Top Click Media Staff Blog » Social Networking

Caffeine Explained: The rise of Social Media

Matt Thomas — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 08:00:02 +0000

One of the main changes expected from the Caffeine update will be the importance given to social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter etc. in the rankings. This means that keyword-rich Facebook pages or social media blog posts will start to get decent ranking, as well as traditional web pages.

How good that ranking will be is unclear though this could well mean that social network optimisation for companies is going to become a new frontier in the marketing war. Up till now a corporate Facebook page has been viewed as, at best an interesting sidebar to your main campaign, at worst a massive waste of time that nobody’s ever going to look at. In the near future however, you might start to see companies using and indexing their facebook pages in ever more creative ways in order to grab another few ranking places and hopefully open up a new revenue/marketing stream.

We’re already starting to see the boundaries between social and business networking blurring. Marketing managers and web developers would do well to start thinking carefully about how exactly they can update their social media use to fit in.

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Automated Bookmarking Damaging to SEO?

Jack Fox — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 11:45:01 +0000

Search engine optimisation requires that you complete the process in the most beneficial way to get the best page rankings. There are numerous ways that your page rank can suffer as a result of using improper techniques. Automated bookmarking may seem like a great way to get your articles out into the world for social media sites, but there are some downsides to the process.

You need to use automated bookmarking options in moderation. The tools do make submitting pages to social media sites easy but too quick and you can lose the benefits. Social media sites are helpful to gain a better audience on your site as well as to get inbound links on your pages. SocialMarker, Social List, SocialPoster, and Tag Genie are great sites to use.

Still, before you use these sites you should be sensible. Do not bookmark every page on your site in one day. Instead build the site over time on the social media site. By building in one day you look very spammy, which could get you thrown off Google.

Take a few of your more important product pages first. Sales landing pages are important to your site, and they should be filled with quality keyword text. A blog is a great example of a content page to get bookmarked on a social media site. You should add one site, see how it does, and then a few days later add a couple more pages.

The initial process for getting started can take 20 to 30 minutes because of the unique style of account. The first page will take longer than the rest of them. This is one reason to wait until you have a successful first page before adding to your bookmarks.

The idea of social marketing bookmarking tools is to get your site up and noticed. You do not want to abuse the tools provided you. You can always get links to pages and page views that you need within a search engine for page rank. Use all the tools at your disposal to have a well rounded campaign, over the easiest option at your finger tips.

Too often amateur web designers go for the easy road over the better option. There are more social media sites out there than we have mentioned above. By using more than one site you can make yourself look less spammy and still get your most important pages up.

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Is Google worried about Twitter?

Matt Thomas — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 08:00:05 +0000

The explosion of Twitter usage this year has taken many of us in the online world by surprise. We knew the format would grow, purely by virtue of the growth of the industry as a whole, though the celebrity endorsements and blanket publicity fuelled rise to the level where it’s rivalling established giants of the social networking field like Facebook and MySpace has come as something of a shock. If you believe the rumours flying around, then the ruffled feathers extend further than just the social networking community, all the way to kings of the internet Google.

Journalists have long noted that Google CEO, Eric Schmidt is a little prickly about the subject of Twitter, refusing to use their brand name in public, referring to the phenomenon simply as micro blogging. Also, the general belief is that earlier in the year Google took a long hard look at actually buying the site, recently valued at $250 million(ish). So what has Google so worried? Is it simply a little bit of the green eyed monster regarding Twitter’s public profile, or does Google actually see the site as a competitor?

Well, in real terms, probably not, at least not yet. Twitter’s Search’s share of the search market is somewhere around the hundredth of a percent mark and though it will probably grow, it isn’t likely to actually become a player in terms of traditional search. The reason it can’t compete with Google directly is paradoxically also probably the reason that Google are taking notice, Twitter doesn’t work like a traditional search engine and, in fact, does something that Google can’t do, qualitative research.

If you’re looking for a fact or a particular thing (quantative information) then Google probably can’t be beaten. However, raw facts don’t encompass the entire sphere of human curiosity – not nearly. How many times have you asked your friends, ‘what do you reckon to this?’ ‘What do you think about that?’ what we’re doing here is trying to get a sense of the prevailing opinion about something so we have a context for our own, or consulting a peer group for opinions that may lead to greater understanding of an issue.

