Jan
28
To target underscore blank or not – the bounce effect?
January 28, 2010 | Web and more | 3 Comments
Now this heading may seem a little confusing or make no sense at all. I will explain what this is all about. In web analytics we have a measurement called bounce rate which is an important measurement to determine the quality of the traffic to your site. Bounce rate measures the number of people who come to your site and leave from the same page they entered without clicking on further.
My dilema is all about opening links in a new tab/window or not. Firstly for user experience and secondly for bounce rates.
According to Wikipedia, Avinash Kaushik states:
My own personal observation is that Click Here To Read More
Jan
25
Privacy in Social Media
January 25, 2010 | Social Media | 6 Comments
We have seen concerns in the media about social networking and Facebook in particular has come under fire. In this article I raise quite a few questions and am really keen to hear others views on this.
From what I have seen some people are really concerned about privacy (I am in that camp) and some people don’t seem to worry too much. In my article Facebook for business has me scratching my head, I mentioned that I have used Facebook for years, but purely to keep in touch with family and friends all around the world.
Every time someone sends me a request on Facebook it seems to require some sort of application. On the install application page you have to give that application access to almost everything including your photo’s to install it. I have two children and I hate the idea of “whoever” is behind these applications having access to photo’s of my children and therefore, decline every request that requires an application. However, my family who sometimes have pictures of my children install every other application and I have no control over this. Am I being overly protective – maybe?
My big question is Click Here To Read More
Jan
19
Why businesses think Social Media is a waste of time!
January 19, 2010 | Marketing, Social Media | 8 Comments
Today I was reading an article on Brand Republic about the shortage of social media and SEO knowledge and skills amongst marketing and PR professionals. Even I was surprised at how low the statistics were:
Gordon Macmillan writes “Out of a sample of 4500 CVs received in the last two years it says just 6% reference “Social Media”, 9% mention Twitter, and a meagre 2% talk about blogging, while 13% include Facebook (though in some this was merely highlighted in the ‘interests’ section).”
What I can’t decide is whether the reason for this is based on a stigma in some companies/organisations and industries regarding social media or if there is really a shortage. There are millions of blogs out there, millions use twitter and even more are on Facebook. The title of this article is based on a comment to the mentioned article rather than the article itself.
What I found shocking was Click Here To Read More
Dec
2
YouTube for Business
December 2, 2009 | Marketing, Series, Social Media | 3 Comments
With the end of my social media journey I have been wondering whether YouTube can be classified under the social media banner or not. YouTube equals Video. Not any video, but generally self produced, short video (10 minutes or less). There is a section for shows, which are longer in length, but are mostly episodes of television shows.
For me social media is interactive and usually involves conversations, however, there is a lot of push going on where the conversation is started and then comprises mostly of replies. This is not always a bad thing: just an observation. Videos on YouTube are similar in the way that a video is posted and people can leave comments. Therefore, I am going to classify it for my journey, as social media. Though I am sill not 100% convinced it should be.
There are millions of videos on YouTube aimed at all sorts of audiences. YouTube offers a partnership program where you can join their advertising program (A bit like Google Adsense) and if you produce/upload enough videos, which you have rights to, you can create your own channel. I think this is a great opportunity for any business and can be used in a number of ways, for example: Click Here To Read More
Nov
18
Is Linkedin king in the business social networking world?
November 18, 2009 | Marketing, Social Media | 4 Comments
The two major social networks aimed at the professional community are Linkedin and Plaxo. Linkedin claims over 50 million users and Plaxo claims to host address books for over 40 million. While researching both Linkedin and Plaxo I came across a lot of content on how to use these better; you know the: complete your profile, network, join groups, brand yourself type of advice. Often the advice is good advice, but this was not what I was after. I wanted to get the low down on how to use these to do business.
First let me tell you a bit about each of these social networks. Plaxo was founded in November 2002 and Linkedin founded in December 2002. Plaxo initially positioned itself as a platform to manage your contact list and later added the more social networking features and premium service. The most recent development is that Plaxo has made their most valuable tool (sync to Outlook) into a premium paid service.
Initially Plaxo got a really bad name for spam, however, it seems they have sorted how you invite contacts and have recovered to some degree from this sentiment, though some stigma still seems to be in the air. From what I can establish Linkedin is the more popular choice between the two and I constantly find articles that suggest Plaxo is a distant second. I did come across something that stated that only 1/3 of Plaxo users were on Linkedin, but can’t find that again and it could be quite old and I have no idea how accurate that is. I haven’t registered on Plaxo and from what I have read it is not on my ‘anytime soon agenda’. Nothing has made me feel I just have to register with Plaxo, however they do have their loyal users.
From what I can tell Linkedin has always marketed itself as a business-orientated networking site. As with Plaxo, Linkedin has added additional features and started a premium service
Both Linkedin and Plaxo can be used to grow your contact network for either business or with the aim of finding a job. I now am going to focus more on Linkedin and ways people are using it as a business tool.
I found this cool page on Linkedin listing some of their success stories. Looking at this list you can see that most success stories revolve around increasing sales, finding new clients, improving a business through advice/answers or landing a dream job. Click Here To Read More
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