Digital Connections – 360i Blog, Digital Marketing Agency

Here’s your look at some of the week’s top stories in digital.

Google Now Indexing Facebook Page Updates in Real-Time Search

On Thursday Google announced that it has begun including Facebook Page updates into real-time search results. For now, the Facebook updates will come only from Pages (largely managed by brands, businesses and public figures) – of which there are about 3 million, according to TechCrunch. Google first debuted its real-time search functionality in December, when it began aggregating and displaying tweets within its search results.

So, what does the news mean for marketers? For one, brands with active Facebook pages could benefit from keyword-rich status updates. In addition, as Google’s Universal algorithm includes “Latest News” on a brand’s relevant keywords, they might consider joining the conversations during those opportune windows. Finally, the aggregation of Facebook updates within Latest News grants greater visibility to a marketer’s Facebook presence, and can therefore lead to increased Page traffic and fans.

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The Microsoft-Yahoo deal clears, Google explains some of its Buzz practices and Facebook continues to soar — we’ve got the week’s top stories in our latest roundup.

Microsoft-Yahoo Partnership Approved

Yesterday, Microsoft and Yahoo announced that they’ve been cleared to move forward with their much anticipated search partnership, which was initially declared in July. Since the engines now have received “unrestricted” clearance from the U.S. Department of Justice and the European Commission to implement the deal, we’ve revisited our earlier POV and highlighted some of key areas for digital marketers to focus on in the months leading up to complete, full-scale implementation.

Read 360i’s POV on the Microsoft-Yahoo search partnership for more insights into what the deal will mean for marketers in the digital space.

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Yesterday, Microsoft and Yahoo announced that they’ve been cleared to move forward with their much anticipated search partnership, which was initially declared in July. Since the engines now have received “unrestricted” clearance from the U.S. Department of Justice and the European Commission to implement the deal, we’ve revisited our earlier POV and highlighted some of key areas for digital marketers to focus on in the months leading up to complete, full-scale implementation.

The most obvious impact on marketers is that there will now be two major places to buy search advertising, down from the previous three. And with more scale now aggregated within the next biggest search marketplace to Google, the partnership should ideally build efficiency in search advertising and also enable marketers to take better advantage of Bing’s traffic. Since Google volume is so much greater than either Yahoo or Bing, it enjoys proportionally greater attention from search marketers. This unified marketplace will grant Microsoft and Yahoo! a better chance to compete with Google due to their combined scale.

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One emerging business model that has caught on in social media is not particularly social at all. The model, especially prominent in supporting the booming social gaming business, allows marketers to target consumers with cost-per-acquisition deals that earn consumers points or virtual currency in the games.

Among the best known players in this field is Offerpal, which says it reaches more than 150 million consumers. After missing the company’s CEO George Garrick last month both when he was in New York and I was in San Francisco, we finally caught up on the phone for an exclusive interview. While Offerpal has typically targeted direct response marketers for lead generation programs, new and upcoming programs will cater to brand marketers too.

Note that his answers below are paraphrased, except where in direct quotes, and some of the questions were added later for clarity.

Offerpal Overview

Offerpal reaches consumers who don’t want to spend money for points or virtual currency. Offerpal’s consumers are typically teenagers – younger people who may not have credit cards.

The first rewards were offers, but there are other ways Offerpal is providing value for consumers subsidized by marketers. Shopping Offers was introduced a few months ago. A video product is coming out where consumers will get rewarded for watching ads.

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Google Buzz,  the Boss and a lesson for brands as social media and CRM collide.

A couple of months back I came across a Facebook ad and clicked on it. It was for a $6 dollar T-shirt emblazoned with Bruce Springsteen’s head that said “The Only Boss I Listen To.” Obviously, I had to have it.

I made my way to the checkout found that the $8 shipping cost was more than the product, as the only option for delivery was UPS.  I ordered it anyway. A few days passed.

Curious as to where my awesome shirt was, I shot an email to the vendor, 6 Dollar Shirts, asking what was up. Two days later I received a response. Turns out, my order was processed on Dec. 26 – but was not actually shipped until Jan. 6 (12 days later). Oh, and it was sent via USPS. Wait a minute… I followed up again and asked what my adjusted shipping charge would be, given that it was clearly not shipped by UPS.

No response. I finally got my shirt on Jan. 8. No one ever got back to me on the adjusted shipping rate. I didn’t press the issue because frankly, I didn’t want to waste any more time on a few bucks. I was just happy to have my sweet Springsteen t-shirt.  End of story? Nope.

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Image via Computer World

Google dominated industry chatter this week with its announcement of Buzz and swirling rumors of its plans to acquire social search service Aardvark. Foursquare also made headlines for its new partnerships with Zagat and the New York Times. We’ve summarized these items and more in the recap below.

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Lots of sports drink, but not so much social: Where was the social media in Superbowl ad spots? (Image via telegraph.co.uk)

If social media has finally gone mainstream, where was it during the Super Bowl? It wasn’t visible in many of the spots.With Facebook passing the 400 million user mark and so much of the buzz about the ads happening on Twitter, you’d expect more social media love from the ads. Instead, the Web site URLs at the end of the spots tended to go to the advertiser’s main site. Where were the callouts to become a fan, follower, or friend?

Here are ten reasons why social media wasn’t front and center during the Super Bowl ads:

1) Social belonged elsewhere in the architecture. Marketers must make decisions on where social media fits within their digital architecture. Frequently, their main site serves as the hub that links out to their social presence elsewhere, and those social properties link back to the site.

That doesn’t have to be the case; a social network, blog, or microsite could serve as a hub, or it may be a decentralized approach without a hub but with the pieces still connecting together. For Super Bowl advertisers, their hub tended to be either their homepage or a page within their main site. Brands with an active presence in social media had an opportunity to direct consumers to their social channels from their sites, yet that’s where a number of marketers fell short.

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