On December 1^st, Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land compiled conversations with Google and Bing regarding how much of an impact social media has on search rankings. The answer for both engines is social media is making an impact on search rankings, but only to a degree. In particular, Twitter appears to have a much stronger pull than Facebook. The article only addressed Twitter and Facebook specifically.

This did not come as a surprise to our SEO experts. We have clients with both SEO and social programs and clients with just SEO marketing programs. Our own internal testing shows those with the SEO and social programs received a lift from the program. However, until now we attributed it to the brand awareness of the URL within the social networks and our efforts to integrate our SEO keywords into our social media strategies.

A holistic approach to search and social media is a must in this age of media convergence. As more technologies come about, how, when and where we search become almost as important as why.

In 2010, LeapFrog Interactive formalized how we help clients plan for and execute successful marketing campaigns. Our teams and clients now follow a new L.E.A.P. process: Listen, Engage, Act and Perform. The process is new and exciting! It puts strategy, planning, implementation, and measurement into nice, tidy compartments.

As Vice President of Branding + Strategy, I’m involved in the Listen or “L” stage of L.E.A.P. “L” is a time for gathering and conducting consumer research, getting smart about the competition, and learning from clients what it is they want and need to be successful. The output from Listen is often a strategic marketing and technology plan that sets us on the right path to detailed media planning and creative ideation.

Most clients enter this stage excited about gaining a competitive advantage and determining what message, strategy or tactical plan will help them win.

Often, what clients walk away with is something beyond positioning. What CEOs tell me time and time again is that our Listen exercises help them to reconsider their purpose. This might seem to go a little beyond marketing strategy, but compelling stories start with a meaningful examination of why your company exists in the first place. We ask questions like, “If your company were shuttered tomorrow, to whom would it matter and why?” and “How long would it take for someone to fill your place?” Questions like these are often incredibly difficult for executives to answer.

In the season of giving, Google has become the Grinch for some online retailers. On December 1^st, Google made a change to their algorithm, which penalizes companies for having negative reviews of their products or services. The change occurred after The New York Times exposé on an online eyeglass frames retailer who was using negative reviews to improve the company’s search rankings. The business owner was purposefully performing bad customer service, was outwardly rude to customers, and reportedly stalked customers as a form of linkbait in garnering bad reviews. Customers would post negative comments and links on high PageRank sites, thus yielding high valued links. (Google has refuted it was not the negative comments that drove traffic to the site but was due to rel=nofollow attributes on the links.)

Google contends any company consistently pursuing bad business practices and/or poor customers should not appear in prominent position within the search pages. Although Google does not outline the exact changes made, they do state they are not using sentiment analysis — evaluating comments, reviews and posts and devaluing a business based on negative sentiment.

We applaud Google for taking this stance. As a company in the SEO field, we have consistently found companies with bad business practices ranking high in the search engines. Any opportunity these businesses are thwarted is good business for those companies that choose to do business the right way.

The items will be delivered to the Center on December 17.

(Picture below taken on December 17)

From left: Jacob Knight, Kyle Fertig, Steve Bowling (CWF)

The holiday shopping season is projected to be the biggest yet for mobile shopping. IDC Retail Insights predicts mobile shopping will constitute 28% of the total dollars spent during the holiday season. Already, the popular app ShopSavvy, which allows customers to comparison price shop for products, saw over 2.15 million downloads in November alone. Other popular apps, like Black Friday, helped shoppers view the Black Friday ads on their phones. As consumers were shopping, they could pull up ads and find the best deals that day.

SMS marketing has been extremely popular this holiday season. Toys“R”Us offers a scavenger hunt promotional campaign and additional discounts through SMS. Starbucks’ “12 Days of Sharing” offers 12 days of promotional items via text message.

Does your company have a mobile program in place? If not, 2011 is the time to begin planning for a mobile program and learning how it can be integrated into your overall marketing strategy. We all know next holiday season is just around the corner.

