Google introduces ‘+1’ buttons on paid and organic search results

The world of search marketing and social media is constantly changing.  Google has recently announced that it is now attempting to make search more social by introducing ‘+1’ buttons on both paid and organic search results. The ‘+1’ button has already been in operation in the US for several months now. The feature goes global today.

Analysts have predicted that the Google ‘+1’ will eventually be merged into Google’s larger social project - Google +. Google ‘+1’ will become the equivalent of Facebook ‘like’ buttons. The ‘+1’ project began in March and released the button for webmasters to add to their website earlier this month. Since then, Google has added ‘+1’ button to product pages and blogger widgets. The ‘+1’ counts have also been localised in some instances and have appeared in search results. With the introduction of ‘+1’, Google and Facebook are turning direct rivals. Recent reports from ComScore state that Google now has a whopping one billion users every month! Facebook is not far behind with over 700 million active users globally.

Developers and webmasters interested in adding the ‘+1’ button to their websites may refer to Google’s online guide. If you still need further help, you may choose to contact us. At Pipon Solutions, we endeavour to stay on top of the latest happenings in the world of paid search and SEO.

UK Online Spending Increases Again

For those of us in the digital marketing world, it is no secret that online is the place to be to sell your products.  This view has, once again, been supported by a latest report on trends in the online industry.

In latest figures released in a report by the Interactive Media in Retail group, online spending increased by 18% in the month of May compared to the same time a year before.  Much of this has been credited to the retail and alcohol industries, both of whom saw significant gains during the month in question.  According to the study, £5.3 billion was spent alone on the retail industry whilst online liquor sales increased by 25% in May compared to the previous year.

It is therefore clear that online sales continue to dominate certain industries and that it is ever more important for businesses, in particular retailers, to take advantage of this trend whilst it is at its peak.  It should be noted, however, that marketing and selling products online is not always as easy as it seems and that a few golden rules should always be followed to ensure that you are getting a return on your online investment.

Firstly, it is important that you have a basic search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy in place in order to increase natural traffic to your website.  With the majority of internet users using search engines such as Google to find their products it is imperative that your online campaign addresses this.

To coincide with your SEO campaign it is also important that a pay per click advertising campaign, however small, is conducted.  PPC will help you get quick leads, particularly since SEO is a long term strategy that can take months to generate a suitable ROI.

And lastly, to build trust with your online customers you have to ensure that as much product information as possible is provided on your website.  Due to the fact that your customers do not get to interact with you as much as they could if they were buying your products in person, it is important to give them as much detail as possible about what your product offers and the benefits it will give. This can be achieved through image and video marketing for your products.

At Pipon Solutions we are experts in conducting online marketing campaigns to ensure that your business does not miss out on the increases in online sales.  For more information about our digital marketing packages or for more information about how to optimise your online campaigns, feel free to contact us or visit or blog.

Youtube gives bloggers a boost

Youtube is the world’s largest video sharing website, with more than 2 billion views a day and 24 hours of videos uploaded every minute.  It is now offering its loyal users three new features – a logoless player, HD preview images and a new segment – ‘As seen on’.  This post will highlight these new features and assess what it means for the digital marketing world.  

Logoless player: Now you can remove that Youtube logo at the bottom-right of embedded videos. This move will definitely benefit digital marketers and corporate users who may wish to use Youtube videos on presentations and blogs. You just need to add this code (without quotes) at the end of the video – “?modestbranding=1”.

HD Preview: Currently, the preview image displayed shows only a snapshot of the low quality video. No matter how high quality the video was when you uploaded it, the preview image remained the same. From now on, anyone who uploads a video with 480p or higher resolution will have their HD image as a preview.  

“As seen on” pages: Youtube is coming out with “As seen on” pages – pages that show a playlist compiled out of the content that has been posted on a given site over a period of time. This feature will definitely be a boost for dedicated bloggers, whose loyal readers might prefer previewing videos posted on the Youtube website itself.


It will come as no surprise that these three new features will be seen as an advantage by the large numbers of businesses and digital marketers who, like Pipon, have been using YouTube extensively to market products and interact with customers.  For more information on these features and the social media marketing packages that we can offer at Pipon Solutions please feel free to contact us.  

PPC tips you need to know

As a marketer looking to promote your products through paid search, you will need to understand the workings on Pay-per-click (PPC) first. At Pipon Solutions, we’ve always focused on getting our paid search strategies right. As a step in this direction, we’ve outlined some key pointers for you to fine tune your PPC strategy.

Don’t bid on broad keywords: Broad keywords are not only too generic, they are also too competitive. In paid search, you will be much better off setting narrow or targeted keywords such as ‘XYZ tubeless tyres’ (including brand names) or ‘clear glass computer desks’ (being very specific).

