Social media reaction to the World Cup final!

You don’t have to be the biggest football fan in the world to realise the 2014 World Cup was one of the biggest events ever on Social Media. Many brands spent millions upon millions on their advertising campaigns on Social Media for the World Cup, some successful, some not so. But how did social media react to the World Cup final? This is how Twitter reacted when Mario Gotze scored the winner!

#WorldCupFinal: replay #GER v #ARG again on Twitter with our #animap LINK: http://t.co/MY2iwsQM7t pic.twitter.com/TJAWEhIfwG

— Twitter Data (@TwitterData) July 14, 2014

You would of had to be living under a rock for the past 24 hours to of not heard that Germany are world champions again! Many German brands jumped on this as soon as it happened as they saw it was a great time to post. Here is our favourite!

The best extra weight we’ve ever carried! pic.twitter.com/qaknvITdGy

— Lufthansa (@lufthansa) July 13, 2014

 

 

As you can see, this tweet has over 13,000 retweets! Pretty remarkable isn’t it? Other big brands such as Audi, Mercedes-Benz came up with some pretty cool visual designs which you can see below. However their tweets haven’t been as successful as the Lufthansa airline tweet!

The 4th Star For #GER. pic.twitter.com/CRy4DQ4mcV

— Mercedes-Benz (@MercedesBenz) July 13, 2014

#quattro #GER #weltmeister via @AudiFrance pic.twitter.com/GsFzwuA5le

— AUDI AG (@Audi_Online) July 13, 2014

But what social media records were broken during the whole course of this World Cup? Well for starters, the Brazil vs Germany game was tweeted about 36.1 MILLION times! Astonishing right? Well, how about this then… When Germany won the World Cup yesterday, there was 618,725 tweets EVERY MINUTE! Records are there to be broken and this World Cup has done that! What was your favourite World Cup marketing campaign? Tell us in the comments below!

You want traffic for your website…here are some tips!

We all want to generate more traffic. Here’s the know how to get more traffic, and fast.  Follow these three tips.

Forum marketing

Know your niche, and then sign yourself up!

If you find forums specific to your niche, you will find the like-minded, and then finally reach your target demographic. This can be a high ROI (return on investment) strategy.  Respected bloggers and net savvy forum users are an influential audience. Impress this lot of sharp surfers and they can help spread your content far and wide.  It only works if you actually add value to the forum you are using. Know your niche topic well, and remember that nobody wants to see content regurgitation!

Be specific and focus on a around 5-10 forums that will be worth your time. Follow the criteria below:

• Look for forums that have at least 1,000 members and 10,000 posts
• Make sure the forum gets at least ten to fifteen new posts on a daily basis
• Ignore forums that are overrun by spam, always be vigilant
• Avoid forums hosted by your direct competitors

Blog commenting

This is can be far more lucrative than you imagine- if carried out correctly. Follow the same principles as forum marketing.  Again, know your niche and don’t be repetitive. Remember your audience at all times and share valid, insightful observations.  Growing your online credibility will then automatically add value to your presented opinion or stance on any given topic.   Have fun, be inquisitive and create activity through stimulating conversation.

You must remember that your comment layout needs to include your name, email, and website!

Viral content buzz

Share your content to all your social media platforms. There are great sites to generate traffic – for free! Try Viral content buzz, it’s proven to be an effective platform. Especially for bloggers, one of the most significant areas of growth comes from Pinterest traffic.

This is the kind of traffic you want to get stuck into….take note of these tips and your website will be jam packed in no time!

LinkedIn New Profile Update

Looks familiar doesn’t it?

 

 

LinkedIn has rolled out it’s new profile redesign update to it’s premium users and it has striking similarities to Twitter’s new profile look. However, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing! As a result of the update, premium users now have the opportunity to choose their own cover photo. This can either be their own or they can use the header images LinkedIn provided. Pretty cool eh? Now LinkedIn profiles look a lot more visually appealing!  The only bad news is that non-premium users will have to play the waiting game as it will be a few months till they can have cover photos!

 

 

Whilst this is all great news that LinkedIn has made attempts to make their users profiles look a bit more appealing, the downside is that it comes at a cost. This cost is slightly lower now as a result of LinkedIn introducing a new, cheaper membership option called “Premium Spotlight”. However, the issue still remains, many users will feel they are paying for an update which you can get for free on different social networks.

What do you think of the new update? Love it or hate it?  And are you tempted to buy premium spotlight? Tell us your thoughts in the comments section below!

The Rise Of Pinterest

One of the next upcoming social networks in 2014? Absolutely not! It is one of THE most popular social networks. Ranked fourth most popular social network and valued at $3.8 million, Pinterest is not one of those up and coming social networks, it is part of the elite now! But after only being created a few years ago, how has it progressed so much in such a short space of time? 2014 is also being touted to be the “photo year” and with imagine sharing sites becoming more popular such as Instagram and Youtube, Pinterest is leading the charge!  

