In the spotlight this week:
- Paid YouTube?
- Klout Experts answers shoot to the top of Bing results;
- new Twitter API restrictions that affected Tweet Adder;
- The complete history of social media;
- responsive web design;
- and much more.
At TrafficGenerationCafe.com
Best Twitter Tools to Get More Twitter Followers [Tweet Adder Alternatives]
Twitter has recently restricted use of its API significantly, causing several Twitter tools to follow/unfollow users to shut down.
My favorite Twitter tool, Tweet Adder, which I’ve been using and recommending for the past two years, had also gone through a major overhaul, removing most automation features that made it a social media traffic generation dream come true.
Which Twitter tools are still worth their salt?
Which ones provide the most time-efficient way to get more Twitter followers?
Which Twitter tools allow you to get more Twitter followers at the best price – the best being free or as close to it as possible?
Yes, we are on a quest to find the best Twitter tools to get more Twitter followers.
Here are the links to the YouTube videos I recorded for that post:
- Tweet Adder: http://youtu.be/lViTdHnPog4
- Tweepi.com: http://youtu.be/6dAqzvkJ5pM
- Brand Chirp: http://youtu.be/h1-pf3_WHas
Weekly Marketing Skinny: May 4, 2013
In the spotlight in the previous week:
- Has indian payday loan company hacked your blog?
- Matt Cutts: common SEO mistakes to watch out for;
- social media upgrades;
- Who wins the race for privacy?
- Ghost of WordPress;
- and more.
SEO
Google tests different things with its search interface all the time. Frankly, there are just too many to keep track of. Matt Cutts has said that Google runs 20,000 search experiments a year.
This one is kind of interesting though, as it completely removes URLs from search results pages.
(image source)
Reactions to the test:
“Hmm.. not sure if I like this as a user, I tend to look at the URLs in the results as there are some sites that I don’ trust even if Google does and places their pages in the results. In the examples above I’d probably be looking for the relevant page on the Microsoft site and there is no clue as to which result(s) that is.”
More.
Social Media
Expand Your Influence with Klout Experts
The popular social influence tool, Klout, is launching a new product that is geared to help provide human answers from the Web’s top influencers – ‘Klout Experts.’
This product will allow users to answer questions in 300 character responses on topics that they are deemed to be influential in.
Additional benefits of this feature include direct integration with Bing search. Selected queries will feature in-line responses directly in Bing’s main search pane:
Klout Experts has officially launched on May 8, and full rollout is expected in “weeks, not months.” For more information, see the official Klout post.
Hat tip for the story: MarketingLand.com.
YouTube: Paid Subscription Channels
YouTube officially launched its pilot program for paid subscription channels. The program debuts with 53 paid channels and subscription fees starting as low as $0.99 per month. All channels have a 14-day free trial with. And all are ad-free.
More on the story.
Facebook Graph Search
You know those times when you miss a new development of sorts in its initial stages, and by the time you are ready to learn about it, all the stuff written on the subject seems to be way advanced and all you want to know is WHAT IS IT? in the simplest possible terms?
Well, FB Graph Search was one of those subjects for me.
It didn’t seem that important when I first heard about it, but now that a week doesn’t go by without someone talking about it, it’s hard to find a post that explains it in layman’s terms.
This week I read a post at SearchEngineLand.com that finally shed the light on the concept:
- Optimizing For Facebook Graph Search: SEO Meets Social
Thanks to Jim Yu of BrightEdge.com for speaking my language!
LinkedIn Celebrates 10 Years
To celebrate its 10th birthday, LinkedIn has created an infographic with interesting stats about the service, including membership growth by year, by country, and the most popular company pages.
There’s also this incredible interactive inforgraphic (definitely worth visiting; even just to see how infographic design is evolving – it’s incredible!).
The Complete History of Social Media
Avalaunch Media recently unveiled their Interactive Infographic entitled, “The Complete History of Social Media.”
The roots of social media stretch far deeper than you might imagine. Although it seems like a new trend, sites like Facebook are the natural outcome of many centuries of social media development.
I loved the interactive infographic; check it out for yourself.
Hat tip for the story: Drew Hendricks at SmallBizTrends.com.
Blogging
79 Blogging Tips and Counting
My friend Mitz Pantic LetsBuildWebsites.com was kind enough to put together a handy and completely free (not even optin is required) blogging tips guide with contributions from bloggers like Ileane Smith and Ana Hoffman (oh wait, that’s me!).
Download your absolutely free blogging tips here and feel free to share with your readership.
Responsive Web Design
A lot has been said about responsive design lately, yet most of us are still scratching our heads on what it is and whether we should do anything about it.
In short, responsive Web design is an approach whereby a designer creates a Web page that “responds to” or resizes itself depending on the type of device it is being seen through. That could be an oversized desktop computer monitor, a laptop, a 10-inch tablet, a 7-inch tablet, or a 4-inch smartphone screen.
