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Social Media explained with donuts

ben — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 17:14:36 +0000

How to explain social media to your loved ones when they ask what your agency does… Related posts:Tug and Social Media Hello, my name is Ben and I’ve recently jumped aboard... Social media role in UK riots Social media was an essential tool in organizing the riots... Social Media Integration with PPC & SEO is [...] Related posts:

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Facebook IPO Filing: Zuckerberg’s Letter to Investors

Ben Romberg — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 16:41:27 +0000

Mark Zuckerberg’s letter to investors following Facebook’s £5bn Initial Public Offering (IPO) – one of the largest in Wall Street’s history – reflects some big changes in the way the web has shifted towards being more “social” and how social networks have sought to monetise themselves.

Below we have pulled out some key quotes from his letter that are worth checking out.

On Facebook as a business

“We don’t build services to make money; we make money to build better services.”

On Facebook and politics

“We believe that leaders will emerge across all countries who are pro-internet and fight for the rights of their people, including the right to share what they want and the right to access all information that people want to share with them.”

On Hackers

“The word “hacker” has an unfairly negative connotation from being portrayed in the media as people who break into computers. In reality, hacking just means building something quickly or testing the boundaries of what can be done. Like most things, it can be used for good or bad, but the vast majority of hackers I’ve met tend to be idealistic people who want to have a positive impact on the world.”

Hacker culture is also extremely open and meritocratic. Hackers believe that the best idea and implementation should always win – not the person who is best at lobbying for an idea or the person who manages the most people.”

Unofficial slogan?

“We have a saying: “Move fast and break things.”

Read the full letter here on engadget:

http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/01/zuckerberg-outlines-idealistic-facebook-mission-in-ipo-filing/

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The Facebook Timeline

hannah — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 12:39:11 +0000

So I was naive and thought that we all had a choice over whether we have to move over to the new Facebook format. On my way home last night I read an article which informed me that within two weeks I would have the Facebook Timeline!

I do like the new layout, this is not the issue I have with it. It’s more the fact that I was 17 when I first signed up and I’m pretty sure there are a few images, posts and comments that I’d rather not be reminded of. Now I’m aware that I have the chance to remove all this within the next couple weeks but Facebook is making having an account a chore rather than the social networking opportunity that I signed up for.

The debate around the changes for a lot of people is about privacy and how it’s violating our human rights etc etc etc. I wouldn’t go this far, as when you sign up to a social network surely it is with the aim of sharing information about yourself? Otherwise what would be the point? However, I do believe that there must be a method, which is not such a divulgence of personal events i.e. the break up you’d rather forget that was so publicly displayed on your wall.

The aim of this blog is not actually to moan, it’s more just a big nudge to let you know that if there are certain things you do not want your friends, employer or Mum – who’s just recently discovered Facebook, to see, then you have around two weeks to edit your life.

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Link building in 2012: predictions and changes

Carlo Pandian — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 12:40:02 +0000

As Google gets new updates and the algorithm becomes smarter, the job of SEOs has to modify its practices in order to keep up. As my main activity is link building I am always testing new ways to deliver great results and to anticipate trends. I strongly believe that social mentions and back links have an equal weight for rankings, saying that, I have compiled these suggestions to get the most out of your link building campaigns:

When you are looking to publish a guest post for your clients or get a link, avoid evaluating your host with the old criteria: Page Rank, DA, MozRank. Nowadays it is more important if your contact has a good amount of followers and fans because you need to get tweets and likes out from your guest blogging activities.

Make a good use of Social Bookmarking tools and open themed accounts for every industry you are working for. After that remember to bookmark all your links and articles out there. If you want to be more efficient organise a community of people that bookmark your content, that will make your content attractive for the search engine and it will be indexed quickly with good social signals.

When you are doing guest blogging, maximise your effort. Tweet about a new post from the client social media account; ask the blogger to do the same and social bookmark everything.

Establish online relationships and start multiple collaborations. I have a great new idea, which is to get in touch students with businesses they are interested to work for. This way you can really set up new ways of producing great content for free.

As Google+ is definitely supporting the creation of personas (now you can connect articles to authors via G+) every business should choose a public speaker that can produce useful content for the web. It is something that was already in the sight as some companies started to use this strategy on Twitter for customer service.

If you want to talk about link building in 2012, drop me a tweet @tugagency

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Google launches Search plus Your World

Ben Romberg — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 13:42:56 +0000

The final piece in the social media puzzle for Google – integrating its social network Google+ into its search results – slotted into place yesterday in the form of “Search plus Your World“. Launched to a background of mixed reviews and a critical statement from Twitter, it seems that the decision has so far proved unpopular.

Starting today for people who enter an English search term into Google.com logged into their Google account, they will see results featuring posts and content from their wider Google+ network alongside worldwide search results. Below is an example of what happened when Neil searched for “Tug” while logged into his Google account.

