You Just Can't Fool Google - Marketing Update - Episode #231

Nowadays, it feels like every social network and online service has
some sort of tool designed for us marketers. Whether we know it or
not, many of these networks and services are adding business pages,
analytics, and even automation into their function. Klout Launches
Business Portal, is Gunning for Brands, From CNN Money The "social
media influence" measuring startup has announced that it will be
launching a business portal design to attract big-name brands.
Klout is launching Klout for Business, with a goal of providing
brands with an insight into their social media audiences. The free
analytics dashboard for companies will allow brands to learn what
social networks they resonate best on, popular topics, and how
influential their fans and followers are. The dashboard also gives
companies insight into when posts or tweets are most influential
during the day. With 500M Push Notifications Sent Each Month,
Mobile Backend Platform Parse Unveils an Analytics Service, From
The Next Web Sending 500 million push notifications per month, the
application development platform known as Parse has announced that
it will be offering analytics on its services. Parse is a mobile
backend-as-a-service that provides develops with the tools and
services they need to create iOS and Android apps. A huge aspect of
those tools is push notifications that developers can use to
improve the user experience on these apps. Parse says that not only
will they be introducing analytics on its push notifications, but
analytics on how many times an app or push notification is opened.
Facebook Working on Incorporating the Hashtag It seems that
Twitter’s most iconic marker may soon find its way into Facebook
timelines across the globe. Facebook is currently working on
incorporating the all-powerful hashtag into its social network. For
those of you unfamiliar with the hashtag, it is heavily used in
Twitter as a word or phrase proceeded by a # symbol that groups
similar topics and events. Facebook hasn’t yet decided how far they
will follow in Twitter’s footsteps with the hashtags, but we’re
certain that Twitter will not be happy. The two companies are
already competing for online advertisers, and Facebook’s adoption
of the hashtag could affect Twitters bottom line. Small Twitter
Advertisers Can Now Target Ads Like Big Brands, From Marketing Land
Twitter has announced that it will be providing its more advanced
dashboard features, normally available only to big spenders, to
smaller companies. This release of “advanced” features gives
smaller brands the same tools and options that large-scale Twitter
advertisers are using. Twitter warns that once users switch over to
the “advanced options” there is no going back. Although these
features offer smaller advertisers more options, deeper analytics,
and improved targeting, it may be too complex for some. Study Finds
Google’s Penguin Update Getting Stricter Over Time, From Search
Engine Land A recent study by Portent, an Internet marketing
company, illustrates that Google is getting fed up with spammy
links floating through its search engine. Google’s Penguin
algorithm will be targeting websites for a rank drop if they have
as little as 50 percent suspicious links in their link profiles.
Portent analyzed 100,000 links from the top 50 sites on the Inc.
5000 list of 2012. Using SEOMOZ and Majestic SEO data, they scored
links as spam based on the relation of the page to the page being
linked to and the page the link was coming from. Through this
process they found more than 250,000 links pointing at penalized
websites, and 250,000 links pointing at non-penalized websites.