Super Stuff to Get You Through Super Bowl Weekend (Small Business E-commerce Link Digest – February 4, 2011)

I don’t know if you’ve heard, but there’s some kind of big football game going on this weekend. Troy Polamalu and his apparently genetically-enhanced hair are going up against people who think they’ll improve their hairstyles by wearing faux cheese wedges in place of hats. And you thought you had fans just because someone “Liked” your brand on Facebook! Here’s a quick look at Troy before getting on with the links:

Well, that was fun, huh? What do you mean, “Not really”? Ah, well. You can’t please everyone. Of course, if there’s one thing the week before the SuperBowl doesn’t need, it’s more build up. So, without further ado, let’s kick off this week’s links:

• MediaPost has a great story about how Avis made multi-channel marketing work for their customers. While you may not have all the tools at your disposal that Avis does, there’s no reason not to emulate their results.
• Speaking of results, there’s been a lot of noise this week about exactly where Bing gets their search results from (Google says Bing is lifting them wholesale). Matt Cutts gives his point of view on whether Bing is basing its search results on Google’s. And Matt also links to Nate Silver’s analysis of Bing’s response. To be fair, Danny Sullivan says Bing isn’t copying Google (or at least not very much). What surprises me is that few people have called out Microsoft for (allegedly) using the tactic while simultaneously advertising that their results “reduce search overload.” Umm… seriously? I have never seen any evidence that Bing has fewer results or dramatically better results&mdsash;though their results are often quite good. Of course, ultimately, you should care if you see a rise in traffic from Google or Bing and how that affects your customers finding your site. So far, no word on that from any front.
• The folks at Rimm-Kaufman are very good at asking questions like the one above. And they’ve got a great post demonstrating those types of questions where they look at increased sales due to customers using specific browsers. Brilliant.
• And, finally, the wonderful Linda Bustos returns to these pages with a good question about showing products with animated gifs. It’s a fantastic idea and a less expensive way to show the product in action without producing a full video (not that there aren’t some great ways to use video to build your brand). But it’s always nice to have options.

Enjoy your weekend everyone. I hope your team wins (especially if it’s the Packers—sorry, I’m an NFC guy at heart). But no matter what happens, remember we’ll be right here next week Monday Morning Quarterbacking the best of online marketing and e-commerce. See you then!

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search, search engine marketing, google, bing, Linda Bustos