You made it this far then. You are a brave one. Now feast your eyes on this…

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With extensive experience in marketing and communications and proven background in project management, including being PRINCE2 qualified, Peter has joined our 20-strong team to oversee projects from receipt of a brief to final delivery. In addition to liaising with clients and devising and managing production schedules, Peter will work in close partnership with Fluid’s creative and development teams.

“We pride ourselves on the strong relationships we build with our clients and we are keen to keep their input at the heart of all we do. Peter’s appointment will assist in enhancing and developing these relationships still further.”
Lee Turner, MD

Commenting on his appointment, Peter Holland said:

“This is a very exciting time to have joined Fluid, with the company involved in some really innovative and ground breaking projects. The business is expanding rapidly and my role is to ensure every project continues to be delivered on time and on budget while keeping clients fully in the loop and informed every step of the way.”

If you thought infographics were a new digital concept (like me) then you are very much mistaken; people were drawing visual representations by hand as early as the 1900s (and probably before but I haven’t had enough time to research any information prior to this date).

Below are some examples of hand-drawn charts by Sociology students at Atlanta University. Their professor, DU Bois, was an African American activist who wanted to put his findings into clever charts making it easy for people to see the facts about the African American community.

Source: Library of Congress & All My Eyes

The following examples are from Willard C. Brinton’s 1939 book ‘Graphic Presentation’. Willard’s methods of presenting facts as graphics are still followed today in modern day infographics, and the book is a good source of inspiration for designers.

Click some the links above to see more examples of intelligent and inspired visual representations, and original drawing methods written in the early 1900s.

Last week Kristi Hines published a post on KissMetrics relating to content scrapers (and some great tools for checking to see if your content is appearing elsewhere too) and in the same week a certain Manchester agency was pulled up by another agency for blatantly ripping off their blog posts. We don’t want to get into the middle of that particular issue and it seems it’s been satisfactorily resolved, but it does highlight some issues surrounding content theft.

There are pros and cons of having your content ’stolen’ and it’s not something you should immediately view as a bad thing.

The Good of Content Theft

Most content that shows up in multiple places other than the original post is caused by content scrapers. These are automated spiders that look for blog posts and articles that contain certain keywords and then simply copy them and publish them to whatever site or blog they’ve been programmed to.

There are certain link benefits to this if it’s done in a ‘good’ fashion – that fashion being the one that retains the links back to the original post. In other words, where credit is given via a clickable link. As Kristi points out in her post, the quality of these links is rarely high – no site publishing scraped content is ever going to be regarded as high quality by Google – but nevertheless a link is a link and from an SEO point of view every little helps.

The Bad of Content Theft

Unfortunately for us content producers, many content scrapers strip out any links back to the original and remove any credit whatsoever. What you end up with there is duplicate content at best and people mistaking the scraped content as the original at worst.

Your site or blog will suffer because of the duplicate content and there could even be the potential to view YOU as the plagiarist, hurting your brand. This is bad and you’ll want to contact any sites doing this and ask them to either give credit with a link back to your post or just take down the offending article.

The Ugly of Content Theft

This is what happened last week. Blatant, premeditated and just plain lazy copying and pasting of good quality blog posts and articles with no backlink to the original and, worse, the claiming of credit for it in the first place.

This is abhorrent behaviour. It usually comes down to a lazy and / or unscrupulous individual rather than a company-wide policy but that’s rarely comfort for the original author. Having your content ripped off by an automated spider is one thing. Seeing someone else steal it and claim the credit is quite another.

Here at Fluid we’re constantly finding our website content on other sites, even as far away as Australia. And this content isn’t being scraped, it’s being copied and pasted into other web designers’ and online marketers’ sites, presumably as they’re too lazy to write their own. It’s so lazy, in fact, that there have been one or two instances where they haven’t even bothered to take our company name out of the copy!

