Or that a Cyberoam Study found that by analysing a company’s social media accounts, they were able to find out confidential information such as; Staff who are looking to leave, cashflow problems, premature broadcasts of event & product launches, and sales target information for companies across the Globe?

Realities like this have led Coca Cola to not allow any of their staff to post a single piece of content on social media networks until they’ve completed the company’s Social Media Certification Program.

In this time of great change, it’s time we all got to grip with our company’s social media policy.

We’re running an event on how to create an effective Company Social Media Policy on the 5th July – which covers this topic in detail. You can find out more about the event here.

We’ll be discussing things such as:

 > Who are Gen Y? And what do they expect from their Employers?
 > My employees are spending all their time at work on social media!! …Is this a good or a bad thing?
 > How do I protect confidential company information, when a major information leak is only a Tweet away?
 > How do I protect my company’s reputation, when all my staff have been made global broadcasters by the internet?
 > What sort of new litigation does my company face because of social media – and what does it mean for Employment Law?
 > How do I create and enforce an effective social media policy in my company, to avoid epic employee fails?
 > How can I use social media to make better hiring decisions?
 > What future social media trends do I need to be preparing for now, before it’s too late?

Book tickets for yourselves and colleagues here – and we’ll look forward to seeing you there.

If you’ve seen a traffic drop in the last week, it is likely to be associated with this algorithm change. The following ‘black hat’ techniques were the main focus of Penguin 2.0 on its mission to improve the search experience:

Link spam: The overuse of keyword anchor text and unnatural link profiles have been a major target – link building is no longer a ‘quick fix’. A step towards quality content creation, compelling social media and genuine online relationships are needed to support a post-penguin 2.0 strategy. Remember: it’s quality, over quantity!

Poor content: Keyword stuffing, duplicate copy and multiple landing pages are all key indicators of poor content and an out-of-date approach. Google’s algorithm has become much more sophisticated and classic ‘SEO copy’ is a red flag.

The User is King…

User experience should be considered above all else. This means design and content should not be compromised for over-optimisation. Google wants to serve informative, attractive and well-structured websites to users, so SEO strategies  need to bridge the gap between technical optimisation and an engaging web experience.

The Impact of Penguin 2.0

It’s clear that this latest update has had a global affect, but how does it compare to Google’s previous algorithm changes? Moz has developed a very helpful chart that  displays the effect of Penguin 2.0, in comparison to Google’s previous algorithm and data refreshes in 2013.

Although Penguin 2.0 has undoubtedly touched many sites, it has not had the impact of its predecessor – Penguin 1.0. Despite this, from what Cutts has said about The Future of SEO, it’s clear that this will not be the last update to target web spam. This means future proofing your approach is very important!

If you’d like to talk to us about how Penguin 2.0 has affected your site, please leave us a comment below, or get in touch on 020 7087 1284.

Along with Flat design, we’ve taken two more of our favourite design trends in 2013 which we think have legs to become graphic design cult-classics. Here’s a run-down of what they are, and some of the best examples out there:

FLAT & FABULOUS

Flat design is about creating minimalist websites that look flat and clean with a major emphasis on usability and effectiveness, making the most important details stand out with the use of white space and colour. A flat design will draw attention to clean crisp edges and make details stand out with the use of a structured grid based design to make it easy for the user to find what they are looking for.

Here is a flat beauty for you to feast your eyes on:
http://www.soleilnoir.net/believein/#/start

PARALLAX PERFECT

Parallax scrolling allows the user to scroll through a site up and down, left and right. Parallax provides the design opportunity to add layers of design elements which build to tell a complete story. By layering images over each other and having one move slower or faster when you scroll you are able to create dynamic and incredible visuals.

Have a look at this mind-blowing example from Nike:
http://www.nike.com/jumpman23/aj2012/

RESPONSIVE  (BUT, DONE WELL)

Responsive Design is a design which adapts to the dimensions of your screen. So whether you are viewing a site on desktop, tablet or phone you should have a seemless and fluid design experience. If your web design agency are not designing your site responsively then there’s something wrong – we believe a responsive design should come as standard. Responsive design does not just mean re-purposing desktop design by simply minimising it. We believe a responsive design ‘done well’ is one which prioritises content by device and serves design elements to the user which complement the screen they are viewing on to deliver a fantastic experience across all platforms.

