Just how important is social media to your business?

In recent years, the power of social media has increased exponentially. The first recognisable social media sites went live in the late 1990s and the potential from there was soon realised. By the early 2000s, we saw the likes of MySpace become the online ‘place to be’, while the mid-2000s brought Facebook and Twitter.

The rise of the industry, coupled with the inclusion of ‘business pages’ on Facebook and the ability to create an online following, provides significant opportunities for businesses. With social media reportedly producing up to twice as many marketing leads as trade shows, telemarketing and direct mail, this post will explore how social media can help your business to thrive online.

Branding & reputation

Nowadays, if a user performs a search for your brand name on a popular social media website, there’s a level of expectation that they’ll find an official account. Having an online presence on as many social sites as you see fit for your business model is a very important step to take. It’ll reassure users that you’re a credible organisation that takes an interest in your audience and their needs.

It’s worth noting that a rarely-updated social media account could harm your image and reputation; a user doesn’t want to see an un-kept page packed with dated news. Furthermore, social media gives you the ability to reinforce your brand name online. If a user performs a Google search for your brand and sees the first page filled with your various social accounts as well as your website, they’re likely to find the information they’re looking for.

Relationships & interaction

Social media works on a personal level as much as a business to consumer level. Just as friends communicate to each other on these networks, your business can follow suit and approach potential customers in a friendly, personal way. Generally speaking, consumers are very expressive to businesses on social media, often asking questions and leaving feedback. This is why responding to these consumers in the appropriate manner is vital. It’s a chance to build a relationship with your audience.

Below is an example of how O2 utilises Twitter to enhance customer relationships:

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Search engines continuously update their algorithms and, considering their ubiquity, it’s not an unreasonable step to think they’ll take into account social signals such as shares, likes and mentions, if they aren’t already to some degree. It’s widely reported that these signals will become more important in the coming years and, while it’s likely to be some time before they pass links as the largest signal, the graph below highlights the correlation between content that performs well socially and that ranks well in search engines (via Searchmetrics). Correlation doesn’t mean causation, but does highlight the sort of content that Google prefers.

Optimising your social strategy ensures your website has a positive online future as the impact of these signals are likely to become greater with time, and, in the meantime, you can provide even better customer service. The key factors to remember when improving your sites social signals include:

• Include social sharing buttons on most of your pages that allow  users to share information and content you have created (tweet, like, bookmark, etc.)
• Link to your own social media accounts (Like our Facebook page, Follow our Twitter account, Google+, etc.)

Cost effectiveness

The main cost involved in social media is time. This doesn’t mean that you should disregard social media, instead look at how you can work it into your day and create 10 minute intervals or short breaks between tasks. After all, 23% of marketers are investing in blogging and social media in 2013, up 9% on 2012, and, while time is certainly the main expense here, it’s ultimately the cost of being left behind by your competitors which could leave you paying the price.

Conclusion

What’s your main reason for wanting to create a social media account? Is it just because your competitors are? Social media is part of your business strategy and your social accounts are there to do specific jobs; whether your social profiles are designed to create awareness for your brand or to drive sales through referral traffic you need to have goals and targets. Ultimately you want results and this should be the focus of your activity through these platforms. Work out which social media channels will work best for your business, you may see Pinterest as unsuitable or you may feel Twitter won’t bring you any conversions.

As Crafted recently tweeted, a third of SMEs don’t have websites at all. If there’s a market for your business online then creating an online presence is essential and using social media accounts to add value to this is an important step.

By Luke Olding 

Digitally Crafted - rounding up the last 7 days in digital marketing

In this week’s round-up of the most important topics of discussion within the world of digital marketing we learn that half of the organic traffic that Google handles is driven from its own partners, Google’s product listing ads are being phased into Europe and virtually half of all UK consumers agree that personalisation is important with regards to online and offline retail.

