Social Media Marketing (SMM) has come a very long way in such a short space of time, so it can be difficult to understand its uses, especially for small start-up businesses.

Many companies will have various social media accounts, and each one has its own environment, or layout. Facebook and Twitter are great for sharing content with customers, perhaps also gaining feedback and researching customers to fully understand your target audience and their needs.

YouTube is a social media network that lets businesses share videos to engage with their customers. They can then post these through various social media platforms, expanding its reach. A combination of social media networks can work well for a business, and it’s important to make sure each social media website is regularly updated so relationships new relationships with customers can not only be built, they can also be maintained.

Blogs are also beneficial in terms of social media marketing, and because numerous social media website have restricted characters, blogs can provide more freedom; you can even have a custom web design made to enhance your brand.

SMM is still developing, and if your business is yet to start using its benefits, it’s probably time to, but make sure you give each website the same amount of care and attention as your main website.

Speaking to the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee yesterday (29 October) concerning the recent wave of bill hikes which have swept around the country’s energy industry, three of the largest suppliers said strategic moves to diversify their retail businesses beyond traditional tariffs would give them an edge in winning new customers.

William Morris, managing director of retail for SSE, said the goods currently on offer within the sector are limited, adding a paradigm shift into areas together with home services and telephony would give it a neater service to market to consumers. The business has recently launched an O2 Priority-style rewards scheme to capture more shopper data, while E.ON is asking to broaden its energy efficiency services next year.  

Morris adds: “We should inject more diversity of goods into our offers in order that there’s a perception from customers that they’re getting a neater service from us. We must always be observing bringing home services and telephony to the market to make it more diverse. “

E.ON’s UK chief executive Tony Cocker echoed the decision for expansion into new areas, urging MPs to launch a contest inquiry into the entire utilities market. The business, which has yet to announce price rises, said a review will be vital to restoring customer trust inside the industry. It echoes an identical plea by rival provider EDF Energy earlier this month.

Cocker adds: “I fundamentally believe that this market is competitive but we’re not trusted and therefore i suspect we have to have an exceptionally thorough competition commission investigation.”

Ofgem, which has drawn criticisms from Labour leader Ed Miliband and campaign groups for not being harder at the UK’s biggest suppliers, told MPs on the same hearing that competition will be examined as portion of a much broader review of the field due out in Spring 2014.

The Big Six energy firms were accused of behaving like a “chorus line acting in concert” by MPs on the same hearing following widespread price increases of as much as 10 per cent. The provider blamed the pointy increases on rising wholesale prices, green taxes and transport costs, but admitted they had to be better at “articulating” theses reasons to customers.  

The announcements come just days after Prime Minister David Cameron revealed he was “frustrated” with the dominance of the enormous Six firms and desired to make a “big 60” market, with greater choice for consumers and  “healthy” competition keeping prices down. Details of the contest review is about to be outlined later this week in Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Davey’s annual statement.

The IAB’s Mobile Travel Audit, published today (October 30), also reveals lower than half (48 per cent) of the UK’s top travel brands have a mobile app, with only 56 per cent (14) of those offering fully transactional services. 

The study also finds only 20 per cent of the audited brands offer a “seamless user journey”, where logged-in customers can see items of their purchase basket across desktop, tablet and mobile.

Alex Kozloff, IAB head of mobile, says the findings are “surprising” for brands on this sector, particularly as UK internet users spend an ordinary of 43 hours per thirty days with a connected device, and increasingly these are with mobiles.

She adds: “Mobile now accounts for 14 per cent of total digital spend, it’s a medium that can’t be ignored.”

Meanwhile, the study also found that lower than half (42 per cent) of the audited brands optimised their search marketing campaigns for mobile devices.

Furthermore, it found four of the audited brands were investing in mobile search campaigns that directed users towards non-mobile optimised sites.

The research, conducted in September and October, gauged the uptake of the mobile channel by the tip 50 spending advertisers within the travel category by auditing their presence for mobile websites, apps, responsive design sites and tablet devices.

It found that just 4 per cent of those sites have websites designed specifically for tablets, despite the generally acknowledged importance on optimising services for such devices.

