If it hadn’t have been for Flickr, I doubt I’d have loved photography as much as I do now. Despite not really updating my photo albums since working in the US back in 2010 – mainly because I find myself with no time to crop, edit, annotate and upload the near-500 photos I have in a backlog from the States, Northumberland and Leeds – I’m a firm fan of the site, which is often seen as more of a hosting site or personal portfolio than social resource.

On top of this, it’s more interactive than you may think, and for all the right reasons. So long as you’re a photographer or a fan of all things graphically-immersed, it’s enough to get your creative juices flowing, or at least roll around in the ones discharged by some of the most passionate people you’ll ever meet.

Yet while Flickr fosters this creativity readily, it’s the site’s ability to make you want to travel – and visit other countries – that makes it a truly wonderful place. I’m always looking for places that look beautiful. Luckily, living in Yorkshire, I’m quite lucky; Leeds is okay, I suppose, but you look on Flickr to Saltaire, York or the Dales and you really start to understand what’s around you – or, at least, what’s there if you have a camera to your eye, using your chosen lens and other tricks to make it that little bit more personal.

In regards to my upcoming trip to Europe, I’ve helped negotiate detours to Heidelberg, Vipiteno and Neuschwanstein Castle (the last one being my personal choice, after hearing lots of stories – it was literally on our route, so it worked out quite nicely!); Flickr was instrumental in every single decision.

A really great thing about the website, however, is that your readiness and happiness to share experiences and travelling isn’t limited to personal pimping via retweets, upvotes or shares. You don’t become another member of this new generation of Facebook users that makes their account subscription only, posting up photos of children on ventilators with a caption such as “like this if you feel sorry for this baby”. Similarly, Facebook doesn’t make you desperate for views or favourites; I’m well aware that my most-viewed photo is of Washington Redskins cheerleaders doing a can-can, but I don’t really care. In fact, nine of my top ten most-viewed photos feature the Redskins girls. I took nine photos of them, in an album of 100.

Still, people will be people, even if they’re just searching for cheerleader photos on Google Images. People still looked, favourited and (sometimes) commented on them. The same situation exists with non-lady photos, too – after all, the miniscule selection of really good shots I’ve got is hidden away across a number of albums. Just having one person take their time out and give the thumbs-up is really something, because they do it in the right way. I’ve even had people privately message me saying they’d go to Lake Solitude in New Jersey, or Navy Pier in Chicago, because of what I’ve showed them.

That’s because the community element is really important on Flickr. You can join one of many thousands of groups that accept submissions with open arms, whether it’s just a building, or something in Baltimore, or a location that’s been used in a video game (where many of my Washington DC photos have been submitted as a nod to Fallout 3). The feedback and personal messages really do mean a lot – with these comes a raft of comments, suggestions and congratulations.

In fact, there aren’t many examples of people outwardly lambasting a submission (unless it’s being wrongly used for hosting purposes) – it took me a good 15 minutes to find a genuinely negative comment, and even then it didn’t follow the acronym-heavy YouTube approach, or what the newspapers suddenly find themselves inaccurately describing as “trolling”.

That’s the thing that’s most wonderful about Flickr: the way that people almost uniformly exist on there to make you better at photography – or, at least, make you want to be better. It’s probably the friendliest of all the social networks out there, and it’s truly multicultural. If you’re a keen traveller, hit Flickr up first. You can get all the recommendations you like from Facebook, Twitter or sites like TripAdvisor, but given that they now seem to be as memorable for cynics and faux counterculture as they are genuine reviewers, sometimes it’s worth remembering that a picture is worth a thousand words – and Flickr has millions of them.

The use of social media continues to grow at a rapid pace, with platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr and LinkedIn hungrily consuming the attention of the masses and connecting them with almost everything they buy, watch and read – online and off.

State of the Media: Social Media Report Q3
(A Nielsen report which analysed the level of influence social media has on consumer behaviour)

With all the social networking channels available, today’s consumer voice can be heard loud and clear everywhere. It’s influencing the consumer’s entire buying process. If brands don’t pay attention, not only will they risk losing customers, but could be easily upstaged by their once small and powerless competitors. Social sites, such as Twitter, provide outlets that empower customers to raise their voice about their experiences and opinions. The anonymity and safety of this outlet allows a confident expression of true feelings about brand interactions and product reviews. A couple of statistics I came across re-iterated my own experience:

• about two-thirds of customers use information found through social media to influence their buying decisions
• 67 per cent of customers are likely to pass this information on to others
• over 60 per cent trust information they find through social media more than traditional advertisements

I was facing a significant purchase decision – one that could potentially save my life, and not the kind you want to take lightly or get wrong. It’s perhaps a bit dramatic, but any biker would agree that choosing the right body armour can be a tough decision. The market is saturated with brands, each claiming to have been awarded all manner of safety awards and recommendations, each using a different ‘number one’ type of safety material. I needed to buy a back protector – this sounds easy enough, but a quick Google search reveals the countless brands, styles and prices ranging anything from £20 to well over £200.

So where do you start? Like many others, I hold the reviews and opinions of friends and like-minded contacts in far higher regard than any sales person or kind of advertisement. I don’t even trust online reviews as they are too easy to manipulate. So, I headed straight to my social networks to find out what the online biker community had to say.

I don’t personally know many of those who responded to my initial tweet, but I know they are all genuine, experienced bikers who were offering opinions of the products they use themselves. With no concern of ulterior motives in their words, I felt confident to take their advice on board. My tweets even attracted the attention of some social network savvy brands that got in touch immediately to offer recommendations and discount codes – it was good to see them on the ball.

The best response came from @thinkhugger (the face of Norfolk’s biker road safety initiative) who not only offered very helpful, totally unbiased advice, but also introduced me to a latest innovation in body armour that I’d never even heard of – a great example of the power of social networking. The ever-trusted word of mouth referral now has a much wider reach in a fraction of the time, compared to the pre-social network era.

With all the recommendations received and responses swaying in one very specific brand direction, I headed down to a local bike shop to get the best fitting of the determined manufacturer – another piece of key advice from my biker tweeps. It’s fair to say that when I come to make my next motorbike related purchase decision, or any big purchase for that matter, I know exactly where to go for a useful input.

So… who wants to help me with #househunting ? If social media has influenced any of your purchases recently, or if this is something you specifically try to embrace or avoid, let me know – @Heather64.

Myspace shot to success after its launch in August 2003 and became the most visited social networking site in the world from 2005 until early 2008, even surpassing Google as the most visited website in the US in 2006. It allowed users to customise their profiles, and even upload music and videos to the site to be streamed in a similar way to that of YouTube.

While MySpace was one of the first social networking sites to become a success story, it is now firmly in Facebook’s shadow. Founded by Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook was launched in 2004, and boasts more than 800 million active users to date. Although initially being limited to Harvard students, it was rolled out to other institutes and then eventually anyone aged 13 and over. It is now the most visited social networking site in the world, evolving with apps for mobile phones and regular make-overs. Facebook continually develops, offering cutting-edge ways to remain in touch with friends and professional networking, allowing it to compete with sites such as LinkedIn.

