Too Twit or not too Twit?

In the past few months, the world has gone Twitter crazy. It’s hard to watch a TV show or listen to a radio show without someone mentioning Twitter. This has resulted in more and more companies flocking to the 140-character micro blogging message tool to reach consumers.

In a recent report issued by PC maker Dell, it was revealed that they have had great success with Twitter. Since posting their first message on Twitter two years ago, Dell has generated over $3 million directly from its Twitter users, who reached their online sales website via a link on its Twitter posts.

This provides an interesting case study on how businesses can utilise web 2.0 sites to generate business. Although many question that when Dell generate a revenue of $12.3 billion in their first quarter in 2009, that $3 million, is not going to make too much of a difference for them. However it does highlight that social media is effective if the message is right.

From tracking Dell on Twitter, they seem to posts 6 to 10 times a week from its DellOutlet account. The way that Dell generates this profit from Twitter is simple, almost every post includes a voucher code, exclusive to Twitter, enabling them to track the campaign.

However businesses need to remember that Twitter does require some attention, its not a case of just sticking a message up twice a week. Twitter can be used to gather information, and interact with consumers by helping and giving them information, when they ask for it. If all you do with social media is use it for advertising, soon everyone is going to tune you out. I know for myself I tend to not pay attention to people that just self promote.

In the era of social web, branding is the dialougue you have with you customers and potential customers. The stronger the dialogue, the stronger the brand; the weaker the dialouge, the weaker the brand. Thanks to the Internet, the dialogue can be active 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. It includes both conversations you have with customers and the exchanges your customers have with one another - all related to the strength of the brand.

The role and effectivness of e-marketing within the Visitor Attraction industry.

Ewom Marketing has just completed a one hundred page plus report entitled: The role and effectiveness of e-marketing within the Visitor Attraction industry.

The report provides an overview of the attraction market specifically looking more closely at wildlife attractions, investigating the impact of the e-marketing, establishing core market factors, strengths and weaknesses, consumer dynamics and attraction trends. The main themes of the report are:

• How the growth of e-marketing has impacted the visitor attraction industry?
• What are the key e-marketing channels available for visitor attractions to use in their marketing strategies?
• What impact is e-marketing having on the visitor numbers?
• What future marketing opportunities are available for visitor attractions?
• What are the key target groups for attractions, what sources of information do they use?
• What does it take to get listed at the top of search engines?
• Plus find out what REAL Visitor Attraction marketing managers are doing, through the use of 2 case studies!

In addition the report includes guides on the following:

• Effective PR
• Tips for an Effective and Efficient Google AdWords Campaign
• How to Increase YouTube Video Viewing figures & Drive Traffic from YouTube to your website.
• Guide to making your blog successful
• Improving your Banner Click-Through Rate!
• and much more...

The increased usage of the Internet for both social and business purposes has revolutionised the marketing channels available to companies. These channels allow marketers to attract audiences using a pull strategy rather than a push strategy, utilising a more personalised approach. The developments within the world of e-marketing and web 2.0 technologies have also provided companies with platforms upon which they can interact with consumers.

Whilst much literature is available regarding the use of e-marketing within product based industries, there is little research into its usage amongst service businesses, such as visitor attractions. This study identifies how e-marketing is used within the visitor attraction industry, and explores the implications of the tools for visitor attractions. In order to gain a specific insight into the visitor attractions industry a case study of the Bournemouth Oceanarium is used.

To allow for an in-depth analysis of the role and effectiveness of e-marketing within the industry a combination of qualitative based interviews with marketing employees, and a quantitative questionnaire of Oceanarium visitors was used. The results of the interviews highlighted that visitor attractions are adopting e-marketing tools within their marketing mixes’, however the range of tools they are utilising is limited. The questionnaire results confirmed the increased usage of web 2.0 tools such as social networking and blogs amongst visitors, and also highlighted areas where current e-marketing activities needed to be improved upon, particularly with regard to two way communication between the attraction and their visitors.

For information on how you can get a copy of the report please contact Simon via email ewom@ymail.com

Add E-Marketing into Your Marketing Mix Now

The following blog lists a few simply methods to help though who have not yet started to include e-marketing into their marketing mix. By integrating a few of the following elements is a good start and by starting to include your website into your marketing plan you can drive new leads and generate new business that you wouldn't ordinarily reach using a single avenue of advertising.

Web Address Inclusion
Your website can act as a point of reference for all of your leads and existing customers. Include your web address in all forms of your offline communication. If you post physical products, ensure that the packing slips and invoices have the URL of your website in a prominent position. Your website itself can be used to answer many questions that customers might have, reducing the time and even resource needed to respond to problems and questions posed by buyers.

Optimizing Landing Pages For On & Offline Leads
With any form of advertising it is vital to optimize your web landing pages. Optimizing a landing page means providing the content that your visitors expect. You should direct visitors to the most appropriate page on your website to answer their questions or to make a sale. If you use direct mail advertising and are promoting a specific product then direct visitors to the purchase page for that product. If you are offering your website as a place to get answers to questions or to resolve issues, direct them to the knowledge base or customer service page.

Using Online Advertising To Advertise Offline Business
While some businesses are run predominantly online, many websites are used to promote a bricks-and-mortar business. Whatever the purpose of your business, a website usually offers some form of advantage. The Internet is a global marketplace and provides a genuinely affordable method to promote even the smallest business. Very few other methods level the playing field so clearly between small businesses and large corporations.

Using Other Forms Of Offline Advertising In Your Advertising Mix
Newspaper and radio advertising provide a very direct form of marketing. Few websites can realistically afford television advertising but flyer's, direct mail, and less expensive advertising methods are a genuinely viable alternative. Again, the key to success in using these forms of advertising is integrating them within your online marketing mix. Only through good integration, directing visitors to the most appropriate page, and optimizing that landing page.

National Hotel Marketing 2009 Conference - Riding the Recession with Effective PR

This past week was very busy for me, attending not just the annual CIM (Chartered Institute of Marketing) Marketing Communication Lecture, but also on Friday I assisted at the Hotel Marketing 2009 Conference. The Hotel Marketing 2009 conference, as the name suggests focus mainly within the hotel/hospitality industry, however with guest speakers from Trip Advisor, and Superbreak both successful online companies, there was many useful topics and avenues discussed that could be applied to many industries. The 5th National Hotel Marketing Conference, took place at Heathrow on Friday 6th March and was attended by just fewer than 100 of the hotel industries top executives. The conferences theme was “riding the recession” and many presentations focused upon this. The day kicked off with a keynote speech with former head of the BBC Greg Dyke, throughout the day several workshops took place, one of the workshops that stood out to me was one conducted by Barbara Huddart, from the Glendale Consultancy & PR. The workshop hosted by Barbara looked at “Effective PR for Hotels” although much of what she presented could be applied to most companies and establishments, therefore I thought I’d give a rough overview of what was presented and add in my own thoughts.

Effective PR
Basically PR is a strategic management tool to tell a good story, which can help to add value, and raises the profile of a company. Furthermore in times of recessions, where banks are tough on small businesses PR and consumers are quick to assume that businesses are in trouble if they don’t hear about them, PR can help send out a positive image to your bank manager & customers if they read about you in the press. PR is also a powerful tool to help secure the best knowledgeable staff, it will also help to increase staff moral within your firm within these poor economic times.

Many people view PR as something that appears in newspaper publications but it doesn’t have to stop there. No doubt your marketing plan is integrated ensuring that your marketing is reaching its full potential, your PR campaign should also take this form to ensure its effectiveness. Therefore the following methods/channels should be considered for effective PR:

· Articles - (shows an expertise within your company)
· Newsletters
· Company sponsors – (do the companies you sponsor have their own newsletters/publications)
· Speaking engagement
· Online PR
· Interviews
· Trade show/exhibition – (via the press room consider using freebies related to the Press Release)
· Competitions/offers – (effective method of getting good media coverage, and saves on advertising cost)

The most effective PR usually involves a story, which is one of the following: Topical, Unusual, Surprising and Reactive. PR revolving around one of these is more likely to be read then others.

Types of newsworthy stories
Many newsworthy opportunities are available for companies to use as PR, here are just a small selection:

· Human interest stories,
· Staff Achievement ,
· Economy – (creating jobs),
· Celebrities/VIP visitors or users,
· Unusual happenings/ events,
· A rise in visitors or number of products sold.
· Strange, but true stories,
· Themes or Milestones,
· Charitable events or support,
· New Launches,
· Business development,
· Events & exhibitions – pre, during and post.
· Surveys,
· Awards/ Accolades.

The presenter spoke about how important it is to keep up to date with the latest trend to enable companies to use this to their advantage. PR which focuses on current trends or use “Buzz Words” are more likely to gain attention. This reiterates what I spoke about in one of my previous posts about using social networks to spot growing trends. A selection of the current “Buzz Words” can be found below:

Economy Credit crunch Carbon footprint Local
Good value Healthy Traditional Adventure
Experience Glamour British Cuddly
Warm Books Spring Cleaning

Tourism Boards can be an important channel of communication between you and the press. When press come to a certain area their first stop for information on the area is the Tourism Board therefore it is vital that those involved in the tourism sector especially, ensure that they send out their information to them. Consider creating a information pack that be issued to the press by Tourism Boards, include freebies! – free nights stay or free entry!

The internet is incredibly important and had a major impact on the success of PR, these statistics presented by Barbara reflect just how important.

· 98% of journalists use websites for information.
· 92%of journalists use websites to research articles.
· 78% of journalists use websites to find new sources.
· 73% of users use websites just to access PR.

Due to these large statistics company websites should be very press friendly, therefore it is recommended that ALL company websites contain a Press Room. The press room should contain everything required you think that the press will require and more. From the simply things, such as the key PR contacts within the company, to company facts, case studies, and stories, a great tool to develop is a media fact sheet, which will provide all the information the press could require. This could contain company facts and history, strange, but true stories, a timeline of events, however make sure your company USP is clear and can be identified from the start.

