So you’ve entered the land of brand-building in online social networks.  Now what?  Online communities can be great places for marketers to learn and engage with their customers and other consumers.  In order to get all you can get out of it, there are certain guidelines to follow that may help.  Below are the 5 Commandments for How to Act in an Online Social Community.

Do you have a brand? If not, your site is part of a "cesspool." In AdAge Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt explains the AdWords quality score and organic ranking algorithms in laymans terms:

In the session "Search and Branding", Noah Elkin, VP of Corporate Strategy, Steak spoke about why brands matter in search.

Coverage of the SMX East conference will continue at WebProNews Videos.  Keep an eye on WebProNews for more notes and videos from the event this week.)

In my write-up about the upcoming MySpace Music the other day, I had to leave a question mark in the "advertisers" section, because it was unknown who would be advertising as MySpace Music launched. Rumor has it that MySpace Music will launch on Thursday the 18th, and MySpace has now let the advertising cats out of the bag. The company issued a release listing the initial advertisers for the launch. They are:

Google announced a collection of new iGoogle themes from well-known artists today. Among them are: Radiohead, Gnarls Barkley, Gucci, Burberry, Vera Wang, Bob Dylan, Celine Dion, Natalie Cole, and more.

An interesting mix to say the least. Google explains:

Eeyore, the donkey always missing its tail, always liked to thank people for noticing him. Seems like, when it comes to search, Microsoft has the same problem. SearchEngineLand’s Danny Sullivan interviewed Microsoft’s Kevin Johnson, president of the Platform and Services division, during today’s keynote session at SMX Advanced in Seattle, and all roads led back to Google.

The feeling of accomplishment you get after completing a task is always nice.  Brand development doesn’t have an "end date," however, and a speaker at ACCM urged attendees to give it constant attention.

Ahead of Microsoft’s advance08 Advertising Leadership Forum, Microsoft’s Kevin Johnson acknowledged to company employees, among other things, that Microsoft’s online branding could be a lot better.

For a long time there’s been a certain amount of obsession among webmasters about building traffic—any traffic—for websites. But really, especially if you’re location-based, the focus should be on building the right traffic.

Of course, search takes center stage in that struggle, but more recently social media sites like Digg.com and BoingBoing have captured the imaginations of traffic-obsessed marketers. Here’s what many of them discover, though: traffic bursts from those sites do little for sales.

If you wanted to be logical, you might not stick a company or product name on any page more than once; after people learn what the subject is, there’s little reason to repeat the fact.  But if you want to be successful in terms of brand SEO, an entirely different approach is necessary.

No one brand dominates the globe quite like that of the search engine and advertising company from Mountain View, as Google tops a major list of global brands.

The mind is a deeply complex organ, at times influenced by small, seemingly trivial things, and at others closed off to any external stimuli. Think of it as an onion, with belief at the center and perception at the outermost layer. Subtle stimuli can alter perception not just more easily than they can belief, but also can alter perception in nearly imperceptible ways, as air overtime hardens and dries the top layer, not affecting the layer beneath.

Lots of studies have shown that subliminal advertising doesn’t work—at least it doesn’t work as a direct cause of desired behavior. For example, imperceptibly flashing a hot dog in front of an audience does not increase hot dog sales. A recent study from Duke, though, says Apples might make you more creative.

A new report from Hitwise highlights a trend that matches what’s going on in the brick-and-mortar world: The mainstreaming of everything. It also shows that Internet users value what they perceive as authority websites, and that perception is a collective one—or if you prefer, a brand on the collective psyche.

There’s been significant debate among small businesses about the indirect value of online branding versus the direct value of search marketing. A recent report from Engine Ready says branding may be worth more than you think.

I’ve been an advocate of branding for a while and have tried to get the point across that consumer awareness of product or company drives sales in a very powerful way. Understandably, smaller business owners are more likely trust what is not only more directly tangible and measurable, but also less costly.

Almost a year ago, I went on (at length) about how there was more to online marketing than that final deal-closing click-through. I (loftily and windily) talked of being there for the consumer’s journey and looking to understand how a customer arrived at that final decision.