Over recent years other social networks have been launched, with varying degrees of success, Twitter being a simple idea that is one of the most talked about services in the industry. Allowing users to post and receive messages to their contacts, it is favoured by the celebrity world. With top celeb Twitter users including Lady Gaga and Barack Obama, the site offers a unique opportunity for users to follow their idols.

Professionals seeking contacts are also catered for in the social networking world, with LinkedIn being the most favoured. The site allows users to register their interests and upload a CV-style profile and is widely used in the recruitment industry as a method of headhunting those not actively seeking work.

While other sites have tried, it seems Facebook is here to stay, offering users the best bits of its rivals rolled into one. Want to live chat with friends? Facebook chat. Want to upload pictures and videos? No need for YouTube, just Facebook it. Want to advertise your car for sale? Facebook Marketplace. The list goes on. The site has managed to roll together the likes of MySpace, eBay, YouTube and LinkedIn etc, providing users with a one-stop shop for all their internet needs. To add to this success story, the Facebook film ‘The Social Network’ was released in 2010, winning three Oscars and receiving numerous other nominations.

The current speculation is that Facebook will go public this year. It’s thought that Facebook’s Initial Public Offering will raise $10 billion, which places the company at a value of $100 billion. What does this mean for Zuckerberg? Well, it’s simple – with his 24% stake he will be a very rich man. To put this into perspective, only three other US companies have had IPOs valued in excessive of £10 billion: AT&T, General Motors and Visa. With its likely overall value, Facebook will be worth more than McDonald’s ($95.6B)

The reasoning behind the success of these sites remains a phenomenon, with research even hinting that the number of Facebook friends you have can affect different areas of your brain. It remains to be seen how this industry will develop – it is clear social networking is a lucrative venture – but will any be able to top the success and popularity of Facebook?

While their mission buzzwords – Quality, Service, Cleanliness and Value (QSC&V) – would have been appreciated by adults, they didn’t exactly get kids excited.

According to an article entitled ‘We Need to Talk About Ronald’ by Greg Beato, a McDonalds executive spoke candidly to Time magazine in 1973, recalling: “our move to the suburbs was a conscious effort to go for the family business. That meant going after the kids. We decided to use television, so we created our own character, Ronald McDonald.”

The introduction of their mascot demonstrated McDonalds’ desire to be seen as up to date with the youth of sixties’ society.  Ronald insisted that he knew what kids liked; in a very early TV ad he says: “I know we’re going to be friends too because I like to do everything boys and girls like to do” predictably adding “especially when it comes to eating those delicious McDonalds hamburgers!”

McDonalds used TV to reach out to kids in more ways than one; they ran adverts for the screen but they also suggested their product would add a new, fun, dimension to the pastime by having Ronald say “Hey, isn’t watching TV fun? Especially when you’ve got delicious McDonalds hamburgers.”

The timing of these ads was important too. Greg Beato notes that according to a report in the New York Times in 1967 McDonald’s was the “only business of its kind with network commercials on the Saturday morning kiddie cartoon marathon.” Ronald became a part of the fun, “soar[ing] through the air on a flying hamburger and compet[ing] with a bad guy named Mr. Muscle for a McDonald’s meal.”

So the mascot was fun, he was cool, and most of all he loved hamburgers. No wonder he was an instant hit. But if they had today’s technology, the 1966 advert’s “newest, silliest, hamburger-eatingest” clown could have got the kids hooked in so many other ways…

With search capabilities, the TV advert could have got kids voting for the clown to win or lose the battles he fought with Mr. Muscle. Searching ‘Ronald to win’ or ‘Ronald to lose’ could have taken them to specific parts of a McDonalds webpage, allowing the company to track the success of their ad campaign, not to mention judge public feeling for the clown! The ad could have given a choice of prizes for the winner to receive; a Big Mac, some fries, an extra thick milkshake; any combination of products they wanted to promote that week.

Ronald McDonald himself could have proved his ‘down with the kids’ credentials by making use of the latest technology that kids would be interested in. In the sixties it was TV, but with today’s advances sent back in time, Ronald would have his own Twitter and Facebook accounts where he could Tweet and post about “those delicious McDonalds hamburgers” to his heart’s content. There would still be room to mention TV; a couple of posts a week, possibly including video clips, about the coolest kids shows he’s enjoyed lately would keep his finger on the multimedia pulse, as would a review or two about the fun kids websites he’s visited.

By creating a stronger presence for Ronald in other media forms and simultaneously running an SEO campaign on the McDonalds website, the company’s page would gain visibility in results pages and increased traffic levels. The campaign would open up the search criteria so instead of McDonalds just appearing in the results of a keyword search for ‘hamburger’ or ‘fries’ for example, the name ‘Ronald’ would also direct crowds of searchers to the McDonalds page.

If Ronald McDonald had his own blog on the McDonalds webpage, which he kept up-to-date with fresh and unique content, Google would recognise the page as highly relevant and authentic, awarding it more authority. This would improve the page’s ranking; good news for McDonalds who would naturally want their web pages to come top in a keyword or phrase search.

These advances could have seen Ronald become a followed, supported and even idolised figure in the sixties; a Facebook friend who provides the daily temptation of a Big Mac and fries to kids everywhere.

If you were planning a campaign for the launch of McDonalds, using today’s channels – how would you do it?

Pepsi are yet to announce which artists will be involved in the concerts that will begin in the summer, but expect Nicki Minaj to feature, given that the deal also includes a TV ad with the Superbass singer.

This looks to be the next stage in the famed Cola Wars, following on the back of rival ­Coca-Cola announcing a deal with online music provider Spotify, which will see the music player integrated into Coca-Cola’s Facebook page that also happens to have a fanbase of 41 million users. A Facebook Spotify app is also being developed.

I expect that the powers that be at Pepsi have seen the power of the hashtag with the countless trending topics from the Beliebers, One Directioners and the like. This campaign will provide Pepsi with the opportunity to have their hashtags, videos and other ad content to go viral.

Although Pepsi are yet to reveal the full details of the campaign, they have a great opportunity to really engage with their fanbase here. No doubt they already have their artists already lined up, but will Pepsi allow their fans to vote for who they want to see in concert? If the artists buy into this, they could follow the example of NFL star Cam Newton, who posted videos online for why he should be voted onto the cover of the 2012 version of Madden, the famed American football video game franchise.

How about asking people to demonstrate how they are “living for now”, as the slogan goes? With the tie in to Twitter, this could use the 140 characters allowed in a tweet, or ask people to post a video on YouTube; they could even use the social network of the moment Pinterest to show what “living for now” means to them.

If you were Pepsi, how would you look to engage with your fans with campaign? Who would you want to vote to see in concert?

It would be great to hear what you would do, either here or on Twitter @andrewlowdon.

Microsoft says the revamp comes following research which highlighted that “90% of people consult with a friend or expert before making a decision”.

“Increasingly, the web is about much more than simply finding information by navigating a topically organised graph of links,” said Qi Lu, president of Microsoft’s Online Services Division. “We’re evolving search in a way that recognizes new user paradigms like the growth of the social graph.”

The most significant development will see the introduction of a new toolbar, which aims to help users connect with friends and other online users. The toolbar – which will be located on the right hand side of all search results – will enable users to connect with Facebook friends whilst searching.