Social media

SlideShare launches analytics to track people who engaged most with presentations
Online presentation platform, SlideShare has unveiled its new analytics tool, Send Tracker, which empowers its Pro account holders to email content to potential customers and receive real-time alerts when recipients have opened and viewed messages. It’s designed to track how recipients interact with that content, allowing marketing firms to concentrate their efforts on the demographic that spends the most time or engaged best with presentations. Read more

Twitter introduces pay-by-tweet service
Twitter users will soon be able to pay for products using tweets with a new American Express payment system due to be integrated into the microblogging network. The service will enable users to synchronise their Amex cards with twitter to buy selected items by including special hashtags. The Twitter Sync feature was first launched last year, but the service has been extended to now allow payments for selected products. Read more

Organic search marketing

Google Product Listing Ads making the move to Europe
Google’s Product Listing Ads (PLA) are set to reach Europe to a mixed reaction amongst online marketers. While retailers will no longer benefit from the free traffic they previously received in Google’s product search, it empowers advertisers with greater control over product listings, bidding and traffic. The arrival of PLAs in America back in November 2012 resulted in the number of advertisers using the service increasing by 113 per cent from Spring to Autumn 2012. Read more

Half of Google’s search traffic comes from partners
While there’s no question that Google remains the world’s most used search engine, it was found that half of all of its search queries handled are derived from Google partners, rather than searches aimed at Google directly. Nikesh Arora, senior vice president and chief business officer for Google revealed that around half of all searches are made at Google itself, with the other half coming from partners including anything from its deal to power searches at AOL to searches that occur through Safari on iOS due to its partnership with Apple. Read more

Google still world’s most popular search engine by far, but unique searchers dips slightly
New Worldwide Search Figures from comScore reveal that Google remains by far and away the most used search engine in the world, far outdistancing its competitors. However, over the last three months its share of unique searchers has dropped below 80 per cent, indicating it has lost some of its previous regular users. The figures also suggest that Yandex has overtaken Bing as the fourth most popular search engine in the world. Read more

Paid search marketing

Smartphones achieve highest paid search CTR
A new report from Marin Software has indicated mobile devices achieve higher click-through rates (CTR) than desktops when it comes to UK paid search ads. In a comparison of performance data between smartphones, tablets and desktops, smartphones achieved the highest CTR at 5.87 per cent, in comparison to 3.93 per cent on tablet and 2.29 per cent on desktops. Read more

James Giles, PPC Manager at Crafted, comments: “Mobile is an important channel, but we do see a mixed level of performance across accounts. Some mobile accounts have higher CTR’s compared to tablet and desktop, but most have lower conversion rates. This can affect CTR’s because if the campaign is not converting the bidding strategy will be less aggressive. With the introduction of the Enhanced campaigns it may become less clear how well mobile is working. Most clients want to see a return on their media spend and, as long as the ROI is healthy, the CTR is less important. If it becomes harder to show that mobile is effective, it could be the case that it actually becomes used less.”

Digital marketing

49% of UK consumers think personalisation is important
Almost half (49 per cent) of UK consumers surveyed in The Oracle report believed that personalisation is important when it comes to retailers. The report, which referenced 538 UK-based adults, was designed to find out what consumers defined as good and bad service in relation to online and offline retail. Personalisation was defined by 40 per cent as receiving offers and discounts to their mobile devices, while over a third (36 per cent) believed it was the receiving of the same kind of offers they would secure in-store. Read more

UK’s top 50 retailers failing to deliver personalised customer experiences, says eCircle report
New research into the performance of the UK’s top 50 retailers in terms of customer service found that more than three-quarters (77 per cent) are failing to deliver personalised email marketing. Despite increasing pressures on retailers to personalise and deliver a meaningful customer experience, the vast majority are currently failing to deliver tailored marketing collateral to their customers. Read more

Mobile

52% of Q4 smartphone sales were Apple or Samsung
The recent release of Gartner’s report into the worldwide smartphone market has further fuelled the belief that the global smartphone industry is rapidly becoming a two-horse race. The market share of Apple and Samsung combined accounted for more than 50 per cent, while Nokia sunk to its lowest market share to date. Apple and Samsung’s strong position is said to be a boon for the strength of their brands as much as their actual products. Read more

