OUR FREAKY FRIDAY: WEIRD OF THE DAY

FreakyFriday: Weird of the Day

A Twitter Feed for all Your Google Searches

by: iCopywriter Senior Editor, Heather Price-Wright

In this age of tech giants like Google and Facebook gobbling up our personal information like it was literal cookies, one app is encouraging that, rather than fight it, we actively participate in the over-sharing of our entire lives.

According to msnbc.com’s Technolog blog, the app, called OverShareMe, can be added to users’ Google Chrome browser as an extension. It then tracks users’ every Google search and broadcasts those search terms to Twitter, via the handle @PlzOverShareMe.

Luckily (or unluckily, depending on how much privacy you actually want to maintain), your searches aren’t announced via your own personal Twitter feed. Instead, when you install the Chrome extension, you choose a personal hashtag, which appears with your search terms on the app’s feed. For example, if we chose the tag #iCopywriter and searched for, say, “Why do people have two nostrils?” (I myself have, embarrassingly enough, Googled that exact phrase), the app’s Twitter handle would read:

@PlzOverShareMe: #iCopywriter Why do people have two nostrils?

One of the most interesting aspects of following the app’s Twitter feed is watching people refine their search terms or jump from search to search, and trying to imagine their thought processes while doing so. In the last few hours, for example, a user with the hashtag #prettyprettyprincess searched for “dr pepper 10 manhattan” and then, presumably because the results weren’t specific enough, “dr pepper 10 manhattan where to buy.” It seems this app, meant to be a cheeky addendum to Google, might actually give the search giant an extremely useful look into people’s search behavior and how they refine and change search terms to find exactly what they want.

The overall point of the app isn’t clear to us; is it a social experiment? A commentary on the culture of data mining and sharing the minutest, most banal details of our daily lives in which we exist? What is it trying to say about searches, about sharing, about privacy in modern life?

We were going to think about those big questions, but we got sidetracked Googling, and then tweeting that we were Googling, “What should I eat for lunch?”

Have you checked out iCopywriter.com lately?

Small Businesses May Not Be Using Best Practices When it Comes to Social Media - The Numbers Don’t Lie

by iCopywriter

So, you own a small business. And unless your business is housed under a rock, you’ve almost certainly heard the buzz about social media, and the ways in which it can help you do everything from reaching consumers on a personal level to getting news out in a timely manner. Maybe you even use social media - more and more small businesses are getting on the bandwagon.

Unfortunately, according to a new infographic from Intuit, even those small businesses that are using social media to connect with customers may be doing so wrong.

The main issues seem to be that such businesses, while their ideas about social media are in the right place, aren’t spending enough time, money or personnel resources on launching and maintaining strong social networking campaigns. And that, according to the infographic, may be translating to a less effective overall strategy.

Need some stats on small businesses and social media? We broke down the infographic for you here:

·      26 percent employ someone - whether full time, part time or on a consulting basis - to handle their social media marketing

·      42 percent spend no money on their social networking campaigns

·      17 percent spend $100 or less

·      40 percent don’t always respond to friends’ and fans’ comments on the site(s) they use

·      16 percent don’t respond to comments at all

The top reason given for not responding to comments? Not having the time. So it seems that the majority of businesses that don’t have someone handling their social media campaign would do well to outsource to a consultant or marketing company with the time and know-how to interact with customers on all social media platforms.

Can you imagine spending just $100 on a print, TV or other, more “traditional” ad campaign? Not in a million years. But think about it - social media is a much more effective method of reaching individual consumers and interacting with them on an incredibly close, real-time basis - something other marketing methods have never managed to truly accomplish - yet most businesses are spending only a tiny fraction of their overall budgets on these campaigns.

The lessons here are simple: Social media is here to stay, and is a great way for businesses to reach their customers with an entirely new kind of immediacy. But businesses simply can’t go it alone. For a truly effective social media marketing push, it makes sense to spend a few extra dollars and find a company that will help you perfect your social networking presence. The extra resources are almost sure to pay for themselves, and more, when it comes to reaching out to the people who matter most - the customers.

Have you checked out iCopywriter.com lately?

Breaking Down The Panda Update - Why You Shouldn't Fret, & How iCopywriter Can Help

by: iCopywriter

You’ve probably heard by now. Google’s latest Panda Update took place on Tuesday, February 27.

Not to worry, our professional writing and editing team is hard at work helping clients make the necessary changes to stay fresh. The Panda 3.3 launch refreshes all data in Google’s Panda results ranking algorithm that was released in February of last year. With the latest updates to this system, it’s important for online businesses to bring their content up to date, which is exactly what we are doing for our clients.  

What Does this Mean?

Danny DeMichele, Managing Partner at Incubate.com - and an iCopywriter client - breaks it down for us: 

         While it’s not completely clear the specifics of the update (yet), it is going to be based around     
         how they evaluate links. My suspicion is that it’s going to be a filter that will take the   
         emphasis off the use of keyword-rich hyperlinks, and more around the context of the article
         the link resides in. This makes unique and creative content that much more crucial.

How Does iCopywriter Fit in Here?

Sites without fresh content are left behind the curve. It's true...many sites have suffered as a result of Panda, while others, those that are constantly adding fresh, relevant content, are doing better than ever in terms of Google’s search engine rankings. 

Our team provides clients with high-quality content to ensure search engine prominence during Panda data refreshes. Clients who have been regularly updating their sites with the content iCopywriter creates have been able to maintain or even raise their search engine rankings throughout these data refreshes. 

The bad (?) news: Panda updates are here to stay. The good (!) news: Websites still have an opportunity to turn things around by regularly uploading relevant content [insert shameless self promotion]. We can help.

Have you checked out iCopywriter.com lately?