-
Social tech in the office
04 September 2012
According to a recent analysis of 4,200 companies by consulting agent McKinsey Global Institute, social technologies have the potential to save the business world anywhere from $900billion to $1.3trillion in value.
Two-thirds of this ‘value’ I to be found in ‘improved communications and collaborations within and across enterprises’. Therefore as opposed to being a distraction for workers like many may think, it could actually be a useful tool to improve productivity. All departments within companies are exploring various social media options such as internal networks, real-time chats and wikis; to name but a few. Operations is able to monitor supply chains, HR can screen applicants, sales teams chase after leads and R&D can brainstorm products more effectively.
Social technologies give companies the opportunity to make company wide information more visible and accessible to those who need to find it. Rather than being buried in someone’s inbox in some nether-region of the office, it can be shared online for all to tap in to as and when they wish.
The Mckinsey analysts suggest that almost any human interaction which takes place in the workplace can be ‘socialised’ – i.e. digitalised and put on the internet to speed things up and increase productivity in the workplace in general.
-
Facebook brings its iPhone app up to speed
26 August 2012
In response to users’ complaints about the lagging usability of the company’s iPhone mobile app, Facebook launched a faster version last Thursday. As opposed to bringing a variety of new features to the app, it is said that they have pre-built the app from scratch to cut out some of the dead weight bringing down the speed.
The new application was recently demonstrated at the company’s California headquarters and it wa shown to open up about twice as fast as its predecessor. Photo viewing was also quicker and users can now ‘Like’ the comments found under photos, a feature previously unavailable on the mobile app.
It was reported that Facebook’s mobile product manager, Mick Johnson, told of how programmers removed some less important features of the app in order to reorganise it and help to make it sleeker.
Whilst this is good progress for the company’s mobile platform, Facebook has yet to crack an efficient and effective way of implementing mobile advertisements, which remains its biggest current challenge.
-
Word of mouth can do the selling for you
23 August 2012
As social commerce comes into its own word of mouth marketing is given a new lease of life, loyal shoppers are being reward to share and recommend products and services to their friends and families.
The knowledge that word of mouth is a potent marketing tool has always been widely known, but with more and more social platforms available, brands are finding new ways to reward their customers for spreading the word about their favourite products. This not only gives the power to the consumers, it allows people to make a commission from selling products that they themselves believe in.
Tesco, Pizza Hut and Debenhams are among the high street leaders in this tactic, all offering some kind of reward or discount for the sharing and pushing of their products. Marketing director at Tesco Mark Entwhistle was quoted saying “The advent of social media has resulted in increased numbers of customers openly discussing their opinions on specific products or retailers”.
Shopstyle and its affiliate programme Shopsense goes even further than just offering discounts, by paying customers to drive traffic to sponsored sites from their blog or web posts.
With so many options available to consumers to be paid off for their word of mouth value, could shopping and talking about it be turned into a full time job? Will the phrase ‘shop till you drop’ take on a very real and literal meaning?
-
Is it all over for Facebook?
18 August 2012
A court ruling in Australia could potentially mean that companies and businesses using Facebook as a platform to advertise their products could soon have to regulate all comments on their Facebook pages to stamp out any that may be deemed as misleading or disparaging. The ruling came from the Australian Advertising Standards Board in a case concerning Smirnoff and the verdict was reached that all comments on Smirnoff’s Facebook page were classed as advertising no matter if they were from Smirnoff or the public. Although Smirnoff tried to argue that Facebook was used to engage the public and not for marketing purposes, it was unsuccessful in fighting it’s corner.
Although at the moment the ruling is only applicable in Australia it sets a president for other advertising watchdogs all across Europe. It has the potential to majorly change the way that companies view their position on Facebook and how much value they place upon it. If this ruling was to be introduced on a global level it would have a huge detrimental effect on Facebook as an advertising platform. The main problem lies in the fact that if forced to regulate all comments on their professional Facebook page, companies and business would not be able to partake in real time conversations with their customers, the very thing that made Facebook attractive in the first place, to be used as a social media engagement platform. Not to mention the massive increase in workload for the page administrators.
This unfortunate ruling comes after a torrent of bad news for Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg. Last week the social media site was forced to admit that almost 10% of their registered accounts were fakes used either by spammers or duplicate users. Furthermore, the bad news continues as their shares have hit rock-bottom, the lowest ever recorded at $19, almost 50% of their original IPO value. Things are not looking good for Facebook and it seems the original social media giant may be about to topple.
-
The Tweety-twelve London Olympic Games
14 August 2012
So the London 2012 Olympic Games have come to an end. They have been the hot news topic around the world for the past 16 days and have been the main topic of conversation between friends. This Olympic frenzy has not escaped social media and if anything, it has helped add fuel to the fire. Let’s take Twitter for example, in the 2 weeks in which the London 2012 Olympics have taken place there have been over 150 million tweets about the Games.
So if we analyse the most popular events in the competition by measuring the number of Tweets each event received per minute here are the top medal winners:
Number one is obviously the all time favourite, Usain Bolt, when he won gold in the 200m sprint and received more than 80 000 tweets for his performance. He also took silver in the Twitter race for winning gold in the 100m sprint by receiving more than 74 000 tweets. The English tennis player, Andy Murray, took bronze for winning the men’s tennis singles and receiving over 57 000 tweets.