66% believe a mobile device will make purchasing a Valentine’s gift easier
Growing consumer confidence in making payments on mobile devices has increased sufficiently with two-thirds of respondents believing that a mobile device will make buying a Valentine’s gift for their loved one easier. Over half (52 per cent) of British women now prefer to buy a Valentine’s gift using their phone rather than visit a High Street store. Read more

PR

FT editor: “News now is not the newspaper”
Financial Times editor, Lionel Barber, has admitted that the growing impact of the digital revolution in the world’s media now means that news is not now in the paper – it is now the job of the internet. Barber’s comments follow the release of the Financial Times’ first digital strategy in January, which is expected to result in the loss of 35 jobs for traditional journalists. Barber believes the future role of newspapers will be to be more reflective and relevant in reaction to breaking news via the web. Read more

Digitally Crafted – a recap of the week in digital marketing

In this week’s round-up of the most important topics within the world of digital marketing, we learn that mobile advertising revenue is expected to soar beyond $11bn this year, half of all small businesses never update their online search listings and Twitter has experienced a significant security breach, with 250,000 accounts hacked.

Social media

Facebook: two thirds of users log off for weeks at a time
New research from the US Pew Research Centre found that two-thirds of Facebook users take a voluntary break from the site for several weeks or more due to a number of reasons, including “concerns for their privacy” and “excessive gossip or drama from friends”. Despite this, the popularity of the social network shows no signs of abating, with 92 per cent of respondents revealing they maintained their profile regularly, and two-thirds admitting the site was as important in their lives as it was 12 months ago. Read more

Reddit allows only ‘Acceptable’ ads
Reddit is making changes to its social news site experience by vetting “bad” ads and minimising disruption to users. Adblock Plus, a browser add-on designed to block “annoying” adverts, has announced that Reddit wishes to ensure all of its online ads are non-intrusive. Users of the Adblock Plus add-on will therefore see ‘acceptable’ ads even with the ad blocker installed, allowing advertisers to continue to make genuine money. Amazon and Ehow have also adopted similar policies in recent months. Read more

Google+: Ads create too much of a ‘disruptive experience’
Google has reinforced its view that advertising on Google+ will ruin the user experience of its network. Marvin Chow, global marketing director of Google+, described online ads as a ‘disruptive experience when a user is trying to have a meaningful conversation or look at a picture of a grandchild’. Interestingly, Google is instead focusing its attentions on developing features including social annotations, displaying how many people have ‘+1’d’ or followed advertisers within a search ad. Read more

Twitter says 250,000 accounts have been hacked in security breach
Social networking giant, Twitter has reported that anonymous hackers may have been able to breach the security of its network to gain access to usernames, email addresses and passwords of a quarter-of-a-million users in a ‘sophisticated’ operation. Twitter revealed late last week it had detected unusual access patterns across its data network with unauthorised attempts to access user data. Read more

Facebook re-enables tag suggestions facial-recognition feature on by default
Facebook has announced it has brought back its photo ‘Tag Suggestions’ feature to the US after temporarily suspending it last year in order to carry out technical improvements. It has been re-enabled to allow users to make the most of facial recognition to “easily identify a friend in a photo and share that content with them.” Read more

Organic search marketing

Survey: Half of small businesses never update their listings online
A new survey released by ConstantContact’s SinglePlatform division indicates nearly half (49 per cent) of small businesses never updated their search listings online. Surprisingly, many small firms are still overwhelmed and confused by even the most basic online marketing techniques. 70 per cent of respondents revealed they simply don’t have the time to manage search listings, while only 23 per cent believed they had a ‘good sense’ of how organic listings drive traffic to their business. Read more

Crafted’s SEO Manager, Andrew Doyle, added: “It’s no surprise to hear that the survey from SinglePlatform in the US has found that many small businesses are not spending the time and effort that’s required to make the most of online customers.

“Local businesses are increasingly required to have a solid online presence while monitoring online reviews, listings and engaging with its customers. There are huge wins to be had in this area and the growth of smartphones over the last few years has only accelerated this requirement.”

