mikejeffs

Tweets vs Rankings from Branded3

A new study from Branded3 has found that the volume of tweets you receive does impact on where you rank in Google. The data is fresh too -collected this month, using another one of the Branded3 sites Twitition, which offers Twitter users a platform to petition through.

The study has already been picked up by some of SEO’s best known tweeters and was the hottest topic on Rand Fishkin’s Inbound, until its mysterious removal…

If you want to find out more about the study then head over to Branded3′s Tweets vs Rankings page to download the full PDF study and have a look at the data itself in the Google doc.

Emma Barnes, part of Branded3′s Data Insight Team said “It was awesome to be part of such a revolutionary study, even if processing all the data tended to crash Excel! That’s the price one has to pay to work with a site with so much data as Twitition!”

If you could tweet this article out around 7,500 times that would be super cool!

5 of the Best #Usesforwhitespace

With the Google + redesign, came a surprising amount of large white space which lacked content or use for many G+ users. The white space now has become a bit of a cult humour based topic for many geeks (myself included). It has it’s own trending hashtag and has been blogged about by many online sites.

Here I take a look at 5 of the funniest and creative #usesforwhitespace:

Think you’ve seen a better one? Let me know either via the contact form or in the comments below.

Related articles

• Users Make Good Use of Whitespace Google+ [Fun] (stateofsearch.com)

13 Cool Google Plus Brand Pages

Google launched brand pages in Google + back in November 2011, and figures for brand pages on the social network platform have been exploding ever since. This presumably has a lot to do with the fact that having a G+ profile can help to maximise your search results listing in Google thanks to Search Plus Your World, vital for many brands.

Here I take a look at 13 of the best looking Google Plus brand pages:

Amazon

H&M

Android

BMW

Burger King

Google Chrome

Lexus

Pepsi

Samsung

Sony

The Muppets

Toyota

Yamaha

Seen any more awesome Google Plus pages, or want help setting up your Google Plus profile? Feel free to get in touch.

12 Epic Facebook Brand Timeline Cover Photos

The 30th of March sees all existing brand pages on Facebook updated to the new timeline format. Profiles were updated back in February.

What does this mean for page owners? Well, first and foremost it means a new exciting way to display your brand and also the history of your brand. Secondly, we will likely witness the end of the “like gateway”. With timeline, visitors will see what your company is actually doing, you have less control over promoting a specific campaign upon page arrival, unless you add it to the short cut buttons just below the cover photo. This means your activity and the content shared is of even greater relevance.

Here are 12 epic brand timelines that have already changed their pages to the new format:

Billabong

Coca Cola

Nike

Manchester United

Fanta

Facebook

The Muppets

Sharpie

PG Tips

VisitScotland

Polaroid

Total Film

You can read more about Facebook Timeline for brands in this post by Matthew Siegal and see other timeline examples on Slodive.com.

Related articles

• 7 Awesome Facebook Timeline Cover Photo Examples (mikejeffs.co.uk)
• 10 Innovative Uses of Facebook Timeline for Brands (mashable.com)

5 Awesome Facebook Timeline Cover Photo Examples

The Facebook Timeline was rolled out to everyone’s profiles back in February, since that initial launch it has also been published for all brands who have a page on Facebook.

With Timeline, you get cover photos which is a large image that sits at the top of your page/profile. Let’s take  a look at some of the most creative and amusing timeline cover photos, here is my top 7 (because 7 is a nice number),  interpreted to match the mood of days in a week.

Monday – Rainy day, the start of the week end of the weekend, Ekkapong’s cover photo prett much sums up my Monday’s:

Tuesday – Scary day, probably the day at which you realise how much work you have to do before Friday, now that all your emails are out of the way time to tackle the beast (big tasks). Summed up beatifully by this effort from Mathew Baker:

Wednesday – Mid week, ever feel like you just want to hide one day of the week, it would have to be Wednesday. Rodney Hess’ image is great:

Thursday Time to get sorted, plans for the weekend start to develop, equally you’re starting to get a feel for deadlines and progress towards those deadlines – anything to declare before the end of the week? Great cover photo by Antonio Fadda.

Friday – The long wait is finally here, things get a little more colourful eventually scrapping work mode for a more fun outlook. Best showed by Christine Hals’ splendid old and new Facebook cover photo:

Seen any more cool, awesome Facebook Timeline cover photos? Let me know with a comment below or get in touch using the contact page.

Sources:
http://mashable.com
http://www.techomag.com
http://techotrack.com

Swing and a miss – 4 seasons of marketing mistakes

BMW – Winter
The weathermen amongst us may or may not be familiar with the branded snowstorm which recently caught fire and burst BMW into PR flames. I am of course referring to last month’s story about BMW who sponsored a cold front so that it would be named after their latest model of Mini Cooper in Germany. Unfortunately for BMW, the stunt back fired when the cold front was responsible for a number of deaths resulting in some very negative press for them.

With this in mind let’s take a look at the other 3 seasons and remember some marketing mistakes and absolute howlers that somehow managed to get that all important sign off!

Walkers – Autumn
Sticking with the weather theme, lets digest Walkers’ 2010 attempt at generating some heat using people’s predictions of when it would rain in the UK. Sadly for Walkers the campaign went cold once people realised that the UK has a strong chance of rain a lot of the time meaning consumers had an 8/1 chance of guessing winning the £10 prize, as the Telegraph reported. According to some sources the crisp giant were effectively paying out a tenner for every £3 worth of crisps sold! The website mysteriously went offline before its closing date.

Hoover – Summer
Right up there with the greatest marketing fails of all time and probably one of the  most commented on promotions of all time, although not in the way intended.

In 1992, Hoover launched a campaign to sell a backlog of vacuum cleaners using an incentive of free flights to entice customers. You only needed to spend £100 on a hoover and in return they would give you two free flights - initially to Europe, predictably people began to play the system and demand for the flights soon spiralled out of control, with dire consequences for some Hoover employees. One customer in fact took a Hoover van hostage in protest of the way he was handled.

Kenneth Cole - Spring
Spring 2011 was a definite swing and a miss for fashion brand Kenneth Cole, or at least it was for whoever the agency behind their Twitter feed was. Now it doesn’t quite fall into the spring months but I think jumping in on the #Cairo to shamelessly promote its spring collection duly qualifies it for our final season marketing fail. It was a risky move and wasn’t received well. It’s a clear demonstration of how not to use social media.

If you’ve got anymore examples of marketing fails then please get in touch via the contact page.

Facebook Depression [infographic]

Something which has been in the public eye for the ast couple of months is mental health. I saw the following infographic on Mashable on Friday which was created by Help For Depression. The infographic shows how we use the social network to share our feelings and the reaction that these statuses receive.

 The survey found that positive updates receive more likes, while negative statuses get more comments. There are also some interesting findings regarding the words people use and how these change depending on your friend count.

Related articles

• Mental Health Awareness (everydayhealth.com)

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,300 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 22 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

WordPress Wishlist Survey 2011 [infographic]

via

Related articles

• What the WordPress community wants for 2012 (thenextweb.com)
• WordPress 2.0 for Android Gets Redesigned, New Action Bar Available (news.softpedia.com)
• Woo Themes Offers 3 Months Free Subscription on Standard or Developer Plans (theapptimes.com)

Why You Should have a Mobile Friendly Website [infographic]

We all know that mobile search is big and that having a mobile presence is vital, or at least you should know that! These stats from SKYRKT.com give an insight into why you need mobile friendly websites for your.

Related articles

• 7 Awesome New Mobile Marketing Infographics (hubspot.com)