Let us start by looking at how consumers are using their mobile phones in US, Europe and Japan.

• Clearly we see a range of functional and entertainment areas being touched upon.
• Further, Japan appears to be leading in most.
• 34.4% of the mobile users in US made use of mobile applications as per the survey in the last quarter of 2010.

Between 2008-2010, 300,000 mobile applications were developed. In 2010 these 300,000+ applications were downloaded 10.9 billion times. IDC¹ predicts that global downloads will reach 183 billion⁷ in 2015 and will be worth more than US$35 billion.

A mobile application is a software application that runs in a smartphone, tablet or other portable device.

These are provided by developers by submitting them to app stores, who then retail them online to the consumers.

Popular app stores are Apple’s iphone App store, Google’s Android Market, Samsung Apps, Blackberry’s App World, Microsoft Windows Marketplace, and Sony Ericsson’s PlayNow Arena.

There is also an increasing trend of free third party cross platform app stores which cater to both smartphones and feature phones. The largest amongst these is Get Jar with over 350,000 apps and over 2 Billion downloads. Others are Cydia, Handster, Amazon Appstore for Android, and Handango.

In India we have seen a few players open their application stores. For its 145 million subscribers, Vodafone India on 1st November, 2011 launched an app store named – Vstore⁹. It has a collection of over 10,000 free and paid apps for four major mobile operating systems namely Android, Java,Symbian and BlackBerry.

BSNL, India’s state owned telecom provider has also launched its app store on September 22¹⁰, 2011. Apart from these Bharti Airtel had already had launched its store last year ‘Airtel App Central’ in Feb 2010.

Apart from these, there are other development companies with plans to open App stores of their own. Witness appBazar by Pune based Webonise Labs^12,13.

To get an idea of the present mobile app market, we note that in 2012, the market is estimated to be US$ 17.5 Billion¹⁴ according to a study commissioned by Get Jar. The best app development companies¹⁵ in this marketplace according to SourcingLine¹⁵ are: Intersog (USA, Chicago), CDN Solutions Group (India, Indore), Dot Com Infoway (India, Chennai) amongst others.

In the US, according to Nielsen² (June 2010), the most used (as opposed to downloaded) apps across all smartphones, are Facebook, Google Maps and The Weather Channel (TWC). The most popular categories are games; news; maps; social networking and music.We expect the categories to remain similar at the time of this writing also.

The Facebook App has been downloaded 100 million times from the independent app store GetJar, according to GetJar² (December 2010) (making this the most downloaded app from any app store). The irony is that this is not a download app it’s a short cut to the Facebook mobile site – Facebook is a Web app, available for anyone with any Web-enabled handset.

Demand for app stores is expected to peak in 2013. ABI Research (May 2010) predicts that app stores will slowly decline as subscribers migrate from download apps to mobile Web sites and more popular download apps, such as social networking, are preloaded on mobile devices.

Between Apple and Google, Google has recently overtaken Apple in the number of apps downloaded³. With a 44% share vs Apple’s 31%, Android users are now downloading more mobile programs than iPhone and iPad users combined. This is despite the Android Market only having 319,161 apps at the end of last month³ vs. the Apple App Store’s 459,589. Reason being that Android phones sell twice as much as Apple, hence more downloads.

By the end of 2011, Android market will have as many users as Apple’s App store, as shown in the following graphic, further strengthening the Android platform.

For now, let us have a look at some of the best paid and free apps available for various domains as offered from Apple⁴:

For the iPhone

All-Time Top Paid iPhone Apps

1. Doodle Jump – game

2. Tap Tap Revenge 3 – game

3. Pocket God – game

4. Angry Birds – game

5. Tap Tap Revenge 2.6  - game

All-Time Top Free iPhone Apps

1. Facebook – social network

2. Pandora – personalized internet radio service that helps you find new music based on your old and current favorites.

3. Google Mobile App – Search Google for free from your mobile phone with Google Mobile App

4. Shazam – music identification – entertainment

5. Movies by Flixster – watch movies

Accounting for nine out of the top 10, video games dominate the paid apps market, while the most popular free apps are more diverse.

