GoogleWebMasterHelp responds to a question from WebSEOAnalytics about social media and it’s impact on search rankings…”Hello Matt, a recent article of Danny Sullivan suggests that Google uses Twitter and Facebook links as a ranking signal. Can you confirm this? Can you elaborate a little bit more on this?” (more…)

The Executive Centre Newcastle in association with Business Link and Inform North are delighted to invite you to a FREE Entrepreneurship Inspiration day as part of the Global Entrepreneurship week.

Global Entrepreneurship Week began life as Enterprise Week in the UK back in 2004. When news of the phenomenal success of Enterprise Week in the UK spread the globe, lots of other countries got excited at the potential of running similar initiatives in their own countries. So in 2008, Enterprise UK and the Kauffman Foundation (the world’s largest entrepreneurship foundation based in the US) founded the very first Global Entrepreneurship Week. (more…)

Tweeting; hash tags; mashable; SEO; tiny url’s – these are all terms that a few years ago didn’t even exist, yet today they play a fundamental part in organisations’ marketing strategies.

Service Network are hosting an event that will take you through the step by step process of developing a digital footprint for your business. A digital footprint is a collection of activities and behaviours recorded when an organisation interacts in a digital environment.  It includes the recording of activities such as clicks on e-newsletters, visits to a web-page, tweets and Facebook updates. (more…)

Social Media – (Trivial) Obstruction or (Terrific) Opportunity – 15th April 2010

FIVE local business owners are making a splash for charity by participating in a Swimathon after meeting through social networking site Twitter.

The team, which consists of Heather Baxter of GENI, Derek Curtis of Bond Solutions, Mark Easby of Better Brand Agency, Lisa Forster of Angelfysh and Marianne Whitfield of Cobweb, will be swimming 5,000 metres on April 16 to raise money for Marie Curie Cancer Care.

The group, whose businesses are all based in the North East, met on Twitter and decided to take part in the Swimathon. The swim will take approximately three hours to complete and the team, aptly named the Twimmers, is hoping to raise over £1,000 for the charity.

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I’m an average kinda guy. I have social network profiles on Twitter x two, Facebook, LinkedIn (Including four groups), Flickr, Slideshare and Friends Reunited. I have my own blog and contribute to a company blog. I Subscribe to, and read regularly, eighteen blogs through my reader. Thats a total of 31 connections with different social networks and contacts.

We have on average (Dunbar Number) 150 social connections, so for me that represents 4650 potential social connections. There isn’t time to manage all these social connections effectively, we’d be mad to try but some people do and I’m seeing more people dump their profiles all together as they’ve hit social media burnout.

Social connections are important and valuable both to the individual and the communities they are part of. This has been well documented over the last two years and I won’t go over well trodden ground but I am concerned that people have begun to question the benefit of their social connections. This is on the back of feeling their commitment to keeping their social connections open has begun to affect their work and home life. There are lessons we can all learn to ensure we don’t find ourselves in a similar situation.

Chose to lose some social network platforms.

Dumping the social networks that you joined in a rush of enthusiasm but aren’t actually value social networks will free up your time to focus on the connections that really benefit each other. By value social networks I mean those social network that don’t feed you personally in terms of knowledge, learning and connections or you don’t feel contribute to the growth of the community.

Remove overlapping contacts.

If we stick to the principle of one person equals one connection, how many duplicate connections do you have with a person across your social networks? It’s easy to accept a friend and a follower, without giving it a second thought when we connect with them on other networks already. Consider how many people use Twitter to feed their Facebook profile or vice versa? If you follow people on both networks you’ll expose yourself to the same content twice.

Recognise what is social media noise and and then ignore it.

Remember when you were a kid traveling on holiday with your parents. You’d sit in the back of the car watching the cars coming in the other direction. Then you simply started to not see them. They were there, but you didn’t register them any more as they’d become part of the background noise. (more…)

TyneTwestival will be hosted on the 25th March 2010

On Thursday 25 March 2010, people in hundreds of cities around the world, including Newcastle will come together offline to rally around the important cause of Education by hosting local events to have fun and create awareness.  Twestival™ (or Twitter Festival) uses social media for social good.

All of the local events are organized 100% by volunteers and 100% of all ticket sales and donations go direct to projects. Follow @tynetwestival on Twitter or visit http://newcastle.twestival.com for updates.

About Concern Worldwide.

Concern Worldwide was founded in 1968 to meet the needs of people living in extreme poverty, for whom every day is a fight for survival. Concern is a non-governmental, international, humanitarian organization dedicated to the reduction of suffering and working towards the ultimate elimination of poverty. Their mission is to help people living in extreme poverty achieve major improvements in their lives – improvements they can sustain without ongoing support. Concern meets the needs of these people in a caring and personalized manner, respecting their human and cultural dignity. They are committed to reaching the most vulnerable, even in the most difficult of circumstances.

Concern’s work is informed by a vision for change and their education programs target the poorest people in the poorest countries in the world, with particular emphasis on reaching out-of-school children such as girls, orphans, street children, working children, children affected by conflict, children affected by HIV and AIDS, and children with disabilities. Concern’s education programs currently reach over 700,000 people in 25 countries across the regions of Africa,  Asia, and the Caribbean.  Please follow @concern on Twitter to get a glimpse of their staff tweeting from around the world; including their efforts on the ground in Haiti. (more…)

A recent post by Jeanne C Meister and Karie Willyerd in Harvard Business discussed how few socially connected organisations there are, indicating this will need to be redressed if companies are to be attractive to a future workforce that judges a potential employer by the social media freedom they allow their employees.

The social networking juice that powers a generation across sprawling vibrant communities has its feed forcibly cut off when the majority of company staff walk into work. All the potential of networked company communities, the opportunity for people to collaborate and and share knowledge is left at home and lost to the company. (more…)

As a tribute to the late Ken Atkins, a committee member, former Chair of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) and tireless marketing advocate, the CIM Your Marketing Show North East event is aimed at helping SMEs in the North East improve their businesses.

With a combination of both inspirational and practical speakers including our very own Marketing Director Declan Metcalfe, Your Marketing Show will provide delegates with worthwhile tips and suggestions on improving their own marketing.

The event will also mark the start to the “80 Days around Marketing” programme to celebrate the 80th birthday of the North East branch of the CIM.

Your Marketing Show will be held at The Radisson SAS Durham in the North East on 3rd March.

If you would like to book for the Your Marketing Show 2010, please book online using the CIM Events Booking System. Alternatively please call The Chartered Institute of Marketing Region and Branch Events team on (0)1628 427340 or by email on cimevents@cim.co.uk.

Date: Thursday 29 October
Time: 5.30 – 8pm followed by food, drinks and networking
Venue: Great North Museum: Hancock, NE2 4PT
Cost: FREE to Codeworks Connect members; £20 to non-members

Everyone and anyone is talking up social media right now. Asking you to “join the conversation”, “engage” with your customers rather than shouting at them. And telling you that if you don’t use these tools you’re at a major disadvantage.
But what’s the truth about social media? Can they really help your business? And how, exactly? (more…)