As you type into the search box on Google, Google Suggest offers searches similar to the one you’re typing.

How is Google Suggest helpful to your marketing? Think about how popular searches to your concerned topic could be helpful and you will find it a valuable tool. Let me share a few examples.

Compare Your Brand Related Searches with Your Competitors'

"Blackberry Storm" v.s. "Blackberry Bold"

"Singapore" V.S. "Hong Kong"

You can find this visualization tool here.

Also read:7 Ways to Use Google Insights for Search

A survey conducted by Opinion Research Corporation and sponsored by ARAnet asked consumers the relative importance of 14 information sources when deciding which goods and services to buy.

Guess what’s the most influential information source?

Personal advice from friends and family!

Here is a summary of data showing the percentage of respondents choosing a 4 or 5 out of 5 and the mean summary rating points (online sources are highlighted in bold):

• Personal advice from friends or family members: 59% or 3.6 out of 5
• TV news or other broadcasts: 40% or 3.1
• Search engines such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, or Ask.com: 39% or 3.0
• Ads I see on TV: 36% or 3.0
• Articles I see in newspapers or magazines: 33 % or 3.0
• Ads I see in newspapers or magazines: 31% or 2.9
• Articles I see online: 28% or 2.8
• Radio news or other broadcasts: 25% or 2.7
• Direct mail: 24% or 2.7
• Ads I hear on the radio: 20% or 2.6
• Emails I receive from retailers or manufacturers: 20% or 2.5
• Ads I see online: 19% or 2.5
• Messages or posts on social media such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or MySpace: 18% or 2.3
• Billboards: 15% or 2.3

Another interesting finding from this research is, search engines are preferred by 49% who make $75,000 or more (vs overall 39%).

Online channels help your company not only reach your customers but also influence them. Are you allocating enough budget for online channels? Are you integrating different digital channels? Are you integrating online and off-line media?

But, remember this: presence on digital channels does not mean/guarantee influence; make sure you are making good use of them.

Also read:Where Do People In China Look For Information?

According to an emarketer survey, only 25.6% of respondents felt all interaction, online and offline interactions, was the same, and about one-half emphasized the convenience of electronic interaction over face-to-face.

A distinction between offline and online interactions still remains; maybe one day it will completely disappear, but until then, let’s not forget the importance of offline interactions though online social interaction is now popular.

Also read:Average Chinese Apparel Shoppers V.S. Young Adults

Don’t be blind while you can actually see. Open your door and your mind to listen to your customers for feedback and suggestions. Let me share a few free but great tools for conducting online surveys.

Survey Monkey

Survey Monkey Chart

Survey Monkey was my favorite online survey tool back in my university life. You can use it to dsign your survey, collect responses, and analyze results.

The free version allows up to 100 responses and 10 questions per survey. If you conduct online survey quite often, I suggest you upgrade to its Pro which includes a lot of useful features. Free version doesn’t give you much to customize the survey.

The free online surveys allows you to create a survey of up to 20 questions and receive up to 50 responses over a 10 day period, beginning when you start creating your survey. Another company, Zoomrang‘s free version allows up to 30 questions and 100 responses per survey.

Google Forms

Google Form: Grid Question Type

You can create a form from the Docs list or from any spreadsheet. The new grid question type allows you to label a few columns and create as many rows as you like. Google has just polished up the results summary charts, with clearer formatting of statistics and better formatting of charts for each question type:

Google Docs is free and so is Google Forms. The power of conducting an online survey or research with Google Forms is that, for developers who would like to integrate forms with their own applications, Google provides an easy way to pre-populate a form with data.

4Q: simple, free, powerful online survey tool for websites

The 4Q Online Survey is a free online survey solution that allows you to find out why visitors are at your website, and whether or not they are completing their tasks (and if they aren’t, what’s getting in the way?).

The 4Q online survey provides answers to the following 4 essential questions:

• What are my visitors at my website to do?
• Are they completing what they set out to do?
• If not, why not?
• How satisfied are my visitors?

Kampyle: Feedback Tool for Websites

Kampyle is a powerful on-demand solution to collect, analyze and manage your website visitors’ feedback.

Also read:Online Sentiment Analysis: free and paid tools to identify online attitudes with your brand

This is part five of a series of posts on Search Engine Marketing for marketers. This part discusses branding in search, both organic search and paid search (PPC).