This is what Twitter is good for, we can consult our peer group’s opinion on a topic of the day through our followers, a group whose opinions we presumably respect, or we can take it one step further and consult the entirety of twitter and gauge the reaction to a story across the world which is the really useful thing that Twitter Search can do. Of course the results get cluttered by news and corporate tweets but if you can cut through all that then a consensus starts to emerge amongst the tweeters, what’s more it’s in real time! As any ad man will tell you, good market research is the cornerstone of any campaign. Twitter essentially offers a focus group of thousands for free.

It’s also good for breaking news, and I don’t mean the traditional ‘this happened in the last few hours’ breaking news, I mean breaking news. Michael Jackson tweets were up on Twitter within half an hour of the singer’s death after TMZ.com reported the incident a little over fifteen minutes after the fact. Yeah, it might not be the most reliable source but it has an immediacy that cannot be beaten.

I’ll give you a personal example. Last week there was a fire in Soho, a fact I knew before most as I was checking the Top Click Media Twitter page at the time and noticed that a follower, who works in that area of London had posted a tweet, something along the lines of ‘Oh my god, there’s a fire down the road.’ Out of interest, I loaded up the BBC News site, it wasn’t there, I then refreshed the page every 10 minutes to see how long it would take, an hour and a half later there was a preliminary report, by which time twitter had info on numbers of firemen, affected areas etc. Twitter one, BBC nil.

Over the next few years I would be staggered if many more people don’t start using Twitter for this kind of thing, already if I want to know about something that’s just happened I’ll load up twitter before Google News and If I want to get a feel for who will win X Factor, Twitter is far better placed to tell me than anything else.

So what does Google plan to do about it? Well, nothing’s confirmed but rumours abound, and it would be pretty naive to assume that somewhere within Google there aren’t one or two (or more) employees with IQ’s the size of cricket scores working on a response. Watch this space, I for one will be looking forward to seeing how Google can improve on Twitter’s winning formula.

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Chasing Followers devalues Twitter

Matt Thomas — Tue, 26 May 2009 09:56:44 +0000

As those of us who use twitter professionally or, dare I say it, as a prop for their ego will know, followers = power. The more people that are following you, the more people you reach with your tweets. The more people you reach with your tweets, the more effectively you are able to promote yourself/your product and shape the zeitgeist in your favour.

This leads to a real quantity over quality bias amongst Twitter users as they struggle to get as many followers as possible, following absolutely anyone in the hope of getting a follow back and in turn getting many of these haphazard follows themselves. Pretty soon, and we’re talking days here, it’s possible to get thousands of followers, even if you haven’t written anything on Twitter at all.

In the short term this is good for professional users as they have a huge stable of followers to begin pushing their message on. However, there is a danger of killing the golden goose here and professional followers should all be aware that they run the risk of falling foul of the law of diminishing returns as what they’re up to promotionally begins to pollute and corrupt the user experience – the reason people go on twitter in the first place.

If less people go on Twitter there are less people to sell to. If we end up in a situation where there’s not much going on other than companies preaching at each other about their products or services then the whole thing becomes useless for any purpose, especially sales and corporate networking.

The traditional/desirable user experience on Twitter goes something like this. You go on, you write some tweets, people that like what you have to say follow you, then you browse other people’s tweets and follow people that interest you. That way, when you log on you are greeted by a list of tweets there’s decent chance of you being actually interested in.

Essentially the point is that no one actually keeps track of a thousand accounts, therefore the people that are following so many people are essentially operating contrary to the main point of twitter, actual interaction rather than spam.

So, what to do about it? Well, the only way I can see is to limit the number of people you’re allowed to follow. Admittedly, the backlash to this would be huge, though think about it, by limiting the number of followers you’re allowed to have, you assign follows a value that they have until now lacked, this would make people more careful about the people they follow, this would mean having 1000+ followers would actually mean something.

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Using Social Media to enhance your Career

Matt Thomas — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 08:00:46 +0000

One way to manipulate your social networking profile to your advantage is with status updates blog posts. In the run up to a job interview you might want to think about the odd twitter post or Facebook status update related to your profession and your opinions about it, ensuring these opinions are shared, or likely to be shared, by your potential employer.

If you can be bothered, a blog is also a great way to express opinions on your industry, you get to look professional and engaged whilst also having fun – yes, blogging is fun, I promise. The only thing to remember if you do choose to go down this path is that you must promote yourself. A blog can be a great tool for self promotion and advancement though if no one’s reading it, it’s a little pointless.

Resources like Twitter are also useful in terms of networking. By following people on Twitter you easily keep people that have interesting things to say on your radar. You learn new strategies and news before anyone else and you get to interact with that person by commenting on their tweets.

