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Well, it looks like Facebook is not only beating Google in terms of being the most visited site in the U.S . as well as for driving traffic to news and media sites, but  Hitwise’s follow up data is also showing that visitors from Facebook.com are more loyal to these sites . Meaning, they are not just one-click wonders but repeat visitors of the news and media sites as well, thanks to Facebook’s traffic referral. According to Hitwise’s latest compiled data , from the week ending March 6, 2010 78% of Facebook.com users were returning visitors to Print Media websites.. Google News’ returning visitors were only at around 67%. While for Broadcast Media, Facebook has a 77% returning rate while Google News only has 64% returning rate. So what does these data mean and how relevant it is for social media marketing? It only goes to show the value of traffic driven by Facebook as compared to Google News.  And returning values of potential customers are definitely very important for advertisers and retailers. Take note, this comparison is for Google News and Facebook only, not including Google.com. Although Google.com may be the number 1 source of traffic for news and media sites, those traffic will not be yielding  return visitors, according to Hitwise. Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . Facebook Drive More Loyal Visitors to News and Media

This morning I started my day in a rather unqiue fashion which did not involve rushing into the office or trying to find some time to run to the gym. I brewed a cup of coffee, sat down on the sofa and turned on the morning news. MSNBC’s Morning Joe is usually my morning news of choice, but today I picked CNN’s Headline News and zoned out, catching up on the stories of the morning. One of the first stories on the “news” was the buzz surrounding a $19,999 diamond encrusted Apple iPad. The first thing that came to my mind was “ Is Apple pulling a Victoria’s Secret? ” but after listening to the story, it was not Apple at all that put out the diamond iPad, nor is there an official diamond iPad. The actual story is Mervis Diamond Importers, a pretty large diamond store in the DC/Northern Virginia area, has announced a prototype diamond iPad which according to Mervis will be available for ordering in June. Social Media & Blog

Yes, the headline is not fooling you. According to the latest   Hitwise data , Facebook made it pass through Google to become the most visited website in the U.S. Well, for the week ending March 13 at least. Actually this is not the first time that Facebook achieved this feat. It recently achieved the no. 1 post on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day last year. And this year, it was also the no. 1 most visited site  on March 6 and 7. But of course it is understandable that Facebook will have more visitors during the Holiday seasons since it has become the favorite communication tool among users who want to stay in touch with long lost friends and relatives, family and acquiantances. But to achieve this again last week is quite interesting.  Facebook.com’s market share of visits increased by 185% last weeks as compared to the same week last year.   Compared that with Google’s share of visit which increased only by 9%.  Combining their share of visit accounts for 14% of all US Internet traffic last week. Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . Did Facebook Just Beat Google as The Most Visited

Driving traffic to your website or Fan page through Facebook advertising is becoming a popular trend these days. And for good reason too! Facebook is easily capable of sending you thousands of highly targeted visitors! But with all of the advertising Facebook users are subjected to, what can you do to make your ad stick out? Traditionally, Facebook ad click-through rates (CTRs) are pretty horrible. From my research I’ve seen that an average performing ad will have about a 0.02% CTR. A few weeks ago when I had decided that I wanted to use Facebook ads to drive awareness to a contest I was running called RavenHunt , I found my ads falling into that average category (or worse!). I had setup these two ads: The “Play RavenHunt and Win!” ad had a CTR of 0.017%, and the “Win a Free FlipHD Camera!” advertisement’s CTR was higher at 0.022%. Not bad CTRs by Facebook standards, but I wanted something more. So I asked myself, “Self, if you were the target audience for these ads and were putzing around on Facebook – what would make you click on an ad?” What I wasn’t considering was that my target audience (Internet Marketers) are used to these types of ads. In fact, they are the type of people who create ads just like these. So that’s when I decided to get silly. People love to laugh, and it was my theory that if you had a funny enough ad you’d be able to increase your CTRs. Additionally, I knew that I needed images that naturally drew a person’s attention to them. I needed kittens and puppies. And that’s when I created these two ads that doubled my CTRs: The “Puppies Are Awesome” ad had a CTR of 0.04% and the “This is a cat.” ad was just shy of that at “0.039%”. So by adding some fun to my Facebook ads, my CTRs increased. That got me thinking again – is there a way to combine the two approaches and still maintain a higher CTR? And that’s when I created the ad, “A Game for SEOs by SEOs”: This ad had a 0.06% CTR and didn’t go overboard on the silliness. Instead, it spoke to it’s target audience more appropriately, and still had a less than standard headline. It just goes to show that with the right creativity and the right amount of effort, you can make significant differences to your Facebook ad campaigns. Now if only I can get that number up to 0.1%. Stay tuned. Taylor Pratt is the Product Marketing Manager at Raven Internet Marketing Tools . With Raven you can conduct research and analysis, manage link building campaigns, track search engine trends, instantly produce ROI reports for SEO and SMM campaigns, and collaborate with team members with intuitive multi-user features. Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal . Fun Ways to Improve Facebook Ad

Sentiment analysis is something very new and immature. Sentiment analysis allows you to identify general attitudes towards your brand (or a product). The goal of sentiment analysis is to assign a given social media comment with a degree of association to three basic categories: positive, negative or neutral. 1. Social