Our Thoughts

This Week in Digital Marketing 9 – 13 May: Microsoft Acquires Skype, Twitter Chat for Pharmaceuticals, and Website Quality Tips

May 16, 2011 by Joanne North

Last week Twitter acquired TweetDeck, this week Microsoft acquires Skype. Facebook is about to launch the ability to tag Facebook Pages in photos. Social media is becoming more important to small businesses, Google shares tips on creating a quality site, and how to search for local Twitter users. We also look at an interesting case study around how a pharmaceutical company implemented a Twitter chat campaign to create awareness around one of its programmes, and to find insights into how they might market that programme in the future.

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Tagging Pages in Facebook Photos

Facebook is about to launch the ability to tag Pages in Facebook photos. This means that you could tag anything from a can of Coke, to celebrities. This move could be extremely beneficial to brands, with the example of clothing brands being a notable exception. Imagine if your customers could tag your clothing in their photos, instantly allowing their photos to show up on your page? For brands wishing to prevent user tagged photos showing up on their Facebook Page, Page owners will be able to uncheck a ‘Users can add photos’ option.

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Social Media More Important for Small Businesses

Small businesses are continuing to increase their use of social media as a marketing strategy. A recent survey on small business practices found that the use of social media marketing was up over previous years. The leading reason for using social media was to increase the exposure of the business, with more small businesses turning to social media for customer acquisition. More than a third (35%) of US small businesses reported using online social networking for marketing, up from 15% in autumn 2009.

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Case Study: AstraZeneca Hosts First Twitter Chat

For large pharmaceutical companies, engaging in social media requires a careful footing and continuous regard for government regulation. This case study examines the goals, strategy and results of AstraZeneca, one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies’ social media programmes. The goals for the programme were two-fold, raising awareness of its prescription saving programme, and interacting with patients, healthcare professionals and industry advocates about the best ways to promote the programme. The strategy involved using a ‘Twitter Chat’ which caught the attention of both bloggers and those in the industry. The volume of people who got involved with the chat meant AstraZeneca was able to absorb a wealth of information, and obtain insight as to how it could market to its customers in the future.

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Tips On Building a High Quality Site

In recent months, Google put into effect a few changes to its algorithm that determines who holds the top raking spots in its search engine. A core driver of those changes was improving search ranking quality, and quality search results are at the core of Google’s business. Here, Google has offered some insights and suggestions for ranking well in its search engines, following the toughening up on quality.

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5 Ways to Use Twitter to Connect With Local Customers

Twitter is the ideal tool for connecting with local customers and increasing the visibility of your business in your neighbourhood. This is because it can help you to pinpoint people who live and work nearby. There are a few different tactics that you can employ to search for people locally, but for the most part you find local people by searching tweets for things in or near your business location. Click through for a detailed ‘how to’ on searching for local tweeters.

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Microsoft Acquires Skype

The big story this week is Microsoft’s acquisition of Skype for $8.5 billion in cash. We’re all wondering what this will mean for the future of Skype, but there haven’t been any changes for the status quo as of yet. Skype has retained its existing CEO, who now reports to the Microsoft CEO. Microsoft has pledged to ‘continue to invest in and support Skype clients on non-Microsoft platforms’. From a technological point of view, the acquisition makes sense as Skype gives Microsoft direct access into new mobile communications technology.

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On A Lighter Note

A Russian agency specializing in augmented reality solutions teamed up with TopShop in Moscow to create virtual fitting rooms. The technology enabled shoppers to select a garment, and then see themselves on screen with a 3D copy of the dress rather than trying it on. The technology isn’t perfect, but it does illustrate the future possibility of bringing together augmented reality and fashion (particularly online).

Related Posts:

• This Week in Digital Marketing 30 May – 3 June: Social Search Going Global, Essential Facebook Stats and L’Oreal’s New Digital Campaign
• This Week In Digital Marketing 26-30 Mar: 25% of Paid Search Share To Be From Mobile Devices, 25 Ways To Grow An Email Database, McDonalds Second Attempt At A Trending Hashtag
• This Week In Digital Marketing 13-17 Feb: Facebook’s Timeline is Coming For Brands, Introducing Inbound.org, DuckDuckGo Hits 1 Million Daily Searches
• This Week In Digital Marketing 30-3 Feb: LinkedIn 277% More Effective For Lead Gen, 5 Ways To Take Advantage Of The New YouTube and Facebook Leads In Display Ad Impressions
• This Week In Digital Marketing 9-13 Jan: Increased Integration of Google+ in Search Results, 10 Well Executed Social Media Contests and the Top Brands On Twitter

Tags: augmented reality, facebook, facebook pages, google, microsoft, skype, social media, topshop, twitter

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