Here’s one of the best examples we’ve found:

http://wehearttrees.org/home/

However – we’ll also realistic. Technology might be transforming beyond recognition, but basic human behaviour isn’t. And we think that’s critical to keep in mind whenever thinking about marketing – whether it be digital marketing, sandwich board marketing, or marketing on the moon.

Take Twitter and television. Now when the internet began to gain speed  people thought it would kill off TV: the new replacing the old. (Great fun to read articles predicting this from the 90′s – one example is here  )

However television is as important as ever – 27 million people tuned in to the Olympics opening ceremony last year. Why did they do this – when they could have just caught up on BBC iPlayer at a later date, or recorded it at a touch of a button?

It is because as humans we love colloborative, live events. Feeling ‘part of something’, is central to our sense of identity, validation and community. Live TV is great at creating a feeling of ‘being part of something’ – albeit it 99% of the people viewing the spectacle, aren’t ‘physically’ there. Watching something live, ‘being broadcast to millions’ still touches all the right buttons in making us feel like we belong.

And what social media has done to TV is enhance that feeling of ‘colloboration’ during live TV events even further – by being on Twitter, and following the hashtag for the TV programme you’re watching – it can create a feeling of watching a TV programme with 1000′s of other people. That is tapping right in to our very basic human instincts.

It’s no suprise then that social media technology like Twitter, that was supposed to do away with TV, has in fact underpinned its very long term success. Testament to that fact is that over 50% of everything said on Twitter, is related to a TV programme people are watching. Which when you think about it, is a pretty wonderful irony.

Everything may be changing, but also absolutely nothing is.

However, it seems that Google Penguin 2.0 is not to blame if you’ve witnessed a drop in traffic this week. This comes after Matt Cutts announced via his Twitter page that Penguin 2.0 is actually coming in a few weeks.

What Can You Expect From Penguin 2.0?

Penguin 2.0 is an evolution of the orginal Penguin update that occured in April 2012. It’s Google’s way of sussing out those that have been applying bad SEO practices to their website, with a specific focus on ‘black hat’ link building.

If your business is punished, you can expect to lose valuable rankings, traffic and therefore sales! Marketeers that have been paying for links and trying to manipulate rankings with excessive use of anchor text are expected to get hit the hardest.

Spring Clean Your Links!

If you think that you could be affected by Penguin 2.0, it’s time to act fast! Poor link strategies will always catch up with you, so it’s time to clean up and change your approach.

If you do get punished by this algorithm update, here are is some best practice tips to address the issue:

1. Link Analysis

Use Open site explorer to get a full back link profile of your website. Export this to a spreadsheet and use domain authority, anchor text and link location to determine what may be damaging your site. This will give you a clear sense of what you need to do to resolve the problem.

2. Webmaster Tools Disavow Tool

The disavow tool in Google Webmaster Tools  enables you to communicate to Google any links you wish it to disregard. This can be very useful, however i’d advise pursuing thorough analysis of your link profile before doing so – it can be hard to tell where the source of the issue is.

3. Change Your Ways

A new approach to link building is needed. This means getting more creative and not relying on old-fashion link strategies with heavy uses of anchor text. Content is key to this – compelling insight pieces, whitepapers and PRs are more effective ways to generate natural links, rather than pushing out poor quality work.

What are your predictions for Google’s latest update – is link building as we knew it actually defunct? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

It’s a system of coding and design which creates flexible, fluid pages that resize and reorganise content on any device or browser size – meaning the website automatically ‘adapts’ to the size of the screen the User is viewing.

It means you can build a single website platform to adapt to whatever device the User is viewing your website on – so your User always gets the best User experience, regardless of what they use to look at it.

It is critical in an age where the internet has gone mobile – and the majority of Google searches now take place on a tablet or mobile – rather than your standard desktop screen.

We build responsive websites as standard, some examples for your viewing pleasure below…

However one cool one we’ve seen recently is Rebelmouse – and we think could be of real use to anyone running an event or live promotion.

Rebelmouse is a social publishing service that aggregates your social feeds and presents them as a constantly updating social front page.

It means you’ve a got a very quick way to keep a real-time overview of your social activity – with constant rotation of new content, and not having to worry about posting the same content across multiple platforms.

