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2009 online: the year in review

Image representing Google as depicted in Crunc...

The end of the year presents and excellent opportunity for reflection, and also for lists. Combining the two, I’ve decided to reflect on the last year of online activity in the UK by providing a list of our most popular and commented on blogs over the last 12 months.

January
Our analysis of the decline in flight searches and the shift from flights to the USA and Eurozone countries to domestic and further flung destinations caused some controversy, but has broadly proved to be an accurate prediction as to what happened in the travel sector this year. This month we also highlighted the fact that social networking had come of age in the UK and overtaken pornography in terms of Internet visits.

February
Twitter was one of the fastest growing websites of 2009 and undoubtedly the most talked about. Thanks to a load of free publicity from Jonathon Ross and Stephen Fry, the micro-blogging service entered the top 100 in February and is currently one of the 30 most visited websites in the UK. We wrote more blogs about Twitter than any other site this year, but there was still space for other social media sites too. Two particularly good examples we highlighted this month were: The Telegraph using Digg to pick up traffic and the seemingly unstoppable rise of Martin Lewis, the MoneySavingExpert.

March
March was the month that Richard Seymour presented his excellent webinar analysing the ways in which us Brits use the different search engines. This post highlights the most searched for subjects on Google, Yahoo!, bing and Ask; while this one illustrates the results of some similar analysis carried out on Google News.

April
Twitter time again, and I’ve used a version of the chart in the post illustrating where people go after visiting Twitter in more presentations than I can count this year! This was also the month when we analysed the growing influence of social media on shopping websites and the SEO opportunity provided by shop opening times information (something that is particularly relevant over the Christmas period).

May
This was the month that the Telegraph broke the biggest domestic news story of the year: the MPs’ expenses scandal. We produced a couple of blogs: the first analysing search behaviour, the second looking at the impact on the Telegraph’s traffic.

June
In June our list of the top 100 student websites resulted in some good comment and debate in the blogosphere and on Twitter.

July
A pretty quiet month on the blog, primarily because I spent most of the month on paternity leave. Aside from that analysis of pregnancy searches, the most popular blog asked: ‘Are voucher searches on the decline?’ The answer was ‘No’, and this Christmas we’re predicting a 25% increase on last year.

August
In August we revealed that content driven websites now receive almost than twice as many UK Internet visits as transactional sites. Those are another two charts that I’ve included in a lot of presentations this year.

September
Another interesting month for social media, with Twitter overtaking MySpace and Capital One proving that Facebook can drive traffic to finance websites.

October
With retailers starting to smell to Christmas in the air, it was time for Experian Hitwise’s resident gadget expert Richard Seymour to start looking into his crystal ball and start predicting what products would be hot this festive season. His first bit of analysis showed Microsoft’s Xbox 360 finally overtaking perennial favourite the Nintendo Wii in our Hot Consumer Electronic List.

November
Although the recession isn’t yet officially over, there is no doubt that some green shoots are beginning to appear online. After a couple years writing about the impact of the credit crunch on online behaviour, it was nice to be able to highlight some positive news: the first annual increase in traffic to property websites in over two years.

December
The serious: the pre-Christmas online retail peak moved a week closer to Christmas this year. The clever: Richard Seymour successfully predicts that Joe McElderry will win the X Factor. The just plain wonderful: Hitwise data shows that Rage Against the Machine will steal the Christmas Number from Simon Cowell (and they did!)

From: http://weblogsfeed.hitwise.com/~r/hitwise/uk/~3/0ihVO1pSyNU/2009_online_the_year_in_review.html

Read More View Comments | Posted by Fotis

Ten Technologies That Will Rock 2010

Image via CrunchBase

Now that the aughts are behind us, we can start the new decade with a bang. So many new technologies are ready to make a big impact this year. Some of them will be brand new, but many have been gestating and are now ready to hatch. If there is any theme here it is the mobile Web. As I think through the top ten technologies that will rock 2010, more than half of them are mobile. But those technologies are tied to advances in the overall Web as well.

