WebiMax Blog

Online maps are essential to our lives. We all rely on them to some degree as they have grown in relevance and applicability over the years. Gone are the days when checking online maps was reserved for seeking answers to curious geography questions, though. Now, digital maps are integrated into our mobile apps as well as our in-car navigation, and we use them to give us detailed directions on the roadways and to search the the location of local businesses. Some of these applications of the maps lend themselves to internet marketing and search engine optimization more than others, most notably, local business searching, however they all factor into the mapping market and impact the direction the sector will take.

Acceptance of quick-response (QR) codes--those square bar codes that connect consumers to a website, video or special offer--is increasing at a rapid clip. Digital market research firm comScore found that roughly 20.1 million people scanned QR codes with their phones in a three-month average period ending October 2011, vs. 14 million in June 2011.  Read more

Culture is a dynamic, living thing. This may be an exaggeration of sorts, but the point is culture is an evolving entity that impacts just about every aspect of our lives. It impacts the way we experience our days, structure our time, share with friends, work at our jobs, and - how we experience the web. Cultures adapt as time passes, but core elements of cultures can and do remain unchanged. These core elements account for cultural tendencies that exist from culture to culture influencing the way people behave and, for our purposes, experience the internet.

The world of social media may seem large and confusing to many small businesses that are just starting out. However, there is absolutely no reason to shy away from including social media in your SEO marketing initiatives. The benefits of using social media marketing far outweigh any negatives and, if done properly, can ultimately prove to be profitable.

The media frenzy surrounding the sudden rise of New York Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin may be cooling, but it offers important branding lessons on how small businesses can raise their profiles. Lin’s surge to fame primarily reflected through social media and traditional media coverage alike has given marketers and advertisers an opportunity to leverage a trending phenomenon. Furthermore, it provides an example of an age-old marketing tactic.  Read more

Online Marketing - Gifts from the Gods or Just Seuss Reiterations?

Good morning or afternoon (depending on SEO hemisphere).  A lot of good posts and discussion took place recently.  Let's tear into last week's can of online marketing posts.  You know you can't read just one.

It was a leaderless movement that waged war via new media. It got big people to back down and mighty corporations to change their ways. Stoked by the blogosphere and social media, the public outcry against talk-show host Rush Limbaugh may have helped spur an exodus of sponsors from his show, both nationally and locally.  Read more

This is now becoming more than a trend — viral is, in large part, the future of marketing. We’ve seen the physics of viral, most recently with “Tebowmania” and then its maturation with “Lin-sanity.”  But individuals, companies and now social causes are harnessing the exceptional power of viral for significant marketing gain.  Read more

Of course it was only a short matter of time before an analytics tool for Pinterest, the latest phenomenon in the social media world, would rise to the surface. PinReach is a service that measures the amount of a user's influence on Pinterest. This is done by gathering information about the total numbers of pins, repins, likes, liked-s, followers, following, comments, and boards.

Facebook is rolling out yet another feature to keep members engaged with the site for as long as possible.  Called "Interest Lists," Facebook touts it as a way for users to create their own personalized newspapers with special sections -- or feeds -- on topics that matter the most to them.  Read more

Geo-targeting has been utilized to deliver location-specific content to web users in many ways for several years and is now having greater potential in the political arena. Geo-targeting itself has gone through several iterations on various platforms, but the essentials remain.

Yesterday, I wrote a piece for International Business Times focusing on the growth of US online retailers in the EU market. Some of the figures are worth repeating to set up our discussion here today. US e-retailers had collective sales of $26.1 billion in 2011 up from $20.6 billion a year earlier. The 2011 numbers accounted for 25% of sales in that year for the Top 400 online retailers in Europe, growing from 23.4% from the previous year.

As if you didn't need any more reasons to start using Pinterest for your business: the latest news on the Pinterest front is that the new social media star has surpassed Twitter in generation of referral traffic, as reported by TechCrunch. This is an incredibly huge piece of news, mainly because Twitter has long been the giant among social networking sites in sharing links and generating huge referral traffic back to original sites. Well, not anymore – Pinterest is taking the crown from Twitter, and placing it on its own image-laden head.

With the announcement about the new iPad officially made, and the well-sought details regarding its attractive new specs and features finally revealed to the eagerly-awaiting public, it only makes sense for everyone to continue their speculations into what Apple will next be introducing to its many offerings of mobile device-related services.

Philadelphia SmartCEO magazine announced today the 2012 SmartCXO Award honorees, including both Mr. Todd Bailey, Vice President of Digital Strategy of WebiMax and Mr. Kevin O’Brien, Vice President and Principal of WebiMax.  Read more

I really appreciated this recent article on TechCrunch that detailed five main reasons for which companies experience failure in their Facebook marketing endeavors. The fact of the matter is that Facebook marketing possesses a world of potential in profitability – but only if it is used correctly, and consistently.

Today's post continues from yesterday's piece on the subject. Once an organization understands the message their presence would send in their new environment, they can make strategic business decisions and take actions considering the communication value they hold.  Such actions send specific messages to the various publics in the new context, and it is the job of the decision-makers to strategically engage in actions that send the desired messages.

At the Facebook Marketing Conference that was live-streamed on Wednesday, February 29, 2012, Facebook unveiled some interesting and important new marketing solutions for businesses both big and small. There are several key points from the conference that TechCrunch decided to highlight in a recent article. Overall, the general goal that Facebook seems to be striving towards is creating a more streamlined ad experience that would improve the user experiences of its site, and force businesses to develop more creative SEO and social media marketing campaigns that feature engaging content.

Technology!  It's exciting!  It's eye opening!  It may be hurting your brand!  Technology is moving at…modern-day computer speeds; it's getting faster with each passing moment.  Yesterday, I wrote upon Apple's newest iPad and analyst forecasts of mobile devices killing the 'PC star.'

What kind of personality traits are involved in your brand's marketing?  Of course, inanimate sentiments don't have direct personalities as we understand people to behold.  However, the way in which brands market and leverage specific online implementations affects consumers in the same manner.

Disclaimer: This is elementary knowledge, purposed for beginners and optimization shoppers, not industry cohorts though industry contributions in comments would augment the information.

Aloha, readers, from the snow-capped terrains of rocky-mountainous Colorado.  I was jeeping my way through the western country and missed the latter portion of the week in online marketing.  Okay.   I admit.  I snuck some peeks in on my Android.  I can't stay away.  Let's see what treats online marketers left for us on the trail.