How to start blogging, first part of a three-part series on blogging

First embraced by academics, geeks, political commentators and activists at the end of the nineties, blogs have now become a widely used medium. In August 2008, 14.5 million people in the UK visited at least one blog (Source: Econsultancy Internet Compendium). It is easy to imagine that this figure is much higher today than in August 2008.

So why should businesses be blogging, and how to get started?  This is what I’ll have a look at today. (more…)

Social media flourished in 2009 and this year it’s going to become an even bigger player in the way we browse, consume and share information online. Below are my predictions for the biggest trends regarding social media’s development in 2010. (more…)

I was doing some research the other day for a presentation based around the role of digital and particularly social media for a B2C brand and came across a post on Mashable about changing the world through social media.

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Would you find it useful to know what people say about you in their conversations online? If you are engaging in social media this is not only useful but essential. Being unaware of conversations can be a hazard for your brand / business. It could also mean you miss out on excellent opportunities.

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Now that we’re well into the first month of the New Year I started to think of what might be a few digital marketing New Year Resolutions for a business in 2010. Many will already be doing many of these things but if not then maybe these will help you. (more…)

Today I am having a look at the questions of B2B brands and their approach to social media.

Gartner predicts that in 2010 more than 60% of Fortune 1000 companies will engage in some form of social media. As social media touch the majority of the population on a daily basis, it is natural enough that consumer brands now embrace these to connect with their consumers or fans. What about B2B brands? (more…)

Real time search results. Recently we’ve seen both Google and Bing attempt to include Tweets in their SERPs however it was apparent from the out-set that they weren’t quite ready. From a ranking perspective it simply didn’t seem fair that people could get a number one result just because they were the last person to tweet a certain search term. So this year hopefully Google (and the other search engines) can develop a fair and effective way of integrating real time search.

Conversion rate optimisation. One of the most important reasons for a business to improve its online presence through SEO is because it wants more people to find its website and to make more money. However often the conversion rate isn’t as high as it should be.  We’re now into the realms of conversion rate optimisation and this year I think it’s going to be important for more agencies to introduce CRO as part of their standard SEO process. It’s very measurable, normally with a good ROI when done well and therefore should be an added string to any SEO bow.

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I was awake at 4am the other day thinking about how I would get to work if the forecast 8 inches of snow was correct. Then it dawned on me (not the actual dawn, that’s not til 7.30am) that it didn’t matter because I could work from home. During the big freeze in the winter of 1963, Britain was a much more industrial nation – factories closed and public services really struggled, although more schools stayed open because most people lived close enough to walk. Now, broadband internet means that a great number of employees can work from home. When it snowed 2 years ago, I walked to work through the snow, 3 miles across the fields. This time, I just turned on my laptop. (more…)

Every Christmas, my wife Karen asks me what I want for Christmas and provide her with a list. This year I thought I’d get some advice from the good people on twitter.

So a little while ago I posted a tweet ‘What’s the best book you’ve read this year?’I have had some excellent responses and now have a fabulous Christmas wish list.

What’s interesting is the quality of the books mentioned and the diversity of them which illustrates the quality of people on twitter.

‘What has this got to do with social media?’ you may be wondering. I say ‘Everything’ in that social media is a superb way of gathering opinion and information and doing something like this proves its power and usefulness to me yet again.

To thank the people who recommended books I’ve included your twitter ids below with the books you read this year that you loved most and to you I say ‘Many thanks’. If anyone would like to add their own suggestions in the comments section of the blog or comment on others recommendations, please feel free to do so.

Here’s the list exactly as they were tweeted:

@arjantupan One best book? Hard. Here some: White Tiger, Lean Thinking, Black Swan, Democracy Kills

@arjantupan Oh, And Tribes, of course. And, for the Americans and Dutch: The Island at the Center of the World

@Dunkndisorderly Kane and Abel by Jeffrey Archer. Amazing book
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Last week, a major American airline fired one of their employees for having engaged with a customer after the latter had expressed his opinion on the poor usability of its website.

Facebook and Twitter, to name just two of these highly popular social media sites, give (un)happy customers / citizens a very powerful and instant platform to make their voice heard, to an extent that has never been seen before.  For fun I cherry picked some “customer experience related” twitter posts this week, which I’ll leave for your judgement (please note that they are strictly reflecting their authors’ opinion, neither mine nor that of White Hat Media). (more…)