Google+ Now Available For Teenagers

Bradley Horowitz, Vice President Product Management Google+, has announced that teenagers are now allowed to sign up for the network. This means that Google+ is now open to a whole new group of potential users because before this announcement you’ve had to be at least 18 in order to join.

In most countries you now have to be at least 13 to use the service. In some countries the minimum age is higher, in the Netherlands for example it’s 16 and in Spain and South Korea 14. These are now the same requirements Facebook has when it comes to age regulations. … Continue Reading

How Building your Social Connections is like Link Building

When you’re active on social media you need to have a network of people that are following you. A large, qualitative network that represents your target audience can be worth a lot for your online business. These social connections aren’t magically there when you start, you have to build these connections.

When we look at building social connections it shows a lot of similarities with link building as we know it. In this post I will make a comparison between link building and building your social connections, in this case on Twitter, but it can be as easily translated to Facebook, LinkedIn or Google+. … Continue Reading

Google Maps Team Develops Game For Google+

Google is rolling out Google+ to all their own products but the Google Maps team thought it might be time to give something back. Not officially announced yet is a new game the Maps team developed for the social network.

The description reads: “Coming soon, play your world like never before with a game from the Google Maps team on Google+ Games powered by WebGL.”. So, after today you can search your own world but next month you can also play it . The video below shows a sneak peak of the game. … Continue Reading

How Social Media Changed The Ad Game

Some believe Social Media has nothing to do with advertising. Others think it will or can replace advertising. After a few years of Social Media rise we can conclude that neither is true. It won’t replace it, but it definitely has its influence on advertising.

This infographic shows how it has affected customers, priorities, spending and tactics and shows us some metrics.

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Whose line is it anyway? Getting Social Media right

In many modern day SEO campaigns, social forms an increasingly important part of the campaign mix, particularly to organisations willing to exploit short term opportunism, viral campaign development or just simple brand building. When one considers the vast reach of social media particularly through Facebook and Twitter, that’s hardly surprising. These sites are the most visited sites in the internet accounting for millions of visits and billions of page views a month.

Brand protection can often be a big part of this, whether to directly tackle potential issues online or to utilise to reduce negative search engine results pages. Further to this such activity can often fall into that crack that’s sits between different channel owners such as PR and SEO – who often may share the development of an Online PR function for a client – strangely enough a similar type of scenario which often exists within the SEO/Social Media framework. … Continue Reading

Friday Talk: Pete Cashmore on the Future of Social Media

Pete Cashmore knows his Social Media, right? He writes about it regularly. Or maybe you could say that Pete Cashmore is Social Media. It is like the gossip journalist being gossiped about himself. They know their stuff, but they are also so much in the middle of it that it sometimes is difficult to see things with a fresh look. However, when Pete Cashmore goes and talk about the future of Social Media, you keep your eyes open, because it is always interesting to find out his thoughts on this. Cashmore talked about just that on the annual Mashable Media Summit. The talk you can see below.

Oh My Klout has Dropped! Who cares, Klout is for the Lazy People

Ever since Social Media became main stream people have discovered the principle of “influentials’. Probably not realizing that the influentials have always been there. Even in the stone ages people did stuff because other people influenced them. And that hasn’t changed. What has changed is that we can now measure these influences. Or at least, we think we can.

A good example of that is Klout. The service which looks at how people interact on Social Media. The good thing about Klout was (yes, was) that it didn’t just look at number of followers or number of likes. It looked at the conversation. Or so it said. Recently Klout decided to change some of their algorithm. … Continue Reading

Who Should Represent Your Brand on the Social Web?

Given that engaging on the social web can benefit your brand’s marketing, recruitment, PR, sales, customer service, and other departments, the question of ‘who should manage and represent your brand on the social web?’ will inevitably arise. The answer is, all of them.

I believe that all employees with a passion and interest in representing the brand should be encouraged to. Utilising the expertise and networks of the people within your business is incredibly valuable when it comes to engaging on the social web and is not something that can be easily outsourced. … Continue Reading

5 simple-but-effective SEO/Social tactics I’ve seen over the last month..

Happy All-Hallow’s Day State of Searchers! Or All Saints Day for those that prefer. Let’s start this post with a little ‘Did You Know’ fact just to ensure it is educational from top to bottom. So, did you know…

“In Western Christian theology, All Saints Day commemorates all those who have attained the beatific vision in Heaven.” (Thank you wikipedia). That sounds pretty special to me, a vision of happiness, perfection and clarity. One can dream eh.  But on that note, how about a little happiness and clarity closer to home? SEO heaven?

Yes that is my rather awkward seguing into the main event, some great examples of simple linkbait or visibility tactics that I’ve seen in the past few weeks. Rather than theorise or show amazing examples/ideas that are nearly impossible for the average company to implement, I thought I’d share some examples of marketing tactics that I’ve been impressed with recently simply because they were so very, well, simple. … Continue Reading