For internet marketers and businesses alike, 2012 promises to be a movin’, shakin’ year for all organic, social and mobile trends! Despite the tough economic climate in 2011, the rabid run toward strategic mobile marketing as a primary retail sales tool continues unabated with updated analytics, tools and apps.

The growth curve and development of retail-focused mobile marketing is huge, particularly in generating  that retail sale in near-real time!  Push marketing and hyper-local ads with a social media support structure, along with emerging apps like Google Wallet make it easier than ever to search, shop and spend on the go. The benefit to consumers? Competition and price comparisons work in their favor in a big way, not to mention ease and convenience.  The benefit to retailers? Buying everything from a new phone to a gift card to a slice of pizza becomes simpler and more intuitive via your phone, providing opportunities to capture both impulse buyers and smart-search consumers.

It seems that social media has now entered the “public trading” stage, with:

• Google Plus giving Facebook a real run for the money this time around
• Social image sites like Pinterest capturing a big chunk of our online enthusiasm
• Linked In becoming the “Who’s Who” of professionals and companies, garnering information on people and corporate profiles that boggles the mind

Oh yeah…and who would have though that cool QR code would be considered old-fashioned or quaint quite so soon?

(more…)

So…what about Google Wallet?  Is it creepy or cool? Is it the logical next step in the mobile march for dominance in the world of marketing, or is it just too far over the Google-wants-to-own-me line? We’re all comfortable with fun and useful mobile apps that give directions, tell us where to eat, shop, train for a marathon or count our calories.  We can be served all the information, ads, coupons and suggestions our battery will allow.  Now, with Google in our wallet, we can just give it over completely and surrender our personal and financial profiles to the internet giant. Really?

The recent video of the Google Bots (aka employees) filtering into stores wearing Google T-shirts and paying for customer purchases suggests a world of consumer ease…one tap shopping for everything from sodas to clothing. Too good to be true? It looks sort of like some strange sort of college sociology class doing an end of semester social experiment. (more…)

What Do YOU Think of Google Wallet? 

Google just picked up the tab for these customers so they could try it… does this frighten you?

Does this give new meaning to the question “Do you know what’s in your wallet?”  Has Google once again edged their toe right over that line between presenting cutting edge technology and chiseling their way right into our personal lives, or is this just a sign of what’s to come?

We want to hear what you think!

Mannix knows mobile!  Have questions? Need help? Call us today at (518) 743-9424 or contact us online.

We all pay for services of one kind or another.  We pay to have our trash picked up so we don’t have to haul it to the landfill ourselves. We may pay to have our yard mowed or our snow shoveled. We pay to have our hard drives cleaned up, our hair cut, and our tax returns completed.  All of these are services that are considered time savers as a result of our own cost-benefit analysis.

Link building and quality content are both critical parts of any successful SEO program.

Strong link building takes time and effort; getting high quality sites to point their golden fingers at you (aka links) is part of the hard work that an internet marketing professional knows how to do effectively.  The same with content – exceptional content is the coin of the realm in search.
(more…)

What’s the difference, and why should you care?

You’ve heard the terms used interchangibly – “search engine marketing” and “search engine optimization”.  Are they the same? Most definitely not!

From your phone company to your newspaper to the guy down the street, they all seem to have a “quick, cheap SEO product” to sell you. They sound good…they throw terms at you like how you can “improve your organic search”, “get verifiable results”, “behavioral targeting”, and so on. They make you want to stop all other marketing and partner with them before you have time to take a breath. But do they really know what they are talking about? (more…)