Roadwork's Not To Blame for Car Accidents

The continuing saga of ongoing road works around the country has been a frustrating exercise for most motorists including those who have ever been on a visit or holiday to the area. With roadwork's reducing speed limits and increasing congestion, motorists are becoming increasingly frustrated at the holdups and congestion they cause, but are road works the cause of car accidents, or are there other factors that contribute to these accidents. 

Some police officers have reported an increasing number of car accidents related to the ongoing construction and roadwork's on our major highways. However, the increase in car accidents hasn’t been caused by the roadwork's. The increase in car accidents is due to drivers refusing to put down their mobile phone while they’re driving.

Recent surveys indicate that one in three car accidents that happen at roadwork's can be traced back to talking or texting while driving.

How Blogs Influence Purchases and Recommendations

Bloggers comment on brands and post to social media, expanding reach

Bloggers, from hobbyists to professionals, often write about brands, and their growing influence should make brand representatives continually evaluate the relationships they have with these bloggers.

Most bloggers write about brands in some way or another. According to the “State of the Blogosphere 2011” report from blog directory website Technorati, 38% of all bloggers post about brands that they love or hate and 34% write product or service reviews. Professional full-time bloggers or part-time professional bloggers who write as a way to supplement their income are more likely to blog about brands than their hobbyist, corporate or entrepreneur counterparts.

Bloggers are increasing in their influence over readers and other bloggers. Last year’s Technorati “State of the Blogosphere” reported that 29% of bloggers are influenced by other blogs they read. This year, that number jumped to 68%.

As bloggers gain influence and write about brands, the relationships between blog writers and brand representatives are important for companies to focus on. Most bloggers have a good relationship with brand representatives. Nearly half of all bloggers (49%) characterized their interactions with such representatives as somewhat or very favorable. Only 3% said their interactions were not at all favorable. However, 40% of all bloggers said they didn’t know how to characterize their interactions with brand representatives.

This large group of unsure respondents could have mixed feelings about the communications they receive from these brand representatives, affecting their relationships with the reps and their brands. Of all bloggers, 17% said brand representatives had asked for things that would compromise the credibility or content standards of the blog. This is roughly the same percentage of those that said the representatives were knowledgeable about their blogs and content (14%), are genuinely interested in building a relationship (16%) and provide information that has value for readers (23%).

As bloggers continue to grow in influence, their coverage of brands and their interactions with brands’ products, services and employees will be of greater interest to companies. Brand representatives who connect with bloggers must be sure to work with these writers to keep the relationships thriving.

Blogger told to take Speedos off porn site

There is a lesson to be learned for all companies in the following story, as Internet marketing consultants, we are constantly advising our clients to ensure they have secured all variations of their domain names, and given the very cheap cost of these valuable pieces of on line real estate, you would think it would be one of the first marketing tools they would secure.

However a lot of companies do not understand the value of a domain name and do not secure them.

They only have themselves to blame for this, so now you have been told, get online and make sure you own every variation of your trademark or domain name, it’s a very small price to pay for securing that this type of problem does not impact your company or brand.

You can check wether your domain names have been secured by checking our Really Cheap Domains registration web site! 

 

“A NSW man has been ordered to shut down several pornographic websites featuring Speedo swimwear and using the company's trademark.

Speedo Holdings took Central Coast blogger Dave Evans to court claiming he had used the trademark under aliases and without the company's consent.

The company claimed the websites and the use of the company's trademark as part of his domain names could damage the "valuable reputation and goodwill associated with the name and trade mark Speedo".

In the Federal Court of Australia on Thursday, Justice Geoffrey Flick ordered Evans to stop operating and registering any domain name containing the name Speedo.

He was also restrained from operating websites featuring any sign of the Speedo trademark.

Evans, who didn't appear in court, was ordered to transfer the domain names to Speedo within 21 days.

If Evans doesn't comply, a registrar of the court will be appointed to transfer the domain names and Evans will liable for substantial damages to the company.

He was also ordered to pay the swimwear company's legal costs.”

