AIR assists local nonprofits and schools by giving them free, professionally designed accessible websites. The Fahrenheit team learned accessible design techniques, such as how to design a site that would allow a screen reader to help a person with disabilities navigate the page and know what multimedia was displayed.

The website Fahrenheit Marketing developed was for Phronesis Media. This nonprofit’s goal is to organize information from credible sources to reflect wisdom on the critical social issues of the day. We met with this group before the competition to discuss the goal of the website and our design ideas.

During the event, we were able to network with area artists, and other web developers while spending 8-hours adding content and building the site. Our website will be judged based on accessibility, creativity, usability, aesthetics and extensibility of the concept to a larger website.

On March 11 2012, we will be attending the Dewey Ceremony & AIR-Interactive awards banquet where the winners will be announced. No matter the results, we feel we have already won knowledge that will benefit us in our upcoming website developments, and we’ve been able to help Phronesis Media in spreading their message.

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Google Places is very important to businesses because Google Search relies heavily on Google Places when someone is searching for a local product or service. For example, if someone was searching for an “Austin bakery” a large percentage of the Google results will be some type of Google Places data.

 What is the advantage of having a Google Places page?

Besides having your business more visible in search results, a Google Places page can have many other benefits.

It allows a potential customer to find your business and see where you are located. This helps a customer determine where you are relative to them and how to get to you. Also, Google Places lists your contact information. This is a great opportunity for a potential customer to pick up the phone and call you or click over to your website to learn more about you. 

Businesses can also use imagery on their Google Places pages—one of the features Fahrenheit Marketing sees people taking the least advantage of. Google gives you the ability to upload pictures and video. This will give you the opportunity to highlight your product or services or show your business location through a visual method.  People are more likely to engage in a business transaction with you if they are able to see your business through videos and pictures. 

The core feature of a business’s Google Places page is reviews, which are listed at the bottom of your page. This gives customers the ability to rate and leave a comment about your business. A good or bad review could play into a potential customer’s decision on purchasing your product or services. More than ever it is important for people to be given the best service possible because a review can make or break your business.

 Google Places is becoming more essential for local businesses. We are seeing Google push Google Places more and more here in Austin, which shows that it will become more important for local businesses to claim and optimize their pages. 

Also with coming changes to Google, you might see some type of integration with Google Plus pages and Google Places. Either way it is important to claim and optimize your Google Places page for search engine optimization and customer conversion, so you don’t miss out on extra business.

To learn more about how to incorporate Google Places pages into your business, contact Fahrenheit Marketing today. 

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Twitter’s enhanced profile pages took off in early December for only 21 select advertisers such as Coca-cola, Bing and McDonald’s. Most were brands already using Twitter to display commercial content, but the new brand page provides a large header banner, and the ability to pin a select tweet to the top of the feed, which auto-expands to display embedded media.

The study on these new brand pages, observed eye movements and online actions to see which aspects the users focused on, were distracted by, and connected to.

Headers

The study found that companies should avoid product advertisement in headers, such as how McDonald’s advertised a Big Mac on its header, because it emits a corporate, promotional feel, so users will skim by it. The use of the header to show a promotion link on @Staples page, enticed users, but links aren’t clickable in headers so that frustrated them—instead the headers should direct them to tweeted promotion links.

Tweets

It also showed that tweets with an image or those that use the new auto-expanded video box feature keeps the users focus and gives them a feel for the company. HP visitors connected with a tweet image of a dog looking at them and felt it showed a more humorous side of HP.

Another highlight of the study was that reading a range of tweets can help the user see how the company interacts with customers through replys, retweets, or responding to complaints. When HP did this, users said they liked how they felt HP was being honest and genuine with followers.

After this study, brands hope Twitter will use the feedback to provide continued improvements, even though already they have seen growth. Since launching the new page, Bing’s Twitter base expanded by nearly 50 percent in the last six months, as well as a 28 percent increase in retweets last month.

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Online video views increased dramatically since December 2010 when 172 million U.S. Internet users watched online videos for an average of 14.6 hours per viewer. The video viewers have increased 5.8 percent in the past 12 months, but the time spent watching them has increased 58.9 percent.

Google Sites, driven mainly by videos viewed on Youtube.com, ranked number one in December with 157.2 million unique viewers, and video music channel VEVO came in second with 53.7 million.
VEVO was created in June 2009 by Sony Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group and Youtube. In October 2009, VEVO received a strategic investment from Abu Dhabi Media Company, one of the world’s fastest growing, multi-platform media organizations.

After its launch in December 2009, VEVO became the most visited U.S. web network in the Entertainment Music category with 35.4 million unique visitors, according to comScore. A year later, VEVO had 50.6 million unique viewers in December 2010.

For marketing purposes, this means that those who advertise on Youtube with 157.2 million viewers, or VEVO with now 53.7 million viewers, can reach a larger audience than Hulu with 31.2 million unique viewers.

Americans viewed 7.1 billion video ads in December with Hulu generating the highest number of video ad impressions at almost 1.5 billion. To make sure your company is advertising on media that connects with the most viewers, contact Fahrenheit Marketing today.

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More than 18.2 billion searches were completed in December, up 2 percent from November and Google continues to lead with 65.9 percent market share. Bing which launched in June 2009 now accounts for 15.1 percent of searches while Yahoo dropped to 14.5 percent from 15.1 percent in the December 2011 report. 

