Facebook Works on Incorporating the Hashtag, and Other Marketing Stories of the Week

Nowadays, it feels like every social network and online platform has some sort of tool designed for marketers. Whether we know it or not, many of these networks and services are adding business pages, analytics, and even automation into their functionality.

For us marketers, this is wonderful news. We love analytics, metrics, and targeting because those are the tools we use to create great marketing. Regardless of our industry or company goal, tools that make our marketing more effective will always be welcome. So this week, we've gathered some interesting stories on what you need to know about new business pages, analytics, ad delivery services, and more. Enjoy!

Klout Launches Business Portal, is Gunning for Brands, From CNN Money

The "social media influence" measuring startup has announced that it will be launching a business portal design to attract big-name brands. Klout is launching Klout for Business, with a goal of providing brands with an insight into their social media audiences. The free analytics dashboard for companies will allow brands to learn what social networks they resonate best on, which topics are most popular, and how influential their fans and followers are. The dashboard also gives companies insight into when posts or tweets are most influential during the day.

With the variety of new tools and metrics available to brands, it may be beneficial to become an early adopter of the new business dashboards. Although Klout has run into some problems with score accuracy and transparency in the past, its major redesign and Microsoft partnership has helped build a stronger reputation with its users. The fact that Klout is jumping into deeper analytics and business-friendly metrics should be quite beneficial for marketers. Read the full article at CNN Money.

Facebook Updates Cover Photos Guidelines to Allow Calls-to-Action

Too long have marketers cringed at the sight of wasted real estate and lost marketing opportunities. Facebook has quietly updated the guidelines for their cover photos to allow businesses to use calls-to-action on their profiles. Marketers can finally take advantage of the prime visual placement and optimize those cover photos for lead generation. Although Facebook did not openly announce that CTAs are allowed, they did remove the clause that prohibited users from promoting offers and products. 

This means that marketers can utilize their cover images as a way to generate leads! Not only will lead gen be easier, but marketers can track that particular channel specifically by using tracking tokens within the links. Marketers should start jumping on these new updates and get the most out of their cover photos. Read the full article at HubSpot.

Facebook Working on Incorporating the Hashtag, From The Wall Street Journal

It seems that Twitter’s most iconic marker may soon find its way into Facebook timelines across the globe. Facebook is currently working on incorporating the all-powerful hashtag into its social network. For those of you unfamiliar with the hashtag, it is heavily used in Twitter as a word or phrase preceded by a # symbol that groups similar topics and events together. Facebook hasn’t yet decided how far they will follow in Twitter’s footsteps with the hashtags, but remember the two companies are already competing for online advertisers, and Facebook’s adoption of the hashtag could affect Twitter's bottom line.

This new addition to Facebook may have an impact on how marketers approach their social media strategies on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Find the full article at The Wall Street Journal.

Free Pocket Guide: How to Find and Hire the Perfect Inbound Marketer

All these changes to the marketing world can be overwhelming on your marketing team. This is especially true when you're in the process of finding an inbound marketer with the right skills and attitude to tackle these changes with raw marketing awesomeness.

We know this is difficult, because at HubSpot, we face the same challenges. This is why we've put together a pocket guide to help you find and hire the perfect inbound marketer for your company. The guide comes with a breakdown of the essential traits and skills you'll want to look for in your marketers, and print-outs of interview questions and score sheets to make your life easy. Download the free pocket guide here.

Small Twitter Advertisers Can Now Target Ads Like Big Brands, From Marketing Land

Twitter has announced that it will be providing its more advanced dashboard features, normally available only to big spenders, to smaller companies. This release of “advanced” features gives smaller brands the same tools and options that large-scale Twitter advertisers are using. Twitter warns that once users switch over to the “advanced options,” there is no going back. These features offer smaller advertisers more options, deeper analytics, and improved targeting.

Marketers and advertisers currently using Twitter’s ad services should consider switching over to the advanced settings for a much more robust reporting and targeting system. They will have access to deeper controls and analytics that provide insight into metrics that the more basic dashboards do not. If you think your current Twitter ad campaign could use some extra power, it’s probably worth it to opt into the upgrade. Read the full article at Marketing Land.

Study Finds Google’s Penguin Update Getting Stricter Over Time, From Search Engine Land

A recent study by Portent, an internet marketing company, illustrates that Google is getting fed up with spammy links floating through its search engine. Google’s Penguin algorithm will be targeting websites for a rank drop if they have as little as 50 percent suspicious links in their link profiles. Portent analyzed 100,000 links from the top 50 sites on the Inc. 5000 list of 2012. Using SEOmoz and Majestic SEO data, they scored links as spam based on the relation of the page to the page being linked to and the page the link was coming from. Through this process they found more than 250,000 links pointing at penalized websites, and 250,000 links pointing at non-penalized websites.

What does this mean for marketers? It means that Google is becoming less and less tolerant of suspicious or spammy links in a website’s link profile. This means that marketers need to focus more on proper link building through blog posts, website pages, and quality content instead of fooling around with link farms. Google's crack down on suspicious links only illustrates more that there are no short cuts to the top of those search pages. Read the full article at Search Engine Land.

HubSpot's Weekly Marketing Update Podcast With Mike Volpe

Interested in hearing what the CMO of HubSpot has to say about the stories in this week's round-up? Check out our Marketing Update video and audio podcast, and get the latest inbound marketing advice, tips, and best practices. You can also subscribe to this weekly podcast through iTunes ... you know, to start your week off with a little dose of inbound marketing. Who wouldn't want that?

What other updates from the past week should we be talking about? Share with us in the comments!

Image credit: pennuja