Virtual Branded Goods are on the up!
FarmVille users bought and planted 310 million organic blueberries!
A report by social gaming platform Viximo and virtual goods platform Virtual Greats predicts that branded virtual goods are going to become increasingly popular in the next five years. At the moment, branded virtual goods make up just 1% of the $3.1 billion virtual goods industry but Vixemo and Virtual Greats predict that by 2013 branded virtual goods will generate a revenue of $150 million and reach an annual revenue of $318 million by 2015.
The report also shows that customers are more likely to pay for virtual goods, if they are twinned with a brand. A case study that exemplifies this point is the sales of Snoop Dog’s virtual branded goods on social game WeeWorld. Sales of his goods are constantly 2.5 times higher than other similar non-branded goods. And it’s not just Snoop Dog who’s jumped on this, Green Giant, Nestle Purina and even Disney have got in on the act.
So, what does this mean for the internet? Virtual products, bought with virtual money in a virtual world, there’s no limit to what the internet can do!
How are people logging on to the web?
Identity management provider Janrain has just released statistics outlining which services and social networks web users use to log on to the net. Predictably, Facebook and Google reign supreme, with Google accounting for 38% of users log ins. Facebook comes second with 24% and Yahoo comes third with 14%.
Google is the most popular one, however, for certain sites, other services seem to be used. For example, for music sites, Facebook dominates, reflecting publishers and brands usage of Facebook pages.
As we have done with many of our clients websites, more and more publishers are utilising sharing options such as Facebook Like or Twitter Tweet buttons on their sites. Both personally and for our customers, we see a massive increase in traffic from implementing this simple tool. Janrain’s statistics show that for 53% of users, Facebook is their favourite sharing network, with Twitter close behind on 37%.
This data proves just how influential social networking sites are for all businesses, particularly with the new edition of sharing options. If you’d like to utilise this tool, but aren’t sure how, get in touch with our team today on 01925 572555, we’ll be able to get your social media strategy up and running and no doubt up the traffic to your site!
UK not ready to pay for content
According to new research released by Accountancy giant KPMG, UK consumers are less willing to pay for online content than web users in other countries-not the best news for the numerous publishers who are looking to begin charging for their content.
News International which has began charging for the use of the websites of its UK papers; The Times and The Sunday Times, are already struggling to gain subscribers. Recent statistics gathered by the media website Beehive City, state that only 15,000 have agreed to pay for access to the website with a further 12,500 paid subscribers on the iPad.
Tudor Aw, Head of Technology at KPMG Europe LLP, said: “UK consumers still haven’t come around to the idea of paying for digital content and are clear that they will move to other sites if paywalls are put up.” For now it seems that paying for content in the UK just isn’t going to work, but maybe one day, we just won’t have a choice.
If your interested in making your content work (maybe not making your readers pay though!), get in touch with Optimise on 01925 572555, for a number of our clients we have implemented a ‘content writing surgery’ where we diagnose what works, and what doesn’t and how they can move it forward. We look forward to hearing from you!
‘Promoted Tweets’-how Twitter will make money
In the four years since Twitter launched, they haven’t partaken in any kind of traditional advertising, critics were wondering what kind of business model they were going to follow-how they were going to generate a profit. Well, wonder no more, Twitter has launched ‘promoted tweets’ which Biz Stone, the Founder of Twitter explains as “ordinary tweets that businesses and organisations want to highlight to a wider group of users”.
To begin with, the promoted tweets will only appear at the top of the Twitter search results pages. In the second phase of the launch, promoted tweets will appear in users time lines, but only if they are ‘relevant’. The first brands to post branded tweets are Best Buy, Bravo, Red Bull, Sony Pictures, Starbucks and Virgin America, I’m sure it’s only a matter of time till we see many more businesses getting involved.
There has been a totally mixed response from users and experts in the industry, some have questioned its value as a sales tool, some users already believe it to be irritating as it is just another great tool that has been commercialised. But there is great praise for it too, the fact that marketing and advertising can all be done in real time and you can interact with customers directly makes it the perfect way to create a viral campaign very quickly.
If your interested in how to utilise Twitter, or any other social media platform, give our team a call today on 01925 572 555, where we can have a chat about what you want to get out of social media and what is the best strategy for your business.
How to make great linkbait
So, you want to start creating linkable, quality content, but aren’t sure how to get the links? The following points are the 4 basic ideas that you should keep in mind.
1. Seek out your target audience. I’m sure this is something you’ve already thought about but lots of businesses seem to forget their target audience when creating content for their site. A good way to get a feel for what is link worthy is to look through your competitors sites and see what other people linked to and what got people talking.
2. Seek out your specific angle. When look ing at your competitors sites, take a look at which blogs and sites linked to them. Think about why they linked to them and eventually, what you could add to your content to make yours link worthy.
3. Make your content. Bit of an obvious one, but keeping in mind the points mentioned above, come up with content that is relevant to your target audience. Be objective and specific when you are writing, and be creative too. If you think photos are going to work better than text-use them!
4. Market your content. Like most things, content can’t sell itself. A good place to start is by talking to bloggers, get them to give you some feedback and let other sites know about your content too. Hopefully this will create a bit of a buzz. When it become clear that other people are interested in your content, others will want to join in too.
Creating great linkbait is straightforward; stay objective and do your research. If you’d like to see how Optimise can help with your link strategy, give one of our team a call on 01925 572555 to arrange an informal meeting.