According to the figures the most popular match during the 2012 Olympics was the men’s basketball final between the US and Spain which received over 41 000 tweets with the biggest tweeting moment being Kobe Bryant’s dunk which helped the US win the match and secure their gold medal.
Although Usain Bolt was clearly the most discussed athlete of the Games this year he was not alone in receiving over 1 million tweets. Here are the top 10 most tweeted about athletes in the Games:
1. Usain Bolt 2. Michael Phelps
3. Tom Daley
4. Ryan Lochte
5. Gabby Douglas
6. Andy Murray
7. Kobe Bryant
8. Yohan Blake
9. Lee Chong Wei
10. LeBron James
According to the number of tweets football was the most popular sport with swimming, gymnastics and volleyball not being far behind.
-
Olympics making people more responsive to advertising
08 August 2012
As many companies continue to struggle with and even question the profitability of mobile advertising, the Olympics generates some positive statistics for marketers to cling to.
Mojiva, an Internet Advertising Bureau and Mobile Advertising Network company, recently conducted a study of 396 consumers in both the UK and the U.S.A, asking all about whether they would respond to Olympic Games advertising. The purpose of the study was to figure out exactly how mobile users would be interacting with their devices to follow the progress of the Olympics and to determine the reasons people would be most likely to ‘click through’ on the adverts.
With an average of 74.5% of people following their national teams on their mobile devices between the two countries, it was found that 47% and 48% of UK and US residents respectively would use a mobile device for Olympics related activities whilst following the Games on television. In both countries it was discovered that 22% of people would follow the Games live on their devices.
In terms of responding to their team or to individual athletes, it was found that only 12% of UK residents would search sponsored products and services, compared to 20% of their American counterparts. Around 60% of both countries in the study claimed they would sometimes interact with ads, with 32% of British and 25% of US citizens showing likelihood to engage with advertisements frequently.
The study was conducted between the 9th and 26th of July, the final day being just before the Games began.
-
InMobi acquire Metaflow
05 August 2012
InMobi, a mobile ad network based in Bangalore has recently acquired UK-based mobile app management and distribution company Metaflow Solutions. This was settled with an undisclosed sum as the company powers through its recent $200 million funding.
Metaflow has been making waves in the mobile waters for six years now, led by CEO Charles Mcleod. The acquisition is intended to ‘expand the distribution and monetisation of content for InMobi’s developers and publisher partners’.
Charles was quoted as saying “At Metaflow, our mission has been to simplify and unify the process surrounding content management and deployment of apps to a distributed and highly fragmented marketplace. The global reach and technology backbone provided by InMobi is hugely exciting for us.”
This most recent spend is following the $200million investment into the company made by Japanese telecom company SoftBank in September of last year.
-
Ebay, winning against all odds!
04 August 2012
This week Ebay have shocked everyone with their all time 6 year high in the stock market. Normally, after the first 4 years or so, internet companies lose their original spark or attraction; they flourish and then fade into the background. Think AOL, Yahoo and more recently Zynga and to some extent, Facebook.
Ebay’s success has always been up and down, 2004 was a good year for the internet company. Under the direction of Meg Whitman, shares in Ebay hit record highs, over 58 dollars per share, but this accomplishment didn’t last long. In 2007 Ebay’s customer satisfaction was poor, sellers began to complain about higher fees and poor support and what’s more the company lost 1.4 billion dollars, with their first public company loss of Skype. Things did not improve and in 2009 Ebays stock had plummeted well below its record highs of 5 years before and were barely over 10 dollars. This was the point when John Donahoe stepped in.
After the disasters of 2007 and 2009 everyone thought Ebay would flop, it seemed to be failing. So why now has their profit doubled and their revenue increased by 23%? The answer, mobile retailing. Ebay, under the watchful eye of John Donahoe, managed to jump onto the mobile band wagon long before everyone else offering people a quick, one-click payment solution. 90 million people use Ebays mobile shopping app which allow them to buy a product in less than 2 minutes.
The success of Ebays mobile application is clear when compared to its competitors. Even though Amazon has a much larger scale inventory and delivery system, Ebay still comes out on top.
-
Zynga needs Facebook but does Facebook need Zynga?
01 August 2012
When starting off Facebook relied on the gaming platform Zynga to generate interest and revenue however recent figures show that this is no longer the case. According to statistics released by Facebook, revenue generated by Zynga in the first 6 months of this year contributed to 14% of the social media giant’s total revenue, down 5% from the same time period in 2011.
Facebook generates profit from Zynga in various ways, though payments on games, advertising space, third-party adverts, apps, Facebook banner adverts and sponsored story adverts on Zynga.com.
However although this drop in generated revenue may be bad news for Zynga it is not necessarily bad news for Facebook. In fact it is quite the opposite. It shows that the network is diversifying and expanding its sources of income to other platforms.
