Articles in ‘Business trends’

• Web set to become Superbowl domain

  by Webfusion in Business trends on February 3rd, 2012 Post a comment

  This season the big game is set to be bigger and better on the internet than ever before.

  Superbowl XLVI will be the focus of the nation as ever but while the majority will still huddle around the TV hosting parties and the like, many will be relying on the internet both those at home and those having to work. Of course there will be play by play updates, commentary and the odd bit of punditry but the web this season is all about support.

  Where once every party had a statto amongst them. The geek who knew the yards, the turnovers, and every statistic man could want to know – and many men really shouldn’t want to know – this year’s final will see everybody with a smartphone capable of giving stats and records within seconds. The web is a leveller more than any nerves affecting players.

  The internet is expected to be dominated by football related searches and traffic during the game, but already in the lead up it is showing its klout.

  The Yahoo search blog has released a stattos treasure trove of all things Super Bowl, and it suggest that of web search volume has any influence this one is all wrapped up for the New England Patriots. Yahoo’s stats are based not just on the immediate run up but the whole year and show that the Patriots had 50% more searches this year than the New York Giants. The Patriots also win in the mobile stakes too with stats suggesting their fans to be the most mobile savvy of the two sides battling it out in gridiron’s big match.

  In terms of players, Quarterbacks understandably are topping the charts and there the figures are a bit more based on performance than sheer support. Throughout the season Tom Brady has received double the searches of those for Eli Manning (and that figure rises to four times if you look at the regular season only). Yet Manning’s play-off stats are remarkable and trumps Brady in search volume during the play-offs only as the Giant’s rise through the play-offs caught the attention. It’s not just their playing ability too. We live in celebrity-led world so perhaps it is no surprise to see search terms like “Tom Brady baby” (up 1,109%) and “Eli Manning girlfriend” (up 1,201%) proving popular. In terms of coaches Bill Belichick trumps searches of Tom Coughlin five-fold.

  As we’ve said it’s not just the football that is getting people searching. Half-timer entertainer Madonna has seen a dramatic increase in searches but fellow performer Nicki Minaj is said to be proving even more popular in search terms. Post event expect Kelly Clarkson singing the national anthem at Lucas Oil Stadium, Indianapolis, IN become an instant YouTube hit too.

  Yahoo also reports and uplift in party-related queries. “Super bowl recipes” as a search is up 210% and just in case you wanted to know here are the most searched dips this month:

  Buffalo Chicken dip
  Spinach dip
  7 Layer Mexican dip
  Spinach Artichoke dip
  Crab dip
  Taco dip
  Guacamole dip
  Chicken Wing dip
  Cheese Dip
  Shrimp dip

  However and wherever you watch or take in the game, if you’ve read this we reckon this will be the biggest ‘net’ affected Superbowl ever. What do you think?

• Facebook making more referrals

  by Webfusion in Business trends, Social Media on December 2nd, 2011 Post a comment

  Whatever the promise, the reality of the value of Google+ for small business compared to Facebook was highlighted this week by a study from Net Applications. Their latest findings suggest that not only does Facebook dominate the social networking field in terms of numbers but also in terms of return for business. According to their figures, almost two-thirds of web referalls from social networks during the month of November came through Facebook. By comparison, Twitter and new kid on the block Google+ made insignificant contributions.

  Showing its growth as a serious competitor LinkedIn showed more than three times as many referrals as Twitter, but importantly Facebook was so dominant it does suggest that changing peoples’ attitudes to move from one social network to another is going to be very difficult.

  What are your own findings?

   

   

• It’s all about Customer Relationship

  by Webfusion in Business trends on November 25th, 2011 Post a comment

  Times are hard, they may begin to get harder as liquidity dries up and people look for more and more value in everything the spend money on. With price margins squeezed as tight as they possibly can go, differentiating from a competitor in the next few months is going to be less price-led more ‘added value’.

  The key is your relationship with your customer

  You probably already know who your customer is. Millions of dollars are spent globally on this metric and that metric so businesses can find out their ‘customer’. What influences them? What makes them tick? What makes them buy? That’s great, but it is how you use that information and more imporantly how the customer perceives you, that is going to have the biggest impact on where you reach on the ladder of success.

  In any relationship people know each other and have an exchange of values. That’s all the way down from lovers to parent and child and it applies equally to business relationships whether you are in a B2B or B2C operation.

  Your customer needs to be happy in your relationship just as much as your mate for life. There needs to be trust and understanding from both sides and a commitment. Just as you would woo a potential mate, so you should court your existing customers. Before you give the hard sell, ‘go on a date’. Get your customer interested in your company, get them buying something, however small it is and it is much easier to develop that relationship. There will be upselling paths but think of it more as an upserve path, offering greater value to the customer as you both grow to know and love one another more.