Online advertising and PPC

Google AdWords changes the game with enhanced campaigns
Earlier this week Google announced one of the most fundamental changes to its AdWords system in a number of years. The evolution of ‘Enhanced Campaigns’ is designed to enable advertisers to target people at the right time, in the right place, with the right advert and suitable call-to-action. In essence, the structuring of AdWords campaigns is becoming device independent, removing the ability to have bespoke mobile, tablet or desktop-targeted campaigns. Read more

Crafted’s PPC Manager, James Giles, commented: “These changes have the capacity to significantly change the way AdWords campaigns are built and managed. For instance, we’d normally segment campaigns by device and channel so we can clearly see which are most cost effective.

“The Enhanced Campaigns set up, with its merged devices and platforms, will remove the ability to do this and may blur the boundaries between what’s working and what isn’t. This will make is harder to pause activity that doesn’t perform well on say mobile, but does on desktop or vice versa.

“Google has said that the new advanced reporting will be clearer, but if we have to heavily segment a report to find the true performance of campaigns it could involve more time. The new report will eventually include cross device conversion tracking though, which is the missing link in all tracking solutions.

“There’s also some interesting new functionality. Being able to weight bids based on device, location and time of day could prove to be a powerful tool. Also, being able to set site links at ad group level is something we have wanted for years. Dynamic ad functionality will mean ads can be optimised to device, time of day and location - increasing relevancy.

“Google has provided some great examples of how the enhanced campaigns could be used. Most of these examples include businesses that have a physical shop. How these campaigns will perform across smaller ecommerce businesses which don’t have a mobile or location optimised site will have to be seen.”

ASA introduces new rules on behavioural advertising
The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has implemented new rules to provide the public with notice of and control over online behavioural advertising. Ad networks are now required to make it clear when they are delivering behaviourally-targeted ads through the use of an icon in the corner of online ads. Consumers must also be given the ability to ‘opt-out’ of receiving such targeting. Read more

Mobile

Mobile advertising revenue forecast to top $11.4bn this year
The latest survey of global mobile advertising revenue conducted by Gartner, revealed that revenue is expected to top $11.4bn in the coming year, a significant increase from the $9.6bn income in 2012. However, this year’s forecast appears to be a mere tip of the iceberg with projected revenues approaching $24.5bn in 2016, due to the growing integration of mobile channels into 360-degree advertising campaigns. Read more

PR

93% of people from corporate sector read at least one print newspaper regularly
Despite a general decline in print readership across national and regional levels, a recent survey from Investis indicates that print journalism is still an integral news source for corporate sectors. The report comprising 100 responses from members of listed companies and UK-based financial PRs indicates that 93 per cent of all respondents read at least one print newspaper on a regular basis. Crafted’s PR Director, Emma Plummer, commented about this trend in her blog post this week.  Read more

Research shows that ‘dual screen’ trend is increasing Twitter coverage for brands
A new study from Brandwatch has highlighted the increasing trend in ‘dual screening’. The top three reasons viewers used dual screens were when they were in bed (64 per cent), on the sofa (25 per cent) and in the office (six per cent). The research also indicates that displaying a hashtag at the beginning of a television programme can increase online conversation regarding the show by almost two-thirds (63 per cent). Read more

35% of online newsrooms contain out-of-date information
A survey into the world’s top 100 brands found that 35 per cent have online newsrooms on their websites containing outdated information. Research from Mynewsdesk also revealed that just 65 per cent of brands assessed linked to their online newsroom from their homepage, and 39 per cent of leading brands also failed to provide an online search function for their on-site content. Read more

Digitally Crafted – this week in online marketing

In this week’s round-up of the most important topics within digital marketing, we learn that search engine visits increased by 400m year-on-year in December 2012, Google released its latest Google Panda Update, version 24, and representatives from some of the leading figures in the UK newspaper industry urge the trade to “adapt or die” to the boom in tablet usage for news.