Story source: www.ninemsn.com.au

Blogs influencing sales

 

A poll of Australians by blogging network, Nuffnang, has found that almost 90 per cent of respondants are swayed by blogger reviews.

While blogging is still relatively new in Australia, Nuffnang says it has seen an explosion of new bloggers in the last three years.

“It was no surprise to find out that 89 per cent of respondents are swayed by a blogger’s review of a product or service and want to go on to try it for themselves,” said David Krupp, Nuffnang’s country manager.

“This demonstrates the power of blogs for Australian brands’ marketing campaigns,” he said.

The survey found:

• 89 per cent are swayed by a blogger’s review of a product or service and would like to try it for themselves;
• 89 per cent make the purchasing decisions in their household and of these, 87 per cent have learnt about a new product or service via a blog;
• 81 per cent are noticing banner advertisements displayed next to the blogs they read;
• 90 per cent pass on blog information to family and friends;
• 92 per cent have used a search engine to find out more about a brand after reading about it on a blog post;
• 90 per cent are loyal to a brand once they find one they like;
• 65 per cent have entered a competition through a blog in the past 12 months;
• 78 per cent of respondents agree blogs are a better source of information than traditional and mainstream media; and
• 64 per cent of bloggers are between 18 to 34 years old.

“As the industry matures, we’ll see blogging become a mainstream medium as we’ve seen in other markets.

“Many bloggers start a blog for self satisfaction but quickly evolve this vision, hoping to become an expert or publicly recognised,” Krupp said.

SOURCE: Inside Retail Online – www.insideretail.com.au/IR/IRNews/Blogs-influencing-sales-1575.aspx

Blog Commenting Software

There are a number of factors that search engines use to rank a web site, and as search engines often change the algorithms used to determine rank it can sometimes be very difficult to keep up to date.

One of the factors that Google for example uses to rank web sites is back links, or the number of incoming votes from external web sites or domains to a web site. The more votes for a web site, the higher Google and other search engines will place your web site in the SERP’s .

Other factors also come into play, the age of your domain name, the older your domain name is the better as search engines will trust your site more than a newer site, how much authority or page rank your site has, how may web pages are trying to rank in the top 10 for your keyword and even how long your domain name is registered for are all factors.

The reason back links are important, is the more votes a site has usually indicates the popularity of that site and its content with other web users. Search engines love popular sites.

It is harder to generate votes for a static web site than it is for a blog based site such as Wordpress, due to the fact that most blogs are updated on a daily basis whereas most static based sites often get few or no updates.

One of the techniques that you can use to generate back links for your site is by placing comments on blogs that you either read or follow on the web. This is even better, if you can find a blog that allows for a “follow” link back to your web site.

What is a follow link? Some time ago Google invented a piece of code that can be inserted into a hyperlink that tells search engines “not to follow” that link from its place on a web page.

This essentially stops most search engines from following the link, so it effectively stops the link juice, it does not however stop the traffic from following a link on your site.

Web pages that have 100 or more links on them can be penalised by search engines and in this, read Google, so if you have a web page that features a lot of advertising links, say for example on your home page, then you could be penalised for having a lot of links, this is usually one of the tell-tale signs of a spam site.

Likewise, having no code placed in the link means that a search engine will follow the link and discover in some cases new web sites. You can also use this method if you’d like to get your web site indexed quickly in the search engines, as placing a link on a web site already in Google’s index will result in your site being indexed quickly as Google will “follow” the link.

Creating votes or back links for your web site, whether you use a blog based site or a static web site is not easy, there are some web masters who believe that the process of link building is easy, that’s because they like to use paid link building services and a quick search on the web will uncover a number of these services on the web. But you need to be very careful with buying links, Google frowns on this and will penalise your web site if it catches you doing it.

One of the ways you can build back links to your web site is by commenting on other writers or companies blogs, most of these blogs still allow follow links back to your blog, and if they happen to have a very high page rank with Google, this adds considerable SEO value to your blog.

