Google has added another feather to its cap by launching its music initiative, Google Music.

Along with the cloud-based music storage that was launched in beta in May, the Google Music store now includes an MP3 store. Unlike Apple & Amazon, Google Music is allowing users to store up to 20,000 tracks for free.

Universal Music Group, EMI, and Sony Music Entertainment are three of the 4 content partners but one major omission is Warner Music. Coldplay, Shakira, Pearl Jam, Busta Rhymes, the Rolling Stones, and the Dave Matthews Band are some of the artists who have partnered with Google Music to start promotion of the service by providing free and/or exclusive tracks.

With 8 million songs in its database, and that number rising to 13 million in the coming weeks, the new Google Music store is all set to lock horns with the biggest music player, iTunes which is currently dominating the market with over 20 million songs on offer.

I really like their Music Magnifier program which highlights new bands every week – this is something Indie musician should be happy about.

Google’s plan to move in on iTunes market share includes extra features and exclusive content which it hopes will draw people to Google Music. A cool tool called “Artist Hub” has been offered to artists enabling them to market themselves and sell their music directly to fans. For a one-off $25 fee, any artist can set up a profile, upload an unlimited amount of their music, manage photos and even set their own prices. They will then get 70% of the list price for each song sold. In iTunes, artists only receive around 12% of the list price on the sale of each song.

One advantage Google Music will have over iTunes is that there’s no limit to how many devices you can access the service from.

Google Music is currently only available in the US, here’s hoping Google spreads the love to other countries very soon.

Would you change across to Google Music from iTunes? Feel free to share your thoughts below.

As the end of the year draws closer, it’s about time we shared our predictions for online marketing in 2012.

This week I will start with social media because it is an area of online marketing that is of most interest to me. In the coming weeks, our team will also cover SEO and SEM trends we think will emerge in 2012.

Ok, let’s get to it – with the assistance of online marketing guru, Jeff Bulas, here are the trends in social media that are expected to take off in 2012.

• Social Mobile

The invention and evolution of the computer in your hand, the “smart phone” that is connected to high speed broadband Internet is revolutionizing our communications and society. Facebook and Twitter apps are enabling people to take their social networks with them. The latest change to this ongoing trend is that Twitter is now embedded in the Apple iOS5 mobile operating system at the menu layer. Twitter has seen user acquisition increase by 300% since the launch.

Does this signal the end of the humble simple “text”?

• Socialization of Search

Google’s search results are determined by complex algorithms designed and developed by hundreds of clever mathematicians wearing white lab coats and calculated by computers in dark humming data centers.

Google has started rolling out its “+1″ button that they are starting to indicate will be the start of the rise of ”social signals” that will be used to determine what content is being voted on as valuable by humans rather than just machines.

Google and Bing have increased the visibility and priority of social networks in search results. You may have noticed over the last 12 months that YouTube videos, Facebook pages and LinkedIn profiles and other social media are ranking higher in search results when conducting an online search.

• Geo-Targeting of Social Media Marketing

The rise of FourSquare and Google “Places” has made checking in for specials in your local area a reality…. again driven by the “smart phone”. The mobile web will continue to make a major impact over the next 5 years as the worlds more than 5 billion phones become “Smart” .

Another part of this local social marketing trend is the new development of post code targeting capability in social media marketing on Facebook which is being rolled out in the USA.

The self serve paid Facebook marketing platform is now starting to include postcodes along with the other demographic data that Facebook has in its database about you.

• Social Commerce

E-Commerce has been with us for nearly 15 years and is now producing a major negative impact on “bricks and mortar” stores that are not also online. It is predicted that 20% of total retail sales will be online over the next few years.

Over the last 12 months technology has emerged that allows you to take your shop (via “Apps”) to the Facebook “network” so that users do not have to leave the Facebook eco-system to buy their favourite brands. In fact many of the worlds top bands and musicians have their own Facebook store on their “Fan Page”

Commerce is now becoming “Omni Commerce”

• Social Gaming

Games used to be played on a field or park, around a board in the middle of a table or with a deck of cards. Gaming has been redefined with the evolution of “Social Gaming” enabled by rich multi-media and easy to use social networks.

