comScore, Inc, a leader in measuring the digital world, today released an overview of Internet usage in Europe, showing 368.6 million unique visitors went online in June 2011 for an average of 26.1 hours per person. This release highlights Internet usage in 49 European markets aggregated under the European region and provides individual reporting on 18 markets. Among the reportable markets, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, and Turkey continued to show the highest average engagement, with users from these markets spending an average of more than 31 hours online in the past month.

Spotlight: Newspaper Site Audience Increases 11 Percent in the Past Year

In June 2011, a total of 167.2 million unique visitors went to Newspaper properties in Europe (up 11 percent from a year ago), spending 40.5 minutes on average during the month. The most visited Newspaper property in Europe was the British Daily Mail, drawing 17.2 million unique visitors who each spent an average of 25.9 minutes on the site. The Daily Mail also currently ranks as the second most popular Newspaper site worldwide.

The Guardian ranked second in Europe with 13.5 million unique visitors, followed by the German newspaper Bild with 9.9 million unique visitors.

Turkish newspapers Hürriyet and Milliyet also ranked among the top five Newspaper properties, drawing 9.5 million unique visitors and 8.8 million unique visitors, respectively. Also among the top sites for June 2011 were French newspapers Le Monde and Le Figaro and Komsomolskaya Pravda and RIA Novosti from Russia. The New York Times property, the only non-European site in the list of top Newspaper entities, attracted nearly 5.7 million online readers from Europe.

Press Release

LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional network with more than 100 million members worldwide, today released LinkedInsights data that reveal interesting findings about the top names of CEOs.

The LinkedInsights data also showed surprising correlations among the lengths of names that dominate certain fields.

For instance, CEOs in the United States often have four letter names (like Jack and Fred).

According to the LinkedInsights data, the top five names for male CEOs globally are:

Peter
Bob
Jack
Bruce
Fred

The top five names for female CEOs globally are:

Deborah
Sally
Debra
Cynthia
Carolyn

“It’s no secret that people often associate their title, employer and even their education as part of what defines them and their professional brand,” said Monica Rogati, LinkedIn’s senior data scientist. “What’s interesting about this data is that we were able to discover a correlation between a professional’s name and the industry or functional area in which they work.”

For instance, in the U.S., there’s an interesting relationship between the amount of letters and top names for professionals in certain functional areas. Sales professionals tend to have short names, around four letters (like Chip, Todd and Trey), while engineers tend to have longer names, around six letters (like Rajesh, Jeremy and Andrew). U.S. professionals in the food and restaurant industry tend to have longer French names (like Thierry, Philippe and Laurent).

“Typically hypocorisms, the shorter form of a given name, are used in intimate situations as a nickname or a term of endearment,” said Dr. Frank Nuessel, the editor of NAMES: A Journal of Onomastics (a publication of the American Name Society) and a professor of classical and modern languages at the University of Louisville. “It’s possible that sales professionals in the U.S. and male CEOs around the world use these shortened versions of their name as a way to be more approachable and accessible to potential clients. Interestingly enough, female CEOs appear to prefer to use their full names and not nicknames, which could signify that they want to be taken more seriously and want co-workers to think of them in a more professional light.”

Since there are millions of professionals on LinkedIn, and not every Peter or Deborah is a CEO, LinkedIn suggests the following tips to help you stand out from the crowd of other professionals who might share your name, but not your profession:
About LinkedIn

LinkedIn operates the world’s largest professional network on the Internet with more than 100 million members in over 200 countries and territories. The LinkedIn website launched in 2003 and currently counts executives from all Fortune 500 companies as members. The company is privately-held and has a diversified business model with revenues coming from user subscriptions, advertising sales and hiring solutions. LinkedIn is headquartered in Mountain View, California.

Facebook Receives $1 Billion from Goldman Sachs Overseas Offering; Digital Sky Technologies and Goldman Sachs Also Recently Made $500 Million Direct Investment Investment Values Facebook at $50 Billion Facebook yesterday announced it has raised U.S.$1.5 billion at a valuation of approximately $50 billion.

The transaction consisted of two parts. Today, Goldman Sachs completed an oversubscribed offering to its non-U.S. clients in a fund that invested $1 billion in Facebook Class A common stock. In December, Digital Sky Technologies (DST), The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., and funds managed by Goldman Sachs invested $500 million in Facebook Class A common stock at the same valuation.

