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If you’re following the current mobile trends this holiday season then you know what a crucial part mobile is playing. Over half of consumers will use their mobile and tablet devices to research gifts, seek out discounts and make purchases. If you’re not in the mobile arena yet, you’ve missed a chance to capitalize on this year’s holiday shopping. Or maybe you’ve dabbled in it, but aren’t sure what to do next? Well, below are a few questions to ask yourself when evaluating your mobile effectiveness.
• What percentage of your online traffic is coming from Mobile?
• Is your website Mobile Optimized?
• Better yet, do you have a specific Mobile site?
• What actions are your customers trying to complete on your Mobile site?
o Make a Transaction
o Find your Location
o Retrieve a phone number
o Research products
• What devices are your customers using the most?
• Are your paid search campaigns targeted to Mobile?
• Are you taking advantage of cost efficient Mobile display campaigns?

In terms of mobile, that’s the tip of the ice berg when it comes to ensuring your business is Mobile savvy. If you’re not sure how to answer some of those questions or want to take your Mobile game to the next level, give us a shout. As always, we’re here to help!

Connect@mediavenue.com
502.855.4786

We’ve all heard the phrase failing to plan is planning to fail. In business there can be no more truthful a statement. How would you ever know where you’re going unless you have a plan to get there? Well, planning season is officially upon us; are you ready for 2013?

We’ve been helping businesses map their path to success for nearly 20 years and we’d love to help you too. Recently we added staff along with a new suite of services, all designed to provide our clients with a full complement of marketing capabilities.

So, let our experts help you get a greater return on your marketing investment by helping you create a plan that’s sure to be a success.

To schedule a free half hour phone consultation, email us at: connect@mediavenue.com

CHANGE IS GOOD!

This past March we were fortunate enough to find an incredible new talent to head up our Interactive Marketing Division of the company. Kate Morrison came to us by way of Las Vegas where she was leading the digital media group for The Palms Resort and Casino. Prior to that, Kate worked with MGM Resorts International and Hard Rock Hotel & Casino. Kate is young, talented, wicked smart, direct and completely addicted to all things online.

Once mainly a traditional media buying agency, we can now manage all of your media needs including: display, paid search, seo, social, mobile, email, and content development. And beyond the additional services, this evolution allowed us to leverage the experience and expertise of our current staff in more broad and strategic ways.
With our house in order, we decided to ratchet up our services another notch through the formation of strategic partnerships with a variety of other agencies, the combination of which now enables us to provide a full scope of services to our growing client base.

We can now do most everything!
• Strategic planning and creative consultation
• Creative Services
• Digital Media
o Content Development
o Paid Search
o SEO
o Social Media
o Display Advertising
o Email Marketing
• Web Development
• Mobile Site Development and Marketing
• Traditional Media Planning and Buying

So, consider us your full service marketing partner, with the experience, resources, expertise and creativity to make the most of your marketing investment. We invite you to visit our blog frequently as well as connect with us on Facebook and Twitter.

As 2011 is slowly fading into the record books many people are looking back on the year that was. We however are continuing to look ahead into the future instead of reminiscing about the past. The New Year is upon us and what will it bring? Here are some of our predictions for 2012:

1. More inflated social media IPOs and possible social media bubble: News is coming in everyday about new social media sites looking to go public. Experts are predicting the following filings; Yelp! Seeking a $2 billion IPO, Groupon anywhere between $12-13 billion and Facebook a monstrous IPO somewhere north of $100 billion. These inflated IPOs are not limited to social media however; mobile media will attempt to cash in too, Rovio (makers of Angry Birds) and Zynga (behind Words with Friends and Hanging with Friends) are both expected to file for IPOs over $1 billion. While Linkedin has already gone public and is currently trading at about $70 a share and valued $4-6 billion, it is not protected from failing and neither are other social media ventures planning to go public in 2012. Is this a social media bubble and if so when will it burst? Time will tell. However, you will not see me investing in any of these companies.
2. Tablets will continue to grow in 2012; however no one will catch the iPad: The 4Q introduction of the Kindle Fire offered consumers a reliable tablet for a $199 price tag, allowing many people who viewed tablet PCs out of their budget to get in on the action. Though the Kindle Fires low price tag may have increased the tablet market, its has been called into question. The flaws in the Kindle Fire will keep it and other Android powered tablets looking up at the gold standard, the iPad. With the release rumored release of the iPad 3 in Spring 2012, Apple is on the verge of becoming the number 1 PC vendor in the world (with the inclusion on tablets.) It is undeniable tablets are here to stay and it does not look like anyone can compete with the iPad.
3. 2012 will be a good year for advertisers: First more and more small businesses and developing nations will turn to digital and social media marketing in conjunction with their traditional media advertising plans. In addition 2012 offers many “quadrennial” events including the 2012 Summer Olympics, European Football Championship, and Presidential Election. Advertising will be at a premium for these events as will viewers estimated to be in the billions worldwide.

The New Year is upon us and while 2011 was a blast. We are looking ahead to make 2012 our best year yet! Now if we can just shed those holiday pounds…

Imagine this, you own a quaint bakery with a simple, yet functional website. You are known around town to make the world’s best chocolate donut. And though your chocolate donut may be tasty, ranking for the term “chocolate donut” in Google is damn near impossible. Or is it? Search Engine marketing is moving in an interesting direction, and it’s all about your social circle.

For many years now, the mammoth companies of the world have had a strong hold on the generic search terms that many local businesses would kill to rank for in the top search engines. Google, by far the top dog, owns almost 91% of the global search engine share. With that kind of competitive edge, the Mountain View, CA giant is looking to change things up a little. But yet at the same time, give their users the best possible experience.

Going back to our yummy chocolate donut scenario, if one were to search “chocolate donut,” the cute local bakery would be found many many pages deep in the results. But now imagine you are logged into your Google+ account. All the sudden, that local bakery is now among the top 10.

Seeing this dramatic change in position would make one believe that going forward, the standard SERP will disappear and monitoring rankings will be less and less important, and each individual using a social network platform will be served a result that is unique to them and their search. You will be served a result based on what you typed in the search box, who you are friends with, and the things that you and your social circle are interested in. Julie Ann Ross of Site Pro News spells it out beautifully, “the more connections a person has, the more likely some of their material they have read or recommended will show up in the person’s search engine results page.”

In addition to SERP being influenced by location and sharing circles, content is still revered as a strong ranking element. From a social media standpoint, website content is also being ranked on the amount that it is being shared on Facebook, Tweeted, and +1’d. This means the better your content and the more your content is shared, the higher your page rank will become.

At the moment, this experiment only displays results within the Google product universe. And still is fairly new thanks to the Google algorithm update PANDA. Ross continues, “Social media SEO has increased in importance, thanks to some changes in Google’s algorithms, most recently the Google Panda update. What Google Panda has done is made social media connections a bigger part of their SEO algorithm.”

But here’s food for thought. What will happen when your Google search is connected to the social giants of the world? The 750 million users on Facebook? Or 360 million(+) little birdies using Twitter? Wow.