Pinterest is a different type of social network compared to Facebook and Twitter, it is visually based but it is different than other visually based sites such as Instagram, Flickr. Pinterest allows users to post photo’s, videos and gifs to collections, also known as Pinboards. Also if users find a pin posted by another user, they can pin it to their wall, essentially like a retweet. Fancy yourself as a bit of a jet setter who loves a bit of good food? Most popular pins include tasty food and places to travel so if you’re a fan of it, Pinterest is for you!

$500 million. That’s how much revenue Pinterest could generate from placing ads on their site as soon as 2016 according to Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Securities.  Imagine what you could do with $500 million!  You could buy 2.5 billion Freddo’s, 6 Cristiano Ronaldo’s, the list could go on and on! However in all seriousness, it would be a wise decision to do so, users on Facebook and Twitter have came to tolerate advertisements on their timelines so it is likely that Pinterest users over time would do the same. One advantage Pinterest has over Twitter is that Pinterest allows you to create business accounts unlike Twitter where it is the same type of account for all. Is your business is in the catering industry? It would be recommended to set up an account on Pinterest as cooking and dining makes up 66% of activity on the site!

But what is in store in the next year for Pinterest? After the progress they’ve made in the past couple of years, would it be right to assume that Pinterest this year will overtake LinkedIn in terms of popularity and users? Will they become the 3rd most popular social network or is too soon for them? Whatever happens, Pinterest won’t be gone anytime soon! 

The Best Brands On Snapchat!

16 Handles was the first brand to start a marketing campaign on Snapchat in January 2013, which at the time was groundbreaking. This campaign involved sending a Snapchat image of yourself tasting yogurt on-site to the company’s Snapchat account. As a result of doing this, 16 Handles would then automatically send a Snapchat image of a coupon back to your account. Finally, you would have to wait to open the snap containing the coupon until you were at the register and ready to redeem it — because when the image was opened, it would automatically delete itself 10 seconds later.  

This is who we think our top brands are on Snapchat! Do you think any brands are missing? Tell us which ones!

14 Facebook Facts For 2014

Total number of Facebook users – 1.26 billion

The country with the most active Facebook users – Canada

Percentage increase in negative Facebook posts when it rains – 1.16%

Number of Facebook messages sent daily – 10 billion

Wall Street estimated value of each Facebook user – £76

Total number of Facebook group users – 500 million

Amount Facebook reportedly offered to buy SnapChat for – $3 billion

Top U.S. check-in was Disneyland at Anaheim in California

 

67% of all American internet users use Facebook. In the UK it is 82%

The number one life event reported by Facebook users is “adding a relationship”

On average, 40 pages are liked per user

66% of of total social media sharing is from the Facebook iPhone app

Average number of photo’s uploaded per Facebook user – 217

Number of Facebook 10th birthday “Look back” videos rendered – 720 million

Justin Bieber Vs Social Media

 Arguably one of the most successful pop artists of all time?

No scrap that, undoubtedly one of the most successful pop artists of all time.

Like him or not, Justin Bieber has it down to a T! I’m not particularly interested in what he does in strip clubs, fights with paparazzi, or his next inexplicable tattoo, what I am interested in is his influence online, and why he has such a vast and remarkable following.

Bieber [aged 20] really is the ‘jack of all trades’ with a complete arsenal of talents, away from the singer/song writer we see on stage. The skateboarding, slam dunking, Rubix cube solving, guitar playing pianist began his virtual takeover of the world 7 years ago when he uploaded a cover of NeYo’s ‘So Sick’ on to YouTube. 7 years later, that very same video now has just shy of 7 million views. As more and more of these videos were being uploaded, Bieber started to use Social Media as a real base for his success.

The way Justin used social media was really quite remarkable in his early years. He built up a following, an army, now formally known as ‘Beliebers’ of people that believed in him, that trusted him and that wanted to be part of his journey, and oh boy were they part of it.

Shopping malls, Amusement parks, Café’s, in fact, anything public was an absolutely no go for Bieber now. He could not leave the house without getting ambushed by ‘Beliebers’. Why? Bieber used Twitter to let his fans know where we was, what he was doing and where he was heading. Small events, radio stations, public venues, parks, schools, anywhere Bieber was, he let his fans know.
Don’t believe me? Check it out in his film ‘Never Say Never’.

2008 saw Global superstar Usher and talent manager Scooter Braun discovered Bieber and wanted to meet with him urgently. Within weeks, Bieber was signed to Raymond Braun Media Group.  And the rest….Well, you know the know the rest.

Why smartphones & social media are the perfect combination

Social Media is evolving and part of that evolution is mobile use. Millions and millions use Social Media on their mobile every month with Facebook being the most popular with Twitter in second place.  The rise of Social Media and smartphones have went hand in hand with each other and have been majorly successful in the past couple of years.

Here’s a mind blowing fact for you, 751 million mobile users access Facebook every month! Want another interesting fact? Sure you do! Mobile now generates 30% of its ad revenue up from 23% at the end of 2012!  We’ll be generous and give you another fact, 4.2 billion people access social media sites via mobile devices. These facts just reiterate that use of  mobile on Social Media is constantly becoming bigger and bigger by the day.