For the iPad

All-Time Top Paid iPad Apps

1. SoundHound – instant music search and discovery

2. StickWars – game

3. FlightTrack – Live flight status tracker and flight tracker maps

4. Backbreaker Football – award-winning, visually stunning and addictive football game!

5. Calorie Tracker – search the extensive database of more than 625,000 foods for nutritional information including fat, sugar, carbohydrates, cholesterol and more

All-Time Top Free iPad Apps

1. Pandora – personalized internet radio service that helps you find new music based on your old and current favorites

2. Google Mobile App – Search Google for free from your mobile phone with Google Mobile App

3. Movies by Flixster – watch movies

4. Google Earth – Google Earth application on Ipad.

5. Yelp – to search for places to eat, shop, drink, relax and play then read reviews.

Some other domains and apps5 popular in them are:

1. News Apps

CNN App, The Wall Street Journal, NYTimes, BBC News, The Weather Channel

2. Business

CNBC, American Express, Mint.com

3. Travel

Jetsetter, Tripadvisor, Lonely Planet, Expedia Hotels

4. Sports & Fitness

Nike training Club, Sports Tracker, Men’s health workouts, Yoga stretch

5. Lifestyle

Jamie’s recipes, Weber’s on the grill, Surf report

6. Social Networking

Twitter, Faceebook, LinkedIn

7. Education

iStudiezPro, World Atlas by National Geographic, New Oxford Amercian Dictionary

This 2nd post, concludes our two intial posts, on introducing mobile applications to the reader. In our future posts, we shall evaluate how to test such applications.

References

1. IDC: http://www.idc.com/home.jsp?t=1319977618141, International Data Corporation

2. http://mobithinking.com/mobile-marketing-tools/latest-mobile-stats

3. http://www.askmen.com/entertainment/guy_gear_250/252_android-vs-apple.html

4. http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/011911-apple-appstore-iphone-ipad-downloads.html

5. http://www.apple.com/iphone/from-the-app-store/

6. http://www.research2guidance.com/by-the-end-of-2011-android-market-will-have-as-many-users-as-apple%e2%80%99s-app-store/

7. http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/28/idc-predicts-183-billion-mobile-app-downloads-by-2015-rise-of-in-app-purchasing/

8. http://www.getjar.com/about/

9. http://www.themobileindian.com/new-launches/1045_Vodafone-launches-app-store-for-4-platforms

10. http://telecomtalk.info/bsnl-launches-mobile-app-store/77303/

11.http://www.airtel.in/wps/wcm/connect/About%20Bharti%20Airtel /bharti+airtel/media+centre/bharti+airtel+news/mobile/pg-bharti-airtel-launches-indias-first-mobile-app-store-airtel-app-central

12. http://www.theindiangeek.com/2011/02/app-bazaar-indian-android-app-store.html

13. http://contest.appbazar.in/

14. http://mashable.com/2010/03/17/mobile-app-market-17-5-billion/

15. http://www.sourcingline.com/directory/mobile-application-developers

Link juice flow
The amount of link juice available in each web page is indicated by its page rank. For example,  a web page with page rank 6 has 6 times the amount of link juice available compared to a page with page rank 1. The quality of the link juice passed through a web page is depends on the number of outbound links. If we have two web pages with equal amount of web juice but one has 1 outbound link and another one has 6 outbound links. The quantity of link juice released to a third page from the single outbound link page, will be 6 times the quantity of the link juice passed from the web page with 6 outbound links.

As another example, the PR of a page is expressed some what exponentially, so a PR7 is not 7 times better then PR1, it is more likely to be 128 times better. The link juice is split up amongst the outbound links on the page. So if there are 100 other links on a PR7 page, it is more akin to the juice from a sole link on a PR1 page. Means links from a high ranking page is better, but the number of outbound links does dilute the juice passed.