Remember pictures speak 1000 words and a simple photograph can breathe life into a story; therefore always send a photo along with a story. A photo containing a person also has more potential of being used by press. Also ensure if you have images online you make them high resolutions so that press can use them in printed format.

Finally it is important to stay ahead of the trends curve, for example the next Harry Potter film is released this year, therefore companies should be planning to see if there is an opportunity which they can capitalise on.

3rd Annual CIM Marketing Communication Lecture - Panasonic, Thorpe Park & MediaCom marketing in 2009

On Wednesday 4th March 2009, I was able to attend the 3rd Annual CIM (Chartered Institute of Marketing) Marketing Communication Lecture. Session proved very useful and a great opportunity to see how three large companies are coping with the current economic climate. Guest speakers included:

- Ryan DeCruz the Brand Content Manager for MediaCom

- Rob Healey the Head of European Marketing for Panasonic System Solutions

- Andy Le Duc the Brand Manager for Thorpe Park

1) The first presentation, was from Ryan DeCruz, the Brand Content Manager for MediaCom. MediaCom are a currently the biggest media company and has clients such as VW, T-Mobile, Sky, CNN just to name a few. The presentation focused on branded media, something which I have not much knowledge out, therefore it was educational, but at the same time left me wondering on the cost and if there are more cost effective ways to achieve the same results.

Branded content usually takes the form of sponsorship or branded TV. An example for the UK readers is the transmission with T-mobile show on Channel 4, which achieved great success as a TV show, gaining repeats within the channel. As well as branding the show title, brand colours and logo were used within the show. Furthermore a range of other forms of communications were used such as street gigs for T-mobile customers, dedicated sections on social network site Bebo, all these promotions and the TV show generated 25+ articles a week.

Therefore it appears amplification is the key, and that branded media needs to be supported through a selection of other types of marketing, such as websites, PR, in store and packaging promotion to name a few. Within the current climate television stations are crying out for programming, and as a result they are asking brands to help fill/fund main time slots. Traditional television is also facing competition from online web players, which face fewer rules and regulations. “Bebo“ created an exclusive online drama, which companies paid to sponsor and brands were integrated into the story lines. MSN video will be following Bebo’s example and is creating an exclusive sci-fi web show. BMW also created a series of online shows starring actor Clive Owen.

A great example of branded media is a campaign AXE launched in the United States, called the game killers. Make sure you watch this YouTube video for more information on the whole campaign and how effective branded media can be.

Branded media is all about engagement with your target market, its main purpose it seems is to amplify your brand, rather than just stick to the TV with an advert and hope that something comes from it.

2) The second presentation was from Rob Healey the Head of European Marketing for Panasonic System Solutions. Rob highlighted how much more challenging Marketing would be in 2009, identifying the following issues:

· Shrinking Economy
· More competitive market –survival of the fittest
· Increased unemployment – Less consumer spend
· Changing exchange rates
· Reduced business confidence due to deflation
· Rise of Protectionism

He also identified how much the marketing world is changing: Highlighting that advertising and sponsorship has the biggest decline, this can be seen with ITV making 600 people unemployed and RBS dropping its sponsorship of sports just this past month alone. With lower budgets, companies are saving on adverts by using previous ads rather than creating new ones, ensuring that they save costs but also continuing to maximise coverage within their media plans.

For a company like Panasonic, which mainly deals with B2B clients, its marketing strategies differ from that of a B2C company. Panasonic focuses heavily on relationship marketing, and to ensure the successful communication of product specifications. This is completed through specific targeted marketing to generate leads. Rob noted that Panasonic are suffering from the economic climate and have implemented regulations within the company to control costs with constant budget reviews. In addition more time is spent on assessing and analysing, ensuring a high ROI. Panasonic are currently only exploring avenues that guarantee strategic development and advancement, resulting in slower reactions to marketing opportunities.

Panasonics key marketing during 2009 is still heavily focused upon building relationships with clients, through exhibition, reassuring consumer have confidence in their products. Telemarketing is also important, capitalising on the contact made at exhibitions. PR and advertising still remain important, however a growth in the use of case studies and press releases will be used due to the assumption that these are stronger then adverts, adverts will remain present to make sure brand is still present in the market. If they disappear this could impact client confidence, as they could presume the brand is in trouble. With that said all these methods have been cut in some volume by Panasonic, see below:

Exhibitions 43%
Advertising 50%
PR 39%
Telemarketing 22%

It was clear from the presentation that ROI was centre of attention more than ever, all marketing activities need to show that they served a purpose and that the decision process has increased immensely. It was also apparent that even large companies such as Panasonic are preparing for a weak year(s) through restructuring to save on costs.

3) The third presentation was from Andy Le Duc, the Brand Manager for Merlin’s UK Theme park Thorpe Park. Thorpe Park currently position themselves as the nation’s thrill capital, and with over 25 rides and attraction and the launch of the new SAW ride this month continue to be positioned as the UK’s market leader. The parks target market is thrill seekers aged between 16 -24, who are as Andy called it “up for it”. The vision for the company is that they become the No. 1 Entertainment company (currently 2nd after Disney)

A number of key points came out of the presentation regarding the state of the Visitor Attractions market in 2009:

· Induction of positive effect caused by economy – Growth in day trip market
· Record numbers holiday at home
· Merlin showing visitor number growth compared to 2008.
· 16 -24 audience are less exposed to the recession
· Secondary spend at risk, due to customers planning ahead, Thorpe Park has seen food and drink sales dip in early 2009.
· 74% trying to reduce holiday spending, this has resulted in a growth in advance bookings.
· Increased competition for leisure time from other activities.

With these points in mind Thorpe Park have set themselves the following challenges for 2009:

· To sustain growth, whilst ensuring yield is maximised.
· Drive volume through promotion - currently only 6% pay full price.
· Deliver a fool proof media strategy – decline in the use of new ideas.
· Encourage secondary spend
· Focus on customer retention and loyalty schemes
· Maximise on the growth of UK holidays

To reach these targets Thorpe Park are using the following strategic planning tools:

· Balance yield with care promotion
· Grow penetration and catchment area with large scale media
· Destination positioning through the use of packages (long term aim)
· Focus on annual passes – large secondary spend
· Maximise link with Saw brand – merchandise and fast-track passes.

The Saw ride was a major part of this presentation and it could be viewed that this presentation was largely used as a marketing opportunity. The Saw ride incorporates many firsts for theme park rides, and is the only one of its kind in the world, therefore a major USP for Thorpe Park.

The launch of the ride takes place this Friday (13th March) and has been in planning for 3 years. Thorpe Park has set themselves the following challenge for the launch:
· Balance the Thorpe Park brand and position with the Saw brand
· Drive 2 million visitors through the gates; this is 200k more than in 2008.
· Generate more than 5.4 million pounds worth of revenue.
· Increase yield through promotion.
· Increase penetration - grow age footprint of the park.
· Position as thrill capital

Thorpe Park used a viral campaign, through four videos to generate buzz for the launch and hope to gain record breaking crowds in the Easter holidays. (Already these videos have gained over 200,000 views on YouTube). Further promotion for the prelaunch took the method of a dedicated micro site, PR in the press popular with target market, as well as through social networks and in park advertising. Also prior to launch a number of TV adverts will be shown during high rated TV shows, the ride will also be feature on television shows. A high impact PR launch is planned across all media, including a radio blitz on Friday 13th. To ensure maximum press coverage, a media day was been held and invitations were sent on Dictaphones as used within the film, with the real voice over actor recording them. To increase secondary spending Thorpe Park has capitalised on the Saw branding creating merchandise to sell at the park.

The launch campaign will come to an end at Halloween when Thorpe Park aim to make the ride an 18 certificate the first in the world. A great venture by Thorpe Park and they will no doubt smash their targeted visitor numbers, although the park does have a risk of negativity within the press for creating such a scary ride aimed at over 18s, all PR is good PR.

Although all three companies differ completely it was interesting to note that the first two were very negative about the economic problems currently affecting the world, but Thorpe Park is benefiting from it. It is stated that within stressful time’s consumer do spend more on leisure to try and forget their troubles. It will be interesting to see how Thorpe Park are doing this time next year when the launch of the Saw is over and which methods they will implement to sustain the visitor numbers achieved with the help of a new ride.

Using LinkedIn to promote your business

After logging into LinkedIn for the first time in several months, I thought considering how successful they have been and the huge marketing push it received in London I should really have identified and wrote about the marketing opportunities it provides.

For those who haven’t heard of LinkedIn, it is a social networking website that is geared specifically towards business members. It enables users to build up a network of existing and new business contacts (called connections). Wikipedia reports that LinkedIn has more than 20 million registered users and attracts over 3.2 million visitors every month in a total of more than 150 different industries from all across the globe. LinkedIn is more closely matched to offline business networking than virtually any other social networking website. It can be used to keep contact details while building a strong network but other users predominantly use it to make contacts and secure future employment. Conversely, many employers and agencies use their network to find suitable candidates for work. The key USP to LinkedIn is that when you add a new connection, their connections and the connections of those connections will also be added to your network, if that makes sense! Providing you with an impressive network of business contacts.

For businesses looking to promote their own service, the money is literally in the list. By building a large and relevant network of connections, a business can greatly improve their profile within that community. Using a powerful portfolio page also ensures that those connections that are interested in using the services of that business will be more inclined to do so. Everything is essentially in place to help the business owner or professional to generate new leads. This of cause means that you need to market your LinkedIn profile!

Another benefit of the LinkedIn service is the testimonials section. When you provide a service to another member of the community, or your network, they can leave a testimonial of how you performed. As many of you will know testimonials are important for any business and not only help persuade the unsure, but can turn a contact's opinion of you around.

A recently new section of the site is LinkedIn Answers This allows users to ask and answer questions, gaining the information they require and providing a useful response. This can help your business to network because useful answers will usually be rewarded with an invitation to join that member's list of connections.While there are other sites that offer similar services, (such as Xing.com) no other business networking website can boast the popularity that LinkedIn offers. The combination of powerful features and a large network means that many businesses want to be represented on the LinkedIn website.

