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Branding & Marketing

Google is Still Winning – But For How Long?

April 15, 2011 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

Although Google may still be the top search engine in the U.S., and by a still impressively immense margin, the last six months have shown that Bing, powered by Microsoft, is leading an impressive race in the competition for top search engine status. If this trend continues to increase at its current rate, Bing may very well be a real competitor for leading search engine status by 2012.

Bing Growth

According to recent statistical data, Google received over 64% of searches conducted from within the United States in March of 2011. Searches powered by Bing, which also include Yahoo and Bing.com, were utilized at a rate of 30%.

Even though Google still leads Bing by more than 2 to 1, the 30% mark for Bing is a rather notable one considering that just six months ago, Bing held a rate of U.S. search engine queries at only 23%. Down 10% since August 2010, the same month when Yahoo searches began to be powered by Bing, should these statistics be compounded in their current directions, it could be possible that Bing would beat out Google as the leading search engine sometime in January 2012. Although it doesn’t seem very likely, at current projections, it could be the result of current search engine trends.

Google Growth

While Google’s growth has obviously flattened out in recent months, Bing has continued to rise. However, Google continues to fill up their handy box of tricks with new features such as +1, Google Instant, and their social search, as well as their ability to block unwanted websites.

Search Ad Profitability

With the above statistics in mind it is easy to understand that at this point Bing is still chasing Google in search ad profits. While Google’s search engine advertising profits still massively outweigh Bings, Bing still seems to be on a winning rise in some of the most imperative categories.

Outside of the U.S.

Google remains a dominant tool for search engine queries with a rate that steady for the U.K. at 91%. This rate is even higher in other European countries like Germany, France and Australia.

 

Sources:

  • Bing Search Growth
  • Bing vs Google Stats
  • Google Beats Bing

Filed Under: Basil's Blog #AIa, Branding & Marketing, Conferences & Education, Digital & Internet Marketing, SEO Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Topics Tagged With: google, search, search results, SEO, Visibility, Visibility Marketing

The State of Now – The #140conf

April 14, 2011 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

Jeff Pulver is an interesting character. Not the most charismatic of speakers, yet his words make a lot of sense. He started “in computers”, as he calls it, 17 years ago. He was one of the co-founders of Vonage, and invested in Twitter back in 2007. Here is, paraphrased, what he says about the State on Now and why #140conf. is needed.

Our world is changing very quickly with the new technologies. Things we can do today were unthinkable just 20 or 30 years ago. In his opinion, one of the biggest changes happened with the invention of Twitter. He compares it to the invention of the telegraph or the radio.

Here is why:  Social Media has brought with it a new opening for people to express their thoughts and feelings and share them with others.  The ordinary, everyday folks could voice their opinion. The more people think and feel the same way, the bigger impact the citizens have on what is going on in their world. We saw the power of the internet in raising funds in the 2008 elections.

At the same time, our modern world has made us all Short Attention Span sufferers. We want the information now, and we want it fast and accurate. And we want it short. When it comes to voicing our opinions, not everyone is a good writer who has the patience and the stamina to hold a blog. Twitter combines those two elements and allows composing only a short message that even the untalented writer can do. It opens the door to so much, Jeff Pulver says, that we are still incapable of determining what kind of impact it will have on our future world.

Social media changed advertising, changed reading habits and changed politics. Even though Jeff Pulver said those things in 2009, he was right on the money when you look at the last event in the Middle East.

What Jeff does now is provide a platform for people who spend time learning all those new technologies and implement them on a daily basis, to share their knowledge and observations. He does it in the form of #140 Conferences all over the United States and Canada. He invites interesting people to speak, and the interested to listen and learn.

These conferences, like the June, 2009 #140conf. in NYC have a theme. The New York one talked about the role of news media in the world of Twitter. The uprising in Iran was on everyone’s mind at the time and the experts pointed out that the world was watching – not on CNN but on Twitter.