Social media 

Quora expands into a blogging platform, promises rich text mobile editing soon
Q&A social network Quora has dipped its toe into the mico-blogging sphere by introducing a service it hopes will allow more users to share in-depth knowledge about topics they are passionate about. The company is also due to launch a new feature for its iPhone app, with rich text editing expected to be available to users ‘soon’. Read more

TweetDeck Twitter app will continue despite Companies House letter
Although British company, TweetDeck Ltd, acquired by Twitter so it could gain control of the multi-column app for its social networking site, will soon cease to exist as an independent entity at Companies House, its app will continue to work as part of Twitter itself. Twitter now owns the intellectual property of the app and also employs the staff who had been working hard to get the product to market. Read more

Embedded tweets will now contain photos, videos and additional content
Webmasters will soon see the increasing value in embedded tweets following a major face-lift to the display of tweets, making them more engaging and with more context. Embedded tweets will now feature video, imagery, article summaries and further content, as well as being faster to load, improving usability. Read more

America to archive all tweets
A staggering 133,000 gigabytes worth of tweets is set to for achiving by The Library of Congress in the US, in the belief that each of the tweets reflect a small but important part of the national narrative. The Library of Congress, which houses millions of hard copy books and historic documentation, is looking to add to its online archive, with access to tweets dating back to Twitter’s inception in 2006. Read more

Search marketing 

Google launches streamlined Image Search
Google is simplifying its Image Search experience by bringing its tablet functionality to the desktop. Currently, viewing an image through Google Image Search is a multistep process. But the tablet version, released for the desktop this week, is much simpler – selecting an image after a search brings up the larger version in a central preview area, making it easier than ever to skim through multiple images. Read more

Crafted's SEO Manager, Andrew Doyle,  commented: "Although the update to Google image search will mean faster previewing of images and searching, webmasters are likely to be both pleased and disappointed by the functional changes. For example, when viewing the image, the webpage is no longer loaded in the background by default, which could potentially reduce the likelihood of genuine visits whilst also stopping false pageviews."

Google Panda update: Version 24 – 1.2% of search queries impacted
Google has this week announced its 24th Panda update, with a noticeable impact of more than 1.2 per cent of English based search queries. The pattern over the previous 23 updates suggests that Google looks to roll out new Panda updates every four weeks or so, as it continues to evolve the way in which its algorithm measures the quality of online content. Read more

Search engine visits up by 400 million year-on-year in December 2012
British web users made a whopping 2.7 billion search engine visits in December 2012, a 17 per cent increase on the same period in 2011, according to Experian. Google’s overall market share dipped below 90 per cent for the second month running to 88 per cent, its lowest share for five years. Nevertheless, Google still maintains a massive competitive edge over other search engines in the UK market, with seven times more searches conducted on Google sites than all of its competitors combined. Read more

Report: 25 Percent Of Search Clicks Now From Mobile Devices
The latest State of Paid Search Report for the last quarter of 2012, reported this week that paid search is experiencing a “healthy growth rate”, with impressions, CPCs and paid clicks all growing in Q4 of last year. Unsurprisingly, the report suggests that the share of searches generated by smartphones and tablets grew significantly in Q4. Read more 

Crafted’s PPC Manager, James Giles, added: “Mobile traffic has continued to grow during 2012 with the increased adoption of smartphones and tablets. Paid clicks through mobile devices are increasing too, so this is becoming a bigger consideration when planning PPC campaigns. If you don’t have a mobile solution in place then potentially you are isolating a growing portion of your websites visits, as well as limiting paid campaigns.”

PR

“Adapt or die” – The Mail, Independent, Newsworks and Expedia on tablet take-up
Leading figureheads at the UK’s major newspapers have insisted it is a case of “adapt or die” with respect to the boom in numbers of people who receive their news via a tablet. Previously there was a belief that the growth of tablet owners would kill newspapers, but senior figures insist that it is far from cannibalising news media and is instead reinvigorating the category. Read more

PRCA releases Intern Guidelines
The Public Relations Consultants Association (PRCA) has published a new set of intern guidelines this week aimed at its members, aspiring interns looking to embark upon a career in public relations and the PR and communications industry as a whole. The document is designed to influence best practice for internships both for employers and interns alike. Read more

