WSI Online Guru, Belfast, Northern Ireland 028 9050 1800

I had a marvelous animated discussion with a PR person this week about the value of Social Media to companies.

We agreed to differ on some points, but as a picture paints a thousand words… feast your tired friday eyes on this graphic.

If you want your voice to be heard... you have to be speaking on the right channels (DOUBLE CLICK TO ENLARGE)

I wouldn’t be buying shares in the postal service any time soon… ifyaknowwhatImean..

Apologies to the author/copyright holder, I cannot find whom to credit but if you get in touch I shall correct.

So, there has been a bit of discussion about QR Codes recently… As in, What are they?  Who is using them?  What can you use them for? Do they get results?  and Are they just a fad?

I’m becomming a bit of a fan of them mainly because they are a very simple and effective.

Simple to create and deploy and from the users point of view they are a very efficient means of getting to a specific page without thinking too much.

Link to our other web site with an annoying and very long URL www.wsitopinternetmarketing.co.uk

For those who are not familiar with a QR Code consider it to be a 2 dimensional bar code.  This image brings the user to our other website, the one with the long annoying name…  www.wsitopinternetmarketing.co.uk without the hassle of typing in all those letters.

So, I was reading some guff about how people these days are ‘multi-tasking’ when watching TV.  Multi-tasking?  Aparently picking up your smartphone and looking at your emails whilst sitting in front of the television is multi tasking.  Not exactly rubbing your tummy and patting your head territory, but I digress.  I can see how sticking a large QR Code at the end of your television advert for a couple of seconds would be a good way of driving traffic (from the ‘multi tasking community’) to your particular offer.  I’m only surprised I haven’t seen it yet.

So is anyone using QR Codes?

A recent study in the US found the following results.

QR Code usage statistics for October 2011

Aparently 20.1 million Americans (apologies to anyone looking for information about anywhere else in the world) scanned QR codes in October.   Will be interesting to see what this number is next christmas.

Now, whilst we are on the subject of Smart phones there has been some interesting legal activity in the US and EU regarding Carrier IQ and their tracking software.  This software runs on smartphones and can be used by carriers to give them ‘feedback on the device functionality’.  It appears that they have been tracking every keystroke and action on the vast majority of our handsets, as well as phone numbers dialled, the location in which the user is at and a host of other information which you would normally only be allowed to collect and store if you had a judges permission, hence the furore.   Class action suits have been issued against 4 hand set makers, 3 carriers, and Carrier IQ themselves… more details at

So lastly, may I wish you all a Happy Christmas (or holiday of choice).  And if you need a little something to warm the cockles of your heart, may I suggest you take a few minutes to view the following link http://www.leinsterrugby.ie/mdtv/play/media/id/10302  

The EU Cookie law as it is now known has made over 90% of websites illegal.

So, what is it?  how does it affect you? and most importantly, what should you as a web site owner do about it?

The new privacy law came into effect in May 2011, but a grace period of 12 months was given for organisations to take effective measures.

The law is intended to help protect people’s privacy by restricting the use of ‘cookies’ without explicit consent of users.

But what are ‘cookies’ and what to they do?

Cookies are small data files which a website will store on your computer in which some information will be kept.  For example, if you search for ‘new cars’ in Google, they use a cookie to store this information and may use it later to target you with a car advert on another website because they remember who you are.

However, cookies are used for many things, for example:   Analytics, Advertising, Conversion tracking, Anti-spam filtering, Load balancing, Social media plugins, User preferences, Add to basket, Login and most amusingly in relation to this law…  Remembering whether cookies are allowed.

Given that most content management systems, analytics programs (including Google Analytics) and consequently websites utilise cookies liberally it means that without gaining the consent of users your site will be operating illegally.

So what needs to be done.

Many commentators are suggesting a ‘wait and see’ approach particularly because of the lack of clarity in the law, or any coherent direction from either the DCMS or the ICO, who are the two bodies in the UK responsible for writing and enforcing this law respectively.

The recommendation that all web sites using cookies should have a ‘pop-up’ type window or other to request consent from users is not generally being adhered to.

Meanwhile, regulators across the EU await a technical solution.  This does not appear to be forthcoming.  W3C the World Wide Web Consortium has announced the creation of a ‘Tracking Protection Working Group’ to address online privacy concerns but getting all players to agree on what standards should be adopted could yet be a sticking point.  They have plans to publish standards as early as mid 2012.

For more information on this topic contact  WSI on 02890 501 800 or the ICO at www.ico.gov.uk

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is considered essential for promoting businesses on search engines.  More recently there is a move to more localised optimisation as Google and other search engines hone their skills in providing the searcher with more relevant results.  However many of the techniques practised by some can be considered Spam however, does Google consider all SEO activity SPAM?

Matt Cutts one of Google’s elite development gurus has answered the question.  In the video http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=BS75vhGO-kk  Matt explains what is ‘good’ what is ‘bad’ and why SEO is acutally essential activity to help Google in providing the best search results to its users.

Interesting viewing for anyone who is considering  Search Engine Optimisation to help their site rank better, improve their lead generation.

Watch out for our So Lo Mo blog coming soon to a screen near you..

For more information and advice on SEO for your business, call WSI Belfast on 02890 501 800 or visit www.wsionlineguru.com  .

It appears that google are shifting the goal posts on who can use or even see some Analytics Keyword Data to encourage advertisers to use Adwords by means of encrypted searches for logged in users.

Ok, that was a bit of a mouth ful, but it works like this.

If you are logged into your Google Account your searches on the Google Search Engine are now encrypted.

The results of these searches will not be made available to the casual user of keyword tools such as Google’s own Keyword tool.  However the data will be available to those advertisers who are targetting those keywords and will appear in their Analytics reports..

What does this mean in reality?  Well, not a lot really.  Currently about 2.5% of users do their searching whilst logged into their accounts, but this will most likely change in the future as users become more submerged in the tools and social environments which are becomming the norm.

For businesses it will mean that in future if you want to know all about the ‘keyword space’ of most interest to you, you will need to purchase access to this data by means of ‘paid search’ contribution to the big G.   Of course, this is not necessarily a bad thing, as it is often beneficial to buy some visits to test the flow of users through a site, investigate the efficacy the conversion architecture etc, so no need to panic

For more information on this or other strategies for better Search Engine Opimisation call us today on the number above.  Our Team in the WSI Belfast office are awaiting your call.

If you want to see some innovative use of Social Media… Check this link out… IKEA have created a YouTube App which accesses users Facebook profile to provide you with purchase suggestions……. Brilliant.

Check out the full story here…

http://www.brandchannel.com/home/post/2011/10/18/Ikea-UK-App-Uses-Your-Facebook-to-Build-Your-Happy-Bedroom.aspx

Our new Belfast Office is now open on James Street South in the heart of Belfast. WSI Certified Digital Marketing Consultants Guy Bucknall and Ruan O’Tiarnaigh are happy to discuss how we can help your business.

Contact WSI Digital Marketing Guru on 028 9050 1800 or via our various other media….