Link juice optimization
When we try to control the flow of link juice in our website, this practice is called link juice optimization. It is the practice by which the page rank flows in a website.

It is also called page rank sculpting.

On many occasions, the highest ranking pages on a site are the privacy policy pages or profile pages instead of their conversion pages. The reason is not that not only are these pages filled with the company and/ or product name, but also they’re getting high quantity of link juice from linking directly to the higher ranked homepage, and similarly from many other pages in the site. In other words, the page rank for such low importance pages is unnecessarily high. This is called link juice leakage. This is corrected using rel=”nofollow” tag.

No Follow Tag
A link on a web page is followed during the indexing process of Search engines. Pages with many incoming links are ranked higher in searches than pages with few incoming links. If there are links on your blog that you don’t want search engines to find, use the No Follow tag to make them invisible in terms search indexing and ranking. A link using the ‘no-follow’ tag will look like this:

<a href=”http://www.anothersite.com” rel=”nofollow”>Another Site</a>.

When a search engine sees a ‘no-follow’ tag in an HTML link, it will not follow it, nor assign link popularity to the destination page.

No follow tags are the method of link juice optimization.

These No Follow tags should used for links like:

1. Login/ Signup/ Register
2. Logo
3. Archives
4. Copyright
5. Privacy Policy
6. Terms of Service
7. Feedback

To read an extended version of this blog post – please visit http://www.grazitti.com/articles/introduction-to-link-juice-optimization.html

Why do we need Mobile application testing ?

Consider some statistics:

• 5.3 billion^1,2 is the number estimated by the International Telecommunication Union as the total number of mobile subscriptions in the world by the end of 2010. Growth being led by India and China.
• Smart phone sales accounted for about 22% of total mobile sales in 2010^1,4,5
• 25% of all smart phone users do most of their online browsing on their phone⁶.
• Over 300,000 mobile applications were developed between 2007-2010¹.
• Payments by mobile ‘m-payments’, estimated to be about US$ 240 Billion in 2011¹.

Next we see how the following graphic illustrates that a smart phone user’s maximum time is spent on his Applications. We assume a similar time distribution holds true across other phones.

Again, consider the following chart⁶ for both feature as well as smart phone user. Note feature phone sales still outnumber smart phone sales by 4:1, not to count the existing ownership.

We observe that 44% of cell phone owners use their phones to access the internet. 35% to play games. And similar.

Next, we shall briefly have a look at some image samples of mobile applications and games on mobile phones and how sometimes the applications give us an error.

And then we shall have a look at some manufacturer statistics wrt mobile applications.

Error Example

Another Game example

Consider the top smartphone sales statistics for 2010¹:

Nokia has a huge dominance, maybe to our surprise, given the popularity of iPhones and Blackberries in this part of the world.

Similarly consider how the dominant OS platforms in the above smartphones are expected to grow between 2009 -2015¹.

What we can observe is that Android & Windows Mobile are expected to gain at the cost of Symbian.

To summarise, there is clearly a need for a coherent strategy to test the various applications being put out in such a huge marketplace. We propose to show how to go about doing that in part 2 of our series. Do read.

Thanks for reading and we’ll welcome your feedback.

List of Reference sites

1. http://mobithinking.com/mobile-marketing-tools/latest-mobile-stats
2. http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/statistics/at_glance/KeyTelecom.html
3. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_mobile_phones_in_use
4. http://www.idc.com/about/viewpressrelease.jsp?containerId=prUS22689111&sectionId=null&elementId=null&pageType=SYNOPSIS
5. http://www.strategyanalytics.com/default.aspx?mod=pressreleaseviewer&a0=5000
6. http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2011/Smartphones/Summary.aspx

By now it is estimated that other search engines also use it in their search methodology, or similar versions of it.

What we mean by QDF is that the algorithm is able to decide which fresh content should be displayed high up in the search rankings in addition to the content with highest page rank, given the fact that there is a huge rising interest in a particular event or news.

