Orbital Media Improves Rangemaster’s Social Media Presence

Posted by Hayden Allen-Vercoe on March 26 2012
Filed in Online PR, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Research

Orbital Media has teamed up with the iconic British brand Rangemaster, in order to help improve their social media presence, through a fully integrated campaign.

To kick start the campaign will be giving away a Rangemaster cooker worth £1,999, on the brand’s Facebook page. Click here to have a look https://www.facebook.com/RangeMasterUK.

We will then promote the competition to the world utilising optimised social media techniques; through these techniques we aim to bring thousands of people to the Rangemaster Facebook page. This will be made possible by contacting our vast blogger database and encouraging them to feature the campaign, we will also contact influential press targets and conduct optimised tweeting. However, these are only a few of our methods for developing the brand’s presence.

In only 4 days the Facebook page “likes” increased by over 200% - and this number is always growing!

We will update you on the success of the campaign soon…

Social Media & SEO Summary January 2012

Posted by Hayden Allen-Vercoe on February 02 2012
Filed in Blog Network News, Online Marketing Tips and Advice, Online PR, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Social Media Analytics, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Research, Social Networking

What a month! Dominated by the launch of Google ‘Search plus your world’ (and the other Social Network’s discontent of this Google – centric search), and the SOPA Blackout, with the big guns in full support.

Here’s what happened in January 2012 in the world of Social Media and SEO.

SEO Summary January 2012

* Google’s social search, incorporating G+ in its search results, are discussed by Danny Sullivan at Search Engine Land.

* Mashable’s Sarah Kessler comments it is too much, too soon – I agree.

* Erin Everhart, also from Mashable, comments on the SEO perspective of this new Social based search

This could all kick off - The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), has called for the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) to investigate the recent search changes. There are concerns that the new features favour Google’s own services over those of competitors.

CNN Money even reported that Google may be sued for the new ‘Search plus your world’.

We need to remember that, according to Google, facebook & Twitter did not want Google to crawl their content, if this had been agreed search plus your world would have been so much more relevant.

And as far as SEO goes, I think it is important to highlight these personalised results are only visible if you are logged into Google. With G+ gaining more ground daily (see below!), more people are likely to be logged in to Google – which may become an SEO issue for the future.

But….Google said facebook and Twitter did not allow access to their social graphs and that’s why Search plus your world results are steered towards purely Google listings.

By the looks of it, not true. Engineers at Facebook, Twitter and MySpace have got together and produced a tool that shows clearly that Google’s new search could have been more driven to the user and not to Google. The new bookmarklet tool, ‘Don’t Be Evil’ goes beyond G+ search results. Search Engine Land have a full write up and install instructions.

Social Search as it should have been?

Meanwhile….

* WebProNews led with Google’s stunning announcement Larry Page claimed whilst discussing their results for the 2011 fiscal year; “Google had a really strong quarter ending a great year. Full year revenue was up 29%, and our quarterly revenue blew past the $10 billion mark for the first time. I am super excited about the growth of Android, Gmail, and Google+, which now has 90 million users globally – well over double what I announced just three months ago.”

This was posted by WebProNews on 19th Jan. To really see how fast this Social Network is growing, the same site also revealed that G+ users have now reached an estimated 100 million users. That’s an extra 10% growth in less than 2 weeks. Is Mr Zuckerberg concerned? I know I would be, G+ now looks to be a really viable contender to facebook.

* It’s not all good for Google though. Concerns over the new privacy settings may seem searchers adopt a new approach. Microsoft capitalized on this with a blog post ‘Google doesn’t put people first’. Google responded to these claims in their own blog post.

* The huge internet campaign led by the big players saw sites blacking out sections of their pages (or even complete sites) in support of anti SOPA. Examples of Google, Wikipedia and others during the ‘SOPA Blackout’ can be found here.

Not sure what all the fuss is about? You need to know – it affects each and every one of us. Mashable cover why SOPA is dangerous very effectively. Scary reading.

But, the blackouts seem to have worked! (For now). Mashable report on Lamar Smith, the chief sponsor of SOPA, pulling the bill. SOPA is dead.

Social Media Summary January 2012

* Social Media Examiner mentions Google’s new social integration, as well as highlighting Twitters new embeddable tweets and a really interesting, useful and free email tool for Gmail users – Brand My Mail, where you can add blog posts, Twitter or facebook updates and much more to your emails.

* Hubspot’s Pamela Vaughan also talks about Google’s “biggest social search update yet”.

* Bharati Ahuja discusses Google+ “as a complete blogging platform” at WebPro Tech.

* Brian Solis shares 10 social media strategies for defining a successful 2012 at his blog.

