Yesterday Foursquare launched a new version of its iPhone and Android app. The updated version of the app now comes with several new features that were recently launched through the web version of the site.  This includes an update of its “Explorer” feature which is Foursquare’s new “Local Search Engine”.

Once you update the app on your device you will see several new improvement’s in the “Explore” section of the app. This includes the ability to change your location, filter your recommendations, and the ability to view photos in your search results! If you tap on the filter button which you will find top right you can also narrow down the search results to include places that you have been, new to you, or even both. You can also choose to view all the places that your friends have visited.

If you are going out of town you can also now use the “Explorer” feature to recommend places based on your location which is determined by your phones GPS. You can do this by either searching for the location or dragging the map around, then you can either pinch or tap to zoom in to find locations in that local area.

This is definitely a new direction for Foursquare who want to make local search much smarter based on social recommendations.  This can also be a very powerful tool for local businesses, especially with recommendations and “Specials” being promoted to users based on their location. If you are a restaurant, café or bar then Foursquare is certainly not a platform that should be ignored should you have a social media marketing strategy in place for your local business.

Now that Google Plus Pages has been open a for a few weeks we thought this would be a good time to put together a blog post showing how to create a business page and how to optimize this new social media channel for your business.

To set up a new business page you will need to have a Google Plus personal page. If you don’t already have one you can sign up for one for free here  https://plus.google.com

Now that you have your personal profile set up you will have top click on the “Create a Google + page” option that you will find at the bottom left of your personal profile once you have logged in

Create a Google + page

Pick A Category 

On this page you are given 5 main categories to choose from.

This includes

• Local Business
• Product or Brand
• Company, Institution or Organization
• Arts, Entertainment or Sports
• Other

Select the most relevant category for your business.

Customizing Your Page

Now that you have selected the best category for your page the first thing that you are asked for is to add a tag line which is 10 words that best describes the page that you are creating. You are also asked to add a profile picture. I would also suggest that you use your company logo as your profile picture.

Its also very important that any relevant keywords related to your business are used in the tagline, now that Google has introduced its search engine in to the platform people can now search for these keywords which will make it easier for your business page to be found.

Let People Know About Your Page 

After you have added the tagline and update your profile picture you are then given the option to “spread the word” about your new page. If you have already built any audience on your personal Google Plus profile then this is a great way to promote your business page to whoever you want.  You can also share the page with specific circles that you have created.

If you don’t want to share the page then you do have the option to “Finish” which will take you to the new business new page.

Updating The Page Information 

Once you have created your new business page you will then want to add as much information as possible about your business. You can do this by clicking on the profile icon at the top of the page. You will then be brought to the “About” section where you will be given the option to add information including links with anchor text to your profile.  You can also add links to the other sites including social networks and blogs.

Adding Photos To Your Page

Similar to Facebook Pages this feature gives you a chance to be creative with your new Google + business page. You can add various photos that represent your business,products or services that you provide.  If you want to stand out from the crowd, then why not create some animated gif’s which you can also use in this section. A great example of this being used is the Google Plus page for Redbull 

There is no doubt that Google Plus is here to stay, and as the platform evolves over the next few months/years we will begin to see tighter integration with other Google services including Gmail, Chrome, Android and Google’s dominating search engine which gives it the edge over both Facebook and Twitter. Can your business afford not be on there ?

If you would like to find out more about Google Plus or Social Media Marketingplease visit our website or contact us on 0844 414 0434

My clients often ask me if having the keyword that you are targeting in your domain can have a positive impact on your search engine rankings. The short answer to this is yes.

It seems to be easier than ever to rank highly for specific keywords if you have a keyword rich domain.

I have noticed an increasing amount of domains ranking well on the search engine results page with very low quality content and hardly any back links just because they have the keywords in their domain, some with no content expect from ‘Website under construction’ rank highly on the search engine results page just because they have a keyword rich domain. This was with a relatively small number of low quality back links and plenty of competition in the market.

Matt Cutts said, at the begging of the year, that Google has been accused of giving too much benefit to keyword rich domains and he indicated that Google has been thinking of turning down the amount of weight given to these websites. However, the opposite seems true and it appears even easier to rank on the search engine results page for keyword rich domains. The full video can be viewed here.

There are obviously advantages from an SEO point of view, however, I feel that this is having a negative impact on user experience and is a bit of a kick in teeth to website owners with high quality content but are ranking below websites that just happen to have the target keyword in the URL.

Putting my rant aside, let’s look at the advantages and disadvantages of using a keyword rich domain.

