Google+ Why we have helped our SEO to SEE

We’ve been keeping a close eye on the developments at Google and in particular the positioning of Google+ in relation to the organic search algorithm. It’s not a revelation to SEO teams that social signals are an increasingly important part of the ranking factors affecting your positions within the organic search results, but the announcement by Google this week could be a game changer.

Bloom has been providing SEO services since 2000 and Social Media marketing since 2006 and we can only see the closer integration as a good thing, why?

1.    The rise of the importance of social signals means that those who rely heavily on link acquisition for rankings will see diminishing returns
2.    Building ‘social links’ is a more creative and we would argue far more enjoyable endeavour than many ‘traditional’ link building techniques
3.    A greater reliance upon an honest link/signals profile driven by effective brand communications and consumer sentiment should result in more relevant search results

In the last ¼ of 2011 we got our various teams together to debate the impact of this trend and a new concept evolved which we have called Search Engine Engagement or S.E.E. We think the future is social and effective SEO needs to properly incorporate social media marketing. We’re not talking about lip service but properly managed strategic campaigns that are valuable in their own right; the SEO benefit is just one way of measuring the ROI. On the flip side effective SEO will increasingly need effective social media campaigns to deliver great results.

The final piece of the puzzle for us comes in the form of social media analytics and we’re very excited about a project we are working on with grant support from the Technology Strategy Board.. more on this to be announced in the summer.

If you’re not feeling quite up to speed on Google+ I’ve listed some good references below.. if you’d like to know anything else drop me a line.

Google Information:  Create your Google Plus Brand Page,  Google Pages Connect

Adweek’s take on it

Mashable’s take on the launch of brand pages.

Influence: Klout have updated recently to include Google+ and other social networks to deliver a more accurate online influence footprint.

For an example of of a Klout person page here is our Social Media Manager’s Klout profile @clairehs based on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus, YouTube

Here is Bloom Agency’s Google Plus brand page

THE GREAT MUSICAL BAKE OFF in aid of Children In Need raised £592.74 !!!

At 11:00am Claire Cameron Band acoustic set up at  Out of The Woods on Water Lane to serenade customers as they came in for their morning coffee.

Singing for Pudsey at Out of the woods on Water Lane

It went down well with people giving generously for their musical accompaniment to their coffee break!  Miranda Versus The Crok sang a rousing punk folk solo set as well then we moved on to Out of The Woods at Granary Wharf to treat the late lunch crowd to some live music there.

Miranda Versus The Crok

By now carrying the piano and guitars (as well as the heavier by the minute collection tub) was making us thirsty so our trusty trio (Pete Nash, Claire, Miranda) made our way to  The Midnight Bell on Water Lane, for refreshment and to set up for the evening fundraiser.

As Pete Nash and Callum (The Midnight Bell’s groovy Assistant Manager) set up the PA, Bean (Manager extraordinaire at The Midnight Bell), Miranda and I strung up multicoloured bunting and arranged Children in Need balloons artfully around the pub.

Then the cakes and baked goods began to arrive along with Jon from Out of the Woods. We had quite a spread to sell for the great bake off! Big thank yous have to go to all who contributed something to sell! Fancie Cupcakes gave a beautiful box of sumptuous cupcakes which made a perfect raffle prize, Brown & Blond gave their signature chocolate brownies which were a real hit and Fayre by Alley brought fantastic Nanaimo Bars which are so rich and delicious people flocked to get their hands on one!

Thanks also to the team at Bloom Agency who held a lunchtime cake sale and donated cakes to the bake off too (Including an awesome Oreo cake and Sara’s chocolate and vanilla cake!) plus Fiona & Rosie from Simple Usability and the team at Round Foundry Media Centre contributed so thanks to them as well!

Sara's Chocolate and Vanilla Cake

I must mention Sara Galbiati properly at this point, who was the one who suggested baking for Children In Need in the first place, and this was the idea which started the ball rolling! Plus Sara’s chocolate and vanilla cake was definitely a show stopper!  Big thank yous also to Bloom Agency’s Stu Arundel and Glen Cartwright for their fabulous poster designs- they definitely gave the event it’s identity brilliantly!

As well as the bake off we had a raffle with prizes including boxes of beer worth £70 donated by The Midnight Bell, the Fancie Cupcakes, a gorgeous Out of The Woods hamper and a meal at The Midnight Bell.