  Once you have your customer onboard, then do use the metrics. Find out and try to understand each and every customer and customise that to fit them – it will be much more appreciated. Personalisation with context and suitably timed will not only impress the customer but is also likely to encourage them to recommend you to others too.

  How do you deal with your customer relationships?

• In the internet age even soaps don’t die

  by Webfusion in Business trends, misc on July 10th, 2011 Post a comment

  Amid discussions of Google Plus encouraging people to put dead loved ones plucked from address books, into circles of trust, comes a story about how in the age of the internet, death is not barrier, just a different avenue.

  Two long-running ABC soap operas — One Life to Live and All My Children — faced soap death after they appeared to have run their course and been culled from the schedules. However, a joint press statement from ABC and producers Prospect Park this week announced a life beyond TV. An internet life, where the soaps would remain, the same but different.

  The press release explains that the shows will be distributed beyond their planned finale dates “via online formats and additional emerging platforms including Internet enabled television sets.” and not in a watered-down format but “with the same quality,” and the same length.

  Back in April ABC had announced the axe for the soaps after declining ratings with All My Children set to run until September and One Life to Live until January. Now it appears they will survive but in a virtual world, ironic given the very basis of soap operas are the creation of virtual worlds.

  The move is not the first either Glenn Beck, the former Fox News presenter is to re-launch his canceled show online in September for fee-paying fans.

  Are you watching more of your TV online?

• Making your customers part of your sales force

  by Webfusion in Business trends, misc, Online Business on May 13th, 2011 Post a comment

  With economic pressures biting more and more resources are under pressure especially marketing budgets. So how do you make the world know about your products / services without investing in advertising? Simple, you use the best assets you have: Your good reputation and the customers that helped you gain that reputation.

  Word of mouth has for a long time been the most trusted method of advertising – certainly from a customer’s point of view. Now in the age of social media, its strengths are being further brought to the fore, albeit with a buzz-word title.

  Advocacy marketing is all about transforming customers and clients into an extension of your sales force. Where once you may have hoped for a written testimonial to feature on a brochure, now you can expect a happy customer to tell their friends via Facebook, Twitter, blogs and many more, extending a reach far beyond your wildest dreams. Many won’t need any encouragement either. For a growing breed, telling all their followers the highs and lows of their day is second nature. Yet for others a little nudge won’t do any harm.

  Therefore, it is important that you include a Facebook like button and re-tweet facility directly from your website and any electronic material. Encouraging people to pass on the message will reap rewards, although you may have to take our word on that as measuring its true impact still remains very difficult. However, some basic social media monitoring – even using Twitters in-built search tool, can show how and where your product or brand name is being used in the social media sphere.

  Yet just as good reputations can be further improved via social media, so bad reputations can be worsened. That’s not to say you should shy away from social media though. if anything, a social media strategy that takes your support immediately to the people can do wonders to repair a broken or slightly chipped reputation.

  As we constantly repeat, social media is actually nothing new – it is simply a new, digital way of using traditional business and marketing skills. Successfully used and your business will thrive, but ignore them at your peril.

  Have you implemented Advocate Marketing?

• Video searching in a Blinkx of an eye

  by Webfusion in Business trends, misc, Social Media, Tech News on April 20th, 2011 Post a comment

  While Google’s investment in YouTube may bring new content and glory to the video site’s profile as a leading search engine in its own right, a rival video search really is setting the specifications.

  The story behind Blinkx is an intriguing one. Set up as a ‘lab’ type project within powerhouse Autonomy, Sri Lankan-born Brit, Suranga Chandratillake whose brainchild it was, has since led the split from Autonomy to create Blinkx as a stand-alone company reporting revenues of $27.4 million in September 2010.

  The technology skills developed at Autonomy however make it a much more in-depth video search crawler. Whereas You-Tube et al, take their indexing from video title and the odd keyword and description, Blinkx goes beyond that and looks at the content of the video as well. Using speech recognition, scene change detection and even facial recognition and text recognition from within the film, Blinkx claims to be the most advanced video search engine in the world. Literally indexing the very substance of each of the videos it includes.

  That is a growing index too. More than 35 million hours are already within its database including tv and viral content and that is growing by the day.

  If you’ve not yet got it bookmarked it is well worth a look.

• Keeping students connected

  by Webfusion in Business trends, misc, Tech News on March 9th, 2011 1 Comment

  Figures are constantly bombarding us about the uptake of new technology amongst the youth of today and just why marketeers need to take notice and advantage of that.

  The Government announcement today adds credence to that. In a time of austerity the Federal Communications Commission is to roll out $9million of funding to help schools extend wireless internet connections beyond the classroom.

  Initially to fund just 20 pilot projects around the country, the funding will pay for wireless broadband connections for laptops, smart phones and other mobile devices to encourage students to stay connected when the school bell rings.

  The scheme ‘Learning On-the-Go’ aims to reach nearly 35,000 students across 14 states in the 2011-2012 school year.

