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 Adrian Goodsell, The Wall, 30th January 2012

Looking for a huge numbers of fans? Can’t wait a second longer? Then read on, this blog post is for you…

1. Buy your fans
This is definitely the easiest way to guarantee a following fast; decide how many ‘fans’ you want then simply go to any dodgy-looking site (probably via a Facebook ad) take your wallet out (remember to stick your head in the sand) et voila, success! But wait a second; by definition once you directly pay for a relationship what does that relationship become? What does it really mean? There’s a very obvious analogy here, one that doesn’t involve any love at all…

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By Peter Wood, The Wall, 27th January 2012

What is influence? It’s a massive question in the world of social media. Thousands of man hours are being pumped into companies who are trying to solve the problem in the hope that one day, you’ll be able to search a category and an application will spit out exactly the 5 top influencers you need to be communicating with to push your product.
I’m in the lucky position whereby I could be classed as an ‘influencer’ in a field (not social, sadly!), so I can quickly decipher which tools work and which don’t. I’ve tried blog ranking systems, I’ve had a go on Klout and I’ve used bespoke services. The commonality between all of them? [Read more →]

By Peter Wood, The Wall, 26th January 2012

Social media has clunked its way through many evolutions over the years. The past four has seen the digital world settle into a social rhythm. Facebook being the daddy of them all, Twitter is the cooler, younger kid on the block, and LinkedIn taking the lead as the place to hang out to talk serious stuff. The commonality with all of those platforms is they are essentially for everyone. The barriers to entry are extremely low. Most tech savvy people will generally have those three, even if they’re not active in all three (I bet everyone who reads this has all three).

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By Gareth Owen, Search Engine Watch, 18 January 2012

One area that search engines have made a number of significant advancements in recent years is in how they evaluate content on a website. So what does a perfectly optimised page look like in 2012? Let’s look at 10 elements.

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By Peter Wood, The Wall, 6 December 2011

I was recently asked about the effects of social media and public outrage. Specifically, the question was around Jeremy Clarkson and his ‘oh so controversial’ comments on the BEEB last week. You know, the comments that were definitely nothing to do with shifting copies of a Christmas DVD.

Anyway, let’s paint the picture of how the average outrage works in social media.

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By Peter Wood, posted on The Wall 14 November, 2011

Blogger outreach is an interesting concept that in theory should work but often doesn’t. The idea is that brands approach bloggers and ask them to write about their products, services or initiatives. In an ideal world, this should be un-incentivised. The reality might be different, but the idea is that the opinion of a blogger, a web promoted authority on a subject, will be worth more than the opinion of a journalist or a glitzy write up on the company website.

[Read more →]

By Duncan Parry, Search Engine Watch,  July 20, 2011

Friends. Followers. Contacts. Circles. Social networks can be fun and productive for work or pleasure.

But social networks are also time consuming – more than most of us probably care to admit. With the average person reported to have 130 friends and growing on Facebook alone, the continuous flow of updates from individuals and organizations is overwhelming. From that page you liked on Facebook, to that industry pundit you follow on Twitter, and many others in between, everybody is updating, tweeting, posting, liking, checking in, sharing, +1ing…

Here’s the thing. It’s too much. Admit it. You’re overwhelmed.

I’ve declared a few times on Facebook and Twitter my plans to carry out a cull. A few people or pages get dropped. But…what if that person notices? What if that ex-colleague goes to work somewhere interesting? What if I miss that industry announcement or insider tip? Better not be too harsh, better stay connected.

I’m now on five social networks – four public ones and one closed network for work (Yammer). This week I’ve faced the truth: it’s too much. Time for a cull. But where to start?

Facebook

I know instinctively that Facebook is my personal space – it’s where friends and family share photos and post personal updates. It’s where I go to get away from work – not to blend the personal and professional.

Step one: un-friend work-only contacts and pages. Step two: move them to LinkedIn or Twitter depending on their social media activity; do I want to only keep in contact with them (LinkedIn) or read what they have to say (Twitter)?

Twitter

I maintain several accounts for myself and work, and the work accounts have clear objectives and strategies. My own, I freely admit, doesn’t. It’s a collection of personal and work interests, and I’m a generous follower.

Time for a change. This is the worrying bit – do I follow my instinct, and cull anybody I don’t regularly find useful? Will I miss out? What will happen to my follower volume? Should I care?

I’ve decide to not rush in here – analyzing hundreds of followers and then making bulk changes, whether un-following or adding them to lists, isn’t particularly easy and I’ve yet to find a tool with all the functionality I want to speed this up. Instead, I’m removing accounts I don’t find useful when I see messages from them – cleaning up my Twitter stream as I go.

