Here are 10 interesting things you need to know about Facebook in the UK as they're on track to be one of the biggest US stock-market debuts of all time.

1. There are over 1.3 billion visits to Facebook a month from the UK Internet population – making Facebook the second most visited website in the UK after Google.

2. 1 in every 6 page views in the UK is to a Facebook page. The social network accounted for 15% of all UK Internet page views in December 2011.

3. 500 million hours are spent on Facebook in the UK every month. The average session time for a user visiting Facebook is 22 minutes.

4. Facebook is the most popular social network in the UK, accounting for over 50% of all visits to social networks. Facebook is twice the size of YouTube and 17 times bigger than Twitter in terms of visits from UK Internet users.

5. Facebook receives an average of 40 million UK Internet visits every single day.

6. Facebook is the most searched for website in UK. The term ‘facebook’ is the most popular search term typed into all search engines including Google, Yahoo! and Bing and three of the top 10 most popular search terms online are Facebook related (‘facebook’, ‘facebook login’ and ‘fb’).

7. Facebook is the second biggest source of traffic in the UK after Google. 7.5% of all visits to a website came from Facebook in December 2011.

8. 1 Facebook fan = 20 additional visits to your website over the course of a year. Using the top 100 retail websites as a sample group, Hitwise data shows that for each additional fan acquired on a branded Facebook page companies can expect to see 20 extra visits coming to their main website over a 12 month period.

9. 25% of all visits leaving Facebook go straight to an Entertainment website, showing the close affinity between Facebook and people’s interest in movies, TV, music and games.

10. Manchester is the new Facebook capital of the UK with Internet users from Manchester 9% more likely than the average person to visit Facebook in a given month.

Source:

http://weblogs.hitwise.com/james-murray/2012/02/10_things_you_need_to_know_abo_1.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+hitwise%2Fuk+%28Hitwise+Intelligence+-+UK%29

Marketing General, Social Media Marketing facebook, social media, Social Media Marketing, social networking

Search engine optimisation is a key service of ours, and in our travels we come across thousands of blogs and social media presences that are being used as just another way of getting up the search engine rankings. All this content is being created for the search engine spiders, with little thought as to how valuable it is to web users. It is true that making frequent posts, promoted through social media channels will attract the search engine spiders to return to your site more regularly. Optimise that content and it’s highly likely you’ll see an upwards shift in your rankings. It might be a good strategy for bringing people in, but is it enough to keep them?

Whilst high search engine rankings are important for the businesses that we deal with, developing a long term brand is much more important.

To maintain a brand, customers and potential customers need to be engaged. So here is the simple RED or Dead rule to remember each time you make a post: Read more…

Blogging for business, Social Media Marketing blogging, Social media for business, Social Media Marketing, social media strategy

With the 2010 election campaign being touted as the election when social media is really going to come to the fore, it was only a matter of time before some prospective parliamentary candidate made, for want of a better word, a twit of themselves on Twitter. Read more…

Social Media Marketing Election 2010, Social media for business, Social Media Marketing, Social media mistakes, Twitter

The above quote came from Kevin Eyers, MD of LinkedIn Europe, on the opening day of the Social Media World Forum at London’s Olympia.

Eyers also warned of an information overload – 76million emails are sent every day, and a quick search on the term “future of social media” provided him with 150million results in Google. How many people, he asked, would go beyond page one? But, importantly, he posed another question: “Just because it’s on page one, is it the right result for me? Or have they just got great SEO?” Read more…

Marketing General, Social Media Marketing facebook, Google Buzz, Social Media Marketing, social media strategy, Twitter

Next Monday and Tuesday, March 15 and 16, sees the Social Media World Forum Europe event in London. LexisClick will be attending and I can’t wait to spend two days immersed in the social media world.

Social media is a tricky thing for companies, with many not knowing exactly how to use it to best benefit their business. I spend much of my day immersed in social media strategies, but still think I’ll learn a great deal at this event. Read more…

Marketing General, Social Media Marketing Social Media Marketing, social media strategy

Look before you tweet...

Social Media – everyone’s talking about it. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube make the headlines on a daily basis – for positive and negative reasons. The vast majority of businesses, organisations and community groups have Twitter feeds, Facebook fan pages, LinkedIn profiles or other forms of social media engagement.

However, social media strategy is still somewhat baffling for many businesses, big and small, and social media campaigns remain complex to analyse – the concept of achieving positive ROI from investment in social media is quite alien to many brand owners. The ‘now’ factor of social media is also something many businesses have yet to master – recently Vodafone were forced to apologise, profusely and repeatedly, after a homophobic tweet was sent on their official account by a member of their team.

As soon as it was spotted, the tweet was deleted, but not before it had been screengrabbed, retweeted and repeated across the internet. With social media, someone, somewhere, is always watching, and it’s impossible to cover something tweeted or blogged by mistake because the chances are, someone will have seen your errant message and, especially if it’s juicy, inappropriate or downright offensive, chances are, they’re going to repeat it.