If you have a blog and want to start building links this way, one thing you do not want to do ever, is to use automated blog commenting software, I find with my blogs, I constantly get comments that are generated by these stupid software programs.

These comments often have no relationship to my article, are blatant advertising or add nothing to the discussion and it’s very obvious that they have been generated by a software program because in most cases we humans do not speak this way.

I will delete them without a second thought as they add nothing to my blog.

So when creating your comment, always make sure that you make it relevant either to the content on the blog or the story you have been reading, if you do this, the blogger will appreciate that they have a real person taking the time to comment and you’ll always get published which includes your link.

Younger See More SocNet Benefit

While a majority of US adults are using social media (65%), and a similar number say they have received a positive benefit from its use, adoption is not consistent across the board, according to results of a new Harris Poll. Rather, younger Americans claim positive benefits as a result of their social media use much more often than do older adults.

For example, poll results indicate a majority of Echo Boomers (those 18-33) say they have received a positive suggestion for something to try from their activity on social media (59%), compared to 44% of Gen Xers (those 34-45), one-third of Baby Boomers (those 46-64) (34%), and just one in five Matures (those 65 and older) (19%).

Similarly, one-quarter of Echo Boomers have found a job opportunity through social media (24%), while only one in 10 Baby Boomers say the same (11%).

2 in 5 SocNet Users Take Offense

Despite all of the benefits people are receiving from their social media use, similar numbers say they have suffered negative consequences from this activity, such as the two in five social media users who say they have been offended by posts, comments or pictures they’ve seen (43%) and the quarter who say that unintended persons have viewed links or comments they’ve posted (26%).

Fewer social media users say they have suffered the more serious consequences of getting in trouble with school or work, or losing a potential job opportunity because of comments or pictures they posted online (7% for both).

Despite younger Americans receiving benefits from social media use more often than older adults, younger Americans also suffer the consequences of social media use at a greater rate. This may, in part, be due to younger Americans greater use of social media overall, which could expose them to both the benefits and consequences of what’s currently available.

Privacy Setting Benefits Widely Seen

Social media networks are increasingly offering privacy settings to combat the negative experiences some users have already experienced, and to prevent others from taking place. When social media users were asked if potentially negative experiences can be prevented through the use of these privacy settings, more than three-quarters agreed that they can be (78%) with three in 10 strongly agreeing (28%).

In addition, 71% of social media users are confident that their own privacy settings operate in the way they intend, but only one in five say they are very confident (18%). While a quarter of social media users are not confident in their privacy settings (25%), it seems that almost all social media users are at least trying to use these options for security assurance, as only 5% of social media users say they do not use any privacy settings at all.

Similarly to the other areas of social media explored, younger adults who use social media feel more strongly both that privacy settings can prevent negative consequences (82% of Echo Boomers say this, compared to 70% of Matures) and that they are confident in their own privacy settings (78% of Echo Boomers, compared to 61% of Baby Boomers).

Older SocNet Usage Dramatically Rises

While overall social networking use by online American adults has grown from 35% in 2008 to 61% in 2010, the increase is even more dramatic among older adults, according to new data from the Pew Research Center. In particular, the rate of online social networking approximately quadrupled among Older Boomers (9% to 43%) and the GI Generation (4% to 16%).

Despite the dramatic uptick in social networking among older adults, members of the Millennial generation still enjoy a healthy lead among all age groups in social network use, with 83% of online adults from 18-33 engaging in social networking. This increased about 24% from 67% in 2008.

Gen X has the second-highest social networking rate, 62%, up 73% from two years ago. The rate among Younger Boomers increased by a factor of 2.5, rising from 20% to 50%, while it tripled among the Silent Generation, going from 11% to 34%.

Floods go global in online coverage

Queensland's floods are making news in some, but not all, parts of the world.

America's CNN network is reporting online a 'scene of utter devastation' with aerial footage of the flooded Lockyer Valley and people being airlifted from their rooftop refuges.