Conclusion

As a matter of course you should really be putting some time aside each month to check whether or not your content is appearing elsewhere on the web and if so, how. Don’t worry if your content has been scraped as long as a credit link is given. Don’t panic if it’s been scraped without a credit link – just contact the site in question and ask for credit or removal (and then monitor it!).

DO go ballistic if someone has blatantly ripped you off and claimed credit. This is just my opinion, not that of Fluid, but I’d publicly call them out on my blog/site, naming and shaming them while asking for an apology and that the post be credited back or removed. And I’d keep doing it until both the apology and the credit/removal was achieved.

It’s not only a matter of protecting your own work but of protecting others. Anyone who is prepared to rip you off is likely ripping others off. A public outing of this nature might give them pause for thought next time they have space to fill and are either too lazy or too stupid to come up with their own content.

This month, though, there’s only one campaign worth mentioning and that’s that of the Cadbury UK team. As official treat provider to the London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics, they’ve been gearing up for the events in impressive style.

The Goo Games campaign actually launched on January 6th, will run until April according to Marketing Week and features TV ads, PR, sales promotion and digital events. It’s the latter we’re interested in, of course.

At 11am on Saturday 28th January, utilising YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and Google+, Cadbury UK launched the Cadbury Creme Egg Goo Games to promote their goo-filled chocolate eggs.

Featuring an opening ceremony, a host of events that will take place at the Olympics, some impressive video and photography and a whole slew of prizes for you to win by participating, the event was as wide ranging as it was engaging.

The #GooGames Opening Ceremony video was published on Cadbury’s “Creme Egg GooTube” channel and promoted on Twitter using the hash tag. Yes, there was a LOT of wordplay involved too. Here it is in all its glory.

Even before that, anticipation was built by having ‘celebrity’ Creme Eggs arrive for the premier of the #GooGames – like this:

Cel-egg-rities arrive for the opening ceremony

With the Opening Ceremony out of the way, the main events got going, split across the various social media platforms to try to maximise engagement. The hurdles were featured exclusively on Cadbury UK’s Facebook page (and shared across to the Creme Egg page too), while the javelin and cycling events were shared on Google+. Twitter, meanwhile, provided a running commentary and the opportunity to join in with the egg-related word play and win prizes for retweeting.

Videos of the vents were posted YouTube (or GooTube if you prefer) and shared on Facebook, Twitter and Google+ where appropriate, with ‘photographs’ of the events featuring heavily on Google+ in particular. Here’s an album of some of the best:

The #GooGames Velodrome fills up for the cycling.

The #GooGames Cycling is underway...and the pressure begins to tell...

Hurdles competitors line up for the off...

...but there's disaster at the second hurdle as several come to a sticky end!

That was bad, but it's genuine tragedy at the #GooGames javelin event!

As all-encompassing campaigns go, this was one of the most ambitious and well thought out efforts I’ve ever seen. To take in the number of social media channels it did was no doubt quite a challenge for the Cadbury social team and Social Media Manager Jerry Daykin, who was kind enough to reply to me when I praised CadburyUK for their Google+ work recently.

As with anything though, it’s about results. So how did the #GooGames campaign go over this particular weekend? It’s quite hard to tell not having access to Cadbury’s analytics but we can get a rough idea from the amount of public engagement there has been since the build up began on Friday 27th January to Monday 30th January.

The Cadbury UK Facebook page has 79,676 Likes at the time of writing. Posts relating to the #GooGames got a total of 206 acts of engagement in the form of Likes, shares and comments. Not bad. Not great, but not bad.

The Cadbury Creme Egg page has a remarkable 2,111,834 Likes. A total of 745 acts of engagement were gained on #GooGames-related posts. Not good. But if you consider each Facebook user has an average of 130 friends then the reach was potentially great.

