Firstly, here’s a brief outline of where BP stand now in terms of social media activity:

Twitter – The official BP twitter @BP_America has 18,757 followers and is being updated regularly with news of the clean up effort and links to news articles and interviews. The account information points users to different contact points for more information. The account still doesn’t engage with customers, showing no re-tweets or replies to other users. There are a large number of ‘fake’ BP accounts such as @BPGlobalPR, @Real_BP_CEO and @BoycottBP all posting negative comments about the company.

Facebook – With 37,825 people ‘liking’ the BP facebook page it has over double the following of @BP_America. However, the level of engagement with the conversation is more or less the same, with no response to people’s comments, both positive and negative. Status updates and posts from BP are largely similar to its tweets, although granted are updated very regularly (approximately one an hour).

Other activity – The company has a YouTube channel on which it hosts various videos of the clean up operation and links to these through both Twitter and Facebook. There are also a small number of blogs on the BP official website written by employees of the company ‘out in the field’, disappointingly though the most recent of these was posted on the 20^th June.

What could they have done to prevent it?

Prevention is better than the cure. By having a contingency plan in place just in case a crisis such as this arose, BP could have handled their social media presence with more authority and control. These are some things I would’ve suggested the company had on their social media crisis management plan.

Engage with customers. By showing an active interest in people’s views and responding to comments and questions in the first instance, many people would have felt that BP cared about their opinions and would respond by engaging in conversation with the company, rather than starting up their own parody and anti-BP accounts.

One of the main protagonists of the anti-BP Twitter parodies is @BPGlobalPR. This account has been well documented in the press due to BP’s threat to have it shut down. By not declaring itself as a fake account, @BPGlobalPR was actually in violation of Twitters policy for ‘Parody, commentary and fan accounts’, but it was drawn to the attention of BP because of the negative comments it was posting about the company. Unfortunately, by the time BP was aware of the account it already had a significant following and there was public outcry when BP threatened to shut it down. This inevitably led to more publicity for the account, more followers and BP being forced to leave it alone.

If the company had been using social media listening tools they would’ve stood a better chance at stopping this account before it gained popularity. By simply setting up tracking for their brand name on Twitter BP would have spotted this fake account as soon as it was set up, and could’ve reported it to the relevant Twitter authority as a rule-breaker to be clamped down on.

What should they have done to control it?

Nestle’s big mistake during the Greenpeace backlash on their facebook fan page was to retaliate against comments rather than respond and sympathise with them. BP made exactly the same mistake once parody accounts on Twitter began to spring into place.

Once these accounts had been set up BP should have immediately created a presence on these profiles. By responding to negative comments and involving themselves in the conversation they would have shown they were not afraid of these anti-BP comments, and would have shown they had nothing to hide. By ignoring the profiles and hoping they’d go away, BP merely poured fuel on the fire. Furthermore, by responding in a ‘human way’ rather than with corporate jargon the company would have portrayed a more sympathetic persona, showing they care about the clean up operation rather than just their image. They may then have stood some chance in pulling back their reputation online.

Social media is a powerful tool. When faced with negative conversation, brands such as BP panic and forget standard crisis management rules; blocking out the conversation or talking to the mass media won’t help the situation. What companies need to remember is that you are not in control of the conversation online; when you stop talking the conversation still carries on without you. This means it is even more important to take part in the conversation, use it to your advantage, take on board people’s comments, engage with consumers as you would in a one-to-one situation offline and it will be easier to change the conversation to portray the company in a more positive light.

What can they do going forward?

Two of the vital ingredients in social media are listening and engaging. BP has made some progress in their efforts by regularly informing consumers of their activity in the Gulf. But they are still restricting interaction by ignoring anti-BP tweets and being non-responsive on their Facebook page. This is going to have to change if the company is to resurrect its image online. There is no chance of influencing the conversation if you are not a part of it. BP should grit its teeth and face the people, both directly and indirectly affected by the spill; accepting responsibility and asking for forgiveness and help from those that are currently very angry.

Consistency is also key to coming out the other side in one piece. BP needs to integrate all their communication, online, offline and inbetweenline to send out one message, a message of honesty, transparency and motivation towards a solution. They can then use social media, digital communication and PR to enhance the message, not contradict it.