Below is my list of the ten technologies that will leave the biggest marks on 2010:

The Tablet: It’s the most anticipated product of the year. The mythical tablet computer (which everyone seems to be working on). There are beautiful Android tablets, concept tablets, and, of course, the one tablet which could define the category, the Apple Tablet. Or iSlate or whatever it’s called. If Steve Jobs is not working on a tablet, he’d better come up with one because anything else will be a huge disappointment.Why do we need yet another computer in between a laptop and an iPhone? We won’t really know until we have it. But the answer lies in the fact that increasingly the Web is all you need. As all of our apps and data and social lives move to the Web, the Tablet is the incarnation of the Web in device form, stripped down to its essentials. It will also be a superior e-reader for digital books, newspapers, and magazines, and a portable Web TV.

Geo: The combination of GPS chips in mobile phones, social networks, and increasingly innovative mobile apps means that geolocation is increasingly becoming a necessary feature for any killer app. I’m not just talking about social broadcasting apps like Foursquare and Gowalla. The advent of Geo APIs from Twitter , SimpleGeo, and hopefully Facebook will change the game by adding rich layers of geo-related data to all sorts of apps. Twitter just recently launched its own Geo API for Twitter apps and acquired Mixer Labs, which created the GeoAPI.

Realtime Search: After licensing realtime data streams from Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and others, Google and Bing are quickly ramping up their realtime search. But realtime search is still treated as a silo, and is not regularly surfaced in the main search results page. In 2010, I expect that to change as the search engines learn for what types of searches it makes sense to show Tweets and other realtime updates. In the meantime, a gaggle of realtime search startups such as Collecta, OneRiot, and Topsy will continue to push the ball forward on the realtime search experience. Realtime search will also become a form of navigation, especially on Twitter and Facebook. The key will be to combine realtime search with realtime filters so that people are delivered not only the most recent information but the most relevant and authoritative as well.

Chrome OS: In November, Google gave the world a sneak peek at its Chrome operating system, which is expected to be released later this year. The Chrome OS is Google’s most direct attack on Windows with an OS built from the ground up to run Web apps fast and furious. Already a Google is rumored to be working on a Chrome Netbook which will show the world what is possible with it a “Web OS.” It sounds like it would be perfect for Tablet computers also (see above). Chrome is a risky bet for Google, but it is also potentially disruptive.

HTML5: The Web is built on HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) and the next version which has been taking form for a while is HTML5. Already browsers such as Firefox and Google’s Chrome (the browser, not the OS) are HTML5-friendly. Once HTML5 becomes more widespread across the Web, it will reduce the need for Flash or Silverlight plug-ins to view videos, animations, or other rich applications. They will all just be Web-native. HTML5 also supports offline data storage, drag-and-drop, and other features which can make Web apps act more like desktop apps. A lot of Websites will be putting HTML5 under the hood in 2010.

Mobile Video: With video cameras integrated into the latest iPhone 3GS and other Web phones, live video streaming apps are becoming more commonplace—both streaming from phones and to them. As mobile data networks beef up their 3G bandwidth and even start to tiptoe into true broadband with 4G (which Verizon is heading towards with its next-gen LTE network), mobile video usage will take off.

Augmented Reality: One of the coolest ways to use the camera lens on a mobile phone is with the increasing array of augmented reality apps. They add a layer of data to reality by placing everything from photos to Tweets to business listings directly on top of the live live image captured by the camera. Tonchidot’s Sekai Camera, Layar, GraffitiGeo and even Yelp are examples of augmented reality apps.

Mobile Transactions: As mobile phones become full-fledged computers, they can be used for mobile commerce also. One area poised to take off in 2010 are mobile payments and transactions. Twitter founder Jack Dorsey’s latest startup Square turns the iPhone into a credit card reader. Verifone has its competing product, as does Mophie. The idea is that any mobile phone can become a point of sale, and those mobile transactions can tie into back-end accounting, CRM, and other enterprise systems.

Android: Last year saw the launch of nearly two dozen Android-powered phones, including the Verizon Droid. In a few days, Google’s Nexus One will launch as the first Android phone which can be unlocked from any given carrier (it is launching with T-Mobile). Android is Google’s answer to the iPhone, and as it reaches critical mass across multiple carriers and handsets it is becoming increasingly attractive to developers. There are already more than 10,000 apps on Android, next year there will be even more. And other devices running on the mobile OS are launching as well.

Social CRM: We’ve seen the rise of Twitter and Facebook as social communication tools. This year, those modes of realtime communication will find their way deeper into the enterprise. Salesforce.com is set to launch Chatter, it’s realtime stream of enterprise data which interfaces with Twitter and Facebook and turn them into business tools. Startups like Yammer and Bantam Live are also making business more social.