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Some marketers have got an idea that SEM or PPC has nothing to do with branding. Is it true? You will see the answer in the studies below.

Impact of Branding on Search Ad Effectiveness

Microsoft and Sony conducted a research study to evaluate the impact of branding on Sony’s search ad effectiveness. The results illustrate that exposure to search ad considerably lifted purchase intent and drove likelihood of recommendation. Branded search terms proved to further enhance the value of search advertising. This study demonstrated:

• Exposure of search ad lifted purchase intent and drove likelihood of recommendation.
• Search ads with branded terms were more effective in driving brand lift than generic terms.
• Audiences exposed to Sony search ads had less positive attitudes towards competitors’ brands.

The Brand Lift Of Search

In a whitepaper released by Enquiro, which is a study commissioned by Google, showed a significant correlation between companies in the top organic (natural search) and paid search (PPC) placements and consumer brand affinity, brand recall and purchase intent.

These are the key findings:

• A 16% point increase in brand association when brand is in top ad and top organic listings
• A 2.2x lift in aided brand recall when brand is in top ad and top organic listings
• When brand is in top ad and top organic listings, purchase consideration increases 8% points
• Consumers are less likely to consider purchasing a brand that doesn’t appear on the search results page
• Even for branded queries, presence in top ad and top organic listings boosts purchase intent

In addition, the eye tracking study reveals consumer insights:

• Brand fixations occurred in the URL and title of the listing; not in the description
  Best practice: Place your brand in the title, URL, and as close to the start of the description as possible in your ad and organic listings
• Subjects with established affinity for the brand spent 25% less time on the top ad listing, jumping down to the organic listings 73% faster than the non-affinity group
  Best practice: Ad listings appear to have a greater opportunity to lift brand affinity among new customers; write and target them as such – especially for upper funnel queries

What do we learn?

1. Your investment in brand advertising increases with search
2. Advertise on unbranded and branded keywords
3. Tailor your ad to prospects, those with no established 3 brand affinity

Identify the Trend of Brand Searches

You can use Google Trends or Google insights for Search to get a visual view on the trends of your brand searches. Also, check out 10 excellent online tools to help you identify trends.

How Search Branding Works

Every time your site listing shows prominently in the search engine result pages (SERPs), branding takes place. SERPs basically include sponsored and organic listings, each of which consists of title, description, and display URL. You should use these three elements to encourage maximum awareness for better branding.

Should You Bid on Your Brand Name?

Some marketers don’t think it’s necessary to bid on their brand names as the website will most likely be the first natural search result. So, are you wasting money while you bid on the brand related keywords?

Think about this first. Your website comes first in natural result on brand name search; but what happens when your competitors or affiliates bid on that brand name too? Without bidding on your own brand name, your natural listing could show in the second or even fourth position. Now, what’s the odd of clicking through? Lower than having bid on brand name.

At Chinese search engine Baidu, without bidding on your brand name could be a disaster as the whole listings on the first page could be sponsored listing. In addition, bidding on your brand name allows you to control the ad copy that appears in the sponsored search and control the landing page.

Remember the study I mentioned earlier? Appearing in both the organic and sponsored search engine results can increase click-through rates significantly.

Search Branding Measurement

Search branding can be measured through engagement. The following metrics can be helpful to you to get started:

• Average Time on Site
• Page Views per Visit
• Form submissions
• Downloads
• RSS / Email subscriptions

The next two chapters discusses in-house PPC management and PPC outsourcing respectively.

Also read:Natural And Paid Search Boosts Branding

We didn’t actually overspend our budget. The allocation simply fell short of our expenditure.

Keith Davis quotes

Now companies are more serious about all dollars spent on advertising including online display. A smarter move is to do day-part targeting and allocate more budgets to the part of day when people are more likely to pay attention to your ads. So, when are they more likely to pay attention?

A survey by Lightspeed Research and the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) UK asked internet users when they believed they were most receptive to online advertising messages, and the best way to get their attention on the web.

The research shows that consumers believe they are most likely to pay attention to ads from the early evening onwards. While the early evening was the best time of the day for all age groups, for younger audiences there was likely to be a steady increase in their attention to adverts as the day progressed. The older age groups had peaks between 9-12pm and 2-6pm.