This year, the conferences are held in NYC (3/9), in Austin during the SXSW (3/14-17), De Moines (5/9), Vancouver (5/19), Twain Harte, CA. (5/24) and Long Island (5/26). An international conference will be held in NYC (6/15-16)

The #140conf. provides an opportunity for the Twitter community to connect, listen, share, engage and learn while exploring the effects of the real time internet on business. As an example some of the invited speakers in the NYC International conference are as diverse as:

Alicia Yarbo, producer of the Today Show and co-author “Today’s Moms”, Alon Nir, founder, Tweet Your Prayers, Craig Newmark, founder, Craigslist, Cory Booker, Mayor of Newark, NJ and Hank Wasiak, partner, The Concept Farm, together with other founder of small and large businesses, educators and writers, media and non-profit organizations representatives.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lt_qf9YoypA]

The Long Island #140Conf is set for May 26th 2011 at Touro Law Center, this event could be one of the biggest Social Media Events to hit Long Island, especially given that it has been often overlooked in the shadow of NYC. Long

Island has long been host to some great social influence all the way back to the days of AIM. With Long Island boasting a social landscape that forms the bridge between NYC and the coveted Social Elite of the Hamptons, this Social Media Valley is ripe for such an event.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gv6QJssVcGs&feature=related]

Sources:

  • #140Conf
  • Long Island #140conf
  • Pulverblog
  • TechCrunch

Filed Under: Basil's Blog #AIa, Branding & Marketing, Conferences & Education, Digital & Internet Marketing, SEO Search Engine Optimization, Social Brand Visibility, Social Media Topics Tagged With: #140conf, blog, internet marketing, local, mobile, Puglisi, Social Brand, Social Media, twitter, Visibility

Stik: Reviews from your social network

April 13, 2011 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

Making significant purchases such as new homes, insurance policies or even your well-planned retirement investments will require individuals to find professionals they can truly trust. Many unsuspecting consumers may find themselves working with unknown representatives or salespersons who may not always have the buyers best financial interest at heart.

Just as unfortunately it can often be confusing to know where to find a trustworthy partner in this important venture. Although some businesses, online or off, may proclaim their reputable characteristics, there can also be whispers about even their policies or practices being questionable. Most often, the best group to rely on are those who have already made their own investments with the help of good salespeople and had very pleasant and lucrative experiences.

Stik offers a great system for users to leave behind their own reviews for friends who they already know they can trust and rely on. Stik can help take the stress and anxiety from major purchases from the buyer side, as well as providing great feedback to professionals who deserve the recognition for delicate financial jobs well done and beneficial to the buyers.

Get Stik’D

Logging in via Facebook is likely the quickest and easiest option, though if you do not have a Facebook account for some reason, this would be a great time to get one. The integration provided by Facebook will prevent users from having to repetitively enter the same information.

Once you have signed it, Stik will give you the option to select from your Facebook friends users you would like to ask for recommendations from. Once you have sent that on you can leave recommendations of your own for those on your friends list.

Setting up your profile is as simple as entering a few descriptions of your services and allowing Facebook’s regional information to integrate itself. Once in you will be give several search options. Searching through your friends first, shared connections, the distance from your location and even through keyword relevance. Whenever you need to do a new search, click on the Stik site and select the type of business you are planning to do from the available choices:

  • Real Estate
  • Insurance
  • Mortgage
  • Finance
  • Law

Essentially, your Stik profile can help to showcase personalized recommendations or reviews that will encourage prospective customers to feel comfortable entering a business relationship with you. Since you can now display updates from your Facebook fan page on your Stik profile, you won’t have to work twice as hard to post them to both profiles. Simply visit the “Recent Activity” tab on your profile and select the link to “Display your Facebook content here” to quickly display your public posts to your Stik profile.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cuvcrPjp860]

Stik Users

Stik’s current US traffic rank is at 3,972. User audience consist greatly of those with limited college educations as well as to women who earn over 60k per year. Most browsers view from work.

Sources:

  • Stik
  • Stik: Connect Your Fan Page to Your Stik Profile
  • TechCrunch

Filed Under: Basil's Blog #AIa, Branding & Marketing, Conferences & Education, Digital & Internet Marketing, Social Brand Visibility Tagged With: brand, local, reviews, small business, Social Brand, Visibility

Best Twitter Tools: TweetDeck, TrueTwit, FLLWRS, 20FT, Formulists

April 12, 2011 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

Twitter has become such a media marketing giant on the net in the last few years that there is now an entire industry devoted to the creation of tools, tips and tricks to make your Twitter experience easier, quicker or more user-friendly in just about any manner. Many of those tools provided can help to do quite a few things for your Twitter account. These are a few of the BEst Twitter Tools you can use together for a great twitter experience.