* Pinterest continues to grow, with Etsy being the latest to add a pin it button.

* More social growth? Danny Goodwin of Search Engine Watch  reports that YouTube is now serving 4 billion videos a day. If you are a stat freak, click the link, there are some more YouTube related stats there!

* Pen.io continues to grow as the fastest online content publisher. Although basic, it is also very effective at publishing a web page online quickly. We like.

* Too many Social Networks to handle?!! Macworld report that Twitter have acquired social media feed condenser Summify. Summify summarizes Social content in people’s Google, Facebook and Twitter social media feeds and delivers a daily summarized version via email, a website or an iPhone.

* Google were not the only ones to reveal good financial results for 2011. Facebook has just filed its IPO for 2011 with a figure of $3.71 Billion.

So in the first month of 2012, although Google has reported huge success, Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft have all expressed some negative views. This year is going to be interesting, with a few more scraps to come.

I cannot wait!

Will social media and advances in technology make us smarter?

Posted by Hayden Allen-Vercoe on September 12 2011
Filed in Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Social Media Research

A random thought, but an interesting one to chew over. When smartphones and tablets finally take over the world once and for all, information will be far more accessible right? The web is positively bursting with information (some fascinating but too often completely pointless), but one thing is for sure… it’s difficult NOT to learn something new when surfing the web these days.

As an example, I was recently cruising round YouTube last week on a friend’s iPad (which was a joy!) and by accident was absolutely hooked into the subject of 911 conspiracies after initially looking for footage of the new building they are creating next to the old site. Have you ever looked into this area – it’s fascinating and very easy to get sucked into the conspiracy theories, and boy are there a few! But I digress, my point is that this is a prime example of how search strings can educate us without even really knowing and it’s a very good thing right?!

‘Well, sort of’ you could argue… what can you believe? There is so much out there that an ‘open mind’ is compulsory and will become more so as technology and social content sites grow. It’s very easy to get sucked in to people’s personal point of view, and what’s more, who is a voice of authority these days? Every blogger, YouTube movie maker, Tweeter etc. thinks they are – that’s why they do what they do (typically). Too much of the wrong type of information can certainly pose dangers – it can cause riots as we’ve recently seen, elect governments and leave people questioning their own existence (in extreme cases).

But rubbish content aside, the fact that we’ll all one day be online and have access to more information can’t be a bad thing as we’ll learn things about business, life, the Earth and space etc. without even necessarily wanting to. As to whether it will educate people enough to stop them becoming ‘problems’ in society remains to be seen!

Would love to hear your views here.

How to test a business idea with social media

Posted by Hayden Allen-Vercoe on August 10 2011
Filed in Blog Consultancy, Online Marketing Tips and Advice, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Research, Social Networking

The government here in the UK is on a big push to see entrepreneurs come to the fray – this will hopefully stimulate the economy (not to mention more taxes . But, the truth is that there has never been a better time to start a new business, recession or not!

If you are thinking of starting up a new business you will no doubt want to test it before you commit too much time and cash. Social media can provide the answers, and quickly.

Here are a few ways that we use social media to identify a potential business opportunities:

Survey sites. If you haven’t come across sites like Poll Daddy or Survey Monkey yet then you simply must. Free to set up an account, design a questionnaire and receive fewer than 100 responses, these sites are an absolute necessity if you want to float an idea to a specific audience. The only thing you need to do is find the audience, but setting up some carefully planned Facebook cost per click advertising can solve this problem and hit a very specific audience in the process - with £100 ad budget and an incentive to complete the questionnaire you could have the answers you’re looking for in no time!

Twitter is another tool to make use of. Set up Tweetdeck (it’s free) and set up some columns, each tracking a keyword relevant to the idea. See what people are saying about the subject, and never be afraid to direct message them asking for more feedback to an idea or the problem that the idea addresses. You’ll get a great insight into just how many people need your solution… Or not!

Reach out to bloggers. Bloggers are great to work with when it comes to product or service launches. Research your industry blogs and ask the key bloggers to review your prototype. Not only will they provide invaluable, truthful feedback, BUT so will their readers. If you don’t have a prototype to send a blogger you may like to offer them a small fee for discussing the idea and encouraging feedback from their readers.

Facebook. Set up a Facebook page around your subject or brand. It will cost you nothing apart from your time and you may just discover that your concept, brand and communications are just what your audience are after. It can be quite time consuming BUT you could ultimately launch your business off the page with one of the many emerging eCommerce solutions now available for Facebook. Thus is a great solution for more niche ideas and markets. Remember, if the take up is slow you can always commit a few hundred pounds to Facebook advertising and gauge the take up.