For instance, if you searched ‘Miami hotels’ you would continue to receive all of your standard search results, while Bing would also suggest Facebook friends who may have some knowledge around the topic. The social search results are to be based upon what online users ‘like’, where they’ve lived, shared photos and any other public Facebook information.

Along with Facebook, the toolbar will also flag up topic ‘experts’ from Twitter, Linkedin, Foursquare, Quora and surprisingly Google+.

Although the Bing update is set only to be implemented in the US for now, Microsoft’s new addition could mark the first real solution to integrating social networking information into a manageable and legible order.

What do you think to this update – is it something you would consider using?

Firstly I’d like to say I was unable to sign up normally and had to sign up through Facebook in the end. I was concerned this was going to paste ‘I LOVE LADY GAGA’ all over my Facebook wall which would have been highly embarrassing – it didn’t!

When doing the tour I realised it was a combination of what’s already out there in social media platforms. Some of the key features of the site are:

• User profiles for ‘Little Monsters’
  • Have a biography about yourself
  • Set tags for interests, music, skills and websites you like
  • Get fans and become a fan of other ‘Little Monsters’
  • Show all your posts, likes, comments
• Online chat rooms and ability to create your own
• Events list
• Centralised hub for all Gaga related discussions, images, videos and news

After snooping around I realised I was actually quite bored, maybe this is because I’m not a fan of Lady Gaga so find the content quite dull. Maybe it’s the community of little monsters that are posting on the site. All I know is that some of the language used is offensive for such an open platform of varying ages! It’s also like trying to find a needle in a haystack trying to find a good bit of content as most users are posting comments such as <3 IM IN LOVE WITH JUDAAAAS – Well that’s a surprise, a ‘Little Monster’ loves Gaga! Maybe if I was a teenager again this would be the best thing since sliced bread or maybe if it was someone I was a HUGE fan of then I would have more appreciation.

Concept wise it’s another step on, instead of having a fan page why not create your own social media platform, I applaud that! I just wonder with all the platforms already out there, is this a step too far or is it the next step for all celebs and their fans?!

Further research suggests Dan Weiden actually took the idea from Gary Gilmore’s last words – “Let’s do it.” – spoken before his execution by firing squad (he was an American spree murderer of the late ’70s). Weiden (or indeed Nike) would not wish to be associated with the words of a murderer, thus it stands to reason that the original source be kept quiet.

After stumbling badly against arch-rival Reebok in the 1980s,

Nike rose about as high and fast in the ’90s as any company

can. It took on a new religion of brand consciousness and

broke advertising sound barriers with its indelible Swoosh,

“Just do it” slogan and deified sports figures. Nike managed

the deftest of marketing tricks: to be both anti-establishment

and mass market, to the tune of $9.2 billion dollars in sales

in 1997.

                                   Jolie Soloman,  “When Nike Goes Cold” Newsweek, March 30, 1998

A Modern Take

In many ways advertising has changed a lot since the late ’80s with the advance of the internet. The advent of both search marketing and social platforms as an advertising medium are revolutionising some companies’ fortunes, especially those who ‘Just do it’ right (yes Old Spice, I am thinking of you).

How could Nike have taken advantage of these developments if the campaign was to run today?

The Backbone of the Internet

Search has become synonymous with advertising and any self-respecting advertising campaign would be backed up with a search campaign. Obligatory campaign-related terms would contain references to both the slogan and brand, helping to re-enforce the messaging in the new campaign. Specific use of ‘Just do it’ could be combined with a separate campaign site, containing related content and viral material.

Search engines are the starting point for many people accessing the internet, and would be vital to improve the visibility of a large-scale campaign. Search would be vital in promoting visibility of the campaign, even if they rely on other mediums to make the first contact.

Celebrity endorsements were vital in the original Nike campaign, helping to improve the desirability of their products. Search could be turned to this advantage, displaying adverts for searches on sponsored celebrities or high profile sports figures would help to synonymise the brand with those figures (and subsequently improve the desirability and quality associations these celebrities provide). In order for this to be successful, the pages would have to contain relevant content and information about each celebrity – a small setup cost given the long-term brand perception benefits.

Spoofing the Google Search Home

The ‘Just do it’ slogan lends itself nicely to a functional spoof of Google’s homepage, replacing the ‘I’m feeling lucky’ button.

Social Advertising

Social networks are a great catalyst when trying to generate buzz around a topic, and could be the life or death of such a campaign. In 1988 these adverts would have been talking points in both the playground and office, whereas now they are the ‘meat and veg’ of social networks.

Short memorable videos, with the potential for viral activity, could easily have been produced to fit the ‘Just do it’ slogan, especially videos that would have appealed to the target market. Many extreme sports and internet clips (those that populate the hundreds of TV clip shows) would be ripe for use when coupled with this slogan.

A more risqué approach could be adopted to broaden the viral appeal; however it takes a brave brand to risk association with such themes.

If you were relaunching a classic advertising campaign using the new channels available today to include search marketing – what would you do differently?

It is part of the PeerPerks campaign, where Reebok will identify 1,000 fitness freaks that talk about health and exercise on Facebook and Twitter. The brand’s campaign will be giving away 1,000 CrossFit personal training sessions – a popular strength and conditioning programme from the US. On top of this, the top 100 will win a pair of Reebok’s RealFlex trainers. To win, users must log in to the campaign’s microsite, where they will be told whether they are influential enough to make the team (UK users that log in are restricted to training sessions in either Leeds or Manchester).

PeerPerks digital marketing manager Mark Allin stated that the campaign is all about engaging users both online and offline to encourage people to think about steps to a more positive healthy lifestyle. He said: “We’ve worked before with members of the CrossFit community, but this campaign is about attracting new people and raising awareness of Reebok’s affiliation with the programme. We are aiming to add to our online community and develop more long term engagement with fitness enthusiasts. We are confident that the people we are targeting will talk about the events on social media so that puts the pressure on us to deliver a good experience.”

However, the CrossFit campaign also acts as a recruitment channel for a new TV series Reebok is launching in partnership with Eurosport, which will be called The Box. This programme is about competitors from countries in Europe who battle it out in fitness tests as part of the CrossFit Fitness Championships. In the UK, there has certainly been an absence of competitive fitness shows, with the exception of the well-known Gladiators – one of my personal favourites! The new programme should resonate with a wide audience, from fitness fanatics to couch potatoes.

With social media being used to communicate breaking news, conduct surveys and gather followers, it is now being used by brands to recruit the most influential individuals into TV programmes such as The Box. Is it a clever tactic or risky exercise? What do you think?

Know your market
The first thing you will be asking yourself is: how can I use Pinterest to get myself some links? The answer really depends on the type of site you are working on. Crafts, art and interior design makes up a big proportion of what people are pinning and interacting with, so these are the kinds of sites that will reap the most benefits. Fashion is another big area, along with, to a lesser extent, geek culture. If you work in any of these areas then Pinterest is probably worth your time and effort.

Explore and make connections
Before you do anything, though, you need to get an account and dive in. Explore, have a play and follow a variety of boards. Boards are essentially categories that house your ‘pins’, which are images from around the web that you like. If you run an architecture firm then make an ‘inspirational architecture’ board to start with. Subscribe to other people’s boards and get commenting and re-pinning. This will allow you to form relationships with users and make them more open to working with you in the future.

