Marketing Matrix: The Top 12 Marketing News Updates You Should Be Thankful For

thanksgiving for marketers As we gather around our Thanksgiving dinner tables and think about all we have to be thankful for in our personal lives, let's take an extra moment to reflect on all we should be thankful for as inbound marketers. We've covered some major marketing news stories on this blog during 2011. Not surprisingly, they've included a lot of helpful new updates and features that make our jobs as marketers a lot easier. Here's a list of some of the top news, launches, changes, and updates that tickled our fancy and serve as a reminder of what we all have to be thankful for as inbound marketers. Let's take a look!

Why We're Thankful for Facebook

Facebook Launches Revamped Insights Tool for Business Pages

facebook icon Marketers know they need to use social media, but have struggled to find a way to put ROI around social media effort. Finally, Facebook launched a revamped Insights tool that comes fully loaded with metrics that are truly insightful (hence the name) and can help you super-charge your Facebook marketing. Facebook Insights, thank you for helping us show our bosses pretty charts with lots of numbers indicating why we need to keep our social media presence going strong!

Facebook Now Allows Profile Pages to Become Business Pages

Marketers were told to be on Facebook, and they listened! Except some people set up profiles (that did pretty well!) instead of business pages. Oops. For all those who were too afraid to make the switch from profile to business page out of fear for losing their following, Facebook finally made it easy to make the transition. Facebook, thank you for giving people a chance to redeem themselves without suffering a giant social media setback!

Facebook Enhances News Feed and Introduces Ticker

Facebook's new ticker feature includes status updates from pages users are following, meaning your business page can generate even more reach by appearing as an update! As of recently, these tickers also come with sponsored stories. Facebook, even though many of us kicked and screamed (and may still be doing so), thank you for getting more eyes on our social media content, allowing us to extend our reach and generate more fans.

Why We're Thankful for Google

Google+ Finally Launches Business Pages

There she is, the story so many marketers waited for. The appearance and functionality of business pages resembled a Google+ personal page but also allowed businesses to leverage the social network to connect with their audience, spread their messages, promote their content, and generate leads. (Don't forget: this is the same year that Google launched Google+ as well). Google, thank you for listening to the thousands of businesses that requested business pages, and giving us another place to publish the content we work so hard to create!

Everything Marketers Need to Know About Google's Panda Updates

Some businesses suffered big time from Google's Panda updates, but we all learned that being helpful in our marketing is truly important and that we must be generating fresh and optimized content constantly. Google, thank you for leveling the playing field with these updates; it allows marketers with the best content to have a shot at the top, even if they don't have the most money.

Google Adds Google+ Posts and 'Add to Circles' Buttons to Search Results

Now, even if searchers do not have a Google+ account, they will still see Google+ results for their searches. I guess that's pretty beneficial if you want your Google+ business pages to be shared beyond Google users, huh? Google, thank you for rewarding people who are using your new social network and helping us build our reach even to those who haven't jumped on the bandwagon yet.

Why We're Thankful for LinkedIn

LinkedIn Launches Company Status Updates

linkedin icon This update enables companies to broadcast messages to its company followers. Companies can share text and links to other content as well as multimedia content like videos and images. LinkedIn, thank you for giving us the sharing capabilities we have on Facebook on a site that is extremely targeted to B2B marketing. It allows us to speak to a more targeted audience, which means more qualified leads.

LinkedIn Launches "LinkedIn Today"

LinkedIn Today is a news aggregation and curation service. Based off the industry you have selected on your personal page, LinkedIn will provide top headlines for stories in that designated field. LinkedIn, thank you for making it easier for us to stay up-to-date on what's happening in our industry!

LinkedIn Releases Official Share Button

The release of this button allows LinkedIn users to easily share content they find interesting and relevant with their network. LinkedIn, thank you for making it easy for users to share content straight to their profile. It makes them much more prone to share and gets content in front of more eyes.

Why We're Thankful for Twitter

Twitter Launches New Follow Button for Websites

twittericon The new button makes it easy for website visitors to start following the Twitter accounts that are most interesting to them. Twitter, thank you for giving marketers an easy way to generate new followers and, ultimately, increase social media reach.

Twitter Introduces Free Twitter Web Analytics Tool

Twitter finally introduced its own analytics tool, aimed at helping website owners understand how much traffic they generated from Twitter as well as the effectiveness of Twitter integrations on their websites. Twitter, I'll echo my sentiments to Facebook. Thank you for giving marketers the ability to justify time spent on social media!

Twitter Rolls Out Improved Search Functionality With Photos & Videos

This provides businesses with the unique opportunity to see how often their content is being shared by putting it on a public forum, and seeing if it ends up on the top results. If so, your reach is extended even further, as users may click on it just because it's on their screen. Twitter, thank you for not forgetting that content takes many forms other than text. Photos and videos are an important part of many marketers' inbound marketing strategies!

What else should marketers should be thankful for this Thanksgiving? Share some of your favorite inbound marketing updates that make you thankful!

Image credit: jelene