6:00pm saw the Giant Bake Off come into being with a brilliant opening set from March of Dimes.  This kicked off the evening in style, and it was great to follow them with a Claire Cameron Band acoustic set, which our drummer Jim joined us for on Conga Drums!  Miranda Versus The Crok went down a storm with a stonking acoustic set and Tag Team Preacher closed the proceedings with musical flair after we’d announced the raffle prizes.

With barely any cakes or baked goodies left, a sold out raffle and an empty keg of Pudsey Beer (Very kindly donated by The Leeds Brewery with all proceeds from the beer going straight into the fundraising) the Giant Musical Bake Off was a resounding success and raised a grand total of £592.74 for Children In Need!!!!

Thank you so much to everyone involved- it was great fun for a great cause well done!

What was really nice about it was the fact that Peter had drawn his own ‘Bloom’ on the front of the envelope.  A nice touch and it made us feel like he is helping bring our new identity to life so cheers Peter and have a great weekend!

I headed along to the Mint hotel last night to get my geek on at the Leeds Girl Geeks dinner.

Having not been to one before I wasn’t quite sure what to expect or whether I’d be termed geeky enough to fit in.  Nothing to worry about though, as on arrival I was warmly greeted by Imran, who recognised me from our conversations on Twitter (yes a chap runs @leedsgirlgeeks Twitter handle, but along with Monica & Linda – Girl Geeks is open and friendly) and sent me upstairs to get networking near the bar.

I met a kindred spirit in @sabrinajohnson as we got chatting about having various online identities, blogs, hobbies and commitments.  If juggling numerous roles, responsibilities and tasks equals geek chic then Sabrina and I reckon we’ve got it- while Sabrina works as an in house Tech PR she also runs a shoe blog!

I also got talking to the lovely, friendly Liisa Suidt, who is New Media Director at Vivid Creative and a creative bubbly character herself.  We had a good giggle about life in general and after meeting up with @onlineprpixie (aka Jess Hodkinson in house PR for Daniel Footwear) we made our way into the main event.

Bagging ourselves a top spot at a table in front of the speaking area we went for the buffet, which was a damn fine spread of delicious fodder!  So nice that I conveniently emptied my brain of everything my personal trainer has ever told me about carbs and tucked in.

Over dinner our table was definitely a talkative one with loads of really interesting, bright and friendly girls in residence! Namely Rebekah Bullock, a Freelance Creative, Leia Bassett, a Marketing professional, Julia Calver, Michelle Lanham, Jackie Mulligan and Rosie Gamble of Leeds Met, Jess and Liisa.

The first speaker gave us a chance to rest our voices and listen to hers, and Kathyrn Grace was definitely worth a listen.  Her relaxed and open speaking style drew everyone in straight away as she covered how she and the team at Everything Everywhere approach service design for Orange.  Kathryn explained how putting the customer rather than the business at the centre of service design makes it work.  Having taken two years to get to where they are now, their focus is now on getting the customer experience right. With a 16 strong team, Kathyrn admits it can be a massive challenge to get people out of the square box way of thinking and more into the attitude of ‘when something works it works’.  With people’s traditional timings of what they do shifting across the board now is the time for the holistic approach, and I think that this is evident in how successfully Orange have moved from a product to a service driven company.

Kathryn’s talk finished with some questions and if you, like me, are interested in hearing more about service design or getting in touch with Kathryn she has a group in Leeds @sdleeds on Twitter.  They are hosting a drinks evening on 29th November, as she stated in her closing statement ‘we’ve done the thinking now we can do the drinking!’

A quick break for coffee and cheesecake (which was yummy) and it was time to hear what Elizabeth Sanderson had to say.  Elizabeth is a roller derby enthusiast which helps her let off steam from her career as Web Services Manager at Leeds City Council.  She talked us through the agile, scrum project management approach that they are taking to redesigning the website.  She was very witty and insightful as a speaker, giving us all a great idea of what it is like to work for the Council.  The scrum plan focusses on bringing together everyone to work to a common direction, and it sounded like it was working a treat.

Elizabeth is very good at painting a picture of her working life.  She explained that there are currently 400 publishers to the website at the moment, there is brand new content on the way (that’s right they are not migrating anything!) and a brand new web service.   They are undertaking regular sprints where they look at little bits of the project and have constant dialogue with all project stakeholders.  The key message from Elizabeth’s talk was that everyone working together was key- she moved offices to be closer to IT and really get the communications going.  Follow @Lizziesanderson on Twitter and we can look forward to the new website next year!