“Our business continues to perform well, and we are pleased to be able to bolster our cash position with this new financing,” said David Ebersman, Facebook’s chief financial officer. “With this investment completed, we now have greater financial flexibility to explore whatever opportunities lie ahead.”

The investment generated a significant number of questions from interested parties and Facebook has addressed the most common ones below.

Why did Facebook raise this money?

DST and Goldman Sachs approached Facebook to express their interest in making an investment, and Facebook decided it was an attractive opportunity to bolster its cash reserves and increase its financial flexibility with limited dilution to existing shareholders.

Why did Facebook choose to raise $1 billion in the overseas offering?

Under the transaction’s terms, Facebook had the option to accept between $375 million and $1.5 billion from the Goldman Sachs overseas offering, at the discretion of Facebook. While the offering was oversubscribed, Facebook made a business decision to limit the offering to $1 billion.

What are Facebook’s plans for the proceeds of this transaction?

There are no immediate plans for these funds. Facebook will continue investing to build and expand its operations.

Does this investment mean that Facebook will have more than 500 shareholders?

Even before the investment from Goldman Sachs, Facebook had expected to pass 500 shareholders at some point in 2011, and therefore expects to start filing public financial reports no later than April 30, 2012.

About Facebook

Founded in February 2004, Facebook’s mission is to give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected. Anyone can sign up for Facebook and interact with the people they know in a trusted environment. Facebook is a privately held company and is headquartered in Palo Alto, Calif.

As the global economy struggles to correct itself, and social-media marketing becomes a strategic imperative, small businesses will have exciting opportunities to expand in new directions this year.

The need for trust, value and brand transparency, among other trends from last year, are just as important today. But the current shift to geotargeting, mobile marketing and online reputation management require that small businesses modify their plans to surpass competitors.

Here are 10 marketing trends that small businesses should incorporate now to be positioned for success from the start.

1. Building reliable brand advocates. The idea that you need tens of thousands of Twitter followers, blog subscribers, LinkedIn connections and Facebook friends to build your business via social media is dead. Quality connections with those who are loyal to the business and the brand are far more helpful to spread your message than large groups of connections who disappear after the first interaction.
2. Excelling in one area rather than being all things to all people. This will be a year for small businesses to focus on their unique niches and position themselves as the definitive source for information, products and services related to the specific places in the markets where they operate.
3. Creating quality content as a viable marketing tool. Social media marketing and content marketing go hand-in-hand, and this is the year businesses will create useful content that adds value to the online conversation and to people’s lives. The Web is a cluttered place. Amazing content is essential to break through the noise.
4. Moving more marketing dollars to social media. Statistics show that large and small companies are shifting budget dollars to social media and other digital marketing initiatives and away from print and radio advertising. Consumers spend more time online than ever and to reach them and stay competitive, small businesses need to have a presence on the social Web.
5. Tracking brand reputations on the social Web in greater detail. Social media has given consumers a large platform to voice their opinions, and small-business owners are realizing the importance of actively monitoring their reputation on the Web. With dashboards and social media aggregators like Hootsuite and Spredfast, it’s easier than ever for small businesses to develop, nurture and track their stature online .
6. Increase in branded online experiences to meet diverse consumer needs. Simply having a Twitter account or Facebook page isn’t enough this year. Small businesses must surround consumers with branded online destinations such as a blog, LinkedIn profile, YouTube channel, Flickr profile and so on. Consumers can then pick and choose how they want to interact with your brand. Of course, quality trumps quantity, so extending a brand across the social Web must be done strategically to maximize opportunities without compromising content and communications.
7. Pursuing mobile marketing. There is absolutely no doubt this is the year of mobile marketing. While still in its infancy, it is the marketing imperative of the future. With mobile advertising, branded mobile apps and mobile marketing apps like Foursquare, consumers will expect businesses to have a mobile presence in 2011.
8. Geotargeting and localized marketing will become a top priority. Local discount websites like Groupon and local review sites like Yelp make it easy for consumers to find deals and reviews about businesses in their neighborhoods and beyond. Creating targeted, local marketing campaigns using these popular tools will become the norm this year.
9. Accepting that silo marketing is ineffective. Offline, online and mobile marketing initiatives create an opportunity to lead consumers from one message to another by integrating those strategies. You can drive a significantly higher return on investment by cross-promoting branded online destinations, discounts, contests and events.
10. Co-marketing to boost returns and lower marketing costs. The economy is still struggling, which means small businesses can benefit from economies of scale by partnering with complementary businesses to develop co-marketing programs in 2011. Promotional partnerships not only lead to reduced costs but also can lead to increased exposure to new audiences.