When there is peaking query traffic for a particular search phrase, news, and blogposts about a topic on the internet, then Google (speaking of Google only) is aware that this particular news item is hot.

Eg. If a query is typed in as Libya, the user most likely is interested in the latest volatile situation in Libya.  So optimized results for the fresh content posted on the Libya situation would be displayed above the traditional pages on Libya.

Or say Michael Jackson’s death. Or the Japanese Tsunami and its nuclear disaster challenge.

That is, when there is news about celebrities, events, epidemics or any other news generating huge interest on the net, Google will push fresh content for that topic to the top versus pages that have stood the test of time and are likely to be of better content and higher quality.

QDF takes into account Search Volume, News Coverage, Blog Coverage and possibly Toolbar data. As expected, Google has a patent on its methods for the above data sampling and usage.

This was the explanation part of QDF.

Let us now see how QDF functionality allows us to exploit its functionality, to increase our visibility on the search engines.

First, we shall explore how we can drive traffic to your website and make it possibly rank high. Once it ranks high it becomes a self-reinforcing authority and is referenced by other people looking for the topic.

The idea in this case is, to create and post highly relevant content to your website for a particular topic that is generating huge interest in the internet.

The sooner a post is out, the sooner you can hope that Google will Index your story, and hopefully traffic will come to you.

However there is a catch in this. One, you’re recommended that the post needs to be out for a trend in a matter of hours, not days. Second, if it gets listed, promote your post. Link to it from your existing website pages. Keep adding new stuff to the article. Otherwise the ranking could be temporary.

Further, in writing for QDF, aim for the long tail. Although QDF is great for short, really competitive ‘head’ terms, QDF excels for long tail search phrases. These might not get higher traffic, but can get higher rankings and selected visitors.

Further still, do your site optimization ahead of time. If your site is does not show up in search engines, neither will your article.

The second case where we can use QDF functionality and derive mileage from it is, e.g. in a situation like a product launch.

Let’s assume a corporate is launching a new product. We take the specific example of what Dell did when it launched its ‘Adamo’ range of notebooks in March 2009. Consider the following:

• It generated news around the new product launch. News articles and press releases being one method. So that these would come up in the Google search.
• It bought a new highly relevant domain name www.adamobydell.com, which it knew would give a boost to SEO, since it had the word Adamo inside it.
• It linked all of its blogs and press releases to this new domain.
• Dell connected with tech bloggers on the web, and leaked information about the product early. This kind of jump started the blog mechanism and also created a feel good feeling in the bloggers contacted exclusively, much to the likely benefit of Dell, by getting positive reviews.
• Further, all this blogger community was linking back to the www.adamobydell.com site, since Dell made sure that all the photos and interactive elements were hosted there. Today this domain redirects to Dell.com
• Moreover, Dell leveraged its other web properties e.g. www.dell.com by publicising and linking to this new site for Adamo.

By doing activities like these Dell was able to ensure the QDF algorithm captured its activity spike and ranked its new site at search rank one for its relevant targeted keywords on the very first day of the product range Adamo launch.
That then, was a brief introduction to QDF, and its possible utilization.
Hope you enjoyed reading this post, as much I did, writing it. My acknowledgments in particular to Rand Fishkin, CEO of SEOMOZ.org from whom the above Dell example has been borrowed.

Google+ allows individuals to share photos, messages, videos and also allows them to integrate maps and images into the service. The service was launched on June 28, 2011 and after only two weeks of launch, Google+ had 18 million users.  It has set the record as the fastest growing social networking site.

New Features

Google+ provides many new features over Facebook. The best I liked was that there is no character limit of your post. I was also impressed with Google+ because of its new features:

• Circles: It is  a new feature and also
  very well  implemented. It’s easier to create rather than the friend list in Facebook or Twitter list. Circle allows you to organize your connection according to your social connections like friends, family, work friends etc.
• Sparks: With the help of this feature any individual can connect with the network of others with the common interest.
• Hangouts: It is a key innovative feature of Google+. It is basically group video chat and 10 people can chat at the same time. We can also post YouTube videos on Google+ hangout. This may be the Facebook killer feature. There could also be a “business hangout” for meetings that allows companies to organize, archive text, image, videos conference.
• Huddle: This is group instant messaging service.