How many people interacted with the weekend’s event on Facebook was low, but only Cadbury will know how many views it got – I suspect that was incredibly high.
On Google+, where the Cadbury UK page is in 138,074 people’s Circles, engagement was much better. In fact, just a week earlier they had only hit the 50,000 Circles mark. The #GooGames and the build up to it through the week seems to have more than doubled that figure so right there you can say it was a success.

Between Friday and Monday #GooGames related content garnered 748 interactions via +1’s (426), shares (103) and comments (219). For Cadbury on Google+, the #GooGames was a hit, no question.

On Twitter, which played very much a supporting role anyway, it’s much harder to judge the success of the campaign. A check on hashtracking.com shows 122 tweets generated 205,986 impressions, reaching an audience of 57,623 followers within the past 24 hours (report generated at 14.07, Mon 30th Jan).

Given this is very much after the event and @CadburyUK has just over 12,000 followers it’s probably safe to say those numbers were much, MUCH higher for Saturday.

Cadbury were utilising the ever popular ‘retweet to win’ tactic with this:

@CadburyUK: Retweet the #GooGames Opening Ceremony for a chance to win a box of 48 Creme Eggs – it’s Goo-d to share!

It’s still being retweeted now…so imagine how much it was retweeted on the day in question.

Conclusion

Cadbury’s Goo Games campaign is a long running bid to market their Creme Eggs as part of their overall Olympics partnership. This particular use of social media marketing does really need to be viewed as part of the overall campaign, but from a pure social media standpoint it was fantastic.

By far the most successful platforms were Google+ and Twitter in terms of engagement, but the brand awareness it must have generated across all platforms, especially their Creme Egg Facebook page with its two million plus fans, cannot be ignored.

More importantly, the whole thing was great fun and can only have left feelings of positive sentiment with those who viewed it. Sure, I’d like to take a very close look at their Facebook Insights, Twitter stats and more to get a better idea of the actual numbers but, frankly, I loved it.

Rachel originally went to college to do a hairdressing apprenticeship but decided it wasn’t for her, and after working in retail for a few months she gained an apprenticeship with Salford City Council to work with us! And boy are we glad she did, here’s a few of the questions we asked… And all of the answers are serious.

Rachel, you’re often quoted as being in the area. What does this mean and how does one become it? Asked by James (@_Chappers_).

Well, you have to be Manchester born and bred and a bit of a chav – but an awesome chav. There’s no precise definition of ‘the area’. You’re either in it, or you’re not.

Who invented the iPad? Asked by Scott (@splurj).

First answer: Fairies in an iPad workshop.
Second answer: Mr Apple Man?

What is your favourite Fluid website? Asked by Martin (@martindownton)
Lucile and Fighters Only.

Nando’s or Gabbot’s? Asked by Sarah (@LadySarahOz)
Gabbot’s because it’s cheap. Nando’s if Lee’s paying.

What did you make for your #freefoodtuesday? Asked by Nicola (@nicolafred)
Mini Battenberg cakes and rocky road cakes.

What pipe does soup go down? Asked by Nicola.
If it’s chunky homemade soup then it’s the food pipe, and if it’s a thinner soup then the drink pipe.

How do you keep yourself sane at work? Asked by Martin.
I hum and sing in my head. This morning I was singing the ‘we buy any car’ song.

A big well done to Rachel from all of the team at Fluid, and also to Mike who came second! Rachel’s now finished her apprenticeship and has been working with us full-time for over a year.

Mobile commerce (mCommerce) is on the up, there’s no question about it. 2011 was even touted as the year of mCommerce…and so it proved to be.

We took a sample of our ecommerce clients from a number of industries (food and drink, fashion, wedding accessories and personalised gifts) and looked at their mCommerce performance in 2011 against 2010. The results are incredible.

• Visits to websites from mobile devices grew by an average of 236%
• Revenue from mobile devices grew by an average of 228%
• One client saw a 650% increase in visits from mobile in 2011
• One client enjoyed a 219.5% increase in revenue from mobile in 2011

We then looked at mCommerce performance over the last 30 days in relation to overall traffic and revenue. Again, the numbers are impressive and indicate a growing trend in mobile purchasing.