Social Networks are not just for advertising - Spot trends and Opportunities

Identifying and acting on trends is important in every business. It helps to identify new opportunities and provide insight into a more effective marketing strategy. Trends provide you with the opportunity to steal a lead over your competitors, especially if you learn to quickly identify the early signs of a new trend.

One of the biggest trends in the past few years, which many companies capitalised upon, was social networking. Now social networking is one of the biggest things on the Internet. Video sharing sites like YouTube and social community sites like Facebook, and MySpace have become the most viewed and used sites. Due to their popularity, they can also be a good starting point to help identify trends. Remember to keep an eye on your competitors. Ensure you find out what they are doing, what offers they are currently running, and whether they have any new product launches.

Furthermore look at the communities where they are most active. Being first to a new trend is an advantage but, failing that, coming in late allows you the opportunity to better your competitor's efforts. Look for areas where you believe you can improve it. Finding out where your competitors are advertising or networking will lead you to the sites or opportunities that present relevant information. The more sources of potential trends you can find, the more accurate your data. You should be an active and eager member of the communities within your industry so use this information in tandem with the information you manage to dig up.

Identifying new opportunities can be a difficult task (and long), but by getting involved in markets and networking in relevant circles you will begin to identify the most relevant topics for your niche. This can help to increase market share and strengthen your brand by being the first to provide a new and wanted product or service. But remember as I mentioned before, if you do find yourself behind your competitors, you then have the chance to improve on their efforts.

Your Company's Reputation at Risk....Online!

According to recent data shown in the ‘Risky Business: Reputations Online', Sixty seven per cent of companies are at risk of damaging their reputation online. The survey was conducted among senior executives in countries around Europe, North America and the Asia Pacific half way through 2008. The survey by PR company, Weber Shandwick found that this concern came from two main sources: misdirected emails and employee sabotage.

Contrary to expectations, the study revealed that 87 per cent of global executives admitted to either sending or receiving at least one incorrect message. "The unintended and unexpected consequences of misdirected electronic messages can taint, sometimes permanently, company reputations in seconds," according to the survey. Therefore it is important for companies to be aware of the information its employees are posting on websites that rate their employees.

The survey also showed that 66 per cent were unaware of employees badmouthing their companies online, 21 per cent of CEO's and chairmen were concerned about employees posting work-related discussions on social networking and video-sharing sites.

PR company Weber Shandwick stated that "Leaders' short-sightedness about employees going online to complain about their bosses, discuss salaries and leak confidential information highlights one of the most dangerous threats to corporate and professional reputations now and in the years ahead"

Localisation: Operate globally, think locally!

Just because your website has had great success in your domestic market, it does not guarantee the same success internationally!

At the beginning of the computing era, programs were written only in English, the problem being that at this time only people who spoke English as their mother tongue, or who had studied the language to a high degree at school could access these resources. Therefore millions of potentially lucrative customers were lost as they could not understand the programs.

If you are looking to enter international markets it is crucial to translate your website into the language of your target market. A product or service on your website will appear much more attractive if it is presented in the language of your target customer, whilst also allowing you to compete with locally produced products or services. Research has shown that web contact time is doubled on sites which have been correctly translated. But it is not all about language, knowledge of the cultural and business norms is necessary for successful localisation and international marketing.

Problems can occur with the design of internet forms designed to gather data from customers. In the English speaking world there is often no field on such forms for academic titles such as Professor or Doctor, but research shows that customers from European countries such as Germany and Italy respond more to direct e-marketing when they are addressed as Professor or Dr....

Another common problem with international internet forms is the postal code field, as postal codes come in various forms in different countries. The American field “State” also causes problems in Europe, as many countries are not split up into states. There have also been cases, where in order to proceed with an order the customer has to choose a state from a predetermined list! Confusing or unclear fields in an online form not only irritate the customer but they can also lead to inaccurate or incorrect information, meaning that the entire reason for the form is invalid.

The internet offers a great advantage in that you can go and check out how local competitors construct their sites before implementing any changes to your own, so get researching.......

E-Marketing could have saved Woolworths!

The collapse of Woolworths is by far the largest retail failure this year, symbolising the high street's woes, this is a major blow to all those involved within the retail sector.

Woolworths evokes nostalgia for precious pocket money spent on fizzy cola bottles and chart singles. Last week it became clear that Woolworths itself was worth only pocket money, with management in talks to sell the 800-store chain for £1. Woolworths once had a shop on every British high street and a special place in the hearts of millions of shoppers. It was famous for selling anything from toys to brown paper, plants, Cd's, DVDs, Games, Clothes and more. Many will say that the recession has caused Woolworths death, of cause that is a factor, but Woolworths just didn't move with the times!

E-Marketing could have saved Woolworths. I know that's a pretty bold statement to make, but I believe it is true. After getting £385m in debt, Woolworths wont be the last victim of the recession. As the credit crunch continues to bite, this time of year is the most important part of the retail year. However sales on the high street are slumping, while sales on the Internet are soaring. As we become a nation full of bargain hunters, we are more than happy to search online for a cheaper priced item than those offered on the high street.

But still many high street retailers are just not switched on to E-marketing, unless potential new customers know the website address, they will typically look for product or services via a search engine such as Google or Yahoo! When Searching for say "DVDs" or "Children's Clothes" Woolworths, and many other major retailers, are nowhere to be seen. If Woolworths would have incorporated more "E" within their marketing mix, maybe this could have helped to save them.

Although high street shops often have a snazzy website with a fancy design, it doesn't make much sense to spend a lot of money developing websites, and then not marketing them.

Therefore the message to take from this sad news, is to ensure customers know your website address, to help skip the search engine process.

The YouTube Advertising Steam Train – YouTube Live, Adsense, Overlay ads, Sponsered videos and size!

Since YouTube officially launched in December 2005, it has attracted users at a meteoric rate. YouTube receives 71 million unique users each month and has the 6th largest audience on the Internet. No longer is Online Video the future, it's the present: 75% of Americans watched a video online last month. With YouTube usage still high, Google have been working hard to increase the advertising opportunities and trying to increase the overall experience of the site. Therefore this month has resulted in YouTube unveiling a host of new advertising methods for advertisers:

YouTube Live:
It was only a matter of time before YouTube introduced live streaming/webcasting and on November 22nd YouTube hosted its first ever live event, the event featured a range of performers whose videos on YouTube had gain more then 2.5 million views each. With this being the first of many live events YouTube has in store, how long before sponsorship opportunity for these live events becomes an option?

YouTube Adsense:
When searching the site users will now be greeted with video advertisements similar to those produced by Google AdSense. YouTube searches now produce "sponsored links" on the right side of the screen alongside unpaid results on the left.

Increase of Professional Content:
YouTube announced a deal with MGM studio's to show full-length television shows on the site. Where this will bring a lot of money in for YouTube is that advertisers will be trying to outbid each other for the advertising space next to these videos. Through increasing the amount of professional content on the site, they are aiming to increase the amount of advertising by double. YouTube has struck similar deals with CBS and Lionsgate, so one would presume YouTube advertising isn’t as popular as Google had hoped and sees this as a way to increase this. When YouTube first launched its Advertising schemes advertisers were reluctant to use this channel due to a concern regarding the site consists mostly of amateur videos, and companies didn’t want to risk damaging their brand by being associated with these.

YouTube Overlay ads:
YouTube will also now begin running overlay ads in YouTube partner videos that live on other sites. This means that no matter where a YouTube video is embedded, it can contain an ad and earn revenue for YouTube partners.

YouTube sponsored videos:
YouTube Sponsored Videos allows anyone to promote their videos on the search results page. Bidding on specific keywords will promote your video to the right-hand side of YouTube’s search results along with an image and some text. Again similar to Google Adwords. By being able to target YouTube videos, advertisers will be able to give the most visibility to their videos.
According to YouTube this was launched due to requests of businesses. Of course one would presume that due to YouTube being ranked as one of the top five search engines this had a great deal to do with this. But it seems that this no longer is the case as its hard to find a video that doesn’t have a sponsored link on the right hand side.

Size does matter:
YouTube Today also announced another change – the size of their video player. They have expanded the width of the page to 960 pixels to increase the quality of the videos. A new wider player is in a widescreen aspect ratio which is hoped to provide a more powerful viewing experience.

For more information on YouTube advertising check out this link, http://uk.youtube.com/t/advertising Also please note that only some of the YouTube Advertising channels are currently only available in the U.S.A.

Can Social Networking sites make or break product marketing?

Social networking is having a significant effect on the way that consumers now search for information about products and services they wish to buy. Consequently, this has huge implications for the marketing strategies of firms.

Research by Yahoo! in 2006 showed that 77% of consumers are influenced by Internet research and on average customers spent 12 hours researching a potential purchase online, but spent 15 hours researching on more expensive products, such as TVs and laptops.

Increasingly significant in acting as sources of information are social networking websites such as digg.com, Reddit, Newsvine, Stumbleupon, which rely on users to create content by sending in their own stories or links to stories they have found on the web. Users vote for stories and these end up on the front page, where they attract more attention and so the snowball effect continues.

Consumers often express their opinions on the Digg website, (a site claiming 20 million visitors per month), one consumer stated the following about Apple:"Steve Jobs and Apple don't produce good tech, they produce good marketing", other contributors were more positive. Smaran Dayal, an 18 year old, from India was observing that Apples computers and Ipods were revolutionary products. Unlike the first consumer Dayal has 500 "friends" who track his Appple stories, so any recommendations he makes carry 500 votes and this provides a good start towards getting a story on the front page. The different aspect of this type of site from other sites, such as Google and Yahoo that also aggregate stories, is that they rank stories and also recognise the vocal nature of their users and that some are regarded as opinion formers.

There are many implications this has on marketing. For example a casual remark by a Senior company executive will be pounced upon by users. When Sony senior executive dismissed a rival product, "The Wii" as an impulse buy, this attracted 270 comments generally criticising Sony as arrogant and complaining about the high cost of the Playstation 3. These stories may seem insignificant, but they all add up and can create a negative attitude towards brands and products.