Yahoo web search has been powered by Bing since 2009 when the Yahoo and Microsoft began a 10 year deal. Through this deal, Yahoo tried to cut its costs by allowing Microsoft to provide most of its search technology.

As a result, Microsoft gained more requests to process and analyze, so they better understand search preferences and trends. The two companies had hoped their deal would push Google out of total search dominance.

However, even with 12 billion total searches in December, Google isn’t peacefully sitting in number one.  The company may be in trouble because of its new initiative, “Search plus Your World”, which personalizes searches through integration with its Google + social network.

Critics state that Google unjustly gives preference to its results over those of its competitors. The Electronic Privacy Information Center has filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, which could invite a probe into Google’s practices. 

Our question of the day: Do you prefer using Google, Bing or Yahoo?

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Foursquare’s Explore feature is powered by 1.5 million check-ins, which let users tell their friends the places they visit. Each check-in helps Foursquare know what the user enjoys most. From check-in data, Explore can be personalized and filtered to places you haven’t been, been before, where your friends have been or Foursquare specials. These filters help the user have more search control. The more users check-in, the more the filters can be adapted to fit their interests and the greater the reward for the user.

It also has tens of millions of Tips and over half million lists. The “Tips” content is now searchable, so abstract and detailed data show up more readily. For example, if a user searched for “homemade tortillas” in Austin, a list of results displays Foursquare users that commented on different restaurants with homemade tortillas.

Time-based recommendations have also been added to show places most helpful upon signing in. Now, users don’t worry about taking recommendations for a place that is closed Tuesdays when they sign in on Tuesday.

This redesign creates more opportunities for online marketing as well. Since it allows Foursquare to be more of a discovery tool, users who enjoy Explore will spend more time looking for new places. This gives businesses who utilize Foursquare the opportunity to obtain new customers.

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At 1 Billion users, Facebook will have managed to connect close to 1/7th of the world’s population. Despite the growing popularity of other social networking sites, Facebook is still the king of the social media universe. Twitter has around 100 million active users, LinkedIn – 130 million, and Google+ only around 50 million. Combined, that’s roughly 30% of what Facebook will achieve this August.

And Facebook’s numbers won’t be falling anytime soon. While new signups have plateaued in both the U.S. and U.K., reports suggest that vast opportunities still exist in many other developing countries such as India and Brazil. With over 1 billion people residing in India alone, Facebook’s future is looking brighter than ever.

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14.6 percent of all online sessions on a retailer’s site launched from a mobile device, compared to 5.6 percent during the 2010 holiday season. Sales from mobile devices reached 11 percent versus 5.5 percent for the same period a year before.

Apple’s iPhone and iPad ranked one and two for mobile device retail traffic with Android coming in third. But as we posted earlier this week, Android shot ahead of iOS in market share in December, and is catching up to Apple in users.

A Marin Software report showed paid search clicks from mobile devices and tablets doubled over the third quarter to 10 percent of all paid search ad clicks. The click through rate on tablets was also 38 percent higher than on desktops.

Consumers have fallen in love with mobile shopping. Most reports show these numbers are only going up. On Christmas Day activations from both iOS and Android devices came in at more than 6.8 million devices, up from the 1.5 million devices earlier in December.

This phenomenal growth should drive businesses to make sure their websites load quickly and correctly on their customer’s iOS or Android powered devices. For example, the maximum page size for a mobile page is only 20 kilobytes. Vital information must fit within those limits in a powerful, concise way.

If you missed out this holiday season because of a slow site, don’t let it happen in 2012. Contact Fahrenheit Marketing today. We can review your site and help you get more traffic in the upcoming year.

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Private, Public & Social

After searching, a message may appear such as “50 personal results and 419,000 other results”. Some of those 50 results will be blended into the first page of results.

The biggest change is that previously hidden private or “limited” Google+ posts, photos or Google Picasa photos will be shared with the user.

Those with Google+ accounts are now more heavily highlighted in search results. If a user searched for a common name, a friend’s Google+ profile is shown, rather than someone else.

If users don’t like the personalized search they can opt-out permanently, or on a per-search basis through the search settings area on Google.

No Content From Facebook, Twitter

Search Plus Your World doesn’t cover content on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, or any social network. Currently, “Search Plus Your World” only has access to personal Google+ content.

Facebook has not spent much time refining its own search results. The company has repeatedly said that most of the Facebook-based searches are to find people, not to find information about broad topics like Google.

Security

Google started secure search for signed-in users in October most likely to prepare security for Search Plus Your World. Mixing private content in with Google’s search results means anyone searching without a secure connection potentially exposes private content.

Secure search provides an encryption so that any private material mixed in with regular results is protected and seen only by the user’s browser and Google.

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In December, Android grabbed the lead with a 51.6 percent share, leaving iOS in second place with 46.5 percent.

Google’s Android chief Andy Rubin recently touted that 3.7 million Android devices were activated the weekend of Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Rubin also revealed that 700,000 are being activated daily.

The open nature of Android itself is driving growth as device makers have the freedom to offer the mobile OS on a variety of devices and customize the user experience but the open nature of Android Market has taken its share of criticism, with many security experts pointing to Google’s mobile ecosystem as a favorite target for malware writers. But such openness is also key to attracting developers and consumers alike, says Chitika.

Overall, though, Apple still leads in the number of active iOS devices with 250 million (including the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch), compared with Android with 230 million.

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