Research influential users
You will soon find that there is an elite group of people who earn themselves hundreds of re-pins and likes from their boards and these are the ones who obviously hold a massive amount of sway. If you’ve got something big you want to share, then these are the people who could spread the word like wildfire. They will usually list their social contact details, such as their twitter handle and sometimes they will even have their own site, which could turn out to be a great bonus. But as with any outreach, don’t pester them. If you want them to check out the great infographic you’ve created, just a friendly tweet will do. Don’t bombard them!

Use Pinterest to reinforce your blogger outreach
More people are adding their Pinterest account link to their blogs and this provides a massive opportunity for you to connect with bloggers on a more personal level. Their wants, inspiration and desires may not always be completely apparent when you read their blog but perusing their Pinterest boards will show you exactly these things. Crucially, it will also likely build up a better picture of their personality, since people usually have more than one board for each interest they have, so Jenny Blogger might run a flower arranging blog, but her boards may reveal that she loves urban vinyl art and Atari. It gives you another hook in which to relate to the blogger and provides you with a better chance of forming a partnership. You could also incentivise them by offering them a gift based on things they like and pin. Providing them with something they really love is a great way of building a relationship.

This list isn’t exhaustive, but it should give you a good idea as to how to go about using Pinterest to build relationships and get the links you want. Remember, there’s no point in using Pinterest for the sake of it – you need to make sure that what you’re offering is relevant and will interest users who are into a more visual way of networking.

There’s nothing worse than a confused Rambo.

Spotify have launched a ‘Play Button’ which can be embedded into third party websites. This move allows website owners to embed a widget on their site which then lets users stream songs, albums and playlists without having to leave the site.

This Play Button has been rolled out to some major sites, such as The Guardian, Huffington Post, GQ, Vogue and Rolling Stone, as well as Tumblr blogs.

While this will help to provide users with a more engaging experience, this will only be available to current Spotify users. If you click on the Play Button on one of these third party sites and don’t currently have the Spotify app installed on your computer, you will be prompted to download the app to listen to the playlist. This will obviously help to promote the service to a new, much larger audience and will undoubtedly result in a huge increase in app downloads, with the ultimate aim to increase customer acquisitions.

The Play Button will be a big help for publishers who want to add music content to their site. Previously, in order to add music to their site, there were several options available: embed a video from YouTube; search for a scarcely available legal track on a streaming site; or even host an MP3 version with questionable legality. While the new option from Spotify isn’t hugely different to, say, SoundCloud, what Spotify has is a huge library of tracks to choose from.

Are you a publisher of a site? Are you looking to add the Play Button to your site? What benefits do you expect to gain? Or are you a non-Spotify user? Will this encourage you to download the app and subscribe to Spotify?

Let me know your thoughts below or on Twitter @andrewlowdon

Expedia are asking you to select a country to check-in at and ‘fool your friends’. You can also check your friends in with you. Once you have checked in the app posts a Facebook status on your timeline so it looks like a normal check-in.

Once you have checked in, Expedia gives you the option to ‘fulfil your dream’ to go to your chosen destination and links to any travel deals they have for that location. You can also sign up for their deals newsletter. If your friends click the link in your check-in post they are sent to the App and told that it was just a dream. They are also asked to select where they would like to be right now and to check-in.

Expedia are currently running an Easter egg hunt to promote the app until the 13^th April. Each day an egg will be hidden in locations around the world and if you find one you can check in to win Expedia vouchers.

Here at Epiphany we use social as a natural catalyst for link acquisition as well as for its brand awareness and engagement capabilities. Its not clear whether Expedia are using the campaign to its full effect from an SEO point of view.

It is a shame you can’t pick any destination you like as they have marked out a selection of popular destinations for you to choose from.  I think my friends would be more likely to react to a post saying I was up Everest then one saying I was in Paris.  It is also annoying that even though you have liked the page you then have to like the destination before you are allowed to check in. This allows Expedia to post on your timeline advertising hotels in that location.

They hope that the app will help provide a source of travel inspiration for users so if you wish you weren’t here, why not check-in to your dream destination, virtually at least!

The ad will be displayed in a bus shelter on Oxford Street and uses facial recognition software to decide if the viewer is male or female. Apparently it is only 90% accurate so don’t get too offended if it gets your gender wrong!

The advert aims to make people think about what it is like to have choices taken away from you based just on your gender and to promote female education in developing countries. Women will be shown a short film of young girls from developing countries talking about their lives. Men will be denied the choice to view the film and told to go to the charity’s website to find out about the campaign.

Using facial recognition software to tell the viewer’s gender could be a very useful tool for targeted ads. For example, perfume companies with male and female scents could just display the relevant ad to the viewer.

This is certainly more interesting than most outdoor advertising I have seen and hopefully it will get people talking about the issue and not just playing with it to see if it guesses their gender correctly!

What do you think of the advert? Leave your thoughts below!

No doubt most Facebook users will have seen and become accustomed to this new layout but if you haven’t yet, the new timeline is largely all about visual engagement allowing branded pages come to life with use of larger images and multimedia. Largely a good thing, however the new timeline has forced brands to not only re-style their pages but totally rethink them as well.

The new timeline makes it harder for you to customise your Facebook pages, stripping out a lot of marketing messages. Gone are the days of enormous ‘Like Us’ splash pages as Facebook have removed the option to choose where new users land, so all users land on your timeline. With this in mind, the new timeline cover photo has become the most important real estate on a brands Facebook page, however Facebook have implemented some strict policies about what your cover image can and cannot contain which include the following;

• Price or purchase information, such as “40% off” or “Download it at our website”
• Contact information, such as web address, email, mailing address or  other information intended for your Page’s About section
• References to user interface elements, such as Like or Share, or any other Facebook site features
• Calls to action, such as “Get it now” or “Tell your friends”
• All cover images are public, which means anyone visiting your Page will be able to see the image you choose. Covers must not be false, deceptive or misleading, and must not infringe on third parties’ intellectual property. You may not encourage or incentives people to upload your cover image to their personal timelines.

(from: http://www.facebook.com/help?faq=%20276329115767498)

All this is good for the user experience, but how will brands adapt? Does it force brands to re-think their Facebook strategy? Facebook claim that by introducing the timeline they have put more of an emphasis on the conversations and interactions you have with your users, forcing brands to become story tellers and involve users in the conversation as opposed to hard ‘selling’ messages or ideas.

It will be interesting to see what campaigns result as facebook evolves and how brands will adapt as the 30th March draws ever closer.

Have a look at these nice examples if you’re in need of inspiration:

http://www.facebook.com/cocacola
http://www.facebook.com/benjerry
http://www.facebook.com/burberry
http://www.facebook.com/redbull
http://www.facebook.com/Starbucks

In this post, which is the first of a series, I will examine an element of online design which I believe to be of particular importance when attempting to create engagement with a user. For this post, I will discuss hover and active states of links and CTAs.

For readers who don’t really know what I’m babbling on about, a hover state is the state of a button upon rolling over it. The active state is when the button is pressed.

Luckily in my first job three years ago, I was taught to use hover states on all buttons, and later on, active states were forcefully implemented upon all preceding buttons on our web builds. I say lucky because it is an often overlooked element of building a website which had been drummed in to me like a 3mm bleed on a brochure from the absolute outset. With some websites, you get one agency designing it and one agency building it so an integral relationship is broken. Who was meant to design these button states?