What is a Web Browser?

For those of you don’t know what a web browser is, it is the application you run where you can view web pages. Without this tool, most online activity would be lost to you. The process starts after loading up your chosen web browser and entering a uniform resource identifier (URI) which is essentially the website address, http://www.wmps.com for example. The browser then retrieves the page html and, using the markup, displays the interactive page content. Browsers do this in different ways and web pages will display slightly differently depending on how the page is coded.

Despite Internet Explorer being the dominant model now, this was not always the case. The original web browser that had over 90% of people using it at its peak was Netscape Navigator. This was not even contested until Microsoft used a clever strategy to ensure people used their new product over Netscape’s version.

Why do so many people use Internet Explorer?

Basically Microsoft used to install Internet Explorer (IE) as standard with any computer running Windows. This has been the case since 1995 when the browser was first launched and it is a good reason why a 62% majority usage existed right up to February 2010. A large amount of these users were most likely not aware of any other options.

This changed on March 1^st this year when Microsoft was found to be in breach of competition laws by pre-installing the software on every machine equipped with Windows (currently around 95% of all desktops bought) and they now have to offer a choice to users of the different options available. This is done through an update made to Windows, which prompts users to select a browser and then gives further instructions about its usage.

Whilst this will be ignored by a lot of people, it has opened the doors for the other browsers.  People who have spent time looking into alternatives will reap the rewards with a user experience more suited to their browsing needs. By April this year, usage of IE had already dropped 2%, which shows that the Windows update has had some positive impact on people using different browsers.

This is not to say the pre-install is the only reason people use IE. It is backed by Microsoft which is the largest software company in the world and it has some good features. But that’s no reason for everyone to use it. We wouldn’t all choose the same car to drive around in, or pick the same place to live etc and similarly we are no constrained to one browser.

What are the other web browsers?

There are quite a few options available although there are only 5 in common usage. These are the same 5 promoted in the Windows browser choice update. I have just given some general opinions on each one and put next to it the position given by the Internet Browser Review (IBR), hosted on top 10 reviews, which incorporated a whole stack of comparisons on loading time, features, security and much more.

Microsoft Internet Explorer

Many versions of IE exist, unlike the other browsers which update as standard. IE 6, IE 7, IE 8 are all currently in use with IE 9 coming soon. The browser has some good features such as private browsing, web slices and smart filtering for security purposes. It allows browsing by tabs and other clever features but in general there is nothing that isn’t on other browsers’ functionality lists. IE does seem to have more reported crashes than other browsers, although this could simply be due to its extensive usage. The capability view is a good idea but you have to question why it’s even necessary when the latest version of a browser should just show all web pages correctly first time. IBR ranked it 3^rd of all the browsers. Usage is currently at 60%.

Mozilla Firefox

Firefox is the second most popular browser and for good reason. Mozilla was set up by the same guys who brought us Netscape Navigator and anything the browser lacks in terms of functionality is provided by a whole host of free plug-ins available due to its open source availability. Features such as private browsing, customisable themes, location aware browsing and open audio and video support all add to the experience. The browser is generally the first one to get plug-ins made by third parties and the whole setup is completely customisable. Reports of the latest release have not been as positive as previous versions with more crashes than usual although the browser is ranked 1^st in the IBR review. Currently around 25% of people use Firefox.

Google Chrome

Chrome is quite new and was only released by Google 2 years ago. Rather impressively, nearly 7% of web browsers are already using it.  As with IE, the support that comes with Chrome is from Google which is arguably the most dominant and influential in the internet realm so you can be assured it will continue to receive cutting edge development and new features on a regular basis. Features such as private browsing were introduced early here and the browser also utilises an all in one search box (URI and search box) meaning web searching is easier. The browser also has a handy feature that gives you a preview of your most visited sites. Rated 2^nd by the IBR review, it is likely to be a market leader in the near future with Google’s continued support and the current 7% usage rate is likely to grow quickly.

