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Tuesday, March 20th, 2012
The blogging and social sharing platform Posterous has been acquired by Twitter. This is another indication of the joining of dots between social media platforms, bringing more functionality to users and, in this instance, offering Twitter an additional strength by providing easy access to a mechanism for sharing photos, long form writing and more, which 140 characters cannot.
There are many blogging platforms – the best known are Google’s Blogger, WordPress, Tumblr, and Posterous. Blogs have gone from being simple online diaries or web logs to now being difficult to tell apart from a website, and often offering advantages over such because of the evolution from social media roots.
Many companies have discovered the usefulness of blogs for engaging with website visitors, sharing information, and posting images and, as blogs have adapted rapidly to social media developments, so companies have been able to co-ordinate social media strategies and efficiencies, such as being able to post directly to a blog from a mobile or smartphone.
Whilst some may see Twitter’s acquisition of Posterous as a step towards commercialisation (the company has an avid, enthusiastic and supportive community behind the platform), it is likely that this is a shrewd move by Twitter to extend its use beyond short form. Although Posterous is not the most popular blogging platform, the opening for Twitter is obvious.
The amalgamation of Twitter with a blog can benefit any social media strategy for small and large companies, and is proving to be essential in this socmed world, as well as a presence on social networks such as Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+.
Posterous has made it very simple for sharing of images, which is one area where many companies still seem to be missing the opportunities presented. Images and videos are not only eye-catching but can be used to simply display information, and the rise of infographics is testament to that. By sharing images across multiple social media properties, it is possible to reach a diverse audience and this may well be one of the key reasons for Twitter’s acquisition of Posterous as well as the rise of Pinterest in recent months.
Tags: acquisition, facebook, Google, LinkedIn, posterous, Social Media, strategy, twitter
Posted in Blog, Social Media
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Tuesday, March 20th, 2012
Status updates from fashion house Burberry were the most “liked” of any fashion brand on Facebook in February.
Burberry posted the most popular fashion updates on the social networking site in February, according to figures from Stylophane, overtaking Dior, Converse and Luis Vuitton in the process.
The figures show that Burberry made 18 status updates in February, which gathered 138,537 likes between them. The closest rival, Dior, gained 118,387 likes in the same period.
Burberry still has some way to go to become the most liked fashion page on the site: Converse shoes current has 22.9m likes, compared to Burberry’s 11m.
But its status updates proved very popular – the brand was 8th in the update stakes in January.
Burberry launched a new ad campaign at the start of the year, using actors and models photographed by renowned snapper Mario Testino.
The campaign has proved successful, doubling activity on Burberry’s Facebook site since January.
Burberry’s focus on social media marketing is split between various sites including Facebook and Twitter. It used its Facebook page to give fans a sneak peak at its autumn 2012 women’s wear, with streamed video allowing people to connect to what was happening behind the scenes.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in SEO, PPC, Multilingual Search Marketing and Website Conversion Enhancement services.
Tags: brands, Burberry, facebook, fashion, Likes, Social Media, status updates, trends
Posted in Social Media Marketing
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Thursday, March 15th, 2012
The ‘throttling’ of Facebook and Twitter results on Google – with evermore rare occurrences of either site popping up on the first page – has made social media marketing on either site somewhat isolated.
Of course, both Facebook and Twitter would love to be ranked more highly by Google: but it’s become a case of ‘tough luck’ for both sites since the search giant launched Google+.
Google are a savvy bunch: trying to launch a new social network whilst giving equal weight to your competitors – despite screams of antitrust breach – is not a good business practice.
As such – and you’ve probably noticed this – Google has made huge efforts to make Google+ profiles as visible as possible online. This includes great organic search rankings, as well as notable mentions in Google News searches where the author of an article has linked to their Google+ profile.
Combined with Google’s seemingly common preference to stick YouTube video results near the top of SERPs, it’s fast becoming obvious that pouring Internet marketing efforts into Google platforms has the potential to yield better results, especially if you’re able to cross-combine your campaign to maximise +1s, YouTube referrals, organic rankings, and content pointers for your freshly-written articles.