Test your ad copy: PPC advertising is very similar to traditional advertising wherein you have to compete for eyeballs with other competitors. Hence it is very essential that you use the right ad copy to attract your potential customers. Use at least two variations within each ad group. When you perform such experiments, you will learn which ad copy works better. You will then be able to optimise your future ad campaigns better.

Don’t use advanced settings without adequate data: Analyse data before using advanced settings such as display network, enhanced CPC and so on. Do not use these features unless you understand their workings correctly.

At Pipon Solutions we have experience in building successful PPC campaigns that generate a solid ROI for small to medium sized businesses.  For more information about our PPC strategies please feel free to contact us, or keep visiting this blog for more PPC tips and techniques.  

Tips on landing page optimisation

You generally have less than six seconds to sell your services to potential customers on your landing page. This is especially true for PPC campaigns where the end user clicks on your link looking for something specific. So, how do you ensure you present the best possible design?

• ·        Add assurances: This is especially true if you have ‘call to action’ buttons in your landing page. It is also important to put trust icons next to your call to action buttons so that customers feel assured. These trust icons could be anything ranging from industry awards to Norton Security logos.
• ·        Keep it simple: The old adage ‘the simpler the better’ still stands good today. You will be much better off keeping only a single call to action button on your landing page. All the other information should focus on leading the user to click on that button.
• ·         Pre-populate the first field in your form: If your landing page has a form to be filled up, pre-populating the first field can work wonders. Studies have shown that this does tend to increase the conversion rates.
• ·         Ensure your subject image looks at the call to action: Research has shown that eyeballs usually tend to follow where the subject image looks at. So make sure the person in the image looks directly at the call to action text.
• ·         Include important testimonials: Testimonials present a great way to build trust in the mind of the potential consumer. So, why not use the landing page itself to build trust.  

At Pipon Solutions we’ve endeavoured to help our customers optimise their PPC campaigns to ensure higher ROI. Take a look at our services and get in touch with us if you would like to learn more.

Google launches Instant Pages

Digital marketers last week waited in anticipation of recent innovations to Google at the Inside Search event in Mountain View, California.  What we received was yet another innovative feature to the Google repertoire – Google Instant Pages. 


Executives at Google claim that this new Chrome-only feature will possibly reduce search times by 2 to 5 seconds. This will work by pre-loading the top two search results. Engineers at Google are becoming more confident of Google’s ability to answer queries exactly. With the launch of this feature, the company in fact is actually betting on its ability to predict what you are looking for.

Analysts point out to the fact that in an attempt to speed up search by pre-loading the top results, the other results in the page could take longer to load. Pre-rendering pages will also waste precious bandwidth if the user goes on to click links at the bottom of the page.

So how will this news affect web site owners who want to know how many times their webpage has actually been viewed? This new feature will definitely affect web analytics data. Google is actually advising web developers to look into the page visibility API, a draft specification that provides developers with a way to determine the visibility of a specific web page.

At Pipon Solutions, we have always made it a point to stay on top of the latest happenings in the world of Search. We’ve made it a point to incorporate necessary changes to our SEO strategy in order to accommodate this structural change in search.

Measure your social media influence on Empire Avenue

When a business begins to embark on a social media campaign, it can difficult to look for niche and exciting social media avenues through which to engage with your clientele.  


For this reason some of the world's top brands are starting to invest time on the social media exchange Empire Avenue. Empire Avenue allows players to buy and sell virtual money (eaves) in another person or brand. Empire Avenue’s user base is growing rapidly and the game helps players monitor their social influence and possibly make business connections that boost their bottom line profits.

Some of the world’s top brands such as Intel, AT&T, Microsoft, Ford, Audi and Toyota have already invested time in Empire Avenue and are quickly rising up on the leader board – a list that compares the muscle power of the account holders on social media as a whole. 


So how does Empire Avenue determine its scoring? According to executives at the company, your score depends on activity, audience and interaction. In other words, your score on Empire Avenue is a function of what you do on social media, how much you do of it, who is listening and how are people engaging with you.

So what are the potential benefits of joining Empire Avenue? It definitely provides you the opportunity to interact with businesses, brands and potential consumers around the world. Furthermore, on Empire Avenue, all that matters is the value of your virtual stock. As long as you keep your ‘shareholders’ happy, they would probably recommend your stock to others. Hence, your brand equity would rise and so would brand recall.

At Pipon Solutions we are constantly on the lookout for ways to better our clients’ social media presence and identity and we have been impressed with what Empire Avenue has to offer. We are still, however, interested in seeing how others have found this service.  Do you use Empire Avenue?  And how have you found it? 