TweetDeck

Well, TweetDeck honestly does a little bit of everything. Its many features include:

  • Updates to Twitter, Myspace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Foursquare, and Google Buzz.
  • Retweet in the common Twitter style, or create your own.
  • Smoothly manage conversations with @replies or direct messaging.
  • Keep on top of trending information.
  • Easily locate friends or other similar niche followers.  
  • View, record and share YouTube videos and clips.
  • LinkedIn contact integration
  • Manage multiple accounts on Twitter

The list seriously goes on and on. This may be the best of the all-in-one tools available for social media management. If that isn’t great enough, the TweetDeck’s Deck.ly integration allows users to continue typing past the character limit and allow Deck.ly to show them the rest.

TweetDeck has a global Alexa ranking of 2,215. Most are highly educated females who browse mostly from work. This site is also popular in Mexico where it is ranked at #796.

 TrueTwit

TrueTwit is a Twitter validation tool that can help you automate a few vital Twitter services. The basic, or free, account provides several benefits.

  • The basic service is always free
  • New followers must pass a CAPTCHA test for validation.
  • Users can decide to auto-follow the new users who are validated.
  • Users can choose to auto-unfollow those users who unfollow them.
  • Users can try out a pro version for 30 days at any time.

The professional, or premium TrueTwit account allows for a bit stiffer and more intensive Twitter management.

  • Users can choose to allow TrueTwit to analyze prospective followers to be certain they are more than just spam or affiliate accounts.
  • Users are provided with a Follower Analysis page that shows a summary of the status of all of your followers.
  • Users receive a free 30 day trial of the product. If satisfied, they pay $20 USD per year.

Ranked 5,384 globally, TrueTwit’s average viewers tend to be Caucasian women between the ages of 35 and 55 who make between 30k and 100k USD per year.

FLLWRS

FLLWRS is another Twitter follower management tool but on a very basic level. Simply click to the URL and select the option to See your twitter follower history. Allow the integration suggestion, and move right into your follower management configurations.

FLLWRS will not only monitor your followers but also provide you with a list with those who have unfollowed you. Managing this list can help a business who uses Twitter understand what may be turning their consumers off about their marketing techniques.

FLLWRS has a global traffic ranking of 55,894 with around 25% of its users located in the U.S. It is also very popular in the Netherlands where its ranking is listed at 5,010. On average, FLLWRS users are educated, childless females under the age of 35 with incomes ranging around 30k USD.

20Ft

20ft is a performance based Twitter tool that allows users to recap their last Twitter week for the user, their followers and friends.

A post about your week on Twitter is published at the start of each week automatically if you configure the service to do so. So what is your week on Twitter all about? And what does 20ft do for their users?

  • 20Ft helps to create a detailed analysis for your social media profiles and provides incredible data in your timeline charts.
  • 20Ft can send their users a ‘nudge’ if their metrics change significantly, for the positive or negative.
  • Users will have their own aggregated statistics in one easy place to access with a simple user interface.
  • This overview can be provided for Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Google Analytics and more.

At #118,130 20Ft still has some work to do to impress Alexa beyond the current ranking. The average 20Ft user tend to browse from work and are on average women between the ages of 25 and 55 with high-end educations.

Formulists

Formulists is a Twitter tool that allows users to organize groups of their Twitter followers into auto-updting Twitter lists. Formulists allows for filter application and networking solely based on your biography, location and supplied keywords or phrases as well as your Twitter activity, the number of followers and more.

Although list creation and management can be difficult for users who are not incredibly net savvy, Forumulists provides its users with helpful text tutorials as well as videos to make set up easier than ever.

Users can choose to create Formulists to help filter those they follow, expand their network, manage current followers, track interactions, or even customize existing lists.

This type of organization and management can help you to create a Twitter following of followers who already have vested interest in your own products and services.

Formulists has a global page ranking of 48,923. Although popular in the U.S., this site is very popular in Bangladesh with a ranking of 12,892. Viewers are primarily females between the ages of 35 and 54 who browse from home.

Another Great tool is Paper.li and was covered in a previous blog.