Facebook has launched an IPO which will trigger a wave of new money-making moves on the site: things which marketers previously enjoyed for free will dry up, meaning serious budgets will be needed to take advantage of the potential 800-million user reach of the site.
Google+, on the other hand, isn’t quite ‘there’ in the popularity stakes yet to monetise.
Get in fast before it does and there are some immediate benefits for your SEO. Here are two very simple benefits of setting up a Google+ account which will help support existing SEO campaigns.
Organic boosts:
Google+ pages rank really well – and with Facebook and Twitter failing to reach search agreements, Google+ profiles look set to remain the search result of choice on Google. Getting your personal profile sorted, and linked back to your company, allows you far greater visibility: producing regular industry-related content will set you apart from competitors and solidify you as an ‘expert’ in your field, without the need for huge swathes of keywords. Obviously, SEO remains very important, but Google+ provides a ready-made boost for your SEO campaign which shouldn’t be ignored.
Get recommended:
Whilst Facebook ‘likes’ flag up popular pages for Facebook users, Google’s +1 feature puts hearty recommendations all over Google’s portion of the web. Rather than relying on insular Facebook referrals by creating popular content, items on your Google+ account can be flagged up to every web user who utilises Google search. That’s nearly all of them, then.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – a provider of SEO Services & Pay Per Click strategies.
Tags: Content, experts, facebook, Google, organic, PPC, profiles, quality, search, SEO, twitter
Posted in Social Media Marketing
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Thursday, March 15th, 2012
Facebook’s position as the biggest, most popular social network is unassailable, right? Even with the force of the world’s biggest search engine, its “nearest competitor”, Google+, has failed to take any significant slice of the social pie.
Up steps Pinterest, then, which in the past year has seen a seismic Big Bang of activity which some commentators have said shows just how fragile Facebook’s popularity may be.
After all, Facebook rode in on the waves of social popularity created by MySpace: and, well, MySpace kind of crumbled and died as a result. Will Pinterest be the next big thing?
More than 11 million monthly US visitors suggests that, perhaps, Pinterest could eventually rival Facebook in the popularity stakes.
For those who can remember back about five years, it was mainly females who made the switch from MySpace to Facebook, signaling a seachange for respective boyfriends, husbands and prospective love interests who reluctantly followed along.
Funnily enough, the mainstays of Pinterest’s early success have also, on the whole, been female. That alone, of course, doesn’t really tell us anything (accusations of fickleness are best kept quiet), but the rise of interest groups on Pinterest is making it an evermore tempting distraction from Facebook’s news feeds.
But is it worth putting any effort into Pinterest? At least, before Facebook’s popularity truly starts to wane?
Perhaps not. But it’s well worth ascertaining how Pinterest is affecting your other online activity: whether that’s PPC marketing campaigns, search engine optimisation or social media marketing.
One clear way to get a handle on this is to track how traffic is accessing your sites from Pinterest: and for those au fait with using Google Analytics, the program can provide valuable feedback on visits, conversions and engagement from Pinterest users.
Mashable’s Social Media pages carry an interesting breakdown of ways to track Pinterest traffic in Analytics this month.
Amongst them, users are encouraged to set up traffic sources referral reports, using pinterest.com or m.pinterest.com to discover how visits from Pinterest weigh up against your averages. Set some goals and you can really track how effective a referrer Pinterest is.
Custom reports will help you track articles or pieces which are “pinned” on Pinterest, how many visitors saw the pins and followed the links, whether these are repeat visitors, how long they stayed to see your products, and whether they converted, bounced or helped score a goal.
The Analytics dashboard also allows you to monitor daily visits from Pinterest, which come from mobiles, and the usual info such as popular items, visit length and whether Pinterest is assisting goal completion.
Finally, Multi-Channel Funnels has an assisted conversions feature, which, when filtered for Pinterest, should show you how many times the site helped you convert a visit. You could find Pinterest is a great signposter, but not a great path to conversion – this at least gives you something to build on.