For further information about Pipon Solutions social media packages, or our SEO/PPC strategies, please feel free to contact us.  

Link building skills you need

As every established digital marketer knows, link building is one of the most essential components of effective Search Engine Optimization (SEO).  As a leading SEO company, we here at Pipon Solutions have outlined some of the most vital skills that are needed in order to polish up your link building techniques, some which have been outlined below:

Familiarity of internet culture: Link building is made a lot easier if you are consistently up to date with what is happening in the digital world.  For example the daily reading of social media sites such as reddit, and engaging with people on twitter, helps you keep familiar with internet culture and keep your eye on the best places on the net to establish contacts and post/request links.  

Selling skills: Reaching out to people through the internet is not very different from cold calling or business development. Hence, sharpen your selling skills to become more effective at link building.

Analytical skills: A link builder should have the basic understanding of data analysis to conduct competitive link analysis, perform research and break down large sets of complex data into simpler forms.

Creative skills: SEO is gradually moving closer to traditional marketing, where creativity is an essential requirement. Creativity cannot be taught, but every person is creative to a certain extent. Hence, it is important that you bring out those inherent creative skills to help you build links.

Perseverance: This in often an understated and underestimated characteristic that people tend to overlook. Link building is often hard manual labour and it helps if you are the sort of person that never gives up.

Technical skills: Some of the best link builders are those with web development experience.  Although we all cannot have these IT skills, some of the basic technical skills that you can develop are –

• ·         Intermediate knowledge of (X)HTML/CSS
• ·         A very basic understanding of at least one modern programming language
• ·         How to build agile tools in Google Docs
• ·         Ability to upload files via FTP

Pipon Solutions, has, over the years, built effective link building strategies as part of our SEO packages and services. We have taken the time to develop an effective link building strategy designed to make your website more accessible.  Contact us for more information about our link building strategies or check our blog for further updates on effective link building skills.    

Facebook set for $ 100 billion IPO?

The world’s largest social network, Facebook, is all set to file for its IPO. The surprising news, however, is that it is supposed to be valued at over $100 billion, CNBC reports.

Goldman Sachs is supposed to be the frontrunner to lead the listing, which is supposed to be completed in the early months of 2012. Earlier this year, Goldman Sachs invested $450 million, valuing the company at $50 billion.

Facebook is the largest social media network of its kind with over 700 million user accounts globally. But sceptical financial analysts point out to the fact that, in May, Facebook lost around 6 million users in North America and 100,000 users in Britain. Even globally, it only grew by around 12 million user accounts in May, as opposed to 14 million in April. Add to this the fact that Facebook hasn’t been able to penetrate into Chinese markets, with the Chinese internet user base touching 450 million.

Earlier this year, social networks Linkedin and Zynga successfully pulled off their IPOs and Groupon has recently sought a valuation of over $20 billion. Which brings us back to the question – is Facebook really worth $100 billion? As savvy digital marketers, what do you think? Is this the next tech bubble?

At Pipon Solutions, we keenly watch the dynamic Social Media space because we want to provide the best possible social media management service to our clients. Have a look at our services and do get in touch with us.

The Rise in Local and Mobile Search

Over the past few years, the world of digital marketing has undergone some significant changes.  With breakthroughs in technology allowing advertisers to better target their audiences on the platforms they feel most comfortable in using, it is no surprise that more and more advertisers are increasing their search budgets.  The key question, however, is where are they spending this money?

According to a recent study, the answer to this question is local and mobile search.  The 5th annual Search Engine Marketing Benchmark Report has found that the proportion of paid search marketers who say that they are investing in mobile search has doubled from 8% to 16% over the past year.  A further 45% have said that they are planning to invest in mobile search in the future.  The report was based on a survey of more than 600 advertisers and agencies and also found an increase in the use of local search, up from 27% last year.

With mobile and local search therefore witnessing more widespread use it is becoming more important than ever that businesses begin to tap into the market.  The benefits of spending more money on both are clearly evident.  With local search, for example, businesses are not only given a greater chance to better target their audiences but also the chance to offer a more personalised service for their dedicated clientele.

Furthermore, with the worldwide use of smartphones increasing rapidly, the potential to reach customers through their mobile phones is one that cannot be ignored.  While a search on a desktop might indicate an interest in a business or product, those searching on their mobiles are more than likely out and about and looking for immediate information - such as store information.

With technology around local and mobile search improving by the minute, the findings in the report are not that surprising.  What is potentially more surprising is the continued nervousness by some about utilizing both options.

For more information about the use of local and mobile search please feel free to visit our website and read some of our earlier posts.  If you would like more detailed guidance on your local and mobile search campaigns please contact Pipon Solutions.