Another powerful example happened in 2005 when blogger and media commentator Jeff Jarvis complained about his problems with online computer seller Dell, and this triggered an avalanche of similar complaints, which led to a drop in Dells share price. This does not only illustrate the power of the Internet, but the power the Internet gives to the users.

Marketing companies may see the opportunity to exploit this grass roots marketing by providing the seed stories, but the risks if they were to do so are potentially huge due to backlash if consumers found out. They see these websites as their own and not part of traditional media, and object if they are invaded by big marketing firms.

Internet Based Market Entry

Yesterday I came down with a case of the Mumps, therefore I have the time to put something together on firms using Internet based market entry. Enjoy!

The Internet provides a market entry method that is particularly suitable for smaller, widespread niche markets. Whilst websites might be accessible worldwide, however, the firm may need to select markets to focus on, possibly excluding those where there may be particular barriers, such as language, legal, payment and over fulfilment problems. The cost of organising to serve certain markets might outweigh the possible benefits. For firms that already have a strong presence in many markets the Internet supports all aspects of their activity.

Web based services will be successful if firms develop a global strategy based upon the integrated value chain. As this is a pervasive method of entry, based on global communications, it can facilitate lower risk access to difficult markets. By building online delivery capability it is possible to service markets profitably where there might be limited demand. of course, an e-commerce strategy is limited scope simply because it appeals to a very specific transnational segment - those that are able to gain access, particularly high speed access, continues to grow this is a diminishing problem.

Localising websites around the world...a little help!

After attending a conference in London last week, I was lucky enough to meet a "Localisation Outsourcer Consultant" A type of consultant I hadn't heard of before, therefore I was eager to learn more, with my notebook at the ready I began to "network"..

With companies competing on international markets now realising that if they are going to maximise the value from their company websites, they need the capability to localise the content to suit the language and cultural sensitivities of the markets they are targeting. Therefore this allows the opportunity for "localisation outsourcers consultants" to offer to help companies do this. Usually they combine a mixture/combination of humans translators and machine translation technologies to translate and edit text in a culturally sensitive way.

But that's not all, Specialists claim that they can help clients protect the company brand by providing control over web based marketing strategies on a global basis. This is simply done by following a basic concept consisting of the following: Centralise the message, translate it, and colloquialise it.

Of course these specialists will also examine design concerns, such as looking at the cultural implications of color in advertisements. For those thinking now, hold on a second what does it matter what colours do I use around the world.....Well did you know that in some parts of Asia white is the color of death..........hence why Ronald MacDonald doesn't exist in Asia!

Another useful element these consultants can offer is to ensure you follow all legal and regulations set in different countries. I was shocked to find out following facts:

In France - Consumers can enjoy a one week grace period after they receive an online purchase.

In Germany - Comparative advertising is banned on the web.

In China - Company's may become unnerved when they find out that encrypted websites are regulated by the Chinese government.

Google Video aim to do what YouTube did in the consumer world, only for the enterprise.

Google is now started to target corporate users with its release of "Google Video for business", the newest addition to the Google Apps package. Google's aim for this application is to address the requirements of corporate videos. For example, executive communications, product training and reports.

Google Video is selling itself as foolproof to use, stating that anyone can use it to share videos in two easy steps - uploading the video to web application service Google Apps, and then inviting others to view it. "

It seems like Google are making a much to do about nothing......I think its simply a extension of their YouTube proposition. Also will businesses be happy with YouTube-quality footage? When other companies offer the option to have better quality? It seems difficult to imagine a CEO talking about end of quarter results on a poor quality video.

According to Google, more than 500,000 businesses utilise Google Apps, with more than 3,000 additional businesses signing up every day.

Quick facts about Google Chrome!

For those interested in internet marketing and advertising, anything that Google does catches our attention. Also having a great interest in online marketing, internet broswers is something that I always keep an eye on as I everyday without fail I use one. In recent years, Microsoft Internet Explorer and Firefox browser are the 2 most popular web browser use by internet surfers.However over summer Google came out with a new internet browser which is set to compete with Microsoft Internet Explorer. When Google announced its new open source browser, everyone sat up and took notice.

The new Google browser is called “Google Chrome“. Here are some of the features of Google Chrome:

1) New Tab page
2) Application shortcuts

3) Dynamic tabs

4) Crash control
5) Incognito mode
6) Safe browsing
7) Instant bookmarks
8) Importing settings
9) Simpler downloads

Google Chrome was released in beta for Windows-based systems (a Mac version is planned but isnt scheduled for luanch for awhile yet).

In their press release Google said the following:

In the early days of the Internet, web pages were frequently little more than text. But today the web has evolved into a powerful platform that enables users to collaborate with friends and colleagues through email and other web applications, edit documents, watch videos, listen to music, manage finances and much more. Google Chrome was built for today’s web and for the applications of tomorrow.

“We think of the browser as the window to the web - it’s a tool for users to interact with the web sites and applications they care about, and it’s important that we don’t get in the way of that experience,” said Sundar Pichai, Vice President of Product Management, Google Inc. “Just like the classic Google homepage, Google Chrome has a simple user interface with a sophisticated core to enable the modern web.”

The first thing that will strike you about Chrome is its soft, yet elegant interface. Unlike other browsers, it doesn’t have a lot of unnessecary clutter. Its clear from using Google Chrome personally that it was designed to make it easy for users to search and navigate the web for the content they’re looking for.

Speed is the key feature for me and Chrome is built for that. While Chrome beats Microsoft's Internet Explorer on speed, it doesn't do the same when compared with Firefox or Safari on such frequent tasks as launching Web pages. The big question is whether as they will add more and more to it as remember this release was only the beta, will this mean that performance will take second stage to features.

A Quick Web Development Guide

These basic steps below will help when developing a website, it ask a number of important questions that should be address to enable you to develop an effective website.

1. Define the site's goals and audience

what are the site's purpose and objectives? (A should site exists in support of a communications strategy/plan) Who is the target audience? What are the audience's information needs and interests? How will people use the information on this site? What are their technical limitations? Are they savvy web users or novices? What hardware and browsers will they use to access the site?

2. Identify a "user group"

Recruit a small number of people representing the target audience who can assist you with the site's development. User testing, conducted at different stages of site development, will help you create an effective site.

3. Define the site's content
What content is available now? What needs to be developed? (Content should be high quality, clear and interesting -- the best content you have available.) What content will you include with the site's initial release? What content will you add later? Do you have illustrations, photos or other graphic images available in addition to text? What content will be updated over time? How often will the site be updated? What existing content should be redesigned to fit the web (avoid as much as possible "shoveling" existing content onto a site).

4. Identify resources

What resources are available for site development (including design) and maintenance? Effective websites change often. Maintenance can be a significant part of your overall budget.

5. Identify owners for the following roles
Project manager: Responsible for getting the initial site launched.

Maintenance lead: Responsible for ongoing site maintenance and future development. This individual should know at least a little HTML.

Graphic designer: Responsible for the graphic "look and feel" of the site; also assists with navigation and site structure. May be an external resource.

Programmer: Responsible for preparing web-ready HTML documents (a graphic designer may offer these services). Consider building your site using a site-development tool.

Technical lead: Responsible for getting the site on a local server, preparing any scripts (such as those associated with a feedback form), and providing day-to-day technical support pre- and post-launch. Discuss with your Technical Lead issues such as file naming conventions, file structures, and the internal site publishing process.

It is not unusual to have a webmaster take several roles.

6. Find existing websites that you like (and dislike)

Make sure you research other sites and see what's appealing in terms of content, design, organization, and navigation? Why do you think they're effective? What do you like about them? What about the sites you don't like? What's not working for you? Print these pages.

7. Consider ways to organize your content

A site structure provides a sense of hierarchy. A good structure is easy to understand and navigate.Are there logical "buckets" into which you can pour your content? Think about different ways to arrange your information until you find one that is more successful than others in meeting your objectives. This may take some time, but this is one of the most important parts of the process. Does the site warrant a search engine? Do you have one available?

8. Make it interactive

How can you involve the user in your site (i.e., make it interactive)? Giving people the chance to give feedback, offering discussion areas, responding online to questions or comments users send in are all good approaches. Some larger sites let people get personalized information.

9. Check in with your users

Review with your user group your current thinking about site objectives, audience, content, organization, and user involvement. Revise these elements based on feedback.

10. Identify designers and get Quotes

If you plan to use an external graphic designer, you'll probably want to get three or four quotes. The best way to approach this is to prepare a request for proposal and, ask designers to plan on presenting three design concepts for your review. You might want to ask each designer to present their bid in person so that you can get a sense of what it would be like to work with them.

11. Bring the designer into your process

Once you've selected your designer, share with them everything you've collected throughout this process. Introduce them to your team.

12. Review design concepts
Share them with your user group and incorporate feedback into design refinements.

13. Select a design and prototype

Work with the designer to refine the design. Prepare a small number of web pages in HTML based on the design. Prepare additional programming as required.

14. Test publish the site and test the prototype

Publish a small number of fully active prototype pages on a staging server. Test the prototype with your user group. Refine the prototype based on their feedback.

15. Create a marketing plan

Identify ways to get the word out at launch and in the weeks and months following launch. How will users hear about new information available through the site?

16. Create a maintenance plan

How will the site function after launch? Create a plan for the site, including a timetable for additional content that won't be part of the site's initial release. Assign tasks to content owners.

17. Launch!
Finish the HTML, graphics and additional programming on the full site. Publish the site. Market the site.

18. Get feedback
Collect feedback and incorporate feedback that makes sense.

19. Conduct follow-up studies and improve the site

At 3-6 months, conduct a more thorough site review with a group of users different from the ones who helped you with site development. Consider ways to incorporate user feedback to improve the site.

Questions, Questions, Questions - Back to Basics!

This week on multiple occasions I have spoken to people who were very new to E-Marketing and was asked two very common questions:

1) Why isn't my website the top result in Google?
2) How do we get to be the top result?