These are the new services of Google+, which I liked the most.

My views about Google+

When first I heard about Google launching Google+, I was totally shocked. Do we need another social networking site? But when I watched Google+ demo… I was totally impressed.

I am also happier with the privacy aspect in Google+. Facebook appeared to be compromising my privacy on many accounts. Eg. Facebook’s chat application. Anyone can add me to their group, even every other day a stranger adds me to his group. It is very frustrating. But this is not so in Google+.

What would you think about Google+?
Do you think it will be better than Facebook ?

SEO methods changed with Google Panda update:

After Google Panda, SEO methods need to be viewed from a fresh perspective. All methods of link building strategies and the direction are changed in some dimensions as a result of this update. All the efforts that go into increasing the page rank of a website are modified by Google Panda.

Strategy to recover if you have been hit by a Google Panda update:

Pay more and more attention to SEO. Here are some key points for SEO updates that a webmaster should consider after suffering a hit by Google Panda.

• First priority to On Page Optimization: You have to give first priority to on page optimization. The absence of this will play an important role in displacing website traffic. So if you want more traffic on your website, you have to concentrate on On-Page optimization.
• Social Networking Sites: With SEO, you have to include social networking links within your site. So you have to give attention to social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn also.
• Fresh, Quality content on your website: Google loves new content. So post frequently fresh and quality content on your website. Avoid copying and pasting the content on your website.
• Quality Back Links: Stop link building from low quality site. Always try to take back links from quality sites.
• Knowledge of Internet linking strategy: The internet linking strategy you are applying must be well understood. That is designed to raise the informative value of content that is on your page.
• Use strong signals: Implement sitemaps, robots.txt file, and all the standard URLs so that you can build strong signals within your relevant pages.

So, if you want to recover from a Google Panda hit, you should apply such strategies. With the help of these key points you can increase your page rank and get more traffic on your website.

1. Plan the testing process:

• Create a test plan specific to a level of testing (e.g. system testing, unit testing, etc.).
• Test levels should emphasise on how the testing schema and project test plan apply to different levels of testing and state exceptions if present.
• A test plan must contain scope of the testing and all the assumptions that are made.
• Completion criteria need to be specified to determine when the specific level of testing is complete.

2. Involve QA from the beginning:

• QA Engineers should be involved in the project from the initial stage of the Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC)i.e., Requirement gathering. This helps identify the possible bug prone areas and design the software so that these areas are properly and efficiently managed.
• Later stage involvement of the tester may affect the quality of the software as the design may not allow the changes which are required to remove the bugs forcing you to compromise in certain areas.

3. Document, Document, Document:

• Documentation is a major step of the testing process. Documentation always helps the testers to get into the project detail in-depth.
• To understand the project, documenting the project requirements is a very useful exercise.
• Most companies do not take documentation very seriously at the early stages of the project which results in critical problems in the later phase.
• Especially if a new tester joins any ongoing project, proper documentation of that project will help him/her to get on top of the project very easily.

4. Acquire domain knowledge:

QA is the users proxy in the development organization. For a QA person it is critical that he:

• Acquires good domain knowledge. He needs to quickly grasp as many concepts as he can.
• Review online resources about the domain on which the test application is based.
• If possible, get training on the domain or meet the domain experts to advice.

Ideally, organizations should arrange for formal domain training sessions for the QA team.

5. Communicate to bridge the Developer-QA gap:

Developers and QA come from different planets – developers are happy if a software works once, QA is happy if it breaks once. So a communication gap is to be expected. However, this gap will result in lack of in-depth knowledge of the testing application and which in turn will create unidentified defects in the application.