Of course, for now, if you’re already embarking on large scale social media marketing campaigns, it’s not worth pulling the plug on Facebook and jumping ship to Pinterest just yet. It is, however, definitely worth some time investigating whether Pinterest provides another great marketing opportunity: or just a flash-in-the-can fad.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in SEO, Pay Per Click Services, Multilingual Search Marketing and Website Conversion Enhancement services.
Tags: conversions, facebook, Google Analytics, pinned, pins, Pinterest, referrals, site visits, social, traffic
Posted in Social Media Marketing
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Wednesday, March 14th, 2012
Procter and Gamble (P&G), the world’s largest consumer packaged goods company, has been discussing Internet marketing initiatives to help cut advertising costs and reach a larger audience.
P&G sells household products from razors to shampoo in 180 countries, represents some huge brands – Fairy, Pantene, Pampers, Braun, Duracell, Olay and Ariel amongst them.
As such, P&G is also responsible for the world’s biggest advertising budget: and now new head of marketing Marc Pritchard is looking to shave $1bn from that annual cost by 2016.
Against a backdrop of company-wide savings totalling around $10bn, such steep changes to marketing – at such a massive firm – are bound to resonate globally too.
Mr Pritchard told the Wall Street Journal that, along with traditional cost-cutting measures such as job reorganisation, spending efficiency changes and reining in pricey TV ads, P&G were now looking at lower-cost digital marketing measures.
The 51-year-old, who has been chief of global marketing at P&G since 2008, said: “I took a small group of people when I first got here to learn everything we can about digital, and get that through the company.”
One of the cost-cutting measures will see combined brand activity around global events: the 2012 Olympics provides the perfect platform to test this.
“You’ll see some very heavy-duty activity for our Olympics program,” Mr Pritchard said. “It’ll be Twitter, Google, YouTube, Yahoo! Those are going to be some pretty essential parts of the whole program.
“We have more than 30 brands doing Olympic activities, 150 athletes, all those brands have Facebook pages, all those athletes have Facebook pages. Then we go out, create an event, talk about it, push it out, through broadcast and digital. Then we have community managers who are amplifying the discussion, engaging on Facebook, on YouTube, things like Twitter. That’s the way it’ll work.”
News brought to you by ClickThrough – a best practice Internet Marketing Agency.
Tags: 2012, advertising, ariel, costs, digital, duracell, facebook, fairy, internet marketing, marketing, olay, Olympics, P&G, pampers, twitter
Posted in Social Media Marketing
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Wednesday, March 14th, 2012
Location check-in service Gowalla has shut down.
The move comes just three months after leading social network Facebook subsumed Gowalla’s staff.
The closure comes as Facebook looks to increase and improve location-based services on its site: as rival check-in site FourSquare continues to grow in popularity.
As if sharing what you had for lunch with the world wasn’t enough on your social network of choice, the rise of location services like Gowalla and FourSquare allowed you to tell everyone exactly whereabouts you’d eaten, too.
“Checking in” was originally seen as a faddy addendum to social media – a kind of show off’s travel diary, a way of localising yourself more urgently and definitively than simply saying “stuffing my gob with McDonald’s” in a status update.
FourSquare and Gowalla both caused a few ripples of concern at launch: several national newspapers sent reporters to try to track down FourSquare users based purely on public information from the app, and their social media profiles. Unsurprisingly, it worked: and very quickly too.
Despite the initial concerns, though, location check-in services burgeoned in popularity, with FourSquare fast becoming the global check-in service of choice for anyone unconcerned about signposting the best times for burglars to pop round.
Both services went live in 2009, but FourSquare’s position became unassailable, leaving rival Gowalla having to refocus its service time and again.
Despite losing ground to FourSquare, Gowalla was still seen as a tempting acquisition: Facebook eventually subsumed Gowalla’s team, including co-founders Josh Williams and Scott Raymond, in December last year.