The research also found out,

• the best time to reach them with ads is during e-commerce activity, whether researching the best deals or shopping online.
• younger respondents prefer entertaining ads
• people prefer not to be interrupted when they are enjoying an activity that requires their full attention such as watching catch-up TV or movie clips. So be careful the next time when you want to opt-in YouTube as part of your content network for online advertising.
• The majority of respondents say they are likely to pay attention to online ads when engaged in a range of activities, from using a search engine, to downloading entertainment files, reading the news, catching up on sports results and playing games online. Social networking in particular has a high level of receptivity – this may be because brands are becoming more involved with them. It seems you may want to experiment with ads on Facebook.

Source: IAB UK

Also read:How To Design Effective Online Display Image Ads

Chinese consumers are increasingly wary of untried products and ever more likely to make purchase decisions at the last minute. Recommendations from family and friends remain very influential. And television advertising is still a prerequisite for entering the market, but its punch is weakening. Meanwhile, print ads are losing ground, while sponsorships and the Internet are becoming more influential. Amid the growing din of Chinese marketing, connecting with consumers continues to be difficult and frustrating

McKinsey just released an update on their findings of Chinese consumers research. If you are one of those interested in the world’s biggest market, you should have a read. Here is a summary of the key findings:

The importance of the brands

• On average, Chinese consumers are willing to pay a premium of about 2.5% for a branded product they purchase regularly, compared to 20% in developed markets.
• Rising inflation is making Chinese consumers more price sensitive and less loyal to their preferred brands.
• 63% of the shoppers studied still enter a store with a shortlist of favorite brands or a single preferred one and don’t stray from it when making purchases.
• Only 18% of the respondents indicated that they were always willing to try new packaged foods, compared with 29% two years earlier.
• Once Chinese consumers recognize a brand, they are likely to assume that it offers better quality and are willing to pay a premium for it.
• Brands in China are powered mostly by their functional characteristics, such as quality and taste.
• Chinese consumers are sensitive to value for money and generally have a clear idea of which functional features merit a higher price.
• 30% respondents said they trust only Chinese brands, down sharply from 44% in 2007.
• Chinese consumers don’t always have a clear idea about a brand’s nationality.

Reaching Chinese Consumers

• Recommendations from family and friends is the most popular way Chinese consumers get product information
• Television is indispensable and its impact score is second only to that of word-of-mouth recommendations; the impact of ads on television and in the print media was mixed, while indirect approaches (sponsorships, the Internet, and articles in the print media) are gaining strength.
• Sports and cultural sponsorships can also help build interest.

To build a brand and get connected to Chinese consumers in China, being on TV is a must but not enough. With word of mouth campaigns via Internet, you stand a higher chance.

Also read:Deep Insights Into Behavior of Chinese Online Consumers

Search Engine Marketing

• Use keywords and placements together on the content network [AdWords Blog]

Social Media Marketing

• 50 Ways Marketers Can use Social Media to Improve Their Marketing [ChrisBrogan]
• New online community study: what’s working, what’s in the way, advice from trenches [BlogHound]

Marketing Research

• Q&A: Bounty’s Andrew Thomas on marketing to Mums [e-Consultancy]
• MarketingSherpa B-to-B Presentation – Top 10 Marketing Fast Fixes + How to Generate and Nurture More Qualified Leads: PowerPoints, MP3 and Transcript
• Revenue Cycle Best Practices [IAB]
  • Interdepartmental communication between Credit & Collections, Sales and Operations
  • Processes and controls that ensure the necessary steps are taken and approvals obtained prior to taking action
• Brand Names Subconsciously Afftect People’s Shopping Goals [Science Daily]
  milliseconds of exposure to a brand name such as Wal-Mart or Tiffany can alter consumers’ subconscious goals, according to new research.

Also read:Digital Marketing: Must Read for Week July-28

The media group’s ‘This year, next year’ forecast predicts that the combined online spendwill reach $3.6 billion this year, and $5.2 billion in 2009. (source: brand republic)

I know you can’t help thinking of the growth of online ad spend in US in this two years, here is a forecast from eMarketer (2008: $25.9 billions; 2009: $30.0 billions):

No wonder so many digital agencies are running to China.

Also read:eMarketer: China Online Travel

As you can see in the chart from MarketingSherpa above,

one fifth of respondents called SEO their “strongest tactic” for ROI – up 3 percentage points from 2007 to 21%. Also, “good ROI” jumped 2 points to 38%. More importantly, we see a 6-point drop (28%) in those who call the results of SEO “hard to gauge.”