Opera

Opera is only used by around 2.5% of web users but its is regarded as one of the best available. It is also used heavily on mobile phones and is what the Nintendo Wii uses for its browsing software. Its main features are the speed, as many reviews report it to be the fastest browser available, inbuilt bit torrent downloader, overall download manager and thumbnail preview of web pages. Other features, such as storing different preferences for websites and a reload from page cache option, add to the browsing experience. Opera’s main problem is lack of promotion, which is an area where Google Chrome in particular has excelled. That aside, Opera is rated 4^th by the IBR, although it is worth noting the browser often places first in other reviews where site speed is the focus.

Apple Safari

Like IE on a PC, Safari comes preinstalled on Apple Macs. It works to a high level of compliance with coding industry standards like HTML 5 and CSS3 but the browser only manages to pull in around 5% of all internet users which, considering the support from Apple and the amount of devices that use it, is quite low. Some of the problems are well documented and are based around integration with Adobe Flash. One of the main complaints is the compatibility issues, in that a lot of websites don’t look as good in Safari as other browsers. Whilst this is more a problem for the website developers building these sites, it’s a reason for people not to use it if their favourite sites don’t look right. It does have some good features and looks very nice, but the general opinion is that on a PC it does not work that well. With these features reviewed by IBR, it ranked 5^th and considering the usage of 5% is based on a good % who will have had it preinstalled, it’s not that encouraging.

So which browser is my favourite?

Personally I use Firefox and will continue to do so in the near future mainly because my other choice Opera does not support the same levels of plug-ins. I like the customisation it offers and the wide variety of SEO toolbars that are available. This article is not about which one is best though; it’s more about encouraging choice so here are the opinions of the other members of the WMpS Marketing team:

Kayleigh Browne

“My choice of browser is Firefox. I used to use IE but discovered Firefox when I first started working at WMpS and have stuck with it since. This is mainly because it is secure and has lots of add-ons that help me with my job and I can customise it as and when I like.”

Meghan Burton

“I use Firefox and can’t remember ever using anything else regularly, although I had a brief flirtation with Chrome about six months ago.  I originally liked Firefox because it had tabs (IE didn’t at the time) and it was reputed to be more secure.  I still use it because I enjoy the extensions and themes, every site I go to works on it, and I appreciate Mozilla’s stance on open source.”

Matthew Redford

“I used  IE when getting onto the internet for the first time. I didn’t know any other browsers existed… I didn’t really need to move away from IE at the time – it did all the basic things I needed it to do. My next move was to Firefox where the array of good plug-ins was one of the reasons for switching as well as the improved speed.

I then moved on to and have settled on Google Chrome. It’s lightweight, quick to load, minimal approach. The browser is good for developers and supports a lot of the latest standards in HTML & CSS whilst utilising developer tools to improve page load speeds & identify bugs. Finally I like the combo box at the top for both URLs and Google searches.”

Emma Gray

“I have always used Internet Explorer and have never really thought to change browsers or look into what other options are available.”

Clare Blunt

“I’ll be honest I don’t have the most extensive experience using different browsers. My repertoire consists of IE, Firefox and a dabbling of Chrome. I’d choose either of the latter two over IE any day due to the more sophisticated styling and functionality. I primarily use Firefox at work and have numerous valuable plug-ins; however, using Chrome at home when I don’t have the need for plug-ins easier and simpler.”

For more information about browsers, optimising your website for use in different browsers or anything else in the online world please feel free to contact us.

This is especially important in an age where Britons are increasingly questioning the purpose of the monarchy.  Each taxpayer contributes a small amount to support them, but it’s easy to wonder what other purpose that money could be put towards.  I personally am quite fond of royalty, as they represent an exciting, living part of history, but I can at the same time understand their need to become relevant and connected in the digital age. To that end, social media marketing is definitely a requirement.

The royal family currently maintain three social networking profiles; they have a Flickr account, a YouTube channel, and a Twitter account.

On YouTube

The royal family’s YouTube channel (http://www.youtube.com/theroyalchannel) features videos from public appearances, interviews, and history.  The channel incorporates plenty of links for those users eager to find out more information on their lives and charity work.  With several hundred videos uploaded, there is plenty to watch, including days in the life of figures such as Prince Charles.  A personal favourite of mine is the wedding of the Duke of York, later King George VI, and the Queen Mother Elizabeth, from 1923.

The administrators of the channel also favourite relevant videos from other official channels, making it the perfect one-stop site for royal videos.  There is little interaction with other YouTube channels, but at present the channel is certainly getting enough views to indicate lasting interest in the family’s activities.

