It is unlikely that Facebook will be able to unseat Google as king of the search engines, despite having over one billion users (a number which is growing daily) and having the inside scoop as it were on how people interact with the internet on a personal level. At least that is what the assumption is at this early stage.

Facebook is already aligned with Bing whose SEO practices are different once again to Google’s. It would seem however, that in terms of search engine optimisation Search Graph will work in a different way to both of these leading search engines.

Throughout the early beta roll-out Facebook have concentrated on introducing search for photos, specific people, interests and geographic area information. Instead of receiving results based on a range of traditional ranking variables, Facebook’s results rely upon information shared with the platform by the businesses involved, for example local restaurants, and the information and connections of the user searching. This will result in a highly personalised set of results as opposed to ones which are led purely by keywords (etc).

As with all systems there are ways to manipulate or use this new search engine to the advantage of businesses looking to become more visible. The pay per click agency will need to re-evaluate how they work in order to accommodate this new SEO player and Facebook pages will need to be better optimised in order to ensure that they have a better chance of coming up in searches to relevant users.

The main benefit to Search Graph as far as many can ascertain is that the results produced by the person searching are likely to be highly targeted and specific to their wants and needs which is great for some businesses who fit the demographic perfectly however is likely to be a very narrow field which will exclude other results and businesses that are very close to the specification.

In order to ensure that Facebook business pages are in a position to take advantage of this new type of search engine SEO consultants are urging page owners to ensure that their page is fully up to date with information such as ensuring that the “About” section is complete and contains relevant keywords (we can only assume at this point that the Search Graph will look for specific words or terms). Paying attention to other relevant information such as location, category and anything else that is likely to make the business come up in the search results needs to start now so that everything is in place before a wider roll-out occurs.

What the impact of Search Graph will have in terms of business visibility and on lead generation remains to be seen however it is considered wise for PPC agencies and SEO consultants to be making the necessary changes now so that businesses are ready should this new platform search engine prove to be as important as some assume it will be.

Attribute to: Duncan Cumming

Duncan has been writing for over 5 years. His sales and marketing background has helped him write informative articles in areas including digital marketing; specifically, PPC, SEO, Affiliate Marketing and Social Media.

The post What is the Impact of the FB ‘Search Graph’ on SEO? appeared first on Cayenne Red.

Across Facebook similar messages to this have been broadcast indignantly by business users:
**********IMPORTANT FACEBOOK CHANGES**********

Facebook is doing major updates and many pages are currently affected. If I disappear completely from your feed, check your page for a new tab on the left called ‘pages feed’ with a little orange flag. We are all now getting 2 separate news feeds – our usual news feed will have all our personal friends posts in it and all posts that are sponsored (paid for) and as for the rest of us who can’t afford to pay for every post we make, our pages will be put into the new tab called ‘pages feed’ which you will need to physically click on to see my posts and majority of all your other favourite pages. ”

Thankfully the panic is now starting to subside as SEO and social media experts have been able to calm their clients and explain that the changes have not been put in place in order to penalise those that don’t pay to promote posts and that a drop in visibility, should it occur, will likely be due to other issues and not to the new page system.

The Page Feed is set up to effectively reduce the number of spammy page updates that users see in their everyday timeline. Over-enthusiastic businesses that clog the timeline with update after update will get marked as spam by some and as a consequence become less visible. What Facebook are trying to do is make it so that users get to see more of the content that they want and need to see rather than that which they are clearly seeing too much of.

There are many ways for a business to maximise their visibility online, including social media and business users are now realising that the find art that is SEO and social media management is something often best overseen by their SEO consultancy company. Facebook, as with other social media networks changes and grows as time goes on and keeping on top of the updates and understanding the true impact of them is often a full time job in itself. To avoid the panicked and misinformed rants, arguments and confusions that have been seen this week, talking to the experts before panicking is better for the blood pressure and undoubtedly better for the visibility, profitability and likeability of a business page.

The post Facebook Visibility: Are Business Pages Being Seen? appeared first on Cayenne Red.

The general consensus is that US broadcaster NBC didn’t do a particular good job when covering the event (it wasn’t live and they missed out great chunks). But things got nasty when a UK journalists’ Twitter account was suspended when he criticised the US network.

And Twitter was forced to climb down after fellow Tweeters made their feelings felt with further digs at the US network.