Positive findings in paid search as well as shown in the chart above. I’d say, “thanks to web analytics!”

Also read:Could Search Marketing For Branding?

Google has released a tool for media planning for advertisers and agencies. I’ve briefly introduced the tool; since I’ve got the account, let’s go through this media planning tool together.

Once I logged in, I saw two sections, one to help do some research and the other to create media plans.

On the left (shown above), it shows stats including unique visitors, country reach, and page views. As you change the demographics options, the numbers keep updated. What I’m really excited about is that the data covers many countries and multiple languages!

“Research” helps you find your targeted websites by selecting relevant information including gender, age, education, and household income. Or, you can key in one targeted website and Ad Planner would show you related ones. I did find some websites that doesn’t match the language I selected. For example, sgchinese.com is a popular Chinese forum in Singapore but also listed under “English”. Can’t comment on other accuracy of other options at this moment. Besides, the category describing the theme of the website could be very wrong.

The right panel shows a list of websites that match the criteria. You can export the list to a CSV file or add to a media plan.

That’s a brief overview of Google Ad Planner. You can visit this page to learn more. I personally do like this tool, would use it along with web analytics to see how targeted and quality traffic these websites can drive if I do placement targeting or banner ads on the sites Ad Planner shows.

Also read:Google Ad Planner Helps Online Media Planning

Search Engine Marketing

• Google XML Sitemaps : Essential FAQ [Search Engine Journal]
• Plotting the Effects of your PPC Changes [Apple Pie & Custard]
  Imagine you could plot the effects of every single change to your PPC campaign on a graph. You’d be able to view instantly whether that bid your raised on Friday evening before leaving the office has paid off
• Google AdWords Insertion Tag List [Search Engine Roundtable]
• Landing page load time now affects keywords’ Quality Scores [Google]
  “Keywords with landing pages that load slowly may get lower Quality Scores (and thus higher minimum bids). Conversely, keywords with landing pages that load very quickly may get higher Quality Scores and lower minimum bids.”
• Google Leads in Mobile Search [Marketing Charts]
  “Google leads in mobile internet search provider share (61% in the first quarter of 2008), followed by Yahoo (18%) and MSN (5%), according to Nielsen Mobile, which also released data on commerce conducted via mobile devices.”

Social Media Marketing / WOM / Viral Marketing

• The Word of Mouth Manual, Volume II by Dave Balter [via How To Change the World]
  FREE PDF version
• Measuring social media – a minefield without metrics [E-Consultancy]
  “Marketers need to establish industry-wide best practices first and understand what they want to achieve, before tying down the metrics. “
• Growing Experiment in Interactive TV Advertising [NT Times]
  The test offers viewers programs — and ads — they can respond to by using remote controls to click on icons they see on their screens.
• 100 Personal Branding Tactics Using Social Media [ChrisBrogan]

Email Marketing

• ABCs of Email Rendering [MediaPost]

Display Advertising

• Interactive Banner Advertising Converts to Leads [Zac Johnson]
  “The concept of this banner was to have the visitor answer a question (check box) from within the banner, then walk them through a couple extra questions, while the offers would pop open in a new browser. “

Marketing Research

• Online Travel Query Content is Changing [Hitwise]
  “The largest chunk of branded searches were searches for inventory owners, such as airlines and hotels, and map websites, such as MapQuest and Google Maps.”
• 1.2 Billion Mobile Subscribers! [eMarketer]
  eMarketer estimates that BRIC will account for nearly 1.2 billion mobile phone subscribers this year.
• Internet marketing boosts traditional routes [BizReport]
  Thirty-three percent of consumers surveyed by the DMA were found to respond positively to email and 44% expressed similar feelings about direct mail marketing.

China Internet

• Chinese Bloggers Really Are Edgy [WSJ]
  “Western journalists often write about the ability of Chinese bloggers to challenge authority and provide an alternative voice to the propaganda that often fills China’s official news media. How accurate is that description across China’s vast blogosphere?”
• 160 million Online Video Users in China [China Web2.0]
  According to the report, there are already 160 million online video users in China by the end of 2007.