On Flickr

Flickr is the family’s newest initiative (http://www.flickr.com/photos/britishmonarchy/) and they’ve started off strong, with hundreds of pictures already uploaded for viewing.  There are a mix of older and recent photos available, with different sets sorted according to family member and event.  You can see adorable pictures of the queen as a chubby-cheeked little girl and select snaps of Queen Victoria and her family as well as modern shots from ongoing events and charity balls.

While these photos are apparently meant to be shared on blogs and twitter, they are also visibly copyrighted.  This means that users who haven’t already heard about the photos and that they’re available to share will probably hesitate to use them, severely limiting the channel’s potential to spark interest in the royal family and their doings.

In addition, comments are restricted, so potential for engagement and conversation about the family on Flickr is limited.  Given comments on news about the royal family elsewhere, however, including on the Yahoo news article about this very topic, this is undoubtedly a wise decision.  It’s clear that rather than using Flickr as a social media channel in truth, they have chosen to make it a place to more easily organise and share pictures of the family.

On Twitter

The royal family’s Twitter account (http://twitter.com/BRITISHMONARCHY) is mainly a news feed of events and links, with announcements of various appearances.  The Twitter account is probably the least currently useful of these three tools, simply because there is absolutely no interaction going on and current tweets aren’t designed at all to spark real interest in the average Briton.  As a result, they’ve received some criticism.

Saying that, however, I doubt anyone expects the Queen – or any member of the entire royal family – to spend time sat on Twitter conversing with the public.  I can’t deny that it would be particularly exciting if they did, but public political figures rarely tweet themselves, instead hiring social media experts to manage their visibility and provide a more comprehensive, complete personal marketing campaign.  Their current measured strategy is perfectly in line with their decorous, historically conscious stance.

Regardless, the royal family is clearly making efforts to step up their relevance and reputation in the digital age.  They’ve long been a target of tabloids and negativity, which makes it the perfect time to turn it around and remind all of us of the good work the royal family does, not to mention their historic and cultural importance for not just England, but the entire Commonwealth.  While more personal interaction and conversations with the members of the Royal Family may do more to boost their reputation, current efforts are certainly headed in the right direction.

Ten years ago online advertising mainly consisted of a simple GIF or JPG banner on a webpage. Today, rich media display can include video, audio, animation, games and much more. An increasing number of advertisers are now using rich media to not only engage users but to entertain, educate and encourage online sales through such savvy advertising campaigns.

Although ads still fund websites, display advertising has developed as a crucial part of many businesses budgets.  With the cost of computer dropping massively over the years, more homes and businesses became active online. The internet was set to change and gain momentum as savvy marketers watched online interest grow.

The first banner ad

October 25^th 1994 saw the birth of online display advertising with the first ever online banner being hosted on Hotwired by AT&T. It was called the ‘You Will’ campaign and consisted purely of a banner asking ‘Have you ever clicked your mouse right here?’ and an arrow pointing to the right saying ‘ You Will.’ Although today, that banner would be considered spam as it was a gauging their success through how many users visited their site and actually did click on the banner.

The development of the banner ad

After the success of AT&T’s banner ad on Hotwired, an increasing number of websites made the decision to offer advertising space in order to fund their website. In 1996, the interactive display ad was introduced with HP’s shockwave banner in which you could play the game ‘Pong’ against the banner. Arguably, this was the webs first example of a rich media advert. This was the development of industry changes that are yet to come; the interactive banner was a massive success!

According to Chris Hurwitz, the original guy behind this banner, back in 1997 ‘the normal click through rate on an ad banner is 1.5-2%. The Pong banner is getting 4-8%’.

From this advert, rich media was born and it had been clearly established that is was a success! Within months the internet was becoming flooded with pop-ups, flash, interactive, java, 3d and many more banner ads.

Experimenting with rich media

Despite the growth in banner ads, in the early days, rich media was still very much an experiment.

In an attempt to gain more revenue, publisher increase advertising space on their sites. However, advertisers understandably preferred single ad slots where competition was not rife. Consumers also did not approve of pages that were splashed in irrelevant banners rather than the content they required. This led to websites reducing the number of banner adverts but keeping the spaces for multiple ads on their site.

