Social networking sites and in particular Facebook has become a part of our society that we struggle to live without, it gives you the ability to find out the very basic information about someone’s life and sometimes even the most complex issues that they are thinking about. With likes, comments and statuses, Facebook represents the very opinion of the public and with over 800 million users worldwide it gives one of the most reliable sources of public attitudes and behaviours and their opinions on, well … just about anything, it gives an accurate measure of the most popular topics, subjects, products and services voted by the public and especially internet users.

This week Facebook have announced the use of ‘Memology 2011’ showing the most popular “memes” which includes behaviours, styles and trends of Facebook users over the last year. As well as being important for businesses and understanding search engine behaviour it also plays an imperative part in SEO. With the increasing amount of users signing up to social media sites and with it becoming one of the most used sites on the internet, SEO needs to fully engage with social media.

Memology allows you to see 2011 through the eyes of status updates. You can view the ten most popular global topics for 2011 based on what people were writing about in their status updates, which are:
1. Death of Osama bin Laden
2. Packers win the Super Bowl
3. Casey Anthony found not guilty
4. Charlie Sheen
5. Death of Steve Jobs
6. The Royal Wedding
7. Death of Amy Winehouse
8. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
9. Military Operations Begin in Libya
10. Hurricane Irene

When Hurricane Irene hit many turned to Facebook for the most recent updates and to check if loved ones where safe. Memology was also used to look further and discover the top trending phenomenon’s on the internet for 2011, judging by Facebook status updates the most popular terms that emerged were ‘planking’ where people are supposed to lie face down in strange locations and take photographs, hit a record high in May after Max Key, the son of New Zealand Prime Minister, posted a Facebook photo of himself planking in the family lounge with his father in the background. The second most trended status was ‘lms for a tbh’ after lms (like my status) and tbh (to be honest) both individually hit record heights.

The results have had a great use in society showing the fastest growing fan pages based on ‘likes’ across the industries of Music, Entertainment, News and Sports. The discussed topics were from all walks of life, but what remained consistent was the active participation generated from Facebook users. The site has benefited from a diverse global audience coming together in one place and starting a valuable discussion about what matters most to them, giving an accurate portrayal of the public’s views over the most important topics and keeping Facebook as one of the most dominating factors in today’s society.

Search engine optimisation has become essential for any business. Every single company out there now has a website and without improving its ranking on the major search engines it might as well not exist. Putting in keywords, linking to relevant sites and trying to be the logical option for crawlers is what everyone had to consider, again in the ever changing industry there is now another big player that demands consideration, social media. Social media networking sites have become the biggest deciders when it comes to the popularity of different brands, it needs to be a top priority that the companies keep in touch with their customer base via Facebook and Twitter and now Google+ in order to keep rapport going and as a way of feeding them information. It is a way of guaranteeing customers will see the content, unlike sending out millions of emails or flyers, it is a fact that the information is going to flash up on their news feeds or Twitter accounts and they are going to be interested because that individual has ‘liked’ or ‘followed’ that company or interest.

Search engines are indexing more and more social data every minute, they are considering all of that information while they are crawling making social media a very important factor within SEO. The search engines react to the most relevant signals and the next logical development in order to get the most accurate data to the user, and this is how they identify and rank content. Looking at social signals and the content that users discuss and share is a great way for the search engines to identify the relevance of the information. Therefore implementing social media activity in to SEO is a very valuable way of increasing the rankings. The way that social networking sites are used, with individuals tweeting, blogging and commenting all has an impact on the content that they are talking about, the sites are engaging with their customers, and potential clients and interacting with the public, social media is not just about links it is about trying to get valuable content which is appreciated by search engines.

It is important that you drive traffic to your website and get your brand image known; the more relevant links that point to your website and then interesting content, the more rankings will improve. With this valuable information potential customers then link to it and share it with friends and other internet users in order to gain those essential relevant links that help to improve rankings and that hold high value within SEO; this then means that links are created to your social networking site and therefore your original website. It is this kind of social media marketing that gets something out in to the world quickly and is now one of the main players in marketing your brand. It is important to integrate a social media campaign in to your SEO strategy and to seriously consider the importance of the social media sites.

Football fantasy is soon to become a reality with progress in the 3D technology. There is a new, intriguing principle that allows subscribers to put on headphones and sit comfortably from their own home, in front of their 3D high definition screens and watch the football. However this offers a whole new twist on the 3D experience, viewers have the opportunity to make selections from drop-down menus and choose which fixture they want to watch, they can watch the match that they want and choose the end that they would prefer to sit in. Once this is decided they can then relax and watch the game as if they were at the ground supporting from the sidelines. With added surround sound it will be like transporting out of your living room to the centre of the action.

All of this does seem a million years away from the technology that we have today but in the virtual reality, it will be happening within the next few years. With the advances in technology and 3D television, there is going to be a way of watching and consuming football that offers a much richer viewing experience. Currently testing in Beta you put on headphones and sit in front of a screen and have the feeling of being sat in a stadium, if you turn your head either way you can look at the goals at each side of the pitch as you watch the action unfold right in front of your eyes. This immersion technology is currently being developed to transform every viewing experience in the world of sport.

