A court in Dublin has ordered social media giant Facebook to stop indefinitely retaining the data generated by its half a billion users outside of the USA. The data in question relates to the adverts clicked on by these “international” users, with the changes coming as a result of a review of Facebook’s practices by the Irish data protection commissioner. Rather than indefinitely retaining the data, Facebook must make the data anonymous, and delete all data within 90 days.</p> <p>A privacy fightback</p> <p>This investigation is the latest in a long list of concerns that have emerged about Facebook’s privacy settings and policies. Criticism has been levelled at the site due to a number of changes to user privacy settings that happened without either adequate knowledge or control. It is likely that the changes enforced in the company’s international arm would be enforced in the US, according to Facebook’s European Director of Policy, Richard Allan. Allan was positive about the report, responding that it was pleasing that “the report highlighted a number of Facebook’s strengths or best practices.”</p> <p>Less “messing with data”</p> <p>Austrian pressure group “Europe versus Facebook” welcomed the move by the Irish data protection commission, calling the legislation the “first step of a long way to make Facebook comply with European laws.” The legislation is likely to “limit the ability of Facebook to mess with user data more than we expected.”<br />

When writing content for a website, there are a number of things that you need to bear in mind in order to strike the right balance between user experience and optimisation. Jumping through these metaphorical hoops can help you to both keep users who visit your site happy, as well as sending you in the right direction on the search engines.</p> <p>Share your content on social media</p> <p>The growth of social media cannot be overlooked any longer; one figure states that one in nine people on the planet has a Facebook account. Whether or not that is the case, a great way of generating a buzz around your content is to tweet it, link it on your Facebook page, blog it and share it. At the same time, providing your visitors with handy social media buttons improves the chances of them sharing your content further. </p> <p>Watch your language!</p> <p>Attention-grabbing headlines have been used to sell newspapers for centuries. Using this technique can help your site leap off the news indexes, attracting hits. Ensure your attention-grabbing headlines are relevant, as irrelevances can detract from your search engine ranking. Likewise, using short and snappy paragraphs can help make your content easy to read.</p> <p>Subheadings are key</p> <p>Most people reading a page on the internet will not read thoroughly. Good subheadings can help provide an overview, enticing people to read further if they think the content is relevant to them.</p> <p>

UK businesses are running the risk of missing out on career development opportunities by not fully embracing social networking. According to research carried out by KPMG, businesses in emerging economies such as Brazil, China and India are far more likely than their UK counterparts to have integrated social media into their organisations. Although the UK lags behind, there is evidence of rapid growth as social media gets onto increasing numbers of board room agendas.</p> <p>Not just for marketing purposes</p> <p>Whilst the benefits for businesses that employ social media as part of their marketing strategy are abundantly clear, it seems that some businesses are using other features of these networks to great advantage. Hot on the heels of the recent news that French IT giant Atos is looking to ban internal email, many companies are using the communication tools available on sites such as Facebook and Twitter to their advantage.</p> <p>Instant messaging vs. email</p> <p>Small businesses in emerging economies may not have the ready funds or wish to commit to spending out on corporate email systems. As all Facebook users automatically have tools such as the instant messenger service and threaded messages it seems there could well be a valid alternative to the traditional mail server for businesses. With more and more businesses connecting to Facebook, there are an increasing number of businesses who use social media to contact suppliers, clients and even customers.<br />

As any person experienced in marketing of any type will attest, getting the language that you use to speak to your audience just right is incredibly important. No amount of search engine optimisation techniques will help content that is pitched over your audience’s head. If you are looking to increase your conversion rates, related to how many clicks on your website turn into business, your content must speak to your audience.</p> <p>Limit the sales patter</p> <p>If a consumer has landed on your website, and is reading your content, they are probably interested in making a purchase. Strong content writing should go beyond a simple explanation of the technical specification of a product, and explain exactly why someone should choose to spend their money with you. </p> <p>Sell your knowledge</p> <p>Clichéd sales patter has no place on a website. Most of the time, customers will be looking to your site as an authority on the subject, whether it is cookware or conferences. If your content continually tells your audience to “buy, buy, buy!” you are making your position as a font of knowledge somewhat shaky, and potentially entering “Honest Joe” territory. By selling your knowledge and not the products, your audience should trust your opinions more than if it is the other way around.</p> <p>Know your product!</p> <p>It seems churlish to mention, but it is incredibly important that you are knowledgeable about your product, or at least come across that way on your site. Selling yourself as an expert whilst simultaneously selling your product will prove incredibly effective.<br />

More and more companies are turning to social media to carry a portion of their marketing campaign, but choosing the network your company focuses on is a difficult decision. With each of the social media platforms having their own markets, complete with their own browsing habits, it is important to make a decision that suits your company’s audience.</p> <p>The book of faces</p> <p>When most people think of social media, they think of Facebook. The world’s most populous social network, Facebook has a myriad of options that a business could utilise to cover all eventualities. A personal face for the company and “fan” page are the standard for businesses on the site, providing the opportunity to gain followers, and provide them with information, whilst communicating with any customers who get in touch with queries or complaints.</p> <p>Tweet away twitterers</p> <p>Twitter has become a social media giant, almost on par with Facebook, despite starting off much later. The real time aspect of Twitter can make it a great place for business, with the ability to get information about offers, sales, or anything you choose to your followers in an instant. Even if you are not swayed by Twitter’s approach for your business, it may be wise to keep an eye on this social media platform. All tweets posted on the site are public, and if users are complaining about your company on the platform a swift response can work wonders.<br />

