I’m sure by now you have heard about Google+ and you may well have signed up to it. But it is hard enough trying to keep up with your ever increasing Social Media workload without adding another network into the mix.

Whether or not you should jump in and embrace it is a matter of some debate. Although I have a google plus account I am not investing much time into it at this stage but am trying to keep abreast of the latest developments so that I am well enough informed to make a decision to invest more time in it when I feel the time is right. Let’s face it Google have had their fair share of failures and have touted a whole manner of services as being ‘the next great thing’ – Google Buzz or Google Wave anyone?

Google makes a living out of data but they must have looked at Facebook and been a little bit irritated that the likes of facebook gather a massive amount of marketable data without even trying. People volunteer information about their likes and dislikes, music, films, holidays etc without even being prompted so it is understandable that Google wanted ‘in on the act’.

But Facebook are in an incredibly strong position with 30 million users in the uk alone. One social network is more than enough and most of you reading this are probably using two already, Linkedin and Facebook. There is no way I have the time or the inclination to become embroiled in another so the only way I can envisage moving allegiance to Google is if my current network of friends move with me. I like to keep friends and business acquaintances fairly separate as the tone of my communication with both groups is different. But of course nothing is that cut and dried and there is a definite overlap with some friends being business associates and many business associates becoming friends over time. The way we could look at this is like a venn diagram. Now if only Linkedin and Facebook could be merged together – cue Google+ circles!

Of course you can arrange your friends into groups on Facebook although in my opinion the way that operates is a damn site more clunky than Facebook. Google are trying to combine the best elements of Facebook with the best elements of Twitter to expand your network beyond people people that you physically know as you can on Twitter so you can follow the status updates of people in your industry for instance – cue Facebook subscriptions!

Google have got it all to do and Facebook can ride on the back of their work. When Microsoft rolled out Microsoft Bing, Google were just rubbing their hands. Bing knew they couldn’t compete in the short term on the quality of their search so what they concentrated on were all ‘the bells and whistles’ that would give their customers a better experience. So Google just sat back and integrated any of the nice knew bits from bing that they felt appropriate into their own product.

Facebook are now able to do the same. Their customer base is fairly safe as long as they keep moving so they can now just sit back and cherry pick the Google innovations that they like and integrate them into their own platform.

But you can rest assured that Google will be making Google+ a priority so it isn’t going to fall by the wayside in the near future. They have to make it a priority, with Facebook search being powered by Bing and Facebook being the starter page for so many online sessions (48% of 18 – 34 year olds check facebook as soon as they wake up) Google stand to lose a substantial market share despite the low quality of Bing search results – convenience is everything!

The final problem that Google face in this battle is the fact that Google plus already has and will continue to have SEO benefits. Well surely that is a reason to sign up to Google+ I hear you say. Well on the one hand it is but the biggest problem they face is that it is open to abuse. Within the first few weeks millions of false profiles were set up. They are trying to address this but ultimately a Social Network has to be about real people!

One thing is for sure though. These battles can only be good for us. Facebook can no longer be complacent, they need to listen to what people want and keep innovating. I don’t keep the comments open on this blog at the moment but why not join the conversation on our on our facebook page.

If you have a blog on your site then you are well aware of the importance of keeping it regularly updated with fresh new content, but the big question (especially for smaller businesses that don’t have the resources available) is how can you afford to dedicate the time required to do this?

Simple answer – Allow authors to write a guest post for you.

Known as “Guest Blogging” this can be a win-win situation for both you (the owner of the blog) and the guest author. You’ll get a piece of free and exclusive content for your site, and the author gets their name out into the blogsphere with a link back to their site. Don’t deny the authors a link back to their site – you’ll be taking away their incentive to write for you if you do.

How to find guest bloggers for your site

http://myblogguest.com/ – This service allows both blog owners and authors alike to cut through the chaff of the internet by allowing both to meet through a dedicated service for guest blogging opportunities.

Twitter.com – Hopefully you’ll have been doing some Social Marketing and now have a healthy supply of followers, so announce the fact that you’re giving the opportunity for people to publish guest posts on your site and for them to get in touch.

