Soak up the sun, jump in the pool, and let loose – the Summer has (un)officially begun! How are you making this a #remarkable Memorial Day weekend?
Share your weekend pictures by tweeting @MRY with the hashtag #HowWeDo, or shooting an email to Social@MRY.com to add to our community album series!
Google is constantly fine-tuning its algorithm, often using an animal name to mark a major update - Panda and Penguin are two examples of Google’s most recent and major changes for how they rank relevant content within search results.
Each iteration has thrilled or angered legions of webmasters everywhere, depending on how the update has affected their search traffic – traffic goes up and everyone is happy, but if traffic goes down, sound the alarm.
But Google is not concerned with how your website is going to rank; they simply want to provide the best results within their engine, and this includes Universal Search Results.
One facet of search algorithm updates that I always look forward to is Image Search, and I predict that Google will be investing heavily into Image results based on the trends in the last couple of years. Since 2011, when Image search to me was really only in its infancy, Google has invested a lot of resources towards improving how users find and consume images. Here are just a few of the major updates made within last year:
- The ability to search for animated gifs.
Various search filters were added to the Image’s search field to allow users to search specifically for animated gif pictures.
- Knowledge Graph search by image.
Google made an addition to their results by including knowledge graph images in search.
- Enhanced results for search by image
Google introduced an update that made search results within the image vertical more appealing.
Googlebot-Image is growing more intelligent
With the rapid advancements in Google’s algorithms, I would like to believe that Google will continue to solve problems in Image search as they have in the past. Historically, Googlebot couldn’t crawl and take advantage of content in Flash or AJAX. It can now.
With that mindset, here’s an example of some problems I’ll speculate Googlebot-Image will hope to solve in the next major algorithm update.
Googlebot – Image will be able to comprehend text within images
Images containing text may become an entirely new search signal that can be derived as a replacement to alt-attributes. This new search signal will increase result relevancy as well as become an alternative way for marketers to gain exposure.
For example, infographics and memes host searchable content that contain important keywords that Google can use to prove relevancy to a user’s query. I believe that Google is interested in making improvements in this area because infographics and images are more appealing than normal text and are important to a user’s experience. Right now, the uses of these types of images are only limited by the creativity of the marketers whom choose to participate in this form of media.
One brand that could benefit greatly from this updated vertical is Old Spice. As a brand that markets its products by relying on sarcasm and extreme exaggeration, Old Spice has a knack for creating genuinely funny and entertaining commercials that often go viral through social networks and the internet. Adding infographics and memes to their marketing mix that follow the same humorous lines would help increase relevancy within search engines while also increasing exposure and creating new brand advocates.
I believe that, as search evolves, images will become more prevalent in search results. Images are increasingly becoming more important to the search landscape due to improvements in consumer hardware such as smartphones, tablets and pretty soon Google Glasses, as well as image-rich social networks.
The old adage of “you have too many images and not enough text” could become a quote from the past. Creative teams would be free to be more artistic while avoiding conflicts of interest with copy writers and SEO teams.
How Could Googlebot-Image effect how you manage your owned content?
Creative advertisement campaigns would be able to place more emphasis on graphical media while also maintaining value for search engines.
Images would provide a new channel for marketing teams to consider & then collaborate upon. In the age of digital media, consumers want instant gratification. Images will help solve that problem by sending advertiser’s message across in a concise manner.
In terms of gaining additional exposure, images are shared more often than textual content. By having engaging photos as part of a marketing campaign will drive an increase in overall organic traffic.
SEO copywriters and Creative experts could work together to optimize a perfect shareable piece that will signal expertise for your owned content
These changes would place more value in Image Search, a 1 Billion page view per day channel ripe for expansion for marketers. Digital marketing is quietly shifting more towards non textual forms of media for exposure as search engines are wisely including images within search results.
In Google’s best interest, relevancy will increase as another layer of search signals are applied to separate spammers from valued content. Prepare for the future of Google’s evolution!
-Written by Rohin Sharma, Media Manager
As you may have seen in a flurry of social activity, MRY recently had the honor of being mentioned not once BUT TWICE in Buzzfeed’s epic article, “27 Things Advertising People Know To Be True.” We’re holding down spots #12 and #22. Go ahead and check it out, and just try not to let the epic human being featured in #22 make you smile.
