After nearly a month to the day of being released in the US, UK users can today begin to use Facebook’s new location service ‘Places’. The new service, which was launched in the US on the 19th August, allows users to check into locations in much the same way as you could with other services such as Foursquare. Users also have the ability to tag their friends at locations and this information is displayed on your news feed for all your friends to see. (more…)

Research conducted by comScore has shown that women spend 30 percent more time on social networking sites than men. (more…)

Twitter has made the news again this week as reports announced the social network is to publish online shopping deals and exclusive goodies using a dedicated account: @EarlyBird. (more…)

Managing your online reputation means keeping informed about what is being said about your brand, proactively protecting it via the conversation channels such as Social Media and dealing with any negativity.
If you have an unhappy customer, it’s possible that they won’t express their dissatisfaction to you. There are thousands of people everyday who go online and comment negatively about companies and products on other websites. The result of a negative online reputation (rebember the Toyota crisis back in February?) can have obvious financial implications and this is why it is so important to keep track of what people are saying about your brand.  (more…)

Link baiting falls under the task of link building and simply aims to increase the quantity of relevant links to a wesite.
The straightforward meaning of link baiting is encouraging others to link to you.
Matt Cutts from Google defined it as anything “interesting enough to catch people’s attention”.
Link baiting is all about gaining reputation and constant effort is the key. It might take months or even years to get noticed but if you are persistent people will be talking about your content soon. (more…)

Video is currently 1/3 of web traffic, Google’s brand new SERP layout has made video results more accessible and if figures are to be believed, video will be the dominant online content medium in the next five years.

Optimising your YouTube channel effectively will not only increase your online visibility, but it will also increase the strength of your brand. (more…)

As the build up for the next general election gathers pace, we constantly hear references to this being the UK’s first “digital election”. Back in 2005 Facebook was barely a year old, YouTube only 2 months old and Twitter did not exist at all!

BBC News reports that over the weekend Facebook is to ask its 23 million UK users whether they have registered to vote in a tie-up with the Electoral Commission. (more…)

AOL has announced that it is looking to sell-up or shut down social networking site Bebo after two years. Bought for USD 850 million in 2008 AOL has decided to that it is best cut ties with the site which was once one of the most popular social sites in the UK. (more…)