Sources:

  • 20Ft
  • Alexa
  • Formulists
  • FLLWRS
  • TweetDeck
  • Truetwit

Filed Under: Basil's Blog #AIa, Branding & Marketing, Conferences & Education, Digital & Internet Marketing, Social Brand Visibility, Social Media Topics Tagged With: brand, internet marketing, Marketing, mobile, small business, Social Brand, Social Media, tweets, twitter, Visibility, Visibility Marketing

Google’s New E-Commerce Features

April 11, 2011 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

Web retailers may have just received extra encouragement for product promotion from Google with the launch of their new E-commerce, product-specific search capabilities. At least two new features will stand out to regular users.

Instant Results

First, there is the type-as-you-go feature that Google users have grown accustomed to in their web search tool. This feature will now attempt to fill in some of the most commonly searched products, even localized when possible, and get instant results for browsing and purchasing items from your query.

How Does this Work?

To see this feature in action head to babyage.com a Baby Store site and begin to type the phrase “portable cribs” into the search bar, as you do you can see that even at the letter P it is offering quick search results with clickable photo links directly to the product page. The more letters added the more specific the search results are displayed.

Product Availability

Since commerce for major purposes over the past few years has taken on a combination of online and offline shopping, the second new feature of the ecommerce upgrade encourages localized shopping by maintaining inventory management systems of many of the larger retailers. This allows users to find out exactly where an item they are interested in can be located in their area. Wal-Mart has been using a similar system for their online shoppers for quite some time.

This type of product availability mapping can be a great tool for those who do not have hours on end around the holiday seasons to hunt down the year’s hottest products. Utilized widely it may even have some impact on economical aspects such as saving on travel expenses. For those used to shopping online for their minor needs this may not seem like a big deal, however, considering that some items even the sharpest online shopper would likely never purchase online, this could make that bargain shopping hunt far easier.

Items like furniture, appliances and heavy equipment such as lawn mowers or outside storage containers may certainly be items that are well worth the trip to the actual store to save on shipping cost. The new system can also help you to find the store closest to you so that those ungainly trips to return home with those items much more convenient.

The Business End of E-Commerce Updates

Business owners are allowed to fully customize the appearance of their results any way they choose. With some additional merchandising and marketing options users can easily configure their own promotions to be displayed with a visitor enters a related search as well as designate their banner zones on site.

To help users better understand the new changes, Google has supplied a video with a great explanation on YouTube. 

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nje9fUcIkKc&feature=player_embedded]

There seems to more happening these days beyond google checkout, take a look at the big picture and google commerce in conjunction with google apps and google checkout any small business can now rival the technology of the biggest corporations.

Sources:

  • All Things Digital
  • Baby Age
  • The Evolution of Commerce
  • Los Angeles Times: Search As You Type

Filed Under: Basil's Blog #AIa, Branding & Marketing, Conferences & Education, Digital & Internet Marketing, SEO Search Engine Optimization Tagged With: brand, ecommerce, google, internet marketing, search, small business, Visibility

Digital Visibility: The Local Search Snapshot

April 8, 2011 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

As a business owner, you know you must have a presence on the World Wide Web to be considered a legitimate business. There are thousands of digital touch points out there, and knowing how you or your business appears to the world is almost as important as being there in the first place.

If you are serious about your visibility, leaving it to chance and luck is not good enough anymore. Sure, Google will do some of the work, categorizing it, linking it, but there is so much more to the World Wide Web than just Google, as big as it may be.

The first step is to make sure you appear in the right places and appear with the correct information. Some companies on the web will help you do just that.

GetListed.org

GetListed.org, in existence since January 2009, serves as a resource for small business owners to find out how they are listed. Their goal is “to help small businesses claim and enhance their listings at major search engines”. They provide a clear picture of how effectively you are using the free resources available today. You might be able to compare it to your competitors as well.

The company has created a resource center which includes articles and tips about internet visibility. They accumulated listings of many SEO experts in different areas and will direct you to the right people.

In this one place you can check, for free, how you are visible to the world, learn about other places and other listings you might want to appear on, and participate in seminars held from time to time in different cities around the United States to help business owners learn about SEO and search engine ranking, in a face to face manner.

GetListed.org operated only in the US until Jan. 2010 when the company started beta testing in the UK as well.

AmIvisible.org

AmIvisible.org is another company which offers their services for free. By goin g to their website you can find how visible is your service or company to potential customers and compare that information with that of your competitors in your area.

AmIvisible.org covers millions of pages on search engines, yellow pages directories and local searches, and provides analysis of your business’s online visibility.

