Trending: The Luxury Treatment, Expanding Your Brand Through Social Media, Advanced Search, and More

Some scattershooting this week covering online marketing, social media branding, and the usability of advanced search. Read on to learn a little more about what I’ve been paying attention to recently.

The Luxury Treatment

eMarketer: Giving Affluents the Luxury Treatment Online
Luxury Daily: Why luxury automakers increasingly rely on iPad’s large canvas for engagement

A pair of articles on marketing to and serving affluent customers online covering web experience expectations, iPad apps, and luxury brands using (or not using) Twitter. Luxury brick and mortar stores offer intimacy and elegant product presentations and customers expect a comparable experience online. It is important that if you sell high end products or cater to a high end audience that your online presence creates an engaging experience as well.

Expand Your Brand Through Social Media

Dallas Morning News: Genghis Grill, Freebirds Burrito among chains expanding their brands through social media

A Dallas Morning News story on the rapid growth on Twitter and Facebook for a pair of popular local restaurant chains. Freebirds went from 5,000 to 50,000 Facebook fans in a year while Genghis Grill’s Twitter followers have increased tenfold since May. There’s a great quote near the end that is right in line with what we tell clients reluctant to get involved with social media due to possible negative postings, “You cannot control for that. What you can do is invite those guests to be part of your social experience. Hopefully, the preponderance of phenomenal experiences out there … will virtually overwhelm the occasional missed experience.”

Advanced Search, Yay or Nay?

Louis Rosenfeld: Don’t advance your search; refine it
Findability.org: Advanced Search

These two links are part of a an interesting point and counterpoint on “advanced” search functionality on websites. Many websites offer the feature but how many visitors actually use it, and if they do use it can they figure it out? While search filtering or search refinement can be a useful tool for users, websites should assist the user in finding what they’re looking for without overwhelming. It may be time for the “Advanced Search” link to go away and to focus on search refinement techniques.