Facebook users are loyal, just like your pet dog

*Blows dust of keyboard*

Its been a long time since i blogged here. Its kinda weird ya know, if i get a nice little run going then i really get into blogging, but if i stop for a month or so whilst i am trafficking small children across the globe it kind of ruins my stride.

Silly jokes aside though, i just read a post on Mashable which reaffirms what I have been saying for ages when i have been championing technologies like Facebook connect. Users who visit your site from Social Media websites are loyal and they will return, why? Because they probably found your site through a friends recommendation, and people are friends because they have things in common, well either that or they have lots a chocolate chip cookies that they like to give out.

Since i am lazy and i have said all i want to say at 17:24 on a Tuesday afternoon, i am just going to quote the Mashable post about this…

That’s the subject of a new study by ad network Chitika, who analysed the browsing habits of 33 million unique users over the course of September.

According to their findings, Facebook provides the most loyal visitors, with 20% of those that originate from the social network in turn visiting the site they landed upon four or more times in a week. Among other social media sites, Digg traffic produced loyal users 16% of the time, while Twitter traffic was only good for 11% loyalty.

In the realm of search engines, Yahoo provides the most loyal visitors at 15%, followed by Google and Bing with around 12% each.

loyalty-chitika

So just remember, it is always worth having a presence on social media sites, just make sure you do it properly.

VModa Marketing FAIL!

Update: So after tweeting about my blog post a few people retweeted, now VModa have sent an @reply to myself and some other people saying that we won the beanie competition. Did I jump the gun and write this post too early, or did the very essence of me writing this post make VModa sort it out? I don’t know but props to them for getting it sorted anyway, and tbh i do like their headphones 🙂

Picture 1

So a few months back i bought a pair of V-Moda headphones, i would link you to it but i can’t be bothered to create an Amazon affiliate ID so you can search it yourself 🙂 Err, anyway, yeah back to the blog post. So i bought these headphones and had some problems with them, as such i decided to follow @Vmoda on twitter and send them a tweet about how my headphones had messed up and i wanted them replaced.

Everything was all good and i got them replaced, but i kept an eye on V-Moda to see how they were marketing their products on Twitter etc. So yesterday they create a tweet saying “Win a V-Moda beanie! First 5 to answer this. What are the ones and two’s”?

Well the obvious answer is that they are decks. Never being one to pass up on a free beanie i decided to answer, to ensure i didn’t miss out i decided to do a search for @vmoda n see who else had managed to respond, looks like i was the 2nd to respond but the 1st with the right answer (I ROCK! – see image below).

vmoda

So looks like i have won a beanie hat right? Errrr wrong. I sent ANOTHER tweet to V-Moda jokingly asking “where’s my beanie” but they didn’t respond. Regardless of the glorious London sun at the moment I wanted my free prize, so checked twitter today to see if there was any response from V-Moda, none! I thought well i will check their Twitter page, see if there is any announcement about it… err none, and what’s more they have DELETED the original tweet (FAIL! – see image below).

Picture 2Now i know that the prize was a a shitty beanie, and i know that perhaps someone decided to do such a thing without permission from their elders, however, if someone in your company created a little competition for a prize which probably cost about 0.00000000000000000000001% of your daily turnover, then it is advisable to at least see it through and NOT cover up the evidence that you ever tried it.

I feel cheated out of my beanie hat V-Moda, but more importantly, I think it sucks that you pulled a social-media-back-peddle stunt like that.

Google Easter Egg

I have been a very very naughty boy and not updated my blog in over a month, i will get some more substantial blog posts up soon, but for now have a cool Easter egg i found on Google.

If you don’t get it then you are stupid, simple as that :p

recursion

O2 iPhone MMS problems using firmware 3.0

Checking out the twittersphere, and still LOVING real time search,  (which i spoke about in my SMX Presentation btw). I found that quite a lot of people have upgraded their iPhones to firmware 3.0. When i say “quite a lot of people” i actually mean Apple fanatics that have been tweeting up to a bazillion messages an hour, counting down the seconds until Apple released firmware 3.0. I would be one of those people but i am waiting to see what the iPhone Dev Team release until i take my next steps 😉

Source: http://www.thebitsource.com/

Source: http://www.thebitsource.com/

Anyway, a lot of people have been upgrading in the UK and trying out the MMS on the iPhone. It seems the majority of people have been having problems so i have gathered some info from around the net that may answer your questions.

In a blog post i wrote last November about How to get MMS working on the iPhone with O2 i stated that iPhone contracts aren’t set up to actually send the MMS message to the device. Instead they hold the message on the internet and send you an SMS message to tell you how to access it using your browser. This indicates that all those contracts would have to be updated to allow MMS message to be sent directly to the device, and of course, O2 would have to send the MMS settings to the iPhone using an over the air update.

This seems to hold somewhat true as many users are tweeting that they couldn’t send MMS message until a text came through from O2 with the MMS settings.

So, if you are having problems, i am afraid your just going to have to wait until O2’s computer gets round to your ‘contract’ and sends you the settings message, then you’ll be MMS’ing in no time.

Oh, and for those that are wondering, the cost of sending an MMS message on O2 with the iPhone is the same as sending 4 SMS messages. That will either be taken from your free text message allowances or, i assume, be charged at 40p 25p (thanks Finch) if you have none remaining for that month.

Some people have also tweeted that you can just send an MMS to 0101 or 1010 and O2 will update your settings. Although i obviously haven’t tried that.

Bonus tip: Want free teathering with your iPhone instead of having to pay out £15 a month? Check out this post on how to do it for free

Custom Facebook URL’s to be launched on June 13th

If you haven’t logged into Facebook tonight then you may not have had a chance to see the new notice which explains that on Saturday 13th June at 05:01 (GMT) you will have the chance to register a URL for your Facebook page. Obviously this makes it a lot easier for people to find you after you meet them at a party or something. Instead of having to search through all the people with the same name to add you as a friend, people will simply be able to type www.facebook.com/yourname

username info

Basically, what will happen is when you login after the above mentioned time, you will get a message asking you to register a URL There are a number of different suggested options and also the chance to pick your own name. Now i imagine that a lot of the big company names are not allowed, however if Facebook aren’t too strict then i wonder how many people will register competitors names. giving us a new form of cyber squating? Will Facebook take steps to stop people registering trademarked names? What happens if you do, will they take that name away from you? These are all questions that are left unanswered that this time.

fbnameThe above image from the Facebook blog shows how you will be able to select your name, i feel sorry for all the people with common names who are probably going to end up with bobsmith1982 or something alike. Still, i am sure that many people probably wont be that fussed.

So get your alarms set for 05:01 if you want the choice of the so coined ‘vanity url’ that you have always wanted.