To build upon their “Bing Is For Doing” philosophy, America’s second largest search engine has decided that it will follow in Google’s footsteps and provide social integration.  More information about the merger of social and search platforms across the web can be found in a previous 90blog post.  Bing will attempt to do what Google has decided against and use Facebook (among other social networking sites) as its primary tool to get answers for its users.  As Bing says, “Recent attempts at social search haven’t unlocked the full potential of tapping our social networks.”  Through an integrated format called the Sidebar, users will be able to get the opinion of friends, family, and colleagues online, much as you would in person.

Image Credit: Barrera Search Marketing

Google recently updated its Display Network settings within the AdWords interface to report performance information at the keyword level, rather than at the AdGroup level as it did previously. Performance information includes everything from the number of clicks and impressions a keyword receives to the number of conversions it generates, and at which display position it performs best. For advertisers, this means optimization for keyword-targeted Contextual campaigns will be far more granular.

Many brands have rushed to adapt to one of the latest trends in social media – brand pages on Pinterest. Many brands are seeing results in the form of referral traffic to their site and high-engagement with their community. Here are some tips for optimizing your brand page on Pinterest.

Even though the Washington Capitals eliminated them in this year’s NHL Playoffs, the Boston Bruins would likely win the Stanley Cup of Social Media if such a thing existed.  

With the onset of globalization, the importance of advertising in the international space is becoming increasingly apparent. In a recent article by Search Engine Land, linguist Andy Atkins-Kruger discusses several tips to help international marketers achieve success with pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, which I’ve summarized below.

What’s so great about Pinterest, anyway? Most users already know it’s an all-too-effective means of distraction (not that we ever get distracted here at 90octane!). However, as a result, the site boasts audience engagement statistics that most assuredly qualify it as a social media platform to watch.

Every year, MarketingSherpa releases its Wisdom Report, a compilation of stories and learnings from marketing professionals across the country. For the 2012 report, 90octane partner Sam Eidson outlined the hurdles small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) face when adopting marketing automation technology (MA).

While it’s nearly impossible to predict the future of the ever changing web, many experts are expecting that combining social and search will be the next big trend.  Google has already established itself as the pioneer in this field by combining Google Search and Google+; however, Google isn’t the only web giant interested in bringing the two tactics together.  It is rumored that Facebook is developing a search engine that combines a user’s location and friends’ interests to provide search query results.

The Internet: love it or hate it, you probably spend a decent amount of time online both at work and at home. In 2010, comScore reported that the average American spent 32 hours per month on the Internet. With the vast amount of time we are spending (or wasting) online, wouldn’t it be nice to be rewarded for your browsing efforts? This wish has been granted thanks to Google’s latest venture: Screenwise Trends.

The Wall Street Journal recently announced that Google will be undergoing a big change. The search giant plans to do a large re-fresh of its algorithm to include “semantic search” technology.  The support system will be Google’s Knowledge Graph and the change is expected to take effect in the next couple of months.

The overall goal of the refresh will be to provide users with direct answers to a search query by understanding the actual meaning of the words, which is generated through an understanding of the association between words used. Amit Singhal, a top Google search executive, said the update will allow Google search to more closely replicate “how humans understand the world.”

This is nothing entirely new, as Google has performed similar updates in the past. Google’s primary goal seems to be to maintain their lead ahead of Bing and catch up to Apple’s Siri voice-activated mobile search. Singhal said, “Let me just say that every day, we’re improving our ability to give you the best answers to your questions as quickly as possible, so stay tuned for updates on what will continue to be a long road ahead.”