So let’s break it down; Facebooks’ total revenue in the first half of 2012 was a whopping 2.242 billion dollars, showing an increase of 1.626 billion when compared to the same figures a year ago. This shows that Zynga contributed 313.9 million dollars which is only an increase of 5 million from the previous year. In Facebook terms, small change.
So if Facebook is expanding in user and dollar terms, why isn’t Zynga when Facebook is its largest platform and generator of users? Although Zynga has been developing its own platforms and trying to branch into the world of mobile gaming, Facebook is still a crucial platform for the gaming company, one which it cannot afford to lose.
-
Google Fiber – changing the ISP game forever.
31 July 2012
Kansas City is indeed a great place to be right now in terms of internet service. Why? Because Google have debuted their new innovation here, which is 100X faster than the average internet connection today.
Google’s new internet service – Google Fiber – promises speeds of up to 1000Mbps, downstream and upstream, completely blowing your average connection speeds out of the water. Technically, this is fast enough to download a full HD movie in under a minute. If you find yourself on the website fiber.google.com they even give you the option to ‘race’ your current speed against that of Fiber, highlighting just how much quicker it is.
What’s more is this service is provided at $70 a month and customers also receive 1TB of free storage. Plus if the customer opts for TV service at an extra $50 a month (Google soon to be a major TV competitor), they will also receive a $200 Nexus 7 tablet free of charge to be used as a remote control. They are even offering a free internet service (5Mb downstream, 1Mb upstream) for those who want it.
How are prices so low? The simple answer is that Google has designed and manufactured all the system hardware itself, just as has been doing for its data centres for over 10 years now.
The limitations? Location, location, location. Unless you’re lucky enough to live in Kansas City, you aren’t getting your hands on Fiber just yet (in actual fact, you can’t even get it in Kansas for another 40 days). We will have to wait until Google rolls this out nationwide in the states and then twiddle our thumbs for quite a while to obtain it internationally; assuming they even decide to release it in other countries.
However, with such a dramatic leap in internet innovation being made in full public view, can the major ISP companies really afford to sit idly by?
-
Apple to buy out AuthenTec for over $350 million
30 July 2012
Reuters released that Apple has decided to buy out AuthenTec, a mobile and network security firm. Apple’s initial offering was $8 a share, which was 58% higher than the closing share price of AuthenTec of Thursday of $5.07.
AuthenTec’s products range from smart fingerprint sensors for various consumer devices to identity management software for both consumer and business use.
The principal clients of the company include Cisco, Nokia, Motorola and HP, among others.
It should also be noted that earlier this month the company signed a deal with Samsung, one of Apple’s close competitors on the smartphone market, to put its QuickSec VPN security into the new Android smartphones and tablets, which should prove interesting as the merger comes into effect.
-
Don’t hold your breath: Facebook won’t be updating its iPhone app any time soon
28 July 2012
Anyone who uses the Facebook iPhone app knows that it isn’t a patch on the desktop version due to its sluggish pace and responsiveness, hence the criticism it has received. However, don’t expect these blips to be resolved any time soon as a recent announcement from Bloomberg has stated that Facebook may announce a new app in a few months but a complete upgrade of the app will not take place until 2013.
There are however, numerous experts working on improving the app including several ex Apple employees. The need for improvement is made clear as the statistics speak for themselves. Facebook has an impressive 900 million users of which half access the site using their smart phones however; none of the 3.15 billion USD that Facebook received last year in advertising sales came from the adverts published on mobile devices.
Zuckerberg has admitted that converting Facebook into a mobile app is by far the biggest hurdle that Facebook is yet to jump which is why he is intent on improving the app and employing several resources to do so. As well as the former Apple employees, Facebook is said to be using Push Pop Press, the digital publishing software developer that Facebook required a year ago. There are also rumors that have re-surfaced that Facebook is working with HTC to produce a “Facebook phone” but none of these rumors have been confirmed. The word on the grapevine is that the phone will be a modified Andriod instead of an iOS due to the fact it can be changed and improved by other phone manufacturers.
There still remains a lot of skepticism about this partnership as the HTC status, with its button devoted solely to Facebook, wasn’t very popular. However, maybe this new endeavor will prove to be more successful… we will just have to wait until 2013 to find out.
-
Paddy Power rolls out its advertising for 'the biggest athletics event in London'
25 July 2012
Irish bookmaker Paddy Power unleashed its daring new advertising campaign recently in saying that is to sponsor ‘the biggest athletics event taking place in London this year’
In actual fact, this massive sporting event will be an egg and spoon race taking place in London, Burgundy on the 1st August that will see athletes of both genders competing to run 200m with the aforementioned eggs cradled safely in their spoons.
The media planning and buying aspects of the project have been taken care of by media planning and buying firm M2M (we were just as shocked as you probably are) and two Irish firms Mixtape Marketing and Social House handled the marketing activity. Paddy Power has booked up 3 of JCDecaux’s billboards at three major London train stations and plans to launch its national campaign later this week.
A Paddy Power spokeperson has been reported to have said “"It’s an honour to support the biggest athletics event in London this year. We’re looking forward to a competitive and fun event where our athletes can wear, eat and drink whatever they want!"