Tips to get more natural links

Do you need more ‘natural’ links to your website to promote your search engine rankings? Link building is an essential component of any SEO campaign and through using the following simple techniques you can ensure that your website is fully optimised for natural search engine rankings.  

Email signatures are a great way to naturally show people your website and promote the unique content in it. Most of the people you usually converse with through emails may not even know that you have a website. You may choose to send a friendly and helpful email to your friends and acquaintances with a signature linking to your website. You can do this with html code or you may also choose to use wisestamp – a plugin that allows you to create a graphical signature including your social media icons as well as links to your website. It works with a variety of email clients such as gmail, yahoo, AOL and hotmail in Chrome, Firefox and Safari web browsers.

Use links on your social media profiles. Many users forget to add links to their websites on their social media pages such as Twitter, Linkedin, Facebook and other networks. Twitter and Facebook allow you to add URLs to your pages and Linkedin allows you to add anchor text. Make sure to add links on other social networks too and watch incoming traffic to your website increase from these avenues.

Use a badge for your website. Create a nice little badge to help fans of your website share it with others. 

Furthermore, you should make it easy to link to specific pieces of content by using html embeded code for infographics or videos and simple links at the end of each article that call on readers to "like" your posts and share the content with others.  

Search engine optimization is a difficult task without a solid accompanying link building strategy.  As a leading SEO company Pipon Solutions uses a number of advanced link building methods to help you get on the right books search engines that value natural links to your website. For more information on link building why not view our earlier posts on the topic or contact us for more details.  

How to use social media to boost local search results

Social Media has become an imperative tool in the world of digital marketing. Gone are the days of boring traditional advertising on huge billboards or print media. Marketers and advertisers have woken up to the power of social media, where carefully constructed campaigns on shoestring budgets can be hugely effective. With the right social media strategy, you can engage your customers directly, help your advertising go viral and ‘humanise’ your brand by giving it a personality of its own.

The first step in creating an effective social media strategy is to identify the key drivers of your campaign. Choose which of the following sites are best suited to your overall strategy – Groupon, Twitter, Facebook, Youtube and Yelp. You may choose some, or all, depending on your budget and availability of time. If you are managing a national brand, it is important to have your locations rank prominently in location-specific searches. 


This strategy is especially important for multi-location businesses such as restaurants, retail and hotel chains. A social media strategy that focuses on prominently displaying the business’ locations is essential for search engine optimization since search engines such as Google focus on prominence as a primary factor in local search rankings. Listed below are a few pointers on how to improve your local search results:

·         Build Facebook fan pages: Analysts estimate that up to forty percent of Facebook users follow a brand and more than fifty percent of these users will go on to buy or consume that brand. Facebook ‘likes’ are a speed marketing tool that help your brand go viral by delivering essential messages to news feeds.

·         Use Twitter to engage potential customers: Social media analysts estimate that up to one in four twitter users follow a brand, and an approximate 67% of those followers will end up purchasing that brand.

·         Encourage reviews and ratings of your products: Sites such as Yelp may help you promote ratings and reviews of your company. Yelp users wrote 6 million reviews in 2010, and that figure is bound to go up to 9 million in 2011. Reviews and ratings help customers realise what others think about a product or service.

·         Reward customers for sharing information: Provide “Share for rewards” programs to encourage consumers share offers with their friends via social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter in exchange for discounts on products or services.

·         Use Groupon to promote deals: Group buying sites such as Groupon or LivingSocial provide an easy way of promoting deals via huge subscriber bases without spending much money on advertising.

·         Embed Youtube videos: One way to put a human face on your business is to embed Youtube videos in Google Place Pages, web pages and social profile pages.

These tips will help you streamline your social media marketing strategy and increase your return on investment, while increasing brand awareness. Pipon Solutions is engaged in providing SEO consulting services to clients, but are always interested in learning how you use social media to market your brand.  Have you found it effective?  And have you considered how your social media marketing campaign can boost local search results?  Learn more about social media on this blog or contact Pipon Solutions for more information.  

ShareThis study results provide key pointers

Studying the sharing habits of 300 million users across the internet, ShareThis has come up with a few interesting results. Analysts at Marketing Pilgrim and Techcrunch have tried to delve deeper into the results. This is what the summary looks like:

·         As much as 10% of website visits come from sharing

·         Sharing in particular accounts for 31% of referral traffic

·         On Twitter, shared links are clicked upon on an average 4.9 times each

·         The corresponding figures for Facebook and email are 4.3 and 1.7 respectively

·         Links that are re-shared lose popularity

·         Entertainment and shopping are two of the most popularly shared categories

·         Facebook accounts for 38% of all sharing referral traffic

·         Twitter and email follow with 17% each

·         As far as raw sharing (shared links that are not clicked) is concerned – Facebook carries 56%, email – 15% and Twitter – 8% respectively.

