I noticed the following ad this evening while scanning my inbox.
What caught my eye was the ad’s headline: “Social is the Next Search”
Social Is The Next Search
Predicting that “Social is the Next Search” is quite a bold statement.
I am going to make a bold prediction myself: “Social is not the next search.”
Most businesses think their homepage is the single most important page on the web and rightfully so.
However, for any business other than those with a well established offline brand and a corresponding branded domain name, such is not the case.
The Single Most Important Place On The Web
Why?
What happens to those businesses without well established brands who’s prospects or customers don’t know exactly where to find them online?
They first ask for directions from Google, the single most important page on the web.
Twitter is tweaking its home page to generate more interest in both the Twitter property and its users data streams.
From the Twitter blog:
Twitter’s homepage is a work-in-progress. Today, we’re testing a new design that bubbles up more of the information flowing through Twitter. This builds on a series of changes starting last year when we redesigned the homepage to make search and trending topics more visible and easily accessible to everyone. With that version, we brought the power of search.twitter.com to the homepage and let people explore the value of Twitter without an account.
With the new design, we’re intentionally featuring more dynamic content on the front page, revealing a sample of who’s here, what folks are tweeting about, and the big topics that they’re discussing. The homepage now features a set of algorithmically-selected top tweets that automatically appear every few seconds. It also highlights a random sampling of suggested sources; hover over any of them to see a profile summary and their latest tweet. Trending topics now scroll across the page, allowing us to present a large set of trends using little page real estate. Hovering over some of these trends will show a description explaining why the keyword is (or has recently been) popular.
All of our recent changes embrace the notion that Twitter is not just for status updates anymore. It’s a network where information is exchanged and consumed at a rapid clip every second of the day. With so much being shared, we know that there’s something of value for everyone. People who internalize the value of Twitter understand the power of this simple medium. But it hasn’t been easy to make that value transparent or obvious for curious folks coming to Twitter for the first time.
We’ll be monitoring the data on this homepage design, and how its effects ripple out to other areas. Expect us to continually try new ideas that help users more easily discover who and what they can find on Twitter, and how they can personalize and filter the stream of rapidly flowing information.
While these tweaks obviously increase the Twitter site’s usefulness, whether or not these improvements increase their site’s web traffic and stickiness remains to be seen.
Twitter Traffic
From the Nielsen Company’s NetView and MarketingCharts.com.
Top 10 News and Current Event Sites February 2010
Audience size notwithstanding, if news were transactional for its publishers and advertisers, the future of the news business wouldn’t remain in doubt.
I was somewhat surprised to learn nearly one-half of social site users check their statuses while in bed.
Social Site Usage
From eMarketer:
It may seem extreme, but users who can’t resist checking Facebook and Twitter in the middle of the night are not alone. According to the March 2010 “Gadgetology Report” from consumer electronics site Retrevo, 48% of social media users log in to the sites either during the night or as soon as they wake up.
Users under 25 were more likely to check or update their social network status after bedtime, with nearly one-fifth saying they did so anytime they woke up during the night.
Almost as many younger users (18%) checked the sites in the morning before getting out of bed, while 17% of respondents of all ages turned to Facebook and Twitter before TV in the morning. iPhone users were notably more likely than average to do each of these activities, with 23% saying it was how they got their morning news compared with 16% of all social media users.
Depending on how you look at this either social site users are either a group of highly disciplined of people or they are a group of highly undisciplined people.
Anyone have an idea how many man hours are spent each day in the U.S. on social networking sites?
Have any studies shown any correlation between social networking site usage and productivity or the lack thereof?
The Central Intelligence Agency is recruiting via Sponsored Videos on YouTube.
Central Intelligence Agency Sponsored Videos
I wonder who manages the search marketing campaigns for the CIA?
Does the Central Intelligence Agency manage their search marketing communications process in house or do they outsource their search marketing to a search marketing agency?
I didn’t discover the CIA video under a search for the Central Intelligence Agency or CIA. I stumbled onto their video under an entirely unrelated education industry keyword.
The CIA or their search marketing agency don’t appear to be marketing their recruitment program under CIA or Central Intelligence Agency keywords in YouTube.
Central Intelligence Agency
Nor do they appear to bidding for the CIA or Central Intelligence Agency terms in Google search either.
Central Intelligence Agency Google Results
Double Click is serving the Central Intelligence Agency’s Youtube Sponsored Video ads.
Double Click is owned by Google.
If you have an interest in pursuing a career with the CIA click here for more information.
Search Marketing Communications 
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