Speaking at this month’s Abta conference, TUI Travel group chief information officer Mittu Sridhara urged attendees to deal with for mobile devices or risk falling behind competitors.

He said: “Mobile is moving quickly and if you’re not in it you won’t learn along with your customers or evolve along with your customers. There’ll be no time to play catch up later.”

Splitting marketing budgets remains an immense challenge for shops over Christmas. The festive season is all concerning the big brand campaign battle, with retailers inclusive of Argos, Marks & Spencer, Next and John Lewis all pumping millions of pounds into high-profile television commercials this year.

Yet there’s also a lower level battle going as retailers put money into mobile and digital as their importance within the purchasing journey increases. Per figures from Yahoo, the net is probably the most used media two hours before consumers buy groceries and so they are inclined to return to the web in the event that they don’t buy anything in store.

Patrick Hourihan, Yahoo’s head of study in Northern Europe and author of its Time To shop for research, says: “The role of devices and the net in supporting physical store visits is increasingly more important. Retailers cannot just market on one platform, it isn’t the way in which people engage or shop.”

Yahoo’s comments are backed up by figures at the growing ubiquity of cell phones, with almost three-quarters of UK consumers now owning a smartphone, with penetration at 90 per cent among 25-34 year olds, in accordance with Deloitte. Separately, a study by Weve found that 28 per cent of individuals cite mobile as their first screen, with this number rising to 46 per cent among 18-34 year olds.

At Christmas, digital is much more important, with Yahoo claiming they see a large spike in searches for gifts and online shopping.

“Around Christmas there’s further and further engagement with digital. Online shopping is gigantic at the moment of year because individuals are buying stuff for people and that they like to do it quickly!” says Hourihan.

This opens up a chance to interact with consumers digitally by offering a content-rich experience that supports the only they find in stores. Where previously a mobile website that allow customers research products online could have been enough, now individuals are expecting next-generation mobile services which might be image heavy, fast and whole of content.

Retailers are taking heed. Very has announced a transformation in business plan within the run-as much as Christmas to highlight content marketing and social media, while John Lewis is forecasting that mobile traffic will overtake desktop traffic to its website at 5pm on Christmas Day and is launching an iPad app which will bring content from the retailer’s magazines and catalogues to the tablet.

Marks & Spencer has updated its iPhone app with My Offers, as a way to offer customers exclusive content and deals relevant to their shopping preferences. Plus it’s
planning to debut its new Christmas ad campaign online first and is offering teasers on Instagram just before its first play on Monday (4 November).

It can be using social media to interact with customers, asking them to choose a reputation for the dog that looks inside the ad, with the winner out of a decision of Magic and Sparkle revealed in a version of the ad with a view to run during Downton Abbey on Sunday 10 November.

Patrick Bousquet-Chavanne, the retailer’s executive director of promoting and business development, says: “Brands are all about interaction and conversation and the role of digital at large is to create conversations. Social media gives us a voice to our consumers, letting us engage with them throughout the journey.”

Argos is additionally desirous about content and social media as a way of bringing its catalogue and products to life and to take advantage of growth that has seen mobile traffic increase by 124 per cent during the last year to make up 16 per cent of its total. It has expanded a small test it ran with augmented reality app Blippar early this year to its Christmas catalogue, offering users access to content along with videos and games.

The technology converts static images into interactive content, using a smartphone camera to recognise “blippable” images and respond with anything from videos to competitions to weblinks.

Betrand Bodson, digital director at Argos, says: “Content is vital since it is compelling for purchasers and an entry point to engagement with the logo. We need to be social to bring people to our platform, get them clicking on our products and get them buying.”

Argos is likewise using social media to amplify the consequences of Blippar. Among the many blippable images gives users the choice to take an image with the family of aliens from its campaign and post that to Facebook or Twitter, while it’s also asking people to call the hot baby alien.

After only a week, Bodson claims customers are highly engaged with the content, with all people using the app an ordinary of 10 times.

“This is greater than only a gimmick, it is a fantastic conduit into digital. We had a challenge in that the catalogue is celebrated but has limitations since it is static. This can be a way of bringing paper to life and offering customers an experience in accordance with content round the Argos brand. Mobile is absolutely the connector between the web site that folk are using at home and the stores.”

