Archive for category Social Networking
Online Advertising continues to grow
Posted by David Harrison in Online Marketing, PPC Advertising, Search Engine Optimisation, Social Media, Social Networking, Thoughts & Opinions, Traditional Marketing on September 30th, 2009
It’s funny how coincidences occur on occasion. Yesterday I attended a useful course on the planning of digital marketing campaigns. As a company, we tend to focus on search and emails as the primary means of engaging with customers. We will suggest enhancing these more traditional routes through the use of social media when appropriate.
We tend not to suggest using online advertsising so much, as much as anything due to a lack of knowledge. I think we need to look at this again. The course, part of my MSc (nose to the grindstone now!), was largely about the use of various display advertising formats, CPMs, CPAs, CPCs and the like. It has to be said that for certain offerings, this channel should be used – in conjunction we would suggest with the more standard routes such as search and email marketing. That sentence in itself is contentious, as for some people their view of the world would be the opposite with displays being the primary focus. I will leave it up to you to decide on your own priorities.
The key point however is that online advertsing is continuing to grow http://bit.ly/2oqCxP. This is all good news for those suppliers involved in the digital arena. It is also good news for clients, as online promotion has one huge benefit over traditional media – MEASURABILITY! Whilst you will never know how many people see your ad in the paper you will certainly know the reach of your online promotions. If nothing else, we would recommend you review the allocations of your marketing budgets and check those pounds are working their hardest for you.
Web Site Launches
Posted by David Harrison in Severn Internet News, Social Media, Social Networking, Web Design, Web Development, Web Site Launches on September 24th, 2009
We have been rather busy on a couple of larger projects of late and have omitted to mention a few sites that have gone live in the recent past. As ever, we would like to thank all of these clients for their patronage and look forward to developing the sites as we move forward.
Our first full Magento based e-commerce site www.sportsgolfstores.co.uk went live recently and gives a good idea of how flexible this platform can be for e-commerce web sites. It is the home of Karl Kertess Golf and also a great place to buy golf trousers and associated products so do take a look.
The White Horse Inn at Clun have also had a new site launched. As regular readers will know, I take it upon myself to quality test any pub or restaurant we work with (!!) and I can certainly recommend Jack’s establisment. If you are looking to find a good real ale pub in Shropshire that also provides B&B and an ongoing events programme I’d give them a visit. The site also provides interaction with their various social media channels and we would recommend everyone in the same gane look at using these channels to promote their business.
In association with Hunter Bevan we also worked on the development of the new Leema Acoustics website. As a Hi-Fi buff to some extent I’d certainly suggest taking a look at some of their award winning products.
We have also launched a new site for Marc Beaumont. Marc is one of the world’s top downhill mountain bikers and the site should help his many fans keep up to date. Personally, I get frightened even hearing Mark talk about what he does! This site is built on the Wordpress platform.
Having developed the original Fabric Spray website on behalf of The Needham Group we have now set the Irish version live at www.fabricspray.ie. It’s a pretty amazing product so take a look!
We have also revamped www.fine-boxes.com for Andrew Crawford. Andrew is looking to teach more people – his work is really quite exceptional so please take a look.
Lastly, but not least, we set G Bryan Jones live. Locally based, in Bishops Castle, they are your port of call for all things farm machinery related.
I think that is it … working on a good few more at present so watch this space. The sites above give a fair idea of the range of work we do so if you need any help yourself, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Twitter vs Facebook … who will win? ….
Posted by David Harrison in Facebook, Search Engine Optimisation, Social Media, Social Networking, Thoughts & Opinions, Useful Stuff on August 17th, 2009
One of the best sources for ongoing discussions and useful opinions relating to the whole social media space is Mashable in our humble opinion.
This is a really good article and we would recommend you give it the once over … http://bit.ly/100gn
Newspaper digests on your desktop …. and track your competition
Posted by David Harrison in Online Marketing, Social Media, Social Networking, Thoughts & Opinions, Useful Stuff on July 15th, 2009
Paul wrote a good article on newspapers and their imminent demise yesterday … here is a slightly different take on the printed word …
I quite like my newspaper! Reading The Sunday Times over breakfast and through a lazy Sunday is one of life’s true pleasures in my opinion, but through the working week it is harder to achieve this due to lack of time – in my case I also live in the middle of nowhere so can’t have it delivered to read over breakfast anyway!
What to do?
I am a bit of a news addict – I listen to it on the radio, watch the TV news and also still read the papers. What I am doing now however is using technology to improve my news gathering and better satisfy my craving. I am doing this without any effort and also for free. I am focussing on the topics that interest me and can scan stories related to those subjects from a number of sources quickly and easily.
How?
I use Feedly which in my opinion is the best way to aggregate your news and any other data that you want to follow. It essentially provides me with my own personalised newspaper and it is free – rather than paying for The Times, Financial Times and Telegraph I now get all their stories, or at least the ones that interest me, in one place. I think it is great and would strongly recommend it!