This year, all businesses will be experimenting with a variety of online, localized and mobile marketing initiatives. Remember, even if you’re not leveraging marketing trends and opportunities, your competitors are.

SOURCE: Reuters

content by Entrepreneur

By Susan Gunelius at Entrepreneur.com

Google has announced the top 100 website traffic ranks in Turkey.

Rank Site Unique Visitors (users) Reach Page Views Has Advertising
1 facebook.com 16000000 75.8% 36000000000 Yes
2 live.com 11000000 52.8% 970000000 Yes
3 msn.com 5600000 26.7% 250000000 Yes
4 mynet.com 5000000 24.1% 1000000000 Yes
5 izlesene.com 4600000 22% 190000000 Yes
6 blogcu.com 4300000 20.5% 65000000 Yes
7 dailymotion.com 3800000 18.4% 110000000 Yes
8 hurriyet.com.tr 3500000 16.6% 590000000 Yes
9 microsoft.com 3500000 16.7% 61000000 Yes
10 wikipedia.org 3500000 16.7% 60000000 No
11 milliyet.com.tr 3200000 15.3% 590000000 Yes
12 sahibinden.com 3100000 14.9% 1200000000 Yes
13 gittigidiyor.com 3100000 15% 210000000 Yes
14 ekolay.net 2600000 12.4% 250000000 Yes
15 oyunlar1.com 2100000 10.3% 280000000 Yes
16 vidivodo.com 2000000 9.4% 46000000 Yes
17 yahoo.com 2000000 9.4% 170000000 Yes
18 donanimhaber.com 1900000 9.3% 34000000 Yes
19 haberturk.com 1800000 8.6% 210000000 Yes
20 travian.com.tr 1800000 8.5% 170000000 No
21 hepsiburada.com 1600000 7.8% 97000000 No
22 garanti.com.tr 1600000 7.7% 80000000 Yes
23 facebookvideoindir.gen.tr 1600000 7.9% 29000000 Yes
24 sgk.gov.tr 1600000 7.8% 170000000 No
25 frmtr.com 1600000 7.8% 18000000 Yes
26 haberler.com 1500000 7.1% 56000000 Yes
27 memurlar.net 1500000 7.1% 96000000 Yes
28 bing.com 1500000 7% 34000000 Yes
29 imageshack.us 1500000 7.1% 20000000 Yes
30 adobe.com 1500000 7% 19000000 Yes
31 rapidshare.com 1500000 7.2% 38000000 Yes
32 gezginler.net 1500000 7% 21000000 Yes
33 msxlabs.org 1500000 7.1% 14000000 Yes
34 wordpress.com 1400000 6.5% 15000000 Yes
35 oyunskor.com 1300000 6.4% 230000000 Yes
36 sabah.com.tr 1300000 6.3% 190000000 Yes
37 timsah.com 1300000 6.4% 28000000 Yes
38 twitter.com 1300000 6.3% 97000000 Yes
39 hotfile.com 1300000 6.4% 31000000 No
40 turkcebilgi.com 1300000 6.3% 12000000 Yes
41 haber7.com 1200000 5.9% 97000000 Yes
42 uludagsozluk.com 1200000 5.8% 8200000 Yes
43 fanatik.ekolay.net 1100000 5.2% 110000000 No
44 gazetevatan.com 1100000 5.3% 310000000 Yes
45 turkcell.com.tr 1100000 5.3% 41000000 No
46 isbank.com.tr 1100000 5.3% 61000000 No
47 maxicep.com 1100000 5.3% 13000000 Yes
48 webhatti.com 1100000 5.3% 6700000 Yes
49 ttnet.com.tr 1100000 5.3% 19000000 Yes
50 antoloji.com 1100000 5.3% 24000000 Yes
51 iminent.com 1000000 4.9% 50000000 Yes
52 internethaber.com 1000000 4.8% 66000000 Yes
53 araba.com 1000000 4.8% 170000000 Yes
54 osym.gov.tr 1000000 4.8% 50000000 No
55 eksisozluk.com 990000 4.7% 19000000 Yes
56 tr.gg 990000 4.8% 23000000 Yes
57 tamindir.com 920000 4.4% 14000000 Yes
58 millipiyango.gov.tr 920000 4.4% 12000000 No
59 arabam.com 920000 4.4% 97000000 Yes
60 uzmantv.com 920000 4.4% 21000000 Yes
61 saglikalani.com 910000 4.4% 9000000 No
62 anadolu.edu.tr 910000 4.4% 61000000 Yes
63 izafet.com 910000 4.3% 5100000 Yes
64 sehirfirsati.com 900000 4.3% 8200000 No
65 ntvmsnbc.com 840000 4% 45000000 Yes
66 mozilla.com 840000 4% 13000000 Yes
67 ask.com 840000 4% 28000000 Yes
68 meleklermekani.com 840000 4% 9900000 Yes
69 sahadan.com 840000 4% 98000000 Yes
70 meteor.gov.tr 840000 4% 45000000 No
71 kendincos.net 830000 4% 11000000 Yes
72 kariyer.net 830000 4% 230000000 Yes
73 tumgazeteler.com 830000 4% 7400000 Yes
74 hotmail.com 820000 4% 14000000 Yes
75 video-klipleri.org 820000 3.9% 14000000 Yes
76 itusozluk.com 820000 4% 11000000 Yes
77 alternatifim.com 760000 3.6% 14000000 Yes
78 akbank.com 750000 3.6% 21000000 No
79 kanald.com.tr 750000 3.6% 28000000 Yes
80 tatliaskim.com 750000 3.6% 6800000 Yes
81 beyazgazete.com 740000 3.6% 9000000 Yes
82 vodafone.com.tr 690000 3.3% 50000000 Yes
83 yapikredi.com.tr 690000 3.3% 38000000 Yes
84 zaman.com.tr 690000 3.3% 24000000 Yes
85 diziport.com 690000 3.3% 55000000 Yes
86 metacafe.com 680000 3.2% 6700000 Yes
87 fizy.com 680000 3.3% 130000000 No
88 inndir.com 680000 3.3% 11000000 Yes
89 opendns.com 630000 3% 16000000 Yes
90 ensonhaber.com 630000 3% 46000000 Yes
91 sinemalar.com 630000 3% 19000000 Yes
92 fotomac.com.tr 620000 3% 73000000 Yes
93 zaplat.com 620000 3% 8300000 Yes
94 kadinlarkulubu.com 620000 3% 19000000 Yes
95 netlog.com 570000 2.7% 74000000 Yes
96 sporx.com 570000 2.7% 46000000 Yes
97 usagc.org 560000 2.7% 3100000 Yes
98 dizifrm.com 560000 2.7% 16000000 Yes
99 htspor.com 560000 2.7% 11000000 Yes
100 samanyoluhaber.com