Britain's BBC is leading its online news service with a story about the Brisbane flooding, reporting that 20,000 homes may be hit.

It is running eyewitness accounts from Toowoomba alongside footage of cars being washed away and smashed against bridges by gushing waters.

The networks' TV bulletins are also covering the story.

Ipswich mayor Paul Pisasale told Sky News on Wednesday that many calls from international media were among hundreds of mobile phone inquiries he has been attempting to answer.

The New York Times is leading online with stories from the Arizona shooting and its own weather emergency, a giant snowstorm approaching, but has a story about the floodwaters threatening Brisbane in its Asia-Pacific section.

The Times newspaper in Britain is leading online with the Brisbane floods, showing images of people wading through waters with their possessions.

However, the floods are not news everywhere, with no reports on the home pages of Canada's Ontario Times and Paris' Le Monde online sites.

Closer to home, the Jakarta Post online has news of the floods in its world section, while The China Daily has a story about the NSW floods trapping 1,700 people but has not updated its online coverage to include the latest on the Queensland floods.

Further east, the Times of India online is leading its world coverage with the floods, depicting thousands fleeing Brisbane 'to escape a tsunami-like tidal wave' and reporting 30 people dead, despite an official toll of 10.

Story source: www.bigpond.com

Leveraging Best Practices for Social Media

Achieving social media marketing goals, whatever your level of participation

Brands and marketers have different levels of participation in the social media space, but many have similar goals and strategies. The “2010 Social Media Benchmarking Study” from Ketchum and FedEx found when looking at 62 study participants from a variety of industries that 100% had some degree of social media presence.

But they demonstrated different engagement levels, including observers who are determining how to best use social media and leaders who push boundaries and innovate.

Yet objectives for social media were uniform across the industries and engagement levels. Some common goals were to generate word-of-mouth advocacy, develop brand loyalty and close relationships with customers, manage customer service issues, and educate the media and public about company-related issues. This supports data from SmartBrief and Summus, which found that 94% of brands hoped to increase awareness and interaction with consumers by using social media.

The Ketchum-FedEx study discussed how companies could still achieve their social media objectives, whatever their engagement levels, noting that it was not necessary to always be a leader in the social media space. Companies should look at their goals and figure out if being a close follower or even an observer for a bit would be better suited to help its business.

One element that helps achieve social media goals discussed by both studies is integration of social media strategy into an overall communications and marketing plan. Thanks to the transparency, interactivity and informality of social media, collaboration between communications, IT, legal and marketing is a necessity to make a holistic plan work and bear fruit.

For more information about social media’s place at the marketing table, stay tuned for the forthcoming eMarketer report, “Social Media in the Marketing Mix.”

Auto Thank You Messages & Twitter

Searching the web recently keeping up with the goings on with social media, I came across an article by a self proclaimed social media guru on the subject of auto thank you messages on Twitter.

These are messages that you can send out automatically to thank someone who decides to follow you. I’ve had them programmed on my Twitter accounts for ages now and what surprised me was this guru stating in his article that if he receives one of these auto thank you messages he automatically un-follows the company or person. He says it annoys him, oh really you poor dear, I think you’re forgetting that the whole concept of social media is being social.

In my mind, it is just a polite way of acknowledging the follow and as long as the message does not contain a blatant add or sales pitch, I have no problem with these messages at all.

This guru’s belief is that common courtesy rules, apparently don’t apply to social media marketing, well he’s wrong, because I think they do and I will continue to send out my messages to those that do decide to follow me, and by chance if this social media expert is offended by this, then goodbye.

Being social and communicating and connecting with your followers is the essence of social media and I won’t decide to follow or un-follow someone because they sent me an auto thank you message.

That’s just too ridiculous for words, and I wonder if this guy is consulting to companies on social media strategy, what he is advising his clients to do, I just hope he’s not working for you.

There are a lot of instant social media experts around today, and most of them don’t really have a clue.

Decide who you are going to follow by the quality of information they are providing, how interesting and unique it is and if it is informative and relevant.