All in all it was a thoroughly enjoyable event and I’m already looking forward to the next one! In the meantime I’ll be keeping an eye on what’s next from www.leedsdigitalfestival.com

Just a quick note to say that  ’Jamie’s Great Britain’ is on at 9:00pm on Channel 4 and it will be well worth a watch tonight as Jamie has been working with The Midnight Bell and Leeds Brewery!  On the show and in the book you will see work featured that Beautiful Minds have created!

After what seemed a frantic couple of weeks, where fixtures were being decided, paying times and day we being moved about, Wednesday 14^th saw the inaugural match of the Woodkirk 5-a-side league for FC Bloom.

There was much excitement in the office on the build up to kick off at 7pm where we would face our first opponents Kithy Utd – who incidentally turned out to be a well seasoned and regimented 5-a-side team.

We all went outside to have a ‘kick about’ warm up while we waited for Nick to return so we could set off, this proved that between the 5 of us playing that night we had the skills, that could only be compared to the likes of Man Utd, Liverpool or Arsenal, which was great! However we soon noticed that we left those skills at the midnight bell when we set off for the ground.

The New 3G pitches at Woodkirk were a pleasure to play on, a long way from the old Sand based Astroturf that you could burn yourself on just by looking at it. We settle in for another kick about and warm up while we waited for the opposition to arrive.

So, we were ready, 35 mins of intense football followed, where there were several cries of ‘you what!’ and the ‘referees a banker’. All I can really say is that everybody on the pitch gave their 110% big shout out to Matt Kerridge, Ryan Dearlove, Nick Ratcliffe, Andy Morgan and Steve Harrison.

Hopefully next week we will have our new FC Bloom kit, the regular amount of ‘much needed’ substitutes and a much more suitable opposition.

Also a big should out to the boys at Kithy Utd who played brilliantly and deserved their win.

Result

FC Bloom 3 – Kithy Utd 16

The London community turned to the powerful communication network – Twitter, to reach out for help when attempting to clean up the mess in and around London suburbs. Millions of pounds of damage has been the result of ludicrous behaviour over the past few days and it will take a lot of effort to restore it. Instead of using networks to enforce blame, London tweeters have been using them to encourage others to stand strong and show their support. Community spirit and proactive nature is definitely worth talking about.

@Riotcleanup was set up by London individuals and within hours it gained over 16,000 followers increasing dramatically to over 20,000 and even more as I write this blog post. The first tweet from the page was  ‘’We’re live. Locations to come very very shortly. #riotcleanup’’ Others followed promptly after, with dates and times of where to meet and what to bring.

This being a prime example of how easily people can use social networks to have an influential impact on others. Twitter and Facebook should be used as a way of encouraging positive activity not violence and criminality.

The riots have been escalating over the past few days and News reports show destruction in other cities including Birmingham, Bristol and Liverpool after groups of youths caught onto the idea.

The number of police officers on duty in London alone will increase from 6000 to 16,000 to deal with the riots, enforcing the scale of just how serious this has become, BBC reports.

Instead of highlighting the negativity of events the following examples show pre-empted behaviour and constructive activity.

Philippa Morgan-Walker, 25 and her husband, Jonny Walker, 31, made tea for the police who were protecting their street- pure community spirit.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pixel-eight/6024429000/

Twitter Activity

Riotcleanup Clean Up London

Clapham junction at 1. Police saying to bring sturdy gloves

@thedinertweets Get on this. Good work London http://on.fb.me/r4Qb80 who is rolling their sleeves up? @Riotcleanup

@roughtradeshops rough trade shops,if you are not at work today follow @artistsmakers and help clean up your local communities, small businesses need your help #riotcleanup

GregCapital Greg Burns
Father and son… @Riotcleanup in Clapham! http://lockerz.com/s/128040494

A Facebook page supporting Metropolitan Police has 500,335 likes.

Supporting the Met Police against London Rioters

Facebook has been used in the past for similar activities, urging citizens to help clean up the mess caused by the riots in the streets of Vancouver. Within hours the group had already gained 8,000 attendees which is more than a company profile can achieve within a few days.