You can see the top result indicates that there are 400 personal results in his Google+ network. Then the second and third results are personalised with a figurative logo in blue next them to indicate this is the case.

Image searches also fall under this category and the name of the friend who has posted this image appears in the thumbnail link, showing the name of the person who posted the picture to your network.

You can switch between your personal search results integrated with worldwide results and pure worldwide results using two new buttons that appear on the right hand side of the search bar.

This means you can filter out the social feed and opt to use natural Google search at the touch of a button.

Search plus Your World will impact the way Google users search for content online and highlights a sea-change in the importance of social media when considering your SEO strategy.

To talk to Tug about social media drop me a line at ben.romberg@tugsearch.co.uk

Or follow us on Twitter @tugagency

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Top 5 SEO tips for Mum Bloggers

Carlo Pandian — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 16:32:35 +0000

Thanks to Claire from BrightonMums, i am happy to share some SEO expertise with UK mum bloggers community. Feel free to connect with Tug, the marketing agency I am working for and learn more about how to promote your site.
Drop me a tweet @Tugagency if you have any questions!

Firstly, I would recommend you to use these suggestions carefully as you shouldn’t change your editorial style in order to be SEO friendly. Let’s get straight to the practice and see how a mom blog can meet Google standards:

1) Look at what people search with Google Keywords tool. In order to reach these users you should include some of these terms in the title tags, alt tag of images and/or in the first 100 characters of the post.

2) If you work with WordPress, our suggested platform, install any SEO pack in order to personalise meta descriptions and title tags with the keywords that people search for and that describe your article. Google XML sitemap is another great plug-in that creates a map of your site and send it to the search engine. If you don’t use WordPress, check online on how to optimize the title tag and the description of your posts and how to submit a sitemap to Google.

3) Create social media (Twitter, Facebook, Google+) and bookmarking (Reddit, Stumbleupon, Delicious and Digg) profiles for your blogs and share your content online. For Twitter remember to include related hash tags while for Facebook and G+ work include images. Sometimes ask to share your article if you feel that it can be of interest for the community. In 2012 social mentions are going to be an important ranking factor.

4) Add your blog to online free directories and write guest blogs with a link back to your one. The more links which are pointing back to you, the higher your ranking will be. Another good technique is to answer questions (Yahoo Answer and Quora) and comment other posts with useful information.

5) This is a great infograph on blog copywriting that explains how you can improve the readability of your text. I would add that you should link to other similar articles in your site if there are any.

Share this post to help build the great British mum blogger community!

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Facebooks trouble with worms

hannah — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 10:15:11 +0000

Apparently a computer worm has stolen 45,000 login credentials from Facebook. It has said to have largely affected accounts within the UK and France. The malware responsible is the well known ‘Ramnit’, which has been invading computers and stealing bank details since it was first discovered in April 2010.

In order to spread the virus at a higher pace it is suspected that Ramnit is using stolen credentials to hack into accounts and subsequently send malicious links to friends.

Social networks are like a hub of personal information and for this reason they are especially appealing to viruses.

“It appears that sophisticated hackers are now experimenting with replacing the old-school email worms with more up-to-date social network worms. As demonstrated by the 45,000 compromised Facebook subscribers, the viral power of social networks can be manipulated to cause considerable damage to individuals and institutions when it is in the wrong hands,” said Security firm Seculert.

Seculert has estimated that between September and December 2011 over 800,000 machines were infected with Ramnit. The problem is that it is not always visible that Ramnit has passed through your computer. It is stealing passwords with no announcement of its presence. The advice given is to run your anti-virus software and hope for the best!

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How many social networks are there on the Web?

Carlo Pandian — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 16:43:51 +0000

At the beginning it was MySpace with a large community of music fans and bands sharing the same profile layout and functions. After that social networks have exploded in the market and now these can be divided by functions and objectives. If Facebook is the place for fun and for making contacts (that girl I met at the pub last night), then Linkedin does its job in providing career opportunities and taking care of my business contacts.

When Facebook started to decrease its market share in the States, some business analysts thought that more specialized networks would have space to grow. Since then other sites have started seeking my attention and begun to adventure into the crowded field of social networking sites.

On the 30th November 2011, Wikipedia lists 204 social networks currently providing active spaces for conversations, profiles and great organization services.

Here’s a selection of my favourites:

1) DeviantArt
It aggregates illustrators, photographers, painters, computer artists that share their works online.

2) TravBuddy
Community of travellers that share their experiences writing reviews about locations, attractions and special places that have visited.

3) SoundCloud
Looking for music producers and bands? This is the best place to discover the next coming star in the music world, it is a great source for independent stuff and a great marketing tool for every musician

4) Habbo
It started in 2003 and it has an amazing 3D pixel graphic design. It looks like an old school game where you can use an avatar to play a second life. Good luck with it!

