Ty Downing » Social Media

Google Reportedly To Buy Yelp…Gulp!

Ty — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 15:18:28 +0000

This weekend I have been hearing rumblings that Google is poised to buy Yelp for $500 million, a social network of sorts based on reviews of local business establishments. Let me make a prediction, 2010 will be the year of “local Search” and local UGC (User Generated Reviews)

What does this mean for Google? They can strong arm the local search market by acquiring Yelp, and snag an additional 25 million monthly unique visitors! Now this will add to Google’s recent aggressive push towards their own Business Local product, and “Favorite Places on Google” which will allow businesses (Who are verified) to place Google’s branded sticker on their store-front window. Take a look at this below:

Getting back to Yelp, do you see how huge this could be? The “local Search” wars are ramping up, thus why I am actually teaching a class on local search next month to show businesses how critical it will be to know how to get listed in these products and services for local business. Let us not forget the mobile search applications too such as Foursqaure, Gowalla and UrbanSpoon. Take a look at the comparison of these mobile and local search behemoths….2010 should be fun! What do you think? Please leave your comments below if you agree or disagree with my predictions…

Why Do You Think Google Bought AdMob?

Ty — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:06:40 +0000

I Spoke At SMBF And Loved It!

Ty — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 22:18:57 +0000

You may be asking, “What is SMBF” right? Well, this acronym was no doubt a popular #hashtag trending on Twitter. It stands for Social Media Business Forum, an event that took place just a few days ago in Raleigh, NC. A well known social media thought leader, and good friend, Wayne Sutton (@waynesutton) invited me to have a speaking part, and I took him up on it. I had a blast at his event. He combined with Kipp Bodner (@kbodnar32), Jeffrey L. Cohen (@dgtlpapercuts), and Ryan Boyles (@therab) to create the first ever SMBF conference.

The line-up they had was truly incredible, take a partial look at some of the tracks, and their speakers:

Twitter: It’s Not Just A Micro-Blog
Laura Fitton (@Pistachio)
Advertising And The Social Web: Can It Work?
Greg Ng, Patrick O’Keefe, David Millsaps
Business Blogging Best Practices
Jeff Cohen, DJ Waldow, Alison Bolen
Monitoring Basics
Chris Miller, Jeremy Smith, Wayne Sutton
Networking with Facebook and LinkedIn
Ty Downing

Take a look at my brief SlideShare of this (It was brief, but designed this way for more audience interaction)

SMBF- Networking with Facebook and LinkedIn

View more presentations from Ty Downing.

Here also is a quick video I took of the intro to Waynes “Social Monitoring panel”

One of the highlights was the Keynote. It was both informative, and funny. I invite you to take a look at some of the skilled panelist they had.

Keynote Panel – The Future of Business on the Social Web

Jason Falls, Laura Fitton (@Pistachio), Lucretia Pruitt, John Andrews

Overall this was a wonderful event, I had a blast presenting, and look forward to the next event, thanks Wayne, Kipp, Jeffrey and Ryan!

Social Media For Real Estate, A Perfect Combo!

Ty — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 13:25:38 +0000

Last week our team comprised of me, Tim Moore and Lori Lorusso, had the privilege of teaching nearly 20 real estate agents from Coldwell Banker, Sea Coast Realty here in Wilmington, NC, the basics of social media. We had a blast with them, and we equally learned a lot from them. Social media is really an incredible useful tool for real estate agents, and as you’ll see from the testimonials, they agree. One of the agents, Ken Keegan, actually received 2 leads after the first day of our training using LinkedIn…no joke, watch his video too. The average home purchase price in his community of St. James Plantation, is about $500,000 so you do the math regarding how much he could possibly make off commission…! Drinks on Ken!! Again, these potential sales were a direct result of social media…

Enjoy the testimonials.

Renee’ Follow her on Twitter

Tricia Urban & Brenda Bokano Tricia on Twitter – Brenda on Twitter

Sherri Pridgen Sherri on Twitter

Ken Keegan Ken’s LinkedIn Profile

Chloe’s First Tweet! Chloe on Twitter

Peggy Stone Peggy on Facebook

Tricia Urban Gets an “A” for optimizing her social profiles!

I’m Such A Corker!

Ty — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 11:26:38 +0000

Actually I am not. Corker is defined as “one that is excellent or remarkable” so doesn’t really fit me, however it does fit Jenni Simcoe and her business, Corkologie.com. Jenni was nice enough to send us a couple samples of her eco-friendly cork mouse pads, and they are not only cool, but easy on the environment. You can get custom eco-friendly names put on your own pads too. For a live view of the mouse pad I got, take a look below at my TwitVid, I chose the “Home Sweet Earth” pad. Which one would you choose? Let me know in a comment below. Be sure to follow Jenni on Twitter here.

Jenni, thanks again for promoting a “Green” environment, got to keep mother Earth clean…