Status tagging begins on social media site

People will soon be able to tag their friends, events and groups within their Facebook status updates.

People will now be able to tag other people in their status updates on the social media website Facebook.

The new feature will be rolled out over the next few weeks and will see users being able to tag other people within their own status updates, according to a post by Tom Occhino on the social networking site's blog.

By adding an "@" symbol before writing someone's name in a status update, a drop-down menu will let you pick which friend is being referred to, with the same going for events or groups too.

He said: "We hope that tagging your status updates and other's posts from the Publisher will enable you to share in a more meaningful and engaging way and connect with even more people."

Facebook already allows users to tag each other in photos and videos, which Mr Occhino claimed is one of the most popular features of the website.

Last week, an industry insider, Tim Gibbon, commented that social networking sites have woken people up to new ways of sharing content such as photos and games.

14/09/2009

Status tagging begins on social media site

Apple has 'revolutionised the mobile market'

Apple has made the smartphones accessible and desirable to consumers and its App Store has revloutionised the way that customers find and use applications, says an industry expert.

With the iPhone and the App Store, Apple has revolutionised the consumer mobile market, according to an industry expert.

Windsor Holden, principal analyst at Juniper Research, noted that Apple has made smartphones a consumer product instead of just a business device.

He claimed that other phone companies such as Nokia and Samsung have designed their most recent models with a number of clear similarities to the iPhone, with the most striking feature being the touchscreen capability.

"That's one side of things, the other is the App Store itself, which has completely revolutionised the way that consumers use applications," he said.

Mr Holden pointed out that there has been an "unprecedented" level of productivity in terms of new games and applications in the App Store, which was achieved by moving the whole market into a space where the consumer can contribute.

He made his comments following the news that sales of the iPhone 3G have gone up by 626 per cent from the second quarter of 2008 to the same period in 2009.

14/09/2009

The Traffic business

I am often told by entrepreneurs that their web site needs more traffic and everything would be fine. Although I am in the traffic business, I nearly always draw a different conclusion.

Most websites literally have nothing to offer. Without an offer you severely reduce the number of enquiries that you will get.

Sure most site generally offer good information, details, industry knowledge, case studies a contact number and address too if you are lucky, but rarely is there an offer. All the information is there, for free. If there is an offer, often it will be obscured, buried.

Websites work better for entrepreneurs if there is an offer prominently placed.

In simple terms: You need to make an offer where you provide further information in exchange for an email address.

So, by way of example, you can offer a newsletter, or a multi part 'quick start' guide, or an invitation to an event, or a white paper, inside information, vertical market report, research findings, your views. Not necessarily a complete 'how to' no one would expect the information to be so strong and powerful that it would make you redundant, but something that you would normally discuss and present to prospective clients. If you are in business already I would wager that you already have the information you need. Try recording a conversation with future prospect or client.

For many people I recommend that they keep their website and simply build a new one of one page. This seems to overcome all the problems associated with words like web design, maintaining existing investment and other internal problems.

You can buy a new website and have it hosted for around £20 with many good hosting companies. Then you build a page that sells one thing and has one outcome - sign up!

You can promote it simply by provide a link from your front page (or every page!) of your current website. Or as we do, using Twitter. I will give you an example in a minute. All that is required is a headline, some body copy, some simple graphics - a photograph of you perhaps and a form. You can avoid the form and simply have a button for the minimum of work!

I have an example: http://www.tweetmaxi.com. At the time of writing we have a webinar that expires on the 15th September. If you visit the ‘site’ there is nothing more than one page, now it is a very long page admittedly, and as a result it ‘pulls’ 15% of all those that visit. For us that is a very acceptable result.

So there you have it – one page with a simple opt-in form is all you need. You could do it with less! Less length, less information, less graphics, never less of an offer - as that would be no offer. You don't need an email capture form, but I recommend it. You could simply have a link that takes you straight to gotowebinar.com and they would collect all the information for you and send you the data afterwards. Not bad!

