Collin Holmes

On March 30th, Facebook rolled out the timeline update for all brand pages. This update has some great new features that should help companies organize their image and help engage their audience. Here are the new features briefly explained.

Pinterest is the newest social media platform to hit the ground running and start growing over- night. The idea involves a virtual pin board, where users can pin pictures they upload or re-pin pictures from other users.

In today's day and age it pays to have your business online because that is where your customers are. Beginning to create your online presence can be very intimidating, especially the different language that has to do with online marketing. When I first started at chatmeter as an intern I had one window open to articles that I was reading and another one open up to Google so I could look up any terms I did not know, which was the inspiration for this blog.

If you are a local business and don't have any online reviews or even just a few, you're putting your business and your online reputation at tremendous risk. Just 1 bad review could instantly start driving business away.

Oh No! The social media giant Facebook has changed! Not to worry, this does not mean businesses have to change their entire social media strategies because Facebook did away with "Check-ins", but did they really?

Google has put training material together with YouTube videos and work sheets to teach SMBs how to establish their online reputation. It goes through all the necessary steps from planning an online marketing strategy, to executing the contents of that strategy, and even tracking the results to see if that strategy is working. I believe this is a great tool for SMBs which know that they need an online reputation but are not sure where to start.

"It's a bird"! "No, it's a plane"! "No, it's another Social Media site"! "What are we going to do with this"?! This may be what local businesses are saying about Google + when they heard about the new social media site. Of course, this isn't Google's first try into social, but this seems like they're strongest effort and with many people reporting a little Facebook exhaustion as well as spam and advertising taking over, the timing may be right for the next social service.

Google has recently updated its Place pages by removing third party reviews. There are a variety of reasons for this, but one significant reason is likely due to an ongoing anti trust suit filed against Google. What does this mean for small and medium businesses?

Local SEO can become time consuming very quickly, especially due to the complexity of the fragmented local search market. However, it is possible for owners to work on a little bit each month to improve their rankings on Google Maps for Local SEO, or improve their Yelp profile to reach new traffic, or add fresh content or a blog to their website in order to improve their Google Search Rankings.

According to a new study, 7 out of 10 potential customers are more likely to buy from a local business when it makes information accessible through a social media site. This yearly study, which is called "Local Search Usage Study: Bridging The Gaps, From Search to Sales," is a combined effort of TMP Directional Marketing and comScore.