• Start 2011 with a new look Facebook Profile

  by Webfusion in Business trends, Development, Web Design on December 31st, 2010 Post a comment

  Earlier this month, Facebook introduced an update to present everyone with new layouts to their profiles and walls which made posting status updates slightly different in format.

  Since then, customized profiles have been popping up around the place and we thought you might like to know how you can produce something as elegant as the examples below.

  

  (Images found on Google image search “personalised Facebook profile”)

  Get your image

  Firstly you need to select an image that will look good in pieces like the ones in the examples above. You will need Adobe Photoshop or other image slicing software to do the next part.

  Slice it up

  The biggest part of your image on the left (your main profile picture) needs to be 180 pixels in width. The height can be as tall as you wish.

  The small boxes at the top of the image need to be 68 pixels high x 97 pixels wide which will contain other elements of the main photo to achieve the effect shown above.

  Upload

  Go to photos > upload photos and select the images you want that compile the whole image. Be sure to allow the images to share with everyone so that everyone can see.

  Once saved don’t publish them to your stream unless you want to. Tag the photos from last (furthest right) to first furthest left (not the profile picture) with your own name so they can appear at the top in the way the examples do.

  Last but not least upload the biggest portion (the profile picture) as your profile picture to complete the effect.

  Your Facebook profile will now hopefully now stand out from the crowd and your friends will be bugging you to ask how you did it. Be sure to send them our way.

  The steps above were inspired by the very useful video “Facebook ‘Profile Picture Hack’ Tutorial” by xadacka which is available here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vhvJqGgzmoQ#!

• Is your blog more important than a flashy website?

  by Webfusion in Business trends, Hosting, Web Design on November 4th, 2010 Post a comment

  There used to be a time when you spent all of your time, effort and money on producing a nice looking website and then perhaps a year or so later ‘developed’ your presence further with the introduction of a blog.

  Nowadays however, with improved blog software, templates and plug-ins, many are turning to blogs as their main and often first step onto the web – even for businesses. For those new to the web, applications like WordPress (available as one of our one-click apps) offer an easy to understand and update, yet professional looking entry onto the internet.

  Even those with more experience are also considering the benefits of a blog-driven site. It is instantly more “dynamic” allowing you to easily update content including multi-media assets. All updated in an instant and with comment enabled, it can also encourage two-way feedback with potential customers. If you use the blog element to talk about your industry too, if others like what they read, it is a great way of developing your business as a respected authority in your field and boosting your credibility.

  Blogs with their ever changing content, likely use of various keywords and often more topical conversations can also boost traffic to your site. Changes in content alert many search engines on which it is already listed of a need to revisit the site to re-index. As a result a blog-driven website is likely to be ‘checked’ much more often than traditional sites. Plus if your blogs are archived search engines are notified of new content on your site this gives them an opportunity to visit your site to index it.

  If your business is a small team, blogs also offer the chance for the updating function to be a shared responsibility. Mobile phone apps also offer the chance of updating the site live from wherever you are. Keeping your customers up to date with what you are up to is a good way of attracting interest and loyalty.

  Obviously, for the best of both worlds the most successful option would be to run with both a traditional html website and a blog site. It is important however that you integrate the blog as far as possible into the main site and it is not always easy to ensure the blog site appears to be in the same style as your main site.

  We are not saying it is the end of traditional websites, but the modern trend for updates, insights and dynamic content mean any business looking to make the most of their internet presence, shouldn’t forget the benefits of using a blog, either stand-alone or integrated.

  How have you used a blog for your business?

• Watching people spend in real-time

  by Webfusion in Business trends on October 29th, 2010 Post a comment

  People’s spending habits are a good way of defining the country’s mood and approach to life.  Personal finance experts Mint.com this week went live with a new real-time application available to all with anonymous data showing money spent at restaurants, retailers, etc as it happens and offering insightful city-by-city comparisons.

  The system aggregates data from some of Mint.com’s 4 million plus users to deliver an unprecedented real-time economic index. The system allows them to analysis what people spend on restaurants, which stores are a particular town’s favorites and what sectors appear to be most affected by the economic downturn. The information is being made public – albeit anonymously – to prompt people into thinking about how they spend and perhaps make better money decisions.

  The data can be quite specific too. Search for Starbucks, then choose Starbucks, New York from the list of stores and you find that it is the most popular coffee shop in New York but that the average purchase in there is considerably less than the average purchase across coffee shops in general in New York.

  Tracking the trends and comparing how the average spend compares to yours can be a real eye opener. For example take a look at the monthly expenses in Floria and  you will see just a noticeable increase in shopping spend in December 2009 which also forced a dip in travel spends and steep drop in spend into the new year, slowly recovering over 2010.

  The purpose is obviously to push more people to sign up to the Mint system but it is an interesting tool to keep track of who spends what and where. It could also prove a useful marketing tool for those stores and restaurants shown as the most popular.

  Have a look and let us know what you think.