» Read our complete report on the Microsoft-Yahoo search deal.

10. New White Paper on the State of Search Marketing

We recently issued a whitepaper revealing key trends shaping search marketing strategy and introducing PageShare^SM, a new metric for quantifying the success of a brand’s presence on the search engines. As part of this report, a brand SEO audit calculating approximate PageShare was performed for each of the Top 100 Advertisers in the United States.

» Read our white paper on the State of Search Marketing.