By Simon Mackenzie, Senior Planner

Welcome one and all to a new, appallingly named regular feature of the STEAK blog. Each Friday, I will round up a selection of the more interesting posts I’ve come across in the previous week or so (that hopefully relate at least tenuously to the business of digital marketing), grind them up, and reconstitute them into a blog.

 ‘Curation’, I think, the cool kids are calling it…

 (You’ll notice I’ve cunningly written my own brief here so the posts don’t have to have been published in the last week. I am the law here in the corned beef sandwich, so the only criterion is that this week is when I’ve stumbled across them. I make the rules…)

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 By Doug Sheard

The affiliate model used to fear phones. A natural concern over the leakage, caused by a merchant having a number on-site meant that many networks instigated a knee-jerk reaction – hide it with a click append. If a merchant did embrace the concept of phone tracking, this was not always accurate, leading in some cases to affiliates receiving sporadic commissions based loosely on their number of clicks. I remember hearing about one programme that offered commission to the top affiliates based on the percentage of clicks driven!

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By Adrian Goodsell

I’m a big fan of Paul Adams (@padday).

He’s probably best known as the guy who laid the foundations for Google+ then upped and left before Circles launched to work on Facebook’s advertising platform. I’ve been following his blog for some time now and I’m usually given lots of food for thought by his posts. [Read more →]

By John Barham

At STEAK we are asked many things by prospective clients as they try to gauge who we are, how we work and ultimately whether they want to work with us. Below we’ve compiled a list of what we think clients should be asking if they’re looking to hire a new PPC agency.

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Pinterest has been going into hyper drive of late. Everyone is keen to extoll the virtues of the new social network. The hyperbole is quite unbelievable. It’s the new place to hang out, share pictures and project a lifestyle you’d like to have. I like it, it’s fun, but I can’t help but think there will come a point when the excitement will die down and you’ll realise that it’s just sharing pictures.

There are a few reasons why I think it might not turn into a Facebook type monster. They’re all conjecture and based on my own personal experience of the site, but I thought I’d share them anyway… 

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From Sarah McClutchy, STEAK New York

On Wednesday, Facebook made significant announcements regarding how brands can engage with their user audience.  These changes, part of Facebook’s on-going effort to improve  advertising revenue, will have a major effect on the way brands are viewed across the platform, and present new opportunities for marketers to reach consumers. The folks here at STEAK are still digging into the details of the various programs, but here’s a quick summary of the announcements:

New Product: Offers

‘Offers’ allow businesses to share discounts and promotions with their fans directly on their Facebook Page or as a Sponsored Story on the News Feed.  Users can redeem Offers via email or from a mobile device.  Offers are a free service for the brand, making this an appealing element for many businesses that are looking for ways to measure the ROI that comes from social media.

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By Peter Wood

 In football, a preseason friendly is the chance to establish where you are with a playing squad, judge fitness levels and test out new formations. Last night’s Old Street encounter was no different. The added buzz to the occasion was the first ever Dentsu Network derby between the creative minds of Dentsu London and the Digital marketing specialists at STEAK.

STEAK lined up with a traditional 2-1-1 formation, offering protection to the keeper whilst trying to exploit the creative talents of Simon Wong in midfield. Dentsu, the more experienced of the teams played a more attacking formation and that paid off when they took the lead early on.

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By Peter Wood

Facebook have a habit of springing unpleasant surprises on people. Timeline rolled out recently for personal profiles and a mad dash ensued to ensure all past shame was removed as quickly as possible. Yesterday, it rolled out the time line for brand pages.

From a social marketing perspective there are a lot of great additions, but all the good is generally underpinned by a pretty major flaw in the whole update. [Read more →]

By Doug Sheard

Pinterest is generating a massive media buzz as it breaks into the UK social market. Early reviews are that it’s fun and easy to use and, with marketers working on ways to optimise it for their brands, I’ve even heard the term Pinfluence bandied around recently!

So why is the Head of Affiliates talking about this newbie to the social scene? The interesting (and yes, I’m leaving the “Pinteresting” behind here…) aspect is how an affiliate helped to monetise the site as it grew in the U.S. The affiliate in question is Skimlinks, who worked with Pinterest until recently. [Read more →]

By Gareth Owen

1. What do you call Princess Zelda in stockings and suspenders?

Link Bait

2.What type of music events do SEOs like to go to?

Heavy Meta gigs

3. What’s an SEO’s favourite Deodorant?

Lynx [Read more →]