Evidently, the sponsorship is a media stunt to play off the attention surrounding this year’s Olympic Games, whose opening ceremony kicks off the event in the Olympic park this Friday. This has not necessarily pleased many people in the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games as none of the official sponsors are betting agencies and the IOC (International Olympics Committee) has strict rules concerning betting and the Olympics.
However, from a marketing perspective this latest gambit from Paddy Power is the kind of attention that gives a dash of real personality to a company, from which they will no-doubt profit from in the coming weeks.
-
The new iPhone 5 is rumoured to be launched with an all new 19-pin dock connector
24 July 2012
This isn’t the first time we have heard about Apple ditching their 30-pin dock connector for a smaller 19-pin version. This more discrete option will allow Apple to move its headphone jack from the top of the device, to the bottom next to the port.
The present iPhone and iPad currently sport the larger 30-pin dock but according to a report from Reuters, the new iPhone 5 will have the smaller dock connector. It also states that the new connector will have a different “pill-like” shape and will be available on all future Apple mobile devices.
As of yet Apple have not confirmed these rumors so nothing has officially been confirmed. It is worth wondering that if in fact these rumors prove to be true and the new 19-pin is part of the iPhone 5 then it will not be compatible with many of the accessories that Apple already provide of the 30-pin dock. This would mean that Apple would, assumingly, offer some kind of adapter to ensure the compatibility of the iPhone 5 with its heritage products.
-
Microsoft advertising records an $8bn loss
23 July 2012
A couple of days ago, Microsoft reported its first ever quarterly loss in the history of its 26 years in operation. The company reported a loss of $492m for its fourth quarter that ended on 30th June 2012.
So what caused such a drastic change in Microsoft’s usually consistently solid performance? In fact, the loss was a direct result of the company writing off nearly all value of a marketing firm it purchased back in 2007. AQuantive was pulled down by $6.19bn in value by its parent company Microsoft, a firm that was originally purchased to give Google a run for its money in the ad tech domain.
Questions are being asked as to the viability of Microsoft’s advertising potential after this dramatic asset write-down, particularly as the division has not turned a profit for at least five years. MSN and Bing are to be found within this division, which lost the company a sizeable $2.66bn last year alone.
Despite the striking financial reports for this quarter, shares in the company still managed to rise by 65 cents (2.1%) in the trading hours that followed, showing investors' unwavering view towards the impending releases of both the Windows 8 operating system and the latest version of Microsoft Office, as well as many of its other peripheral products.
Ignoring what some would call a very negative quarterly figure, chief exec Steve Ballmer was quoted saying that the company was "fast approaching the most exciting launch season in Microsoft’s history".
-
Mogreet publishes Narrowcast vs. Broadcast info-graphic
22 July 2012
Nowadays a main marketing focus for a company can often be to keep astride the various social media platforms like Facebook, Pinterest and Twitter that are available to build a public image, usually with massively varying rates of success from brand to brand. With the incredulous amounts of noise being generated on these sites daily, are there other options that could see consumers listening more often to what we have to say? Good old fashioned narrowcasting could be just the ticket.
Mobile marketing specialists Mogreet recently published an info-graphic to compare and contrast the perks and harms of narrowcast vs. broadcast advertising. Narrowcasting is about sending relevant information to targeted parties that are interested in the content you have to deliver. Whilst broadcasting reaches a by far larger number of people, the percentage of these people who will then actually read and take note of what is being said can be impressively low.
According to Mogreet’s info-graphic, 84% of the news feed stories that appear on Facebook are not read and 71% of tweets go entirely unheeded by the user. By contrast, 98% of text messages are opened and read, giving SMS a reach to be desired by advertisers. Something to consider for those with money to spend the next time they open up the Facebook advertising page.
To see the info-graphic visit Mogreet's blog post at: http://blog.mogreet.com/2012/07/13/mogreet-moshare-narrowcast/
-
Google purchase Sparrow app
21 July 2012
When comparing the unimpressive Gmail iOS app and the popularity of the Mac and iPhone rival Sparrow, it isn’t really rocket science behind Google’s decision. The Gmail iOS app failed mostly because of its limitations in terms of support and features whilst its iPhone counterpart sailed ahead.
Yesterday on their website Sparrow announced that it was going to now be encompassed by the ever expanding Google umbrella (something that hardly comes as a shock when considering their success). Also on the site Sparrow made sure to reassure its users that their service is still available and that support will continue to be provided. It remains to be seen however if the service will keep their maiden name or simply melt into the Gmail spectrum.
There is no doubt that this is more of a charter than a partnership, when the giants that are Google and Facebook are involved it is rarely anything else. It is worth noting however that Instagram is still storming ahead under its original brand name despite being purchased by Facebook back in April. Nevertheless, unfortunately Sparrow doesn’t quite bask in the same celebrity as Instagram so it is more likely to soon become an official Google bi-product.
-
Remember Facebook isn’t the only gateway into social media expansion!
20 July 2012
It is difficult to get away from news coverage about Facebook, it’s the ‘in-thing’ that everyone is talking about. However, it is important to remember that Facebook, although important, cannot be the only way for you to promote your business. There are five other social media giants, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Google+ and Pinterest that need to be conquered as well if you are to stand a chance in the social media arena.