What are the lessons to be gained from these results?

·         Search still rules the roost – only 10% of website visits come from sharing. Do not neglect SEO!

·         Increase your footprint on Social Media, especially Twitter and Facebook.

·         If your company has got to do anything with entertainment and shopping – be happy!

Take a look at Pipon Solutions’ SEO and Social Media services. We are happy to offer a bouquet of services completely tailored to your needs and in line with your overall marketing strategies. At Pipon Solutions, we endeavour to work with you to help you realise your long term goals and reach your maximum potential.

The Growth of Online Display Advertising

The world of digital marketing has seen much change over the past few years, with the rise of social media platforms adding to the endless possibilities where one can advertise online.

With the recent announcements that display advertisements are now generating more revenue than search ads this year, many businesses are turning to this medium to reach potential customers and enhance their brand recognition.  When venturing into the world of display advertising, however, many people are unsure of where to go and who to use.

Research from a recent IDC report, however, may help in this matter.  It has emerged that Google has now become the largest online display advertiser, overtaking Yahoo for the first time in the first quarter of 2011. With 14.7% share of the US display ad market Google was the medium of choice for display advertisements, with Yahoo seeing its share fall from 13.6% to 12.3% over the last quarter.  Despite being in third place Facebook was the fastest growing platform for display advertisements, taking in a revenue of $238 million and establishing the site as the place for display advertisements on social media platforms.

Much of Google's growth in the display ad industry came from the large amount of small and medium businesses who used Google programmes such as AdWords.  Yahoo, on the other hand, saw much of their display ad revenue come from large consumer brands who spent their money on Yahoo owned properties rather than on a network.

As a leading digital marketing company Pipon Solutions has consistently used AdWords for our clients and have found it to be an easy and cost-effective medium to get advertisements onto the display network.  As a social media marketing company we have also seen the benefits of advertising on platforms such as Facebook and we can only see the social media display ads generating more revenue in the future.  Do you use display advertisements for your business?  And if so, how have these campaigns affected your ROI?

SEO strategies you must avoid

There are numerous proven SEO strategies out there that can take your website to the very top of search engine results pages (SERPS). But, you should, at all costs, not resort to ‘black-hat’ techniques to promote your website. There are also other seemingly ‘natural’ strategies and methods that you must avoid if you want your website to reach the top of natural search rankings:

·         Targeting your competitors’ keywords: If you are a small business owner and unsure as to which keywords you must use, you might be tempted to look into which keywords your competitors are using and copy those. Your competitors’ keywords might suit them because those keywords may fit into their overall marketing strategy. Just like you cannot simply copy somebody else’s marketing strategy, you cannot simply pick up someone else’s SEO keywords.

·         Using link building only for your homepage: You must devise link building techniques for the whole website, not only for your home page. This is because your home page will most probably be generic and will be more of an index. When a user searches for a specific item such as, for example, a black umbrella, you’d like him/her to land on the exact page selling black umbrellas, not on a generic page with links to pages selling umbrellas, rain coats and boots. Hence, you need to build keyword targeted links.

·       Creating pages just for the heck of it: With Google’s panda update, pages with multiple links to useless content will be punished severely. It is very important to remember that quality and not quantity is more essential as far as SEO is concerned, especially after Google’s recent updates.

·        Resorting to unnatural reciprocal linking: By now, you would have received thousands of emails asking you for links in exchange for links back. Participating in such schemes is bad practice and you will be penalised by search engines for following such practices.

·         Creating one domain after the other: If you are a small business owner and do not know the tricks of the trade, you might resort to starting up multiple domains for multiple requirements. SEO experts advise that you will be better off trying to focus your SEO efforts on one domain and getting it right. If you want to talk about a different topic, why don’t you open separate sections on the same website instead of starting up new websites?

As a leading SEO company Pipon Solutions offers comprehensive SEO packages to help you focus on what you need to focus on – your overall marketing goals and business strategies. Our SEO services are completely customised to your needs. We work with you right from the start to identify where your needs are and what we can do to help you get there. The whole idea is to understand your business better and develop apt SEO strategies that fit into your overall marketing plans. Contact us for more information, or look at some of our earlier posts for further advice on the top digital marketing strategies out there.  

Spending on Social Media Ads are Set to Hit the Roof

According to a recent Local Media Annual Forecast (2010 – 2015) by analysts at the advisory services company BIA/Kelsey, ad revenues for social media sites were set to rocket from $2.1 billion in 2010 to $8.3 billion in 2015. 