The thing is, I can understand why they are sometimes forgotten. Obviously a lot of the time, the result you’ll see is an underline when hovering over a link but personally I don’t think it’s enough. Normally that means it is simply text in the first place without a line, in which case it is not absolutely obvious that it is a button. Buttons need to look like buttons.

Up until recently my rationale was merely to ‘make them look nice’. From a project point of view, that is a waste of time. Everyone wants things to look nice but if it doesn’t serve an end purpose, you don’t really have much of a leg to stand on to create the time needed to create such.

However, since being at Epiphany and learning quite a lot more about the SEO value of pieces, conversion has beamed as the practical reason for creating interactive, and dare I say, ‘responsive’ buttons. I find this highly ironic, given that most raved about ‘responsive’ sites don’t have well-responding buttons.

Hover states to me are as important as braille is to a blind person –  nobody has any time anymore and they need to know what they’re able to interact with. As purveyors of the web, we have to make absolutely sure a user instantly understands what is going on. An active state gives comfort to a user that something is happening. Too often you see users click a site and nothing appears to happen so they click it again. Unfortunately much to their peril, they’re actually making the process a whole lot longer than it should be whilst getting irritated at the website and ultimately, the brand.

Giving a clear active state, which implies it has been pressed, gives the user the assurance that they have done something. You know how it is when you’re on a laptop – sometimes you just don’t know if it’s done anything. With the snowballing effects we are now capable of executing with modern web technologies, I feel we have an opportunity to bring new and innovative ways of approaching active states because they seem a bit of a dying breed and I’m a little lost as to why. They are important.

These two combined create a much better environment for a user, to browse through content and enjoy the experience. They’re subtle, very subtle in fact. But I honestly believe they strongly contribute to both time spent on a website, and ultimately, conversion rates. Beauty can be a subtle thing, and this is one of the finest examples I can think of in the entirety of digital marketing.

FEATURE: Sites of the month

From this month onwards, my blog posts are going to include a little regular feature: my personal favourite pieces of digital work from the past month of viewing. This month, I would like to pay huge credit to three sites which took my breath away:

http://captaindash.com/

http://www.underarmour.com

http://annasafroncik.it/

Absolutely fantastic work. Enjoy!

Please leave your thoughts below or on Twitter - @WengersToyBus

With little previous connection to these platforms, the fashion industry is beginning to realise just how relevant they could become and as models use social media to boost their careers, industry experts are exploring ways to utilize the value of their follower base.

Having a household name has always been an advantageous resource to maintain supermodel status, although this was traditionally done through exposure in gossip columns and magazine paparazzi snaps. Today’s popularity and usage of social media enables people to put themselves out there and so the business and tech savvy models have begun creating brands for themselves through social platforms, like Facebook and Twitter. Name recognition increases a model’s value – those who become celebrities in their own right, as opposed to being the silent face of a label, have much more to offer in return for a new or extended contract.

Social media lets models really communicate with their audiences and expose their personalities; by reading a model’s blogs and feeds, fans can truly get to know the person behind the clothes. This is beneficial for fashion labels as the models can create extra buzz for the brands they represent, by simply dropping a tweet or posting a blog about a show.

As models post behind the scenes photos on their pages and tweet about their favourite clothes, fashion fans are essentially gaining entry to the back stage fashion world they could never have accessed before. Also by providing this insight to the hidden realms, models are cultivating huge follower bases from all over the world.

“I realized there was an audience interested in what I had to say, not just the images from my work,” said model Coco Rocha. Now 23, Rocha is facing increasing rivalry for work as younger models enter the scene, but her fan base of more than 200,000 Twitter followers and 66,000 Facebook friends has empowered and extended her modelling career. Rocha writes personal posts mixed in with some fashion focused ones to highlight the brands and magazines she’s working with.

The industry is adapting the way they select models to include consideration for this, Michael Flutie – a renowned agent and manager said that “If you have 10 beautiful girls, you have to narrow it down somehow and you’re going to narrow it down to the four who can communicate really well digitally.”

Social media profiles are exposing models for who they are and the lives they lead off the runway, it is a way for chatty, likable personalities to shine through – altering the traditional method of choosing models purely by who is most photogenic. Rocha said “When I started, models were booked only for their cheekbones. Now I think I get bookings because people will say they respect me, or we stand for the same things, or they think what I have to say is interesting. It’s better to hear that than just, `You have gorgeous cheekbone structure.’”

On Twitter, at the time of this post, @cocorocha has 260,493 followers, nearly 40,000 on Facebook and just a brief look at these pages demonstrates how they can easily engage fans in fashion trends, news, reviews and even get them involved in ‘fantasy fashion’ where followers share their ideal fashion team.

For a more in-depth look at the fashion sector, click here for our sector report.

Please leave your thoughts below or on Twitter – @Heather64

Last year, when Heinz trialled their new tomato sauce, there was a lot of noise about other brands following suit. But reports out this week suggest that a large number of retail brands have already canned their f-commerce plans. The reason? ROI.

I can’t say I’m surprised. I’m not a fan of Facebook myself, but I can mirror f-commerce with those annoying people that come into pubs to try and sell you copied DVD’s. If I’m being social with peoples company I choose, I do not want to be sold to.

Facebook has generally succeeded for businesses as a brand engagement tool. As a traffic driver to brand websites, this also works too. Some brands maybe hastily throwing f-commerce out of the window already, but it is early days.

One of the issues I have found is that f-commerce platforms tend to be a replication of a mobile site. In as much as a previous blog post talked about making sure your mobile site was mobile specific the same level of importance should be placed on f-commerce applications.

You have to tailor the application to the technology, otherwise you are losing the USP of the platform.

The problem here is that big brands aren’t willing to take the punt, and spend on tailoring a f-commerce store to the platform. Until a household brand can come out and say they have made a success of f-commerce, it will stay as something that might take off, that brands wont pump money into.

That’s not to say there are no examples of f-commerce that have worked out for SME’s. I was speaking to a neighbour the other day who said his son uses Facebook to book his local 5-a-side pitch for games of football with his mates, and this is all done within the Facebook environment. I’d say that’s a great example of knowing your audience.

Oh and as a side note, my last blog was on the topic of making sure your mobile site was up to scratch. Econsultancy seem to agree with me, which is nice.

When working on new campaigns, the addition of a blog is an important step. However, I often find that some brands have difficulty talking about the one thing they know most about! Time after time the same question arises: what can we blog about?

A blog may seem daunting at first as it requires resources, ideas and lots of topics, though it can really benefit your brand by providing a platform to air ideas, thoughts and promotions. When it comes to the generation of blogging ideas, organisations tend to put on their corporate hat, when in reality a blog requires more of a fun hat! It really is something that needs love, attention and most of all personality, so you need to think about the core value of your brand and your key offerings, audience and applicable trends.

Blogging angles

There are various angles you may take when writing a blog, though it really does depend on the brand. Generally, seasonal trends, product ideas, colour schemes and style guides can cover most brands. Although this may seem like a list for a fashion brand, it really can cover most industries such as home and garden, children’s wear, travel, technology and beauty.

