by mtraphagen | Jul 6, 2011 | Facebook, Google, Social Media
I had this post all set out in my mind, and then I read “Why Google Has the Hammer to Make Businesses Use Google Plus” by Jay Baer, and realized he said all I was going to say and so much more. Here’s one of many killer quotes from this must-read...
by mtraphagen | Jul 5, 2011 | Hive Digital
Nina, our Client Representative, sports the latest in coveted Virante bling: (Cue Price Is Right Announcer Voice:) “That’s right, Mark! These stylish earrings also double as 8GB USB flash drives! They have a handy swivel-style design that keeps your data...
by mtraphagen | Jul 2, 2011 | Google
The social media world is all abuzz this week (forgive me, GOOG, for throwing a “buzz” in there) with the introduction of Google+, Google’s long-awaited full-orbed social network. I’ve been playing with it for a few days now, and I’m very...
by mtraphagen | Jun 13, 2011 | Google, Paid Search
A friend of mine saw the following ad in her Gmail account recently: (Hint: she sends and receives a lot of email about horses.) What happened here? How did such a large company produce such a nonsensical ad? The answer is what I call “DKI Abuse.” DKI...
by mtraphagen | May 25, 2011 | Google, Paid Search
Google announced recently that they will be changing several parameters in the Location Targeting feature available in the Adwords interface (see “Location targeting updates in AdWords”). These changes will begin rolling out after July 8, 2011, and will...
by mtraphagen | Apr 28, 2011 | Facebook, Social Media
In my social media consulting for clients of Virante Inc., by far the most frequent question I get is “how can I increase my number of followers/fans?” Here are the top tips I share with our clients regarding building a large (and engaged!) Facebook fan...
by mtraphagen | Apr 27, 2011 | Facebook, Social Media, Twitter
UPDATE: Since this post was written, Trunk.ly was acquired by AVOS, the new owners of Delicious, and the Trunk.ly service was discontinued. It’s happened to me time and again. Something comes up in a conversation, and I recall that at some point in the past...
by mtraphagen | Apr 25, 2011 | Facebook, Social Media
Today Facebook significantly upped the ante in its bid to dominate the way people share content on the Internet. The Facebook Like button (as an add-on for any web site) just had its first birthday a few days ago, but today Facebook gave birth to its baby brother: the...
by mtraphagen | Apr 5, 2011 | Facebook, Social Media
Yesterday Facebook announced an update to their popular iPhone app. The principle new goodies in this update are: Check-in to events using Facebook Places. See checked-in friends on a map. Unfriend friends from within the app. Among the many long-awaited improvements...
by mtraphagen | Apr 1, 2011 | Paid Search
When you hire an agency or individual to manage your paid search advertising account, you are trusting that the account is going to be professionally managed to produce the best, most cost-effective results for your business. It’s likely that you hired a manager in...
by mtraphagen | Mar 31, 2011 | Facebook, Google, Social Media
Yesterday Google announced the experimental rollout of its +1 search social recommendation feature. (See Google +1 Is Google’s Like Button for details.) For the present, you can only use this feature on Google’s search results page, to “plus”...
by mtraphagen | Mar 30, 2011 | Google, Social Media
Google’s +1 button allows Google search users to “like” both individual search results and AdWords ads in the search results. +1 shows up as an icon to the right of search results and ads (see illustration at right). If you are logged in to your...
by mtraphagen | Mar 29, 2011 | Social Media
The comment thread of this otherwise humdrum book review has gone viral in just a few days. Scroll down to the comments, where the author of the book being reviewed, Jacquelin Howett, responds to the reviews criticisms of her book. The reviewer actually gives pretty...
by mtraphagen | Mar 28, 2011 | Paid Search
When you hire an agency or individual to manage your paid search advertising account, you are trusting that the account is going to be professionally managed to produce the best, most cost-effective results for your business. It’s likely that you hired a manager...