Creating these ads required a development team with in-depth knowledge of programming. This was also a concern and websites became cautious about hosting many banners in case the below industry standard programming would affect the overall performance of their sites.

There was also the issue with many users still having a slow dial-up internet and experiencing a poor online experience as the large file sizes struggled to load.

Technology developments fuelled the boom

As the web grew, so did technology. Dreary dial-up internet turned into super speed Broadband and computers were built with more ability to handle media loading when a user goes online. By the end of 2004, more than 50% of Internet users were connected online via Broadband; rich media ads became a part of every user’s online experience.

Advertisers now have the ability to track user interactions with their ads including display time, interaction rate, interaction time, expansion time, views and completions, average view time, exit links and much more.

While banners were once used for branding as opposed to direct response or search advertising, they are now becoming much more targeted with the options to refine your audience through demographics, interests and even retarget people who have already visited your site.

What does the future hold?

Many would agree that the web is now a consumer friendly entity. Although it is far more sophisticated that it was in the 90’s, it also offers far more to consumers as well as advertisers with the most effective form of online advertising. With increasing numbers of marketers devoting large budgets to online display advertising, rich Media has developed into an essential part of a marketer’s budget and now represents 25% of on online media consumption.

Now that most industries are also devoting 25-50% of their web display ad impressions to Rich Media, I wonder exactly what is going to be the next development in the future of Display Advertising?

Stay tuned for the latest developments in the world of online advertising!



Main concerns with Price Comparison sites

They are not always easy to use: They are supposed to make our lives easier but many consumers find them really confusing and don’t trust them to find the best deal. In a customer satisfaction survey on price comparison sites conducted by Which?, no single website scored any more than 50%. Webcredible has also identified some usability flaws these sites could improve on. In particular they highlighted that the results pages of many of the sites could be further clarified and greater control regarding the presentation of the results should be passed over to the user. Yet even so more than half the people surveyed had used a price comparison site in the last year, helping the largest sites pocket annual revenues of well over £170 million.

Consumers must pay attention to detail: Although online comparison shopping may allow consumers to compare deals quickly, this speed and convenience can sometimes result in poor attention to detail. For instance by opting for the cheapest insurance price, you need to be absolutely clear on what the deal covers. The cheapest price will not always reflect quality therefore consumers need to understand what they are actually getting for their money.

Pricing information might not always be up to date: A further concern raised by InvisibleHand is that the prices stated might not always be reliable as these sites depend upon the retailers to update their price data meaning that many can be up to a week out of date. Consumers can be lured in by what they think looks like a good deal but they are left disappointed after clicking through and discovering that the real price is completely different.

No site covers the entire market: Research firm Defaqto identifies that no site covers the entire market meaning that the cheapest quote listed may be more expensive than an another site’s cheapest quote. This casts doubts over whether consumers are actually comparing like with like, so people rightly worry about the sites not being comprehensive or competitive enough. In the Which? survey it was also revealed that one in four people chose not go on to buy through these sites because they had been able to find a cheaper quote themselves elsewhere.

What is in it for them?

It is important to be aware that most price comparison sites have commercial arrangements with the companies featuring on their site, thus questioning their overall credibility to an extent. Some sites have a commission fee payable when someone buys through the site and others receive a click through payment every time a consumer clicks from a price comparison site through to a company’s own website. In the survey conducted by Which? more than two thirds of the respondents revealed that they think the sites will just list the products that bring in the most commission and only 30% trust them to find the best price available.

Most Popular Sites

In the survey conducted by Which? the two most popular price comparison sites offering a vast range of deals where identified as Moneysupermarket (used by 36% in the last year) and Confused.com (30%).  Additional frequently used sites include GoCompare (16%), Comparethemarket (14%), uSwitch (11%), TescoCompare (6%) and Moneyextra (3%).   Impact Media have also more recently suggested that Google appear to have cornered another market; with 17.9 million users in the US now using Google product search each year and they are now fast becoming the leaders in shopping comparison services.

Can they be trusted?