• The same clients saw an average of 23% of their visits come from mobile devices
• They saw an average of 21.2% of revenue come from mCommerce
• In two cases a 1/4 of all revenue came from mobile devices

No business can afford to ignore a revenue stream that accounts for one fifth or more of overall revenue. The question is, how do you take maximise it, grow it?

First, you need to know where it’s coming from. We looked at the various devices being used to visit our clients’ sites and make purchases and discovered this:

• On average 83.8% of mobile visits came from an iOS device – iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch
• 89% of all mobile revenue came from an iOS device
• Generally the iPhone accounted for twice as much traffic as the iPad, with the iPod Touch a distant third
• Conversion rates were significantly higher on the iPad than the iPhone or Touch – presumably due to the bigger screen and therefore ‘easier’ experience

It’s clear that if a business is to maximise their revenue from mCommerce then iOS is the one to target – in spite of the fact that Android dominates global market share for smartphone OS with 52.5% compared to iOS’ 15%. For whatever reason, consumers find it far, far easier to buy on an iOS device than an Android, Windows Phone or other device.

A mobile optimised site is one way to go (none of the clients in our sample have one, by the way, which makes the results that much more impressive) but it is surely worth considering developing an iPhone and/or iPad app to create an enjoyable, memorable and, most importantly, simple way to purchase via mobile.

And as an app can be developed over time more and more functionality can be added at a relatively low cost, ensuring your business never falls behind the times – something that is commonplace with websites, especially on mobile devices.

That’s not to say you should ignore the growing Android app market, not when it does dominate the smartphone OS space, but right now the statistics clearly show that you are going to get the most benefit developing for iOS and providing those users with a seamless, enjoyable shopping experience.

We’re already talking with our clients about iPhone and iPad apps for their businesses. If you’d like to talk to us too, get in touch.

Required Skills

• Strong experience creating interactive web applications and interfaces using HTML5 and appropriate technologies including CSS3, Canvas, Offline Storage, SVG, Audio/Video media

• Strong experience working with MooTools, jQuery and/or other JavaScript libraries including AJAX.

• Strong working knowledge of Photoshop; able to slice up concepts provided by the creative team in PSD format.

• Experience in developing accessible solutions.

• In depth knowledge of creating maintainable, scalable and cross-browser layouts supporting all major browsers (IE6-9, Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Opera).

• Ability to work in a team environment, you will be required to work well with the existing development / creative teams.

• Familiar with source control principles and comfortable with Subversion.

Experience

We’re looking for somebody who has at least 3+ years of experience within the industry with at least some of it working in an agency environment. We will require example work that showcases your skills with HTML5/Canvas.

Fluid are always open to new ideas, new people, new talents and new concepts, so if you’ve got ideas and want a job where you can have a real impact, you’ve come to the right place.

To apply please send a covering letter and CV detailing experience and sample code/websites that demonstrate your skill set to careers@fluidcreativity.co.uk.

Strictly NO agencies

Fluid Creativity do not accept speculative CVs from recruitment agencies

Web development applicants MUST be eligible to live and work in the UK and may be required to attend an interview based in Manchester, UK.

That opinion has improved further now that they have launched a Google Analytics Configuration Tool at www.gaconfig.com.

Basic set up and installation of a new Google Analytics (GA) account for a website is simple enough, certainly for any SEO worth his or her salt, and it is sufficient for tracking the most basic visitor. GA, though, is capable of far more than that. Most webmasters are either unaware of this or don’t have the knowledge to take advantage. That’s where GA Config comes in.

The brainchild of Raven’s Taylor Pratt, GA Config assists with initial set up for single or multiple domains, Site Search tracking, 404 tracking and, perhaps most impressively, tracking KPIs and Goals, which is where most non-GA savvy people struggle.

