YP reports increase growth in local searches

News on Social Marketing, according to Brafton News, local search has become frequent with more than 563 million search queries and 11 billion ad impressions on its network in the first quarter of 2012, as reported by YP, the new Yellow Pages search ad network.

The report shows the significant growth in the wedding, family service and pharmacy verticals among local searches while the leading performers are restaurants and financial services.

Content marketing with SEO is seen to be the best strategy for marketers looking to turn increased search activity into increased website traffic, leads and conversions. Web marketing helps businesses draw customers from anywhere and creating website content help drive traffic and attract the interest of prospects.

Most searches are looking to find out for information for short-term conversions, with restaurants leading in the most searched categories. For the financial services and real estate industries, content marketing assist them on their marketing goals as it helps establish themselves as thought leaders within their industries.

Beauty services, legal services and building contractors are now gaining popularity in search. By developing website content that focuses on both search ranking and converting search traffic through building a brand’s authority, these industries can see increase on site traffic and conversions.

Read more at search-marketing-alert-financial-and-real-estate-industries-among-top-search-categories

More than 50% of tablet owners read news, books on screen

News on Social Marketing, according to Brafton News, as tablet continues its popularity, tablet users habits around the world have become increasingly different. But most of these tablet users are doing certain tasks everyday that should remind marketers that this large group of consumers is important.

News content is accessed by 69 percent of tablet users every day. Sixty two percent use social media and 81 percent of device owners read and manage email daily. Companies can target tablet users with their integrated new media marketing strategy as each channel included is growing.

With the growing use of tablet, news content marketing campaigns could see an increase as tablet users often access more news content after buying their devices.

Consumers are now changing the way they access, create and share content with the increase use of media tablets. More than half of media tablet owners are now reading news, books and magazines on their tablet. At home, many prefer their handset before desktops, laptops or their smartphones.

A study by the Online Publishers Association shows that the main task of 94 percent of the American tablet audience access web content, whether it was news, video or other content.

Read more at content-marketing-alert-69-percent-of-tablet-users-access-news-every-day

Facebook’s Timeline resulted in increase engagement for businesses

News on Facebook Marketing, according to Brafton News, Facebook’s launch of Timeline, which focuses on visual content, has increased engagement for businesses. This feature hopes to allow companies to transform social media marketing into storytelling. Focusing on visuals posted to brand pages, content are being organize as to let users follow it chronologically.

A 46 percent increase on engagement was noted by Simply Measured since the roll out of Timeline in February. Another 14 percent of users are engaging with brand pages and 46 percent are frequently Liking posts and commenting. Viewers focus photos and video has also a 65 percent more engagement.

Since the roll out of Timeline, 15 brands had been studied by Simply Measured, with only three of them have seen less engagement. Given Timeline’s highly visual focus, the only social content to have less engagement is the status update. Links, photos and video content have also become more popular with fans since the roll out of Timeline.

With more than 180 million Americans watching video content online, it’s more likely that more companies will begin including Timeline as part of their social strategy.

Read more at social-marketing-alert-brand-engagement-increases-with-facebook-timeline

Other Social Marketing Articles of Interest

Followers want fresh content from social marketers

Study finds custom Facebook tab engagement down 53 percent, shared content driving more traffic