I found this post by Lee Odden, 3 Thoughts on the Future of Online Marketing, on the Top Rank Online Marketing Blog quite relevant and relatable. The author stresses the importance of active online marketing that is dynamic and conveyable through the rapidly progressing interaction between social networking and search engine innovations. Within the past few weeks I have noticed that searching on Google has been modified so as to display and change the search hits as I type into the search bar, so that the hits continuously change as I modify the query, and this is a search engine innovation that Lee Odden was referring to. And many companies now are providing means for consumers to link their websites and their products through their Facebook accounts. Another important point that Odden makes is now the necessity to provide a means of consumer “interaction” with online marketing. For example, consumers now want to be able to post reviews of a product on the company webpage, and “Like” it with Facebook, and “Chirp(?)” it with Twitter, or post it on Google Buzz. When consumers find a product they like, they want everyone else on the web to know they like it too, which is extending the advertisement’s original scope. Consumers are now advertising company’s products for free by allowing their ads and websites to be linked to their social media sites.
I had to smile when I saw at the end of this post that there were links to “Like” on Facebook, “Tweet” on Twitter, post on Google Buzz, Access through a RSS Feed, Rate on a star system, Subscribe to, Comment on, and a list of other Related Posts that I may enjoy reading. This blog itself is implementing all of the new methods for active online marketing.