The service is fairly new and is in beta testing in several US cities. It will expand to the whole nation soon.

UBL.org

Universal Business Listing (UBL) strives to be a central collection and distribution point for all your business information online. A one-stop location for complete and accurate listing information.

UBL.org offers more than the sites mentioned above; it will list your business, monitor your presence, provide visibility reports and enhance your profile. They are not only aggregating information, they are actively doing things to change it for the better.

They have packages from $75 as an essential payment, which includes checking listings and monitoring your presence, to $599 which includes all the rest. They have an annual renewal fee of $59, regardless of the program.

Sources:

  • AMIVisible
  • Crunchbase
  • GetListed
  • UBL

Filed Under: Basil's Blog #AIa, Branding & Marketing, Conferences & Education, Digital & Internet Marketing, SEO Search Engine Optimization, Social Brand Visibility, Social Media Topics Tagged With: brand, google, internet marketing, listed, listing, local, local search, Marketing, SEO, Visibility, Visibility Marketing, website

What Mobile Apps Can Do for Small Business

April 7, 2011 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

Mobile Applications have rushed to the forefront of technology and further advancements with the increased usage of net enhanced mobile devices like the iPhone. Breaking beyond the traditional uses for phone and text messaging capabilities, mobile apps have been brought from playroom to boardroom.

Mobile App Statistics

Did you know that 38% of small businesses reporting view mobile apps as an essential aspect of their operations? A recent survey conducted by AT&T defined a few of the most recent statistics on mobile apps and small business. Around 72%, defined by companies that have anywhere from two to fifty employees, have reported that they use some form of mobile applications for their daily operations.

This poll of 2,246 small business owners is likely a great example of the average mobile app demographics for small business owners in the USA.

Most Popular Small Business Apps

The study showed that mapping and GPS tools topped the list of the most popular services utilized by the reporting small businesses at 49%. Other important statistics show:

  • One in four small businesses use social media marketing or document management apps
  • 24% use location-based services
  • 23% use time management apps
  • 22% use travel and expense tracking applications
  • 20% use mobile credit card payment services

When queried as to the chief factor making mobile apps desirable to companies was their time-saving benefits. Even more beneficial was the discovery that the smaller a business, the more likely it is to seek out methods for time saving with mobile and therefore far more convenient applications.

With business apps continually improving, this seems to be in turn, fueling the increase of usage of mobile devices, and therefore mobile applications, by small business owners.

Case Study

Mobile App Photo Sharing with Zurfer

A case study conducted by Mor Naaman, Rahul Nair and Vlad Kaplun of Berkley California, using a high end mobile phone application for photo browsing may give more in-depth clues to how quickly mobile applications are becoming more of a requirement than an option for business owners.

With Zurfer sent to over 500 possible users, only nine of those users participated in the extensive user research. Some of the first statistics noted were those that showed how many users preferred entertainment driven mobile applications as opposed to utilities and working tools.

Nielsen Study

With a recent Nielsen Study reflecting that SmartPhones now cover up to 28% of the U.S. cell phone market, increased usage of mobile applications are an understandable side effect. With studies further showing that the greater part of SmartPhone owners are under thirty-five as well as finding a larger diversity among Hispanic users than may have been expected, this also most certainly opens up some new possibilities for those small businesses that are in tune with mobile application development as well as usage.

Who Are the Main Users?

Perhaps most unsurprisingly, the mobile user market tends to be dominated by younger males with relatively elevated educations and more affluent connections in comparison to the rest of the population. Although studies showed that some users have a disproportionate amount of apps on their phone, the average number claimed a median of ten.

Although apps are not quite as popular yet as photo taking at 76% and text messaging at 71%, the stats provided are still considerable since Apple’s app store didn’t even open until July of 2008.

Overall, considering that there was no app culture whatsoever until around three years ago, most all of these statistics can be most assuredly proof of impressive tech-adoption methods of mobile device users.

The Real Results?

In the end, the case study on Zurfer may have actually proven to supply more much realistic results, as with the reports flooding into Nielsen continuing to show that Game apps are indeed the most highly sought, bought and utilized mobile applications at an average of 60% of monthly downloads, followed by news and weather apps holding around 52% of monthly downloads, social media applications are still listed at number four with a somewhat surprising 47% of downloads monthly.