Oh and if they happen to send you a thank you message for the follow, then that’s good manners.

Remember, Focus on being social not doing social.

Advertisers Demand Proof of Online Video’s Efficacy

Finding evidence for video’s branding power

Online video advertising is growing at a fast pace in the US. eMarketer forecasts a spending increase of 48.1% to over $1.5 billion this year, followed by a further boost of about 43% for the next two years. But publishers and video ad networks have concerns about their effectiveness.

A survey of web publishers by online video ad service provider BrightRoll found that they considered standardization of formats across ad networks to be the greatest barrier to online video growth, followed by the interruption to the user experience.

Publishers also had concerns about working with ad networks, mainly about fill percentages and sales-channel conflicts.

But even more publishers—88%—said they thought advertisers would spend more if research proved the efficacy of online video advertising. An earlier BrightRoll survey that queried agencies found 52% said their clients would spend more under the same conditions.

“Today’s video metrics only partially answer the essential question marketers want to know: Did the ad convince the consumer to buy?” wrote David Hallerman, eMarketer principal analyst, in the October 2010 report “Measuring Video Ads: Metrics for Brand Marketers.” “Whether the metric data comes from servers (completion rates) or from surveys (awareness), it acts as only a proxy for answering that bottom-line question.”

Research from Dynamic Logic and TubeMogul in Q4 2009 showed online video performed better than rich media or simple flash in online ad awareness, brand favorability, and a variety of other branding metrics.

Gaining Consumer Trust Online and Offline

Marketers must leverage trust, not just popularity

Trust and credibility are the gold standards by which relationships are measured. This is true of personal relationships as well as connections between people and brands.

The rise of social media has reinforced the importance of trust. Successful and enduring social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn are built on a foundation of trust and transparency. But social media has also distorted the notion of trust and put an emphasis on the size of a person’s network and connections.

“Most people’s decisions are shaped by word-of-mouth input, whether online or offline, from a tight circle of close friends and relatives,” said Paul Verna, eMarketer senior analyst and author of the new report “Word-of-Mouth Marketing: Leveraging Trust Online and Offline.” “Marketers seeking to maximize their reach should focus on the quality of social network connections rather than their sheer size.”

According to Invoke Solutions, quantitative measures such as the volume of content and participation, the length of time people have been fans or followers, or the raw number of followers or fans mattered far less in inspiring trust than the openness of the dialogue, the quality of the comments, and the responsiveness of the sponsor or author.

And Vision Critical found that among US consumers overall as well as daily social network users, friends and family were trusted for product recommendations far more than brand-originated content or people consumers did not know.

And marketers around the world agree that popularity does not equal influence on social media sites.

“The level of influence over one’s friends, followers or fans is the real key, and influence does not necessarily correlate to the size of the network,” said Verna.

In addition, there is a feedback loop between online and offline word-of-mouth, and marketers must understand the connections and differences between the channels.

---

Good Experiences Motivate Women to Share Product Info

Females care more about relating positive vs. negative word-of-mouth

Marketers looking to spur brand advocacy among women—or those worried about the possibility of negative brand buzz facilitated by social media—have another piece of evidence that good experiences are a key motivator of brand discussions.

A survey of online women in North America by female-focused marketing and communications firm Harbinger found that 92% of them turn to friends and family for product information, making word-of-mouth their top source. They consider it important to seek and share information on a variety of product categories, with appliances, restaurants, automobiles and entertainment leading the list.

In the food and beverage category, which more than two-thirds of female internet users said they were likely to share information about, 58% said they would do so because of a good experience. A bad experience would motivate 46% of respondents to speak up.

Experiences with appliances—which 80% of women surveyed said they would spread the word about—were even stronger motivators. Four in five respondents reported they would share good experiences with others, while just under three-quarters said the same of bad experiences.

In every product category studied, sharing good experiences, and often a desire to help other consumers make smart purchases, came ahead of sharing bad experiences as a word-of-mouth generator. A truly negative brand experience may still garner negative buzz online or offline, but the women surveyed were more inspired by the positive.