Display advertising continues to be the major source of advertising on these social media networks and is expected to draw in $7.7 billion in 2015 – up from $2.1 billion last year.  Other sources of social media advertising, such as promoted tweets on Twitter, currently generate negligible income but are forecast to become popular over the next few years and are projected to generate $600 million by2015. 

It is no surprise that Facebook currently tops the list of generating the most revenue from social media ads, with an eMarketer report last January stating that Facebook’s ad revenues had gone up to $1.86 billion.  As the most popular social network site Facebook has more display ad impressions than both Yahoo! and Google and it is predicted that their ad share as well as revenue will continue to increase. 

These figures show that over the next few years there will be increased advertiser spending in social media. For both small and big businesses, therefore, it is important to understand the social media landscape.  Questions such as where, when and how to advertise on social media networks will become increasingly pertinent as competitors continue to spend more and more in the area.  Keeping abreast of recent innovations in social media advertising and pioneering new social media advertisements could be the difference between a successful and unsuccessful social media campaign. 

Some of these questions have been answered on this blog before, however for more advice on this why not visit Pipon’s twitter and Facebook pages, or visit our website for more information.  

Britons Watch 11,000 Years of Video on the Internet Every Month

In what will be seen by digital marketing strategists as further proof of the benefits of online video advertising, it has been revealed that the British public has watched nearly 11,000 years of online video content in one month.

In data released by the Nielsen VideoCensus, which analysed the online behaviour of over 50,000 people, it was shown that 2.69million Britons watched 6.27billion minutes of streamed footage whilst either at work or at home.  This averages out at about 7 minutes of online videos a day which, although still far behind average records for TV usage, highlights the need for businesses to look at video advertisements as a great way to reach potential customers.  In the US alone, online video ad revenues increased from $324 million in 2006 to $1.4 billion in 2010, increasing by 344%.

It will also come as no surprise, especially for social media marketing companies, where the majority of internet users watch their online videos.  Social media sites continue to host the most content as nearly 2.79 billion minutes, equivalent to 5,300 years, of online videos were watched on YouTube - the largest video sharing site.  Two-thirds of all online streams were viewed on the Google-owned site, with Facebook contributing to high online viewership figures with 4.4 million users using the social media site to watch videos.

Although some argue that the main reason behind high online viewership is due to the fact that people are turning away from TV due to the amount of advertisements, other research has shown that viewers who are hit with heavier ad loads online have not been abandoning videos in the same way that some people thought they would.

It is therefore clear that revenues for online video advertisements will continue to grow in the future as more and more businesses begin to use it as a medium through which to connect with their customer base.

Join the discussion here at Pipon Solutions and tell us about your experiences of online video advertisements.  For more information about social media marketing and pay per click advertising, please visit our website.

Twitter to Integrate with iOS5?

According to rumours, Twitter is to be deeply integrated into the new Apple iOS5 operating system.  In a move that will delight social media enthusiasts who use Apple products the social media giant is to allow users to automatically gain access to twitter through the integration app, meaning that you will be able to access twitter without having to log in or manually add an account each time.

This will also be the same for apps like Mail, Contacts, YouTube and Camera which will also have extensive levels of Twitter integration.  This means that you can directly send tweets from your Camera app and also grab contact pictures if your contacts have twitter accounts.

Although an announcement on this has yet to be made, such a development will make life that much more easier for social media marketing companies like Pipon Solutions who want to build deeper twitter integration into their app experience.

Google acquires social analytics firm PostRank

Google beefed up its set of social-networking tools with the acquisition of PostRank, a firm that tries to make sense out of user data collected from Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites. PostRank aims to look at the top 20 social media sites in order to help companies understand and engage customers better by studying their behaviour online and responding to their needs. The Canadian start-up is also used by a variety of social media marketing companies in order to determine the effectiveness of their social media campaigns. 

Google will look to use the social media monitoring analytics of PostRank to provide its Adwords customers insights into how their campaigns are performing by monitoring discussions on social media websites. These capabilities will probably be added to Google Analytics. Google could also use the technology to help its own endeavour to move towards social search.

"We're always looking for new ways to measure and analyze data, and as social analytics become increasingly important for online businesses, we're excited to work with the PostRank team to make this data more actionable and accountable. They have developed an innovative approach to measuring web engagement, and we think they can help us improve our products for our users and advertisers," executives at Google said.

"We're proud of what we've accomplished, and we now look forward to working with Google's team to build more useful tools for measuring engagement online, and we'll be sure to share details on our progress in the coming months," PostRank’s website claims.

Further, PostRank executive Ilya Grigorik wrote in a blog post "Indeed, conversations online are an important signal for advertisers, publishers, developers and consumers—but today's tools only skim the surface of what we think is possible. We are extremely excited to join Google. We believe there is simply no better company on the web today that both understands the value of the engagement data we have been focusing on, and has the platform and reach to bring its benefits to the untold millions of daily, active Internet users."