Source: http://www.techcrunch.com/2010/01/01/ten-technologies-2010/

Read More View Comments | Posted by Fotis

The year in search: the UK experts' view | Blog | Econsultancy

What have been the most significant issues for search in 2009?

Ciaran Norris, Head of Social Media at Mindshare:

Twitter's tip into the mainstream, and the subsequent rush towards real-time search, has seen social and search collide like never before. Whilst I'm not convinced that the current Google/Twitter interface will stay, the thought behind it is the interesting thing.

On another note, the struggle by media companies to work out whether or not they want to be searchable anymore could have a profound impact on content over the coming years.

Will Critchlow, Director of Distilled:

I think with hindsight we will say that the increase in personalisation (and particularly Google's roll-out of personalisation even to non-signed-in users) will be viewed as the most significant event. It's really the end of the '#1 ranking' and it opens up an amazing array of new marketing tactics, especially for big brands.

Andrew Girdwood, Head of Search at Bigmouthmedia:

It’s hard not to talk about Bing when we examine what significant search events occurred in 2009. Even if you’re not a fan of Bing, even if you think Google will wipe the floor with Bing you would be wrong to suggest that Bing’s not had a visible influence on Google. If it was not for Bing we would likely still be waiting for Google to push its own real-time search and Twitter integration.

One of the areas search is growing is around personal identity. Google’s started to automatically personalise web search results. This is huge. Google and Facebook have been battling it out with competing “Connection” services; or universal logins. These are a corner stone to both companies' social media and personal targeting ambitions.

Kevin Gibbons, Director of Search at SEOptimise:

Personally from a UK search perspective I think one of the biggest issues in 2009 wasGoogle’s broken UK search results. It’s very rare that an algorithm update from Google reduces the relevancy or quality of search results, especially over such widespread results and for a long period of time.

This has generated a lot of attention and caused many headaches for UK SEOs trying to figure out why their sites/clients are listed behind US and Australian sites when searching in Google UK!

Despite the changes Google have been rolling out recently, I don’t think you can look past the Microsoft/Yahoo deal as the most significant event of the year. A realistic competitor to Google has been long-overdue, especially in the UK where they have such a dominant market share. Potentially the deal could make a significant impact to how advertisers allocate their online advertising budgets. So once Bing and adCenter replace Yahoo search it’s likely online marketers will be taking Bing far more seriously for organic and paid search strategies.

Shane Quigley, CEO at Epiphany:

As well as Bing's inclusion of Twitter search capability and Google's wide-scale rollout of universal search, 2009 has shown us that social factors will play a major role in 2010.

It is clear to me that the Vince update aimed at identifying brands was also a step towards monitoring social barometers to measure popularity. Things like tweets, brand mentions, links, images, videos and product reviews will all play a part in Googles future algorithm calculations.

What will be the major search trends in 2010?

Ciaran Norris:

I think that next year will see the continued convergence of technologies and channels, particularly TV, mobile, search & social. The real-time search movement will continue in some way, shape or form, though the engines still need to perfect ranking & filtering.

The continued rise of mobile web, pulling in GPS & augmented reality, means that people will expect geo-results. And as TV gets webbed up (Yahoo TV Widgets etc...) people searching and chatting on and around shows will become a new way of reaching people, or at least learning about what they want.

Will Critchlow:

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that I think 2010 will see the beginnings of a backlash against Google. There have been murmurings for some time among the tech community about their all-pervading presence, ambition to gather everyone's data for their own marketing purposes and effective monopoly.

It wouldn't surprise me to see them take a step too far and face political push-back over their expansion into the desktop and mobile phone markets. If they use market power in one arena to manipulate another, that's classic monopolistic behaviour. Personally, I'd love to see Bing gain some market share. I think a strong competitor would ultimately benefit everyone.

Andrew Girdwood:

We’ll see continued improvements in visual search. Google Goggles is one example but we’ll also see mobile applications that effect an augmented reality that combine search and location-aware search. These will let searchers show the engines what they want help with and get back results.

Privacy will also be a hot issue in 2010. Targeting becomes ever more important to companies and yet the ability not to be targeted becomes ever more important to people. It seems impossible that we’ll avoid tension on this front.