LinkedIn & Yammer

LinkedIn is the easiest to keep under control – I’m cautious of adding anybody who approaches me (especially recruiters). Yammer, as a B2B network, is even easier to keep relevant – I have 100 percent control over groups and who I follow (OK, so I’m an admin, which helps.)

Google Plus

Now that’s a blank canvas. So how will I avoid repeating the mistakes I’ve drifted into on Facebook and Twitter?

Circles. I’ve immediately setup three – Work, Family & Friends and Acquaintances. I know I’ll add a further one for “Hobbies & Sports” when businesses and organizations have official pages. I might split my work circle up in future – but I’m keeping them small, and have already started consciously ignoring some followers who I don’t want in my circles.

Social Media Relevancy

If I used to be your friend on Facebook, or I no longer mutually follow you on Twitter, sorry. Relevancy has been one of the underpinning characteristics of the biggest success story of digital – search – and the same applies to social media.

Life’s too short, too busy, and too rushed for the irrelevant. For that attitude, I won’t apologize.

By Duncan Parry, Search Engine Watch,  Nov 19, 2010

The search industry never stops. From AltaVista to Google, and GoToast to Search Ignite, the fortunes of companies and technologies evolve over time.

I was reminded of this recently when training new hires. They’d never head of names like AltaVista, Excite, Lycos, etc. — companies that defined the search space less than 10 years ago.

So, how do you keep up to date?

Ignore the Noise

It’s important to recognize that there are many, many blogs and articles published about search every day — and many more “experts” on forums and Twitter and in Facebook and LinkedIn groups.

You can ignore most of them. The ability of the search industry to report on, discuss, analyze, argue about, and regurgitate a fact until it has been distorted out of all proportion and attained myth-like status is legendary. There’s a lot of noise — so you need to spend your limited time on sites that are credible and, most importantly, correct.

It’s also important to note that the search engines are no longer search companies — they offer much broader product lines; so you will need to keep up to date on developments in all their products, too, as search is often integrated into them (and paid search revenues pay for them).

Select an RSS Reader

I can’t think of an industry news site that doesn’t have an RSS feed — so choosing a good reader is crucial. There are many available. I use Google Reader to collate and organize feeds by topic in folders as it’s tied to my Google login and easy to use on any computer, iPad, or mobile.

I often use Feedly linked to Google Reader as it offers a slicker interface that feels closer to a magazine. Another bonus of Google Reader is that you can add any URL to it — not just RSS feeds — and Reader will monitor the page for changes and present them as if a feed has updated.

Many sites offer several feeds — follow those most relevant to your area of work and interests; it’s easy to overload yourself with feeds and find you have more than 100 articles to wade through every morning. Pretty soon you’ll find you’re too busy to bother, and end up reading nothing.

Keep an Eye on the Mainstream Press

Sometimes announcements by the search engines receive mainstream coverage — or a story breaks about a negative issue, like the recent Google Street View privacy coverage. Add the technology sections of mainstream sites like the New York Times, USA Today, BBC News, etc., to your reader to ensure you know the stories your clients (and their bosses) are reading over their breakfast.

Digital Overall

To keep any eye on the wider industry I follow a few key sites — Mashable, The Next Web, Robert Scoble, John Battelle’s Search Blog, and Econsultancy, to name a few.

The Search Stalwarts

There are a few search-focused sites that are must-reads. Search Engine Watch and Search Engine Land are the two heavyweights; I receive their newsletters every morning as well as follow their feeds; they provide a summary of the most important search news and topics. Search Engine Roundtable is also important and often have details of new Google tests or rumors with some basis to them as reported on other sites or forums.

There are of course many other digital industry and search sites — the above sites link to good sources as they cover stories, helping you find other sources.

Don’t Forget To Cull

One last piece of advice: don’t forget to delete feeds. Over time, sites change editor, or their focus shifts or their writing declines in quality. So when a site seems to publish nothing of interest, delete it — your time is precious.

Bing announced on their blog (http://mashable.com/bing-local-twitter-trends/) today they have created maps with Mashable that show which topics are trending on Twitter in locations around the world.

Whilst much of the content on Twitter is the digital industry talking to itself – especially in the UK – this is one interesting example of search engines using social data.

I believe we’ll see more social data used to enhance the quality and relevancy of search results and news sites; it sends a signal of what is of interest to the public that the engines and savvy publishers will be keen to plug into their algorithms.

For example: if a political candidate is receiving a lot of mentions in social media by people located in the south east of England, and somebody in that region goes to Google news, news stories about that candidate could be boosted up the page.

This could be extend into search, too – pushing sites up the listings based on social data for the searchers region.

Duncan Parry, Co-founder and Head of Paid Search