So how do these social media companies benefit you and your business?
First of all let’s look at LinkedIn, this is a site that connects you to people and businesses who are in a similar situation to you. You can see what they are doing and easily share ideas. Not only does it allow to network with similar enterprises but also with very different ones so you can explore new ideas and enjoy different levels of proficiency. In addition to this LinkedIn offers you a huge amount of exposure for your business and helps you increase your Facebook fans and Twitter followers.
This brings us onto the next site, Twitter, a social networking website of which we are all aware. But why is it so fundamental? The main reason is because of the speed it brings you up to date with what’s trending in your particular area of interest and also how quickly it can connect you to people with instant messages. What is more the messages you post on LinkedIn and other sites can be linked directly to your Twitter account making it a bit like a spider’s web by drawing everything together.
Next we have YouTube. YouTube is important because it allows you to promote your services to potential clients and partners through the magic of visual media, which has been proven to be highly effective. Not only can you use this channel to promote yourself but also to see what others are doing and exactly how they are doing it. What’s working and what people are watching.
Now let’s explore the potentials of Google+. This is simply a fantastic way of making yourself more accessible without having to make or receive friend requests. You can also use the sites video chat application to contact groups all over the world.
Finally we have Pinterest, quite a unique innovative site that allows your company’s image to be posted randomly on virtual pin boards of users that have registered a specific interest in what you have to offer. Basically this means they find your target audience for you, something that is much more difficult to find on Facebook or Twitter.
So when you decide to launch your business into the social media jungle, make sure you do it through the right networks!
-
Is Twitter worth investing in if you are a small business?
19 July 2012
Although Twitter started off as a miniscule competitor to the social media giant Facebook, it has quietly been growing and developing without anyone paying it the attention it deserves. Twitter is looking to expand on its social networking capabilities by introducing “expanded” Tweets which allows the user to preview a page posted on a Twitter account without having to load it onto their toolbar. The aim of this is to improve the speed of Twitter, therefore making it more efficient for mobile devices.
It is clear that mobile devices are overtaking desktops in the realm of social media, with 48% of social media activity taking place on mobile devices such as phones and tablets. It would be daft for Twitter not to start adapting.
In addition to this, Twitter is looking at branching into the search engine playground with the hopes of becoming a search engine for social media the same way that Google is for the Internet. The social media company has hired two experienced search engineers including the LinkedIn Pro John Wang to ensure this development is successful.
Finally, another change Twitter is implementing is “tailored trends” which highlights and draw the user’s attention to trending topics in their area (there is a choice of 150 cities worldwide) and depending on the people that they follow.
So do these changes mean that Twitter is a worthwhile investment of time and money for small businesses? It is important to remember that having a Twitter account is a big commitment, a stale account can be counterproductive and it is difficult to come up with content that captures the interest and engages users therefore attracting followers. Saying this, Twitter is a great way to ensure your business is up to date with what people, your market, are talking about and interested in.
So who uses Twitter? According to a recent study by the Pew Research Centre around 24% of internet users are connected to Twitter with the most active demographic being the young urban population aged 18 to 29. Twitter has also attracted minority populations which so far Facebook and LinkedIn have not been able to achieve.
So if you are thinking of tapping into the Twitter market and are struggling for content, have a look at companies that are doing well and have lots of followers, see the kind of things they are tweeting. Are they asking questions, using links etc? Also it is worth having a look at tweets that interest you. Why do they catch your attention? Is it the sentence style or the play on words?
It cannot be denied that Twitter is expanding and companies are becoming more reliant on social media to keep up with their ever changing markets, so if you don’t have Twitter…maybe you should!
-
Betaworks digs what Digg has to offer
18 July 2012
Thursday 12th July 2012 saw the official adieu from the Digg team as we know them, presented in the form of a simultaneously reminiscent and forward looking blog post from CEO Matt Williams. The content sharing site launched in 2004 by founder Kevin Rose, which in the past has seen dizzying success in being one of the founding giants of last decade’s online social media revolution, has recently been dismantled and sold off in chunks – the last of which was handed off to investment firm Betaworks a few days ago.
It had been no secret that Digg had been weathering out a tough ride for the last couple of years, the ascension of its direct competitor Reddit took its toll on the company and the redesign of the site was torn apart by user criticism. However, Digg did have its golden hour – in 2006 founder Kevin Rose featured on the cover of Business Week, telling of how he made $60 million in 18 months of operation. Furthermore, search engine goliath Google came very close to shelling out $200 million for the acquisition of the company just four years ago.
In actual fact Betaworks is just picking at the carcass of Digg for roughly $500K – the lion’s share has already been divided up and consumed. A subsidiary of the Washington Post reportedly paid around $12 million dollars for the talent of a sizeable chunk of the Digg team and LinkedIn took home a few of the patents for a cool $4 million.
Founder Kevin Rose has always been a fan of Betaworks founder John Borthwick according to the blog, and continued to say “Given his experience with bit.ly, news.me, and Chartbeat I can't wait to see what he does with Digg.” Digg will be lumped in with news.me, a Betaworks owned company that lets users view stories shared by their Facebook and Twitter accounts.