Zygna (which was only founded in 2007) has usurped traditional gaming companies by developing Farmville and Mafia Wars that is currently played by 230 million Facebook users every month. In 2010 Facebook and Zygna signed a 5 year agreement on the use of Facebook credits which returns 30% of all games revenues to Facebook. Revenues will exceed $1 billion in 2012 which is achieved through the sales of “virtual” products.

Jeff has shared additional social media trends in the original post which you can check out here.

What do you think lays ahead for social media in 2012? Feel free to share your thoughts below.

SEO blogs have been buzzing over the past couple of days with news that a new version of Google’s Quality Rating Guidelines was leaked online.

The Google Quality Rating Guidelines is a handbook used by Google Search Quality Raters from around the world to rate the quality of results from specific searches. URL Raters are given a URL and a search query and instructed to visit the landing page and assign a rating based on guidelines from the handbook.

According to Google, queries are broken up in to three categories,

After understanding the intent of the query, users then rate web pages on the following scale,

Google’s Criteria for a “Useful” Webpage is rather broad and states that a single query can have many useful webpages. As with any manual rating system the answers will be subjective, however raters are asked to decide if the webpage is a “good fit” for the query. Some examples state that the page may be “highly satisfying, authoritative, entertaining, and/or recent (such as breaking news on a topic).”

Pages earning the “relevant” rating will still need to fit the query but will have less helpful information compared to useful pages. This may include information that is older or only addresses one part of the query.

The “slightly relevant” or “off topic” ratings are saved for web pages which Google wants to avoid. In these sections Google asks raters to look past tricks tricks like including search terms in the URL, page title and copied or repeated keywords when assigning a rating to the page.

Finally, the document also discusses what makes a page bad enough to be marked as “spam”. Here are some tactics you may want to avoid,

• Hidden text or links – may be exposed by selecting all page text and scrolling to the bottom (all text is highlighted), disabling CSS/Javascript, or viewing source code
• Sneaky redirects – redirecting through several URLs, rotating destination domains cloaking with JavaScript redirects and 100% frame
• Keyword stuffing – no percentage or keyword density given; this is up to the rater
• PPC ads that only serve to make money, not help users
• Copied/scraped content and PPC ads
• Feeds with PPC ads
• Doorway pages – multiple landing pages that all direct user to the same destination
• Templates and other computer-generated pages mass-produced, marked by copied content and/or slight keyword variations
• Copied message boards with no other page content
• Fake search pages with PPC ads
• Fake blogs with PPC ads, identified by copied/scraped or nonsensical spun content
• Thin affiliate sites that only exist to make money, identified by checkout on a different domain, image properties showing origination at another URL, lack of original content, different WhoIs registrants of the two domains in question
• Pure PPC pages with little to no content
• Parked domains

Unfortunately the full 125 page document has been taken down by Google, so if you managed to grab a copy while it was online consider yourself lucky.

As always, feel free to leave a comment below if you have any questions or other information to share.

AdWords has always been Google’s money maker and the company is always on a quest to make it more and more profitable. With that in mind, the company recently announced its maiden venture into the world of vendor financing with the launch of the AdWords Credit Card.

And as with all credit cards, there is a catch – it is only for selected business owners in the US AND it can only be used to buy AdWords advertising from Google.

A Mastercard that will be issued by the World Financial Capital Bank, the AdWords credit card’s selling point is the strategically low 8.99% interest rate & no annual fee, although full details on the available credit limit and number of cards being issued is still not known.

Google isnt the first company to release this type of credit card. IBM, Amazon and Macys all offer similar cards to build their clientele and strengthen the customer loyalty by tracking their online spending habits.

Google’s Treasurer, Brent Callinicos, said that the credit card will be offered to a “statistically significant” number of people during its beta testing and will track the usage of the card to analyze how availability of the card affects customer spending behavior.

Even though (availability) will skew toward the smaller businesses, obviously we want to cast a wide enough net so we can see what resonates depending on your historical monthly spend.

With the AdWords credit card, Google is attempting two things:

1. To simplify the process for small businesses of purchasing search advertising , but do not have that kind of cash available readily. This will be especially important for the competitive holiday seasons.
2. Having faced stiff competition in search advertising recently, from its counterparts like Microsoft, Yahoo and Facebook, the search giant needed to come up with something new to give them the edge over these competitors.