And despite the popularity of social media among women—and marketers' propensity to target them there and turn them into online brand advocates—those studied preferred to share information with friends and family face-to-face (92%). They were also more likely to share info in person with strangers or acquaintances (36%) than via a website (32%) or social networking site (27%).

Social Sites Get People Talking, but Marketers Must Earn Trust

Word-of-mouth may not translate to loyalty

Social media is a hot topic in marketing circles, but many consumers are also discussing the trend, which accounts for nearly 23% of time spent online in the US, according to Nielsen.

An April 2010 survey conducted by Harris Interactive for the Online Publishers Association (OPA) found that social media sites were the most talked-about on the web, ahead of portals and top media sites that are members of the OPA in discussions on a wide variety of channels.

All those conversations, whether in person, via email, on the phone or elsewhere on the web, however, don’t make social site visitors loyal—internet users expressed the least loyalty for such properties, compared with portals or OPA member sites. They were also most likely to say social sites were not a very good fit for their information and entertainment needs.

The OPA’s findings are in line with the annual customer satisfaction report from ForeSee Results that found Facebook among the most disliked sites on the web after its many disagreements with its own user community and several privacy debacles.

According to the OPA, negative feelings about social sites may also apply to the brands that advertise there. Only 8% of internet users felt social media site advertisers were reputable, compared with a 21% average for content sites. They also felt advertising on social sites was less relevant and the companies that did so were less respected.

The answer for brands is to continue a greater focus on non-advertising marketing activities, engaging on the social media user’s terms. And marketers should remember that while loyalty to individual social properties may be low and site users dissatisfied, the activities that have come to define social media— connecting with friends and family and sharing information and content with a trusted group—will remain important in the lives of millions of internet users and continue to provide avenues for brand engagement.

Enter the Owner of Copyright Material – The Princess’s of Social Media

I’ve been working in social media for a long time now and I write for about 10 different blogs every day and some times I republish articles that I believe will be of benefit or interest to those that read my blogs, just like lots of blog writers do every day, after all, isn’t social media built on the principle of sharing? I thought so until today.

I always adhere to the principles of acknowledging the writer or publisher and I always leave the links intact so as to give the original blog owner the backlink as well as the kudos of having their material syndicated. I am always flattered when a blog owner takes one of my articles and adds it to their blog, as long as they give me credit as the author and include a link back to my site.

Well that is what I did today, published an article with credit and links intact and low and behold I get an email telling me to remove the article as it is copyright material and I don’t have permission to post the article or any other on my site. By the way the “remove” was in the largest font possible, any bigger and would not have needed my glasses to see it.

My mistake here it seems was leaving the box marked pingback ticked.

The site in question, or maybe I shouldn’t tell you who it is for fear they may be a bit precious, is a site all about social media.

The point of this post is basically to advise you that if you are taking other bloggers material to check first to see if the story is copyright, I wonder if they participate in article marketing, mm, anyway make sure you have permission before you publish content.

I mean silly as it sounds, I should just take the post, rewrite it and republish it and we’d be fine, after all, it is a post that offers information that has been around for years.

Maybe that’s what I’ll do, rewrite the post, and call it “6 ways to constantly produce quality blog content” or maybe that is copyright to, I know, I’ll go one better, I’ll change it to “7 ways to constantly produce quality blog content”.

There you go Mike, I’ve just found ways to produce better blog content, and your site will be a constant fountain of ideas.

Does Social Media Make Taking Time Off Harder?

Summer is almost here, and that means vacation time for many employees. Or does it?

The US has the highest percentage of mobile workers in its workforce, according to February 2010 data from IDC, with 75.5% of the workforce, or 119.7 million people, expected to be mobile by 2013. And 79% of them plan on taking their work-related devices with them on vacation, according to the second annual “Mobile Messaging Study” from Osterman Research, commissioned by software maker Neverfail.