Sources:

  • Information Week: AT&T
  • Best Mobile Apps for Small Business
  • Life Changing Apps?
  • Mobile Apps for Learning
  • Mobile App Photo Share with Zurfer
  • Mobile Apps Survey
  • Nielsen

Filed Under: Basil's Blog #AIa, Branding & Marketing, Conferences & Education, Digital & Internet Marketing, Social Brand Visibility, Social Media Topics Tagged With: analytics, aplications, apps, mobile, Mobile & Technology, Social Brand, Social Media, Visibility, Visibility Marketing

Facebook Questions Re-Launch

April 6, 2011 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

Earlier this week Facebook re-launched a previously tested aspect of social networking known as Questions. Questions, although similar to the idea of Yahoo answers actually provides quite a bit more personalized Q & A experiences.

Users can simply head to Facebook Questions and opt in if the account isn’t already enabled. Head to Facebook questions and check out the format. Set like polling questions and answers you should be able to immediately see any questions that any of your friends have posted, or replied to.

Although the last version allowed users to reach out to friends and strangers on Facebook, the new release goes completely against that original grain. This time the design is more geared towards targeting Facebook friends to get their questions answered. Those who have used the new format already can definitely attest to the fact that this system is what makes the Facebook Q & A stand apart from other available services.

Many random users were given beta access to Facebook Questions a year ago, so those same users are the first to gain access to the upgrade, however, once a friend post an answer to one of your questions, or one viewable on your wall, they too will receive an invitation to join the Q & A option.

Like Life

Like life when a question needs to be answered, most often an individual will seek out those who they feel may have a bit of knowledge in that area. Most do this because they feel their chances of getting a question answered on a topic obscure to them, will be much easier if they head to an expert. Even then, we hope if our knowledgeable friend cannot answer it, they will be knowledgeable enough to know someone who can. This is the manner in which the newest Questions upgrade intends to function.

Of course, the new version is also created to take full advantage of the viral nature of mass social networking by allowing users to easily share their own questions, or answers, with their full social graph. This system of take a question, answer it, or pass it on, may very well be far more likely to garner the results Facebook developers were looking for in the first release.

Says Product Manager Adrian Graham, users have many formats where they can go to ask perfect strangers for the answers to their questions, but Facebook Questions may be the first format where users can quickly go, if they aren’t there already, to a format that allows them to ask those questions of their friends.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfPA15Ur8do]

Sources:

  • All Things Digital
  • Facebook
  • GigaOm
  • Mashable
  • TechCrunch

Filed Under: Basil's Blog #AIa, Branding & Marketing, Conferences & Education, Digital & Internet Marketing, Social Media Topics Tagged With: analytics, blog, facebook, Social Brand, Social Media, Visibility, Visibility Marketing

New Media Press: Paper.li a Social Media Tool

April 5, 2011 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

Do you get a bit intimidated by data mining or researching through your Twitter or Facebook accounts as they scroll by at light-speed? If you are like many business owners, large and small, you have likely been just as torn as others who know that their social media sites are littered with incredible information, free tools and professionals offering free advice that could mean the difference in a crash-and-burn or soaring to the top, but approaching them may be a different story.

The Good with the Bad

The great part is that if you have this problem, you likely have plenty of friends and followers which was the ultimate goal in the first place. However, reaching those friend or follower goal numbers will also mean that your visits to check on your preferred topics and URLs will take longer each time.

Then there was Paper.li.

SmallRivers, Big Currents

A private startup that was incorporated in Switzerland, SmallRivers was co-founded by Iskander Pols, and Edouard Lambelet. They wanted to devise a method to help cultivate what users want out of their social medias that they have built on for their businesses. One of many ventures between this dynamic duo, Paper.li has become their main focus in recent months which is becoming very obvious with its increasing Alexa rankings.

Survey Says!

Paper.li’s current global ranking is at #808 while about 35% of its viewers are U.S. based where it has achieved a ranking of #508. It is also very popular in the United Kingdom where it is currently ranked at #307. Statistics show that it is used most widely by white, educated females between the ages of 25 and 55 who browse from both home and work. Average annual incomes for these viewers averages $30k USD.

Small Business Benefits

Whether you are marketing a product, service or even yourself, you can always use any tool that helps to organize the information you need. In fact, there is an entire industry built on and successfully creating expensive tools for this exact function.