The Gowalla team is now working on Facebook’s own location check-in services. Whilst mobile users have been able to use an internal Facebook app to geolocate themselves since 2010, the network is looking to increase its locational offerings, including check-in deals with retailers.
Visitors to Gowalla’s homepage are now met with a short thank-you message: “Thank you for going out with Gowalla. It was a pleasure to journey with you around the world. Download your check-ins, photos and lists here soon.”
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in SEO, Pay Per Click Services, Multilingual Search Marketing and Website Conversion Enhancement services.
Tags: app, check-in, facebook, foursquare, gowalla, location, mobile, photos, travel
Posted in Social Media Marketing
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Tuesday, March 13th, 2012
Ailing search company Yahoo! is set to go head-to-head against the world’s most popular social network after filing a lawsuit against Facebook.
Yahoo! claims that Facebook has infringed on ten different patents relating to Internet advertising, privacy and data.
It filed a complaint at a Californian federal court on Monday (March 12), which demanded that Facebook cease infringing on Yahoo!’s patents, and pay the firm massive damages.
Yahoo! started out as a huge player in search engine marketing, but has slowly seen its position deteriorate as Facebook – and more notably Google – rose to prominence. Despite its relatively minor search stake, Yahoo! still has the most visited homepage in the States, with regular news and entertainment updates drawing millions of users a day.
According to a report on BloombergNews.com, Yahoo! may be looking to use the litigation to help boost flagging profits and rejuvenate its growth.
The lawsuit is the latest in an escalating number of “patent wars” between the main protagonists of Internet search, social media sites, and those creating hardware, such as tablets and smartphones. Apple, Facebook, Yahoo!, Google, Samsung and HTC are all currently caught in a cross-fire of litigation relating to patents for interface features, website displays and storing user data.
“For much of the technology upon which Facebook is based, Yahoo! got there first,” the lawsuit states. “Facebook’s entire social media model… is based on Yahoo!’s patented social networking technology.”
Despite retaining popularity as a portal, Yahoo! lost its top spot for display advertising to Facebook last year.
Some commentators questioned whether the timing of the lawsuit might impact on Facebook’s stock market flotation: though many believe it won’t affect the bidding.
Facebook questioned Yahoo!’s “puzzling actions”, adding it only found out about the suit when the media did.
The network said it would fight Yahoo!’s claims, adding it was “disappointed” with the way Yahoo! had acted.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in Search Engine Marketing & Internet Marketing.
Tags: facebook, Google, IPO, lawsuit, patent, SEM, Social Media, sue, technology, yahoo
Posted in Social Media Marketing
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Monday, March 12th, 2012
Brands using Facebook for social media marketing may have to cough up cash to get seen on the site in future.
Up until this month, businesses were able to set up free pages on Facebook, allowing fans to “like” them and interact with the brand.
But mandatory changes to Facebook profiles, with Timeline set to be introduced at the end of March, will see the site start to squeeze out free advertising opportunities: and monetize them instead.
Businesses won’t be able to set up “welcome pages” any more – which previously allowed them to highlight offers, give further company info, or post cheeky ads. Instead, the public Timeline will become the one and only landing page.
Even business profile images and cover photos will even be examined to ensure they don’t constitute advertising material – with pictures posted free but deemed to be ‘advertising’ removed.
The bottom line is that Facebook is set to make brands pay for exposure. It’s one way to help the site meet its whopping $100bn valuation following the initial public offering on the stock exchange.
Traditionally, bigger brands could set up a page and watch the “Likes” roll in with little effort. These brands will still get organic visitors by virtue of their size and history.
But the potential changes to the way Facebook currently operates run deeply: eventually, ‘free’ business pages may come to end altogether.
In the meantime, Facebook marketers can expect a long readjustment period.
Here are just two major changes Facebook is introducing to make paid-for advertising a necessity:
Throttling: Just before filing the IPO, Facebook made a tweak to its algorithm. The sneaky change means only 16% of fans for a public Facebook page get to see any given status update for free. If a business wants the other 84% of its fans to see its statuses, it’s going to have to pay Facebook for the privilege.
