The PEW Internet Research just came out with a study that expresses a clearly favorable trend for product marketers online.

For instance, "The commercial use of the internet by American adults has grown since the mid-2000s, with 58% of Americans now reporting that they perform online research concerning the products and services that they are considering purchasing. That is an increase from 49% who said they conducted product or service research online in 2004."

How can this research help you, the etailer?  Well, if you sell on Ebay or Amazon, or out of your own little e-commerce store, doing write-ups and your own reviews of other products you retail will help with SEO and Social Marketing.  It is more likely that in the research, these clients will find YOU and your website, and love how well you explain a product, benefits and show photos or video.  If the competitor does not do that, then you win the customer!


Also in the report, "Additionally, 24% of American adults say they have posted comments or reviews online about the product or services they buy, indicating a willingness to share their opinions about products and the buying experience with others.“Many Americans begin their purchasing experience by doing online research to compare prices, quality, and the reviews of other shoppers,” said Jim Jansen, Senior Fellow at the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project and author of a new report about online product research. “Even if they end up making their purchase in a store, they start their fact-finding and decision-making on the internet.”"

So this means that you had better make a place for good discussion on your products (or services) with site visitors.  Let them in on the conversation, learn from them and educate them.  They are more likely to find your information responsible for the purchases they make with you.

Here is a link to the REPORT

This is a wonderful piece about the new release at google for doing some basic SEO.  Most of this has to do with what you are doing externally to bring attention, traffic, and organic search optimization to your blog.  Here are the bullet points.

- Google equates word-of-mouth buzz with building your website's reputation. (This is new!)

- Linking to spammy sites can hurt your website's reputation (not new, but still worth noting)

- Promote your content effectively (yes, you can self-promote your stuff!)

So lets take each one of them, as they pertain to your website and generating traffic.  Word of mouth buzz has to do when someone else on the web reads your postings and "buzzes" it, retweets it, posts it on Facebook, or just likes the posting.  Again, if you don't have the social plugins on your page to do this, your missing point number 1.

Linking to spammy sites.  That means if you link to original articles and give the original author credit (like we do here) make sure its from a real site with information relevant to your business and subject.  This would be the content you post on your blog posts.  You WANT TO BE careful of others leaving commennts ON YOUR SITE.  Others may sometimes do this to get traffic back to them, but if it IS a spammy site, it will harm you.  So make sure you watch the comments.

Promoting your comment effectively has alot to do with the first point using those social plugins we have already elaborated on before. 

Quoting google "Effectively promoting your new content will lead to faster discovery by those who are interested in the same subject. As with most points covered in this document, taking these recommendations to an extreme could actually harm the reputation of your site."

The author states "So, when you add content to your website, don't be afraid to Tweet on Twitter about it. Or even add it to a few of your favorite social bookmarking websites. It might just help your search engine rankings and search engine optimization. After all, Google says it's okay!"

Just remember, THIS INCLUDE YOUR MEDIA.  the photos and video of your business, the audio from a podcast.   Google is INTERESTED in the page on your blog that information resides on (SEO of page)  and interested in how social that page is getting.  Don't forget to get that video done!  It will make your business or opportunity more socially connected!

ORIGINAL POST HERE

As many of BVF readers know, I am an advocate of using a blog as your main portal or part of a multi-web site strategy to engage the web audience.  I think this article explains why its important to blog and use viral media to capture and contain the social web

"Still, I have seen no shortage of people sharing contenton Facebook or Twitter - content that more often than not comes from blogs. And I'm not just friends with a bunch of bloggers." writes Chris Crum.

If you have attended my workshops, you've learned that at the heard of the blog is the re-syndication plugins for facebook and twitter.  And the writer hear explains why that can be useful

"That may say something about Twitter as a means of producing content, but I still believe that Twitter can be a very powerful tool to create content and news. That has been proven time and time again (the Hudson River plane crash comes to mind). However, there is still plenty of "noise" and just like in real life, most of what people say isn't worth repeating. I will say, however, that most of the retweets I see contain links, and those links very often point to content from blogs. "

With those plugins, your information and opportunities are made available to many more in the vast audience of what i call "MLM socialization"  Here is more of the article

"I think I would go so far as to say that from a business perspective, blogging is probably more critical than it has ever been, and social media is largely responsible. This is not because people are engaging less with social networks. It's because they're engaging more, and social networks open the doors for blog content to find its way to relevant audiences like never before. "

And what is more interesting is the battle between google, facebook, and the new MicroSoft Bing/Yahoo alliance.  And how this can change the discovery method for websites, like yours.  The article continues..

"Look at Facebook's social plugins (including the "like" button). 2 million sites have added Facebook's social plugins since they launched five months ago. "Likes" are now more important to search, as Facebook has made updates so that "liked" news stories appear when people do searches within Facebook. Google is champing at the bit to get this information (and CEO Eric Schmidt thinks they will one way or another). 









Whether or not Google ever does get access to Facebook's data, it's in there to be searched, and much of that comes directly from blogs. Of course Google has no trouble indexing the blog content on its own, it's more about the popularity and relevance of the content at the personal level. Facebook's methods for this are simply another reason to create good content, and there's probably no better or easier means to do so than with a blog. "

 So in final analysis, you are the expert in your business or venture, or idea.  If you don't use the fundamental tools of publishing and social syndication, the social web will miss your information, and the search engines may have a harder time finding that information.  Our basic method of Do-It-Yourself website building can create all the fundamentals needs to get that information to those that are interested in it and will probably act on it.  Good luck!

