I’ve written previously about the need to re-evaluate search marketing by attending to how users encounter your BRAND through search as opposed to the dated approach of focusing on where your URL appears. This week a study emerged from a the search marketing agency Slingshot, showing that the click-through-rates (CTRs) on search result pages (SERPs) are diversifying dramatically such that only 52% of Google users and 26% of Bing users are clicking on anything on page 1. People use search in multi-faceted ways so we have to stop believing in the old alchemy of the number 1 slot and where our URL ranks. It’s the total experience of the brand that matters and those who make this transition quickest stand to gain the most from their search marketing efforts.

The time has long since come for us to consider more than the one url that our magic land resides at but rather all the ways that users can encounter our brands through distributed content and conversions in what I daresay I have a new acronym for. How about Search Experience Marketing (that way you don’t have to learn a new three letter abbreviation, SEM)?

Since the widespread adoption of the tablet as the content consumption platform of choice, the industry has been eagerly anticipating the rise of the Internet TV as the next disruptive platform to change the way we thing about digital content consumption. Is it happening? Sort of, but not as quickly or with as much innovation as we had hoped. With the drop in price of the Logitech Google TV set-top box and the announcement by Viewsonic that it is deep-sixing it’s plans to build a Boxee powered TV, there is growing evidence that the marketing for this technology is softening. Or is it just that the right forces have not yet come together to make this technology take off?

As I have had the opportunity to experiment with an increasing number of Facebook ad campaigns, I feel like I’m starting to get a feel for how to use the platform to best effect. I’m sure that we could get some great input from all of you as well but the approach I’d like to talk about has to do with taking a layered approach that includes fan page enhancements, regular facebook ads and sponsored story ads used in combinations. I think this layered approach is the best way to address the issues of new fan acquisition, engagement and leveraging a fan base in one concerted effort.

We are moving rapidly toward a version of the internet in which a large portion of the user experiences exist outside the web browser. A recent article by EMarketer cites research by the Boston Consulting Group suggesting we are on the edge of a big leap forward in tablet purchases. Most interestingly is that the impetus driving this consumer lust for tablets is its emergence as the platform of choice for consumers when it comes to accessing digital content in all its forms.

One of my favorite thinkers concerning things web-related is Avinash Kaushik. His most recent blog post contains the text of a speech he gave to a gathering of Canadian marketing executives. The point of it is that we fail to take advantage of the promise of Internet marketing because most of us find “shout” marketing and interruption advertising to be more comfortable. It is brilliant. It is controversial. It challenges us all. I just really like it. Take the time to read it here. Send your comments.

The concept of marketing to people based on where they are at any given time took a big leap forward as Facebook and Twitter recently announced the introduction of geolocation features to accompany user posting activity on their services. Combining their efforts with those of the already established players in the space such as Yelp, Foursquare, Latitude, and Gowalla, it seems that 2010 will be a year of great experimentation for this feature. Time will tell whether marketers and application developers can make this feature useful enough to consumers that they will want to enable it. However, it seems likely that we will soon see software platforms that allows us to monitor social media for people who are nearing our location and message to them thereby combining real-time search with real-time marketing.

I hate the click. We obsess about clicks. We track clicks. We pay for clicks. We want more and more clicks. We are click-absorbed and it is time to make online marketing about more than this. This week marked the 15th anniversary of the first online banner ad so I have chosen this time to launch a revolt against the single-minded click-only metrics that prevail today.

OK I know that acronym thinking is trite and that many of us have already heard about the POST methodology until we want to PLOTZ. But, I have been speaking with many companies lately about their social media plans and I have to admit that this old methodology keeps coming up as the one of the best places to start. Here’s a quick review of how it works and why it works so well for social media plans in my opinion.

The term “inbound marketing” tends to bring together the tactics of search and social media under one umbrella.  To me the theme that binds them all together is that they reach people during the natural course of whatever they may be doing online rather than interrupting that process with “Hey pay attention to me now” [...]