A growing number of employees are not leaving work behind, even on weekends, breaks and holidays, because of the struggling economy. Three in 10 workers polled by TNS for InterCall said they needed to stay connected to their work 24/7. Men were more likely to feel compelled to check in, as were employees in their 30s.

Summer is almost here, and that means vacation time for many US employees. Or does it?

The US has the highest percentage of mobile workers in its workforce, according to February 2010 data from IDC, with 75.5% of the workforce, or 119.7 million people, expected to be mobile by 2013. And 79% of them plan on taking their work-related devices with them on vacation, according to the second annual “Mobile Messaging Study” from Osterman Research, commissioned by software maker Neverfail.

A growing number of employees are not leaving work behind, even on weekends, breaks and holidays, because of the struggling economy. Three in 10 workers polled by TNS for InterCall said they needed to stay connected to their work 24/7. Men were more likely to feel compelled to check in, as were employees in their 30s.

But workers are still divided over the benefits social media adds to their productivity. Slightly more than half (52.3%) the employees surveyed by the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) agreed that social media helped them learn more in less time, to some extent. But only 37% said they got more work done.

No wonder so many employees feel the need to work on weekends.

Social media presents great opportunities for marketers trying to reach workers. However, it might be a good idea to vary marketing messages sent during the workweek and those presented to workers checking in on weekends.

UK Social Networking More than Doubles

As overall UK web usage has dramatically risen, so has its social networking activity, according to data from The Nielsen Company.

Social Networking Accounts for 23% of UK Web Time
In April 2010, social networking and blogs accounted for 23% of UK internet time, or 13 minutes and 36 seconds of every online hour, according to the UK Online Measurement Company (UKOM), a division of Nielsen. This is up 159% from the 8.8% of UK internet time represented by social networking and blogs in April 2007

Social networking and blogs has become the largest specific use of UK internet time, with only “other” taking up more time (36.8%, or 22 minutes and six seconds of every online hour). Following social networking and blogs are personal (non-work) email (56 million hours / 7.2% share of time) and online games (53 million hours / 6.9% share).

Email Gains, IM Falls Back
The biggest casualty of the rise in social networking is instant messaging (IM) which, three years ago, was the most heavily used sector but has since dropped below email and online games. IM’s share of UK internet time has fallen from 14% to 5%, a relative drop of 66%. In contrast, personal email, which many predicted to be another casualty of the social networking phenomenon, has actually increased its share of online time from 6.5% to 7.2%, a relative rise of 11%.

“Despite the large increase in the amount of time people spend online and the increasing proliferation of websites and online services, one thing has remained constant and that is the bulk of time accounted for by communicating, networking and playing games,” said Alex Burmaster, VP of global communications for Nielsen’s Online division. “These are the pillars on which the internet as a heavily used medium is built.”

UK Web Users Spend Almost 7 Hrs on SocNets
On average, global web users across 10 countries spent roughly five and a half hours on social networks in February 2010, up more than two hours from February 2009, according to previous research from The Nielsen Company. Web users in the UK spent an average of just less than six hours, 50 minutes, and 56 seconds, enough to be ranked fourth overall behind web users in Italy, Australia and the US.

Twitter bug, users lose followers

Twitter was hit by a bug on Monday that caused users of the micro-blogging service to lose the followers of their accounts.

'We identified and resolved a bug that permitted a user to 'force' other users to follow them,' Twitter said.

'We're now working to rollback all abuse of the bug that took place,' the San Francisco-based startup said in a blog post.

Twitter's explanation came after a number of users of the fast-growing short-message service reported that the number of people listed as following their accounts had plummeted to zero.

'Follower/following numbers are currently at 0; we're aware and this too should shortly be resolved,' Twitter said.

Twitter, which allows users to pepper their followers with messages of 140 characters or less, said last month that it has topped 105 million registered users and is adding 300,000 new accounts a day.

Story from Bigpond.com

Bigger Business Blogs Better Lead Bringers

Business blogs begin generating significantly more leads when they have a median of 24 or more articles posted, according to research by internet marketing firm Hubspot.