THE ORIGINAL ARTICLE APPEARS HERE

Here is the list of speakers for the BlogWorld and New Media Expo in Las Vegas 2010.  Social Media Business Summit, presented by BlogWorld & New Media Expo, is the world’s largest Social Media business conference. It’s an exclusive 3-Day track, presented by social media thought leaders and corporate pro’s, empowering your company with the tools to use social media to gain exposure, engage with quality customers and grow your business! Whether you are a small business looking to develop a social media marketing plan, or a corporate marketer needing tips for taking your online marketing strategies to a new level, this conference is for you. Get the “Blueprints for Business at the Speed of NOW” from Amber Naslund of Radian6, master “Digital Crisis Communications” with Scott Monty of Ford and much more
First up.

Scott Stratten
President: UnMarketing

Rohit Bhargava
Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence

Doug Ulman
President & CEO, LIVESTRONG

Keynote Speakers: Friday, October 15th

Topic: The Future of Web Video

Susan Bratton
Co-Founder & CEO, Personal Life Media


Dick Glover
President & CEO, Funny or Die


Jim Louderback
CEO, Revision 3

Keynote Speakers: Saturday, October 16th

Topic: The 7 Harsh Realities of Blogging for Bucks

Darren Rowse
CEO, Problogger

Brian Clark
CEO, Copyblogger

Sonia Simone
Senior Editor, Copyblogger

Closing Keynote Talk Show: Saturday, October 16th

Topic: Closing Keynote Talk Show (Language NSFW)

Rob Barnett
Founder & CEO, My Damn Channel

Adam Carolla
Founder, ACE Broadcasting


Penn Jillette
Penn & Teller, Penn Point Podcast

Cali Lewis
GeekBeat TV

Jeffrey Hayzlett
Author, "The Mirror Test"

We will be attending the show and reporting back on any new insights that can help business owners and branders influence the internet.  For most of our reading audience, this might be way over the top.  This type of show is designed for the publishers and producers of content THAT MAY influence you indirectly.  Your local Restaurant Review Podcaster may be in attendance.  A local blogger that speaks about Wine or Specialty items, etc.  These types of attendees syndicate that content, and although you might not be able to put that time in, the insights and tips or shortcuts may be invaluable.  Consider attending, and get a cheap room at Monte Carlo.  Ultra cheap rooms in Las Vegas are Golden Nugget on Fremont, old downtown.

Here is a video from the official youtube channel of facebook.

It is more important then ever for retailers who have locations serving customers to engage them in the mobile social environment. We find many retail locations who are already part of the social conversation and have no idea. "Checking" in and the other activities can allow the retail establishment to connect with the friends of those who visit those establishments.

Recently, we spoke with Dr. Conner of the "Conner Bubble" on 88.9 FM LanderRadio.org at the 12 pm slot.  Here is the interview podcasted below with some inserted slides to help the listener follow along.   Go ahead and leave some comments and let us know what the next few subjects should be about.  We are also working with business community groups to get this information to as many self employed and business individuals as possible.

A brief discussion on the differences between facebook fanpages and facebook groups. Here are the two most important considerations

A. Unlike groups, fan pages are visible to unregistered people and are thus indexed (important for reputaion management, for example);
B. Unlike pages, groups allow to send out “bulk invite” (you can easily invite all your friends to join the group while with pages you will be forced to drop some invites manually). Groups are thus better for viral marketing, meaning that any group member can also send bulk invites to the friends of his.

so thus:

A. Pages are generally better for a long-term relationships with your fans, readers or customers;
B. Groups are generally better for hosting a (quick) active discussion and attracting quick attention.

Here is some more information about the differences:

Fan Pages provide customization and expanded viral potential. Outside of the messaging limitations (messages from Pages don't go into your Inbox), Pages have one big drawback for some of the organizations I work with - Events.

While you can create related events with a Page, you cannot actually host an event. This means you have to manually enter guests into the RSVP for any related event you create and these must be from YOUR friends list. There is no way to invite all of your Fans with a click. Groups allow you to host an event and automatically invite all of your Group members. Waiting for FB to add that functionality to Pages.

Facebook Pages are a promote a business, band, shop and so on...
whilst Facebook groups are to promote a common interest.
Hence the tools given are pretty different.

On FB Pages you have more Tools like targeted Message sending (you can filter by age, sex, country, etc. whom you wanna send the message to) then the options for stats and even promotion of the page using ads. It gives a good reason for someone to come and use their ad platform.

On the other hand, FB Groups allow you to have group structure with group officers and admins and stuff, in order to regulate and facilitate discussion.

While you can remove a Facebook member from your group, you can’t do the same with a Fan. So, if you want to have a tight control over the “membership” of your presence on Facebook. It might actually make more sense to stick with your group.

Negative for groups: Once a group gets to a certain size you will be unable to message all members of it.

allfacebook.com and insidefacebook.com contributions to this story

This four minute video answers the question.  And why its important to understand how video can help spread your message.