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Twitter has completed its second acquisition in just under a week, according to an article published by New Media Age.
Following the purchase of Summify, the micro-blogging site has now purchased Dasient, an anti-malware firm.
As part of the deal, Dasient will be fully integrated into the platform – popular amongst social media marketing professionals; although it isn’t yet clear what type of role the anti-malware firm will play at the social media site.
A blog post, published on Dasient’s blog, read: “By joining Twitter, Dasient will be able to apply its technology and team to the world’s largest real-time information network.”
Dasient primarily work on solving security problems created by malware. The company also launched an “anti-malvertising” service – designed to protect advertising networks and publishers from malicious adverts – back in 2010.
Twitter is yet to comment on the acquisition but the deal is thought to be effective immediately; while the financial terms of the deal have also yet to have been disclosed.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – a best practice Internet Marketing Agency.
Traditionally social media rivals, Facebook, Myspace and Twitter have grouped together to create a new tool, aimed at drawing users’ attention to the “biased” results provided as part of Google’s Search Plus Your World, according to an article published by the Telegraph.
Entitled “Don’t be evil” (a nod to one of the search engine giant’s early mottos), the browser add-on is currently only compatible with Firefox.
The tool has been created to prevent Google searches returning content that’s been ‘ranked up’ by Google from its own social network, Google+.
A recent change has seen Google searches return Google+ content at the top of search results – a change previously announced as part of Search Plus Your World – at the expense of results from Twitter and Facebook.
Google has explained how the new update – which could affect SEO – worked.
A post published by Google read: “Starting today, if you search for a topic like (music) or (baseball), you might see prominent people who frequently discuss this topic on Google+ appearing on the right-hand side of the results page.”
The search engine giant has yet to respond to the launch of ‘Don’t be evil’ – which is currently only available in America. However, Google did previously say it had tried to strike a deal with both Twitter and Facebook to include their results in a prominent position – but wrangles over cost and privacy scuppered such a move.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – a provider of SEO Services & Pay Per Click strategies.
McDonald’s has made a meal of its latest foray into social media marketing.
The global brand’s recent hashtag campaign didn’t quite ‘go to plan’, according to an article published by the Los Angeles Times.
The fast food giant attempted to get Twitter users tweeting about the brand – as part of a bid to highlight its commitment to using fresh meat and produce in its products – with the hashtag #McDStories.
Although the responses were initially good, many users began using the hashtag as an opportunity to provide their own sarcastic, backhanded insults.
One user, tweeting under the name Parker Stafford, wrote: “I only eat McDonald’s when I am ill because it makes me feel sick anyway. #McDStories.”
Another, nelo_taylor, tweeted: “These #McDStories never get old, kind like a box of McDonald’s 10 piece Chicken McNuggets left in the sun for a week.”
The response subsequently resulted in McDonald’s pulling the hashtag, stating that it “did not go as planned.”
However, another McDonald’s hashtag, #meetthefarmers, managed to escape the scathing responses.
Commenting on the issue, Rick Wion, McDonald’s social media director, said: “As Twitter continues to evolve its platform and engagement opportunities, we’re learning from our experiences.”
News brought to you by ClickThrough – a best practice Internet Marketing Agency.
Twitter has agreed a deal for the acquisition of Summify, a platform that gives users the ability to summarise and publish the news items they’ve seen into one visual feed, according to an article published by v3.
The service is also capable of publishing news feeds in a variety of forms, such as a web page, an email or a mobile app.
Originally founded in Romania, Summify has recently been based in Vancouver, Canada.
In a post published on its website, Summify announced that it would be joining up with Twitter – a platform popular for social media marketing initiatives.
The terms of the deal agreed between Twitter and Summify have yet to be disclosed; however, a statement, published on Summify’s site, read: “Our long-term vision at Summify has always been to connect people with the most relevant news for them, in the most-efficient manner.
“As hundreds of millions of people worldwide are signing up and consuming Twitter, we realised it’s the best platform to execute our vision at a truly global scale.”
News brought to you by ClickThrough – a best practice Internet Marketing Agency.
