Bing Debuts New Upgrades, Marketers Look to Advertise on Twitter

December 20, 2010 | by | Category:

This week in our blogosphere recap we’ll examine four blog posts from last week that focus on Bing’s new feature upgrades, the growing interest among marketers in Twitter’s Promoted Products and search market share gains and losses in November. Below are some of the highlights from these articles:

Bing Releases Huge Set of Upgrades: Maps, Local, Mobile, Travel, Image Search

Search Engine Land | Greg Sterling | 12-15-10

This week Microsoft’s Bing announced a slew of new feature enhancements to their “decision engine,” both for Web and mobile. The improvements were far reaching across Facebook-data integration, Local, Maps, Mobile (iPhone and Android), Travel and Image search. According to Bing, the majority of these enhancements will start being rolled out now or in late December. Sterling provides a comprehensive, detailed overview of Bing’s new upgrades in his post. Some features have even started making headlines already, including Bing’s expanded use of Facebook’s “Like” data in SERPs, which now show users who have connected Bing with their Facebook network which of their friends have “liked” specific links.

Main Takeaways:

  • Bing released an impressive number of new improvements last week across a range of features, including Facebook-data integration, Local, Maps, Mobile (iPhone and Android), Travel and Image search.
  • Among Bing’s numerous upgrades, they’ve further expanded social data into SERPs by showing users which of their Facebook friends have “Liked” a link, directly from their search results.


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Marketers Buy In to Promoted Tweets

eMarketer | 12-14-10

In a November survey, the TWTRCON conference and online Twitter-tool directory, oneforty, found a growing interest among marketers to advertise on Twitter, as well as more users beginning to acknowledge these ads. The survey found 51% of respondents to be “somewhat interested” or “very interested” in Promoted Products, 27% claimed not to be sure, 22% said they had no interest. Additional findings showed 37% of respondents have clicked a Promoted Trend and 29% have clicked a Promoted Tweet. The survey also highlighted that many marketers don’t plan on signing up for Twitter advertising until they have further evidence on ROI and direct business impact from the microblogging site’s ad platform.

Main Takeaways:

  • A recent survey found that as many as 51% of business professionals are “somewhat” or “very interested” in Twitter’s Promoted Products.
  • Thirty-seven percent of survey respondents claim to have clicked a Promoted Trend and 29% said they’ve clicked a Promoted Tweet.

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Bing Gains On Yahoo, Google In November

WebProNews | Doug Caverly | 12-15-10

According to comScore, Bing was the only search giant to see gains in November. Reportedly, Bing saw an increase in their market share from 11.5% in October to 11.8% in November. Google’s market share, however, dropped from 66.3% to 66.2% over the one-month span, and Yahoo’s share decreased from 16.5% to 16.4%. As the post’s author points out, this also means a boost for the Bing and Yahoo Search Alliance.

Main Takeaways:

  • In November, only Bing saw a boost to their search market share, rising from 11.5% to 11.8% from October to November.
  • Google and Yahoo both saw minor decreases in their market share, dropping from 66.3% to 66.2% and 16.5% to 16.4% respectively.

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Social Media Is Greater Marketing Priority for Small Businesses

eMarketer | 12-13-10

In a recent survey, Constant Contact (a small-business marketing firm) evaluated which marketing tactics U.S. small businesses find most important for finding new customers and what marketing tools those businesses find to be most significant for business promotion. Respondents rated word-of-mouth to be the most crucial marketing tactic for discovering new customers with 90.6% listing it as “very important,” and reported websites and email marketing among the other most important tactics. As for the most significant marketing tools for promoting their business, the surveyed small businesses rated websites and email marketing the highest overall, with a 93% and 92% rating respectively. While Facebook was rated third most important by 63% of respondents, this signaled a significant increase up from 50.5% in a March 2010 Constant contact survey.

Main Takeaways:

  • In a recent survey of US small businesses, respondents listed word-of-mouth as the most important marketing tactic for finding new customers.
  • Respondents rated websites and email marketing the most significant marketing tools for business promotion.

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Twitter’s Promoted Products: What’s Next?

We hope that you’ve enjoyed this weekly update and that you’ll share any feedback you might have with us. To get the weekly summary, or any other Optify updates, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or subscribe to our RSS feed. Here’s one noteworthy question we’d like to get your thoughts on:

  • To date, Twitter has mostly limited their Promoted Suite to a few test advertisers. With growing interest from marketers and users, however, we’re now we’re seeing them start to open up their ad platform to all advertisers. What do you think of Twitter’s Promoted Products, both from a business and a user perspective? Share your thoughts.