5) Asmallworld
This unites the European jet set and the social elite worldwide. Many marketers use this for B2B leads. Members share similar backgrounds, interests and perspectives. Asmallworld offers memberships by invitations only

Any question or more on this, follow me on Twitter: @carlopandian

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5 quick wins link building steps for your personal website

Carlo Pandian — Tue, 29 Nov 2011 15:55:31 +0000

With the introduction of social networks our identities are spread throughout the web, sometimes without our knowledge. You can enter most of your friend’s names into Google and be able to find some information about them, which they are completely oblivious to. However, it can be that this information is incorrect where it may be an old website subscription or homonyms.

These are 5 quick wins link building techniques to uplift your personal website that you want to show online.
First of all, decide which one you want to build links for (an example: about.me/johnmccain) and create these 5 accounts:

1) Twitter
you must include in the profiles settings a small description and your personal website url. Remember to tweet when you upload new information with a link to it. If you want to be shown near a particular term, for example your profession, include related hash tags and keywords.

2) LinkedIn
There’s a section in the profile where you are allowed to publish three sites. Select the option “Other”, write your full name as the anchor text pointing to your target.

3) Facebook
Select “edit my profile”, then “contact information”. There’s a section where you can insert your link.

4) WhoHub.com
It is a platform to release interviews about your interests or profession and allows you to add do-follow links (include just one). This is a great new resource because you can stuff a page with keywords that are connected to your profession.

5) Google+
In the section “other profiles” type your personal website first and then your other profiles below.

If you think you need more to reach a reasonable ranking, you can participate in bloggers’ conversations. In fact you can leave comments on posts using your full name as anchor text and your personal site. If you want to reach a better visibility you can write an article and sign them. You can find opportunities in your niche through looking at My Blog Guest forum.

These are all simple and easy techniques, however they can only get you so far, for example if you are called James Dean or Michael Smith, you will need to spend much more time and money to reach top positions.

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Series of Fun Facts: Part I

rainelda — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 12:14:41 +0000

It’s Friday, so lets tap ourselves on the shoulders for work well done this week (as I truly believe that no matter what, this week was good for everyone is one way or the other).

Do you like to find out different, interesting information? I know I do. Especially those little fun facts, that won’t crucially change your rhythm, but gives you that “Hmm, I didn’t know that – it’s interesting” feeling.

Fun Fact Nr. 1: We all know that YouTube is a video-sharing website. I personally found interesting that it was created by 3 former PayPal employees (Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim) in February 2005, so in 2012 little YouTube is going to be 7 years old. YouTube is based in San Bruno, California, but it’s early headquarters were situated above a pizzeria and Japanese restaurant in San Mateo, California. According to a story that has often been repeated in the media, Hurley and Chen developed the idea for YouTube after they had experienced difficulty sharing videos that had been shot at a dinner party at Chen’s apartment. Karim didn’t attend the party and denied that it actually occurred, while Hurley commented that the idea of YouTube being found after a dinner party was probably a marketing idea to create a true and digestible story. The very first YouTube video was entitled “Me at the zoo” and shows founder Jawed Karim at the San Diego Zoo. The video is still available: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNQXAC9IVRw It is 18 seconds long, was shot at 8:27PM on the 23rd April 2005 and posted live that same day.

Fun Fact Nr. 2: Did you know that you are able to express yourself in 140 characters and allow other people read it a.k.a. tweet nearly 6 years now? Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched in July 2006. Twitter gained worldwide popularity with over 300 MILLION users and generating over 300 MILLION tweets per day. Twitter’s origins lie in a brainstorming session held by board members of the podcasting company Odeo. Dorsey introduced the idea of an individual using an SMS service to communicate with a small group. The original project code name for the service was twttr. Work on the project started on March 21, 2006, when Dorsey published the first Twitter message at 9:50PM “just setting up my twttr”. The first Twitter prototype was used as an internal service for Odeo employees and the full version was introduced publicly on July 15, 2006. Twitter spun off into its own company in April 2007.

Fun Fact Nr. 3: As a blogger I can say that personally after trying Google’s blogspot.com and wordpress. com the second option is more closer to my convenience. WordPress first appeared in 2003 as a joint effort between Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little. The name WordPress itself was suggested by a friend of Mullenweg Christine Selleck. WordPress won several awards – in 2007 it won a Packt Open Source CMS Award, then in 2009 won the Packt best Open Source CMS Award. In 2010 WordPress won the Hall of Fame CMS catefory in the 2010 Open Source Awards and in 2011 won the Open Source Web App of the Year Award at the Critters. WordPress is used by over 14.7% of Alexa Internet‘s top 1 million websites and as of August 2011 powers 22% of all new websites. Currently it is the most popular CMS in use on the Internet. As of February this year, the version 3.0 was downloaded 32.5 MILLION TIMES.

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