Would you consider using Google’s credit card to purchase ads? I would love to hear your thoughts.

Two new reports recently released have shared an insight into how businesses can make their Facebook page more successful by making their fans more engaged in the content shared.

The first report is from Buddy Media who collected data from 200 of its clients’ pages. It found that time is an important factor in determining the success of a Facebook post.

Here are the main outcomes from the report:

• Facebook engagement has three peaks: early morning (7 a.m. EST), after work (5 p.m. EST) and late at night (11 p.m. EST)
• Thursday and Friday have 18% more engagement than other days of the week, suggesting that Facebook is a procrastination tool when people are itching to get out of the office
• Posts with 80 characters or less — the length of a short tweet — garnered 27% more engagement than posts that were more than 80 characters
• 15% more engagement with a question at the end of a post than if the question is buried in the middle

Here are Buddy Media’s suggested posting days for each industry:

Entertainment: Friday, Saturday and Sunday are huge, as that is when people are most inclined to see a movie or go to a concert

Media: Weekends have strong engagement for media brands, but Mondays are weak.

Automotive: Auto brands see the most engagement on Sundays.

Business and Finance: Engagement peaks on Wednesday and Thursday.

Retail: Sunday is a big day for engagement on the shopping and retail front.

Fashion: Engagement peaks on Thursday but dips on the weekend.

Healthcare and Beauty: Healthcare and beauty brands see the most engagement on Thursday.

Food and Beverage: Engagement peaks on Tuesday and Saturday.

Sports: Not surprisingly, Sunday is king for sports brands and teams on Facebook.

Travel and Hospitality: The highest engagement occurs on Thursday and Friday, when the week is winding down and people are looking to escape from the office.

The second report comes from AT&T, who released the results of its Small Business Technology Poll.

Here are the main results of the poll:

• 41% of small businesses surveyed have a Facebook page for their business (52% increase from last year).
• 72% use mobile apps for business (38% of people “could not survive” without mobile apps)
• 40% of small business employees use wireless devices or wireless technologies to work remotely (66% increase in the last 2 years).

How can you increase your fans engagement with your Facebook page?

Here are a few suggestions:

• Keep it short

Time is a person’s most precious resource so keep your posts to 80 characters long or shorter.

• Ask questions

Asking questions not only increases engagement, but it allows you to see into the mind of your fans and understand what really matters to them.

• Stay on top of things

Be sure to keep tabs on your page to see when someone has commented on or interacted with it. That way you can respond relatively promptly, which is not only good manners, it’s also telling your supporters that you’re a responsive and involved business owner or brand.

• Show some gratitude

Don’t forget to share the love by letting people know you’re thankful for their support of your Page. This could be a simple comment to them, or maybe something a little more substantial.

• Mix it up

Instead of just posting news and links, mix it up with photos, links, videos and more. This will keep your fans interested. Trust me; the fans of our Facebook page love it when we post videos and photo albums.

I came across a great resource recently that I want to share with you. It’s an e-book from Social Fresh which outlines 64 alternative Facebook page content tips. I’ve got some great ideas from it for the ineedhits Facebook page, so if you’re not already a fan then make sure you join us.

Marketing a business isn’t a one-off. It takes plenty of time and efforts, but it is (in my opinion) the most important aspect of running any business. So why do so many business owners find it hard?

This I can’t answer, because I am not a business owner, but I do have a simple solution. It all comes down to planning and execution. You need to set out how you plan to market your business and then actually do it – even if it does take up more time than you want. Also, expect to make mistakes along the way, it’s the only way you will learn and develop your marketing experience.

To get you started though, I have outlined six common mistakes that business owners should avoid when getting their marketing started.

1. No marketing plan
A marketing plan isn’t just for big business, it is just as important for small businesses. In fact, it’s probably more critical. So take time to write down your marketing plan for the next 12 months at least and stick to it!

I recently wrote an article entitled 4 Step Online Marketing Plan for 2011 which will act as a good starting point if online marketing/advertising is in the pipeline for your business.

