This is Europe’s premier social media event and not one to be missed. Here’s our preview of what you can expect to get from the event.
First, you’ll have access to more than 120 top speakers from a huge range of companies, all of them experts in social media. You’ll be able to learn from real examples from worldwide brands and find out how to adapt a similar social media strategy for your own brand.
You’ll also be able to learn how advertisers are making the best use of social networking to set up and develop revenue streams.
Spokespeople from leading social networks will be discussing their strategy and how they approach the future, and there’ll also be an in-depth examination of the current market as well as predictions of what the future holds.
If you are attending, you can make use of socialmediaworldforum Europe’s pre-show online meeting planner to arrange meetings in advance, helping you improve your connections.
As I say, this is an event not to be missed. We’ll have an in-depth preview next week.
Google has become the latest tech giant to come under scrutiny for allegedly breaching the European Union’s antitrust rules. It follows in the footsteps of Microsoft, penalised for its dominance of the browser market with Internet Explorer.
Today’s Daily Telegraph reports that Google is being investigated over claims that its search functions were discriminating against certain businesses in its search rankings.
Google has an approximate 90 per cent share of the UK’s search market and complaints have been received from three companies: price comparison service Foundem; EJustice.fr, a French legal search engine; and Ciao, a European shopping search engine that’s actually owned by Microsoft.
Foundem initially complained about Google in August 2009. The general feeling is that, because these three sites could offer services that compete with Google’s own, they are being demoted by Google’s algorithms.
Google themselves don’t seem particularly fazed by the threat of investigation. They offer a response on their blog, admitting that their search is “not perfect”. However, they remain confident that their business is operating fairly:
“While we will be providing feedback and additional information on these complaints, we are confident that our business operates in the interesets of users and partners, as well as in line with European competition law,” Julia Holtz, Senior Competition Counsel for Google writes on their blog.
Of course, many tech-savy readers will remember that just over a year a go the boot was on the other foot when Google joined the EU antitrust case against Microsoft’s IE browser, accusing the market of being uncompetitive. Internet Explorer was bundled with Microsoft Operating Systems, which Mozilla, Opera and Google (after launching Chrome) did not approve of.
The European Competition Commission ruled Microsoft had to offer their users more choice, and it has been announced today that from Monday (March 1 2010) users will be offered a selection of browsers instead of having IE forced upon them.
We wait with anticipation for the results of the Google inquiry, and the implications any ruling might have for search in the not so distant future.
A little something interesting dropped into my inbox today; information about the Shaping the Future of Social Media event held by Social Media World Forum Europe.
The social media event of the year, at least in Europe, takes place at London’s Olympia on 15 and 16 March and is something anyone serious about social media for business can’t afford to miss.
This two-day event features four dedicated conference streams, workshops and an exhibition. Key speakers from a number of global brands, organisations and developers, plus leaders in the field of social media, content producers and agencies will be taking part, alongside many others.
Topics of discussion will include developments in brand engagement via social media, social media monitoring tools and building social media apps; there’ll also be a look at the impact of social media on politics, which will be fascinating with the general election in the offing.
Social media marketing is a hot topic in many industries right now, but is something many smaller businesses (and some large ones!) have failed to grasp. This conference will no doubt provide a great deal of enlightenment.
A free to attend exhibition only pass is available here.
Mystery abounds in the music world over the identity of iamamiwhoami, an unknown (or at least for the moment unrecognisable) artist taking YouTube by storm.
The mystery videos, which feature a distorted blonde female singing, have caught the eye of Shane Richmond at the Daily Telegraph, who wrote an interesting piece speculating as to the singer’s identity, while music bloggers and fans are busy trying to guess the puzzle.
Viral videos are of course, nothing new. In fact, they predate sites such as YouTube and Google Video, originally being emailed and forwarded on from one friend to another. With the exponential grow of video and social networking sites, the popularity of virals exploded, and we all have our own particular favourites that we remember months or even years after we first clicked on them.
It goes without saying that virals can be amazing marketing tools – think of the Cadbury’s drumming Gorilla, for example, viewed more than a million times – but what makes a really good viral?
First, and most important, content is king. Humour is vital, of course, but funny is not the only thing that matters – your content should also be suitably different, unlike anything a viewer has seen before, which will make them more likely to want to talk about what they’ve seen, share it with their colleagues and friends.
Your viral content has also got to be something most people can identify with. For example, if you are selling a piece of high-level computing equipment, the ‘geek’ jokes that go down well among your colleagues might not have enough mass appeal for a wider audience (for that read your target customers) to find humour or that word-of-mouth factor in.
The guessing-game element from the iamamiwhoami videos acts as a perfect hook, as bloggers love having a mystery to solve. Names being tossed into the ring as potential stars of the campaign include Little Boots and Christina Aguilera, and if one of them turns out to be the true star, there will be much loved kudos for the blogger who named them first.
Short and sweet is another often-told message about viral videos. Put yourself in your target audience’s shoes: perhaps they’re sneaking a five minute break at work, or are sent a link to your viral campaign in an inbox containing 40 other messages. Remember time is precious – videos of two to three minutes are more likely to be watched and shared than an eight-minute epic, no matter how well produced or funny it is.
We want to know what your favourite virals are – what stands out to you? Among mine are the hilarious FAIL blog and the Where The Hell Is Matt? series featuring Matt Harding dancing all over the world.