Also read:Digital Marketing: Must Read for Week July-21

Search Engine Marketing

• The New SEO Perspective on Flash [ClickZ]
  “Flash may not be the most ideal scenario for search engines, but there’s often a strong rationale for not abandoning it. There are also workarounds available like SWFObject that get better with every version of Flash that comes out.”
• The Internet and Consumer Choice [Pew Internet]
  Rather than expecting a search ad to result in a product purchase, marketers would be better served to expect a search ad to result in an offline purchase.
• B2B Search Marketing Success [StraightUpSearch]
  New Oneupweb White Paper

Social Media Marketing

• Digital Video In-Stream Ad Metrics Definitions [IAB]
  This document specifies standard definitions for digital video advertising metrics.
• The Essential Guide to Social Media – A Free eBook [PR 2.0]
  An executive outline of Social Media tools and resources needed to listen and participate, guiding PR, Customer Service, Product Development, and Marketing.
• Brands Turn to Micro-Blogging [Media Week]
  Dell CMO Mark Jarvis had a challenge for his digital team: Come up with an innovative way to connect with consumers online and sell products – and do it without a budget.
• How to Get Traffic from the top Social Media Sites [ViperChill]
  “I’ve put together this list of only the best articles which cover marketing on Youtube, Facebook, MySpace, StumbleUpon, Twitter and Digg.”

Usability

• 6 ways to enhance user experience [iMedia]
  In this article, we’ll explore new interaction techniques that can take your online marketing efforts to the next level.

Marketing Research

• Newspaper Ads Help Drive Consumers to the Web [Marketing Charts]
  Some 44% of people who saw a product or service advertised in a newspaper in the past month researched it – and two-thirds (67%) of that group went online to find more information, according to a Google-commissioned survey from Clark, Martire & Bartolomeo.

Also read:Digital Marketing Resources for Week Jun-2

Search Engine Marketing

• Robots Exclusion Protocol for Yahoo!, Google and Microsoft [Yahoo Search Blog]
  The following are all the major REP features currently implemented by Google, Microsoft and Yahoo!. Each of these directives can be specified to be applicable for all crawlers or for specific crawlers by targeting them to specific user-agents, which is how any crawler identifies itself.
• Google AdWords Editor [Google]
  Version 6.0 offers new and updated features to help you edit your AdWords campaigns faster and more effectively.
• Bad SEO Techniques That Will Hurt Your Google Rankings [Search Engine Journal]
  “As you begin to move onto more advanced SEO topics, you will undoubtedly uncover some techniques that sound like a good idea, but are really just dumb.”
• 26 Mistakes That Cost You [Search Engine People]
  “Here are the most common mistakes that I see when we take over a Small Business PPC Campaign.”

Social Media Marketing

• Marketers, Don’t Just Blindly Follow Latest Media Trends [Ad Age]
  Why ‘Because All the Cool Kids Are Doing It’ Isn’t a Good Excuse for Running to Nontraditional Media
• Who’s Doing Video Right? [iMedia]
  A number of brands are producing original online video, but not all the content is hitting the mark. See why Suave and Sprint get it, and why Bank of America does not.
• MarketingSherpa’s Viral Marketing Hall of Fame 2008: Top 10 Campaigns & Results Data
  If you’re in need of some viral viral marketing inspiration, look no further. Here are this year’s inductees into MarketingSherpa’s Viral Marketing Hall of Fame.
• How to Effectively Buy Into Facebook: Social Ads [ClickZ]
  You’ve established a presence for your brand on Facebook. Your new Facebook Page represents an additional channel through which consumers can effectively connect with your company and products.
• The Five Essential Elements of Effective Social Media Marketing [Copyblogger]
  Bob Hoffman is the CEO of a traditional advertising agency, and he raised some valid points about true interactivity online.
• Generation Y – Welcome To Their World [ReadWriteWeb]
  Here’s a glimpse into the world of Gen Y and how they’re using technology.
• What Types of Ads Are Better for Social Media Websites?

Email Marketing

• Three steps to better email campaigns [BizReport]
  An immediate and personalized welcome email is the perfect first step.

Web Analytics

• Track online impact of Google TV Ads using Google Analytics [Google]
  Now, you can track the online impact of your TV campaigns through your Google Analytics account.
• How To Design Effective Online Display Image Ads
  Eyes not only draw attention but also guide attention.
• Google Trends update [Google]
  You can now see numbers on the graph download to a spreadsheet.