The journalist concerned, Guy Adams, complained about the poor coverage via a Tweet and included the email address of a NBC executive. He says that NBC only complained about the Tweet after it had been alerted by Twitter itself.

Apparently Twitter policy is to temporarily suspend an account if it uses a tweet to harass, or intimidate someone.

Most people didn’t see it that way of course. They reckoned it was nice corporate speak for we had our ears bent by a leading US network and decided to play it safe.

Twitter eventually apologised and said that their team had been a little zealous on this occasion. NBC also realised that they were attracting huge amounts of negative attention which had gone viral.

In short, neither Twitter, nor NBC have come out of this incident particularly well.

And the simple lesson is, don’t be seen to be using account suspension as a form censorship, because it just won’t work.

The post Twitter Gag Backfires on NBC appeared first on Cayenne Red.

What’s perhaps more significant is that a number of social platforms have pulled their own IPOs as they accuse Facebook of ‘ruining’ private investors faith in their models.

The most notable amongst these to change their plans is Russia’s biggest social network, VKontakte, which has put back its stock market debut.

Okay, fair point, but all Facebook has done is prove what many market veterans suggested long ago was that social platforms have not yet proved their worth. Facebook was floated on a multiple of 25 times and the only reason it got away was because of its 900 user base and the sense of interest from the private investors.

The big City funds and many of the more aggressive hedge funds decided that Facebook was a little too rich for their liking. And without these funds, there is no floor in the market. No-one is there to mop up the shares which private investors like to dump on the first day of dealings.

Some say this IPO marks the end of this particular tech cycle and it will be some time before a multiple of 25 times is seen again.

There are others who say that Facebook is fundamentally flawed and it will bring down the whole tech market.

Whatever is around the corner for Facebook, we’re still in the opening chapters with most of the exciting plotlines still to come.

The post Facebook – Worst IPO for Ten Years appeared first on Cayenne Red.

What’s perhaps more significant is that a number of social platforms have pulled their own IPOs as they accuse Facebook of ‘ruining’ private investors faith in their models.

The most notable amongst these to change their plans is Russia’s biggest social network, VKontakte, which has put back its stock market debut.

Okay, fair point, but all Facebook has done is prove what many market veterans suggested long ago was that social platforms have not yet proved their worth. Facebook was floated on a multiple of 25 times and the only reason it got away was because of its 900 user base and the sense of interest from the private investors.

The big City funds and many of the more aggressive hedge funds decided that Facebook was a little too rich for their liking. And without these funds, there is no floor in the market. No-one is there to mop up the shares which private investors like to dump on the first day of dealings.

Some say this IPO marks the end of this particular tech cycle and it will be some time before a multiple of 25 times is seen again.

There are others who say that Facebook is fundamentally flawed and it will bring down the whole tech market.

Whatever is around the corner for Facebook, we’re still in the opening chapters with most of the exciting plotlines still to come.

The post Facebook – Worst IPO for Ten Years appeared first on Cayenne Red.

You might remember all that recent fuss in Australia when certain breastfeeding mums thought it a wheeze to publish pics of their intimate milk producing moments on Facebook. Imagine tracking your mum’s profile 15 years later and discovering shots of you hanging off your mum’s teat. That should go down well with the girlfriend.

But as well as mummy lactating shots, there are a number of images that Facebook doesn’t like to show.

Now, top of the list of things you can’t show is semen, although quite why Facebook has a thing against the world’s navys beats me (ho, ho).

But as well as unmentionable fluids from one orifice, you can’t show, apparently, urine, faeces (if you need to look that one up, perhaps you went to the wrong school), or vomit. Now, okay, yes broadly agree with that. Don’t really want to see a person’s tackle out (and active) having just urinated and standing in a pool of his own sick. Can think of better things to look for than that on Facebook.

But what’s surprised many people about the list of can’t show in the pictorial sense, provided by an employee who was perhaps sick themselves of tracking down stained photographs, is earwax.

Erm, odd one that. Okay, I’m not perfectly fond of earwax myself, but perhaps up against semen, it might just win the day.

Just be thankful you’re not the person spending their day trawling for semen, or earwax!

The post No Semen Please, We’re Facebook appeared first on Cayenne Red.

It was meant to be an email to an associate, but actually was inadvertently sent to hundreds of people who lapped up their words and it quickly made its way into the media.

