What will they do next?

     Are they taking over the world? At the last SPARK event I went to about mobile marketing, I was concerned with the idea that not everyone had WiFi accessibility. My phone bill is quite expensive to have unlimited data, and the fact is not every business wants to support the public's WiFi access.  I think this is a cool solution and good publicity for Google. Will this be practical in the long run? I don't know much about balloons but I am wondering how much less expensive it would be to just set up the technology needed for these area to have WiFi. We will see what happens with this.
http://bit.ly/13TnQzL

Social media yes or no?

     Friday I attended a meeting at Whole Brain Group in downtown Ann Arbor. We had coffee and donuts  and talked about search marketing basics. A good discussion came up about whether or not a business should invest in social media. A small business owner working out of a home office may not have time to run full Facebook and Twitter campaigns. The question here is if it is really worth it to spend the time on creating these campaigns. If Facebook does not ultimately bring your company traffic, what is the use? Another good point was brought up by Bonnie who hosted the meeting. It is just as bad for a business to have a social media account that is not updated.

     If a business plans to have and account it should be well maintained. Now I think as I have discussed a lot in different posts that it is important to have a well developed mobile site, but small businesses need to think about their marketing strategy before signing up with every social service. 

Video or Mobile?

     I have been talking a lot lately about the importance of mobile and apps for businesses, but this article is about how video is still an important factor. We discuss a lot how many people don't watch live TV but record it or watch it on Netflix or HBO. According to Young 85% of audiences are still watching live TV. Is was a big surprise to me just from my own experiences. I think it is important to mention here that although we need to upgrade to more mobile friendly interfaces, it is still important to reach the tradition mediums as well. We will see if this is in fact the year of videos.

http://bit.ly/19FxPs3

The Mobile Wave

     During the SPARK event, it was discussed the need for businesses to start updating their website to fit on a mobile screen. There is a debate between apps or just a mobile site. The fact is that 60% of searches are on mobile devices for people ages 18-34. Although companies should not just be throwing money at building an app just to go with the flow. It takes research and knowing your customer base to see if an application is really useful. Businesses do need to have a easy website or mobile use, but it may not need a lot of change from the original site. Te important thing is to look at your budget and your customers. We still need to keep in mind the growing mobile trend.

FB Tracking, Will it Work?

     Reading over this article facebook-waze made me wonder how much of this tracking information is truly useful. It must prove helpful in some way if Facebook is using it. Facebook is in the process of buying the user based map service Waze. It takes the location of its users to determine real time traffic information. Facebook wants to utilize this technology to “check in” and be able to match advertisements to their specific locations. This would be a nice feature, but I wonder if people are already driving past various businesses they may not need another reminder of what is around. This would be good for small local businesses that do not have or cannot afford more outside advertising.

Search Marketing Basics Seminar

     On May 24th I will be attending this Search Marketing Basics seminar. It is hosted by the Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti Chamber of Commerce http://www.annarborchamber.org/. This is a great resource to use for various local events on business and is a great offers great networking opportunities. This free event will be going over the basics of Google Adwords and how SEO is affecting businesses. It is important for online businesses to be aware of the changing world in online advertising, and online searches. Not every business can just start making ads, they need to budget and make sure this method will be translated into future sales. These events do well with discussion and general knowledge sharing between companies.