2. Not knowing target audience
Do you know who your target audience is for the products/services that you offer?

Defining your target audience will give you a good idea on where to advertise/market your business. Some questions to ask yourself in order to define your target audience are:

• What is their net household income? Can they afford my products/services?
• Where do they look for my product/service? Both online and in physical locations?
• Do they work out of the home or in the home?
• What is their job profile – an executive, manager, worker, entrepreneur, stay-at-home parent, etc.

3. Who is responsible for marketing?
Who in your business is responsible for marketing? For most small businesses it is the owner themselves. If this is the case, are you holding yourself accountable for your marketing efforts?

If you’re not finding the time or it’s not a strong skill for you, then you should consider outsourcing your marketing.

4. No tracking of marketing performance
If you don’t currently measure the results of your marketing campaigns then how will you know whether they were effective?

Here are some suggestions for ways to measure campaigns:

• For online marketing, using unique website pages and track the results from each URL with Google Analytics
• Use unique phone numbers for large campaigns so you can keep tab of the number of incoming calls you receive
• Use specific coupon codes
• Advertising specific offers exclusively via one campaign

5. Inconsistent branding
It really does add to your credibility if your branding is consistent across all areas of your business. This includes your business cards, invoices, letterhead, website, blog pages and all forms of advertising.

6. Poor spelling and grammar
This is an easily solved problem, but if it’s not done then it can make your business look very unprofessional. Double-check every piece of writing before it is sent for any spelling or grammar errors. This includes invoices, quotes and emails.

Do you have any other small business marketing mistakes to suggest? If so, feel free to share them below.

*Hat tip to Flying Solo for the inspiration

MerchantCircle, an online network of US local business owners, revealed in its quarterly reports that more local businesses are turning to Facebook and other social networking sites like Twitter, as a low-cost option for their marketing efforts.

The survey, conducted with 8,500 random small and local business owners across the U.S, revealed that 70% of these business owners are actively marketing their business through Facebook. This represents a 20% increase over 2010.

Most small businesses running on limited budgets (less than $2,500 annually) and 60% of survey respondents do no plan to raise their budget this year. This makes Facebook an attractive and cost-effective marketing tool for most local business owners.

Darren Waddell, Vice President of marketing at MerchantCircle said

Online marketing continues to be a challenge for most local businesses, and many merchants are working with very small budgets and almost no marketing resources. The marketing methods we see gaining the most traction are therefore the ones that offer merchants simplicity, low costs and immediate results.

Facebook’s location check-in also seems to have been adopted quite well by small business. According to the survey results, 32% of small businesses saying they use the feature, compared with just 9% who have tried Foursquare.

An interesting statistic I came across recently indicated that a Facebook page or status update is 3 times more effective than a twitter “tweet” when trying to reach online consumers.

With Facebook now becoming more than just a social networking site and proving itself as the latest channel of online marketing its not too late for you to get your very own Facebook page.

We recently highlighted the need for small businesses to create a Facebook page including details on how it can stand out from the rest.

Recent research findings released by MYOB indicate that only 35% of Australian small businesses have a website. Do you fall into this category?

I have to admit this statistics took me by surprise. I guess by being so involved in online marketing, I assumed that a lot more businesses had a website to promote to potential and existing customers.

There is good news for businesses that do have a website: 30% reported their revenue had increased in the past 12 months, compared with 23% of businesses without a website. Also, you will face less competition (than I anticipated) when marketing your site on Google and other online areas.

The MYOB Business Monitor report also produced the following insights:

• Businesses established for more than 10 years are less likely to have a website (25%) than maturing (32%) or new (36%) businesses.
• Businesses in manufacturing and wholesale are most likely to have a website (49%), followed by finance and insurance / retail and hospitality (45%) and business, professional and property (37%).
• Businesses in agriculture, forestry and fishing (19%) and in construction and trades (23%) are least likely to have a website.
• Over half (57%) of business owners agree with the statement ‘the Internet is a critical channel for marketing and promoting our business’.
• Nearly half (44%) of businesses agree that they would sell more and get more work if they used the internet better for marketing.
• Nearly a quarter (24%) of businesses monitor competitive activity on the Internet.

If you wish read MYOB Business Monitor report in its entirety, a PDF can be downloaded here.

While this study was conducted on Australian small businesses, I expect that the results would be very similar for USA, Canada and the UK.

