Category: Social Media

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The Importance Of Blogging Yourself


As Web Marketing consultants we are heavily into blogging for our clients and actively encourage each of them to blog for themselves. When we make this suggestion it is usually greeted with a few different replies:

  • OK but how and what do you need?
  • Why should I, because that is what I am paying you for
  • I haven’t got time

The above three are by far the most popular replies we get. I sure you have noticed that two of the three are negative responses. The reason for this is because people still do not understand that competing in the internet arena is becoming more and more difficult with every day that passes. To succeed today you need to throw everything you have got at it to stand any chance of winning. Remember, if you’re not blogging your competitor probably is.

What we want to hear from our clients is “yes we will blog but can you give us some guidance?” The response we give also answers the other two negative replies above and hopefully will convince them that they should be blogging in addition to us.

Why Should I Blog?

  • More in-depth knowledge of the industry – We will never know the industry as well as the client so any blog produced by them will be much more relevant and industry specific
  • More long tail traffic – Relevant keywords and search phrases will be included within the copy of the blogs naturally, thus bringing in more long tail traffic to the website.
  • Industry Authority – Blogging regularly will keep the client in front of the competition and overtime may become the first port of call for people looking into that particular industry.
  • Increased frequency – A lot of work from an agency will be based around external sources so by the client blogging themselves they will be helping to keep the content on their website fresh, and Google likes nothing more than fresh content.

How Do I blog And I Haven’t Got Time?

There are no hard and fast rules to blogging, just keep it simple and follow the below rules:

  • Blog as often or as little as possible
  • Blogs can be as long or as short as you like
  • Keep them related to your industry and anything goes
  • Recruit as many people as you can from the company to blog as all blogs can be approved before making them live
  • Keep it original (no copying)

That’s really it. There is no secret sauce when it comes to blogging. The only stipulation is, make it as awesome as possible. It’s important that our clients understand that we are not asking them to do our job for us and get through X number of blog posts per month. All we need is for them to realise that by blogging themselves they will be speeding up the process of becoming an internet sensation.

If you would like to know more about how Web Vitality could help your website then why not give us a call on 0161 660 0423 or get in touch via email.

Home > Blog > Social Media

Introducing Google+

Google+
Google are trying yet again to break into the Social Networking arena with their latest offering Google+. Dont all rush and try and log on as its only in trial mode.

When I say trial mode I mean that they are testing it with a limited number of trustees. Us mere mortals will have to wait for the initial launch.

If you want to be one of the first to be notified when it goes live you can register your interest by clicking here.

With features such as circles, hangouts and sparks we are sure to be amazed. Lets hope it does better than Google Wave.

Watch out Facebook as Google+ is coming after you

Home > Blog > Social Media

The Role of Social Media in Online Recruitment (And a Bit of a Case Study)

twitter recruitment

Considering our upcoming launch of a new Social Media Marketing service, it seemed a good time to go into a little bit of depth about the flexible applications of social media which go beyond the more obvious and widespread benefits. In this instance- how social media is becoming an essential recruitment tool in our ever more digitised society – and how we’ve demonstrated that it works in a real-life scenario for one of our clients:

Blogging has been with us for many years now and is an exercise which is undertaken by individuals, small businesses, giant corporations and all manner of authors in between. It allows for the blogger to share their thoughts, views and news with interested parties and in doing so make their voice heard – whatever the subject matter. The modern social network takes this personal soapbox to its logical destination: allowing users to share as much or as little information about their daily life as they wish and to do so amongst friends, like-minded individuals or the world at large.

It’s only relatively recently that brands and businesses have started to truly embrace social media as a means of interaction with their customers and clients. Twitter especially allows for a social media profile to double up as a customer service channel – with the ‘@’ symbol serving as a means of direct communication. There’s no doubting the usefulness of Twitter and Facebook for all manner of organisations due to their dual purpose as interaction tool and information sharing tool. Social networks take on a whole new level of functionality however when utilised in online recruitment.

The key to effective recruitment is reaching the right potential applicants for each job role. At Blue Octopus Online Recruitment they’ve always put this at the forefront of their method by posting expertly constructed job descriptions and candidate requirements to the leading job boards and industry specific websites and publications. Embracing social media has allowed us to supplement this activity with job posts direct to Twitter and Facebook (alongside other social networks) which opens new doors of opportunity. By posting job roles directly to the newsfeeds of Facebook and Twitter subscribers, we can keep job hunters informed of brand new positions as and when they are announced. This allows us to reach prospective candidates- even when they’re engaging in social interaction with friends as opposed to actively job hunting. This format also makes it easier for people to share details of these positions with friends who they think may be interested.