FT cuts jobs and relegates print to “second” tier as editor warns of social media “disruption”
Editor of the Financial Times, Lionel Barber, has revealed the paper’s digital strategy which will see the loss of 35 jobs and push newspapers into second place, as it seeks to adapt to the demands of its readers in digital and in print. Despite the loss of 35 jobs, 10 new roles will be created when the paper hires new digital journalists with old-style journalism jobs eliminated and replaced by video, data and other online journalism positions. Read more

Crafted’s PR director, Emma Plummer, added: “It didn’t come as a shock when the FT announced its intention to shed 35 jobs amidst the decision to go full steam ahead with a new digital strategy that will ultimately see the print edition take on a ‘secondary’ role.

“As the current editor of the FT Lionel Barber reportedly said “we need to ensure that we are serving a digital platform first, and a newspaper second”.

Of course, over the coming months we will be able to see what this will look like in practice, but I suspect the website and other digital channels  the FT uses will focus heavily on major scoops, whilst the print edition will primarily provide explanation and analysis of the news, which has traditionally been the FT’s strong point.”

Campaign magazine to drop A3 format
Advertising industry magazine, Campaign is expected to undergo its most radical overhaul in its 45-year history by abandoning its A3-format that previously set the standard for UK weekly trade titles in the late 1960s. A smaller A4 format has been adopted by other weekly trade titles, but Campaign is not expected to shrink as small as this, as the title seeks to place a greater emphasis on “digital first”. Read more

Digitally Crafted – a round-up of the week in digital marketing

In this week’s round up of the most important topics within the world of digital marketing, we learn that Facebook has launched its new Graph Search in a bid to challenge Google, paid search cost per clicks have increased by 30 per cent in the last 12 months and Myspace has publicly unveiled its revamped social site.

Social media

Myspace launches its revamped site – to little excitement
The unveiling of Myspace’s newly revamped website design almost went unnoticed this week after it was overshadowed by Facebook’s Graph Search announcement. Prominent Myspace investor, Justin Timberlake unveiled his much-anticipated single the same week which appears to be more than a little coincidence. Timberlake himself revealed back in September that the new Myspace could help to bridge the gap of people who are from a generation less familiar with social media. Read more

Facebook UK loses 600,000 users in December
Speculation that Facebook is reaching saturation point in its core markets has been fuelled by the news that the number of British Facebook users dropped by as much as 600,000 in December. According to new data by social media monitoring firm, SocialBakers, the UK was the only one of Facebook’s 10 busiest territories to experience a seasonal fall, with user numbers declining by 1.86 per cent. Read more

Using Twitter photos without permission is illegal, rules judge
Two news organisation were recently ruled to have infringed upon copyrights of photographer Daniel Morel by using images the freelancer posted on Twitter without seeking his permission. A US district judge found both Agence France-Presse (AFP) and The Washington Post guilty of improperly using images Mr Morel took of the aftermath of the earthquake atrocities in Haiti back in 2010. Although AFP argued images posted to Twitter are open to commercial re-use, Judge Nathan believed such an interpretation was a “gross expansion of the terms of the Twitter terms of service”. Read more

Only 18% of top CEOs are on social networks
Although social networks such as Twitter and Facebook continue to gather new users at a considerable pace, one demographic appears less keen to join – company CEOs. A study released by global PR firm, Weber Shandwick has revealed only 18 per cent of CEOs within the world’s top 50 biggest companies by revenue own at least one social networking account. The firm conducted a similar study in 2010, which saw 16 per cent own an account, indicating that little has changed in social activity in the past three years. Read more

Organic search marketing

Facebook launches Graph Search to aid users and take on Google
Facebook has moved to tackle Google’s search engine domination by unveiling its new Graph Search which is hoped will transform how people use the social network. Company founder and chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg believes Graph Search is the network’s ‘third pillar’ after releasing Timeline and News Feed and will ultimately index all posts and content on Facebook, taking a precise query and returning an answer direct to the user. Read more

Crafted’s SEO manager, Andrew Doyle, added: “Although at an early stage, this is still one of the most important developments in search over the last few months. Launched under the title ‘Graph Search’, it will be a completely new way for people to get information from Facebook and in the long term greatly expand the way people use the website. Even though it has the potential to be an almost infinitely large project, the initial launch will be limited to searching through four separate categories - people, places, photos and interests. The long term aspiration of ‘Graph Search’ is to expand to include all content across Facebook.