A new feature from Google!

Google has introduced Live Preview option in their search results. The option has a zoom icon placed next to each search results’ title.

You have to click the site desription just under the site title to use this option.

Clicking on the zoom icon will generate a quick snapshot of the result page in a simple graphic design with parts of the page.  The feature is quite fast and can is helpful to give a overall idea about the page you are going to visit.

I tried it on Firefox browser and liked it. This live preview gives an idea about the content before you visit the web site.

The preview shows a complete screenshot of the web page. In case if the height of the webpage crosses a particular length, the image at the end will be cropped.

Search results looks like in the social media browser Rock Melt, the browser I’ve met via YoutTube.

Unlike Instant Search and keyword suggestions, I couldn’t find any disable this option right now.  I’m sure we will have a Firefox add-on soon and never disable it on Internet Explorer

Welcome to the school of Gaga — or at least the course of Gaga.

Next semester, University of South Carolina professor Mathieu Deflem will teach a class called Lady Gaga and the Sociology of Fame.

“Within the framework of the sociology of popular culture and music, this course specifically focuses on socially relevant elements in the rise of Lady Gaga’s popularity to her current status as a burgeoning pop music icon,” reads the course’s description.

“The central objective of this course, then, is to unravel some of the sociologically relevant dimensions of the fame of Lady Gaga with respect to her music, videos, fashion, and other artistic endeavours, with special attention for the role of: business and marketing strategies; the role of the old and new media; fans and live concerts; gay culture; religious and political themes; sex and sexuality; and the cities of New York and Hollywood.”

Enrolment, which starts next week, is limited to 50 students, but Deflem plans to open it up to 120 students next fall.

