In an interview with FOX Business in March, Founder and CEO Ken Wisnefski stated that “companies are starting to incorporate more resources in to social media optimization, and don’t be surprised if we start to see a dramatic shift over the next 1-3 years toward social media marketing. That 50/50 social media / traditional marketing arena is not out of the question”.

On Friday, Apple reportedly filed for lawsuit against Samsung for “copyright infringement” in the development and production of their Galaxy tablet and phones. Apple is seeking punitive damages which could certainly be a whole lot, since their Galaxy products have generated over 11 million units sold since their release last year.

This week, Google released their “Content Farm – Panda” update to all English speaking countries including Australia, the United Kingdom, and Canada, where WebiMax, an online marketing company specializing in search engine optimization (SEO), has expanded operations. The initial release of the Panda update took place in February, released only in the United States. Now with the update reaching English language based countries abroad, additional websites that are managed through “black-hat” SEO tactics will be affected.

During February, Google made a significant change to its search algorithm known as the “Farmer Update”, to crack down on content farms that lacked good, original content. These pages would falsely satisfy search algorithms and show up high in PageRank. The obvious problem is that these pages lacked quality information and were essentially useless pages. Yesterday, Google released this change internationally to all English language based countries. In addition to this, they also updated the algorithm.

Microsoft Corp. is claiming that Google is deceptively misleading customers about the security of their various applications, representing another piece of the ongoing struggle between tech giants Microsoft and Google. Released in mid-February, Google caught Bing apparently stealing their search results.

Unfortunately, the search engine optimization (seo) industry is an industry that has been under recent observance for “black hat” services. Since the industry is mostly unregulated, there are some seo companies that do not practice good ethics and get their clients banned from major search engines. There has been a heavy crackdown by search engine titan Google in recent months, and calls for all companies to adhere to a code of ethics.

Ken Wisnefski, Founder and CEO of WebiMax, the nation’s leading online marketing firm, rated by TopSeos.com, announced today that WebiMax has expanded its domestic operations to include five strategic sales and customer support locations throughout the United States. These sales and support facilities will be based in New York City, Boston, Miami, San Francisco and Chicago.

Tech titan Google has added five new templates to their Blogger software, a move to help improve the visibility and navigation of the blog. The 5 new layouts are Mosaic, Flipcard, Timeslide, Sidebar, and Snapshot. In addition, there are “send feedback” and “learn more” tabs conveniently located at the top of the window. Any blog created in Blogger now has this functionality by adding “/view” to the end of the URL.

In a response to high demand, Google has added a new phone support feature to AdWords. People can now call in for support by dialing 1-866-2Google. This service runs from 9:00am EST to 8:00pm EST, Monday through Friday. Prior to this added feature, customer support was mainly thorough FAQs and forums.

Kenneth C. Wisnefski, Founder and CEO of WebiMax, the nation’s #1 rated search engine optimization (SEO), website design, and reputation management company, was interviewed on MSNBC’s Your Business featuring JJ Ramberg on Sunday, April 3, 2011. Your Business, a weekly show that features highly successful CEO’s and Entrepreneurs, discusses trends and hot topics in small business and airs Saturday and Sunday mornings on major news network MSNBC.

In an event for Google to introduce us to another social media feature, they have developed the “+1” button. Comparable to Facebook’s “Like” button, Google’s +1 allows web users to give their approval to any website, ad, video, photo, and even product they view online.

A report released today by the Labor Department and developed with Macroeconomic Advisors LLC showed that the U.S. private sector added 201,000 jobs during the month of March. This precedes the official release this Friday, April 1 by the Labor Department for both public and private labor market report for the month of March. These numbers are in line with what economists predicted, illustrating a steady economic recovery.

Search Engine titan Google, plans to introduce businesses and consumers to a whole new world of analytics. They have joined partners with MasterCard, Citigroup, and VeriFone (manufacturer of point of sale systems) on using near field communication (NFC) support and mobile payments. Although the official announcement has not been released by Google, the following details have appeared in major news publications. Android based smartphones can be used as mobile credit cards by users swiping their phone at small units (designed by VeriFone) at checkout lines. This not only is the method of payment (partners MasterCard and Citigroup), but a marketing and analytics platform for businesses. Businesses will receive important information about purchases which helps them with marketing and ad-targeting.

Your company webpage is the first impression that people receive about your company. It sets the tone right away. With competition as fierce as it is across all industries, having a well-designed webpage can be the difference between profit and loss.

