5 For Friday — Links, Stories & Posts For Your Weekend
October 7th, 2011 by
Will small businesses survive the future of SEO? — Skyrocket SEO 
The SEO industry is constantly in flux and, while it can and has been dominated by those with deep pockets, small businesses have some significant advantages that the savvy marketer can leverage into a tightly-coordinated and effective campaign. Skyrocket SEO’s James Agate provides us with an informative overview of the links between getting your story out there and forming a bond with your consumer base, nurturing the community and establishing strong thought leadership.
Mental Model for Minimal Viable Products — Chris McCann
Have a great idea that you’re interested in testing on the open market, but don’t want to go straight to launch? Chris McCann’s concept of “minimal viable products,” or MVP for short, may be able to help. In this blog post he goes into the details of getting your concept out there to receive feedback from real potential customers on your initial concept without the risk of sinking time and money into a startup or campaign.
Can Google Searches Predict Stock Price Performance? — Freakonomics
Several recent objective studies have shown strong data evidence that Google searches can predict stock market findings by up to ten percentage points per year. This direct method of gauging investor interest is at loggerheads with tried-and-true methods of speculation such as news and advertising data; if one Googles a certain stock, it seems self-evident that one is paying particular attention to it. Check out this blog post to get the data and learn how El Goog has the potential to function as a real-time economic speculation barometer.
Demystifying Facebook’s “People Are Talking About This” Metric — Search Engine Land
Facebook has seen some big shakeups in the last few days, not the least among them the introduction of an algorithmically-sorted “people are talking about this” display on some pages. But where does this number come from and how is it aggregated? Search Engine Land has the scoop from both an external user and page owner perspective.
What Does Eight Years Of Blogging Get You? — Six Pixels of Separation
Twist Image president Mitch Joel has been blogging since 2003, accumulating over 2700 entries and some 20k comments over the years. Here, he takes us on a retrospective of his experiences with this unique medium. Was it worth it? His answer is an overwhelming “yes.”