Editor’s note: I think it’s a smart strategy by University of South Carolina. Putting popular characters marketing strategies and social impacts  into play is attractive for students.

Source: TorontoSun

More about Lady Gaga on OzanVural.com:

Just dance with Lady Gaga on Twitter

Top 5 Twitter users and their content strategy

Ertuğrul Özkök is a Turkish celebrity. He is more than a simple journalist or a  simple editor-in chief,  nor simple media stuff.

And now he starts to write for the famous German newspaper Bild.  What is the Bild?

The Bild is a German newspaper published by Axel Springer AG.  The paper is published from Monday to Saturday, while on Sundays, Bild am Sonntag  is published instead, which has a different style and its own editors. Bild is tabloid in style, although actually broadsheet in size. It is the best-selling newspaper in Europe and has the sixth-largest circulation worldwide.

Its motto, prominently displayed below the logo, is unabhängig, überparteilich.

Now let’s take a look at who is Ertuğrul Özkök  how come he is so popular?

He is famous as a Turkish journalist and a daily columnist. Between 1990 and 2010, he was the editor-in-chief for Hürriyet which is leading newspaper published in Turkish in Turkey, United States and some European countries. Özkök is an interesting character and his articles are generally controversial usually. He is also known for advocating modernization of Turkey, highly supporter of globalization, and E.U. access of Turkey. He is also known with his strong relationships with Turkey’s and EU’s top politicians, journalists and business people.

It is rumoured that he left his position at Hurriyet because of the AKP -government pressure for having really hypercritical point of views (as I agree most of them). However it is never proved.

One of his famous journalist friends who is the editor in chief of German newspaper; The  Bild, Kai Diekmann. According to their old friendship and in my opinion; Özkok’s ease work-time after he quit the position-editor in chief- Hurriyet and now he starts to write in Bild.

His first article is a no surprise because of his character and editorial style.

He says, “I’m a muslim. I do not go to mosques. I drink. I have specialty on wine spirit. I will make Christians angry. I will make Muslims angry. Sometime will come and I will maket hem angry at the same time. I like provocations. And I do it well.”

In my opinion,  Bild’s strategy is smart and they will lead to success. Turkish population in Germany is like a small country and they want them to subscribe, they want to be talked for sure. And they hired the most spectacular journalist for their target auidence on this strategy.

Many people  don’t like him so much because of his editorial behaviour about the current government when they first succeed to rule the country. But most of them read every article of him. It does prove he is successfull. And his Sunday articles are also enjoyable, makes you think about at life but not politics. We are working with him in the same media group, Dogan Media Group. But I’ve seen him only for once at the night I was awarded as the most creative of our group. So I’ve got nothing to write personal more. But it is not the topic. It’s what the Bild does.

Good content management from Bild. From now on, you can read his article from Bild website. Let’s see what will show us about it later.

As well known, contexual advertising is some kind of higly targeted advertising on the web. The ads chosen by the advertiser and served by automated systems based on the content displayed to the user. This is simple logic with complex background.

But sometimes it is not.

Natural -let’s say organic contexual advertising- results are eveywhere on the web and they seem perfect with just by luck.

On the left, you see a health media company banner ad by www.realage.com.tr on a sports website (www.fanatik.com.tr) mentioning about Online Prostate Cancer Screening and Risk Assessment.

With a piece of good luck, the internet editor just updated a sports article about completely different topic but the picture shows as the same feeling as the banner does. The old man (Fenerbahçe SK former coach Luis Aragones) seems like having problems with his prostate.

Another example is from a news website www.milliyet.com.tr and one of their article about Benedict Garrett, a 30 year old sex education teacher who moonlights as, well, a porn star.

With a piece of good luck the random banner is a condom advertisement.

Isn’t it the perfect match?

These examples are beyond the technology and segmentation, they’re just the miracles of content and internet.

Enjoy when you see one.

Content is the king.

Marketing is a must.

So you should bet your card on your content marketing for sure.

What is content marketing?

It’s a technique. A technique creating a proper content for highly targeted audience in way of profit on your product, no matter what type it is.

It’s about entertaining your audience with exactly the content they need and they can consume easily. And it’s about being honest.

If you doubt on if it works, surely it does work already.

You got to create your content just for your purpose, no less no much. Sometimes you have  to be fast in updating depends on your aim, sometimes you don’t, if you trust your unique content.

It’s neither social media marketing, nor digital pr.

It’s content marketing standing on top.