(image source)
Why you should start paying attention to it or possibly even do something about it?
Check your website traffic and you might just be shocked at how many visitors are getting to your website through mobile devices. (In your Google Analytics, select “Audience” on the left side, then “Mobile” to see what proportion of traffic is from mobile devices. You can even drill down to see which devices are sending the traffic.)
What do you have to do to get a responsive theme?
That’s the tricky part.
You have to purchase one. And it’s not the money that stops me; it’s the fact that we’ll have to completely redesign our sites to adapt them to the new responsive theme.
What’s your take on switching to a responsive theme? Have one? Thinking about it? On the fence?
Events
Starting on May 15 at 9 a.m. PT (16:00 UTC), join Google as Google Developers Live (GDL) powers multiple channels of live streamed content from Google I/O on developers.google.com/io.
On this page, you can:
- Stream the keynote on your computer, tablet or phone. Get in on the action, and listen to product and technology announcements straight from our teams. Live streaming will run on developers.google.com/io from 9 a.m. PT (16:00 UTC) to 7 p.m. PT (2:00 UTC) on May 15 and 16.
- Watch exclusive interviews with the Googlers behind the latest product announcements. This year, GDL will broadcast one-on-one product deep dives, executive interviews and Developer Sandbox walkthroughs from our onsite stage.
- Get the latest news in real time. We’ll post official announcements during I/O. You’ll be able to see the feed on the Google I/O homepage, in the I/O mobile app (coming soon), and on +Google Developers.
- Never miss a session. The keynote and all sessions will be recorded and made rapidly available on GDL and the Google Developers YouTube channel.
Marketing This and That
Senate Passes Marketplace Fairness Act
The US Senate passed the Marketplace Fairness Act, which is a critical piece of legislation to help reverse the effects of the “Affiliate Nexus Tax” laws passed by 9 states.
More on the story.
Viber: Skype Alternative
Viber is akin to Skype in some ways, but differs in others.
- Viber requires no username, unlike Skype. Users are identified by their current phone numbers.
- Calls are made to the recipient’s mobile phone number.
- With Viber, there is no need to have separate contacts or go through the process of asking someone to connect, as you have to do today with Skype.
Sounds like a great alternative to Skype. Apparently, 200 million users worldwide think so as well.
Story source.
Apple in Fortune 10
The new Fotune 500 list just came out and Apple is in the top 10.
Not only was this Apple’s first time among Fortune’s top ten companies, they were the only Silicon Valley technology company to break into this year’s top ten list since Hewlett-Packard fell to No. 15 after reportedly suffering the biggest loss of any Fortune 500 company.
If you own any Apple products, give yourself a pat on the back – you helped them to get there.
Thank You
To all of you who mentioned Traffic Generation Café in any share or form in the past week, my whole-hearted THANK YOU.
Traffic Generation Café would NOT be what it is today without you.
Here are just some of the mentions I came across in the past week:
Increase Optins and Sales With Sticky Widgets and Sidebars For WordPress – Kim Castleberry at just-ask-kim.com gave thumbs up to Sticky Profit Builder we talked about here, plus gave some alternatives
More Blogging = More Sales (A Case Study Roundup) - Ben Richardson at contentequalsmoney.com
Ten Favorite Blogs for Career, Personal Development and Geekiness – Lynn Dessert at elephantsatwork.com
5 Proven Techniques to Drive Quality Traffic to Your Blog – Ileane Smith at basicblogtips.com
Top SEO Mistakes Webmaster Make By Volume and How To Get It Right – Francisco Perez (DiTesco) at iblogzone.com
Top SEO Mistakes, Top Social Influencers, Hotmail Dead – Francisco Perez (DiTesco) at iblogzone.com
Increase Optins and Sales With Sticky Widgets and Sidebars For WordPress – Kim Castleberry at just-ask-kim.com
Fetching Friday – Resources Mashup & The Science of Productivity – Kristi Hines at Kikolani.com
This Is Not MLM – Patricia Santhuff at CrazyEasyProfits.com
What Chinatown NYC and My New eBooks Have in Common – Greg Narayan at dearblogger.com
MYF Approved Weekly May 10: blog traffic, ranking in Google and becoming an authority – Iain Robson at marketingyourfarm.com
And here’s a special treat.
You know how much I love Slideshare as a content marketing platform (Slideshare Traffic Case Study: From 0 to 243,000 Views in 30 Days).
Well, many of you caught the fever and have been working on your own presentations.
I’d like to include one such presentation by Simone Castello in this Weekly Skinny; first and foremost because she did mention Traffic Generation Café in that presentation (great way to draw attention from other bloggers), but also because she did a great job boiling a lot of information down to 12 slides.
Granted, if it were up to me, I’d cut out a lot of the text, but this is a good start.
Lucky 7 steps to digital domination from Simone CastelloHave I missed your mention? Let me know in the comments!
Want to see your name here? Mention Traffic Generation Café in your next blog post!
To an even better next week,
