Twitter Kills The Favourite With A Heart

The Favourite Is Dead

Twitter killed the favourite today, replacing it with a heart, acting as a ‘like’ to all intents and purposes.

Predictably there has been a lot of uproar. Understandably so too.

A favourite had many guises.

It acted as a bookmark to save something to read later.

It acted as a means of acknowledging something that you couldn’t quite be bothered to reply to and weren’t so enamored that you wanted to retweet it to your following.

It didn’t necessarily mean that you liked something or endorsed it.

Brand Protection For Business Video

Brand Protection Video – Turning Defence Into Offence

I shot a video for Koozai TV this week and spoke about Brand Protection for business.

Its interesting to see the opportunities that are generated when defending your brand, product or service.

In the video I talk about how to go about brand protection tactics but also the upside of carry out such an excercise.

Enhanced Campaigns – Bye Bye Mobile Targeting

Enhanced Campaigns Signals The End Of Mobile Device Targeting

Google shook up the search industry with the announcement of Enhanced Campaigns.

The big takeaway from Enhanced Campaigns was the removal of mobile device targeting. This wasn’t a welcome change due to the efficiencies targeting mobile devices with mobile specific ad text could give an advertiser. With this in mind, I did a video for Koozai TV and here it is.

Social Networking Statistics

Social Networking Statistics: Pinterest

There seem to be almost daily articles on the latest stats your favourite social networking sites are banding around. The odd grain of salt can need to be taken when considering the reality of what these numbers mean. For instance Facebook passing the 1 billion ahem “active” members seems a stretch, with a reported 83 million accounts being fake, these figures tend to pass me by.

What does catch my attention is the deeper analysis provided to enlighten users on how to get more out of their time on the various social platforms. Again, there is an element of trust needed however regardless of who you are, your credibility is based on how robust the data is that you’re presenting.

I’ve been using Repinly to find out more about Pinterest. The image below gives some good insight into what’s being pinned, where it’s found as well as user specific observations.

The most powerful stat for me is how relatively low actual social engagement is i.e Commenting. I think this totally underlines Pinterest’s position as a tool for discovery as opposed to being a social environment. Thats no bad thing, don’t get me wrong. When I use Pinterest, I’m not looking to get chatty…just show me the cake pictures!!!

PPC Video: Using Negative Keywords

Video: Google AdWords (PPC) Using Negative Keyword

My latest video has been up on the Koozai TV blog for a few weeks now. It looks at placing negative keywords at the centre of your PPC approach. Just as you want your ads to show for specific keywords, you want your ads not to show for others. If you limit the amount of times your ads appear for non-relevant terms, you are likely to see an improvement in Quality Score. Do that and you’ll find improvements in Click Through Rate, Ad Position and also your bidding becomes more efficient.

So spending time identifying negative keywords needs to become a vital element of your AdWords campaigns.

A Custom Made Search Engine Made From Search Engine Marketing Blogs

 

Places To Go For Search Engine Marketing Tips

Inspired by John Doherty, below is a Custom Search Engine I’ve put together. Search 14 top notch search engine marketing blogs for tips and advice on almost any topic. Just pop your query in the search box and the results will be displayed from the very awesome blogs listed at the bottom of the page:

Using Social Media: Facebook And Twitter Lists

Using Lists To Remember Why You Joined Facebook And Twitter

News feeds on FB and Twitter are now so busy; many people’s original enthusiasm is waning due to the onslaught of status updates, uploaded pictures not to mention Facebook’s attempts at monetising with suggested posts.

Image Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mohawkalex/3909682960/

There is also the non Facebooker who cynically chips away at what value you get out of spending the 7 hours a month(check stat) by taking pot shots at what you know but won’t admit, is a load of tosh.

If only there was a volume button to turn the white noise down…

With Twitter, it could be argued that the user opts into the visual assault as essentially Twitter is anarchy. However, you can employ a tactic that will help you get what you want out of the site by filtering out the noisiness. And the good news is that it can be used in the same way on Facebook.

Custom Lists

List functions have been around for years now on both platforms, with seemingly little in the way of take up. Facebook has a set of useful defaults (Family or Close Friends for instance) as well as the ability to create your own perhaps for your local area or companies worked for.

 

 

 

 

 

Spending some time establishing a set of lists customised by friend or follower will enable you to create news feeds based on subjects or friendship groups.

I find Twitters list function invaluable for keeping up with industry developments and for educating myself in the various online marketing disciplines. The other great aspect of Twitter lists is that if you find someone with a set of lists, you can subscribe to them, taking the pain out of creating them from scratch.

 

Here’s my collection of lists on Twitter. It’s a shame but currently you’re limited to 20 lists , but there are lists here for the major search engine marketing disciplines as well as smaller sub sets of those. So now when I visit Twitter, I skip my main feed and go straight to my lists and pick the topic I’m most interested in. It’s a great way to minimise the amount of X Factor related twaddle.

 

There is also a couple of lists that serve only to distract me ie Funny and Saints etc but don’t judge me. Feel free to subscribe and also share your own list recommendations.