In a business sense, as part of our research setting up social media campaigns and any online marketing campaigns we will research not only what our client is up to but what their competitors are doing. We do this through Google Alerts, which then feeds into Feedly. We obviously use this to see what our competitors are up to aswell! If you don’t have a Google account this is one good reason to have one for sure! Every time your competitor is mentioned in a new article or post you will know about it – which has got to be of some value, even if you are just a nosey parker!
Try out Feedly!
Newspapers face a problem..a big one.
Posted by Paul McSweeney in Facebook, Social Networking, Thoughts & Opinions on July 14th, 2009
Newspapers are dying out..there is no doubt about it. Competition from online media sources has meant they have had to adapt.But they have hitherto not found the answer. Especially amongst the teenage readership where numbers are ever depleting. If this continues, we will have no newspapers in 20 years..Old habits die hard and teenagers are already used to getting all the information they need online via their PC or mobile phone. Moreover, 24 hour televised news channels and online news sources are free. Newspapers need to grab the interest of teenagers; for older generations they have an enjoyed an unconditional relationship. (old habits again)
Radio is suffering the same fate. Ipods allow teenagers to choose what they listen to and when without the endless radio chat and adverts..Radio faces similar challenges..their future customers are turning away from them. The Ipod is by far the most favoured listening device among teenagers.
But their main source of entertainment are social networking sites such as Facebook. They need to be seen to be on the latest crazes and feel under pressure to do so. Facebook enables them to create an achieveable illusion of themselves through the constant updating and refining of their profiles. Furthermore, they can engage in conversation with others..Facebook and My Space users continue to increase.
So what for newspapers..if they are going to attract any teenagers, my suggestion would be they need to target them first and foremost. What are teenagers into? Reality TV, Hollyoaks and the like; fashion, celebrity gossip.. So with that in mind, political expenses, interest rate predictions, inter alia. won’t cut it with these teenagers..A newspaper that focuses on teenagers will sell..but you can’t just throw out a generic product and hope it will fit all shapes and sizes..newspapers need to realise this.
Where to spend those advertising dollars, or pounds, or euros …
Posted by David Harrison in Online Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation, Social Networking, Thoughts & Opinions, Useful Stuff on July 9th, 2009
We’ve started putting a few posts up on Social Media of late … no doubt there will be more to follow. Our view is that in combination with search marketing it should form an increasing part of your overall marketing mix (but we would say that wouldn’t we!) and it seems there is increasing concrete evidence to back up that view ….
Not only is online marketing’s share of spend increasing but it is at the expense of traditional advertising … as Paul mentioned the other day, people are increasingly not using newspapers as much, although I still buy them myself (!), so what is the point of advertising in them?
Pretty simple really – spend your marketing money where the people you want to reach exist!
More information, with the appropriate Forrester Research numbers can be found at http://www.briansolis.com/2009/07/the-decline-of-advertising-and-the-rise-of-social-media/
Some thoughts from Severn Internet on social media …
Posted by David Harrison in Online Marketing, Social Networking, Useful Stuff on July 7th, 2009
Paul has written what I think is a pretty good article on Social Media and how it can be applied …. feel free to distribute it, but please give us a credit … best way … just re blog, tweet or link to the page …
Lots of this stuff is still fairly new, so feel free to comment … we’d welcome your thoughts.
Click here to view the document social-media-introduction
Twitter following – good or bad?
Posted by David Harrison in Online Marketing, Social Networking on July 6th, 2009
Well I have just unfollowed about 200 people on Twitter! I guess most are still following me, but I think one needs to ask why one should promote someone else’s quick money making scheme or scam as I am sure some of these followers are.
We are often asked if Twitter, Facebook etc are worthwhile. We believe they are, but have spent the last few weeks refining how we think it should all work, hence the paucity of our own posts. That will all change from today, but ….
We are a business. We are here to make money and help you to make money too. Are you really interested in whether I just enjoyed my cup of tea? I know that I don’t really care if you have enjoyed yours …. BUT …. if you have something that I can use, be it a service, advice or a product that is useful to me then I am more than happy to hear about it because I have learnt something that is of VALUE to me.
We’ll therefore be posting links and expressing opinions that we think will help you, rather than the latest thing we’ve had to eat … some people will think this is not the way to use these tools, but ask yourself how much of the twoddle you have time to read?
Of course we will also be throwing in the odd bit of self promotion too such as latest site launches etc.
We may be wrong, but as we say to clients, you need defined objectives and a strategy to meet them if Social Media is a channel that will work for you.
Feel free to disagree!
Don’t become a Twitter quitter!
Posted by David Harrison in Social Networking, Useful Stuff on June 6th, 2009
Having spent the last few days tweeting, attending seminars and setting up all that Twitters, I thought I’d post this from Econsultancy, which is a great site to bookmark anyway in my opinion.
http://econsultancy.com/blog/3908-are-you-a-twitter-quitter
So don’t become a Twitter quitter!
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