-
The underdogs Microsoft Bing make their first move to challenge Google
17 July 2012
Microsoft search engine Bing has promised to improve its UK search engine by decreasing search time, simplifying their homepage and adding a side bar (an aspect that is an integral part of Bing US). Its plan is to improve the design by having a less disorderly homepage and larger images although the changes are not just aesthetical but will hopefully allow for enable faster page-loading speeds.
Along with a smaller header, the related links that normally appear on the left of the search screen now can be found on the right with the advertisements. The sidebar, which will use links to the major social media giants, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, as well as Google+, has not yet been introduced but earlier this year Bing UK announced it as part of its big redesign. The whole aim of this project is to bring Bing UK more in line with its US counterpart.
Microsoft Bing has recently beat Yahoo in the race to become the world’s second largest search engine with Google of course being the champion! Bing processed 3.27% of the world’s searches (leagues behind Google which enjoys pretty much a monopoly of 91.75%). However, Microsoft seem to be taking steps (however small) to try and tackle the Google giant by making a recent deal with the enormous Chinese search engine Baidu. However we can rest assured that they have miles to go before even coming anywhere close to competing with the Adonis that is Google.
-
LinkedIn’s New App Introduces Video & Voice Calls To iPad With Hookflash
16 July 2012
Nowadays in our fast moving, fast developing society business people are no longer restricted to the office 9 to 5, but are expected to travel all over the world. Instead of clocking off at 5pm, they are required to take their work home with them. This environment means that mobile devices have become fundamental to keeping people connected to work and tablets are becoming ever more relied upon. It is therefore natural that the specialised social media site, LinkedIn, is developing mobile products to keep up with this trend.
LinkedIn’s most recent advance to its current iPad app is to use the new application Hookflash to incorporate video and voice calls in addition to messaging. The idea is very similar to Facebook chat or Skype, enabling the user to message or call their followers on the site whenever they are on-line.
LinkedIn has blogged about how apps are influencing the LinkedIn experience and suggest that there will soon be other apps like Hookflash to enhance their site, showing the importance of the tablet is growing for all social media companies.
At the moment the app is only available for the iPad, but plans for an iPhone and Android version are proposed to be released later this year.
-
Twitter Releases Its First Transparency Report To Hold Governments Responsible For The Information Requested
15 July 2012
Following in Google’s footsteps Twitter has released its first biannual transparency report. The report has 3 principal aims; the first is to hold governments responsible for requesting user information, the second is to publish the amount of requests to withhold content and the third to highlight the DMCA takedown of announcements received from copyright holders.
Jeremy Kessel, Twitter’s Legal Policy Manager announced on Twitter’s official blog that the company wishes to provide users with an insight into how these requests are dealt with and whether or not they are acted upon. The data featured in this report only takes into account the first 6 months of this year and only shows the countries whose governments have made such requests.
In total 849 user information requests were made in conjunction with over 1 181 specific users or accounts. It is no surprise that the US made the most requests, 679 which converts into 80% of the total requests made out of the 23 countries featured. The closest to this was Japan who made 98 requests whilst other countries such as the UK made 11 requests or less. Of this data Twitter provided 75% of the American government requests with some or all of the data required, 50% for the Netherlands and 33% for Greece and Australia. Not only did Twitter provide this information but it also circulated the number of removal requests it had received as well as the amount of copyright removal notices.
Twitter maintains that it does not fulfil requests that do not identify account users or content as these requests are too broad to be narrowed down and found.
-
Amazon rumoured to make its debut into the Smartphone jungle
14 July 2012
According to a recent report submitted by Bloomberg, Amazon may be looking to capitalise on the recent success of its Kindle Fire by making a move on the highly competitive Smartphone market. Allegedly the company has been working closely with technology group Foxconn, the same people that assisted Apple in the creation of the iPhone,concerning hardware development.
Having only launched two products to date, Amazon is a fairly new player in the hardware arena. They started off with the Kindle E-reader in 2007 and then made good progress with the Android-powered Kindle Fire Tablet that was released in November 2011. The step of moving into the Smartphone market is a fairly logical one for Amazon, since it already has many components at its disposal. Not only does Amazon have a well composed app store in place, it also has its own tailored version of the Android operating system, which was developed in order to support the Kindle Fire.
However, the Smartphone market is not considered an easy one to penetrate; there are several hurdles that Amazon will have to clear. For a start, fiery patent wars are already raging between the giants of the Smartphone industry - Apple, Samsung and Nokia have been at each other’s throats for some time now in U.S courts over often petty patent quibbles.
An official release from Amazon has yet to be made regarding the launch of its own Smartphone, but an already heated market could make for an interesting watch if this is indeed the case.
-
LinkedIn cashes in where Facebook picks up loose change
13 July 2012
LinkedIn is regarded by many as a valuable addition to the networking portfolio of any driven professional, but what you may not realise is that we collectively are a veritable goldmine for the online business-person directory.