In a similar way, active engagement with Linked-In puts relevant roles in front of relevant candidates based on their interests, experience and location. The more business-centric nature of Linked-In also means that whilst online recruitment through Facebook and Twitter reaches people when they’re most likely visiting the site during leisure time: Linked-In interaction is more commonly undertaken whilst actively seeking fresh employment opportunities. Essentially, social media recruitment methods are effective at all times of day.

The advent of Smartphones such as the I-Phone, BlackBerry and Android based handsets has also meant that people don’t only interact with social media platforms when in front of a computer – but whenever and wherever they fancy. This additional reach simply adds to the potential and effectiveness of social media interaction as a tool for online recruitment.

Although Facebook, Twitter and their ilk aren’t yet the most effective means of finding new employees; they are an indispensible tool which will only gain importance over time and we’re proud to have brought them on-board alongside Blue Octopus Online Recruitment’s other more established methods sooner rather than later.

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A Look At Infographics

It’s possible to express a thought, an emotion or a viewpoint in any number of ways – these different modes of expression are exalted as art forms if executed well and form the foundations of culture. Wordsmithery (a made up term referring to effective and powerful use of written language) is no exception and is a craft I often attempt to exercise in order to move people, encourage positive thought and of course get visitors to websites. I’m not going to quote any of the appropriate clichés here, but to put it simply: sometimes words don’t have quite the impact required.

When it comes to statistics, words (and of course their good friend: numbers) may comprehensively succeed in providing the bulk of the salient information that one wishes to convey – but the result can be lengthy and boring. Similarly, short of using Comic Sans or Word Art, it’s hard to add visual flourishes to reports on the findings of a research body, or to engage a passing eye and achieve impact on the page with just enjambment, alliteration and very self-indulgent punctuation. To succeed in these cases you need something which expresses the facts whilst also engaging the viewer and breaking often complicated concepts down into comfortably masticated chunks. In this area of communication the infographic is king.

Example 1 – Recruitment 2010…at a Glance

The title of this infographic concisely expresses the function of this infographic and the infographic itself concisely, clearly and imaginatively expresses the facts and figures that the originator Blue Octopus Online Recruitment wanted to share:

Although many will find statistics pertaining to recruitment in 2010 absolutely fascinating…the majority of ‘pleasure-browsers’ probably won’t. This infographic caters to both parties by playing with colour, graphically expressing facts and figures and providing both negative and positive findings in a clear and balanced way.

Example 2 – The True Cost of Asbestos

This infographic from Lighthouse Health and Safety was created to try and raise awareness of the harm that asbestos exposure continues to inflict on a large number of people every year. Much like the previous example, the image serves to graphically demonstrate statistics which are generally never shown in a manner more exciting than a generic bar chart. It grabs attention, pleases the eye and imparts important knowledge, see:

Whilst the recruitment infographic still had an air of business-iness about it, this example plays more with colour and utilises more elaborate and creative imagery. Given that it aims to share a message with the widest possible audience, the almost playful presentation of very serious facts and emphasis on visual depiction over lexical elaboration show just how short the average attention span is.

So, if you want to show off some mind-blitzing facts and figures in a way which also appeals to the aesthetically minded you should probably at least consider an infographic…I personally think they’re ace.

(PS: If you would like to help spread the message about the dangers of asbestos exposure on your blog or website then please visit http://www.lighthouseriskservices.co.uk/true-cost-of-asbestos.html - it’s a cause which I don’t personally believe is given enough consideration and the infographic looks brilliant!)

Home > Blog > Social Media

What is your Facebook page worth?

Can you put a value on your Facebook page?

A new web app called the  Social Page Evaluator, attempts to give a value to Facebook pages by applying a series of mathematical equations to a given URL.

The app dissects the value and potential of a page, and gives a value at the end. Currently not all pages work, but the idea that a simple Facebook page can have a certain value is an intriguing one. Given that a few pages can have millions of fans, then the idea is not so strange, and very compelling.

For example, Lady Gaga’s page has an annual value of $38.7 million, with a potential of $75.7 million. Worldwide retail giant Wal-Mart has a value of $2.5million and a potential of $12.3million.

Exactly how the figures are derived is primarily by the number of fans, or “likes” (Facebook having recently changed this value recently). The number of posts, types of posts and the URL are also added into the equation.

Vitrue, the creators of the app, have calculated that 1 million fans are worth a minimum of $3.6 million in earned media annually. Each analysis comes with an explanation of what might improve a page’s potential. Posts should be directly related to the brand, and consistently keeping in touch is also key.

Here at Web Vitality we’re a great “fan” of Facebook pages (see what we did there), and will shortly be posting an informative “How to create the perfect Facebook page” article. This will be something you won’t want to miss.