We’re very pleased to announce the addition of two very special clients to our online marketing client list.

Indulgence Cupcake Company

Indulgence Cupcake Company is one of Brighton’s best online only cupcake bakery and delivery service. They came to us to help them get their business online having no online presence. Find out how we helped them rake in the orders!

Just Perfect Wedding Cars

Just Perfect Wedding Cars is West Sussex’s premier wedding car hire company. This was the first venue into online for the company. Their brief was to build a stylist and simple website that would showcase their wedding cars. Once the site was up and running we implemented a paid search campaign to start driving high quality, targeted traffic to the site to start generating bookings.

An interesting piece of research from Flurry suggests that only 25% of apps installed on smart phones last longer than 90 days.

Further to this Revolution reported on the study, raising questions over the ability to use smart phone apps for brand building.

In our opinion, it only goes to confirm the fundamental rule when create any content for online. Make it relevant and useful to the user.

If you have ventured onto the iTunes App Store you will see that it is awash with low quality, “spammy” apps which are either being given away for a short period or for a low price (59p).

The viral effect of big brand apps such as the Carling iPint works wonders, but you don’t see Apple promoting it on the iPhone TV Ads!

“Want to look like your are drinking a simulated pint, instead of actually drinking a pint? There’s a app for that” No!

Why? Because it provides no added value to the iPhone other than a bit of a giggle.

To ensure that the your app is going to do your brand justice you need to plan your app with the following in mind:

• Long last engagement
• Short term, viral effect

Long term engagement

These are the apps that are going to last longer than 90 days.  Specific to a users needs, some brands are going to have to be very inventive to ensure people keep these on their phone for longer.

Examples of this might be, a major high street bank creates a money management app to help keep their finances in check.  Ora cinema might create an app to keep movie lovers up to today with the latest releases, showing times and offers.

Smart phones are the sexy, quicky cousin of the humble PC. They don’t want lots of little apps cluttering up their screens. Chances are they won’t last that long.

Short term, viral effect

If you are going after this market then expect these to be the apps that this research is talking about.  These kinds of apps with have a short shelf life as users become bored of the same functionality which provides little or no value.  Once you’ve bored yourself and all your friends with it, chances are you’ll be deleting it!

A possible way to increase the retention is to update the app with different versions to improve the appeal.  Pocket God on the iPhone is a good example of this, like a cyber pet you keep alive, each update has new features and quirky updates to keep people interested and engaged.

Reality is that much like a viral campaign via email, you will need to create a lot of smaller, regular apps and updates to keep it alive.

Own an iPhone? Please take this 3 question survey based on this research.

We don’t usually post tech based stories related to computer software or hardware. But it has come to our attention from the people at Silicon News that Microsoft will not offer cheaper upgrades to the European market for their new operating system, Windows 7. This is due to the recent anti-trust laws that were passed in the EU prevent Microsoft from packaging Internet Explorer (worst Internet browser ever created) with their operating systems. Given how terrible Internet Explorer is at, well, everything, this can only be a good thing.

Microsoft give their reasons for doing so, but it seems as a low swipe at the EU. You can read the full story here.

Personally, I am a Windows user, this is another thing that has made me seriously consider purchasing a mac.

And our recommendation, if you are reading this on Internet Explorer, is to download a proper Internet browser.

A news story broke this week of a serious social media faux pas by Habitat. In a nutshell, they used hashtags for popular trending topics, such as the crisis in Iran, to promote their business. This has created a backlash by Twitter users for this blatant abuse of Twitter.

It’s a great example of how not to do things using Twitter. That should be self-evident. Habitat have said that the use of these hashtags was not authorised, but did not say who had used them (Source: BBC News). They have since apologised for the mess up, but it seems the damage has already been done.

But it looks like people are jumping on the bandwagon and following suit.

Habitat Fail, others follow suit

See this very recent example of promoting products and services by using the conversations around the release of the Transformers 2 movie. There are many more like these on Twitter right now.

As with everything online, people will find a way to abuse the system for their own gain. Facebook went through the same, when they started letting third parties develop applications. People’s profiles were awash with invitations to “bite people as vampires”. Not today thanks, I’ve just had lunch!

So, we face a barrage of spam on Twitter against popular subjects. This erodes the credibility of Twitter and the people that tweet genuinely.

Let’s hope that Twitter do something to stop this, ASAP.

I promised not to include the term “facesquatting” in this post, for fear of cheapening our brand. But it’s too late now. Well I didn’t coin the phrase, so that should buy me some dignity.

For those who don’t know, “facesquatting” is term recently given to one person holding a Facebook vanity URL, that another deems does not belong to them.

I’m being facetious, but it brings up an interesting subject around personal brands online.

Continue reading Online multiple personalities – managing personal brand conflicts on search engines

If you have read our page on what is social media, you’ll know (or perhaps you knew already) one of the main reasons for investing time in social media is engagement with your customers.

Dell’s example sets a good benchmark on how a company integrates social media tools into their business. Their next challenge is to help “revolutionise” their business.

Continue reading How can social media help a company with bad customer service?

Twitter has become mass market. Questions have been asked and debated around Twitter’s retention rate, but numbers are high and it can be a great way to get relevant followers and traffic to your site. Our advice is to use it responsibly, as mass-following or spam like activities are like to upset people and do more harm than good. Good, honest marketing is what we like.

Searching on twitter is more passive and recreational than using a search engine. People will be interested in conversations rather than actively seeking a piece of information. Thinking carefully about how you write your tweets and using the correct words and tone will help to promote your business.

Continue reading Optimising your twitter tweets and tools to help

Thought I would share this great article on 50 iPhone apps for web developers. Thanks to FreelanceSw for the tweet.

Our favourites so far are the WordPress and Font apps!

Let us know what your favourites are!

It’s not uncommon in literature for the writer’s identity to be masked. It can serve many benefits; studies suggest that people are less judgemental of an article if they do not know the identity of the author. Some may distrust the source or validity of the article; it’s a subjective thing.

Blogging has brought about a new era of publishing. Anyone with with a laptop and internet access can get online and publish their thoughts, views and opinions to the world. Some will proudly stamp their name all over; some will hide behind the screen.

A recent court case over the identity of a controversial blogger in the UK has threatened that anonymity and could have implications in the future.

Continue reading Anonymous blogging – please remove your mask

The UK government, as I am sure all governments are, is concerned about the digital divide. The divide of people who are technically competent and the technically inferior.

The Digital Britain report was published last Tuesday, a road map set out by the government for the digital future of Britain. We won’t discuss the ins-and-outs of whether digital is a good/bad thing. We sit firmly in the good camp.

The government has promised to give all UK homes a minimum of 2Mbps broadband. The leading digital inclusion charity, Citizens Online, say this is not good enough. We’re inclined to agree! 2Mbps is too slow!

Debate aside, even if the government do achieve their goal, will people use it? Let’s have a look at how these digital “luddites” could be divided:

Continue reading Digital Britian Report: The digital divide