Marketing Research

• Internet Advertising Revenues Estimated to Pass $21 Billion in 2007 [IAB]
  According to the IAB’s recent Internet Advertising Report, online ad revenues in the US reached $21.2 billion in 2007. This is an increase of 26% for the year.
• Paperless Coupon Usage on the Rise [Experian]
  According to the Hitwise data, U.S. consumer searches on the term “coupons” has increased 48% comparing to searches for the week ending 3/22/08 versus 3/24/2007.
• Mobile Social Networks Embraced by Millenials [InStat]
  Blogging, photo and video sharing, location-based socialization services, games, SMS, and IM will eventually be combined to afford the mobile user the entire social networking experience from a handset application, the high-tech market research firm says.
• Mobile Web 2.0: Gen Y embraces mobile social networks [Computer World]
  People born between the years 1981 and 2000, or “millenials,” are leading the move to mobile social networks and Mobile Web 2.0, which includes cell phone-based blogging, multimedia sharing, location-based socialization services, gaming and chat, according to new research.
• Is MSN Messenger An Effective Media for All Singapore Advertisers?
  1.6 billion messages are sent out from instant messengers monthly, as Singaporeans spend hours online at work and at home. Does it mean you should advertise on IM?

Case Study

• A Look At Singapore Airlines’ Online Presence

Also read:Digital Marketing Resources for Week Jun-9

On April 25, 2008 China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) issued the Research Report of China Youth Internet Behaviors. The data illustrates that up to December 31, 2007，the number of young netizens who under the age of 25 has reached 107 million, holding for a half of the overall size of Internet users. This is the largest age group among Internet users in China which reflected a good potential for growth and development. Here are the key takeaways:

• The number of China’s youth Internet users (or netizens) has achieved 107 million,which is half of China’s total internet users. See the difference across west, middle, and west area:
  
• Among all youth netizens, there are 46.71 million non-student Internet users, 43.8% of total youth netizens.46.2% of them have received senior high school education.
• The internet penetration rate among the youth netizens is 24.2%, far higher than the overall 16%.
• There are 10% more male netizens than female ones, which is 10.7 million.
  
• Almost 60% youth netizens surf Internet at home while almost half (47.8%) surf at Internet Cafe.
  
• The average total Internet surfing time among youth internet users is 12.7 hours per week below the total average of 16.2 hours per week.
• On average, each youth netizen users 7.4 web applications, above the domestic average (6.5).
• 90% of youth netizens use instant messenger, 10% above the domestic average. Most have the desire to make friends online.
  
• They are not interested in news and polytics but entertainment, sports, celebrities, food, travel and etc. Top 3 entertainment applications: online music, online movies, online games. This graph should seem a bit scary to the government:
  
• Almost 30% of youth Internet users tend to addict.
• 33% of youth netizens updated their blog within 6 months and over half made friends online.
• 31% used cell phones to surf Internet within 6 months. 40% of university students surf online with their mobile phones.

Now you know.

Also read:How Many Internet Users In China?

• 10 Excellent Online Tools to Identify Trends
  This post would introduce 10 handy trend tools which are very helpful doing online research.
  (tags: trends Google twitter internet)
• The Guardian: How to make the most of Twitter
  “Real-time micro-blogging is gaining in popularity. But if you’re wondering what’s the point, here’s Charles Arthur’s guide to the benefits of Twitter – and how to get started.”
  (tags: business internet social twitter)

Also read:links for 2008-05-11

• JupiterResearch: Why you should go mobile now – Mobile Marketing
  Jupiter suggests starting with text messaging ads because text messaging currently has a 51% adoption rate among consumers. Next, they suggest trying mobile banner ads, coupons and mobile video.
  (tags: mobile marketing research)
• Nielsen: Experience pushes consumers to post online
  28% of those who posted said they did so because they had a good or a bad experience using the product; about 27% said they posted in response to another post about the same product.
  (tags: nielsen experience consumers research)

Also read:links for 2008-05-07

Executives and business decision-makers love to see the trends and catch the trends, use trends to guide their decisions. This post would introduce 10 handy trend tools which are very helpful doing online research.