You never know, a twitter relationship could easily blossom into a useful business one. Remember, a high proportion of job vacancies are never advertised, if you’re known to a prospective employer before they spend money on advertising, you could be quids in.

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Using Social Media to enhance your Career

Matt Thomas — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 08:00:44 +0000

The worst kept secret in the world of work is that prospective employers check a candidate’s online presence as part of the standard preparation for interviews. If you’re going for a high profile position or anything in online publishing or journalism then it’s also a fairly safe bet that you will be subject to a fairly thorough Google search.

There’s not too much you can do about the former, unless you really fancy chasing after anyone who has ever written anything negative about you or your former companies, which in some industries can be a lot.

In contrast, the social media side of things is fairly easy to sort out, at least in terms of Facebook –who really uses anything else these days? You simply make your Facebook account private, once you’ve done this your pictures, notes, groups and friends will be safe from anyone who isn’t your friend. However, I can’t help but think this is missing a trick. Surely it must be possible to use your social networking profile to your benefit, manipulate it to actually enhance your job prospects….

(Continued Tomorrow)

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How to get into Twitter’s Suggested Follow List (Part 2)

Jack Fox — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 13:37:12 +0000

Continued from yesterday…

Step 1: Twitter has created an algorithm that they say identifies active accounts that have a high likelihood of being interesting to users. You essentially have to satisfy this algorithm, unfortunately you have to do this without knowing any details about it – sound familiar, SEO developers? Essentially it’s out of your hands, all you can do is make sure your profile is filled out properly – it really should be anyway, come on guys.

Step 2: Some of the folks behind Twitter then have a look through the results that the algorithm has come up with, trying to answer a list of questions. Is the twitter good for newcomers to the site, is it likely to be consistently interesting, are they a real user as opposed to a fake? You can try to optimise your account to satisfy these questions but again, you’re likely to be swinging wildly in the dark.

Step 3: The Twitter guys show some associates so that they can weigh in and then they make their decision.

So essentially, you have to be really famous or really lucky. Our advice is to set up a twitter account make it as good as you can and if by some miracle you make it in celebrate like crazy.

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How to get into Twitter’s Suggested Follow List (Part 1)

Jack Fox — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 13:34:20 +0000

Recently, like everyone else in the known universe, we’ve been talking a lot about Twitter and in particular their suggested follow list – that’s the little VIP area where they promote 100 users they think are going to be of use to a decent number of twitterers. As a result of our coverage we’ve had a couple of questions from ambitious clients asking how they can get onto said list, so we thought we’d just come out and explain once and for all.

First of all, it’s very difficult. There’s a lot of people on Twitter and only a hundred places in the promised land, so the odds are against you – particularly as around half the people in the top 100 are at least a bit famous and you (most probably) are not.

However, there are companies and resources in there, sites like, NPR Politics, TechCrunch, BBC click, so it is possible; very, very difficult but possible. According to Twitter, a site needs to successfully complete three steps in order to be considered for the top one hundred.

Tune in tomorrow to find out what they are (Sorry)

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Craigslist react to Prostitution Claims

Jay Smith — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 17:27:25 +0000

The team behind Craigslist have reacted angrily to an accusation by an Illinois Sheriff that the site is knowingly promoting prostitution and the trafficking of women. Thomas Dart claimed that the site was failing to react to the abuse of its site by not blocking offers of sex in exchange for money. Dart called for a federal judge to shut down the site’s erotic services section permanently calling the site “the single largest source of prostitution in the nation”.

In response Craigslist have claimed that they liaise with the police daily in order to limit the amount of people using their site to commit illegal activity, stating that…

“Craigslist is an extremely unwise choice for those intent on committing crimes, since criminals inevitably leave an electronic trail to themselves that law enforcement officers will follow,” – Craigslist spokeswoman.

The site apparently feels that its name has been tarnished unfairly by a Sherriff trying to look tough on crime by attacking them. The spokeswoman went on to claim that, “Misuse of the site is exceptionally rare compared to how much the site is used for legal purposes. Regardless, any misuse of the site is not tolerated on Craigslist,”

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Facebook’s next Step

Jay Smith — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 17:20:50 +0000

In a new blog post Facebook founder and director, Mark Zuckerberg, has outlined new plans to improve the number one social network and to “Continue making the flow of information even faster and more customized.”

There are several innovations planned, however the ones taking affect today are new public profiles for organisations and public figures such as politicians or celebrities. These used to be called pages, now however, they will look and function like regular profiles. This is particularly good for brands as every time the page is updated users who are ‘friends’ with that brand will see the update in their daily news feed.