Sony and the Premier League are currently working over concepts to bring bigger and better things for the viewing of football. Sony wants to bring the panoramic experience to viewers all over the world by getting different shots from different angles so that you can immerse yourself in the game and become a part of it. It may restore the initial passion and enthusiasm of the actual sport when people can watch the detail and feel the excitement and remind the nation why it was such a special sport, rather than the more commercialised competition that it has become today. EA wanted to look a different approach and bring 3D to the audience but by creating holographic representations of the different points of the game. This will be able to be accessed via Sky. However the problem of this concept is bringing this fascinating technology to real time, they are currently working to improve this issue.

So is this new technology going to relight the flame of traditional football, and remind the fans why the sport is valued and eliminate football hooliganism and bring supporters together? Or is it simply going to be even less than that; the whole point of going to the game is to be part of the atmosphere and if you can get that at home, why would you go to the grounds. If the crowds dwindle there is no longer a point to the games, therefore there would have to be limits and boundaries in this country to what was being offered, this is more of a global vision. However just the mere thought that this could happen in our living rooms in the very near future is an exciting concept alone. Technology develops and improves every single day and there is always a question of where it will end, at the moment however, it is a very fast moving and exciting time in the viewing of television, technology and experience.

When conducting search engine optimisation, there is something thing that needs to be remembered and noted; measurement is critical to success. The progress needs to be tracked in order to see if the hard work is paying off or if it is having a minimal effect. It is important throughout an SEO campaign that you identify trends, strengths and weaknesses to see where to go next, what to change and what is actually having the desired effect. One metric that should be tracked every month is the contribution of each traffic source, from direct navigation, referral traffic and search engines. It is important to see where most of the traffic on your site is coming from in terms of bookmarks, email links, promotion campaigns and queries that sent traffic. Measuring the contribution of search engine traffic is also important, how many visits to your site is referred by and which specific search engines?

Keywords are the next thing to track, how many visits are referred by these particular searches? It is important to establish this because the popular keywords driving a lot of traffic to your site needs to be used through your content, titles and tags, their may be keywords that you are underserving. The keywords need to be used effectively as keywords stuffing can have a detrimental effect on your sites ranking. Conversation rate by search query term is another aspect that can highlight performance. These phrases send relevant visitors that convert to conversation, like filling out forms on the site. The term ‘relevant’ is the optimum word here because they need to be interested in your site to do this. This also includes relevant backlinks, your site needs to link to other sites that are relevant, you don’t want them clicking on your link then leaving your site straight away, this will then increase the bounce rate.

Watching the trends over time allow you to see a pattern emerge, using analytics software which can be paid for or that can be accessed for free, will show the progress of these points on your site. You need to be able to effectively interpret this data to apply successful changes, like fluctuations in the data. If there are significant drops in links or traffic there may be a loss of link juice, this means it will need to be checked if the important links still exist. Drops like this can also be due to penalties from search engines or blocked access. Measurement and tracking is highly important in SEO and is an ongoing process. It needs to be considered on a regular basis in order to keep your site at a high ranking or for your site to improve, if it is neglected your site will keep dropping and will become nothing but another lost site in the vast sea of the world wide web.

Just a quick note to wish all of our clients and partners a great Christmas and New Year.

Thanks for contributing to a fantastic 2010 – we’re looking forward to continuing this into 2011 and beyond. As ever, we’ve got some exciting projects on the go, and with lots more planned for the coming year we’re looking forward to it already.

Our office is closing from today, re-opening on January 4th – see you then.

Cheers!

Our new numbers are:

Phone: 0191 232 8088

Fax: 0191 232 8089

After more than a decade at Hoult’s Estate in Walker we’re excited to say that we’re on the move. Based in Ouseburn Valley, our new offices are at the heart of a thriving and rapidly developing business and social community which we’re looking forward to becoming a part of.

Just a five minute drive from our current offices towards Newcastle city centre, we’re also easier to access than ever for visiting clients.

Our new address is;

Unit 2

Maling Court

Union Street

Newcastle upon Tyne

NE2 1BP

Just a quick note to say a sincere thank you to all of our clients and partners of 2009 – we’re looking forward to making 2010 even more successful!

Next year is set to begin as busy as ever here at Green Media, with some exciting projects just about ready to go live and even more in the pipeline. Check back soon for updates.

Last of all – our studio is closed from Monday 21st December and we’re returning on Monday 4th January – we hope you all have a great Christmas and New Year.

See you in January!

Check out the Green Media portfolio update for this month, featuring the new website for Digital Crayon as well as email marketing for Colebrook and Burgess, operators of the North East Audi Group.

We’ve also included our own email marketing mailshot, as a neat example of a flyer-style presentation.

Take a look at our newly updated portfolio pages, featuring a selection of Green Media work completed during May. The update includes the new website for elite specialised security firm Bulwark Group, email marketing for Ferrari and a search optimised redesign for the HLA Services website.