Whether, or not, that the engineer in question remains with Google for long for being blasphemous about the Company’s latest new product we can only surmise, but it’s unlikely to do his long term prospects any good.

But it does raise an interesting question. When you as big as Google, does it really matter if you’re late to the party, or not? And if you have big enough pockets, can you get back into the game.

Major tech companies do take on God like status, but they are not infallible and often, ironically, are so immersed in their own products and services, that they don’t see the next big thing coming. Take Microsoft for example, a company which dominates the software sector. It was slow seeing the search engine explosion and the coming switch to cloud computing.

Arguable, because Google ran head in the race, Microsoft lost a major opportunity in the search engine market which Bing cannot reclaim. And now Google is too big for Microsoft to try the other accepted alternative, use your funds to gobble up the competition.

So, although Google is proclaiming 40 million users for its Plus service, has it forever missed out to leader of the pack Facebook, which enjoys some 750 million odd users. And by then, will Facebook will expensive to buy anyway, even for the mighty Google?

Attribute to: Neil Martin, Cayenne Red.

Neil Martin is a UK SEO Consultant at Reading based PPC Agency Cayenne Red and is a regular contributor to the media on how companies market themselves in the digital age.

The post Google+ An Afterthought – Whatever Next! appeared first on Cayenne Red.

But what exactly do we mean by social marketing? People use Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, and any of the other numerous social media websites, to create and maintain contact with groups of people, whether they be family, friends, work colleagues, or belong to an interest group, or fan base.

Now when people start to see websites such as Facebook as the way to keep in contact and organize their lives, companies woke up to the fact that this presented them with an easy target. When people gather online, if they can be converted to a sales, or promotional message delivered by a digital method, then this is too much to ignore.

The problem is, that social marketing is very far from being an easy target, as many companies have found to their cost. Clumsy handling of social media which are ill-conceived and poorly executed campaigns have cost thousands of companies millions of wasted marketing pounds.

Good social marketing is all about transmitting a message in such a way that the transfer is seamless with the best ideals of social networking. In many ways, it’s similar to people trying to be their best friend and making an awkward approach. It is embarrassing for both parties and ruins any attempt to get the message across.

So the clever companies have had to adapt their marketing and ensure that their efforts are not seen as cack handed.

The post So Exactly What is Social Marketing? appeared first on Cayenne Red.

And the great thing about creating a Facebook page of course? It’s free. So off the company goes and creates what they think is the best FB ever. Nice logo, some good pictures and yes, get the company staff to befriend it and hey presto, they’re off to the races.

Unfortunately, it isn’t that easy as many companies find to their cost. Just as wonderful websites are created and then forgotten, so hundreds of new FB pages are created every hour with a rush of enthusiasm, only to be forgotten as they struggle to survive in the ether.

Exactly the same happens with a Facebook Page. It’s all made to look hunky dory, the smart logo shines out from the page, some glossy images make a professional finish and the text is concise and informative. Everything is fine.

But like everything in life, rarely is anything free and to get a FB page which works in social media marketing terms, requires money, ingenuity and a great deal of tenacity.

People belong to social networks because they can communicate and stay in touch quicker and more efficiently than ever before. And they can choose to see what they want; so they are in control. If a company marketing team can add to that process, enhance, or in some way exploit it, then they will have made a success of social media marketing.

If they don’t, it could be a disaster.

Please contact Cayenne Red if you would like further information on our Social Marketing Services

The post Social Media Marketing appeared first on Cayenne Red.

The great debate at the moment, is who will grab the lion’s share of the hearts and minds of internet users?

You’d have to say that Facebook is odds on favourite at the moment to maximise the money making opportunities. Facebook got a head start on all the others and sits there like a colossus, spreading its tentacles far and wide.

But Facebooks very dominance is worrying some experts who see it as a potential one-trick pony which is struggling to monetise its full potential because it relies on a subscriber base which doesn’t really want to seen as a moving target for every worldwide commercial operation.

Google on the other is about as brash as you can be about making money. It’s literally a money making machine and has no pretensions about seeing the internet and the social media phenomenon as a way of rewarding itself and its own investors.

So the question is, which do you prefer: Google+ or Like It?

Or is the question superfluous. It’s not about the user, but the companies who manage to pull the strings in the background.

We live, as they say, in interesting times.

Get in touch now with Cayenne Red and we show you how to grow your social marketing channel.

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