As advertising moves more online than ever before, has your company considered utilizing Pay Per Click (PPC) marketing? Consider this fact: In a recent report by the Newspaper Association of America, newspaper advertising in the United States for the year ended 2010 has sunk to a new 25-year low. In the same year (2010) online advertising increased over 10.9%. The statistics reveal the real story. Marketers are using online advertisement like never before because it is more effective, efficient, and reaches beyond the boundaries of newspaper circulation areas.

On Monday, March 21, 2006, the first tweet was sent by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, saying “just setting up my twttr”. Yesterday, Twitter celebrated its 5th birthday. It has taken the private social media company only 5 years to be worth the reportedly $10 billion. Free to join and use, Twitter enjoys most of its success from their advertising platform, estimated to generate $150 million in 2011.

Facebook is now entering the local deals business, much like how Groupon.com works. In November 2010, social media titan Facebook announced “Facebook Deals”. That has evolved over the past few months and in recent announcements, they have begun advertising just what exactly they intend to do. The fundamentals behind this new initiative are that local businesses send Facebook coupons for groups to participate in. This can include, for example, “25% off your dinner for parties of 6 or more”. This new addition is making Groupon.com a bit nervous as Facebook aims to accomplish exactly what Groupon did that rapidly brought them to fame.

Social Media is expected to play an important role in this year’s NCAA March Madness tournament, where 68 College Basketball teams compete to determine the 2011 National Champion. March 17th 2011 kicks off the first round with games being played as early as 12:15ET. Since this is during working hours, experts believe people will be logged in to Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube since not everyone will be able to access a television during working hours.

Social Media continues to evolve into new roles. What started out as a way to send short updates to your friends where you’re going on campus, has recently made its presence on the world and economic stages. The crisis in Egypt last month and the earthquake and tsunami in Japan at the end of last week prove just how vital social media is as news correspondence.

So far in 2011, we have learned so much. Oil is surging over Middle East conflict, Charlie Sheen is winning with TigerBlood, and social media is being used in a whole new way by advertisers (see our blog titled “Social Media – The New Marketing”). One more thing learned is the strong start to the year that WebiMax is off to, illustrated through 3rd party ranking organizations and their recent coverage in media outlets.

Reputation Management is one of the most important components of owning a business in today’s fast-paced environment. With the explosion of social media, more and more people have platforms to discuss experiences they have had with businesses, products, and services. With this comes the requirement for reputation management or social media companies to become involved and manage a campaign.

Is Charlie Sheen really “winning”? Some would say he is, while others would disagree, but no one can deny the fact Sheen has exploded his visibility through the utilization of Social Media. Social Media expert and Founder/CEO of WebiMax, Kenneth C. Wisnefski is one who has been awed by Sheen’s ability to gain so much traction so quickly. “What has transpired over the past week with Charlie Sheen has been nothing short of amazing”, discussed Wisnefski. “From having essentially no Social Media presence to becoming the biggest factor in Social Media today, is something we have never seen before. His strategy has been brilliant”.

The Labor Department announced today that the nation’s unemployment rate for February was 8.9%, down from 9.0% just a month earlier. This is also the lowest it has been in two years. 192,000 jobs were added in the month, mainly all of them coming in the private sector. In an interview with FOX Business last month, Founder and CEO of WebiMax, Kenneth C. Wisnefski, regarded as an industry expert in small business and job growth, stated that “I believe there are companies interested in hiring but are having a difficult time finding people with the specific skill level their looking for”. Wisnefski also stated that “small businesses should find more creative ways of hiring, such as taking candidates and training them to become the type of employees they need. That’s exactly what we’ve done and has been tremendously successful”.

As any one of us could have imagined, the first announcement last week by Google on their “Content Farm Update” would not have been the first and only news we would have heard about this. In a report released yesterday (March 2, 2011), Google’s Amit Singhal announced that they are further “tweaking the algorithm to make sure it is 100% accurate”. This further reinforces their commitment to only delivering high-quality websites to users. After all, “search results” is the main product in their portfolio.

At any time of the day, buyers and critics can be reviewing your products and brand. They can be discussing their buying experience, offering feedback, or profiling your products on consumer report websites. Since this can be taking place at any time, it is extremely critical to manage reviews to ensure that the best things are being said, and if they’re not, how to address them appropriately.

As the first couple months of 2011 come to a close, some very important changes have happened this year already to the world of search engine results, notably Google’s commitment to reestablishing the days of “quality content”. We in the industry have been observing major algorithm changes by the search engine titan that have penalized and eliminated websites that use fraudulent tactics to satisfy the algorithms so their websites appear high in page rank.