In a virtual world where choice is almost limitless, online shopping price comparison websites are a great user friendly tool and provide a good starting point for consumers wanting to check out the various deals available. Consumers must be aware of the concerns with these sites and never just visit one site. If you are careful and look into the finer details of the deals available, there are a number of significant savings out there to take advantage of!

The afternoon was kicked off with David Smith from IMRG giving some eye opening facts and figures on the ecommerce industry as it stands today and highlighting the pace of growth we should expect in the coming years. An ever eloquent speaker, David set the scene with great clarity for the rest of the afternoons speakers. To emphasise the pace of change even further, our invitees were then treated to a talk from Alex and Rachel of Meltwater Buzz on listening tools for social media. The pair highlighted the need to listen first before jumping into the social media ocean, to lower the risk of drowning! The mBuzz presentation also gave some insight into the advantages of paying for listening tools as opposed to using the many free (but elementary) tools that are on offer.

After enjoying a lunch of double-decker sandwiches, mini burgers and chocolate shots (non-alcoholic!), we all reclined in the company of Prodoto, educating us on the importance of good imagery. Will and Andy’s very visual presentation was a fascinating journey into the world behind the final image that appears on a website. For those of us that haven’t worked in fashion it was educational, for those that have and do it was a valuable reminder that a good base is needed to build a successful brand online. The key take-away from the talk was that your imagery reflects on your brand and compromise should not be an option. Following on from the mechanics of a good photo, Mike from WMpS showed how to get the most out of your imagery and engage consumers on your website. Filled with facts and figures, his presentation emphasised the importance of aligning your website proposition with that of your store, catalogue and other offline brand presence.

The day was once again received well by all that attended, and we look forward to hearing feedback on how to make our future events even more valuable and enjoyable for retailers and industry experts alike. If you’d like any information on our future events or to request an event near you, feel free to contact us.

• Broad – This is the default option. It will trigger ads for the keywords in any order along with other terms, singular / plural forms synonyms and relevant variations.
• Phrase – These are keywords surrounded by quotation marks. It will trigger ads for your keyword in the chosen order only. Ads will be shown for additional keywords before or after the phrase.
• Exact – These are keywords surrounded by square brackets. It will only trigger ads for the exact keyword only without any additional terms or variations.

A new keyword match type has been rolled out globally by Google after a successful test here in the UK along with Canada. It’s called the broad match modifier. It sits between the broad and phrase match – giving a greater reach than phrase and more control than broad. This is how it works:

• Add a + symbol directly before all terms within your keyword that must appear in the users search query to trigger the ad. A good example would be: +formal +shoes. This keyword will only trigger ads with ‘formal’ and ‘shoes’ inside the users query.

This new match type does give advertisers more control with their targeting. It allows greater reach to relevant user queries without being too restricted with phrase or exact match.

Google Keyword Match Types and Example Usage

Image used courtesy of the Google Inside AdWords Blog

Permalinks

When you set up your blog the first thing you should change is the permalink structure. If you start to post content before doing this you will have some URLs that are not very well optimised and it will be more hassle to change them down the line. You will find the permalink section under the Settings tab on the left of your screen.

I prefer to user the custom structure of /category/postname/ for which you would enter /%category%/%postname%/ in the custom structure area:

If you would prefer to just show the /postname/ then just type in /%postname%/.

Category Base

For some reason WordPress adds in a directory named “category” at the start of this permalink structure.

There is no reason for it to be there it just adds unnecessary length to your URLs. Fortunately there is a quick and easy way to get rid of this. There is a plugin called WP No Category Base that requires no setting up, you just install it and it removes it for you.

Creating an XML Sitemap

XML Sitemaps are a great idea for all sites from an SEO perspective. They help search engine spiders easily find a list of all of you content and make it easier for them to get it indexed. This being WordPress there are of course a wealth of plugins that can assist you in this task. The one I use is called Google XML Sitemaps. After you install this plugin you will notice there are quite a few options in the plugin settings area. Most of these are fine left as they are but there is one part you may wish to customise:

If your site has multiple authors you may want to include the author pages into your sitemap. You would generally not want to include archives and tag pages as this may result in duplicate content issues.

Pagination

There can be some issues with certain WordPress themes when it comes to category pages and even the home page. If they have “previous page” links at the bottom of the page to see older content this can create an issue for the search engine spiders. If you have a lot of content then the spiders will have to crawl through all of these pages to get to your earlier content. In some cases they may actually stop after a certain number.