“Although at this stage it is unclear exactly how ‘Graph Search’ will work and what will be possible, it does have the potential to grow into a major player in the search marketing industry. At some point it will be monetised so could potentially expand and improve paid advertising opportunities within Facebook.

“A strong presence in Facebook will always be recommended and the potential to grow the success of this with the adoption of ‘Graph Search’ within Facebook only adds to the strength of Facebook marketing efforts.”

Google Analytics gets a facelift – navigation, dashboards and more
The Google Analytics interface has recently experienced a design and structural facelift with a new top navigation and side bar, resulting in fewer tabs and a more coherent browsing experience. The ability to customise dashboards to create different layouts allows greater room for users to produce data-rich comparison tables. Read more

Crafted’s SEO manager, Andrew Doyle, added: “This week, Google Analytics has seen several updates to both its UI and some functional additions. Major changes to the UI include top and left navigation alterations with changes to the organisation and naming of data fields. For example, the left navigation is now separated into the two separate sections ‘My Stuff’ and ‘Standard Reporting’.

“Additionally, the dashboard section has seen some significant changes, with layout alterations and functional additions including the ability to apply advanced segments and two additional widget types – ‘geomaps’ and ‘bar’. Overall, it seems to be a solid set of improvements to the UI which will take time to get used to. Our opinion is that navigation through Google Analytics has been improved as well as a couple of very useful functional additions.”

Paid search marketing 

Paid search CPCs increased by 30% in 2012: report
The festive period proved to be an expensive time for UK retail paid search marketers with average cost per clicks (CPCs) escalating by as much as a third (30 per cent), peaking at around £0.35p. A new study from Kenshoo believes the increase was fuelled in no small part by a 27 per cent increase in PPC ad budgets in comparison with the previous year. Paid search impressions were also found to have increased by 18 per cent over Christmas, suggesting web users are using search engines more frequently for retail inspiration. Read more

Design

Flickr celebrates Commons’ fifth year and 250,000 photos with galleries of moving viewed images
Flickr Commons, a collection of public domain imagery founded in partnership with the US Library of Congress, is celebrating its fifth anniversary this week. First launching back in January 2008, Flickr Commons initially offered 1,500 photos and has grown to an extensive library boasting over 250,000 photos including galleries of moving viewed images. Read more

Crafted’s Head of Design, Barnie Mills, added: “Flickr Commons is a really interesting resource and it’s easy to absorb time once you get caught up in the images. Although the creative Commons licensing means that the majority of the images are available to be used for free, potentially putting a huge library of images at a designers disposal, the type and quality of the images in the library does heavily limit the commercial applications. None the less, it’s a fascinating resource."

Development 

Regulator warns of 300% increase in complaints of children accessing smartphone apps
British phone regulator, PhonepayPlus has recently unveiled figures indicating a significant 300 per cent increase in the number of parents filing complaints of children accessing expensive smartphone apps, some racking up extortionate bills running into thousands of pounds. The premium rate telephone services regulator found that 63 per cent of all 11 to 16 year olds have downloaded a free app on their phones with parents sometimes finding themselves liable for bills of three and even four figures. Read more

PR

News readership set to increase among young tablet computer owners
Suggestions that young people are not interested in reading the news may indeed be wide of the mark after a new survey of 18-to-24-year-old tablet computer owners forecasted an increase in news readership amongst the demographic. Over 12 million adults now own a tablet device in the UK and according to the YouGov survey for Newsworks, 18-to-24-year-olds were the most likely age group (40 per cent) to download an app from one of the UK national newspapers compared to the national average (30 per cent). Read more