1. Google Trends – Google Search Trends
2. adCenter Search Volume Seasonality Trends
3. adCenter Keyword Forecast
4. Facebook Lexicon – Facebook Social Trends
5. Twist – Trends in Twitter
6. Trendpedia – Blog Trends
7. BlogPulse from Nielsen – Another Blog Trends Tool
8. Trendrr – Trends across Social Graphs and Networks
9. Google Checkout Trends – Online Sales Trends
10. Indeed Job Trends Tool

1. Google Trends – Google Search Trends

With Google Trends, you can compare up to 5 topics you are interested in and see how often they’ve been searched on Google over a period of time. It also shows how frequently your topics have appeared in Google News stories, and regions where they are searched for.

What can you do with Google Trends

Very common use with Google Trends is in search engine marketing and search engine optimization (SEO). Check out the search trends. you may not be interested in your company’s search operations, but Google Trends is a good tool to show you the trends of online users’ interests on a specific topic.

How to Use Google Trends

Google has one page giving detailed information about Google Trends. This is what you need to know to use it:

• news-reference-volume graph is just below the search-volume graph, which shows you the no. of times your topic appeared in Google News stories. When Google Trends detects a spike in the volume of news stories for a particular term,
• Google Trends labels the graph and displays the headline of an auto-selected Google News story written near the time of a spike it detects in the volume of news stories for a particular term.
• Only English headlines are displayed so far.
• Google Trends displays the top cities, regions, and languages in which people searched for the first term you entered. You can select the one you are most interested in; but, keep in mind it might the data might not be enough to show if the search volume is too low in a specific region.
• Use comma to separate up to 5 different topics to compare e.g. “internet, online”
• To see how many searches contained either terms, separate those terms with a vertical bar: “|”. For example, to determine how many searches contained the terms “internet” or “online,” just enter “internet | online”
• You can use parentheses for multi-word terms.
• You can use the minus sign to exclude terms. e.g. you want to see the trends for “marketing” but not “email marketing”, search “marketing-email”

More on Google Trends:

• Mothers Day + Google Trends = Cash
• Using Google Trends to fine-tune your news website
• Daily Google Hot Trends (US only)

2. adCenter Search Volume Seasonality Trends

It’s a tool from Microsoft adCenter Labs; you see see the trends and forecast seasonality patterns of search queries. As shown above, you can see the actual (red), forecast (blue), and Conf Interval.

It’s kinda similar to Google Trends tool; however, the queries you can check is quite limited, you input a keyword and if available, this tool would show you one or a few terms you can forecast the seasonality.

3. adCenter Keyword Forecast – Forecast the impression count and demographic predictions

Keyword Forecast is another tool from Microsoft adCenter Labs that forecasts the search volume and demographic predictions of your selected list of keywords. The difference from the above mentioned keyword forecast tool is, this one shows the actual search volume trends only and enables you to compare different terms.

Simply enter the keywords separated by semi-colons to try out. You can product the output in flash, image, or text format. The demographic predictions graph is quite interesting and helpful:

4. Facebook Lexicon: Facebook Social Trends

I introduced Facebook’s trends tool Lexicon days ago. You can refer to that post for details. ReadWriteWeb and MarketingPilgrim both have a good introduction to Lexicon that you can digest. Someone set up a Facebook Lexicon Blog too which does a lot of trends comparison.

In general, Facebook Lexicon is a nice tool to track Facebook communities’ interests.

5. Twist – Trends in Twitter

I’ve been using Twitter for a while though I don’t tweet a lot. But surprisingly, I recently found many local Singapore companies trying out this tool. If you still don’t have an idea what it is, its own introduction is quite self-explainable:

Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing? Bloggers can use it as a mini-blogging tool.

Twist is a tool that enables you to see the trends in Twitter. It checks mentions of the queried terms in Twitters’ messages and show the graph over time.

6. Trendpedia – Blog Trends Search

With Trendpedia, you can find out the trends by searching blogs in various languages (sad, no Chinese, why?).

Trendpedia finds the articles online that talk about your topics. Trendpedia organizes the articles in a trendline that shows the popularity of the topic over time — you can track a topic’s trendline from three months ago up to today.

Trendline is the number of blog posts posted per day that talk about the trends you search.

How To Use Trendpedia

• Enter one or more topics to search trends; Trendpedia’s line chart shows the popularity of the topics over time. Click on the chart to visit blog entries from a particular day.
• You can search and track trends today, yesterday, last week, or over the last three months.
• The trends graphics display your trendlines and a total trends pie chart (today’s total Buzz break-down).
• “Advanced search” feature is for more targeted topics, as shown below:

7. BlogPulse from Nielsen – Another Blog Trends Tool

BlogPulse is an automated trend discovery system for blogs from Nielsen BuzzMetrics. It has a similar search UI as Trendpedia:

which one is better? I leave that to you to judge.