Whether you’re looking for a new dress, TV or some outdoor furniture, seasonality, trends and the overall look of a product is important. It is therefore very easy to tailor these loose angles to your industry. Only a small percentage of customers are early adopters, therefore most will be persuaded by friends and family, the media, price and style. Promoting your products via look books and combining this with seasonality is a great way to show off how great the product can look in a home, on their body, or on arrival.

Listed below are some ideas of blogging topics for selected industries:

Homewares

• Achieving the vintage look
• Contemporary living
• Decorating on a budget
• Gardens for young children

Travel

• Top UK destinations
• Travelling with a large family
• Travelling by car
• Top winter destinations

Fashion

• Dressing for my body shape
• Choosing the right jeans
• SS’12  beach trends
• Dressing for the April showers

This is just a selection of blog ideas which can be adapted to most industries. When it comes to blogging, many think that they should talk about the brand and how great you may be, though it is quite the opposite. A blog should be a friendly medium, a useful resource and the showroom for your products.

Mix it up a little with some guest bloggers, whether they are people from within the organisation, well-known writers in the industry, or even the MD – just don’t forget to have some fun with it and include some visuals.

Let me know your tips and thoughts – @nishajagpal

It’s no surprise that they would want to make the most of their service – there have been a large number of projects that have fallen by the wayside. Google Wave was mothballed in 2010, while Google Buzz failed to ignite passion among Gmail users and went the same way at the end of last year. These weren’t really highly publicised, much like other failed ventures such as Catalogs, Notebook and Video, so it’s probably not a surprise that they failed. Maybe Google+ will break this curse?

Probably not, if the latest reports are anything to go by. In fact, it doesn’t look like Google+ is even close to scratching the surface when compared to Facebook. The blue-and-white giant already courts nearly everyone interested in social networking, so to make them join both – or even defect entirely – seems short-sighted, to say the least. Back in February, comScore claimed that Google+ visitors spent a pitiful 3.3 minutes on the service during the entirety of January, compared with around six and a half hours on Facebook. This was down from 4.8 minutes in December 2011 and 5.1 minutes in November.

eMarketer picked up on this surprising statistic, and went on to criticise its lack of “real” users. “[E]ngagement and participation aren’t up to speed with other social networks,” said company analyst Kimberly Maul, “and that has become a major obstacle for turning Google+ into a relevant social network.”

The figures themselves may be a lie, too, if Everspark Interactive’s blog on Business Insider is anything to go by. “Ever since around the time Google made its mammoth privacy policy change, users have had to sign up for Google+ when signing up for other Google products, like Gmail,” they said. “It isn’t entirely surprising, then, that so many people have ‘upgraded’ to Google+, since they are pretty much forced to.”

As it stands, I don’t really know anyone other than those working in the digital marketing industry that uses Google+. It’s a novelty to most – often, people just smirk when you mention it. Fancy gadgets aside, Google+ doesn’t seem to offer anything truly necessary that Facebook doesn’t have already. The newcomer will need a lot more innovation and uniqueness if it’s going to win people over, so it may want to stop mimicking Facebook in the future.

Verified Facebook accounts won’t allow the user to display a badge to prove that the account is theirs. They will be allowed to display a nickname! I’m sure Facebook see this as a pretty big step considering users are required to use their real name (if a Cumbrian girl I know really has the middle name ‘Woo Woo’ then fair play to her).

So Why Should I Verify My Account? Well apart from being able to add a nickname, once your account is verified it will appear more frequently in the ‘people to subscribe to’ list.

How Do I Verify My Account?

So you think you’re a big enough deal to become verified? Well if you are, Facebook will let you know. Facebook notifies users that have enough subscribers to be eligible for a verified account. There are then a couple of steps to complete before being able to add that all important nickname.

Firstly the user must click the ‘verify my account’ notification and they will then be asked to provide ID to prove they are who they say they are. The user must also submit their ‘nickname’ for Facebook to approve.

2 Steps Forward 1 Step Back

This is definitely a step in the right direction for Facebook as verified profiles have always been one of the reasons that celebrity Twitter profiles have been more credible than Facebook profiles. But what I can’t understand is why Facebook won’t add a verified icon to profiles. Run a quick search for any celebrity and it returns a list of accounts claiming to be the celebrity in question. A small icon would quickly and easily point out to the user which is the verified account they are looking for, just like on Twitter and Google Plus.

What do you think? Leave me a comment below.

“I’m all about starting this movement. I love technology and love good design. We definitely have an amazing opportunity here to have millions of users – the most amount of users per employee. We are going to be bigger than Facebook and Google someday.”

Now, I’m all for ambition, but that is some statement!

The plan is to make it easier for celebrities to interact with their fans in a more intimate way than say Facebook or Twitter, with a view for fans to be able to interact with each other by enabling them to create and share content too.

On the surface of it, it looks to be dependent on celebrities creating their own niche social networks – so I was intrigued to see if this would be enough to get it off the ground? And is there really any need for Backplane in a world with Twitter, Facebook and Google+ already offering such free contact with celebrities already?

http://thebackplane.com/

Check it out for yourself and let me know your thoughts by leaving a comment below.

Now it appears I may hear even more about her than normal! Not content with her millions of Twitter followers, Lady Gaga has branched out further into the online world by launching a new social network site called littlemonsters.com. This is the first venture of Backplane (the company co-founded by Gaga’s manager). Reports so far say that the site looks similar to Pinterest and feels like Reddit. However this is currently invite only (while in BETA) so not currently in the public domain.

What I do know is that it will be used to share Gaga-related content, allowing her fans who are known as ‘little monsters’ to create videos, share posts and highlight what they are interested in!

Obviously this is exciting news for Gaga fans and equally as exciting for Backplane. They claim this could one day change the world and be bigger than Twitter and Facebook – quite a bold statement!

Matt Michelsen, CEO and co-founder of Backplane told Mashable:

“Backplane is about bringing together communities and Gaga’s community just so happens to be the community we’re using to learn about proper functionality. We think we can really change the world”.

Regardless of whether I’m a fan, I’m quite interested to see what the site can do and if one day it could be a big player in the social media arena. Just waiting for my log-in now . . . .

Will you use Lady Gaga’s social network site? Let me know your thoughts below! - @Goodster31

About nine months ago, one of my friends told me about ‘Pinterest’ – a new visual social book marking site that lets you collect, share and organise the images you like on the web. Being a graphic designer, Pinterest looked like the perfect solution to my overfilling, unorganised ‘inspiration’ folder on my desktop – so I signed up and was instantly hooked, preaching about Pinterest to all my friends and colleagues.

Pinterest’s mission statement is to ‘connect everyone in the world through shared tastes and the things they find interesting’. Launched in March 2010, Pinterest was a niche, spread mainly via word of mouth. However, it is only in the last four months that it has really started to gather momentum. During September to December 2011, unique visitors to the site grew by 400%. In January 2012, Pinterest launched an app to integrate into the new Facebook timeline. Now, Pintrest has more than 7 million registered users and counting, and is one of the top 10 social networking sites.

