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.