Advantages

- The first obvious advantage of using a keyword rich domain is that it will allow you to rank very quickly for the keyword contained in your domain

- Keyword rich domains can show that a site is very relevant to the particular niche so it may encourage a higher click through rate. Also, as keywords used in search queries show in bold, your domain name will catch the searchers eye

- Because the keyword is contained in your domain, it is more likely that when people link to your site the link will contain your target keyword as the anchor text, even if it’s a naked link*

- A keyword rich domain may be easier to remember so it could also increase the amount of direct traffic coming to your site

Disadvantages

- Keyword rich domains may pigeon hole your site and reduce click through rate if searchers are not looking specifically for your target niche

- Keyword rich domains may provide short term gains, however, in the long term it may be better to build a brand

- If search results continue to be low quality due to keyword rich domains Google may reduce the amount of benefit given to such sites

- Because so many people use keyword rich domains to spam, many users get put off by them as they appear spammy.

Verdict

Keyword rich domains definitely provide short term wins. If you can find a profitable niche with low to medium competition a keyword rich domain can be a quick way to achieve a first page ranking. However, if you are looking to build a brand and focus on multiple different markets it might be a better idea to choose a domain name that is unique to your business.

To get the best of both worlds you could always start off with a keyword rich domain, capitalise on the benefits that this brings and then some time in the future buy your branded domain and do a 301 redirect from your keyword rich domain to your new domain.

This solution may bring a drop in your rankings due to your site no longer having a keyword rich domain, but at least your new site will have some authority passed to it, and it will be much easier to build on that authority.

It is reported that Facebook is going to be making some very big announcements at their F8 Developer conference which begins this coming Thursday. According to various reports online, these new features will be some of the biggest changes we have seen in the social media platforms history, and will mainly be focused around content sharing on the site.

According to Techcrunch, the new update will feature a selection of new buttons for “read” ( books ) “Listen” ( music ) “watched” ( video ) and “want” ( social commerce) these new buttons will then aggregate the related content from around the web in to the users newsfeed similar to what the “Like” button does today . We will also see the launch of Facebook Music, which will see Facebook partner with several social music services, including the long awaited collaboration with streaming music service Spotify.

Mashable has also reported that Facebook plans to roll out a complete redesign of users profiles which will be part of the wider launch of its integrated media platform.  As always with these events there has been lots of speculation around mobile. Which means that we could see the introduction of new mobile apps, including the much anticipated iPad app.

One thing that we won’t see at F8 is “Project Spartan” Facebook’s ambitious HTML5 app project. Sources close to the subject have said that the product is ready to go, however they are concerned that it will over shadow the other big announcements made at F8.

Facebook has declined to comment on any of the speculation, however, I am sure we will find out more ahead of the big announcement’s on Thursday.

What do you think we will see at the launch on Thursday? Let us know in the comments below.

Matthew Marley
360innovate

Looks like Facebook users are beginning to see some of the new features which Facebook has been testing over the past few months.  It’s been almost 16 months since the social media giant last rolled out a redesign of the newsfeed. It’s understood that this update will bring two brand new features which we haven’t seen before.

Highlighting

Not sure what the purpose of the highlighting feature is yet, however it does show some interesting functionality which allows you to highlight a status or an update and stick in to your news feed.  I predict that this could serve a similar purpose to Twitters favourite feature.

Ticker

The new ticker feature will be situated on the right hand side of your screen and will provide a unfiltered stream of status updates, updates from pages that you have liked, and any applications or games that you may use on the platform. The ticker will be unlimited in length and will be constantly updating. You will also be giving the ability to hide friends or updates from the stream.

Looks like this could be another counter offensive to Google +

What do you think of the new updates ? leave us a comment

Matthew Marley

360innovate

A lot has been said this part week on the impact the social media has had on the shocking scenes in London and other parts of England. Today UK Prime Minister David Cameron made a statement in Parliament which will see the Government consider the role that social media has had in organizing the riots and violence which has spread over these various city’s.

The Prime Minister who returned to Downing Street early from his holiday in Italy this week, after the rioting and violence worsened said:

“Mr Speaker, everyone watching these horrific actions will be stuck by how they were organised via social media.  Free flow of information can be used for good. But it can also be used for ill. And when people are using social media for violence we need to stop them. So we are working with the Police, the intelligence services and industry to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality.”

It has also been announced that Theresa May the Home Secretary in the UK would be meeting with some of the various social media outlets that have been used including Twitter, Facebook and Blackberry makes ( RIM ) to discuss their responsibilities in this week’s events.

Should these social media sites be closed during events like these?

Matthew Marley

360innovate

Some of you may have noticed that last month realtime search was removed from Google after it failed to reach an agreement with Twitter for access to its firehose of data, without the Twitter stream, the product was not very useful so Google decided to turn the feature off.