Of particular interest will be looking beyond the last click. DoubleClick offers Click Path Analysis. Atlas offers User Engagement Mapping. There will be other offerings from alternative technology providers who wish to remain competitive against these search engine owned offerings. 2010 will see sites wrestle with tagging and tracking but invest in the required technology in 2010 with the ambition of not having to return to this fight for a while.

As real-time search helps surface social media sites in the blink of an eye the aspects of ‘search’, ‘marketing’, ‘public relations’ and even ‘customer care’ will all get drawn together. We’ll see different types of agencies pitching against one another for the first time. We’ll see corporate departments defending their turf and fighting for budget against their colleagues across the hall.

Kevin Gibbons:

Google page speed is going to have an influence over organic rankings in 2010 and is likely to have a strong impact on designers/developers as well as SEO’s. At the moment there are unanswered questions, such as how heavily will slow sites be penalised? Will fast sites be boosted in the search engines? So it will be interesting to see the impact this has.

Now that the Microsoft/Yahoo deal is now all tied-up, advertisers will need to start thinking seriously about Bing’s more sizeable market share and start to prepare for when this is integrated with Yahoo search.

Google Wave has been slowly rolled out to users so far during 2009, this has a lot of potential which is unlikely to be truly realised until it reaches a greater audience. There’s a lot of uncertainly about how popular Google Wave will become at the moment, so it will be very interesting to see if this can really take off in 2010. I’m sure they’ll be new social media sites coming onto the scene too, along with developments to many of the current top social media sites; Twitter business accounts, for example, will be a good one to look out for.

Shane Quigley:

Rumoured for a while, and discovered live on the web by a clever person over at Gizmodo, there is a new Google Interface on the way for 2010. Being referred to as the three panel layout this change will mean it will become increasing important to rank highly in Image, Video and other search results as Google gives more prominence to these sections within its interface.

Real Time search has huge implications in terms of brand protection, what results people will click, as well as creating new opportunities to rank. Google also announced earlier this month that everyone’s search results are now being personalised (to an extent) based on your previous search behaviour, regardless of whether you’re logged in or not. Are the days of the ranking report now truly numbered?

Changes will come thick and fast as Google look to hold market share and the new Caffeine architecture should give them the processing power to do a lot more with their search application.

Read More View Comments | Posted by Fotis

21 ways to commit brand suicide in the 21st Century | Blog | Econsultancy

I always believed that brand suicide was essentially the result of some major foot-in-mouth event, or a product fail of epic proportions. Moreover, it was not so much the failure itself, but rather the result of not being able to manage and recover from that failure. There’s a right way and a wrong way to dig your brand out of a hole.

But this big picture stuff isn’t the only way brands die. When it comes down to it brands die at a micro level. Brand suicide occurs whenever an individual has ‘had it’ with a company, be that the result of shoddy treatment, or disappointment with products and services.

Normally when this happens to me I tell people about it, in the strongest possible terms. That used to be a relatively limited group of people, but nowadays I can (and do) communicate my annoyance / misery on Twitter, which gives any disgruntled customer a lot more reach. And as such the world is a scarier place for brands than ever before.

The vast social media echo chamber means that brands are now at real danger from lots of small events, rather than one big one. We are living in an age where brands die by 1,000 cuts, rather than one almighty chop. The rise in popularity of social / user-generated platforms like Facebook, Digg, Twitter, YouTube and Wikipedia means that brands are more exposed than ever.

So how can brands go about killing themselves slowly?

Spamfail. Everybody hates spam, which comes in many forms including emails, blog comments, social media spam, search engines spam, and old school spam such as junk mail. Too much of a bad thing is always a bad thing. Here are 10 ways to avoid spam.

Faking it. Speaking of spam, some of the most ill-advised spam campaigns have involved company executives. Take Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, who – over a seven year period - posted anonymous comments on Yahoo’s stock market forums to criticise a competitor (while calling himself ‘cute’ in the process). Funny and embarrassing in equal measure. And also deceptive: the comments prompted an SEC investigation. He was cleared, he apologised (kind of), but the damage was done.

Executive foot in mouth. John Mackey also ‘did a Gerald Ratner’ a few months ago by saying that his organic superstore “sells junk”. Ratner, a jewellery tycoon, almost caused the collapse of his company in the late-1980s after describing his products as “total crap”. Journalists simply love stories like this.

