Marketing Sherpa recently published a social media marketing case study for Social Media Playbook. TopRank’s Online Marketing Blog was cited along with Seth Godin’s blog as contributing to the early success of the program. Conversions from TopRank’s coverage of the Social Media Playbook were documented as 200% over the average conversion rate.

You can read the full case study at Marketing Sherpa’s archive (subscription)

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TopRank Online Marketing CEO, Lee Odden, was quoted in PROFIT’s Trends That Mean Business section for his view on Digital Asset Optimization.

Unlike text-focused SEO, DAO is the process of making all of your digital assets, from text and photos to audio and video, more visible to search engines.

“People now expect to see formats like video in search results” says Lee Odden of TopRank. “If you’re not making it easier for search engines to find you, you’ll be at a disadvantage because your competition is going to do it.”

Read the full article at PROFIT

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As companies feel the pressure of an impending recession, the search for reliable, high impact marketing tactics abound. eWeek tapped TopRank’s CEO for advice on how small and mid market companies can leverage search engine optimization and social media promotion in times of lean marketing budgets.

Blogging, social networking and SEO are among the low-cost ways to ramp up mind share and create market demand even in tough times.

With talk of a looming recession everywhere you turn, it’s time to start thinking about how to keep customers coming back and create new demand in spite of the fact that times are tighter.

For many companies, that means finding a way to get the message out in a meaningful way without spending more money —or spending less, if marketing budgets face cutting.

“If you can do a better job at demonstrating value to customers who are spending more conservatively, you’ll do a better job at hedging against drops in sales,” said Lee Odden, CEO of TopRank Online Marketing, of Minneapolis.

Read the full article at eWEEK

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Reviewing the basics of link love.

HerRoom.com, a site that sells ladies underwear, had quite the traffic problem. Despite loads of visits to its bra site, sales were flat.

Turns out the site’s section featuring videos of women bounce testing the company’s exercise bras had become quite the hit on YouTube.com, driving the un-qualified traffic.

In this article, Lee Odden, CEO of TopRank, recommends utilizing the push/pull paradigm when dealing with press/bloggers. In other words, use outreach to get noticed: wire service releases, networking, pitching writers and making sure your site provides an RSS feed on updates, promotions. The pull part refers to how you get them to come to you: your own site newsroom, links on social media sites that say something, and, of course, media coverage.

Read the full article at Internetnews.com

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Wiley, a publishing house, recently announced the launch of a new book, “Online Marketing Heroes: Interviews with 25 Successful Online Marketing Gurus”, in which TopRank has an entire chapter on the subject of social media marketing for SEO and PR.

The list of Internet marketing experts interviewed for the book include consultants, agencies, CEOs, PR professionals, client side bloggers and marketers. Topics range from paid search to online copywriting to online PR and social media marketing.

Read the full article at the TopRank Online Marketing Blog.

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The CEO of TopRank Online Marketing was interviewed by local ABC affiliate KSTP Eyewitness News on Starbucks’ decision to close its stores for 3 1/2 hours to conduct training. Odden cited the event as a publicity stunt and indicated the closure would give competitors an opportunity to attract Starbucks clientèle with discounts and free offers. KSTP’s report showed exactly that as competing and regional coffee houses were much busier than normal during the Starbucks closure.

Additionally, Odden provided insight into the reaction of the blogosphere to the Starbucks closing by showing the increase in blog posts, links and comments using a real time social media monitoring service, Radian6. Not only did the use of the Starbucks brand name and phrase, “Starbucks closing” increase, but competitors offering discounts such as Dunkin’ Donuts increased as well. This sort of opportunistic piggybacking can be detected quickly with social media monitoring tools such as TopRank’s partner Radian6 allowing brand managers to react accordingly.

Watch the full interview at KSTP

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Matt McGowan Dishes On New SES

Last year, Incisive Media, parent company of ClickZ and Search Engine Watch, announced that it would be changing the format of its long-running Search Engine Strategies (SES) conference series. Matt McGowan, vice president of marketing for Incisive Media, offers details on what the new SES will be like, starting with SES NYC in March.

Read the full article at MediaPost

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Promote Content, socialize online and unify with univeral search

Multiple threads across the Web suggest that after budgets have been slashed, there will simply be a reallocation of funds towards the most efficient means of advertising. Not surprisingly, search engine optimization has starred in multiple threads across the Web. Lee Odden of TopRankBlog published a list of “Recession-proof search engine optimization tips,” pointing to the fact that even with slashed budgets, current resources can create and optimize content.

Read the full article at DMNews

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Top Ten Online Marketing Tactics

Earlier this week, the Toprank Online Marketing blog posted a poll asking readers which online marketing tactics they would use most this year. While blogging led the list, surprisingly, webinars and video conferences brought up the rear.

Read the full article at BtoB

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An entrepreneur with an interactive site needs visitors. Here’s how to get them.

Search and prosper. Leverage the search engines to increase visibility. By understanding what community members are looking for, a web site owner can make an effort to create more of that kind of content…and make it easier to find existing content.

Read the full article at Fortune Small Business

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