How does it work? Currently Pinterest is invitation only, but you can request an invite or an existing users can send you an invite. Once signed up, the world is your oyster. You have the option of creating as many different ‘boards’ as you like. For example, one of my boards is called ‘inspiration for me’ which is where I collect all my design inspiration. Then by installing a ‘pin it’ button into your browser bookmark bar you can ‘pin’ any image from the web, upload your own, and assign it to any board you have created. Each ‘pin’ added links back to the original site it came from allowing other users to discover where the pin originated. This has seen Pinterest driving more traffic to company websites and blogs than You Tube, Linkedin and Google + combined. It ranks number five in the list of social media websites driving referral traffic, beating Reddit and MySpace for percentage of total referral traffic in January 2012  just falling short behind Twitter.*

*(according to a Shareaholic study)

What is so great about Pinterest? It’s fun, visual and it looks good. Gone are the days of storing JPEGs on your desktop and hyperlinks in a list or bookmarks bar/folder. The key to Pinterest is that it’s easy.  It’s easy to organise images and it’s easy to share, appreciate and ‘re-pin’ images. It’s also easy to search for images and inspiration within other users’ pin boards, allowing you to discover new things and gain inspiration within this creative community.

With the web and social sites becoming more visual over time, it’s easy to see how Pinterest appeals. Its popularity is growing very rapidly. I think it will soon become apparent what kind of role Pintrest will play in the social media playground and how brands (particularly retailers) will be able to interact and capitalise on the platform and its users. Watch this space!

Happy Pinning!
(If you need an invite get in touch.)
@rosey_lee

With this in mind the next step would be to identify those authors and start making relationships. So . . .

Identifying key influences in a desired niche is pretty simple, well you would think. There are so many signals and signs as to who influences what; sometimes it’s hard to know where to start. Also, it can be time consuming traipsing through hundreds of Facebook and twitter accounts- looking at their followers, tweets and posts, only to find that the “fashion guru” you’re stalking hasn’t been tweeting about the latest fashions but instead a minute by minute update on their very boring train journey to work.

So what we could really use is . . . a tool that not only crawls through your desired site (could be your own or an online publication in your niche) to find authorship mark-up’s and identify authoritative authors in your niche, tell you what they are talking about, tell you how many followers they have and tell you the other sites they contribute to (hey ho – I spy more linking opportunities!) and even allows you to get this data for your competitors to make comparisons.

Introducing . . . AuthorCrawler – “A tool for mining Author Data for Linkbuilding”

Tom Anthony first introduced this tool at Link Love London, which I was lucky enough to attend and pick up the tool prior to its public release, although it has been released now, what a nifty little tool it is!  You can download it here.

So now, not only do we have the ability to quickly identify authoritative authors in our niche and see which ones are linking to our competitors – but we also have the capability to monitor them all in the same place, with ease!

This leads us to out next step. When we have identified our targets, the next move is to get them to like us – or maybe even just acknowledge us for now. I’d start by making a hit list – I mean wish list – of your desired relationships, much like a top ten of who was hot in your year at school.

Next we need to operate with stealth, don’t go diving in with a link request (like at school, they will see you’re desperate and shut you down), this stage is all about them. Do some background research to get to know what they like and don’t like, who they like and most importantly what they like to talk about and link to.

Operate in silence. Follow them on twitter and start following some of the influential people they follow, read their posts and listen to what they are saying (everyone loves a listener), do your research before you make the first move.

When you think you have a good grasp of their habits, likes and areas of interest, you’re ready to make your first contact. But be cool- we don’t want to scare them off. Start by retweeting things they might find interesting (and that doesn’t mean pushing your latest infographic on them-we aren’t there yet), make sure it’s of an actual benefit to them, be generous and don’t reveal your end intention, we are thinking long term -at the moment it’s about what we can do for them.

Answer their questions- if you actually can answer them, don’t just make things up. In time, try to converse with them about particular areas of their work. We want to find out and start anticipating what we can do for them. We want to be acknowledged but we don’t want to be an annoyance (also getting blocked from twitter by someone is pretty embarrassing).

It will take time, but cultivate the relationship, keep an eye on them and keep providing them with things that will benefit them- comment on their posts if you can. This should particularly tickle their fancy, not only is it nice to receive comment about your work (for a start you know someone has bothered to read it) but it can also drive more traffic and authority to that page.

When they realise you can be an asset to them they might just start following you- acknowledging you, then you’re half way there.

You already know that a link from this person is of great value to you, so know you need to focus now on what we can offer in exchange- which should be simple seen as by now you probably know what they have for breakfast by now.

So when you have engagement, I think it’s safe by now to create an offering – it still has to be something they will benefit from or find interesting and obviously be on subject, but I’d say you’re safe to introduce your client at this point.

Hopefully this will generate a link, but don’t make them feel used. You’re in this for the long run and didn’t do all that ground work to let it fizzle out now! Don’t tell them you’ll call if you’re not going to- continue reading their posts, liking and commenting on their work- don’t forget about all those other online outlets you know they write for!

Also, don’t be afraid to use your relationship when you have it- run ideas past them and see if it’s something they would consider linking to before you go to the effort of providing it. Also monogamy doesn’t have a role to play in this relationship- you know those mates you followed on twitter to impress your first target? Well it might be time to see how you can help them, they have the same interests so it should be easy to keep both going at the same time (just make sure you don’t say the wrong name).

By the time you have worked through your wish list, you should be dead popular and as long as you keep putting in the effort, the benefits should be as long term as your friendships.

Their new Facebook app called ‘The Serenade’ enables users to create personalised songs to invite someone on a date. Simply go to their Facebook app and select who you want to serenade, why you fancy them, what you would like to do on the date, and what makes you so special. Then you can preview your customised video and post it on your friend’s wall.

This is a truly global campaign, it is available in 20 languages and there are 640 different combinations you can create. All the songs are performed by Paul “Kiss” Kissaun, the same artist and band featured in Heinekens film “The Date”.

Yesterday Heineken hosted an eight hour YouTube event called ‘Serenade Live’, where people from around the world had the chance to serenade their potential valentines live online to try and get a date.

So with only four clicks between you and your valentine, what’s stopping you?

https://apps.facebook.com/heinekenserenade/

Will you be using the app? Let me know below or on Twitter - @rlparker81

Introduced in 2010, the Square app was invented by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey and is available for iOS and Android. In addition to the added convenience, this application will prove extremely useful for Romney as he continues on the campaign trail, mingles with the retired and kisses babies for further endorsement. On the other side of the fence, President Obama and his re-election team have also signed on to the Square app with the hope of creating a unique Obama Square app. This technology will allow both campaigns to target fundraisers and unofficial volunteers who, after purchasing the square card reader at the local Best Buy for only $10 (just over £6), can canvas door-to-door. Although as an added spiff, the Obama team has announced recently that they will be providing Square readers to campaign offices across the US.

It has been estimated that there are now 313 million people living in the US, according to the US census estimates for the end of last year. In 2008, just under half of the current population voted in the election. With recent reports that more than 90% of Americans use mobile phones for purchases, the introduction of an app for fundraising is definitely a step in the right direction. Ironically, US politicians, both at a national and local level, have been rather slow to embrace social media compared to their counterparts across the pond in the UK. However, Obama will always be known in history as the first presidential nominee to successfully utilise social media during his campaign. Through the use of an iPhone app, YouTube chats and the latest Google+ video conference, President Obama has been very effective reaching the people of America and voters will probably recognise this in 2012. Romney might have previous experience as a Republican hopeful, but he has much to learn from Obama in terms of engagement.