Creating social media marketing content that is both captivating and engaging can be difficult – especially if you’ve been running campaigns, on sites such as Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare for a while.
Pinterest is a relatively new social networking site and is quickly growing in popularity.
Reported to have a user base consisting largely of women under the age of 45, the image sharing website could easily be used to market a brand.
Writing for Search Engine Watch, Kalia Strong, has listed a number of creative ways in which brands could use Pinterest for marketing purposes.
Here are some of the ideas featured on Strong’s list:
Give your brand a face – Pinterest can be used as platform on which you can display how your business is different and what it stands for – with imagery.
Highlighting members of staff or your working environment can give people a face with which to associate to your brand. A relatively easy step to take, it will give your brand a more human appearance.
Promote your image content – Before taking this step, do some initial research; look at how other brands are utilising Pinterest for this purpose, Strong suggests.
Product images, designs and infographics can be posted onto Pinterest to promote your firm’s products or services.
Strong goes on to add: “Stylists, fashion editors and personal shoppers can feature their image content to help them sell their services. Their style and ability to put together an outfit can be easily translated through a board on Pinterest.”
News brought to you by ClickThrough – a best practice Internet Marketing Agency.
As a platform for conducting social media marketing campaigns on, Twitter is undeniably great – especially for small and medium-sized businesses.
However, before setting up a profile, it is important to have a plan in place; this plan should ideally detail how Twitter is going to benefit your company.
Writing for the Sydney Morning Herald, David Wilson, has detailed a number of tips showing how small business owners can take advantage of the opportunities that the microblogging site offers.
Here are just a few of Wilson’s tips:
Know beforehand what you’re going to tweet about – This is vital; the information and content you posts should relate to one main theme – which in-turn should relate to your business.
Managing director at The Dubs, Josh Frith, provides an example; he states: “If you are a gym, tweet health and fitness tips – if you tweet about, say, Bengal tigers, you will forfeit followers.”
Follow back – People love being “followed” on Twitter, so naturally if someone follows your business, make the effort to return the favour. Remember Twitter isn’t a broadcasting medium, it’s a medium by which widespread conversation takes place.
Make searches to track down potential followers – Twitter users tend to follow based on the quality of content provided. If you produce interesting content, you’re likely to gain more followers with an interest in your business’ particular area.
To find more potential followers make searches; simply take the subject from your content and use it to search for others discussing the same subject or topic. Follow them and see if they follow you back.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – a best practice Internet Marketing Agency.
Despite the fact Twitter has now been around for over 5 years, there are still many businesses who have not grasped that Twitter is one of the essential tools for your Internet Marketing. Whilst it may seem less intuitive than, say, Chrome or Facebook, there is plenty of software which makes Twitter simple to use, and effective in promoting your company.
However, there are also a number of myths which continue to do the rounds, so let’s put a few to rest.
1) Twitter is not for businesses.
Rumours abound that Twitter is full of drivel – what someone had for breakfast, celebrity news and so on. However, this is not the case at all, and whilst some companies have managed to get it wrong on Twitter over the years, the vast majority of companies using Twitter are seeing the benefits by adopting a social strategy where the emphasis is on “social”.
We have previously considered how to use Twitter for customer support, for research and for internet marketing, as well as B2B use of Twitter. There are a growing number of success stories from businesses using Twitter both to find and then engage with customers, suppliers and potential partners, and a social media marketing strategy within your business is now more essential than ever.
2. I can’t say anything in 140 characters
The length of tweets came originally on the back of SMS (Short Message Service) or texts, and it is surprising how quickly one adapts to crafting short, snappy, compelling content. The huge growth of URL shorteners has meant that you can squeeze in a link to your blog, content, news item, landing page, store, or image, thereby leading people directly to your own website and content.
3. Twitter is full of jargon I don’t understand
As with any community, Twitter has developed its own language and terms, such as RT (retweet), hashtags #, MT (Modified Tweet), HT (hat tip to the source of information), failwhale, and so on. At the outset, each tweet may appear to be a very short group of acronyms and incomprehensible Twitter lingo with some words and a link thrown in, but it will not take long to be accustomed to the terminology.