Forbes’ George Anders recently published an article on the strategy of LinkedIn that showed stark contrasts between the user-monetisation techniques employed by the company and that of Facebook. In taking stock of ComScore’s Web-usage data and public financial filings he was able to calculate that per user per hour spent on the sites, LinkedIn rakes in a healthy $1.30, whereas Facebook brings home a measly $0.06 from each of its 900 million users; approximately 21 times less .
The article goes on to point out that Zuckerburg is able to boast an average site use of 6.35 hours per month per user, compared to a brief 18 minutes on LinkedIn. However, Facebook is only able to capitalise on your time spent online, since 85% of their revenue is generated through advertising, whereas LinkedIn sells your info, not your attention. In other words, once you’ve signed up you instantly become a tiny part of the user-based diamond that the sales team push so strongly to major recruiters. In fact whilst the sales team push hard, they needn’t worry as talent scouts are itching to get their hands on the all-powerful premium recruitment product offered to them by LinkedIn, priced as high as $8,200 annually.
Whilst there is no doubt that Facebook is the current dominator of the social networking world, it will be interesting to see how the long-term strategies of the two giants pan out, especially as trends progress towards greater access via mobiles and other remote platforms, which makes generating revenue through advertising much more difficult.
-
The All New Instaglasses: Instagram For Glasses
12 July 2012
Although Google’s Project Glass proved very unpopular it inspired German designer Markus Gerke to create the new concept: Instaglasses. The idea is to combine a camera-capable pair of glasses with various filters of the Instagram photo-sharing mobile app that is becoming increasingly popular for sharing photos on social networking sites through smartphones.
After its popular reception among iPhone users the increasing reputation of Instagram was shown when it arrived on Android and more than 1 million users downloaded the app in 3 days. In turn Facebook quickly decided to purchase Instagram for a mere 1 billion US Dollars.
The concept of Instaglasses is a pair of glasses with an inbuilt 5-megapixel camera with one eye seeing the world in its natural form and the other through a filter chosen by the wearer. The camera gives the user the opportunity to immediately capture any seen image. The concept glasses also include 4G connectivity, Wi-Fi, 2-GB of internal memory, and a 7 hour battery life! Unfortunately Gerke has stated that this is only a concept and he doesn’t intend to send it into production despite the huge amount of feedback posted on his personal site begging him to develop the concept further.
-
Twitter Rumoured to Purchase New York Company Sense Networks
11 July 2012
It has been made very clear over the past year that Twitter is trying to broaden its advertising efforts to increase its revenue. It has been recently rumoured that Twitter is going to try and acquire the New York mobile analytics company Sense Networks; however nothing has been officially confirmed.
Sense Networks is a specialist in mobile location data enabling the company to provide a predictive analysis in advertising. The technology used by the company receives streaming location data from mobile phones in real-time and then processes the data to enable a fuller understanding of consumer activity.
The 2 products offered by Sense Networks are: AudienceSense which assists publishers to convert their audience into money by using their location and data to predict their behaviour and AdMatch which is a mobile advertising network that uses both predictive location and behavioural targeting to ensure consumers are presented with the offers most relevant to them.
It isn’t hard to establish where this rumour stemmed from as Sense Networks seems like the perfect acquisition that would help Twitter to develop its mobile advertising, which would in turn boost the willingness of businesses to use Twitter as an advertising base. Broken down, Twitter would convert targeted local adverts into revenue and users would receive ads relevant to their location.
If the rumour becomes a reality Sense Networks will be the 6th company Twitter would have purchased in the past year, which include Posterous in March and RestEngine in May.
-
There is a time and a place for Tweety much everything
10 July 2012
Rushing to the aid of online marketing companies adrift in the sea of social media, web-link reducing site bit.ly published a report earlier this year that offers a potential life raft. With incredulous amounts of content being posted via social media each day (Twitter alone sees around 175 million tweets daily!) it’s important for businesses that their content isn’t simply lost in the E-oblivion.
The report shows the best times in the day for companies to Tweet and post, in order that they can attempt to maximise their potential receiving audience. The purpose of their study was to investigate how the timing of the post affects the amount of attention that it will receive from fans and followers. Results indicate that the most effective times in the day to have your say are between 1pm-4pm Monday to Thursday. Equally, you shouldn’t bother posting past 8 in the evening and Tweet efficiency drops after 3pm of any given day.
If we as marketers understand the characteristics of the online soap boxes from which we preach, we can hope to better reach our target audiences and drive home the benefits that our products bring.
-
Facebook’s Widgets Are On 24% Of Top 10,000 Sites
25 June 2012
Facebook’s presence is ubiquituous across the web iin either widgets, buttons or links, but a new report from web monitoring service Pingdom, found that Facebook’s dominance is increasing .
Looking at the top 10,000 websites in the world according to Alexia, Pingdom found that 24.3% of these had official Facebook integration on their home page but if you include regular links to Facebook, the numbers rise to 49.3%.
As social media becomes integrated, social media widgets becoming more prevalent. The study found that Twitter’s official widget is present on 10% of these sites while 4.3% of these home pages have a Twitter share button.
LinkedIn
LinkedIn’s presence on these sites is disappointing to say the least. Only 0.6% of the home pages looked at had LinkedIn integration and 0.3% had the professional social media site’s official share button. If you count any kind of link to LinkedIn, this number grows to 3.9%. However, LinkedIn’s focus is on a specific demographic so it doesn't make sense for certain sites, to integrate LinkedIn into their site as it doesn’t meet their needs.