With the onslaught of tablets in the market for this holiday season, one remains on top of the heap and likely on many wish lists: the Apple iPad. I am what folks would call an early adopter when it comes to electronics, but I only stay true to the ones that provide real business benefit. And I have found the iPad to be all that it promises.

There are three iPad apps I have discovered that proved to me iPad’s business capabilities:

+ NoteTaker HD: A powerful note-taking tool, this application allows the use of a stylus (available on Amazon or at your local Apple store) for written notes that can easily be sent via email in a .pdf format. This has revolutionized my business life as I have not had to have a real pen in my hand since I got the iPad.
 
+ LogMeIn Ignition: This application allows me to log onto my work computer. Downloaded on my work computer and iPad, this nifty setup allows me to replace my laptop with the truly mobile iPad and has turned my laptop into a desktop.

+ Air Display: This application allows me to add a third screen to my computer setup in the office and to actually view Flash on the iPad. This comes in handy when providing training and during meetings. Amazing!

While there are literally thousands of apps, these are three I use on a daily basis and have helped me turn this device into a true business asset!

Companies and their C-level/Directors/Managers in Marketing have a love/hate relationship with pay-per-click (PPC). Those who love it are usually highly analytical and have keyword ROI and complex bidding rules (i.e., spreadsheets of numbers validating the marketing spend). Those who do not like PPC do not understand the spend when compared to SEO, which is “free.” Additionally, I have heard, “I ignore those ads,” as a reason not to invest in PPC. (However, with the advent of DVR, this argument is becoming easier to defend.)

All of this being said, The New York Times is running a two-part series on Master Google AdWords where they explore a party entertaining business that has grown their business “significantly” using AdWords. I love hearing real-world examples of how PPC helps make people successful.

If you have not tried PPC before, or you have in the past and it did not work out, I would recommend now is the time to do so. Google and Bing/Yahoo! have made tremendous strides to make PPC a valuable marketing channel for advertisers. Google’s product offerings are such that you can commandeer double the space of a traditional PPC ad. And, in some cases, you can deliver product images within the ad.

2010 has been the year of paid search…and it shows.

In a blog post yesterday, Google tipped its cards a bit and gave us a peek into the future of desktop computing as they see it. In essence, with their Chrome operating system (with the Chrome browser being the most visible manifestation of this) they are attempting to redefine the entire ecosystem of the desktop operating system. If this catches on, the biggest threat will be to Microsoft and Apple, the current desktop OS incumbents.

The value proposition is very compelling if they can pull this off and get wide adoption. For the consumer there will be much less reliance on the type of PC processor, the installed suite of software (namely word processing and spreadsheets), and the complexities that go along with keeping a computer up to date and healthy. The vision is for software to be purchased from the "cloud" just as one would purchase an app for their mobile phone. An important enabler of the ultimate success of this approach is the maturity of web-based ("cloud") services and the growing comfort consumers have with this model.

Time will tell.

The challenges represented by the well-entrenched players dominating this market are formidable and Google is probably one of the few organizations that have a shot at pulling this off.

For businesses, this move represents a continuing evolution of the "Integrated Lifestyle" and further blurring of the lines between traditional, disparate channels and delivery mechanisms.

(Contributed by Ron Reeves)

There are some concepts that are so simple they become hard for many to grasp. Often, we make things more complex than they are because we believe that makes them more valuable. Key Performance Indicators are one of those concepts. Even the name makes it seem technical — and of course, anything with an acronym (KPIs) must be complicated, right?

The truth is there is nothing complicated about determining your KPIs. Simply put, KPIs are quantifiable metrics that tell you how effective your marketing efforts are. So how do you know what your KPIs are? Two questions will reveal your answer:

+  What do you want to accomplish?
+  What event or action relates to what you are trying to accomplish?