We have an opt-in page because we think that gotowebinar asks too many questions and puts people off. Two questions – name and email are simple and easy. Once we have that if visitors do not sign up at gotowebinar, we can email them and remind them to do so and other wise send them further emails as and when we wish until and if they want to opt-out.

The Webinar process has some distinct benefits there is a time limit and limited seating. Once those seats are full, once the day has passed, the opportunity to participate is gone. People respond well to that kind of offer. - Do it now or miss out for ever: http://www.tweetmaxi.com as the 15th is the last planned webinar for Tweetmaxi, we may revisit in the new year.

So there you are, you can model your page on Tweetmaxi, make it longer or shorter as you wish. Probably shorter... At the end of the day, one of the most valuable thing a website can give you is sales leads. If you start with that then the more likely your business will succeed. Also your results could cause you to change your plans and make your business better. Better to know that sooner rather than later!

Building Sales Funnels using Social Media

There you are, someone had to say it! You can build sales funnels using social media. That is not say that when we enter the party we are going to put our stall out, it is a reflection of our reality. Without trying too hard, we have more traffic coming from our efforts in social media that MSN, Yahoo and in fact all the search engines combined than Google. Google is still by far the largest driver of traffic to our site, but Twitter has had a big impact.

A few months ago we decided to do something about it. Right now we have over 100 subscribers to Building Sales Funnels using Social Media which we are adding to every month. We have had comments back from people that have recommended it to others and even some that have said that it has changed their lives, giving new meaning and purpose to social media and so it should be. It has to us, in practice, too.

The first edition is free and you can get your copy here: http://www.bsfusm.com, you can apply for it online. The first issue contains 31 power packed actions steps, it should take no longer than three hours to work through and it is designed as a news book and includes up to date news including the big news from ComScore who declared that in December 2008, 79.8% of the UK online population visited Social Media sites, that is some 29m++ people. No wonder we get more traffic from Social Media.

So we have written out our system and put it all down in writing for you to enjoy, with practical exercises to focus Social Media on your business we have laid it all out for you. Now, if you are asking why we would do this - the answer is simple - we do not want you to miss out. When you have worked out what you need to do and have made it work for your business, we can take you places...

Issue two is due out imminently and a number of part stories without the action steps are about to be published in a range of places across a range of social media, from videos to articles. Everything we recommend, you will notice, we do for ourselves too. So we can say, our recommendations are truly tried and test. As seen on TV!

Visit http://www.bsfusm.com and get your free copy of Building Sales Funnels using Social Media

Budget Commentary on Radio 5 Live

Our message of help to Businesses ahead of this years 2009 budget.

BBC Radio 5 Live Weboptimiser Budget commentary

Interview recorded ahead of the show by BBC Radio 5 Live.

We know that Gordon Brown is listening, but can we say the same of Alastair Darling?

Content strategies is the new King in Kingston

I gave a short talk at Kingston University yesterday and had spent some time talking through the results and benefits of search engine marketing showing many single keyword client examples - jobs, broadband, chocolates etc and how the type of search dictated the type of landing page, how to minimise clicks, how to determine the type of website that you wanted to build depending on your objectives and it was all going rather well. Light bulbs were going off, big smiles of realisation appearing across peoples faces. I was definitely hitting the mark...

It got to the end and the classic question came up - if it is all on the internet for free, why dont we just learn it and do it? It is a good question, though I would not agree that it is all there on the web. Yes it would seem that the tools for submission are in place, the tools to select your keywords are too - but there are not many tools, tutorials or online discussions on content optimisation, structure, relationships and flow.

So the two essential elements that an agency like Weboptimiser are a) speed to deployment - compare that with how much you might pay to learn (coupled with the fact that at the end of it you will only be able to play in the optimisation pond), with the rising competition that you will not necessarily have the understanding to recognise and b) the complete lack of knowledge in determining, interpreting and relating the site content and its organisation to the business plan.

These are the two key issues and if these are not implemented correctly it is the difference between hit and miss... Success and failure!