Bearing this in mind, Facebook and Twitter’s dominance makes more sense. The content posted on their sites isn’t limited to topic or demographic and these sites are usually the first exit point for posting a link.
-
LinkedIn Releases Targeted Status Updates For Brands
25 June 2012
LinkedIn has introduced Targeted Status Updates to all pages which will help brands connect with specific demographics.
Targeted Status Updates gives brands the ability to target followers based on specific criteria, including industry, seniority, job function, company size, non-company employees and geography. This feature is included with post insights, showing how many people it reached, the number of clicks, shares and overall engagement, allows brands to get a better idea of what their audience will respond to and for page admin to adjust their approach accordingly.
Prior to the announcement, only a small number of brands have been able to avail of this service, but now brands will be able to target specific users. More targeted posts will result in posts that will relate to followers more and will result in an engaged audience.
LinkedIn claim in its most recent study, 67% of its members follow a company to gain industry insights, 61% for company news, while 49% are attracted to the peer community. It also says that one of their brand partners, Philips, saw a 106% increase in engagement by followers after running Targeted Status Updates on a daily basis.
-
LinkedIn Releases Targeted Status Updates For Brands
25 June 2012
LinkedIn has introduced Targeted Status Updates to all pages which will help brands connect with specific demographics.
Targeted Status Updates gives brands the ability to target followers based on specific criteria, including industry, seniority, job function, company size, non-company employees and geography. This feature is included with post insights, showing how many people it reached, the number of clicks, shares and overall engagement, allows brands to get a better idea of what their audience will respond to and for page admin to adjust their approach accordingly.
Prior to the announcement, only a small number of brands have been able to avail of this service, but now brands will be able to target specific users. More targeted posts will result in posts that will relate to followers more and will result in an engaged audience.
LinkedIn claim in its most recent study, 67% of its members follow a company to gain industry insights, 61% for company news, while 49% are attracted to the peer community. It also says that one of their brand partners, Philips, saw a 106% increase in engagement by followers after running Targeted Status Updates on a daily basis.
-
The ONLY Way To Ensure Your Facebook Fans See Your Updates Is To Pay
24 June 2012
Since Facebook introduced a metric at the bottom of posts to tell you how many fans you’re reaching, there has been a bit of confusion as to why this figure is so low. Many pages reacted when they found they were only reaching an average of between 10-20% of fans. This figure shows not how many fans are actively engaging with your content, but how many fans are actually seeing it. You would presume, of course, that if someone likes your page, they would see all your updates, but this isn’t the case. To see how many of your fans you’re reaching, look at the bottom of a post when you’re logged in as the page admin to see the number of fans reached, and how this is expressed as a percentage of total fans:
When Facebook allowed you to see how many of your fans you were actually reaching, they introduced a button prompting teh page owner to promote posts:
The guaranteed reach is significantly higher than non-promoted posts. Combining this with other paid activity such as sponsored stories of course, will help to increase reach.
-
70% Of Brand Fan Questions On Social Media Aren’t Responded To
25 June 2012
In a talk entitled ‘Social Media Numbers,’ CEO of Socialbakers, Jan Rezab felt that this number showed how big an opportunity brands were missing by not responding to these queries. Analysing the response rates for different industries on social media, he said that telecoms and airline industries were the best in responding with a 60% and 55% response rate respectively. Other industries had much lower rates,with the automobile industry having a particularly low 17% response rate.
Rezab said that the majority of companies are punching below their weight, saying that while 80%-90% of companies are in social media, only 30% are using it.
Using Vodafone UK as an example, he showed that the company generated £1 million in revenue simply because responding to social media queries is cheaper than the traditional methods of response (phone calls, etc.)
As part of the talk, Rezab announced Socialbaker’s new feature named Socially Devoted, highlighting the world’s largest brands who are socially active and those who are poor in their response rate. The feature takes into account facts such as fan numbers, answers, response times and the overall response rates (The average response rate is 28.01% and worryingly, the average length of time to respond is 34.65 hours or almost a day and a half).
Rezab recommends that you try to respond to at least 75% of all fan questions posted on your wall and to try and not leave fans waiting for a response. The final point he makes is for brands to make the responses personal and not to use automated responses when answering questions.
-
Apple is now the world’s 3rd biggest phone producer
19 June 2012
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Etiam tristique erat in lorem suscipit ullamcorper. Ut ac elit vitae nunc pretium blandit. Nunc tellus ipsum, porttitor at sollicitudin eu, lobortis vel lorem. Nulla ornare iaculis ornare.
Vivamus sit amet dolor vel augue semper viverra. Aliquam vel eros ac lacus porttitor ullamcorper vitae ut mauris. Duis venenatis consectetur erat. Mauris mauris urna, tincidunt vitae tempor non, porttitor ut mi. Nullam nisl augue, dapibus sit amet hendrerit id, placerat condimentum sem. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Maecenas sollicitudin euismod facilisis. Proin feugiat dictum pretium.