It is thought this move was a pre-cursor for Facebook’s new Reach Generator – a premium, paid-for service with a fixed fee based on the number of “Likes” a page has – which ensures updates are seen by at least 75% of fans for a monthly cost.
For businesses, this is an irritating change: for public users, it’s almost non-sensical. It basically means that even if a Facebook user “likes” a page – let’s say the restaurant chain Burger Queen for example – they won’t actually get to see any of that businesses’ updates unless i) they’re in the lucky 16% or ii) the business forks out for Reach Generator.
Limiting tabs: Businesses could get away with hosting a string of tabs or apps on their pages previously, but Timeline will severely limit this feature. Tabs/apps will appear just below the cover photo, with box space for a maximum of four tabs.
Photographs are cemented in place – you can’t get rid of this one – and most businesses prefer to publicly display their total number of fans or ‘Likes’, so that’s two boxes down before you even start.
It’s worth thinking about what apps/tabs are crucial to your business, and what makes your page unique to make sure you decide on the two best extras to display on your profile. Any other apps will be hidden away in a dropdown menu on the right of your tab boxes – it’s highly unlikely anyone’s going to bother clicking on these.
More information is available from Facebook directly: but the bottom line is this – come March 30, your business page on Facebook *will* become a Timeline, whether you want it to or not.
From today, you have just shy of three weeks to play with Timeline, decide how to set out your business page, and get relevant feedback from fans, so you can be sure you’ve got everything right before the compulsory switch.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – a best practice Internet Marketing Agency.
Tags: brand pages, business pages, facebook, fans, IPO, Likes, march 30, Reach Generator, tabs, targeted ads, Timeline
Posted in Social Media Marketing
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Friday, March 9th, 2012
London-based Mexican restaurant group, Poncho 8, has launched an innovative social media marketing campaign, according to an article published by The Drum.
Poncho 8 are asking users on both Twitter and Facebook to suggest scenes taken from classic films in which a burrito could be added to play a key role.
The campaign is being promoted through Poncho 8′s pages on Twitter (@PonchoNo8) and Facebook; the best suggestions will be incorporated into posters that will appear in Poncho 8′s restaurants – with ‘Raiders of the Lost Burrito’ one of the most popular suggestions.
One suggestion will be picked each month, with the winner receiving a free meal for both them and a friend.
Users can make their suggestions to @PonchoNo8 with the hashtag #PonchoFilmHijack included in the tweet.
Co-owner of Poncho 8, Nick Troen, said: “The Poncho brand is all about playfulness and being in touch with modern developments so carrying out a campaign using social media platforms seemed like an obvious route for us.
“We want our fans to be able to feel a real connection with what would traditionally be a gourmet burrito outlet and be able to put our followers’ ideas into action, not only with respect to our food, but also the visual aspects of the interior,” he added.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – a best practice Internet Marketing Agency.
Tags: facebook, Poncho 8, Social Media, social media marketing campaign, twitter
Posted in Social Media Marketing
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Thursday, March 8th, 2012
Facebook has launched a scheme designed to teach marketers about social media marketing on the site, according to an article published by The Drum.
Dubbed the Facebook Marketing Classroom, the scheme will provide a digital learning environment complete with educational resources.
These resources will include video courses, worksheets covering the intricacies of Facebook-specific features such as Sponsored Stories, Livestream events and how-to guides covering campaign success measurement and campaign improvement methods.
Existing customers will provide marketers that use the service with an insight – via a series of video interviews – into how they made Facebook work in their overall marketing strategy.
Facebook Marketing Classroom sessions are set to be conducted once a week; the first session is set to take place today (March 
at 5.30pm GMT and is titled “Exploring the New Facebook Pages.”
The decision to launch marketing classes follows the mass rollout of the Timeline profiles for both standard users and brands.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – specialists in Search Engine Optimisation and Internet Marketing.
Tags: "Exploring the New Facebook Pages", facebook, Facebook Marketing Classroom, Social Media, Sponsored Stories
Posted in Social Media Marketing
