Here’s a good Monday morning find — a blog post from MarketingVox about how sponsors of last week’s Idol Gives Back show stack up in terms of PR. The show, which urged viewers to call and donate their money to a bunch of various charities, was sponsored by ExxonMobil, Ford, Coca-Cola and iTunes. The blog post cites a study on how the sponsors weaved PR messages into the show.

Read the blog post at MarketingVox

A Harris Interactive study found that online retailers become more deal-conscious during a recession, and one in three people say that they will use coupons and discount codes more frequently.

People are equally as likely to search for deals online as they are in-store, so promoting coupon codes on an online store’s homepage or as a private sale via e-mail could be very effective if sales start to slump.

Read the full study at RetailMeNot.com

The State of Retailing Online 2008, the annual Shop.org study conducted by Forrester Research, suggested that online retail sales will be a bright spot in the overall retail landscape, with online retail sales expected to climb 17% this year.

Online retailers are struggling to balance acquisition activities with retention activities, and search engine marketing remains the most effective way for online retailers to connect with new customers.

Online retailers are also starting to take notice of social media — over half will focus on promoting in social media spaces in 2008. Social media efforts have been effective in promoting branding online, but less effective at driving revenue and sales.

For more, read the study at the Shop.org web site

In the last six months, I’ve had a fundamental shift in thinking about how to perform brand-related search engine optimization (SEO). It used to be all about how I could get a client site to the top of the results. Now, it’s more about how many listings my clients get.

With the boom of social media sites comes a new SEO strategy. Now, I focus on getting clients as many listings as possible on the first page, gaining the client credibility and keeping their company name top-of-mind.

Palmer Web Marketing recently published a blog post on How to Own All 10 Google Results (referring to the 10 listings on the first page of a Google search). This post details ten sites (most of which are “social media-related”) that you can focus on to get extra search listings.

It’s a good (and quick) read for companies who have heard about social media optimization (SMO) but don’t yet understand how it can be beneficial.