Therefore below I attempt address these question with a answer that even people who are new E-Marketing will understand:

To answer these questions you must understand Search Engine Marketing (SEM). These are the strategies used to be the top search result on Google, Yahoo or any other search engine.

Gaining a top search result is critical to most companies this is because almost all customers will begin their investigation on the web.

There are two ways to get onto the Google pages: "organic" and "pay". Basically the organic listing is free and is based on Google's search algorithm that finds the best page based on your search criteria. It is in the main section of the Google page (see orange box on graphic below). The challenge is how to get on the top organic listing. The Google algorithm is a trade secret and the company does not tell anyone how they decide on the top reach results. It is widely assumed that the organic listing is influenced by two things:

1) How often your page is referenced by other sites
2) The popularity of your page.

The key is to be listed within the top 20 searched, which is commonly referred to as "Being on Page 1". 80% of users never go to Page 2. (Personally, I don’t even look beyond the top 5 search listings)

The purple and green boxes denote where companies pay for placement. This is commonly known as Pay for Position, or P4P. It is basically a bidding contest. Every company decides which words they want to "buy" and then decide how much to pay. The company paying the most gets the top position.

Mercedes Benz Screws up..........

Making people take note of Direct mail advertising has become a bigger chanllenge then ever! Most people screw it up as soon as they set eyes on it! But Mercedes Benz (UK) have saved them that job. Mercedes Benz has created a new direct mail campaign in the form of a scrunched up paper ball.

The new insert is targeted at garages and mechanics, encouraging them to use only Mercedes parts to repair customers' vehicles.The insert arrives in foil, and can be straightened out, to reveal the strapline:

"If your customer's Mercedes-Benz gets scrunched genuine parts can straighten it out perfectly?"

12 Tips for an Effective and Efficient Google AdWords Campaign

Google AdWords (P4P) is the online marketing tool that businesses invest the most in. When I first started using Google AdWords, I had an extremely low budget, therefore I really had to ensure that my plan was efficient and effective. Therefore with the help of books, journals, tips and reports I put together a list of key essentials that if followed will help YOU run a more successful Google AdWords campaign.

1. Don’t use broad terms and keywords
If you include very general keyword or phrases, for example such as “football shoes”, in your keyword list, your ads will appear when users search for football and shoes separately as well. You should use very specific keywords which will also save costs as a lot of general keywords have a high click price.

Using keywords like this is usually used by experienced advertisers who also have a long list of negative keywords. It often gets a bad rap, but there are times when broad matching can work well, but only when using together with negative keywords.

2. Use dynamic titles
Dynamic titles are easy, they don't cost anything and they usually have a good effect on CTR and conversion rates. The phrase that the searcher uses in their search will come up as the title of your AdWord. This saves you having to create an individual ad for each keyword and means that your ad will be more targeted. In the title field of your ad simply your keyword first, then a backup/follow up title. However If all your competitors are using Dynamic titles, then using a static title can make your ad stand out compared to the others.

3. Negative keywords
If you're selling something, you don't want people finding your ad if they're searching for free stuff. This sounds obvious, but do some searches and you'll see it happening. Use the word 'free' in your campaign global negatives. You can also use this for other words you don't want to turn up for. Using negative keywords is especially important if you're using broad matching.

4 .Be creative, being number one position doesn’t always matter
Everyone tries to reach to be the top ad on the list but you got to think just how much of a difference will being in the first position, as opposed to the second, third or sixth position make? If you are creative then it doesn’t matter on your position.

A powerful way to do this is buy using a keyword specific URL in your advert. If you're selling some Nike Airwalk shoes you might want to set the URL on your creative to display as: www.example.com/adidas/nike-airwalk. Remember this doesn’t have to match your real click domain name, and is better than a long URL made up of random letters.

5. Optimize your landing page

The landing page is the page which the person who clicked on your ad will see when they come through to your site. Remember its import that you don't use your homepage as your landing page unless it deals only with selling the product you're advertising.

6. Track your keywords!
Track everything. Google will track impressions, clicks and click through rate. Just because an ad has a high CTR doesn't mean that it is making you money! If you don't know how each keyword is performing – then you won't be able to optimize your campaigns, by turning off the keywords that aren't working and investing more in the keywords which are.

7. Don't enter into bidding wars
It is easy to get into bidding wars with your competitors. You want to be number one and so does your competitor. This is the last thing you should do unless you can justify it. Let your competitor be number one, and be happy to be number two. Remember if you have a better product, your click through rate will get you to the top and you'll still be paying the same as you were in the second position.

8. Set a weekly budget and stick to it
When you're first starting out this is really important. Google AdWords is very addictive, and before you know it you have spent a week’s budget in one day! Set a weekly/ monthly budget and stick to this.

9. Target by region
By targeting individual countries and even cities, this will make more targeted users feels that your ad is meant for them. If you have the advert in the local language this would improve your advert even more, and the more likely they are to click on it. Just remember you would have a English printed advert in Japan, AdWords is no different!

10. Pick a timeslot when you want your ads to show
If you have your ads active 24 hours, your ads may be wasted on “Midnight Clickers” By choosing specific times for your ads to show this will help save money and ensure that you are targeting your specific customer more effectively. For example if I was targeting office stationary buyers, I would set my ads to run from 7am to 8pm, rather than have them running 24 hours.

11. Keep your campaigns organized
This will make it easier for you to know what is doing well and what isn't.

12. What are your competitors doing?
Remember before you begin and throughout your campaign you should take a look at what your competitors are doing. Are they doing something better than you? What keywords do you share with your competitors? Can you discern their strategy? Do they use automated bidding software? Do their landing pages have some magic which you should be emulating? This is the sort of stuff you can find out and the kind of stuff that you need to know.

It's Cool To Use Cuil - But Does It Work?

Former Google employees have launched a new search engine in an attempt to rival Google. Cuil claims to index three times as many web pages as any other search engine.

Cuil, pronounced cool, uses about 120 billion web pages to create its index of information. What's with the name Cuil? Well Cuil is Gaelic word meaning knowledge! The site's founders claim that this is more than Google uses, however, Google has stopped reporting how many it indexes.

Cuil's uses search technology which ranks results by the content on each webpage, not by its popularity. It then carefully organizes similar search results into groups and sorts them by category. The results are displayed in a magazine style format, rather than a list. The site looks very boring and lacks colour, It appears that they are trying to stick clear of looking anything like Google as the site is almost the polar opposite of Google, using a black background with grey and blue colours.

Cuil's technology was developed by a team led by Tom Costello and Anna Patterson. between the two of them they have developed search engines at Stanford University and IBM, and worked for Google. Russell Power, Patterson’s former colleague from Google is also involved and is a co founder of Cuil.

Costello stated the follow when Cuil was launched: "The web continues to grow at a fantastic rate and other search engines are unable to keep up with it. Our significant breakthroughs in search technology have enabled us to index much more of the internet, placing nearly the entire web at the fingertips of every user." Unlike Google, Cuil does not keep any personally identifiable information on users or their search histories. Due to the site's search method, personal data collection is unnecessary.

I gave it a try and will not be using it again anytime soon. It brings up loads of results, but unfortunately they're mostly irrelevant and useless. I really like the format, but who cares what it looks like if it doesn't work well! It seemed to have a major problem when I searched for more than one word. In some cases it couldn't even find any sites! whole Google showed 830 sites for the same keyword I searched......and they were relevant.

Facebook To Get A New Look!

Facebook has been in the news almost every week for the past month! A couple of weeks ago it was because of Mircrosoft and Facebook agreeing on an advertising deal! Then only yestaday Facebook was accused of promoting volience, because one of applications allows users to virtually stab each other!

However the major story that really caught my eye is that according to early reports Facebook will undergo a revamp in the next 2 months. The new look Facebook will feature a simpler design. But Facebook are tasking careful precautions not to make any sudden changes. Facebook will be inviting users to preview and use the new design and try out the improved features by navigating back and forth between the new and current versions of the social networking site. Access to the new design will be limited at first, but over time will become available to all users. The new Facebook design will be made available to users under the following URL: http://www.new.facebook.com/.

Brand republic report that among several new features will be included in the revamp. This includes a "publisher" feature which enables users to create content in a centralised area allowing users to add photos, upload video, or write notes, rather than navigating to each individual application. Also facebook are keen to tidy up unwanted applications/widgets by allowing users will have the option to interact with an application before adding it. Therefore allowing users to decide if they actually want the application on their profile and if they do, where. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg stated that the new design will make it a lot easier for users to share information.

Why change a winning formula? Facebook should concentrate in making Facebook more international friendly, It may be the most popular social network group in the UK and U.S. elsewhere in the world Facebook doesn’t dominate the social network universe.

A Look at Facebook's Advertising Solutions

Social networking sites have become extremely popular all over the Internet today, and are being used for much more than simply meeting new friends. Many businesses are realizing that social networks can be a powerful way to tap into a huge potential customer base. As every now knows Facebook launched their much awaited advertising solutions earlier this year. But why advertising through Facebook? A common complaint from many companies is that their advertising is not reaching the right audience. Instead of creating an advertisement and hoping that it reaches the right customers with Facebook, companies can select the age, sex, interests ensuring they reach the right audience. In a previous blog I spoke about how to create a Facebook page for products. In this blog however I will take a look at the complete Facebook advertising platform and capabilities.

Facebook Pages:
This capability is for companies trying to create a brand image inside Facebook. Obtaining a Page is free and it is great for businesses such as: bars, pubs, music artists, and sports teams. It allows businesses to connect with customers on Facebook similar to the way users connect with their friends. Through a Facebook Page, users can show their support by becoming a fan, writing on your Wall, and other actions that automatically generate News Feed stories. Once joined advertisers can send updates to fans such as special news or offers. You can also link the page to your Facebook social ads.

When your fans interact with your Facebook Page, the actions they take are automatically generated into social stories. These stories are published to News Feed, which friends may see the next time they log into Facebook. The stories link back to your Facebook Page, inviting more people to interact with it, which generates more social stories and drives even more traffic to your Page. Viral marketing at its best!