Bodson believes it’s much more important within the run-as much as Christmas, when competition among retailers is at its fiercest and each brand is making an attempt to be seen as innovative.

“Christmas is a key time to focus on [digital marketing innovations]. Retailers are less comfortable in content and social. There’s a possibility here because most still aren’t using it,” he concludes.

The IAB’s US entity has install a local Advertising Task Force including 80 companies representing advertisers, media owners and technology providers, to agree upon best practice around ‘blending’ commercial messaging with editorial content – ‘native advertising’ or ‘sponsored content’. 

The Native Advertising Task Force, whose leadership includes representatives from the IAB itself, Sharethrough and Yahoo, is preparing to publish a “prospectus” proposing how best to attain a consistent mixture of both different pieces of content, in this coming quarter. 

This move towards self-regulation includes debating the content-type, context and format of the ad units. It also comes because the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) prepares to host a workshop to “examine” the practice of those ads more closely resembling editorial content. 

In particular, the workshop, scheduled to appear on 4 December, will deal with which entity controls how native ads are presented to consumers, how they are often differentiated from regular content and consumers’ ability to delineate between the 2.

IAB UK is taking a detailed lead from its US counterpart on developments there, with a up to date poll of IAB UK members showing over half (52 per cent) of respondents saying they ‘know what native advertising is, but needed more information’ on it. 

Meanwhile, the survey also revealed that 20 per cent of respondents described themselves as ‘experts’ on native advertising, while a different 12 per cent conceded they had ‘never heard of it’. 

Lee Baker, chief marketing strategist at online ad firm Respond and ex-AOP managing director, says that while it’s still be a little “premature” to “standardise” native advertising, or branded content, more consensus a few of the different stakeholders inside the web advertising industry needed. 

He says: “I don’t think native advertising is being bought by an analogous team from agency to agency. 

“We don’t need standards without delay but what we do need is to be speaking an identical language.” 

Web giant AOL, whose Huffington Post Media Group owns editorial brands including Engadget, Huffington Post and Techcrunch, forecasts that 40 per cent of its online revenues will come from native ads next year, and additional predicts such ad formats will surpass ‘traditional online ad formats’ by 2025.

An in-depth study the state of native advertising may be read here. 

In today’s competitive world, a well-designed site forms the backbone of any company. A professional and reputed website development company plays a crucial role in reaching the company’s goals and objectives.

One of the most effective ways of using a web site is to collect new data, leads and increase sales. A good company specialises in various different areas of ecommerce, which means they are able to setup an online store for you in order to bring in new sales and leads 24 hours a day.

You may have an existing web site development project; you may be updating an existing website, or just want to learn new skills.

If you plan to develop a website to make your online presence felt, you should take the services of a professional website development company. It is through the business website that a client gets an idea about the services and products offered. A good designed site can also attract a lot of clients to help your company reach new heights.

There are many benefits associated with hiring a professional website design agency. These agencies have a team of qualified and talented employees that can help design customised website for customers. Their team includes system engineers, web designers, graphic designers and also marketing executives that work with full dedication to give clients exactly what they are looking for. Some web designing agencies also offer services such as SEO and content development which can help in generating leads and also improving sales. They will also create a customised logo for your business keeping in mind the target audience and the services offered.

The main features that a good web design agency can offer you include:

·         User friendly and informative site that can help the business reach a wider audience.

·         A technically sound site that is SEO friendly.

·         Site with browser compatibility.

·         Constant monitoring of the website for any issues.

·         Helpful in implementing numerous social media campaigns.

·         Useful in staying ahead in competition.

·         A relevant online strategy for company development.

There are some factors to be considered before hiring a professional web design agency.

·         The kind of tasks they have completed previously and the level of satisfaction offered to their previous customers. Also check if they have previously developed the type of site you are looking for.

·         Also check with them the money and time that will be required in your current project.

·         The experience they have in the web development field is also a crucial factor to be considered and also if the company can offer you valuable ideas.

·         The testimonials left by the customers they have worked with.

The demand for website design firms has increased considerably due to the number of companies going online. You have to be clear with the type of site you want for before hiring a professional agency. There are many agencies in the market offering website development services and selecting one after proper search will give you good results.