Since most of you haven’t experienced the titillating sensation of sitting next to a viral internet celebrity, I picked my dear friend’s brain when I arrived in the office the next day. The result: an interview that has nothing to do with the questions that I asked him, simply curious thoughts on the humor of khakis, spreading joy, the key to agency/client relationships that lead to better work, the importance of hugging strangers, a cameo appearance by a petite giraffe, and the ingredients of a good party. Here, dear readers - raw and uncensored - is an interview with the one and only Vishal Sapra.
Here is a message from MRY and Eddard Stark to businesses and brands everywhere:
Zuckerberg and Co. recently revamped Facebook’s mobile brand pages with all of the shiftiness of a seasoned ninja, changing their look from one reminiscent of its classic webpages to a new format that allows users to more easily access relevant information, communicate with the company, and consume its content.
A consumer’s relation to a brand is and always will be dynamic – so long as there is the need to evolve.
But one can surmise that how brands undertake consumer relations will only continue to get better, because the user-experience (UX) of a consumer’s journey ties heavily into brand advocacy and return purchases; happy customers = more money.
Late last night, the Twitterverse and trade press exploded when CEO Marissa Mayer confirmed that Yahoo! had acquired microblogging platform Tumblr for $1.1 billion.
A Tumblr acquisition has been speculated for an age, and it’s no wonder why with 300 million users and 900 posts per second, as well as brands like Topman, J Crew, Mashable, College Humour, EMI, Rolling Stone and Comedy Central taking to the platform in order to increase their engagement with target communities.
Back on Track
In the 90’s Yahoo! was, to many, synonymous with ‘the internet’. Once accessed, there was no reason to leave the web portal. You would chat, mail and consume all content under the Yahoo! umbrella.
Since then, there’s no arguing that Yahoo! has had its fair share of stumbling blocks, including several high-profile acquisitions. Remember the sad, slow demise of GeoCities? The growing irrelevance of Flickr? There’s also the question of Yahoo! failing to lead the charge when it comes to promoting creativity in online advertising. All of these setbacks have resulted in industry pundits questioning the company’s ability to keep up with competitors like Google and Bing.
Now, however, over a decade later, Yahoo! appears to be back on its original course for web supremacy, this time with solid leadership at the helm and a roadmap focused on content and social engagement.
As we rush to mine ‘big data’ for novel audience insights, we often overlook enduring social behaviors as time-tested as any research.
It should come as no surprise to any sentient human that we are creatures of habit. The everyday routine, the daily grind, the quotidian—our language is suffused with references to the dull repetitions of life. Urban planners discuss the “reproduction of daily life” in hushed tones. Politicians stage theatrical battles over whether to dispense with time-honored entitlements. And brand planners strategize ways to “repurpose” content on new platforms. Even the stories we tell draw on archetypal myths that we tirelessly rehearse.
Yet the ways in which we appeal to audiences often overlook our most customary habits.
Facebook emoticons saw a wide rollout this month, but why should brands care? New approaches to EdgeRank may be why.
Because there’s always better, more comprehensive ways to “like” something, Facebook this month rolled out what’s being called “visual sharing” - and emoticons - directly into status updates.
The shortlist for what Zuckerberg’s crew thinks users may be doing includes drinking and eating; reading, listening or watching; and feeling. This, naturally, could lead to increased shares of brand Facebook pages. And, to most online/social marketers, that should be good enough bait to herald this new development.
I’m passionate about two things in my life: the future and fish. To start with the future, I think we’re heading into the most exciting 50 years in human history. Things like 3D printing (buildings, CPG, body parts), recreational space travel and driverless cars are among the short list of innovations that will become ubiquitous in my lifetime and are so insanely science fiction that the effects will be nothing short of life-changing for all of us. I’ve been incredibly excited about the future for a long time, so much so that as a fifth grader I gave my Jr. Toastmaster speech on how the computer was going to change the world. These are not the kinds of speeches that attract female fifth graders… but I persisted.
I was brushing my teeth the other night before bed and all of a sudden I heard loud unexpected explosions from the Westside Highway near Hell’s Kitchen; some sort of attack raced through my mind.
Reassuring myself that was unlikely, I brushed away, but the explosions kept coming, and coming, and coming.
Not native to these shores, my imagination got the better of me so I dropped my toothbrush and ran through to my living room (which is also my kitchen, hall and dining room, etc. – its NYC!) and looked out the windows – nothing.
With no identification of the source, I took to search to find answers.