Whether used alone or even in conjunction with other helpful Twitter tools, Paper.li will help you to take any specific interest or niche, and create an easy to manage and read newspaper out of the chosen keywords or hash tags you have designated.

  • This can greatly reduce cost spent on data mining for the social media aspect of your marketing campaign by providing you with the most relevant return for your set keys and phrases.
  • It can help to build social media relationships with those you pull content from.
  • You can gain consistently valuable information about topics relevant to your small business.
  • You can implement Paper.li fully into your content marketing campaigns.

Who Uses Paper.li?

Many personal marketers and small business owners have begun to implement Paper.li as part of their SMM campaigns. One such company, SBA, a financial service, has begun to utilize it to market in the areas it specializes in as well as to branch out to other markets that other Paper.li users share with them.

They currently use them to span wide markets in the Financing and Accounting of:

  • Jewelry
  • Sports
  • Fashion
  • Marketing
  • Public Relations
  • Small Business
  • Restaurants
  • Pro Job Listings

And these are just a select few of the niches as they plan to continue to add more.

Why Not Paper.Li?

Since most wise business owners know that achieving a balance in advertising and satisfying the bottom line lies with great time management, organization and social interaction, it seems almost irresponsible to not use Paper.li to cultivate the lucrative aspects of your social media websites.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dcByDEzegw]

Sources:

  • Small Business Users Paper.li for Marketing
  • Company uses Paper.li to Access Marketplace
  • SBA Paper.Li
  • Paper.Li Review
  • Basil C Puglisi Daily

Filed Under: Basil's Blog #AIa, Branding & Marketing, Conferences & Education, Digital & Internet Marketing, SEO Search Engine Optimization, Social Brand Visibility, Social Media Topics Tagged With: blog, blogger, brand, new media, new media press, Puglisi, Social Brand, Social Media, social news, twitter, Visibility, Visibility Marketing

Social Media & Brand Monitoring: Collective Intellect

April 4, 2011 by Basil Puglisi Leave a Comment

Collective Intellect, a company out of Bolder Colorado, has been around since 2005. They provide software and services to help businesses monitor and analyze real time marketing intelligence agregated from a broad spectrum of web and social media platforms.

Similar to other companies (Radian6 and SM2 to name only 2) who provide software to monitor brand visibility and statistics on popularity and campaigns, their software searches the web, blogs, microblogging, images, and many social media sites for keywords related to your business.

Refining that search, they claim, is their advantage over the competition. Their solution addresses the inaccuracy and bluntness of keyword search and the abundance of results that have very little to do with your business.

Since all the vetting is done by machines (logarithms), those mistakes are bound to happen and clutter or skew the results you will be getting. Collective Intellect has developed a system that searches the web not only by keywords but by the semantic connection between words. Latent semantic Analysis (LSA) exposes latent contextual meaning within a large text.

They offer these programs plus professional advice for prices up to $1,000 a month. Here are some of their offerings:

  • CI:Insight – Tells you where you are as a digital brand. Using semantic search and analytics their software will tell you where you are on the “social maturity curve”, as they call it. You can review each phase and decide which tools and methods can help you achieve your goals. The software will automate the results to see the consumer consideration and preference, sentiments, demographics, and influencer’s profiles.
  • CI:Listen – Social monitoring – tracking online conversations about your brand.
  • CI:Learn and CI:Listen – Social Presence. Measure your market before and after a launch, take actions in real time, and improve your visibility.
  • CI:View – Social Research –analysis that is specially configured to your needs for more effective social engagement. It is set to be repeatable, and direct feeds are integrated into the dashboard.
  • Social CRM & Targeting – strategic guidance, professional services. 
  • Social BPM  Engagement  – intersection between process automation and social networking

Their customers include PepsiCo, Western Union, CBS, iVillage, Viacom, Dole Food Group and Verizon Wireless, among many others.

The past 3 year growth of the company stands at 1505%. With 40 employees the company’s 2009 revenues were $2.7 million.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWJlTH6sSZU]

Sources:

  • Collective Intellect
  • Collective Intellect: Social Maturity Curve
  • Crunchbase
  • Inc

Filed Under: Basil's Blog #AIa, Branding & Marketing, Conferences & Education, Digital & Internet Marketing, Mobile & Technology, SEO Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Topics Tagged With: analytics, investors, market, Marketing, monitoring, Social Brand, Visibility, wall street

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