Let us know your favourite virals by leaving a comment on this thread!
We’ve got that Friday feeling at LexisClick and while sharing our favourite music, some of our team members from Poland unearthed this fabulous little number. Originally performed by Czech comedian Ivan Mladek back in 1978, the song was revived back in Poland a couple of years ago and became a surprise hit. We love it so much we just have to share it with you.
Be sure to check back next week for the latest online marketing and SEO news. But for now, sit back and enjoy:
I’ve just finished listening to a very interesting webcast by UK Shadow Chancellor George Osborne, during which he was asked about the competitiveness of the UK’s digital economy.
Osborne likened the development of super-speed broadband to that of canals, railways and road systems in centuries past, and I think that’s a fantastic analogy.
Should the Conservatives get elected at the next election (rumoured by pretty much everyone to be in May) they have plans to utilise part of the BBC Licence Fee to pay for the rolling out of superfast broadband to help ensure the UK remains and grows as a competitor in the digital economy.
Listening to Osborne’s speech, I couldn’t help thinking that the same was true for the UK’s millions of businesses.
A recent report by Kelkoo reveals that UK consumers were responsible for almost a third of all European online sales in 2009. The average annual spend by consumers in the UK was £1,102 on 37 items, while the rest of Europe spent, on average, £774 on 20 items.
Kelkoo forecast that in 2010 UK online retail sales will grow by 12.4% to £42.7 billion, while total retail sales will grow by just 1.7%. European online sales will grow by 20% to reach £153 billion.
Bruce Fair, Managing Director of Kelkoo UK, said of the findings: “2010 is when we will really start to see online sales achieving a significant share of overall retail trade in the UK. While the retail industry is showing slow signs of recovery, the online shopping sector bucked the trend in 2009 delivering double-digit growth, and is expected to continue to perform strongly in 2010.”
That means that getting your online marketing strategy right is more vital than ever this year.
With so many businesses, large and small, online, what you first need to think about is what makes your business stand out from the crowd. Can you offer the best prices, the fastest service, the most knowledge and professionalism in your market?
Identifying what it is that makes your business unique – and will attract and retain the customers you want – is an essential part of your business’s online strategy. Then there’s social media – how best can you use it to market your products and services?
These are just a couple of points you must consider when planning your online sales and marketing strategy. For expert advice on all aspects of online advertising, marketing and web design, contact LexisClick today.
Google have unveiled their latest attempt to crack the social networking market, which they’ve called Buzz.
It integrates with the Gmail and enables users to post status updates, as well as sharing content from the likes of Twitter and Flickr. Buzz launches directly into competition with Facebook, but as well as being a social networking tool for private users, Google hope that Buzz will be taken onboard as a business tool (a business model is to follow shortly).
The key selling point for businesses will be real-time collaboration, which will enable feedback from customers and the incorporation of social information at an earlier stage of product or campaign development. This has, obviously, massive potential benefits to businesses of all sizes, although the similarity of this function to that of Google Wave has led some to speculate that Buzz for business is really an improved version of Wave.
Wave’s reception thusfar has been less than blistering, and, as Tony Bradley points out in an article for PC World’s Business Center, there are some serious limitations for Buzz as a business tool, as users of Google Apps Premier Edition are unable to access many of the consumer applications such as Picasa, which takes much of the fun out of the whole Buzz experience.
Businesses are still working out how to fit social media into their marketing and sales strategies. Let’s hope that soon Google will successfully integrate Buzz’s business and consumer services into a truly valuable tool.
LexisClick specialise in social media marketing for businesses. Contact us today to see how we can help your business grow its online presence.
Read the excellent article by Tony Bradley at PC World’s Business Center blog here.
A new poll by web security software provider Sophos has ranked Facebook as the biggest threat to corporate security, according to IT managers.
In a recent report by Yahoo!, it was revealed that 60 per cent of IT managers named Facebook as being the highest risk, with its 350 million user base being a prime target for malware creators.
Most business owners now realise that Facebook is not just a way for employees to waste time during the working day. It’s also a major platform on which businesses can legitimately promote themselves to potential customers. Facebook and other social networking sites are increasingly large parts of businesses’ marketing plans – but the key to success here is to use social media effectively. Ensuring Facebook pages and Twitter feeds are kept up-to-date and are targeted at the right audience can bring huge benefits, and potentially huge exposure, for your business.
For more information about LexisClick’s social media expertise, click here to speak with one of our team.
Confidence and optimism are returning to marketing budgets, the latest IPA/BDO Bellweather survey reports.
While marketing spend fell for the ninth quarter in a row in the final quarter of 2009, the rate of that fall was at its slowest for almost two years, since the first quarter of 2008.
The survey reports that 35% of the firms questioned saw prospects improving, indicating confidence in the recovery from recession. This is, of course, still a slow and careful process.
Internet advertising budgets were among the winners, being revised up for the second quarter in a row., and while marketing spend was revised down in sales promotion and main media, this was at a slower rate.
The key to getting the best out of your marketing budget, no matter how big or small it is, is to ensure you’re spending wisely – getting the best possible results for your outlay. Whether you’re focusing your marketing spend on email marketing, online SEO, online advertising or a mixture of options, it’s always a good idea to seek expert advice.
Companies such as LexisClick live and breathe online marketing, and can help you make the most of your marketing budget.