Pipon Solutions uses specific Social Media Monitoring tools to provide valuable insight to clients regarding customer opinions.  More specifically, we use the critically acclaimed Sysomos' technology to provide customized and sophisticated research projects.  This allows our clients to manage their Social Media outlets more effectively to engage with customers at the right touch points, spot and combat any negative discussion quickly and measure the success of their efforts, saving time, money and energy in the process.  We thus only use trusted enterprise solutions that are reliable and functional.  Our clients appreciate our efforts in this direction.

As a leading social media company we have spent considerable time utilizing tools such as Sysomos for our social media management, yet we are interested to see how such tools have affected your social media campaigns.  Have they helped?  Or does the information they provide not have any relevance on your social media activity?  Finally, what affect do you think Google's acquisition of PostRank will have on other social media management tools?  Join the debate here at Pipon Solutions.  

How Can Social Media Help Your Business

The importance of social media for a business is a topic that has been discussed on this blog numerous times, however due to the somewhat chaotic nature of social media some businesses have yet to be convinced of the benefits and continue to ignore the potential advantages that social media can bring. 

For those skeptical about social media benefits, here is a list of the ways in which social media initiatives can help your business:

Building Value and Trust – The key advantage of social media is that it creates a link between a business and a customer like never before.  Through putting a human face to your business you not only become more reliable in the face of the consumer, but you are also able to develop closer ties to your customer and increase customer loyalty in the meantime. 

Brand Management – The introduction of social media has made brand management both a more challenging and rewarding task.  For example, any instance of bad PR that affects your business can be quickly challenged via social media platforms.  Responding to criticism of your services and products via social media is also beneficial and simple – for example a business can offer coupons and discounts to disaffected customers on a platform that is there for the world to see. 

Generating Revenue – Essentially, social media can be seen as a free online advertising platform.  If you have a new product in production or are about to launch a new service to your customers, you can announce this to thousands upon thousands of people through one simple tweet or Facebook update.  Instead of spending large amounts of money on traditional forms of online advertising, some of which are potentially useful like PPC, using social media platforms like Twitter to wisely advertise your products is both cost –effective and easy to do. 

Furthermore through using a social media platform to advertise a product you can ensure that only those customers who have expressed an interest in your brand are targeted, resulting in more targeted customers buying your products. 

Aiding Search Engine Optimisation - Lastly, what people say about your business or website has an impact on your website's performance in a search engine ranking list.  Google, for example, have confirmed that links shared through social media sites have a direct impact on rankings.  If your business has no social media presence at all then all the important SEO work that you may have done may not be that useful.  

It is therefore clear that with such benefits on offer social media is a must for any business looking to expand.  For more information on social media, or if you would like us to talk you through how we can manage your social media account, contact Pipon Solutions or visit our website. 

Google Chromebook – the future personal computer?

Google has finally unveiled two versions of the Chromebook – laptops based on the Chrome OS. According to Google, what makes these laptops interesting is not what they have but what they lack: heavy software programs, messy desktops and locally stored documents. 

According to Google the Chromebook is not really a laptop or a computer but rather a “computer-like object” that allows you to do “ everything on the web"  .The Chromebook has also been described as a "tweener" device, sitting between a smartphone, a netbook and a full-fledged laptop. Ray Valdes, an analyst at Gartner states that the "Chromebook is intended to be a better netbook; Web-optimized, lightweight, secure and easier to administer."

Google Chrome VP Sundar Pichai unveiled the first production Chromebooks with a 12-inch device from Samsung and an 11-inch one from Acer. Both use dual-core Intel processors, have all-day battery life, along with Wi-Fi and 3G support. Consumers may buy these as a one off purchase or with three year contracts. Google is also supposedly working on a Chromebox – a simple box-like device that works with existing keyboards, monitors and mice.

With the launch of the Chromebook the key question for digital marketers is what this will mean for both search engine optimisation and Pay Per Click advertising.  One advantage that comes to mind is the speed at which users will be able to search and surf the web: Google claim that the Chromebook will take eight seconds to switch on and this speed may result in more frequent usage of search engines whilst users are on the go.  

Will the Chromebook succeed in creating a niche for itself? Will it ultimately change the way we look at Personal Computing? And will Google market it well enough, as Apple did for its iPad? Join the debate here at Pipon Solutions.  

A new tech bubble brewing up?

