Welcome to Internet Marketing!

 Background
While working in direct marketing for the past four years doing product management, I began to realize the ever growing importance of the digital space. The impact that technology and the internet has on our lives is immense. As a marketer, I decided that it was important to become educated on the digital space, and began to take action to move my career in the direction of digital. Between formal education through DePaul, webinars, books, and industry discussion boards, the amount of information that exists is huge and a lot can be learned if you have the desire to learn it.

What to Watch For
With my current job now focused on Search Engine Optimization and Enterprise Search, most of what I have been learning is search related, however, I continue to want to expand my knowledge into other areas of internet marketing. While most of my blog posts may be centered around search, social media is another big interest of mine. Social media and search can be highly integrated, providing increased opportunity for findability. I am also especially interested in how large brands and large companies manage and utilize search and social media. It seems like everyday there is evidence of how a large brand is using social media -- whether its commercials with Facbook call to actions, Groupon integration or promotions through Twitter -- observing new applications of successful social media campaigns will provide ample learning opportunity.

The next 11 weeks plan to be a great learning experience and I hope to share what I learn with a following who is also interested in Internet Marketing. Sharing information and experiences are welcome and encouraged!

And Since I Can't Resist...
The latest in the search world this week is Google Instant. Last Friday, Google completed a full roll-out of its latest enhancement to its search bar. Google Instant is an extension of the previous suggest feature, and claims that it provides more predictive, faster searches. The verdict is still out in terms of what the impact will be, and I will discuss this in more detail later in this blog as details are released. My curiosity lies in how users will perceive this new change. My informal poll has shown a 50/50 split response -- some people love it, some people hate it. User adoption or non-adoption will determine how much impact this change has on the industry, hence illustrating my interest in what users think of this. The fact that Google Instant can be turned off, but that the link is fairly subtle, makes me wonder how many people will even know that the option to turn it off is there.

Before I reveal the impacts to SEO and Paid search, I want to get your untainted opinion -- What do you think of the new Google Instant? Will you keep it turned on or turned off?
Read more from Google itself...
Google Instant Info