There are no doubt advertising creatives up and down the country thinking hard about how they can exploit this right now. However, it’s equally useful for anyone with an agenda to push, like a politician, celebrity or brand. There is even some cross-over marketing potential between the two. What, for instance, is stopping a publishing company paying David Beckham or someone like him to claim that they are reading a new book on Facebook, thereby promoting it to their followers.

Don’t be surprised if you start to see some cunning marketing ploys on the social network in the next few days.

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Facebook try to heal their Reputation

Matt Thomas — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 12:23:27 +0000

Over the last few months, the bad publicity, court cases and conspiracy theories surrounding Facebook have conspired to do some serious damage to its freewheeling, collegiate image. In addition to having to pay a cool $65 million dollars to one of its rivals, Facebook suffered the indignity of being forced to abandon controversial changes to its user conditions due to sheer weight of public disapproval and threats of legal action.

As a result the Facebook PR department has kicked into overdrive with a new public relations push aimed at repairing its image amongst its users. The idea is basically this, Facebook have posted two important documents in their own groups for all to see. The first is ‘The Facebook Principles,’ which basically defines a users rights when using Facebook and will, apparently, act as a framework for any new policies. The second is a ‘Statement of Rights and Responsibilities,’ which is essentially the terms of use by another name.

The documents have been placed in their own groups so that Facebook users can comment on them and vote yes or no. The hope is that Facebook users will weigh in with their feedback and start to feel like they’re part of the process

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Facebook: The Google of Social Networking

Jay Smith — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 17:41:53 +0000

In many industries 7% growth might be seen as quite respectable, good even, but not in the social networking industry, and not when your main competitor has grown by 107%. That’s the situation that MySpace find themselves in currently, after figures were released that revealed just how badly the social networking No.2 and Bebo (6% growth) are trailing Facebook in the social networking race.

Not only that but the users of Facebook are also becoming more dependent on their favourite social network – Facebook have revealed that the average amount of time spent on the site has risen to six hours per month, itself an increase of 128 percent on last year. This is the particularly impressive stat as it shows actual adoption of Facebook as opposed to joining the site then not using it.

With stats like that, and its competitors seemingly unable to come up with an answer, it’s no exaggeration to call Facebook the Google of the social networking world. Surely, we can’t be far from the day when Facebook find a way to turn this ridiculous traffic into mountains of cold hard cash.

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Does Facebook make you stupid

Matt Thomas — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 11:06:47 +0000

Whilst going about your business on or offline yesterday, you may have come across the Daily Mail’s giant front page banner headline that read something along the lines of ‘Facebook makes you stupid!’ The story behind that was that earlier in the month a scientist named Baroness Susan Greenfield had given testimony to the House of Lords stating that the impersonal communication and instant feedback that, in her opinion, characterises Facebook contact could be harmful to human minds.

“As a consequence, the mid-21st Century mind might almost be infantilized, characterized by short attention spans, sensationalism, inability to empathize and a shaky sense of identity.” – Greenfield.

Other scientists were quick to respond and worryingly many seemed to broadly back up Baroness Greenfield’s comments, albeit whilst keenly stressing that research is only beginning.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of her findings, a media storm has been created as papers, blogs and channels debate whether or not social networking is actually bad for you. A widespread scientific debate is also raging as to the effects and what, if anything, can be done about them.

However, even if it does turn out that Facebook is making us all stupid, I somehow doubt that many people will stop using it.

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Facebook Terms of Use change Explained

Matt Thomas — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 08:00:12 +0000

The statement made by the Facebook team about why they revised the controversial change to their terms of use on Wednesday seemed to strongly imply that it had been the result of pressure from Facebook users. However, that pressure had existed for weeks with Facebook simply maintaining their stance, stubbornly refusing to bend to the weight of public opinion. The day before founder, Mark Zuckerberg had even defended the changes on the company’s blog. So what changed?

Well, it appears that Facebook were given a bit of a convincer by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) in Washington. The consumer watchdog was preparing to file a suit with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). It appears Facebook got wind of this and, apparently lacking the stomach for another lawsuit days after paying out $65 million dollars in settlements to Zuckerberg’s former classmates, decided to climb down rapidly and change the terms of use back to the original.

How do we know this was the reason? Because, after hearing about the suit, Facebook executive’s called numerous privacy experts for advice and finally rang EPIC themselves to ask them outright whether they would drop the suit if they changed their terms back.

Sure, said EPIC chalking up a memorable victory over one of the giants of the Internet. EPIC one, Facebook nil, but I doubt the game’s over.

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