Inappropriate hashtag piracy on Twitter. Hopping onto a trending hashtag can be a good idea, but you need to be creative and contextual. Otherwise things can get weird, as Habitat found out when an ‘intern’ responsible for the firm’s Twitter output decided to promote the firm by jumping onto threads relating to the protests in Iran.

Hey, loyal customer: screw you. Nothing smarts more than insurance premiums being raised for no good reason, especially when you’ve stayed with the insurer for years. Shouldn’t my premium fall? It’s the same with mobile operators, where customer churn is a massive issue, and for many other firms too. It’s madness, frankly, especially as it typically costs far less to retain a customer than to acquire a new one. So why do businesses penalise loyal customers while offering new ones amazing deals? I’d wager that it’s linked to the way bonuses are paid, as much as anything. The sooner we move on from that the better. Businesses need to evolve into retention-focused operations, where staff are rewarded on the basis of customer loyalty, satisfaction and profitability, rather than sales.

Punish tiny indiscretions. True story: back in 2002 I was placed on an ‘arrears plan’ by Vodafone after missing just one lousy payment, the first time I had done so in three or four years. With an unblemished payment history up until that point I couldn’t understand it, but I was assured that there was no room for movement. Annoyingly the ‘arrears plan’ meant that a black mark was added to my credit file. As such I left Vodafone almost immediately and shall never return.

Over-promise, under-deliver. After leaving Vodafone I was enticed towards 3, the UK mobile operator with the first 3G network. Unfortunately something went badly wrong and the handset I was sent refused to send a text message for the best part of six months. So much for the joys of 3G. I spent around 30 hours on the phone trying to resolve the issue, and now have a mortal fear of Norah Jones (the hold music).

Customer service fail. Where to start with this one? I’ll do almost anything, including ignoring a problem that costs me money every month, just to avoid calling the customer service centre. This visualisation, called ‘Why I’d rather be punched in the testicles than call customer service’, perfectly illustrates why call centres suck so badly.

Kick the shit out of a Good Samaritan. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Ryanair vs blogger. Constructive criticism is part and parcel of the world we live in. You can take it personally, as Ryanair did (backed up, amazingly, by its PR department who put out a statement along the lines of: “lunatic bloggers can have the blog sphere all to themselves as our people are too busy driving down the cost of air travel”) or you can take it on the chin and fix up those problem areas.

Do the heavy-handed PR / legal thing. The world has irreversibly changed, and old school wool-pulling – and threats – don’t seem to work so well anymore. I am of course referring to the Trafigura scandal and subsequent attempt to hush things up. A superinjunction was imposed on The Guardian but the crowd came to the rescue, with bloggers and Twitter users standing up for free speech. This PR / legal spin has been an utter disaster for all involved, and it had the opposite effect of quietening the press (it trended on Twitter for a couple of days). The takeway here is that transparency is the only way of protecting a brand under fire.

Crap advertising. “Mum, I want to do a poo.” Discuss...

Horrific advertising. I’m all for edgy, but the decision to drape models over Berlin’s Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe for a recent EasyJet brochure was jaw-droppingly stupid.

Intrusive advertising. Here’s a fact: if you commission pop-ups, you totally suck andeverybody hates you.

[Image by Pascal PirateChickan]

Launch a rubbish website. It’s obviously not going to be a good thing for your brand, is it? Instead of naming and shaming I’m going to simply point you at Vincent Flanders. Tell us how it is, Vince…

Launch a rubbish, inaccessible website. Some people will hate your website because it has a shocking user experience. Meanwhile others will hate it because they can’t use it. Why would you want to alienate customers or prospects? Mac owners, sight-impaired people and the 80+ generation are all internet users, and there are lots of them. Flash websites are some of the worst offenders, as major retailers have found to their embarrassment.

Bastardise your brand identity. Completely. Changing the look and feel of your brand is always a little bit dangerous, even when it is necessary. Do too much, too soon, and you might have a problem. Consider what happened with British Airways when it redesigned the tail fins on all of its aircraft, replacing the Union Jack with ‘world art’, at a cost of £60m. Cue a massive public outcry. Despite this it took the company four years to ditch the ‘ethnic liveries’. Moral: be careful when messing with your brand’s appearance.