The past month or so saw numerous IT companies and social media platforms lining up for their IPOs. Launched amidst much fanfare, Linkedin’s IPO received a warm reception. Linkedin is now publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange. The IPO itself was a great success by all counts as the stock proceeded to run up to nearly 100% in the first day of trading. Financial analysts observe that this hasn’t happened to a tech stock for quite a while now since the boom of the late 1990s. The markets clearly seem to have an appetite for tech stocks – at least for now.

Some analysts believe that Linkedin has been overvalued and figures inflated, given that it only had $243 million in revenues in 2010. Others point to the fact that Linkedin already has 100 million users who visit the site frequently, providing ample opportunities to monetise their frequent visits to the website. Linkedin has also changed the way recruitment is done, with most HR managers checking out profiles of prospective candidates before giving out offers.

Greg Becker, CEO of the Silicon Valley Bank, pointed out to Bloomberg that, unlike the period during the dot-com boom, this time the tech companies have better fundamentals. He goes on to cite the example of top social media companies such as Facebook, Twitter, Zynga and Groupon – who all have real business revenues and are profitable already:

"The same is the case with start-ups today”, Becker said. “You have companies today that are raising $500,000 or $750,000 that already have their first revenue streams, and in some cases are already profitable.”

So, do you think a new tech bubble is brewing up? Would you invest in Linkedin shares at the current valuations? Pipon Solutions invites your views.

Spending on Social Media Ads are Set to Hit the Roof – 12 May 2011

According to a recent Local Media Annual Forecast (2010 – 2015) by analysts at the advisory services company BIA/Kelsey, ad revenues for social media sites were set to rocket from $2.1 billion in 2010 to $8.3 billion in 2015. 

In the world of internet marketing, Display advertising continues to be the major source of advertising on these social media networks and is expected to draw in $7.7 billion in 2015 – up from $2.1 billion last year.  Other sources of social media advertising, such as promoted tweets on Twitter, currently generate negligible income but are forecast to become popular over the next few years and are projected to generate $600 million by2015. 

It is no surprise that Facebook currently tops the list of generating the most revenue from social media ads, with an eMarketer report last January stating that Facebook’s ad revenues had gone up to $1.86 billion.  As the most popular social network site Facebook has more display ad impressions than both Yahoo! and Google and it is predicted that their ad share as well as revenue will continue to increase. 

These figures show that over the next few years there will be increased advertiser spending in social media. For both small and big businesses, therefore, it is important to understand the social media landscape.  Questions such as where, when and how to advertise on social media networks will become increasingly pertinent as competitors continue to spend more and more in the area.  Keeping abreast of recent innovations in social media advertising and pioneering new social media advertisements could be the difference between a successful and unsuccessful social media campaign. 

Some of these questions have been answered on this blog before, however for more advice on this why not visit Pipon’s twitter and Facebook pages, or visit our website for more information.  

Its official! – Twitter acquires Tweetdeck for $ 40 million

Last week, in the world of social media, the big announcement was the news that Twitter had paid $40 million in cash and stock for Tweetdeck, winning a bidding war with rival UberMedia, the Financial Times reported. Tweetdeck is a UK based startup that helps people read, write and organise the short messages posted on the online network. Tweetdeck has 15 employees and will continue to be based in London where it is currently based.

Founded three years ago, Tweetdeck revolutionized social media management by allowing users to organise brands, celebrities and people they follow on social media platform. In addition, users can also monitor their Facebook, Linkedin and other similar social media accounts.  For people interested in internet marketing, this was a major development.  

What apparently started off as ‘advanced talks’ between the two firms for over a month cumulated into an outright purchase by Twitter. Ubermedia, which calls itself “the world’s leading Twitter app”, was also apparently interested.

More than 20 million users have apparently downloaded Tweetdeck since it was launched three years ago. The platform accounts for as much as 10 % of all tweets made in real time. What is unclear though, is how Twitter will monetise the 20 million tweets from Tweetdeck every day. Perhaps some of Tweetdeck’s heavy users will be willing to pay to use a few of its services. Of late, Twitter has been busy trying to identify and acquire successful third party applications related to its own platform.

The acquisition, however, marks the increasing acceptance of London’s ‘Silicon Roundabout’, a cluster of internet start-ups in East London that is expected to rival California’s Silicon Valley. Some of the Silion Roundabout’s early hits included dopplr – the travel site and last.fm. The UK Government has been highly supportive of the idea of London’s very own high tech area. The Government’s proposals to support the growth of this area include: providing entrepreneurs’ visas to make it easier to hire the best talent from around the world, strengthening intellectual property laws to make it easier to create new digital services, providing faster broadband connectivity, financial advice from large banks and greater internet protocol protection for start-ups. 

The future of the UK digital market will therefore be an interesting debate over the coming years.  Pipon Solutions invites you to share your thoughts on this latest acquisition and London’s Silicon Roundabout.