Anyone who has visited Wikipedia over the past 24 hours will have noticed that their usually comprehensive encyclopaedia has been limited to a couple of pages. The site is the largest taking a stand on a day of action against the SOPA and PIPA bills poised to go before the US government. The bills aim to deal with and eradicate online piracy, but opponents argue that they could spell the end for sites such as Wikipedia, and any blog that thrives on debate and comment.</p> <p>Problems surrounding interaction </p> <p>One of the key points of the bill surrounds the assertion that any site owner is responsible for the copyright of anything on their site. Even sites that do not fall under the jurisdiction of the US attorney general will be taken action on if “the owner or operator of such Internet site is facilitating copyright infringement.” This could have massive ramifications for a business blog with comment box, as not only would the owner be responsible for their own posts, but those of their customers.</p> <p>Severe penalties</p> <p>The penalties for falling foul of the convoluted and lengthy regulations of the bills are exceptionally severe, and include removal from search engines. Other penalties include being blocked by ISPs and payment providers such as PayPal and Visa being required to terminate service to sites. Although these regulations are designed to put a halt to online piracy, they seem to be going so far as to endanger the spirit of community that the internet has created.<br />

Striking the right balance between serving search engine algorithms and any humans reading your content is a key aspect of writing a blog. Creating carefully optimised content with the correct number of key words, meta tags and headings to attempt to fire your blog up the rankings is all well and good, but it is vital that anything written is readable, so that when people are directed to your pages it all makes sense. Google and the other search engines keep their algorithms a closely guarded secret, so whilst there is not a sure-fire formula for perfect blogging, there are a few things that should help serve all readers of your blog, whether they are human or machine.</p> <p>Don’t overuse keywords</p> <p>There is nothing worse than reading blog posts that are stuffed full of keywords, especially if the content has been so contrived as to not make any sense. Search engines have got wise to such practices, and tend to punish pages with excessive and flagrant keyword use. It is best to use keywords as you would salt in your cooking; a little can be fantastic, but too much can render food inedible.</p> <p>What is the purpose of your blog?</p> <p>If your blog has been written for purely SEO purposes, then to an extent the reader experience becomes unimportant. As the page will be visited by machines more often then humans, it will not matter too much if the content jars ever so slightly from time to time. Conversely, if you are aiming to promote debate and comment with your blogging, human-friendly language is imperative for the success of the content.<br />

Ellen Arnison, a freelance journalist who took up blogging as a side-line has written a book extolling the virtues of blogging. Entitled Blogging for Happiness, A Guide to Improving Positive Mental Health (and Wealth) from your Blog, the book won’t win any awards for snappy titles, but has some tremendous insights on the benefits of blogging, as well as hints about making money from blog posts. Based around Arnison’s experiences of blogging about her day-to-day existence, taking in post-natal depression, and other life changing events, the book aims to show how blogging can keep you sane, and make you some money at the same time.</p> <p>From humble beginnings</p> <p>As with so many other bloggers, Arnison began writing hers as a personal project, just to keep her company as she adjusted to a new life as a freelance writer. As the blog grew in popularity, companies began to get in touch who were interested in advertising their products on the blog pages. Arnison’s book identifies a number of steps that fellow bloggers can use in order to get their blogs recognised, and how writing posts can act as therapy for the blogger.</p> <p>Beating depression through writing</p> <p>Arnison used her blog to help beat depression, as she explains: “I suffered a series of bereavements very close together, and found myself drowning in a sea of emotions I could not contain. Writing them down and finding others who understood was fantastic therapy.”<br />

Whilst nobody can deny how popular social media marketing has become to a vast number of businesses, there is some debate about measuring how effective the marketing is. Many analytical tools used in traditional marketing campaigns, and indeed many web-based marketing tools, don’t necessarily work in finding out the effectiveness of marketing on social media sites such as Twitter and Facebook. Some crude measures such as counting the number of followers, friends or “likes” will give an overview of the effectiveness, but won’t necessarily paint a full picture.</p> <p>Rating engagement </p> <p>According to Gadi Ben-Yehuda who is an expert in social media marketing trends, there is more that businesses should do to rate the effectiveness of a social media campaign. “The good thing about followers and friends is they are easy to count,” he suggested. “What it does not tell you about is the actual engagement.” A massive amount of followers who ignore your posts is not as valuable as a smaller hard core of users, who regularly respond, comment and debate the issues raised on your social media platform.</p> <p>Analytical tools</p> <p>A number of free services exist, such as Tweepskey, which analyses your Twitter followers, giving you information about their influence and level of engagement. Other services chart the geographical locations of your followers, and score your followers according to how they use their social media sites. Rather than using the blunt instruments of counting followers, a range of more intricate measures will help you truly assess the success of your social media campaigns.<br />

The oft debated Google search ranking algorithm Panda has changed the game for many websites and content writers. The algorithm rewards sites that update their content regularly, along with sites with interesting and useful information, whilst it punishes sites that lay untended and contain pages of duplicated content. The sites who are being hit by the negative effects of the algorithm the hardest are those who use affiliates to help to market and sell their services.</p> <p>Ranking penalties</p> <p>If affiliates are looking to mimic the sites of their parent company by using the same, or similar content on their sites, they could incur a ranking penalty, seeing them slide down Google’s pages. The latest algorithm update focuses on user experience, and a site that repeats vast quantities of information from another site will not be doing a great deal to offer an enhanced user experience. Jeff Slipko, online marketing expert suggests that “if an affiliate doesn’t add value to their site beyond what the supplier provides, they could see a negative effect to their page ranking through Panda’s criteria.”</p> <p>Red flags</p> <p>According to Slipko, content simply lifted from another site will be a “huge red flag,” offering little to enhance a user’s experience. Retelling the story, from a suitable angle to suit the needs of the business and their client base is likely to yield much better results. Checking visitor figures and Google’s guidelines will help to see if your site is affected.<br />