Businesses with blog article numbers above this critical threshold are likely to have enough content to make a significant impact on search engines through additional indexed pages and new keywords with which to associate. In addition, other sites are more likely to link to a blog that offers a steady stream of content. Businesses with blogs of 24-plus articles are more likely to be committed to updating their blog frequently and, thus, are likely to generate more traffic from referring sites.

 

Business blogs that have 0-11 articles posted will generate a median of three leads. Once blogs reach the 12-23 posted article threshold, this median dramatically rises to 10. However, blogs with 24-51 posted articles generate a median of 13 leads, and will generate a median of 23 leads when the posted article threshold reaches 52. This represents 77% lead growth, more than twice the 30% lead growth that occurs when the number of posted blog articles reaches 24.

Businesses with Blogs Generate 67% More Online Leads
Businesses with blogs generate 67% more online leads than businesses without blogs. A business with a blog will generate a median of 15 online leads, compared to a median of nine online leads for a business without a blog. Blog size does matter to a degree, as businesses with a median of 10 blog entries or less report similar online generation numbers to businesses without blogs.

Advice for Bloggers
Based on its research, Hubspot offers the following advice to business bloggers:

• Increase the number of keywords marketers rank for in Google. Through blogs, marketers have the opportunity to create unique content that can be different from their web site content. They have the potential to significantly increase the number of keywords they rank highly for in Google.
• Generate inbound links. These are a central factor in Google’s organic search ranking algorithm. Other related sites are likely to link to a blog that provides interesting and fresh content.
• Increase repeat visitors.

  Blogs give visitors a reason to come back and interact with sites.

Google Page Indexing Creates Leads
In addition to blogging to generate online leads, the more pages a company has indexed by Google, the more leads it will generate, according to related research by Hubspot. There is a strong positive correlation between the number of Google indexed pages and median leads. An incremental increase of 50-100 pages indexed by Google can cause lead growth in double-digit percentages. For example, going from 60-120 indexed pages to 121-175 indexed pages can increase a company’s median leads from seven to 12, creating 58.3% growth.

The most significant improvement in median lead growth comes when a company increases its indexed pages from the 176-310 range to the 311-plus range. Median leads skyrocket from 22 to 74, representing triple-digit 236% growth. After exceeding the 311 indexed pages mark, median lead growth subsides.

Blogging For SEO

It’s no big secret that adding a blog to your web site can really improve your rankings on the major search engines, that’s because of the frequently updated content that good blogs provide. Unfortunately, most business owners don’t realise the potential of blogging in their communication strategy, and whilst the main point of blogging is to add the personal touch to your marketing, it can also be used as a promotional medium or to provide advice, talk about any subject you like, or provide customer service to your customers.

The main reason that you should add a blog is the impact it has on the search engines, in particular Google. When Google finds an active blog it tends to crawl it more frequently and often gives it a high ranking in the search query responses. The secret to getting Google to crawl your blog more often is to provide frequent updates, and I’m talking at least 5 times a week.

It’s this freshness and frequency of updates that Google likes to see in a blog, add to that, great original content that adds a new dimension to existing stories on the net and you have a winning formula.

There is no doubt that once your blog has been crawled and indexed and you are updating often, you’ll achieve a high ranking in the search engines, higher in fact that some web sites and you can use this to great effect with other pages on your site. You can select keywords or phrases that you want to rank highly for, write your post and in most cases your story or blog will achieve a top 10 rank.

You still need to do the basics of SEO on your blog, optimise your titles and write your copy with those keywords that you want to rank highly for included, and post often. Original content is the king, not copied or borrowed from someone else but your own thoughts and ideas.

Don’t be nervous about blogging, it’s a lot of fun and it really does add a very effective marketing tool to your business.

If you’d like to know more about blogs and blogging for business then email me here at SEOBOSS and I’ll be very happy to provide you with all the information that you’ll need to get set up and blogging to your hearts content.

If you’d like to learn to blog, you can find additional information on the Business Blogging Program at Social Media College.