According to Googler Amit Singhal who was speaking at a search panel at Google’s Mountain Views Headquarters “The value the product was providing was not enough,” and they felt that they had no option to but turn this off for now, Amit was then asked if realtime search would return, Singhal confirmed that the search team is actively working on bring the product back. He also confirmed that the team has been working hard to include Google + data and other social media data. This pretty much confirms earlier reports that Google believes that it no longer needs the deal with Twitter to deliver its realtime results.

Search Engine Land’s Danny Sullivan also had a chance to speak with the panel, and asked why Google + doesn’t have its own search engines, which would give users access to huge amounts of data much like you can do with Twitter. Singhal replied advising that “we are on it”

Did you use realtime search? If so have you missed it?

Matthew Marley
360innovate

Twitter has announced that it will be adding a new tweek to its current API for developers that will allow tweets that are maybe sensitive to others to me marked as NSFW.

Users will be given the ability to mark their own tweets as sensitive and filter any sensitive tweets out their timeline should they wish, users will also be able to tag other peoples tweets that you may find of a sensitive nature, which will then be reviewed by twitter who will decide if they are or not.

This is a smart move for Twitter as it becomes more mainstream and a popular social media platform for media distribution, it will also be important for users in an office environment who don’t welcome sensitive tweets.

“Beginning today you may notice a new boolean field in API responses & streams containing tweets: “possibly_sensitive”. This new field will only surface when a tweet contains a link. The meaning of the field doesn’t pertain to the tweet content itself, but instead it is an indicator that the URL contained in the tweet may contain content or media identified as sensitive content. During this initial testing phase, there’s nothing you need to do with this field and the field values cannot be relied on for accuracy. In the future, we’ll have a family of additional API methods & fields for handling end-user “media settings” and possibly sensitive content.”

Initially the functionality will only be available on Twitter.com however will come to 3rd party applications later.

Matthew Marley
360innovate

Google has announced that the beta for Google + profiles for business will come much sooner than originally planned. Christian Oestlien who is Google’s Group Product Manager, on Google+ confirmed that the beta program will be open to everyone and not just the select few that was initially planned.

According to Oestlien, the volume of applications to get early access to the test program for businesses was so high they felt it was important that all businesses had the opportunity to join the beta, which will be available to everyone in the next few months.

Google has taken steps to close down accounts that have been using G+ for business, this has included popular tech blogs “The Next Web” and “Mashable”, however they have said for the time being a business can pick a real person on G+ to represent a company and share links etc on the network.

It has been reported that the business profiles will launch some time in Q3 2011 , Google has been very quiet on what we should expect however a spokesperson has said “You can expect to see a level of analytics and measurement that you’d typically find in Google products as well as a nuanced approach to how things are shared. It encourages and enhances conversation, it doesn’t just put things in the stream.”

At 360innovate we are very eager to start using Google + as a company, we will also be encouraging various clients to consider the platform should they be looking to implement social media to their online strategy.

Will your business use Google +, what’s your thoughts?

Matthew Marley
360innovate

Online marketing can be a great way to generate leads for your business. By creating an online presence you can reach a wide range of customers that you may not be able to through traditional media. However just like a company with a brick and mortar location your online presence needs to be marketed to create awareness. You can create awareness for your company through online leads.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the process that moves your website’s listings up on the rankings of a search engines organic results, this can be a time consuming process and takes a lot of work. However if you have a well optimised site, then it can create a steady flow of business and pass you very relevant leads. We have optimised our website for the keywords SEO Glasgow – this obviously brings leads to our site from people search for a SEO service in Glasgow.

Pay Per Click (PPC) is also another great way to generate leads for your business. PPC involves bidding for advertising space in Google’s result pages, these ads will appear at the top of Google’s results pages or on the right hand side. It sounds simple but you have to ensure that you have relevant content on your website, a well optimised advert and a well thought out business strategy. You need to know what keywords would be best for your ad to appear for ensuring that your ad is relevant to the search. Although PPC can be extremely effective there is the risk of throwing lots of money down the drain if you haven’t researched your market properly.

Another way you can generate leads is by interacting on social media sites. This works very well in B2C markets, especially restaurants and hotels. Through social network sites such as Twitter and Facebook it allows you to interact on a personal basis with customers, you can promote any special offers and can target this to certain individuals depending on what they are posting or their recent activities are. We use highly effective software to allow us to monitor your social network accounts and create leads. By simply providing your company address or url on your social network sites this could also create leads for your company.

Through generating leads online you can dramatically increase the traffic to both your online and offline locations. At 360 we know that online lead generation is a cost effective way to generate leads.

Call us today to see how we can help – 0141 241 6190.