Weekly Marketing Skinny • November 15, 2014

Posted on the 15 November 2014 by Ana Hoffman @AnaTrafficCafe

Don’t have the time to read all the marketing news, blog posts, announcements, and other content related to SEO/social media/online marketing published each week?

I’ve got you covered.

I sift through trillions (well, hundreds) of online publications to stay on top of marketing news that might affect your online business.

And I package them neatly in bite-sized chunks in my Weekly Marketing Skinnies right here at Traffic Generation Café every Saturday morning.

Between you and me, I have no idea why I bother investing hours of my time weekly reading all these marketing news just to boil them down for you in my Weekly Marketing Skinnies, other than the fact that I know you don’t have the time to keep up with the fast-paced marketing industry on your own, yet you DO need to be in-the-know to remain competitive.

Plus, your enthusiastic comments and social media shares show me just how much you truly appreciate being kept in the marketing loop in just a few minutes per week.

If you appreciate what I do, share this Marketing Skinny:

THANK YOU.

Now grab your cup of coffee and let’s catch up on the marketing news that matter to your business.

Search

Porn stars demand Google’s help to combat piracy; they claim that Google is unfairly discriminating against the industry by not allowing porn companies to purchase AdWords.

A possible improvement to Google Answers boxes: it looks like Google is working on encouraging searchers to click over to the web page by displaying the Show me how link at the bottom of the Answer box.

In the past few days, they were a lot of rumors about the Apple search bot crawling the web. Is Apple really getting ready to storm the search industry?

Baidu’s CFO on the future of search: It’s mobile and it’s audio-driven, Baidu Inc.’s finance chief Jennifer Li told Fortune Magazine at MPW conference in Hong Kong.

Mozilla updated Firefox with Forget button and DuckDuckGo search.

Social Media

Google+

New ‘Mentions’ tab rolling out to Google+ on the web. The handy new tab makes it easier to see posts that your profile or page has been +mentioned in one easy-to-access stream.

Twitter

Twitter and Google used to be a social media/search engine match made in heaven. Until Twitter started blocking Google in 2011. And now Twitter is asking Google to take it back.

Coming soon to Twitter: 3 game-changing updates in the pipeline (native video is one of them).

Facebook

Oh sure, late Friday afternoon seems like the perfect time to break the news that your Facebook fans will now see even less content from you. As of January 2015, Facebook will be reducing the number of posts from Pages they find ‘too promotional’.

New on Facebook: You can now send video cards to friends and family with Facebook’s new Say Thanks service.

Would you like to discover new exciting places around the world? Facebook aims to help with their new Places directory.

YouTube

It’s here. YouTube’s long-awaited music subscription service starting at a promotional price of $8 per month.

More YouTube updates: starting today, you’ll see a new home just for music on your YouTube app for Android, iOS and on YouTube.com that shows your favorite music videos, recommended music playlists based on what you’re into and playlists of trending music across YouTube.

Pinterest

Apparently, Pinterest has doubled the number of male active users in the past year. Who said men aren’t visual?…

Pinterest says it can do a better job answering user questions than a traditional search engine (read: Google).

LinkedIn

You can now embed SoundCloud tracks inside LinkedIn Publisher Posts.

The LinkedIn Challenge, 4th edition, starts on Dec 1st, and I suggest you join us.

Slideshare

Slideshare has integrated presentation software Haiku Deck that allows you to build an eye-catching deck in 3 easy steps right in Slideshare.

To learn more about driving significant traffic from Slideshare, read my Slideshare Traffic Case Study: From 0 to 243,000 Views in 30 Days post.

Instagram

When you share a moment to Instagram, a typo shouldn’t get in the way. Thus, Instagram announced several changes to its mobile app, most notably giving users the ability to edit captions.

Ello

Ello is finally catching up to the overwhelming number of requests to join the invite-only network – if you haven’t been able to join yet, expect your invite to show up soon. Plus, they manage to push out a few useful updates.

On a Side Note…

If you find tremendous value in my Weekly Marketing Skinnies, like thousands of other readers of Traffic Generation Café do, you should consider joining them and sign up to receive the weekly notifications of when a fresh Skinny is published.

Plus, you’ll get complimentary access to my “Mommy, Where Does My Traffic Come From?” traffic hacks report and traffic hacks newsletter:

"Ana has a unique insight into running an internet business."
- Yaro Starak, Entrepreneurs-Journey.com

Needless to say, your information is completely safe with me.

See you in your inbox!

WordPress

Oh boy… Emojis on WordPress.com… In case you wanted more emoji in your posts (who doesn’t want more Emojis, right?…), you now have 872 to choose from – thanks to Twitter that graciously decided to open-source their entire set, allowing anyone to use them.

Marketing This & That

U.S. president Barack Obama announced his support for Net Neutrality and asked the FCC to “reclassify consumer broadband service under Title II of the Telecommunications Act.”

Let Google help you Fight Ebola: Google will triple every dollar you donate to fight the disease.

Food for thought: YOU are your worst online security enemy. Your online security starts and ends with you.

Funny Business

This video is too good not to share: actor Mike Myers and his brother, Sears Canada employee, attempt to save the company with a funny video ad.

Mike Meyers’ brother Peter has worked for Sears for 32 years and appears in the ad with his brother, Mike.

In the ad, which Mike wrote, the two trade barbs about the sad state of affairs Sears Canada now faces.

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:

Tips Tuesday – Keyword Search Tools, LinkedIn and SoundCloud, Google Analytics Dashboards – MaAnna Stephenson at blogaid.net

What Does Your Small Business Want out of the Internet? – Michael J. Coffey at ardeacoaching.com

40 Ways to Multiply Your Blog’s Audience – Brittany Bullen at internationalbloggersassociation.com

How To Push Your Articles To “Link Roundups” Without Even Thinking About It – Tim Soulo at bloggerjet.com

5 Content Marketing Strategies Not To Overlook In 2015 – Reginald Chan at schoolofcontent.com

Have 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!

Subscribe to Stay Ahead

I share a lot of marketing news as well as the best posts I read throughout a week on my Google+ profile.

To read them as they come out and stay ahead of your competition, as well as become a social media star and share the best with YOUR followers (you’d be surprised how much it’ll do for your credibility and online presence!), join me there:

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To an even better next week,