Posted by: Kerry Houchin, Project Manager

There are two ways to generate BtoB leads using Linkedin: the expensive way and the free way. For advertisers who are willing to spend $25,000 or more, the site offers the “Linkedin Advertising Sales” option, which includes a variety of highly-targeted display ads, polling questions and more. For those with budgets smaller than $25,000, Linkedin offers a DirectAds text ad option that works on a highly-targeted pay-per-click or pay-per-impression model. While both of these options may have a place in your lead generation strategy, you may be wondering how to effectively generate leads without spending part of your precious media budget.

Linkedin is a social network where business professionals go to look for advice and make connections, not a venue where they look to be sold on a product or service. The key to generating leads on Linkedin is to first gain people’s attention and trust, and then become a thought leader in your area of expertise. Make sure to join Linkedin under your own name instead of a company identity. Next, use the search function to find the most active (not necessarily the largest) group in your area of knowledge. Then, join the conversation and, where appropriate, use collateral such as white papers or specially created social media landing pages to add value to the topic.

Remember that it can take time to gain a following on Linkedin and that leads may not be of the same quality that you’re used to seeing from other conversion-driven tactics, but with diligence and patience, Linkedin could become a great lead generator for your business.

Posted by: Kerry Houchin, Project Manager

According to ClickZ, there are more than 270 million mobile subscribers in the United States and 96% of mobile phones are SMS compatible. Imagine how many customers you could reach using a targeted, 140-character text message. Think about your own mobile habits. Chances are you have your phone with you and turned on a vast majority of the time. If you have a smartphone, it’s likely you have an alert set up for inbound texts, but not for inbound emails. So, when is it best to deliver the message via SMS and when should you stick with email?

Posted by: Kerry Houchin, Project Manager

With the release of Google’s Nexus One smart phone, Google has spent some serious time creating innovative mobile search applications. Now on-the-go Android users can search for businesses using the “What’s Nearby” feature and can search for information on landmarks, artwork and other objects using the Google Goggles app.

Here’s how they work:
• What’s Nearby uses the smart phone’s location feature to build a list of the 10 closest places including restaurants, businesses and locations of interest. Since listings are pulled from the Google Local Business Center listings, this reinforces the fact that having a presence in the Local Business Center is becoming more and more important.

Posted by: Kerry Houchin, Project Manager

Last month both Google and Bing announced they had reached deals with Twitter allowing them to display public Tweets as search results. Currently, Bing is showing live Twitter results only in the Bing Twitter search interface and Google will be integrating Tweets into search results over the next few months.

As Tweets and other real-time results, possibly Facebook postings, are rolled into search results, SEO tactics will need to evolve to keep up with search trends. Having a listing on the first page of search results will become increasingly difficult since pieces of the limited page real estate will be taken by Tweets.  Also, having a presence in Twitter and other forms of social media will continue to be more and more important.

You may be thinking, “Great, it can’t be that hard to set up a Twitter account.” That won’t cut it. Bing states that they won’t index Tweets for longer than seven days. This means that having a steady stream of updated Twitter content is crucial for maintaining Twitter search listings. Also, in the case where two Tweets have very similar content, the higher search ranking will go to the person with the most Twitter followers, indicating the importance of building a Twitter community.

Real-time search is still in its infancy and tactics will continue to evolve as more real-time search features are rolled out. To stay on top of the latest real-time search news, check out the Bing Search Blog and the Official Google Blog.

Posted by: Kerry Houchin, Marketing Coordinator

Google recently announced that it is making a major change to its organic search results algorithm. The update, expected to give Google the ability to cache pages more quickly and comprehensively, has been dubbed “Google Caffeine.” Caffeine will affect organic search in several ways, but here are three ways you might not have thought of that it will affect paid search:

1. Paid search may become more necessary to supplement your organic listings.  Changes in the organic listings including rank changes and index-size changes may mean that you’re not getting the organic visibility you’re used to seeing. Now would be a good time to begin watching organic results carefully and making up for any decline in traffic using paid search.
2. Paid search campaigns will need to become more nimble. With the changes in indexing speed brought about by Caffeine, being able to adjust paid search campaigns on the fly will become more and more important.
3. Geo-targeting will become more important.  With Caffeine, there seems to be less of an emphasis on news results and a greater emphasis on local results. Geo-targeting will ensure that your ads show up in precisely the right locations, rather than leaving it up to Google to guess if your ad is relevant to local searches.

Search algorithms will always change. Understanding the right mix between PPC and SEO is essential for maintaining search visibility.