To solve this issue there is a plugin you can install called Pagerfix which makes your pagination look like this:

This provides far more links to the deeper content for the search engines to follow and so makes it easier for them to find it.

Related Posts

Linking to related posts is a great way to of increasing your WordPress SEO capabilities, as with the pagination plugin above it also helps to get your other content indexed by the search engines. Linking to articles of a similar nature will help to build the relevancy of your post too. There is once again a bunch of plugins that will perform this task admirably, my personal favourite is YARPP. It searches through your posts database to find posts around the same subject and adds links to them at the end of your post.

These are just some of the ways you can make your WordPress blog more SEO compliant (I feel another series coming!). They are quick, easy and relatively painless to implement and can provide you with real benefits. Maybe next time I will look a little deeper into how WordPress functions at a core level and see what SEO improvements could be made there.

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IMRG – Key Trends in Ecommerce and Multi Channel Retailing

Meltwater Group – Social Media Listening Platforms

Prodoto – Lifestyle Imagery and 360 degree Photography

The Managing Director of WMpS, Mike Anderson, will also be speaking on how to turn your browsing online customers into buying online customers. The whole event is focused on giving top retailers the information they want on the topics that matter, so we’re expecting lots of questions, comments and thought provoking ideas to come out of the afternoon. Look out for my post-event review for these!

For more information on any of our events, or if you would like to request an event in your area then feel free to contact us.

Whenever you tweet from the web based service and a number of Twitter clients, you’ll also be prompted with a drop down box for your location.  You can either choose a location or add your own.  By entering your location correctly, Twitter adds your info to a stream around that location.  If you’re using Foursquare or Gowalla, your location will be automatically added to your check in tweets, so it will be easier for your followers on both these location services and Twitter to find you.  You can also make use of the functionality by searching your location to find out what’s happening around you.

Why Haven’t I Heard About It?

Unfortunately, Twitter launched their location service at possibly the worst time.  Ever since the 2010 World Cup began, Twitter has been plagued with downtime due to a nasty combination of increased traffic and system tweaks.  While Twitter is working to accommodate the extra downtime and prevent it from happening again, they’re also making it worse.  The new location system isn’t helping as it creates even more demand on Twitter’s servers.  This means that it hasn’t yet been rolled out internationally even though their scheduled dates for it have come and gone.  They’ve also delayed their demand for the universal switch to OAuth, Twitter’s preferred authentication service, due to the increased downtime.  Using OAuth, third party services simply won’t work if Twitter is down.

Despite Twitter Places’s recent launch, there has been very little buzz about it.  Perhaps that’s down to the lack of API support, since developers can’t use the location data for anything useful yet.  This is promised for the future, but while it’s still withheld, little new can come of the information, and no one seems particularly excited about tagging their tweets with their location.

Now that the World Cup fever has ended and much of the downtime should be over, Twitter Places may receive a bit more attention.

Barriers to Adoption

Quite simply, many people on Twitter just don’t want to share their location with all of their followers and friends.  If you’re interested in being trackable constantly, there are already social networks to help satisfy that need.  So while some may be interested in broadcasting their location along with their tweets, others will simply ignore the feature.  After all, people have used Twitter and Facebook feeds to rob others’ houses, simply by noting the vast number of people who proclaim that they’ve gone away from home; is it the wisest decision to make that information available to the public all the time?  Twitter is even less secure than Facebook.

Conversely, Twitter Places could be very useful in certain situations, like special events.  If you can tag your tweet with a location of a conference, it could replace the need for the hashtag, and therefore free up valuable characters for more informative updates.  Moreover, conferences are excellent places for networking.  It’s likely that their attendees would, at least in this instance, appreciate the ability to find one another and make that rumoured meeting between internet contacts happen.

What seems definite is that Twitter Places won’t really be a success until third parties – or Twitter itself – step in and make the functionality truly useful.  If it does little, few people will be inclined to add in the extra step to their tweets, given that it strips away another layer of privacy from our every day lives.  Without a real purpose, or at least a game like Foursquare offers, Twitter Places will likely remain under the radar for most users of the service.