Raven are offering this tool up for free, presumably with the aim of signing more people up to Raven Tools, and created it because, as Pratt explains in his blog post:

I dreamed up GA Config because I found there were two topics I constantly needed help with: Setting up my Google Analytics account and Setting up goals and KPIs. With the wrong code, you can miss important data that would have helped you make decisions for better conversions or sales online. That’s what makes GAConfig.com so valuable. It simplifies what can be very confusing for marketers who want useful data but don’t want to spend every day with their analytics.

So true. So how does GA Config work?

Right at the start all you need is your GA account number. Enter that into the GA Config, complete the following fields and grab your code. Install that where instructed and you’re done. The set up of the likes of KPIs, goals and Facebook tracking are a little more involved but far easier than trying to do it in GA itself.

Take a look at this example, where we set up a contact form (from the Event Tracking section):

It really is as simple as that. Fill in a few fields, grab the code, install it where instructed and then follow the easy steps for when you do have to go into GA. It’s the same for any other kind of event or goal tracking you want to do, and there are many options.

Once you’re set up you will have to teach yourself how to get around GA and find the data you’ve just started tracking, but that’s a lesson any webmaster, SEO or marketer should take anyway.

Considering this is a free tool it really is comprehensive and should be in the armoury of everyone involved in tracking website traffic, even experienced and knowledgable SEOs, even if they use it as ‘just’ a time saver.

KLM Meet & Seat

Dutch airline KLM will soon be introducing its Meet & Seat app on Facebook – it will allow passengers who have opted in to choose who they sit next to based on their social media profiles. I’m guessing the majority of us have had a bad experience sitting next to someone we’d rather not – my most prominent was when I sat next to a nervous flyer who shouted, ‘WE’RE GOING TO DIE, WE’RE GOING TO DIE!’ every time there was a bit of turbulence. Although the journey was ever-so-slightly disturbing, it still wouldn’t be enough to push me to use KLM’s Meet & Seat service – to me, it seems a bit too set up, and if you end up disliking the person, there’s no escape. I’ve had some brilliant conversations with interesting people on flights, but I also like the time to sit back, read and relax – the idea of being forced to talk to someone doesn’t appeal to me. The campaign has a lot of potential though, and I think the number of people in the mile-high club would increase significantly.

KLM isn’t the first airline to embrace social media, Malaysia and Delta Airlines both have Facebook apps that allow users to purchase tickets, check in, view seating plans and share their itineraries with friends. Virgin America is using Foursquare to promote brand loyalty by asking fans to check-in and post geo-located photos in return for loyalty points. People naturally post holiday photos and check-in at exotic destinations so this is a brilliant idea to build brand loyalty and also gives the user money off a future break.  The loyalty campaign is run by Topquest and also includes the Hilton and Best Western hotels.

Strada uses user-generated content to drive sales

Strada is encouraging Facebook users to share their dining experiences by posting photos or writing reviews on popular social networking sites in return for promotional vouchers. Tragus Group own Strada, Cafe Rouge and Bella Italia, and all three are using this user-generated content strategy to help drive more foot traffic into their restaurants. Bella Italia recently ran a Facebook campaign where users were able to make their own personalised pizza and share it with friends in return for a money-off voucher.

Levi’s uses Instagram to find a model for upcoming ad campaign

Instagram is a popular photo-sharing app currently only available on the iPhone but still has over 10 million users. Levi Strauss has opened worldwide casting via Instagram to find a new model for their September 2012 campaign. Users are to take a photo of themselves with the tag #iamlevis to be in with the chance of becoming the new face of Levi’s.

It’s not the first time the brand have used Instagram as a marketing tool, Levi’s Brazil set up an Instagram account ‘levisbrasil’ to keep users visually updated with their latest items. The Brazilian campaign didn’t reach a huge audience but as the number of users on Instagram keeps increasing so will its popularity. It’s interesting to see how brands are choosing to use the application for marketing, and I hope other brands follow suit in the future.