Having said that, both Romney and Obama will need to adjust their mentalities and strategies to include mobile users, to ensure they reach all levels of the technology-advanced. According to a MSNBC article, over the Christmas season, online shopping saw a staggering increase of 16.4% from 2010. The report from IBM also highlighted the increase of purchases on smartphones and tablets. For 2011, analysts have found that mobile purchases on these two items have increased by more than 80% from last year – m-commerce reached an unbelievable $5.3 billion!

Not many with their eye on the Oval Office seat can afford to miss out on the billion dollar pie (except perhaps Mitt Romney who earned more than $20 million in 2011). The truth is m-commerce should be on the agenda of most brands and companies, or at least those who want to reach consumers and accurately gauge multi-channel behaviour.

While Romney the man has won the votes of those in Florida and other states across the US, Romney the brand has work to do before August, when the Republican nominee is announced, if he has any chance of beating Obama (who has a distinct advantage as the incumbent) and any hope of winning over the millions who will probably vote via mobile.

How will the Square app play a part in the future of m-commerce? Let me know below or on Twitter – @YorkshireTexan

(Photos: Politico and PC Mag)

For example, if I’m on the train reading my Twitter stream, and I see an interesting link, I’ll often favourite the tweet to read later. My phone isn’t the ideal device to read an article and poor reception can mean it takes ages to load.

Another example: if you take a picture on Instagram but only want to post it to Flickr rather than Facebook. Whilst the iPhone app does have those options, you might want to filter them based on a hashtag in your comments, or if they are taken at a certain time.

This is where ifttt.com steps in. Short for “If This Then That”, it allows you to connect social networks, bookmarking sites, geotagging services, etc. If you do one thing then the website will do something else.

The possibilities are endless, although luckily there are already a lot of suggestions from users as to the things you can do.

So in my first example, I have set up ifttt.com to automatically search my favourited tweets for a URL, then add that URL to my reading list on Readability, a bookmarking and article-reading network.

ifttt.com allows users to create recipes from the 40 or so social networks. They can be based on RSS feeds, timed events, or when you get an email from a certain person. If you want a way to automatically update your Linkedin status every Monday morning, you can do it. When you check in on Foursquare with a photo, you can send a photo post to your Tumblr blog. How about adding an article to your ‘Read Later’ list in Readability when you star an item in Google Reader? No problem.

My favourite though is the SMS to Phone Call recipe. Do you need to escape a dull meeting or boring colleague? Text ifttt.com with an SMS tagged with #ifttt and it will call you back, creating the perfect opportunity to make your excuses and leave.

Have you used ifttt.com? What’s your favourite recipe? Let me know on Twitter @chris5marsh

We’re all bombarded with messages and advertising, and it’s hard to get your message to stick. It’s well documented that marketers need to use even more sophisticated ways of reaching their target audience. Some commentators explain that tomorrow’s successful marketers are going to be data analysts, finding patterns in terabytes of data to make sure that they’re targeting the right audience with the right messages at the right time.

The whole point of the online world is that people find communities of people who are interested in the same things as them (folding picture of Ross Kemp or zombie crochet). People follow other people who they want to hear from, people that they trust to be entertaining, honest and interesting. So when your favourite celebrity seems to change their personality, and then you find out that someone has paid them to do it, you could be forgiven for feeling lied to. And that’s the trap that social advertisers need to avoid. It’s far too easy to make the same mistakes as marketers have traditionally made in the offline world – bombarding people with irrelevant, annoying, interrupting noise.

The background to all of this is a PR stunt in which celebrities including Ian Botham, Amir Khan, Rio Ferdinand, Cher Lloyd and Katie Price were paid to tweet on unfamiliar issues (Ferdinand on knitting and Price on global politics) before eating a Snickers and returning to ‘normal’. The campaign got a reaction from people for many reasons: including commentators saying that the tweets suggested that eating Snickers turns you into an idiot. But the fierce heat might be yet to come, with the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) investigating undeclared celebrity endorsements and Office of Fair Trading (OFT) expressing concern over the matter. Consumer protection regulations launched in 2008 mean that the OFT can seek a court order, potentially leading to a criminal prosecution and an unlimited fine if celebrities aren’t clear to their audience when they are being  paid to promote products in the form of advertising. It might be the first Twitter campaign to be banned by the ASA who are launching an investigation that could set a new benchmark in social advertising.

It’s no surprise that many of these celebrities’ followers took exception to being advertised to on Twitter. As the number of social advertising channels is growing, with G+ bringing social recommendations into search results pages and Facebook launching sponsored stories, marketers need to remind themselves of the mistakes that have been made in offline advertising before launching themselves into people’s social worlds.

What are your thoughts? Do you feel like you are being bombarded by adverts on Twitter? @tominleeds

Building relationships with the authorities in your niche has always been important and valuable but it could prove to be even more important than ever before. Obtaining links from desirable sites can be difficult, especially when you don’t have an existing relationship with the webmaster or a big brand name. By making relationships and understanding what the person behind the site likes and wants, you can not only create a tailored offering you know is going to benefit the both of you and increase your link prospects, but may also be able to build links that Google can associate with an increased level of trust.

It’s easy to look at one site and its metrics, forgetting that behind that site may lay someone with much more influence in that sector than the site alone. By building a relationship with key authorities in your niche you could be opening up much more possibilities in the long run.

Not only may the kindling of a new relationship provide you with retweets, links via their other online platforms, guest posts, likes on face book and other social signals to the benefit of you or your client; but in the long term, Google may also be placing more value amongst those individuals who place links, rather than just the site on which the link sits on.

As Google tries ever harder to interoperate a links worth and its authenticity, they may start to look further than just the position of that link – as well as its value and relevance to that particular page or site – but also how much relevance and value the author/creator of that link has.

As Google’s trust issues with links become more apparent, it’s more likely that they take into account other variants that can enhance their reassurance that the link is genuine and define different factors that counterbalance the persuasion and manipulation SEO’s can have over links.

To do this, it’s likely that Google will look at factors that can’t be influenced or over-optimized, such as the authorship of a link and how authoritative that author is within that area. Google’s introduction of rel=author is a good indication that this may become a more important factor when they are analysing how much trust they associate with links.

The identification of an author via there rel=author gives Google access to a huge range of data. As the rel=author has to be verified by their social network Google+, not only can Google verify that they are an authority in particular areas but also see the social profile for that user.

Clearly the provision of rel=author identifies that Google isn’t just looking at what qualities the site and link have, but also who placed the link and how much trust, authority, expertise and social impact that person has on that niche in relation to the link placed.

With this in mind, it’s ever more important to consider who we want links from and not just where we get links from. Allowing Google to identify the author of the page allows them to regain some of that trust Google craves so much. Identifying an author – with a real name and profile allows Google to see that it’s a real human and not just spam and therefore is more likely to be well written and better quality- which is just what our friend Google is looking for. Therefore, identifying key authorities in your field and building relationships with them can not only increase the chances of you or your client having long term linking opportunities and increased social signal benefits, but also a link that holds more prominence and trust in Google’s book.