• Communication between Development and QA affects the overall productivity of the project
• More knowledge, more transparency of an ongoing project always helps the testing process.
• Regular meetings can be beneficial to track the status of the project.
• To get the in-depth knowledge of a project, one should not have any communication gap between the testers and the business team as well.

Implementing these Quality Assurance activities will help ensure deliverables of high quality software that enhances the confidence, trust and positive perception for the company.

Improving testing processes in order to get good quality-bug free software is an ongoing activity. The testing process must be reviewed in all the phases of the project development life cycle. The above 5 steps are crucial to build in and review on a periodic basis by a learning organization.

It is not that Google didn’t know! As a friend once said, Google’s vast servers know almost everything that there is to know about you online! So there is no place really to hide.

Black hat techniques for SEO present a picture of benevolent dictatorship. Links are sold in a black market that exists under Google’s very nose. Just as credit card fraud is the cost of doing business for credit card companies, and as long as it is within permissible limits – it co-exists with the majority of honest users. Similarly, black hat techniques like paid links have been around for a long time.

The fact that the JCPenney scandal got them to act is galling. One would have hoped that Google was tracking the amount of such link fraud that was happening and curtailing it to within manageable limits. Slowly boiling the frog i.e. fixing the problem incrementally would have resulted in a longer lasting solution with much less outrage.

Whenever there is a gunfight, more than likely an innocent bystander gets hurt. One may ask why were you even a bystander. Some of the people may not necessarily be innocent, historic mistakes can come back to haunt – as I suspect is the case with a number of sites that got downgraded in the wake.

So what should you do! Clearly honesty is the better longer term solution. Make sure that you and your SEO agency is scrupulously honest and transparent. If you don’t have one – Give us a call!

For those who are not aware of this term ‘Google Display network’ is a group of websites which partnered with Google to display Adwords Ads on their sites. On the basis of keywords, Google identifies the theme of the ad group and decides to place your ad on a particular website. You can also choose individual websites within Google’s display network where you’d like your ads to appear through managed placements, but make sure the content of the placements is relevant to the ads in that ad group.

Contextual Targeting Tool helps in creating contextually-targeted campaigns more easily and quickly, while generating more clicks and conversions for your campaigns.

What’s the Contextual Targeting Tool?

This tool generate huge list of keywords that can be used to show your ads on relevant webpages in the Google Display Network. The Contextual Targeting Tool is still in beta stage. This tool can be accessed in two ways:

• Drop down menu on the Reporting and Tools tab.
• Under the Opportunities tab.

On clicking this tool when you enter keywords or phrases in the search box, the tool suggests a set of keywords related to your terms, and group the keywords into themed ad group.
This relevant keyword lists are the basis of effective contextual targeting and with the Contextual Targeting Tool you no longer have to build them manually.

Usually you create separate ad groups for each of your product lines, like if your business is about Seo eBooks, then you need to build separate ad group and need to add keyword s for each adgroup for eg. Seo eBooks, Seo Services, Seo Tools etc. With the Contextual Targeting Tool, simply type each product category into the search box, and the tool will automatically generate tightly-themed keyword lists for you.

How to Use Contextual Targeting Tool?

Step 1 – In the example below you can see when you enter your keyword ‘Seo EBooks’ , you get more specific ad groups which Google sorts into the suggested Ad group such as Seo EBooks, Free Seo EBooks, Seo Ebooks Search Engine etc. and it also provides the suggested max CPC bid. This bid is based upon background history from the ads that have appeared on the sites the new ad group is predicted to appear.

Step 2 – After getting the list of Suggested Ad groups you can follow the steps mentioned below to get more close to most relevant Ad Group with relevant keyword list:

• You can edit the keyword list by clicking on that column and can exclude the negative keywords. Save it.
• You can expand the Adgroup and can dig deeper to get more tightly themed keyword adgroup.
• You can also click on the name of the AdGroup to view the Predicted placement sites where your ads will show based upon your keywords.