MYOB CEO, Tim Reed sums up the situation:

We’re witnessing a major shift in Australian buyer behaviour from in-store tyre kicking to savvy online bargain hunters. The market is changing and we encourage business owners to act to make the most of the new conditions, because their competitors are no longer just in their local area.

So, if you don’t have a website, then what are you waiting for? It’s time to find yourself a web developer and get cracking.

2011 is being touted as the year of the website, so the start of the New Year is the time to get your online marketing campaign started.

The key is to plan your strategy so you don’t become overwhelmed or fork out too much money.

I have outlined below some areas to consider when creating your plan:

1. Know Your Customer

Its no use starting an online marketing campaign without knowing who your ultimate customers is. They are the ones you want to target your advertising at, after all. Some questions to ask yourself in order to define your ultimate customer are:

• What is the net household income of my customer? Can they afford my products/services?
• Where does my customer look for my product/service? Both online and in physical locations?
• Does my customer work out of the home or in the home?
• What is the job profile of my customer – an executive, manager, worker, entrepreneur, stay-at-home parent, etc.

Defining your ultimate customer will give you a good idea on where to advertise/market your business and how to write and what to include in your message copy.

2. Know Your Marketing Options

Step 1 will have given you an idea on which areas to target your marketing. A coordinated effort across several sites and avenues used by your customers will be the most effective. Don’t underestimate the value of repetition – If your business is seen across sites numerous times, your message will be remembered by the site visitors (your potential customers).

When considering how to market your business there are a number of options – PPC advertising, Local business listing in websites and directories, newsletter advertising, display advertising on other website or social media – the possibilities are endless.

3. Budget

Set a budget level that you are not willing to exceed. By doing so, you will limit the areas that you can concentrate your marketing efforts on. For example, PPC advertising can be expensive if you are targeting a popular keyword, whereas a local business listing can be very cheap or cost nothing at all (expect for your time).

Another consideration when setting your budget is whether you are going to outsource your marketing efforts to an expert or do-it-yourself. There are pro’s and con’s to each. Obviously by outsourcing you will pay more than doing the work yourself. However the time it takes y

ou to setup a PPC campaign (for example), write ad copy and maintain the campaign could be better spent concentrating on other aspects of your business, so the cost to let someone else take care of all that could actually save you. Also, by leaving the work to experts you have the peace of mind that your campaign is in safe hands.

4. Measure what matters

Develop key metrics for the marketing plan – gross sales revenue, (marketing) cost per sale, and ROI by each marketing campaign. Also, don’t under estimate the value of customer feedback, even if it’s informally via forums or blogs.

Online marketing campaigns are within the reach of any business, no matter what your budget. The key is to commit to a marketing plan and see it through to the end. Good luck!

We recently undertook a review of the ineedhits company values and it got me thinking about how companies are perceived by outsiders. Or more specifically, how a company builds and promotes its brand to influence how it is seen by outsiders.

I would argue that branding should be the very first marketing mix element that you tackle. It’s easy to create a business name, but you need to build branding around this name for it to be successful.

So, I thought I would list some things business owners should consider to ensure they build a strong brand for their business:

• Know what your brand stands for

Identify what your business stands for by making sure it clearly tells people: “Hey, I can fix your problem!”

• Do your branding properly

Avoid cheap & shoddy printing, design, packaging, photography and copy. Any sub-par versions will look cheap and influence a person’s perception of your brand and therefore your company in general.

• Identify and re-iterate your core values

This is something we have just reviewed at ineedhits and have produced a new mission statement:
Helping small to medium businesses be more profitable via their online presence.

Your core values should form the basis of all decisions you make in your business. What’s your mission statement?

• Give your brand personality

This will make your business stand out from your competitor. Oh and don’t forget to allow this personality to shine through in all of your marketing efforts.

• Consistency, consistency, consistency

This is without a doubt, one of the most important elements of branding. You must present your brand to the market place exactly the same way, all the time. If you don’t, you’re likely to leave customers/prospects confused.

• Get all your employees on the same page

All of your employees need to know what your brand stands for, so they can apply this in every aspect of their work.

• Make your logo ‘pop’

I can’t tell you how often I come across logo’s that are just down-right boring. Here’s a tip – stand out from the crowd, be brave and the creativity will pay off.

This is by no means a definitive brand building list, what else would you add?