Facebook social ads:
Facebook Social Ads allow your business to become part of people's daily conversations. Ads can be displayed in the left hand Ad Space, visible to users as they browse Facebook to connect with their friends, as well as in the context of news feed attached to relevant social stories. The social stories, such as a friend's becoming a fan of your Facebook page or a friend's taking an action on your website, make your ad more interesting and more relevant. Social Ads are placed in highly visible parts of the site without interrupting the user experience on Facebook.

Facebook Beacon:
This function allows customers to share with their friends the actions they take on your website. For user actions you define, Facebook Beacon will publish a story in the user's profile and to friends' news feeds with a link back to your site. Facebook Beacon actions include purchasing a product, signing up for a service, adding an item to a wish list, and more. When a user performs the action, they will be alerted that your website is sending a story to their profile. Facebook Beacon enables your brand or business to gain access to viral distribution within Facebook. Stories of a user's engagement with your site maybe displayed in his or her profile and in news feed. These stories will act as a word of mouth promotion for your business and may be seen by friends who are also likely to be interested in your product.

Facebook Platform:
Facebook Platform provides you with the tools to quickly create custom experiences for users to interact with your business and their friends while maintaining the look and feel of the Facebook interface. you can create an authentic social experience for your users by integrating your current web site or web application directly with the Facebook Platform or sponsoring an existing application. You can also integrate mobile and desktop applications with the Facebook API. Facebook Pages enable you to easily create a custom business presence on Facebook, and you can further customize the experience with a Facebook Application. You can create an application to engage even more with your users or leverage one of the thousands of compelling existing applications. Facebook Platform makes it easy to authentically connect with your customers.

Facebook Polls:
Tens of millions of people express themselves authentically on Facebook, you can accurately target your Polls by gender, age, location, interests, and other demographic data. Your poll will only be shown to the people who meet the criteria you set.

With the easy to use creation interface, you can create and deploy a single question poll within minutes. The polls will immediately start showing up in your target audience's news feeds where they can respond as soon as they log in to Facebook. Based on the level of activity at that time, your question could be answered by hundreds of people in as little as 30 minutes. The detailed results are broken down by age group and gender.

Facebook Insights:
Of course with all these types of advertising advertisers need a way of measuring the success. Therefore Facebook’s offers an Insights package that allows social ad users and pages users to see metric data, including different activities such as how many people viewed videos and photos, the fan demographics, ad performance, trends and more.

Google Knol launched.......

Google has launched a new online information service called Knol to rival internet encyclopedia Wikipedia.

The website allows people to write about their areas of expertise under their bylines in a twist on encyclopaedia Wikipedia, which allows those posting to remain anonymous.

The site has been tested over the past few months, and will offer a set of community tools that offers different forms of interaction between readers and authors, including allowing people to submit comments, rate or write a review of a Knol, with Google ranking entries by popularity.

Other points of difference to Wikipedia include Knol encouraging writers to reduce their contributions on a topic to a single page, which will not be chronologically updated, along with it not allowing visitors to be able to contribute or edit a Knol unless they have the author's permission. Knol has publishing tools similar to single blog pages.

Google wants to rank entries by popularity, decided by user ratings, reviews and how often people refer to the specific pages, to encourage competition.
In another point of difference from Wikipedia, the new offering does not edit or endorse the information and visitors will not be able to edit or contribute to a Knol unless they have the author's permission. Readers will also be able to notify Google if they find any content objectionable.

The website was first announced at the beginning of December 2007 when Google began limited testing on the site. Additionally, if an author includes ads, Google says it will provide the author with a revenue share from the proceeds of the ad placements.

Knol focusing on individual authors or groups of authors in marked contrast to Wikipedia's subject entries. The problem with Wikipedia is that anyone can edit information and stay anonymous, so there is always a stigma as it is unknown if the information is correct and from a reliable source. But if well known knowledgeable people start using Knol, This will enable Google to have a more credible online encyclopedia! Which will wipe the floor with Wikipedia.

Recent YouTube updates

In the past few months YouTube has received a number of new features, some good, some not so good. The new features, includes a new site update which is aimed to create a more personalized experience for users. In this Post I will take a look in more detail at some of these new features.

NEW PERSONALIZED HOMEPAGE

Following the launch of iGoogle it wasn’t long before Google implemented the same idea for YouTube. The new personalized, customizable YouTube homepage is aimed at making it easy for users to find the videos. Of course this is a clever step that YouTube because to gain this service users will have to log in. This will in hind sight will increase the registrations of users on YouTube, however how much will YouTube current court case impact this?

YouTube also state that since they have launched this, data has shown an increase in the number of users visiting the homepage, the number of visits made, and the number of subscriptions users have made. YouTube are of course using this data to support that the customizable feature is a not only a better experience for users, but is also helping to expose for your videos.

The actual layout of the page itself isn’t all that different from what the normal homepage looked like. The editor picks is replaced with personalized recommendations, and in addition featured videos and new videos from your friends are shown. Below the new videos from your friends, is a feature which allows you to see the latest activity from your friends. Popular clips also are still shown at the bottom of the page.

It looks like YouTube is trying to ride the current “social network wave” with increasing the interactivity with video owners and enabling you to keep track of your friends.

IMPROVED EMAIL NOTIFICATIONS

The email messages sent from YouTube have been updated with a new layout. In addition to a modernized design and many wording changes, text for comments and messages are included directly in the body of these update emails, so you can see what these messages are without having to return to YouTube and logging in.

ANNOTATIONS
YouTube launched the first of many planed interactive video editing tools - Video Annotations. Using the Video Annotations tool this allows you to insert commentary by adding speech bubbles, notes, links, and highlight boxes anywhere you want in your videos.

I like this feature and I am looking forward to YouTube enhancing this tool in the future. One way it could be improved for example is including some images/graphs which can also be added to videos.

NEW TAB FOCUSED LAYOUT
The new tab layout features a consolidation of Share, Favorites, Playlists and Flag into a dedicated tab driven box. The share tab expands out to give a more extensive range of sharing options which includes social bookmarking and voting site, the ability to post a video to a blog, and send to the friend via email. Again another sign that YouTube really are increasing the social network side of there website.

PUBLIC VIDEO STATISTICS
Commentary is now offered in a tab next to “Statistics and Info.” This tab is not only available to video owners privately through the YouTube statistics feature, (spoken about in a previous post) but also video viewers. The “Statistics and info” tab provides information on video honors and video referrals. Video honors are awards presented by YouTube, for example: the most watched video in the UK, most discussed, most responded, etc.

Other information displayed is the names of recent users who rated the video and a map of the location where the video was film. Personally I really like this feature, but I don’t really understand how this is interesting to viewers of videos? Surely this information is only of interest to the video owners?

Overall I think these are just a number of changes which will happen this year. I think a number of users will have a problem with the new layout changes due to that fact YouTube has kept the same layout for so long. We all should have expected the changes once Google got their hands on it. Let me know your thoughts on the new layout.

Benefits of advertising with Web 2.0

Online advertising is growing faster than ever, any popular site will eventually feature adverts, but why is this form of advertising so popular? Well here a just a selection of some of the bigger benefits of online marketing:

Measurability
One of the greatest benefits of online advertising is that advertisers can track the success of campaigns far more effectively than they can do offline using web analytics and other online advertising tools. Not only can you measuring clicks through your website, you can also track user behavior to build up a complete journey of users visit. I know this quote is almost in every text book but, John Wanamaker famously said ““Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted. The trouble is, I don't know which half”

Cost
Online marketing and advertising is far cheaper than advertising traditional methods. In some cases it’s even free; the only thing you need to provide is your time.

Reach Your Target Audience
Marketers often moan about the difficulties of reaching the 18-34 age group. The say that Traditional channels such as television adverts and press adverts just don’t work! But a study from the Online Publishers Association found out that 18-34 year olds are far more likely to go online (46%) than watch TV (35%), listen to the radio (three%) or read a newspaper (also three%). Marketers aim is always to reach the consumer in their natural environment with advertising that is engaging, entertaining, maybe even useful; they may be more receptive to advertising messages. Web 2.0 can be exactly all those things.

Target Niche/Micro Market Audiences
Alongside the big social networks groups there are also a few smaller social networks based around a community of shared interests. There are also different groups formed on some social network groups like Facebook, where consumers with the same interest gather and chat about that interest allowing businesses to have the target market in one place.

Increased Choice of Channels
With TV advertising you limited by time slot and choice of channel, which unless you have a lot of money could become be bad. But online, the choice of advertising formats is far more varied. But with Web 2.0 it’s all about being creative, when using web 2.0 to market anything is possible. Videos, games, banner the list goes on and on.

Businesses use of Twitter

This is my second blog on Twitter, but after reading a interesting article about Twitter in BusinessWeek magazine earlier this week, it made me think about Twitter again. The Article soke about how project teams in companies are now being asked to deliver real time status updates to one another using Twitter. Therefore I took it upon myself to further look how people around the world are using Twitter.

The biggest users are Market researchers who are using Twitter to try and identify consumer trends in real time. I also came across a couple of interesting folks who use it and I thought it would be interesting to share:

In the U.S. the Los Angeles Fire Department uses it to communicate real time fires and accidents to local citizens. (The LAFD News & Information blog can be found at: lafd.blogspot.com)

In the UK, the government has signed up to Twitter and uses the site to send out updates on the Prime Minister’s activities.
BusinessWeek, also reported that Dell claimed to have boosted sales through searching for mentions of its business on Twitter and jumping into the conversations. They state that they boosted sales by $500,000 in recent months! Now that’s not a small increase of sales! Are we under estimating the power of Twitter?

Read All About It! Tips On Making Press Releases Effective!

One of the key tasks I played a major role in over the past year is putting together and issuing press releases. Along the way I have picked up some methods and handy tips so I thought I would share them with readers.