If the goal of your marketing campaign is to increase sales, your KPIs would need to be quantifiable actions that reflect an increase in sales such as, “average revenue per sale” or “average weekly sales.” If your KPIs improve (i.e., 5 average weekly sales goes up to 6 average weekly sales), then you are closer to your goal.

Any measurement that does not directly tie in to your goals is NOT a KPI. It is simply a metric. I don’t mean to suggest that other metrics don’t provide valuable insight, but they should always be used in reference to your KPIs. An increase in site visitors is a wonderful thing, but if it coincides with a decreased rate of purchase then you could be impacting your KPIs in a negative way.

We live in an instant society. From instant oatmeal to instant messaging, we are determined to do it quickly with immediate results. Remember when frozen pizza was a time saver? Now, 14-16 minutes at 375 degrees just isn’t fast enough. Technology has changed everything. Sometimes I actually get impatient reheating my coffee for thirty seconds.

With information and communication at our fingertips via Smartphones and computers, patience, in many cases, never has to be exercised. Why wait when you can share right away on Twitter or Facebook? Why wait to buy when you can purchase online now? As consumers, we now have the power of instant connections and are empowered to get what we want, when we want it.

Consumers are truly in control.

Yet, with control comes responsibility. Consumers are cognizant that technology should serve a specific purpose instead of consuming all of our time. They don’t necessarily want their phones or laptops to get in the way of a good conversation at the dinner table. Believe it or not, I’ve even told myself that my email can wait when it comes to kids’ events or family vacations. Sure, I feel naked without my phone, but I understand the value of unplugging to maintain a little balance.

It’s my belief that we will see a shift in our societal attitude toward technology soon. As marketers, we have to be aware that people take time away from their online lives for a little offline peace. If you want to stay visible in this “instant society,” my best advice is to (1) create marketing experiences that are relevant and functional and (2) execute integrated marketing strategies to reach audiences both offline and online.

In Louisville, LeapFrog Interactive is one of the few precious agencies that excel at interactive marketing — in fact, we’re the only full-service digital agency. We’ve heard that it’s difficult for companies to find a local agency that knows how to implement successful digital elements, like interactive design — that is, until they meet us.

Largely, credit goes to the talented, creative minds that are staffed here. Coming from a background of media buying and planning, I’ve always been fascinated by the way our Creative department, specifically our Interactive Designers, come up with such powerful combinations of colors, shapes, fonts and textures—seemingly on a whim.

So, I decided to ask.

I picked the brain of interactive design expert, Constance Courts. With many years of design experience both offline and online, she shared her philosophy on the characteristics of a great creative mind and her process for finding inspiration.

“Inspiration doesn’t always come easily ... I am in the business of making suggestions.”

Constance is of the mindset that art, and specifically interactive design, requires a process. Constance recounts her four key steps to that process:

1)    Gather all the information you can: What is the brand? Who do they want to be and to whom? Why is that important to them? How does the brand want their target to feel when they visit the site? “The more I know, the better my suggestions!”

2)    Hash out “ding” words: “Ding” words are adjectives that spark specific images or tones, like whimsical or conservative.

3)    Keep up with and refer back to an idea book: “I keep a digital notebook of pictures, styles, fashions, fonts, color pairings and other visuals or sounds that pique my interest. When I’m really struggling for concepts, I refer to it. A creative mind is never at rest — you see and experience things in ways you can’t always explain.”

4)    Create rough sketches by pen or pencil first — then digitalize: Quick and very loose sketches help a creative mind decide how best to translate to a digital environment. Not every designer goes to pen and paper first because varied font styles and lifestyle images elicit different emotions but it’s handy for realizing what works and what doesn’t.

In the end, Constance admits that having a second and third pair of eyes to review her work is important. It not only helps her improve her work, but it also helps her learn how to articulate and assert her creative choices.

These, my friends, are the underlying philosophies and practices that make "magic" at LeapFrog Interactive.

[Post contributed by Emily Carroll]