Tech

According to a TypePad report published today, bloggers who installed Facebook ‘Like’ buttons on their blogs have reported a 50% increase in referal traffic from Facebook. This increase is basically due to the fact that when people read these blogs, and ‘Like’ them, it comes up on their friends Facebook pages that they ‘Like’ the blogpost in question. This gives their Facebook friends the opportunity of discovering the blogs that they find interesting and, if they are also interested in the topic, they may click through and read it for themselves. This 50% increase in blog traffic from ‘Likes’ suggests that the ‘Like’ button is an effective way in spreading recommendations and endorsements between friends online.

I know this report refers to increasing traffic to blogs in particular, but it suggests that Facebook users are giving the ‘Like’ button their seal of approval. This is an encouraging sign for brands embracing the ‘Like’ button (e.g. Levi’s, EasyDeals.ie) as it suggests that there is potential in spreading product information and marketing messages through social networking sites.

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Another interesting piece from Simply Zesty that highlights the importance of getting your web prescence right before throwing all your time and money into social media. An example in how-not-to-do-it from ‘Pizza Hut Delivery’ is used. Pizza Hut Delivery have put a huge effort into developing a Facebook App around offering ‘Fans’ free pizzas every time a goal is scored against France in the World Cup. While this may be a great idea in generating fans, their performance in search engine optimisation is left wanting. The first three results for ‘Pizza Hut’ in Google are (1) a site under construction, (2) an upside-down PDF menu and (3) a terms and conditions web-page! They may generate a lot of fans but will these fans have the patience to order from them online?

This lively RSA Animate, adapted from Dan Pink’s talk at the RSA, illustrates the hidden truths behind what really motivates us at home and in the workplace. When it comes to creative thinking and innovative ideas, it appears that money is not much of a motivator after all, more so, a sense of purpose and self-satisfaction.

With Social Media being used more and more by big brands as a tool to engage with their customers, it beggars the question; Why should brands create micro-sites at all? Simply Zesty suggest that a focus on Social Media offers far more benefits to brands in the long term than micro-sites.

Whereas micro-sites can be short-lived and quite gimmicky, social media strategies go a lot further in developing relationships with customers as opposed to providing a fleeting novelty for users in the form of games or competitions.

Micro-sites can be very expensive to set up and require individual promotional attention and once the campaign is finished, the content is discarded, never to be seen again. Micro-sites are also said to suffer from limited interaction and offer no future leverage of the users who come across them. The beauty of social media as a platform is that you have a ‘springboard for future campaigns that doesn’t require any media spend, you have a ready made audience who have interacted with your brand in the past’.

Social media profiles provide a brilliant alternative to micro-sites and while micro-sites can make an impact in the short term, when it comes to garnering a long term following for your brand you really can’t top social media.

We already have the most popular search terms from Bing and Yahoo, and now Google have entered the fray with their most searched items of 2009.

It’s no surprise that, in their annual Zeitgeist report, “Michael Jackson” is the fastest rising search term on Google, followed by “Facebook” in second place and “Twitter” in fourth, with Spanish social network “Tuenti” coming in third. The full list is below:

Fastest Rising Search Terms (Global):

1. Michael Jackson
2. Facebook
3. Tuenti
4. Twitter
5. Sanalika
6. New Moon
7. Lady Gaga
8. Windows 7
9. dantri.com.vn
10. Torpedo Gratis