I would recommend to try and issue at least 5 to 10 press releases every year. Sending out a press release once every 2 months will keep your company in the press. Even if you feel that your target audience is small remember that a well written press release will only help build your image and strengthen your current customer base, therefore it really is worth putting a good deal of time into press releases.

The press releases that I usually issued were launching of products, but other good topics for press releases could charity work, or reaching a specific target. This may sound silly but remember the content of a press release needs to be interesting, don’t just use press releases to sell products, the more you capture the reader’s attention the article the greater chance it will be used and even forwarded by readers. You could use a good headline and strong first leading paragraph to do this.

Keep in mind who your target market is. For example if your target market is engineers, then keep to topics they would be interested in, don't focus greatly on sale reports or marketing information.

Remember in this new marketing era, press release can feature on websites, blogs, forums, not just print. I have also heard people say that you have a greater chance of your press release being used by editors if you fax rather than email, but I cannot say that I have experienced this.

Press release are also a great way to build up some contacts in the press. By thanking reporters who used your press release will establish a good relationship between your company which will result in a better chance of future press release being used.

Don't forget also that online press release will increase year Google ranking due to the back linking!

Flash Google- SEO & Flash!

Great news for everyone who has Flash built website's and Flash content on your websites. On 1st July 2008 Google took its first steps to start to include Flash in its website search.

Although Flash content always looks so smart and simple to use, businesses are always slightly resistant from using it, due to Google not including Flash content in search results.

However Adobe have now developed a special tool for Google & Yahoo to expose the text content within a Flash file to their crawlers. Adobe is providing optimized Adobe Flash Player technology to Google and Yahoo to enhance search engine indexing of the Flash file format (SWF) and uncover information that is currently undiscoverable by search engines.

Google has already begun to incorporated Flash into its search engine. With Adobe’s help, Google can now better read the content on sites that use Adobe Flash technology, helping users find more relevant information when conducting searches. As a result, millions of pre-existing RIAs and dynamic Web experiences that utilize Adobe Flash technology, including content that loads at runtime, are immediately searchable without the need for companies and developers to alter them. Yahoo is expected to follow shortly.

Those who have use Flash remember that this does not mean Flash content is automatically going to show up in the top of search results. You will still have to battle for the top spot like any other site, and due to Flash content typically not having a lot of text content embedded this could become a difficuilt task.

I have created a webpage for the company I work for, which contains 90% Flash content, the problem is I will now have to do some further work as when I create it I didnt consider making it search engine crawler friendly!

Can you Digg this??????????

Digg.com is a News website it is controlled by users. Similar to the all new “Yahoo Buzz“, “Propeller” and Mixx. There is no central governing body that decides which news to report and which news makes it to the front page. The community of users submit the stories and “vote” on them by clicking the “digg this” icons besides each story listed on its pages. Digg was originally featured mostly technology related articles but has since grown to include a whole range of categories that cover almost any topic.

I am currently a member of Digg and use it to drive traffic to my companies product pages by “digging” Press Releases and product news. There has been talk of something called the “Digg effect” This is where stories have been successful in getting over to the Digg community and they begins digging it which has resulted in the story getting on the front page of Digg and once that happens you can get over 10,000 unique visitors to your site in one day!

There are a few number of ways which will improve your ways to get on to the front page of Digg:

• Socializing is key: The more friends you have on Digg the better because when you submit a story, you can then invite all your friends to Digg it.


• Comment on other Stories: An easier way to get traffic is by posting comments on popular stories with high diggs. Write a comment that is relevant to the story and then leave a link (signature) at the end of your comment.


• Digg your blog: If you have a fairly large number of readers to your blog, you can submit your blog posts to Digg and then insert a “digg this” button in near your blog. Readers of your blog can vote your story up the Digg ranks.

Google and Yahoo together at last!

Early Today I posted a blog stating that Google and Yahoo were about to sign a deal. Well I have great pleasure to tell you that this deal have been confirmed by a number of news sites. As a Yahoo shareholder this is great news.

According to a statement by Yahoo they expect to earn additional cash flow of $250 million to $450 million within a year of implementing Google's ads on its pages. Yahoo state that this deal will deliver financial value to stockholders and will help them to invest in broader strategy to transform display advertising and advance our starting point objectives with users.

Under the agreement, Yahoo will carry ads purchased by Google advertisers on terms and results pages of its choosing. It may also carry Google ads on non-search pages. The agreement lasts for up to four years, and consists of an initial four-year term followed by options for two three-year renewals.

Some have speculated a Google-Yahoo tie-up on search advertising could create a virtual monopoly for Google. But to me I think Google already have a monopoly, Google already controls nearly 70% of the online search advertising market.

Yahoo and Google almost tie the knot!

In my last blog I spoke about how Google was dominating the internet search industry, and how Yahoo was struggling to keep up! Well rumors have it that Google and Yahoo are now in the final stages of signing a deal that will combine both their search advertising programs. The partnership will enable Yahoo to show adverts that are supplied by Google alongside its own search results and on some of its other websites.

With Microsoft keep trying to get its hands on Yahoo, with offer after offer, which led to share holders putting pressure on Yahoo executives and Yahoo turning down Microsoft time after time. If Yahoo’s deal with Google does go through, is it purely to get revenge at Microsoft? Well Microsoft, have both claimed that Yahoo! was pursuing a partnership with Google as a "poison pill" to block Microsoft's advances, with many in the internet industry also sharing this opinion. As a Yahoo share holder, I would much rather see Yahoo have a partnership with Google then Microsoft, just look at Google stock compared to Microsoft!

Microsoft’s latest offer was to pay more than $7bn (£3.6bn) for a 16% stake in Yahoo as well as taking over its search business. Yahoo turned this offer down due to wanting to retain its search business, which they considers important to its strategic direction.

Google UK Search Domination

According to new statistics released today (11th June) by marketing group Hitwise over 87% of all UK searches during May went through Google.

Google sites accounted for 87.30% of all searches throughout the month of May. Yahoo was of course second, but was considerably behind Google with only 4.09% of searches. MSN was the third most popular search website during May according to Hitwise, as it accounted for around 3.70% of UK searches. It was followed by Ask which accounted for just over 3% of searches.

It shocked me that the amount of searches made through Microsoft and Ask were so close to those made through Yahoo. What also surprised me was the difference between the UK and US.

In the US, Google accounted for 68.29% of searches made in May. Yahoo was second again receiving 19.95%, while MSN Search received 5.89% while Ask came fourth again with 4.23%.

These stats clearly show the UK search market is dominated by Google. Although in the US the story looks similar to the UK, the battle doesn't look over yet. We will have to wait and see what happens to Yahoo should Bill Gates gets his greedy little hands on them.

But those with Yahoo shares shouldn't worry too much yet as according to Alexa.com, Yahoo is still the most visited website on a globally scale as a Yahoo's domination of the Asian market.

YouTube Insights

This week I discovered a wonderful thing….YouTube Insights! I have a channel on YouTube and have uploaded 10 -15 videos for my company, trying to reach our target customers. These are everything from How to guides, getting started videos, demos, presentations, etc.

Although I can tell how many people view the video, I always wondered who exactly was watching them, and were they attracting audience we wanted. Now thanks to YouTube Insights I can find out just that!

YouTube Insights is a free video metrics and analytics service. In March YouTube introduced YouTube Insights, which it aims to extend further in the future. It gives you the demographic breakdown of the viewers of your videos a chance to see who, where, how, when your video was viewed.

The details are collected from YouTube users whenever they watch a video, there sex, age, location and the list goes on. Video-by-video basis the demographics of viewers are broken down.

A bar chart represents the percentage of your audience in different age groups, and a pie chart showing the breakdown of gender. You can then filter that data by country or for a specific time frame.

To access this features, go to the “My Videos” section and simply click on the “Insight” link for any video where you’d like to see the stats.

Insights also shows referrals so you can see what links and methods are effective in driving traffic to your videos or channel on YouTube. As it links to Google they also provide which keywords users found your videos by when searching on Google as well as while searching on YouTube.

Although this data is extremely interesting, its key to remember and not get carried away, try to keep in mind that the data only shows information for viewers who are registered with YouTube. It would be interesting to see the number percentage of registered users compared to those who are not.

After looking at the data provided it from the videos I have created for my business, the data shown in YouTube Insights matches that of what our target customer is. Therefore the data is useful to me as it confirms that our videos are reaching our targeted consumer based

I am surprised that YouTube doesn’t charge for this service. In the future i think they will introduce an “upgraded version” of insights that YouTube users will have to upgrade to a higher level membership. Maybe they already offer a more detailed version to businesses that currently pay for adverts through YouTube.

http://www.youtube.com/

Increase your YouTube Video Viewing figures & Drive Traffic from YouTube to your website!

One of my favorite websites is YouTube. As well as using YouTube to watch videos I have created and uploaded my own. For work purposes I also created a channel on our products, which contained videos such as how to guides and demos. The Channel proved very popular and was a first within the company. YouTube also roved to drove traffic to our websites as well as help ranking in the search engines. Therefore it is very important that when you submit a video to YouTube that you make is Search engine spider friendly. Everything from the title to the thumbnail are very important! Below I have put some information to help you make your YouTube videos help both the viewer and YOU!

Step 1: The perfect title

Make sure that you do not use generic terms and non-specific titles, if you use specific titles, this will be more appealing.

You Can also include capital letters, for example “You HAVE to watch this video!” will be more attractive then “you have to watch this video!” BUT of course don’t over use them.

Step 2: The Video Description

YouTube doesn’t show your whole description unless the user chooses to request more information. Therefore the first thing in your description should be the URL.

Follow this with a short description of your video. Try and stick to a short paragraph this should include all your keywords relating to your video.

If you drastically want to improve your ranking in search results and in YouTube you can even just add a list of keywords after your short paragraph.

Step 3: The Tags

Take advantage of the Tags section and write as many tags as you can until you reach the limit. These tags are mainly used for when users of YouTube search for videos.

Step 4: The Thumbnails

YouTube allows the users to select a thumbnail from a choice of 3 to 4. I discovered that video clips that featured real people received a lot more views then those that contained screenshots and power point presentations.