Ignore a major / killer problem with your products. What use are bike locks that can be opened with a biro? Or what about cars that kill people due to accelerator pedals sticking? Obviously no consumer in their right mind would risk buying these products. Product recalls can be horrendously expensive btu if you know there’s a problem then it’s better to deal with the situation sooner rather than later (the longer you leave it, the worse the problem gets, and the more the brand becomes tarnished).

Introduce ridiculous charges. Banks are some of the worst offenders but once again there’s no need to look any further than Ryanair, which is surely the king of silly charges (although they often result in lots of noise in the press, which I imagine may be part of the grand plan). Ryanair charges £5 simply to book a ticket via credit card. It charges if you take a bag with you, and also if you don’t. It even considered charging passengers to use the toilet (seriously).

Rubbish delivery. Online retailers are judged not only by their websites and prices, but also by service, and that means – by and large – the ability to deliver on-time and without charging astronomical fees. Consumer expectations are sharper than ever in this area. Retailers cannot expect someone to wait at home all day simply to receive some oversized package, purchased via the internet. The retailer may blame the courier, but the consumer will apportion a fair amount of blame to the retailer.

Sack the wrong people. You can lose a lot of respect by firing the wrong people. For example Microsoft recently let Don Dodge go, as part of a bigger wave of layoffs. In the eyes of the startup community this was a serious blunder, which was perhaps exacerbated by the fact that Google picked him up within 90 minutes of him clearing his desk.

Burying your head in the sand. If there's one surefire way of committing brand suicide then it's to ignore problems and bad noise. Reputation monitoring is essential these days. I'm not saying you should reply to every single tweet that mentions your brand, but certainly you can reply to those people who say something negative. If you choose not to then that's your call, but if you say you "can't possibly reply to everybody" then you're very probably wrong. Remember that a problem is really an opportunity to surpass customer expectations, and to drive loyalty through quality service.

What did I miss? I'm sure there are dozens more ways of harming your brand... leave your ideas and pointers below...

Read More View Comments | Posted by Fotis

5 Tips for Using Video to Grow Your Business in 2010

December 9th, 2009 | by Patrick Moran

Patrick Moran is chief strategy officer at Fuze Box, the company behind Fuze Meeting. He was also chief marketing officer at Mzinga, a leading social media and white label community provider, and led online marketing at Cisco WebEx. Fuze Box is one of the leading providers of real-time video collaboration tools today.

It’s no secret that online video is hot. A recent study by comScore revealed that in October 2009, more than 167 million viewers in the U.S. watched an average of 167 videos each, while YouTube reached 1 billion views per day – or 41 million views per hour – in the same month.

At my company, we’ve seen our own surge in video viewing. Video now accounts for the largest number of files uploaded into online meetings on our platform.

Given that many of our customers work in sales and marketing, what I infer from these numbers is that video marketing is poised for a huge year in 2010. The reason is clear: video simply engages people in a way that static text and images cannot. There are dozens of studies that show the power of video to boost customer interaction, drive sales, encourage viral sharing, and build brand awareness. And according to MarketingSherpa, 95 percent of the companies that have used online video marketing are happy with the results and expect to use it again in the future.

Luckily, it’s never been easier to create marketing videos. You can create videos for free using stock images and still photos on services like Jivox, or even transfer existing TV spots to the Web. You can also create screencasts on sites like Screenr in under an hour by recording voice over still images, screenshots, and slides. If you want to shoot your own video, you can edit the footage using sites like Pixorial or Jaycut. Of course, you can also hire a video production agency to create the videos for you.

Whatever type of video you create, make sure it’s short – under two minutes is usually best, but 30 seconds is even better. Simplicity is also key. Keep voiceovers straightforward and music at a minimum. If you want an example of the power of utter simplicity, check out the unique videos that explain hundreds of complex subjects produced by Common Craft.

Here are some great ways to use video to boost your business next year:

1. Punch Up Your Web Site

The easiest way get started is simply to embed your videos on your Web site. You can use YouTube to do this, or alternatives like Vimeo or Sorenson Media. Once you’ve got the videos playing on your site, make sure they are easy to share by adding a “share this” button on each video so that viewers can pass them along via Twitter, Facebook, and other viral channels. Already on Twitter, 8 percent of all shared URLs are links to videos on YouTube.