8. Trendrr – Identify Trends across Social Graphs and Networks

You can use Trendrr to track data and identify trends across social graphs and networks, realize the potential of p2p, and track engagement metrics.

What can you Do with Trendrr

• Monitor the popularity of your brands or products
• Track just how many people are favoriting the latest video.
• Compare the popularity of anything.
• Share about interesting data or trends you’ve identified
  * Trendrr yourself (yes, I’m using Tren

Trendrr is not only a tool to identify and track trends but also a community for trends fans. The interface is not as simple as Google Trends or Lexicon, but it is indeed a powerful tool for trends research. Find out more about Trendrr here, here, and here.

9. Google Checkout Trends

Google Checkout Trends aggregates the sales data of Google Checkout merchants and charts it in a matter of seconds. See how popular a brand product of a particular product category is, and compare it with a similar product. Getting a feel with this tool about the seasonality of a particular product category is helpful to guide your similar product online marketing efforts.

10. Indeed Job Trends Tool

Finding out the job trends is helpful to your HR strategies. Indeed‘s Job Trends is simple and easy to use:

Indeed.com searches millions of jobs from thousands of job sites. This job trends graph shows the percentage of jobs we find that contain your search terms.

You can choose the absolute (above image) scale or relative (below) scale to see the trends:

Try out these online trends tools yourself and share your findings below. And, use them to guide your decision making and actions; do not completely reply on them.

Also read:Facebook Lexicon V.S. Google Trends

• 7-Eleven Fills Month Of May With Slurpee, ‘Guitar Hero’ Mania
  To promote its new Full Throttle Frozen Blast Slurpee drink this month, 7-Eleven is partnering with Activision and Microsoft in a marketing and PR blitz designed to reach music-loving, video-game-playing, techno-savvy guys.
  (tags: 7-Eleven microsoft online contest)
• How to Turn Subscribers Into Affiliates With Widgets & Viral Marketing
  You really can’t beat customer referrals, but measuring the impact of this type of word-of-mouth marketing is notoriously difficult. A subscription-based discount club for college students solved this problem by turning its customers into affiliates.
  (tags: affiliate widget viral marketing)
• Digital Media Concepts Popular Among Execs | WebProNews
  Accenture talked to 100 individuals, and found that 66 of them believed new platforms or ways of delivering content will be the largest drivers of revenue growth over the next five years.
  (tags: digital media)
• Hitwise: Asia Pacific Social Networking Report 2008
  This new report examines the social networking landscape in Asia Pacific and reveals insights on: the leading social networks in the market; trends in navigation and communication channels; segmentation of networks; campaign measurement…
  (tags: hitwise report social networking asia)
• trendwatching.com: Eco-iconic, Eco-Embedded, Eco-Boosters
  how about a fresh, consumer-oriented look at the opportunities in the next 12-18 months now that ‘eco awareness’ has been embraced not just by treehuggers and celebrities, but by sizable parts of the global middle classes, too?
  (tags: green consumer)
• Jakob Nielsen: How Little Do Users Read?
  On the average Web page, users have time to read at most 28% of the words during an average visit; 20% is more likely.
  (tags: usability research study)
• The Interactive Advertising Bureau Launches Digital Video In-Stream Ad Format Guidelines
  “These guidelines respond to the very real market need of simplification and standardization that will continue to propel the explosive growth of online digital video,” said Mike Hurt
  (tags: advertising IAB digital video online)
• IAB: User-Generated Content & Social Media
  A milestone document that helps marketers, agencies and publishers better understand how these platforms have fundamentally altered the digital experience for consumers and advertisers.
  (tags: UGC social media IAB agency publisher consumer)
• IAB: Impacts and ROI of Internet Local, Classifieds, and Directory Advertising
  Return on Investment (ROI) analysis shows that online local, directory and classifieds are extremely efficient vehicles.
  (tags: IAB ROI local classified directory advertising internet)
• SEL: Developing In-House SEO Functionality
  A quick guide to companies developing in-house SEO functionality.
  (tags: SEO in-house)

Also read:links for 2008-05-20

This is the Social Media Research done by Universal Mccann including 17,000 people in 29 countries.

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Also read:What is Social Media?