Blogging. In a similar way to setting up a Facebook page, set up a blog! The benefit if this over a Facebook page alone is that you have far more control over the SEO (i.e. getting the site found in natural Google searches) and if it ultimately becomes a business, you will have established your own platform as a central hub already. But beware, you need to be committed to producing a good amount of content each and every week for at least 6 months in order to get a really good feel for the opportunity. But remember, if it is a success and you start growing traffic, you’ll be 6 months in advance when you officially start! Always remember that a little Google PPC can be a great help here.

Linked In is a fantastic tool for establishing ideas, although it may be a little risky sharing your thoughts with the industry. If you are clever you can extract the right answers without giving a lot away. Identify the best groups within your niche and network your way into them. Ask searching questions and you’ll get professional advice back from the industry FREE of charge! This is a great way of refining your idea and extracting advice from those who may have already trodden your path!

The obvious ideas…

eBay - produce 100 prototypes and see if they sell on eBay. Make sure you do your keyword research first and list properly, makes all the difference!

Google, google and keep googling - desk research should be your first port of call. It costs nothing and you immediately get a sense as to the competition and their biz model, size and popularity. Check out their Facebook and twitter pages and see how popular they are and what people are saying about them. A good tip for google searches is to tag the word ‘review’ after the brand or product search term and see what people are honestly saying. Set up google alerts and see just how popular the subject/market is on a daily basis, fascinating stuff that doesn’t cost you a bean.

Whatever your idea, good luck. You have taken a step in the right direction if you adhere to the above advice.

If you’d like some assistance launching your product online please get in touch with us.

Prediction. Google+ WILL be bigger than Facebook

Posted by Hayden Allen-Vercoe on July 04 2011
Filed in Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), Social Media Analytics, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Marketing Events, Social Media Research, Social Networking

Google+, the new social network from Google is on its way. The question here may be what is the point of Google+? Surely we have enough social networks already?

Maybe it’s worth thinking back to Google’s failed social projects to date – Google Wave and Google Buzz – so why are Google bothering? Do they not know when they have been beat?

Facebook is a monster, a big monster. 600 million users worldwide and growing, the most popular of all social networks. My first impressions were Google should concentrate on maintaining their daily one billion search requests and I don’t think I’d be alone here…

Or maybe not.

A friend of mine recently bought up the fact that Sony had the monopoly on portable music devices just 11 years ago. Who’s shifting more these days – Sony or Apple?

Do not be too quick to dismiss Google+, this is Google coming out with all guns blazing…This is all out ‘social war’.

Early screenshots show a remarkable resemblance to Facebook. I’m sure this is deliberate. This is Google’s Facebook. With benefits.

The same as Apple’s iPod, this new social network promises some really nifty user friendly features.

Google+ offers everything that Facebook currently delivers, but it’s the little extras that will see if this really will compete.

The first feature of interest on Google+ has to be ‘Circles’. You can share conversations with different groups within your Google+ network. As Google say “The easiest way to share some things with college buddies, others with your parents and almost nothing with your boss”….I ‘Likey’.

‘Hangouts’ also brings more to the party, literally. “Let friends know that you’re free for a video hangout, any time, anywhere. Then catch up, watch YouTube or… just hangout”, Google+ cornering the teen market in one swoop. This could be the most important social feature for users tempted to switch.

‘Sparks’ brings out the best of Google search –

“A feed of only the things that you’re really into, so when you’re free, there’s always something waiting to be watched, read or shared”

. Stumble Upon should be worried too.

So we are looking at a fresh take on social networking, from a company that has failed in the past. Google’s huge online presence and it’s abilities to learn from its mistakes makes Google+ one to watch. Very closely.

Start watching those impressive Facebook stats dropping. Not everyone is happy with Facebook, the ever changing interface, not to mention privacy issues. Google+ promises a tighter security than its Nemesis.

Is Facebook concerned? You bet! Makes you wonder if this was the real reason behind their anti-Google campaign, conducted by PR company Burson-Marsteller, which Facebook paid for.
Currently Google+ has been made available to a select number for testing, I guess it doesn’t want a repeat of the mass rollout issues it had with Google Buzz.

Clearly, Google sees this as their big chance to take on Facebook and they want to get it perfect. When will Google+ be available to everyone? All Google are saying is “it won’t be long before the Google+ project is ready for everyone”.

In the meantime, you can register with Google+ here. https://plus.google.com

So back to my prediction, that essentially Google+ will have more than 600 million users. It’s a huge statement, but I believe Google have finally managed to create something to compete and conquer Facebook.

RIP Facebook? What’s your take?