Step 3 – Once you edited your keywords, created more ad groups, and know which sites you want to exclude, select & export your new ad groups into Ad Words editor. So you need to download AdWords Editor to implement the ad groups in your account for now. As of now the Contextual Targeting Tool is been available to advertisers with the AdWords Editor.

After you download the Adword Editor follow the steps below:

1. Select ad groups and click the Export to AdWords Editor Button.
2. Click Export to download the suggested ad group as a CSV file and Enter a campaign name.
3. Then Import the file into AdWords Editor.
4. Post your changes to your Ad Words account.
5. Set your daily budget and ad creative, and make sure to check your campaign setting and check if you target the Display Network only.

Step 4 – So once the campaign is live don’t forget about it. Monitor, Track and Optimize your campaign.

Ads on Twitter are a bit different from ads shown on other platforms. There are three major types of advertising areas on Twitter.

Promoted Tweets

Promoted Tweets help you to speak to the users that don’t currently follow your account. These are ordinary Tweets that advertisers pay to highlight to a wider group of users.

Things you should know:

• Send a Tweet to your followers first and promote that Tweet.
• They appear as content in search results.
• Available off-site, through applications such as HootSuite.
• Promoted Tweets can interact like normal Tweets.

When you promote a Tweet, users will find it when they will search for one of the keywords you’ve added to your Tweet. If users click on this Tweet that includes a #hashtag which is being promoted by an advertiser, they may see a Promoted Tweet among the related Tweets in the details pane.

Pricing – Cost per Engagement – only pay when a user retweets, replies to, clicks on or favorites your promoted Tweet.

Promoted Trends

Twitter has been showing the most commonly used word or phrase known as Trending Topics for a long time. When users click on any trending topic, they are taken to the conversation for that trend. If you haven’t already, do check out the Top 10 Trends section on your Twitter homepage. To monetize the popularity of trends, Promoted Trends appear at the top of the Trending Topics list on Twitter and are clearly marked as “Promoted.”

Like all other Trending Topics, Promoted Trends are already popular subjects on Twitter, but may not have made their way into the Trending Topics list yet.

Things you should know:

• Promoted trends are shown to all users, instead of a targeted group.
• Ideal for time or context-sensitive advertising.
• Tweets on the search results page for Promoted Trends are not filtered and open.

When a user clicks on the Trend, they are taken to the conversation for that trend – with your Promoted Tweets.

Pricing – Promoted Trends are advertised at a Fixed Rate.

Promoted Accounts

Promoted Accounts are aimed at larger businesses that can monetize themselves from having a mass of followers. Whether you’re launching a big product, announcing an event, or just looking to expand your presence online, building a strong base of Twitter followers who will share your content and amplify your message makes all the difference.

Things you should know:

• Promoted accounts are not shown to all users.
• Follows the same rules as the Suggestions for You.

Promoted Accounts are part of “Who to follow – Suggestions for You,” which suggests accounts that people don’t currently follow and may find interesting.

As with Promoted Trends and Promoted Tweets, this suggestion is labeled as ‘Promoted’ to distinguish it from other recommended accounts.

Promoted Accounts are suggested based on a user’s public list of whom they follow. When an advertiser promotes an account, Twitter’s algorithm looks at that account’s followers and determines other accounts that those users tend to follow. If a user follows some of those accounts, but not the advertiser’s account, then Twitter may recommend the advertiser’s Promoted Account to that user.

For example, a lot of people who follow several business trends accounts also follow @trendhunter. If someone follows business trend account, but not @trendhunter, Twitter may recommend @trendhunter to that user.

Pricing – Cost per Impression – is measuring multiple indicators of engagement, such as: retweets, @replies, use of hashtags, avatar clicks, in-tweet link clicks, views after retweet, and more. Collective these indicators are known as “Resonance” and a pricing model based on resonance.

Twitter also provides an Advertising Analytics to display the fundamental metrics of your campaign on the basis of impressions, retweets, clicks, replies, and follows (Promoted Accounts) as they happen.