Write a “Become a guest author” page on your site with a list of subjects you’ll be interested in receiving submissions for, and what the author will get in return. You don’t necessarily need a large subscriber base to your blog for this to be useful, those looking for guest blogging opportunities could find the page in Google.

Ask us! We have contacts to a number of copywriters with their own blogs so they may be interested in appearing as guest author on your site. Let us know and we’ll put it forward to them.

Things to keep in mind

Don’t always assume that you’re going to get exclusive content on your site because the guest author may have approached a number of other blog owners as well as yourself. Due to this, the content that you get may be duplicate content to that posted somewhere else – always check before you publish.

http://www.copyscape.com/ – use this free tool check any content you get to make sure that it hasn’t been posted anywhere else, and for a more in depth check to the originality there is also a premium version available. Probably the best way to explain their service is by showing there video (important bit for receiving content is from 1:27)…

Happy blogging!

Using Outlook to send bulk e-newsletters to your customers? Whoa! Stop Right There!

Ask yourself these vital questions:

• What % of my customers receive my emails?
• What % of my customers actually open my emails?

Now if I was to tell you that out of the 1,000 emails you send each month…

• 110 never receive it;
• 620 never bothered opening it;
• and that only 54 click on anything within the email.

…would you still bother sending it? Probably not.

So? What am I doing wrong?

Well, there’s a chance your mailing list is out of date, that many of the email addresses are no longer used or are misspelt, or have been entered as .com’s instead of .co.uk’s. Then there’s the free email providers such as AOL, Hotmail, Yahoo and GMail all of whom have strict rules and monitoring in place to stop us from getting “spammed” or “phished” so they do two main things:

1.) Block emails from sources they believe to be spammers, based on a bizare and often unpredictable set of rules.

2.) Throw any low risk spam into your  “Junk Folder” so it doesnt upset the bona fide emails in your lovely inbox.

This of course means your beautifully-crafted email doesn’t get through to a vast percentage of your customers.

Even if your email is one of the lucky, triumphant ones and makes it to the inbox like one of those virtual tadpoles you see on sex education videos at school, it then has to convince the recipient to click “open”…

A whole new host of issues then arises:

• Is the subject heading inviting/encouraging/inspiring/intriguing?
• Does it come from a reliable source?
• Is it swamped in a sea of more interesting emails?

Finally, the most important part – once opened, how do you keep the reader engaged and how on earth do you get them to click on that link directing them to your website so they can Buy, Buy, Buy! I’m not going to tell you that, but…

MailChimp Storms the Microsoft Castle!

MailChimp has all the other answers!

We’ve used MailChimp for a couple of years now and honestly struggle to find much fault with it! (Hmmm – Well I guess it could be FREE??)

It stores and manages your entire mailing list, helps you create a sign-up page for your website, gives you email templates, provides detailed reports and most importantly …

Integrates All This “Social Media” Malarky

Ok, so everyones told you how important it is to be a Twit, to have 4,000 “friends” on Facebook, that your meant to “Digg” everything thats “Delicious” on YourSpace or MyTube? Well, MailChimp provides you with a slick way to adhere to all this advice, simply click the buttons once your spanking new email newsletter gets sent and you’ll be taken to all the relevant social media sites so you can make the most of your latest work of litery genius.

Practicing What You Preach

We recently launched our LandingNet Chinwag – our laid-back approach to e-shots, e-newsletters, email marketing…whatever you want to call it!

The results were great, more than doubling the industry averages for the percentage of emails opened and clicked on, whilst receiving a tiny fraction of the average “bounce” rate.

“Hard Bounces” are those where the email address does not exist and is instantly returned by the email provider.

“Soft Bounces” are where the recipients inbox might be full or the email provider has tried to deliver the email but after several attempts it fails.

Our LandingNet Chinwag only  received two “bounces” one hard, one soft and the hard bounce was actually our fault – we entered the email address in wrong! Whoops – hey, no-ones perfect right?? ;O)