Extra tips:
Add a watermark to all your videos that contains the URL you want to the viewer to go or display your URL in the last part of the video.

You could show only part of the video on YouTube, and then tell the viewer that they can see the other half of the video on your website! BUT this could have a negative side effect and annoy the viewer and they will not visit your site and will not watch any of your videos in the future!

http://www.youtube.com/

Google image ranking - It's more then just alt tags!

Many people think that just by naming their image file with the keyword that they desire, and by inserting a descriptive “alt” tag text in the HTML code, the Google’s Image Search system will index your image and thus your page. Well if only it was that easy! That does have some effect but not much!

When you search for an image in Google the image spider(s) looks at the text before and after the images on webpages, and it uses these to get its listings. It is estimated that the amount of words before or after is somewhere between twenty and forty. However this all depends on how big your words are.

Of course many of you well educated search buffs will tell me that all the text on websites are spidered. That's true, but the text surrounding the images will have more influence.

Facebook your Product!

While exploring social networks further I discovered a good tool on Facebook for companies who don't have the budget to pay for adverts. Facebook now enables products and brands to have their own special Facebook pages free of cost!

If you go to the homepage of Facebook, at the bottom of the page is some small links, click on the one called Advertisers. Although this takes you to a homepage to buy ads. You will be able see a free opportunity to post a Facebook page for your product or company even if you don't use the Facebook advertise program.

You get to name the page, add images, videos, links, forums, news, and more. Very similar to the group application on Facebook.

I imagine this works stronger for B2C than B2B businesses or strong and well known brands as they have built-in enthusiast and fan bases. Not sure of the impact it has on Search engine ranking yet. I’ll keep you updated!

www.facebook.com

The ultimate guide to making YOUR blog successful!

There’s lots of articles on the internet that list different methods and techniques to create a successful blog. I combined about 3 - 4 articles and come up with this guide for myself:

1. Blog with consistent
Make up your mind first on how often you will make posts on your blog. If you want to do it twice a day, or once a day, or once every 2 days or just once a week - decide this and then stick to it. Don’t post everyday for a few days and then do nothing at all for a week. You will lose whatever repeat “sticky” traffic you could get.

2. Be passionate about your topic
You have to be passionate about what you blog. You should be knowledgable about your niche blogging topic, and keep updated. If you are not passionate about your blog, you will probably not excite your readers.

3. Interact with readers
Allow your readers to post questions directly to you and reach you if needed. Don’t alienate yourself from them. Many readers may want to get in touch with you and ask you questions. Listen to them, and help them out! Blogging is a two way street. Involve your readers and they will be loyal to you. Build two way relationships!

4. Don’t be afraid to link out
If you see and read a good posting or article elsewhere, link to it! This may seem contrary to popular belief and at first it looks like you are channeling traffic away from your site at the risk of getting your readers hooked elsewhere. But by providing valuable links to other stories, you are gaining authority and credibility by showing that you know what is happening around you. Readers will love you for referring them to other stories, and will come back for more stuff if you send them to quality articles in the sea of poor content.

5. Build Your Blog Brand
Whatever you choose to call your blog - make sure you have your own domain name and not a subdomain on say for example yourname.blogspot.com . That just doesn’t work in the long run for serious bloggers. Take control of all you can do with free blog software like Wordpress and install them on your domain - it takes less than an hour and you can easily contract out someone for as little as $50 to install it. Having your own domain name gives you your unique brand, and allows you to stand out from the crowd.

6. Be a good writer
Communicate your thoughts and ideas in well structured English. Some people take longer than others to express their thoughts. It’s ok to have a few typos as its acceptable by blog readers. But don’t have too many typos. People are interested in the content. Be clear and to the point - and don’t ramble on and on repetitively.

7. Read other blogs in your industry
See what other competing blogs are writing. Read a LOT. Reading is something you must do. Visit websites that are related to your blog topics and get ideas from them - but never copy them word for word. It’s ok to summarize another bloggers post in your own words, and saying the same thing in your way.

Improve your Banner Click-Through Rate!

In my opinion banners no longer work well and are pretty useless! Banners usually achieve high click-through rates for the first couple of weeks, but after that they sink pretty quick. There are few ways to increase your click-through rates if you still use banners though, here's a few tricks.......

Use “Action” Words - Use words which ask web users to react for example: “Click Here” Banners with “Click Here” teasers, and similar action phrases will improve click-through rates.

Short and to the Point - using short and to the Point sentences on banners will make a big difference.

What’s the Benefit? - Use statements that offer benefits to the user and offer solutions to solve customers’ problems

Animated Banners vs. Static Banners - Animated banners usually receive more click- through rates then static banners. Users of the Internet are more likely to notice banners that are animated. Further more use a combination of both text and images.

Change your Banners Frequently - After the user has seen your banner for the 3rd time, they will probably ignore the banners in the future. You should track your click-through rate closely and if you notice it falling it is time to change the banner!

SMS + Blogging = Twitter

The publication Business weekly this week published an article on Twitter, which made me think that I should really write or “blog” something about it:

Twitter is a social media service that is a cross between SMS text messages and Blogs. Twitter otherwise known as “microblogging”, has become hugely popular with traffic on Twitter exploding within the past couple of months. The basic concept is that you can subscribe to get short and brief commentary in the form of live alerts from other members by SMS, Instant Messenger or Email. You can also choose to follow your favorite users and get updates from (Yes basically the status feature from Facebook)

If my description doesn’t make sense here’s the basics from Wikipedia:

“Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send “updates” (or “tweets”; text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) to the Twitter website, via short message service (e.g. on a cell phone), instant messaging, or a third-party application such as Twitterrific or Facebook. Users can receive updates via the Twitter website, instant messaging, SMS, RSS, email or through an application.” >With such a large user base, businesses are now looking to use twitter as a channel to talk to customers. Media groups in the U.S. are using users of Twitter (Twitterers) to gain first minute news.

Currently I do not use twitter for personal reasons. I have tried in the past to try and drive traffic to websites through it. Although due to a lack of following this didn’t help! If you are already a well followed blogger or forum user then Twitter could benefit you though. Here’s a just three ways of how it can help you:

1) It can help to build yourself into a brand

2) Could be used to drive traffic to your website

3) Allows you to follow leaders of industries and colleagues on the go via SMS. This could work well If you or colleagues go out in the field. It will let them use it to keep one another updated with deals etc.

www.twitter.com

Internet World Exhibition & conference Report

I attended the Internet World Exhibition & Conference which took place last week in London, UK. It looked at all things marketing but focused only on electronic marketing. It was attended by over 100 well known internet companies including Google, Facebook, Linkedin, and EBay. It was interesting to hear that online advertising spending in the UK was 2.8 billion pounds! While in 2004 it was just 653 million pounds. I’d thought I’d share a few points I noted that interested me and that I thought may be useful to you also.

Over and over again I heard that too much digital marketing is designed and being used to stop the user from what they are trying to do. Businesses were advised to stop trying to interrupt what people are interested in and be what people are interested in.

There was a simple message that was being pushed throughout the whole event: Marketing as a service! Currently B2C use marketing as a service but B2B are slow in adopting this method. If we really know our customers and know what they want then we should be able to provide them with content and service without asking anything directly in return. In this way we engage with the audience on a pull rather then a push basis, this also helps position the brand in a positive way.


They also spoke about the poor state of the global economy and the importance of reducing expenditure, and tighten budgets for companies. They pushed that the perfect way to do this would be to increase relevant channels and decrease others. The relevant channel being the internet!

Further topics included how the search market changed incredibly in 2007, and is changing just as significantly in 2008. Google has cracked down on paid buying; some brands have been forced to reconsider their natural search strategy as they seek to remove themselves from link buying as quickly as possible. Which has resulted in many of these brands moving to explore social networks, to see if this can be used as a means to building traffic, links and brand.
Social media marketing was covered by a few papers, they focused on how some early adopters have benefited hugely while others have , heavy investments with light return and been left with empty communities. They also questioned if users of social networks, i.e. Facebook will accept adverts in there private Facebook profile space. 100,000 companies created profiles on Facebook with 24 hours of the network opening up Facebook advertising. Companies are ready, but are the users???

Usability – switching from a difficult to use website to an easy to use website has never been easier for internet users. No longer do we have to put up with slow, awkward websites. All we have to do is hit the back button and it takes us back to Google which, with its typically relevant search results, makes it simple to find an alternative website offering the same goods. Increasing the usability of any website will increase sales and conversion rates! It is a common sign that marketing managers are often “wowed” by fancy designs and that they forget that function always wins over form. So they pushed the message that “it may look good but if users can’t use it then they won’t!”

Top 5 Most Creative Advertising!

Over the past 10 years there has been a large growth in the amount of creativity used in marketing and adverts. Every company wants to stand out from the rest and gain the attention of the public. I have put together a list of the top 5 adverts that do not just stand out but are also very creative and clever.

5. Bend over!

This yoga company advertised its yoga club by showing just how much they will bend over to help you get fit! These straws were distributed to local drink establishments, as well as containing a picture of someone doing yoga, who bends anyway you bend the straw, the company also placed the address to their website on the straw.

4. Send me a T-Shirt

FedEx created these T-shirt as a freebie to customers and they were so popular a retail chain brought the rights and started selling them!

3. Two sugars please

In New york not only is a lot of coffee drunk, but there is also a lot of advertising, and space is limited. Using New York's Steaming sewer systems this coffee company created a steaming cup of coffee that even the New Yorkers couldn't resist! But do consumers actually look at the road? Also most New Yorkers are used to the steaming from the sewers, so would this steam grab their attention??

3. Watch this space!

This watch company used the safety handles which feature on the buses at airport that transfer you to and from the airplanes. Customers could then go on to purchase the watches via duty free on the airlines.

1. Size does matter!

Mini Copper used an illusion trick at subway/metro/tube stations across Europe, this creative campaign had the strongest effect any advert can have - it created a large amount of word of mouth publicity! I also imagine that a lot of people took photos which they share online and with friends.