These are my links for August 10th through August 15th:
- 500 Internal Server Error – 500 Internal Server Error
- The Little Book Series – Alterian produce the 'little book' series which are white papers about topics associated with social media marketing and digital engagement. They of course all skew back to promoting Alterian's products, but they're useful reads if you're serious about social media strategy planning and measurement.
- The Google Wave That Crashed – When the future has arrived when you're already here, you may be forgiven for not being on the bus, or missing it entirely. Google Wave was suppose to set out a new precendent for communication and collaboration, combining open forums with email and instant messenging. Google have now killed Wave, which had very low adoption. It was impossible to fanthom out. it didn't really scratch an itch. But it shows that being a bleeding-edge technology developer, even one as cash-rich and assured as Google, is definitely not a fail safe profession. I didn't even get to wave it hello.
- Maximidia | Ads of the World – Cute: 1950s style adverts for the products of today: Twitter, Skype, YouTube, Facebook.
- Is local the new global in mobile search marketing? – By 2013 some 1bn searches for local content will be made on mobiles, and the local business benefits greatly from local search. This article talks about developing your Google Places Optimisation to get ahead of the race for local search.
These are my links for August 6th through August 8th:
- Summer SEO – Use The Time For An SEO Health Check – More great tips from Hallam Internet on using the August lull to tweak your website to make sure those all important keywords are well displayed in all the right places on your site.
- Google to allow trade marks as keywords across Europe – A big shift for those doing pay-per-click Google advertising, as trademark names, from Sept 14, can now be used in most international territories. This means retailers selling branded products can truly begin to cash in.
- Big digital ambitions may be brewing at Starbucks – Starbucks have always been ahead of the game in their digital marketing, but a new twist will see the coffee stores in US and Canada competing with ISP portal to offer a channel of new, entertainment and retail content, plus unlimited wifi access in their stores (can we have this in the UK soon please?)
- 500 Internal Server Error – 500 Internal Server Error
- 10 reasons you need a digital marketing strategy – Digital marketing legend Dave Chaffey's survey shows a staggering 31% of marketers have a digital strategy, and the rest do digital marketing without a strategy.
These are my links for July 21st through July 22nd:
- Arab countries ‘need a long-term digital strategy’ – I've never really considered e-strategy in the Middle East – it's not the first territory you think of when considering a high tech hub, yet countries like Oman have already invested in growing their marketplace for e-commerce and digital. According to this press release countries like Iraq don't have sufficiently developed digital strategy. Well having a safe country and telecom network may be a bit of an issue here.
- The Register comment guidelines 2010 – I thought these guidelines for a heavily commented on blog were pretty sensible and worth adapting for your own community site.
- Universal broadband delayed until 2015 – Another government U-Turn: the much mooted 2Mbs broadband we've been promised won't arrive until 2015, 3 years later than scheduled. The government say they are "totally committed" to having the best broadband service in Europe, but given how far we are lagging behind our European neighbours in the advancements, and right to access, faster broadband, this is more hot air.
- Who owns your social media? – Superb article on the internal challenges a business faces in 'owning' a social media strategy, and the conflict and opportunity between the needs of different internal teams and departments:<br />
"Social media isn’t a two way street between you and your customer, it’s a crossroads between you, your customer, the network and all of their other customers."
- Apps, Apps, and more Apps – Some beautiful design and facts on the market for mobile apps. I think this is a US only view, but the stats are quite stark: Symbian is the most popular platform by 3 to 1, far ahead of Blackberry, and trailed by iPhone. 90% of App developers don't make a sustainable return-on-investment. Are apps the news promotional tool rather than the saviour of monetizing online content?
These are my links for June 25th from 08:03 to 19:25:
- What Makes Up a Social Marketing Strategy? – Research on marketers use of social media strategy – a shocking 52% are operating "without a game plan" and only 45% have a social media comapny policy. Most believe planning and delivering on social media is the main responsibility of the marketing department. Whatever happened to joined-up thinking?
- Legal considerations for people responsible for websites – Useful little primer and links for legal responsibilities for those running websites, explaining a bit about your responsibilities as moderators and for data protection.
- Marketing week: Digital Strategy supplement – Marketing bible Marketing Week have a selection of useful articles on digital strategy including the important of data, search and social media in making marketing decisions.
- Consumer health trends – Useful stats from Creation Healthcare on international health search trends in relation to digital engagement.
- Manual for bands and brands – Brand sponsorship of bands is probably the biggest growth area for investment in music. This mini e-book (a sort of commercial tribute to the Bill Drummond 'How to Have a No 1' Manual) has some good food for thought on what as a band you need to consider to make the partnership work.
These are my links for May 22nd through May 26th:
- Digital strategy is tool every business can use to maximise endeavour – Here's a little interview with me from this week's Evening Post, Nottingham, business section, talking about my work in digital strategy and also a bit about my work with the CreativeNottingham.com project.
- Q&A: Gerd Leonhard on why social media beats search – Gerd Leonhard, a very smart chap and the author of 'Future of Music Manifesto' (a big source for my recent study of independent music) on why social media will eventually overtake search, and engagement other reputation management, and why paywalls don't work.
- Guest comment: When TV met the internet – the perfect love-child – Tom Laidlaw from Videojug on the impact of online video, which has 10x the response rate of other online media.
- Augmented reality: 10 real world examples from the superbrands – Augmented reality is not just science fiction: both iconic and inventive global brands are starting to experiment in ways real products can interact with computers and screens to engage with their product. In most cases it involves connect a printed icon with your webcam (and additional software) so this is a long way from being a mainstream game changer, but a trend savvy marketers will want to investigate. I particularly like the beer that tells you if it's at the right temperature to drink.
