Business Critical: Google Smackdown, Pinterest Ads, Twitter in Turkey
By Ryan Parlee
Business Critical is our weekly collection of what’s new, exciting, and insightful for business leaders from the world of the web, marketing, social media, and more.
Google Busts MyGuestBlog Links
The world’s largest search engine made another move to crack down on sophisticated, manual link-building methods this week by dealing a search penalty to MyGuestBlog.com, a site that was created to connect blog owners with writers who contribute guest posts.
Google’s move has drawn mixed reactions, with many people from the SEO community claiming that MyGuestBlog and similar networks are not the “spam” that a manual penalty is meant to deter, but instead a legitimate service that provides valuable content and connections.
Either way, the penalty hurts, and just marks the latest in a series of moves from Google aimed at eliminating strategies and tactics that put emphasis on generating links as a means to boost SEO.
Read more on the penalty from Marketing Land.
Pinterest Ads are Coming — and They’ll be Pricey
The photo-pinning platform has announced that although they’ve yet to make a move to official monetization, it’s not far off.
According to a report, the delay in selling promoted pins may be due to the size of partners that the site is trying to take on: $1 to 2 million deals.
It seems at this time that, contrary to Facebook and Twitter’s self-serve ad model, Pinterest will be aiming to align itself with higher-tier clients making significant spends. This may help the site to better target and track ads across different boards, topics, and interests.
AdAge first reported on the Pinterest ad plan.
Tea Time, Oprah
Oprah Winfrey — one of the world’s most-recognized brands — is teaming up with another major brand this month: Starbucks.
The celebrity will be releasing a new line of tea that Starbucks will be serving up for a good cause.
This is notable not just for being a nice philanthropic gesture, but because of the co-branding aspect that makes it so powerful. Brands are often built in conjunction with other brands — through a mutual collaboration and association. This is the same case and shows your brand could benefit from strategic brand partnerships that will resonate with your core audience.
Turkey Twitter Users Tear Down Barriers
What happens when you block Twitter? Apparently, the news goes viral — on Twitter.
This week, the embattled country of Turkey (its Prime Minister in particular) has found that it’s not as easy to block a social network as simply flipping a switch. When moves were made to block the network from computers, the block proved fairly easy to evade, with SMS-to-tweet options and other workarounds.
Blocking Twitter turned into a major misstep and thousands tweeted about the move, sending the topic trending and raising major eyebrows about what was happening inside the country.
This is, of course, just a recent example of Twitter — and other social media — being used as a tool to combat speech restrictions. In the past, it’s played major roles in overthrowing tyrants and bolstering public support for massive governmental reforms. The bottom line is that social media is a heck of a lot more than just cat memes and “Like” buttons.
WaPo wrote on the Twitter backlash.