4. No-one is following our Twitter account
As with all things, gathering followers will take time. However, the process can be accelerated by engaging with others who are in the same sphere or industry, those who tweet content of interest to you and your consumers/customers which you can then share, and by producing your own valuable content. Many events are now held online and becoming involved through the relevant Twitter hashtag for that event, you will undoubtedly find other virtual and real attendees which whom to connect.
This leads neatly into….
5. Our competitor has a zillion followers
Twitter is much more about quality than quantity. There are plenty of dodgy services available to buy and pay for followers (it really is not wise to do so) but the reality is that whilst your competitor may well be able to point to numbers, what level of engagement can you have with a zillion followers that will help to increase sales or raise brand awareness?
What are your top Twitter myths? We will cover some more shortly.
Launched towards the back-end of last year, Twitter’s enhanced profile pages offer businesses the chance to draw in users with many new page features.
A recent eye tracking study – based on the select few businesses who’ve access to enhanced pages – carried out by SimpleUsability has displayed that brands need to make the most of the social media marketing opportunities provided.
Writing for Search Engine Watch, Miranda Miller, has looked into the results of the study and what needs to be done to take advantage of the new opportunities.
One of the main features that Twitter’s enhanced pages offers is the ability to display full-sized images on the page.
Looking at the results of the study, Miller found that McDonald’s display of a Big Mac image, whilst catching attention, wasn’t a success as it pushed the element of self-promotion too much.
HP, on the other hand, managed to attract a greater amount of attention by using a subtler image – of a dog looking at one of their products.
The study also found that unclickable banners confused and frustrated users rather than captivated them. For example, Staples displayed a banner that wasn’t clickable; this drew people in at first, but then eventually caused irritation when they realised it wasn’t clickable.
HP have combatted this by using an arrow to point to the actual link featured in the top tweet – something Staples didn’t do.
People participating in the study also responded positively to brands that had a tweet stream displaying a commitment to responding to consumers – with a number of participants stating that HP’s honest and genuine interaction resonated with them.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – a best practice Internet Marketing Agency.
Channel 4 has start a promotional push for the latest series of Skins, with the launch of a social media marketing campaign, according to an article published by Marketing Week.
The campaign will see each of the show’s main characters have a Facebook page, allowing fans to interact with them in between episodes.
Users that aren’t committed to following every character on Facebook will be able to visit a dedicated site – which will collect and display all updates from each characters’ page.
Twitter and YouTube will also be utilised in the campaign – as the characters will Tweet and post vlogs.
The firm Something Else is responsible for developing the campaign.
Executive producer of digital at the production company, Michelle Feuerlicht, said: “For fans who are signed up to the characters’ profiles, they’re constantly reminded of the show everyday because the updates are appearing in their news feeds.”
Feuerlicht went on to add that it was important for a show like Skins to offer fans the chance to get involved in interactive campaigns.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – a best practice Internet Marketing Agency.
Following a number of disparaging comments from Twitter, regarding Google’s move to use information pulled from Google+ to provide personalised search results, the search engine giant has responded.
Twitter’s general counsel, Alex Macgillivray, commented, by tweeting from his own account, stating the announcement marked a “bad day for the Internet,” going on to add that search was going to be “warped.”
Currently results from social networking sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, don’t appear in Google’s SERP (search engine results page).
Twitter, which has become popular in social media marketing, did previously have an agreement in place with Google – which saw Twitter posts appear in Google searches – but the contract expired in July last year and was not renewed.
A spokesperson for Google responded to Twitter’s comments on the company’s official Google+ account.
The statement read: “We are a bit surprised by Twitter’s comments about Search plus Your World because they chose not to renew their agreement with us last summer, and since then we have observed their “no follow” instructions.”
Danny Sullivan, from Search Engine Land, has since spoken to Google executive chairman, Eric Schmidt, regarding the issue.
Schmidt revealed that Google would be more than willing to talk to social media sites, such as Facebook and Twitter, about including their content in Google’s search results.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – a best practice Internet Marketing Agency.