2. Use Video to Sell

We’ve found that our sales reps see 20 percent higher close rates when they play a video at the beginning of their virtual sales demo. Other online services report similar results: Jivox, an online video ad platform, used this video demo on their web site to increase registrations by 25 percent – they even embedded a signup form right on the demo page to collect registrations. You can also use services like Wistia to share a video with prospects and track how they interact with the video.

3. Use Video in Your Online Ads

Online video ads are growing in popularity because they are effective in driving sales. According to a study by the Online Publishers Association, 52 percent of people who watched an online video ad took action after viewing the ad, such as visiting the advertiser’s website (31 percent) or searching online for more information on the product (22 percent). A full 12 percent went on to make a purchase – giving video ads one of the highest conversion rates in the industry.

4. Help Customers Get More Value Out of Your Product

The power of video is that you can show prospective and existing customers your product instead of just telling them about it. At our company, we developed a short video that explains how to use our product. This has dramatically increased product usage for both online and mobile customers. Another great example is Jigsaw: they use crowdsourcing to gather and vet business contact information, a new approach that relies on customer participation. They’ve created a whole set of slick video tutorials on their site to make it easy for people to fully utilize the service.

5. Go Mobile

Make sure your videos can be viewed on many different devices. A good rule of thumb for whether you should modify your videos to work on mobile devices is: “If a video is worth sharing on Twitter, it’s worth making it mobile-phone-friendly,” since 40 percent of Twitter users access the service via mobile devices, according to an October 2009 study by Crowd Science. Already, there are more than 4.1 billion mobile phone users worldwide – at least 10 percent of which are video-enabled smartphones. Make sure these mobile warriors can view your videos.

The Bottom Line

Online video is a powerful tool in today’s marketing arsenal. With 2010 fast approaching, make sure your company has a clear video strategy in place that works alongside your online, social, paid media, PR, and other marketing strategies. Your customers want video, so give it to them!

Read More View Comments | Posted by Fotis

Social Media and Content Discovery: A Growing Relationship

Tuesday, October 6th, 2009 by Frank Reed

While the commercial Internet age is in its teens according to linear age it has some difficulty focusing. Just when users are getting used to a world that is search engine centric there comes along the social web or social media or social networking or social (insert your word here) to truly change how people make sense of the sheer volume of data on the Internet. This change or movement toward the social web is happening at an ever increasing rate and creates opportunities as well as difficulties for those who are trying to harness this power for business.

Nielsen reports at its blog in a post from Jon Gibbs, VP Media Analytics:

In the beginning there were ISPs, which then gave way to portals ― aggregators of content and links ― which then led to the rise of “search” as the dominant form of Internet navigation or, how we get to where we we’re going on the web. However, as with most forms of evolution, change is constant, and over the past two years search navigation has appeared to shift to social media.

We continue to see that social media has not only changed the way consumers communicate and gather on the Web, but also impacted content discovery and navigation in a big way. But how? Is social media taking the place of portals and search as the hub of online navigation?

Nielsen goes on to categorize people as either ‘searchers’ who primarily get their data from search engines, ‘portalists’ who use a portal site to access data and ‘socializers’ who use, you guessed it, social media to get their information. As this last group grows there could be some significant implications moving forward for everyone who is using the Internet for business.

As a result the socializer group actually feels that there is too much information on the Internet. Much more so than those who simply use search engines. Think about it. A search engine user takes it on faith (the vast majority of the time) that the entire Internet for a keyword or key phrase is boiled down to just 10 best results. Of course, if they only take their online sophistication that far then the Internet does appear to be easy to manage. Socializers, on the other hand, spend a lot more time online and hear / see a lot more than regular Internet users. It can become very noisy very quickly.

So how do they manage this? Through their online social network of buddies, of course. At this point, now the real recommendations and buying decisions are happening based on what other people, not an impersonal engine says. Hopefully, they are giving actual experience to help their online connections make more informed purchasing decisions. That’s the theory at least. Take a look at the significant differences in how socializers and searchers use various formats for information. Why Wikipedia is even part of the discussion baffles me but what do I know?

So what are you? Searcher? Portalist? Socializer? A little of all of them. Will social media displace search engines as a primary source of information in the near future? What does it mean to you TODAY as an Internet marketer? Share your thoughts and let’s learn from each other.

Read More View Comments | Posted by Fotis

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