aimClear Search Marketing Blog

By now, you’ve probably caught wind of this thing called “Facebook Places.” In fact, unless your entire last week was consumed by SES San Francisco or Affiliate Summit you may have read, with bated breath,  live blog coverage from Facebook HQ in Palo Alto, CA. It was there CEO Mark Zuckerberg addressed a crowded room that, according to Greg Sterling, resembled “a wedding or luau [rather] than a press conference.” Right. That’s creepy-ominous enough.

If by some chance you’re living under a rock and have not heard of Facebook Places, here’s a 140 character summary: Facebook Places allows users to share their location & the location of their friends by “checking in” at places via an iPhone app. To paraphrase general feedback from social circles: “So… basically, it’s just like Foursquare.” Maybe so. Maybe no. Regardless, the unveiling of this possibly game-changing platform certainly warrants a closer look.

In an effort to help provide just that, we compiled a list of 57 recently-published posts about Facebook Places– from launch coverage to field guides, privacy warnings to tactics on how biz owners & marketers can capitalize on the functionality.  Read on for the complete link roundup. Read the rest of this entry »

Hi, hello and welcome to #SESSF, aka Search Engine Strategies San Francisco! Day 1 started off with a kickass keynote by Kodak’s former “Celebrity CMO,” Jeffrey Hayzlett. Conference attendees who might have seen Jeff rev up crowds at various #140conf (140 Character Conference) events in the past were fully expecting a presentation dripping with animation, insight, and a fresh dose of mild vulgarity. Jeff did not disappoint. This go-round, aimClear live-tweeted the keynote. Read on for a transcript of the goods– lumped together by categories, themes and takeaways.

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Earlier this summer in Facebook SEO Ranking Factors, 2010 Study Results, we explored the mechanics of Facebook search and theorized about the different ranking factors that make X page climb above Y group, Z event, and Q person in the organic SERPs. We noted that one of the most influential spaces in Facebook Search is the Facebook Suggest Box. “It auto-fills, much like Google, populating as the user types first letters,” our own Marty Weintraub explained. “This mechanism seems to channel users away from the SERPs, probably with cause for lack SERP’s quality.”

… and channel users away from SERPs it does. Now it seems, in some cases it channels users away from Facebook in general. Read the rest of this entry »

aimClear’s demographic research product includes social media influencers from a number of channels ranking from Facebook and YouTube to forums.  We then challenge Community Managers to take these “friend leads” and convert them to organic friends over 3-5 days, at a “cost per friend lead” calculated from how much time the friend-conversion takes.  This post samples techniques to identify and qualify friend-leads, influencers and several holistic tactics proven to convert those leads to friends. Read the rest of this entry »

B2B, B2C…B2 anything, every marketing department would love to somehow crack the social media code. Be it by content marketing, participation in Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, FourSquare, Flickr, Digg, Delicious, etc… invariably, the conversation turns to the same question: “What are we going to do and who’s going to actually execute on this every day at the office?”

Then comes the obligatory: “How are we going to measure it?” and, “When will we set business goals?” or, “Are we just doing this for the hell of it ‘cause everybody else does?” All are reasonable questions. This post offers time-tried blueprints for building out a social media marketing plan, while empowering data-driven, KPI-oriented community managers. Read the rest of this entry »