If you’ve got an event that you’re building social campaigns and content around – this could be a really nice way to put all that in 1 place – and how about screen it live on big TV screens at the event - so attendees can see the social reaction to the event unfolding?

What’s changed?

To some the shift from quantity in content to quality in design may have been easy to overlook – after all, social media has been around for a few years now and the content approach was innovative and exciting for all kinds of users. Despite this, the rapid increase of technology and choice has inevitably created the shift and it is now certain that the trend is less about content and more about creativity.

The way that users communicate via social media has changed due to the advancements in their device capabilities. To users with first generation mobiles, blue skies were simply nice weather and a delicious lunch was just a great meal (hardly worth telling your friends about) but now with the technology advancing at its rapid rate, nearly every mobile user is an amateur photographer or reporter. With documentation becoming so easy, why not post it on any of the social media pages that are around today – we’re certainly spoilt for choice!

So what does this mean for digital marketing?

The shift in digital trends means that in order to keep your brand image current and relatable, you need to make sure that all content being published is in alignment with this development. Start by stripping things back and go back to the basics! Keep things minimal, clean and creative! An innovative and interactive design that shows users you’re at the top of the list, is more helpful then content that tells them. Users are becoming more time-poor and distraction sensitive that you can no longer risk to bombard them with information, whether it be quality or not!

Using social media for your brand

Not all variations of visual social media are usable to a brand, but there is sure to be at least one platform you could use! So once you find that platform based on your brand and users, why not become a photographer, reporter or blogger to communicate with your audience? Social media is a means of developing relationships, increasing awareness and making a statement, and when used properly, the story you tell could be imperative to your image in 2013!

Is there really a need to change approach this year?

In today’s modern society it is considered normal (and at times overwhelming ) for us to use our devices simultaneously as if we’re going to miss out on something if we don’t – ironically though, we are! We are never focusing on the one thing; we’re missing advertising messages on the television while we’re using the mobile to chat to a friend, who is only receiving half of our attention as we’re scrolling down our newsfeed on a tablet! It is complete mayhem and without the call for interaction and correlation between devices, brands are more likely to get lost in the digital world this year.

Since 2008 use of non-screen media has decreased by 22% whilst use of screen media has increased by 1.2 hours per day, and amongst the 7-8 hours spent using screen media, 1-2 hours of that is spent multitasking. You know that users are aimlessly multitasking by nature, so try to lead them in your direction and leave a digital trail behind for others to follow.

When developing a multiscreen strategy, remember…

• It is important to know which devices your users are multi-tasking with. Don’t send them on a wild goose chase from television to tablet applications that they cannot access through their laptop.
• Keep things personal – develop trusting relationships and appeal to users specific interests to encourage loyalty.
• Allow for user control by offering interaction amongst 3-4 screens

Twitter – something that later resulted in the dating site advertising on the Taxi Lovin’ tour!

Taxi Lovin’ Social Media Campaign

eight&four was tasked with developing a campaign to support the launch of BrightMove Media’s exciting new digital taxi advertising service that is set to transform the London landscape. The campaign was focused on generating brand awareness by linking a social media campaign with the advertising functionality of the taxis on Valentine’s day.

Londoners were invited  to submit their Valentine’s Day messages  through a  tab on the Brightmove Media Facebook page. This was built by our development team to link with Brightmove Media’s website, in order to collect entries via a remote form. This ensured that every loved up message would appear at the right time and location in the day. 

eight&four & eHarmony

The campaign was promoted via the BrightMove Media Facebook and Twitter pages, which involved a full partnership outreach and community building strategy. This is how we garnered the attention of eHarmony, who liked the campaign so much that they advertised on the Taxi Lovin’ tour throughout the day!

The leading  online dating site was contacted by our team on Twitter and they immediately expressed support for the idea. This later resulted in them joining us on our mission to broadcast romance, as they were given space to advertise their own Valentine’s messaging. No part of London was left untouched and the TaxiCast taxi made appearances everywhere from Camden and Soho to London Zoo.

The success confirmed to us that social media can be a very powerful way to develop relationships and build brand awareness. However, this requires a strong concept to be executed in the right way.

Take a Look at Taxi Lovin’…

For  photos from the day, please visit the BrightMove Media Facebook page and enjoy all the loved-up taxi messages!