But how have businesses used social media mobile apps to their potential? Here is a fantastic, inventive idea from NYC-based yogurt shop 16 Handles who ran a promotion using Snapchat. First, they asked customers to take a Snapchat image of themselves eating one of their yogurts on site and send it to the company’s Snapchat account. Then the company automatically sent a Snapchat image of a discount coupon back to the user’s account. Finally, the user would have to wait to open the snap containing the discount coupon until he or she was at the register and ready to redeem it, because once the image is opened it automatically deletes itself 10 seconds later. This was a hugely successful campaign and it wouldn’t be surprising seeing other businesses doing a Social Media campaign through Snapchat.

Personal Branding

How are you representing yourself online?

Scary to think isn’t it, that even though you’re sitting behind a screen, the WHOLE world can see you. Boys, Girls, remember when you used to scream and shout and throw your Macs, Laptops and iPhone’s out of the pram when your Mom used to try and sneak up on you, or wouldn’t give you your ‘personal space’ when you were online.
They wanted to know everything, right?
Who you were talking to, what you were saying?
For me, it was, “Who’s that, Why are they doing that, Where are they going, Are they your age, How do you know her, Does he still play football, Does his Mom still go weight-watchers, Is….” MOM! STOP!

Sound familiar guys?

What you don’t realize is that your Mom, in that instance, however critical, or “nosey” she may seem, shares similar characteristics to your first employer.
Don’t think they don’t look at what you’re doing online, because, trust me, they do.

Those plastic beer cups on the top of your head on Facebook, those shorts around your ankles in the middle of the street on Twitter, those t-shirts, bras and god knows what else being swung around your head in the early hours of the morning on Instagram.

Oh yeah, they see it.

I’m not saying have a good time. Have an amazing time. Swing whatever you like around your head. But probably not a good idea to upload it on the internet for everyone to see, eh? Because, let’s face it, you wouldn’t do it on your interview day would you? Well… I guess it depends what job you’re after I suppose!

We can talk about your KLOUT score, we can go into massive detail on your digital influence on the world, but that’s not really necessary right now. Your profile is yours, you can do whatever you please, but think, the world is watching you.

Extra tip: Do you want to know what any anonymous user is able to see of your profiles? Open an incognito window and search your name on Google. All the information you can see here, could be seen by anyone including potential employers, clients, etc.!

By Mitch Perry 

LinkedIn for Businesses: Workshop

Using LinkedIn for Business – Birmingham

Using live examples on LinkedIn, the LinkedIn for Business workshop in Birmingham is designed to ensure that you are best placed to use the power and opportunities of LinkedIn for you and your business, giving you the know-how to market yourself, your company and services, and develop prospects and new business through it as well as connecting with your current clients.

Delivered by the No1 LinkedIn Trainer and Strategist – Mark Hamilton-Taylor

Mark is the only trainer in the UK to build academic courses on LinkedIn and Social Media. Invited to Westminster – House of Commons to discuss his trade. He has created a proven formula to increase business for small to large/global organisations.

Why is this training different or unique?

Whilst there are many LinkedIn and Social Media Trainers, Mark reputation precedes him, as he is the only person that can guarantee results. His training is based on aligning your specific/personal goals/aims and applying a defined strategy that actually works. Backed up by money back guarantee!

We have a range of case studies that we can share with you, including

1. £4.8m revenue for a client in seven months, cost of business 0.37%
2. £25,000.00 order after 24hrs of attending our workshops
3. No1 Google Ranking within 1 hour of our training
4. Clients have gained customers, relationships and business clients worldwide.
5. Doubled a £3m buisness in less than 18months

Just to mention a few…

Clients that have benefited from our services:

It is designed for anyone looking to use LinkedIn more effectively and to ensure that you are best placed to use the power and opportunities of LinkedIn for you and your business. Giving you the know-how to market yourself/organisation, increase your visibility & reputation and most importantly develop new business from it.

The types of people who attend include business owners, sales managers / members of the sales team, marketing managers. Anyone interested in finding out how best to use their profile and the tools LinkedIn offers to identify and approach new clients, create new business opportunities and promote themselves to a UK network of 14m professionals and a worldwide audience in excess of 260m.

You will acheive:

• Key Concepts and settings on LinkedIn to get the most out of it

• Creating a Profile which will market, attract and sell for you and your business/organisation

• Targeting prospects using the Advanced Search and other tools

• How to best connect with people (and how not to)

• Tools on LinkedIn to market and promote you, your products / services & your business

• Using Groups effectively as an interaction and targeting tool

• LinkedIn Rich Media making you stand out more

• Developing and Using your Company Pages to best effect

• Integrating, Coordinating and Best practice

… and many more key areas …

 What you will take away:

• A linkedIn proven formula designed specifically for your business
• A regular routine to implement immediatley
• A proven concept, so no need for cold calling EVER!
• How to gain 5 to 10 quality leads per week
• A range of high quality business contacts
• Ranking in the top 5 of your industry on LInkedIn

 Further details can be found at: http://bit.ly/O68VOU

The Training is priced at £295.00 but there is an earlybird offer with over 50% saving. Money back guarantee! 

Pay just £10.00 on Eventbrite to secure your place…

(The £10.00 is fully refundable if the places are gone)

E&OE