McIntosh Marketing Blog

Why YouTube Should Have a Business & Finance Category

YouTube is missing a huge marketing opportunity with no category for Business & Finance.  It is hard to believe that the categories of  Education and Travel & Events could be in more demand, particularly into today’s economic environ. YouTube needs to offer at least a category of small business resources. Additionally such a category would direct entrepreneurs to find opportunities to learn new and more effective ways of doing or even starting a business, as well as helping consumers to find access to products that they could purchase, that would in turn help them with their financial needs or questions.

On the other hand, social bookmarking and news site Digg has recognized this need by providing such a category on their website.

I am sure that the amount of potential market that YouTube is not taking advantage of is enormous. Imagine how many businesses, banks, insurance agencies and those with money and knowledge could be put to work to build a network for opportunity and pay YouTube dearly to do so. Sounds like an opportunity to take advantage of for someone.

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Once Upon A Marketing Glossary

Over the last few years I have been asked for my marketing glossary several times.  Truth is, I don’t really have one.  I do have notes with definitions here and there but have never actually put them all in one place.  In fact, when I try to explain these marketing terms to someone, it seems to me that most of the time they think these terms don’t really exist!  It could be due to many of them sounding very similar to each other but trust me they have very different meanings.  I really felt the following keywords should be listed as they tend to be used most often and more commonly but for the full list with detailed definitions go to http://www.marketingterms.com/dictionary/

deep linking – linking to a web page other than a site’s home page.

description tag – an HTML tag used by Web page authors to provide a description for search engine listings.

impression – a single instance of an online advertisement being displayed.*

interactive agency – an agency offering a mix of Web design/development, Internet advertising/marketing, or E-Business/E-Commerce consulting.

keyword research – the search for keywords related to your Web site, and the analysis of which ones yield the highest return on investment (ROI).

search engine optimization – the process of choosing targeted keyword phrases related to a site, and ensuring that the site places well when those keyword phrases are part of a Web search.

By taking the time to learn these terms you will not only become more knowledgeable of Internet marketing but just by reading them you will start to understand more and more of what actually goes into your marketing.  I feel this list is pretty thorough list and can help even the beginning marketer to understand the terms of the online marketing world better.  Not only will you be able to learn more about the terms but once you start to understand them you will learn more about how marketing is actually done!

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The Burger Wasn’t Delicious: Understand Social Bookmarking

So many terms, so many things to learn. Just when we started to understand social media (a work in progress), then someone throws out a new term like “social bookmarking.”

Yesterday I was with two friends. One was eating a burger and I talked about delicious. The other person was confused, thinking I was talking about the burger. She did not understand that delicious is a social bookmarking site. http://delicious.com/ This confirmed to my burger eating friend that this is a subject that is not only misunderstood, but has not been evaluated to its importance from a SEO and SEM standpoint.

In short, social bookmarking allows internet users o share, organize, search, and manage bookmarks of web resources. Unlike file sharing, the resources themselves are not shared, but merely bookmarks that refer them. These are saved as tag and allow people to share bookmarks, just as they would share an email address or a link to a video. It not only makes your bookmarks more manageable, but more sharable. I think sharable is a word.

Social bookmarking also has another benefit. You can specifically target what you want to find when surfing the web. Instead of going into a search engine and attempting to find that needle in a haystack, you can rapidly zero in on the items to what you are searching for.

From an SEO and SEM strategy, social bookmarking is another tool in your arsenal, hardly known about to the newbie or the common business person starting out into the web marketing world. The more often a web page is submitted and tagged, the better chance that web site has of being found.

To understand social bookmarking further, watch this video:

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