The most important thing when using social media to interact with clients and potential clients is to take a moment to think. Like sending a drunken text message to an old flame, what seems like a good idea in the heat of the moment may not in fact be as fabulous/funny as you think. So before tweeting, pause a moment. Would you say what you’re about to say if your client was sitting in the office in front of you? Would you stand up and say it to a room full of people? And is it on brand with your company’s profile?

Of course, whoever is looking after your social media campaign is only human, and mistakes will happen. Whether it’s in the form of an innocuous typo or missing link, or tweeting to the wrong account if you manage more than one, or if it’s something a little more serious, such as a disgruntled employee, bad joke or hacked account, there’s only one thing you can do: acknowledge that the mistake has happened.

Trying to cover it up will, in the long run, have a more negative effect on your brand or business. If necessary, apologise. Like Vodafone, if the breach is serious enough, issue a short statement distancing yourself from the offensive message and reassuring your followers that the matter is being dealt with.

Vodafone were also subjects of a – slightly less reported – positive social media story last month, which showed how companies can use social media to interact with customers, investigate and help solve their problems. Popular Conservative blogger Iain Dale went straight to his blog to report his horror when he received a monthly mobile bill of £2,500 from Vodafone. The blog post was instantly tweeted and repeated to friends and followers of Iain on Facebook.

Iain’s tweet was spotted by Vodafone’s web relations team, who undertook a month long investigation and, after concluding that UberTwitter was the most likely culprit, Vodafone waved the charges – totaling £5,400 after the same thing happened for a second month. They even changed his tariff to a better deal, saving him more money. Result? One very satisfied customer, who promptly blogged, tweeted and Facebooked his gratitude.

Social media platforms enable you to interact with your clients like never before. Complaints, queries and praise can be handled in real time, and if the result is a positive outcome for your client, the chances are you’ll get some positive publicity across the social networks in return.

The key things to remember are to reply promptly to queries, offer to contact customers with problems directly to resolve them, to acknowledge any mistakes as soon as they are noticed and apologise if necessary, and above all, think before you tweet – and make sure your employees are doing the same.

Click the following link to read Iain Dale’s positive social media customer service experience.

Social Media Marketing blogging, facebook, Social media for business, Social Media Marketing, social media strategy, Twitter

Tweeting from work... for work, of course.

US troops are being allowed access to social networking sites including Twitter and Facebook, it was reported on Saturday. According to officials in the US Defence Department, the benefits of using social media far outweigh threats to security.

Like many companies and organisations, the US military are using social media for recruitment, public relations and communications between troops. Military personnel also use such sites to communicate with their families back home.

Until now, the military’s approach to using social networking sites had been inconsistent. Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, has a prolific following on Twitter, while the US Southern Command gave updates on relief work in Haiti through the microblogging site. But the US Army and Marine Corps banned access to Twitter, and other social networks.

Now it seems the Defence Department is embracing the positive benefits of social media. But the question faced by the department, like by many organisations across the world, is how to use social media effectively, how to take advantage of the possibilities provided by the technology, and how to avoid being taken advantage of.

Just a day before the BBC reported the US Defence Department’s decision, the Daily Telegraph carried a more negative social media story when it revealed that Greater Manchester Police officers had been accused of spending too much time on Twitter whilst on duty – Tweets on the beat were not entirely the PR friendly exercise it was hoped they would be.

During a crackdown on alcohol-fuelled violence, police officers were permitted to tweet their progress to keep the public up to date with their actions. More than 90 tweets were sent, but instead of being impressed, the police force’s followers thought that the tweets were too frequent, and commented that the officers should be more concerned in doing their job than updating their status.

Twitter has also been frowned upon by a number of local councils. Swansea Council banned tweeting during council meetings, followed closely by Salford Council, whose ban extended to journalists covering the events. Iain Lindley, a Conservative councillor for Salford, told ConservativeHome that he disagreed with the ban because Twitter “allowed residents to see democracy in action.” Further, he argued, the tweets brought “more transparency and openness” to local government.

The forthcoming General Election is going to be the first of the Social Media age. Barack Obama proved just how beneficial social networks could be to an election campaign during his run for president, and the battle lines have already been drawn by UK parties, who are embracing the likes of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube in their campaigns – with varying degrees of success. (Remember Gordon Brown’s creepy smile when discussing MPs’ expenses, which got him all the wrong kind of publicity?)

Social media is something that must be used wisely and well to get the results you want for your business or organisation. I think David Wennergren, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for Information Technology in the US, sums it up perfectly.

“We need to take advantage of the capabilities that are out there…” he told the BBC. “The idea is to be responsible and use [social media] to help get the job done.”

This is sound advice for any business, large or small. To find out how LexisClick can help with your social media strategy, contact us today.

Read the full BBC story.

The Daily Telegraph’s story about Greater Manchester Police.

And Iain Lindley’s comments on ConservativeHome here.

Social Media Marketing facebook, Social media for business, Social Media Marketing, social media strategy, Twitter

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.

Find out more at socialmedia-forum.com

Social Media Marketing facebook, Google Buzz, Social media for business, Social Media Marketing, social media strategy

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.

Marketing General, Social Media Marketing Online Advertising, Online Marketing, Social media for business, Social Media Marketing, Web Design

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.

Social Media Marketing Google Buzz, Social media for business, Social Media Marketing, social media strategy