It is times like this we can really use social media to shout out to a mass audience and work towards solving a crisis.  Keep up the good work @Riotcleanup!!!!

Dan Akers, Development and Innovation manager, quotes;

“I think the most important lesson about this is that everyone was using all available methods to connect themselves – both the rioters using Blackberry messenger, and the Twitter people wanting to clean up afterwards.  It’s evidence that counter to what some people seem to think, connecting people together more and more extensively doesn’t automatically lead to some sort of enlightened, socially responsible society.  Social networking, or any advanced technology isn’t a cure for communities that are ill, it’s simply the medium in which we are all floating.”

Yorkshire Day

Yorkshire Day couldn’t have arrived on a more appropriate day for me.  Having recently moved to the beautiful surroundings of Horsforth and spent my weekend pottering around Hall Park, I have fallen in love with God’s own county all over again. The excuse to raise a pint of Leeds Best or a jug of Black Sheep ale will certainly be seized upon today! If you haven’t sampled beers from these breweries before I’d recommend Black Sheep’s Riggwelter for its deep rich taste, but be careful as the label features a sheep on its back with its legs in the air for a reason! From Leeds Brewery Leeds Best is an excellent pint or I love Leeds Pale on a warm summer’s day.

Image Copyright: Dry White Toast Flickr

A Rum Lass

Falling in love may seem like a very passionate description for a place to live, however as a voluntary Yorkshire lass (or ‘A Rum Lass’ as my chap likes to describe me sometimes, which basically means ‘you’re a bit barmy’ in Yorkshire speak) I feel that it is only to be expected that I must truly love this county to have moved my whole life up here from Reading.   I came to Leeds for University in 2003 and I have lived here ever since, feeling at home to such an extent that I now find it strange when people say ‘you’re not from round here are you’ as my accent gives me away!  It isn’t completely southern anymore though- I’ve found myself saying ‘grass’ rather than grarse, or ‘bath’ rather than ‘barth’ here and there as well as throwing in the occasional ‘Ey up’ and ‘Now Then’ in greeting.   This causes great pride from my Yorkshire man, who asked me when I told him that someone had said I had a hint of Yorkshire accent; ‘oh did you say bath to them?’ Considering I was in the middle of a conference at the time this wasn’t a subject I was discussing, but I still felt proud that I sounded even a little bit Yorkshire. I’m also someone who finds it endearing to be called ‘love’ and feel welcomed whenever it is used.

Yorkshire Pride

Pride in heritage and identity is something that is particularly evident in Yorkshire, and I’ve found that it is much stronger here than it was when I lived down south.  Yorkshire Day is a celebration I have only really been aware of recently, but it is not a surprise to me that it exists!  If you are interested in its origins have a look on Exploring Leeds-it has apparently been going as long as thirty years!  Matt Humphreys discusses whether it should exist in his post on Yorkshire Telly, as he isn’t convinced that we need a day dedicated to Yorkshire as every day is Yorkshire day here anyway.  (Yorkshire Telly are an excellent example of celebrating Yorkshire the whole year round as they film artists and musicians around the county, often in really beautiful locations.)  I think this is very true of the county- there is a strong sense of identity and pride from anyone who lives here, which is not just reserved for 1st August.  For an amusing take on the idea that ‘if it’s outside Yorkshire it’s not worth visiting’ have a watch of the popular clip from the very Yorkshire Airlines here.

Yorkshire = Yummy

There are so many yummy foods associated with Yorkshire I wouldn’t be able to do them justice in this post, but here are a couple of my favourite tasty treats to try;  if you are a fan of Roast Beef with all the trimmings have a look at Jo Murricane’s Yorkshire pudding recipe which makes them look easy!  It would be rude not to munch down on some Wensleydale cheese today as well and if you fancy a sweet treat afterwards there are some fantastic ice Yorkshire ice creams – I highly recommend the creamy and scrumptious Brymor.

Stunning scenery

I think one of the first images that comes to mind when you mention Yorkshire to anyone is the beautiful landscape.  For rolling hills and dry stone walls head to the Yorkshire Dales and if you want wild and rugged the North Yorkshire Moors are breathtaking, especially when the heather is out.   I love the fact that it is so easy to get to the countryside from Leeds as well.   There are some perfect locations to visit covered in this post on My Life in Leeds if you fancy a trip out to into rural Yorkshire.  Here is a Horsforth walk that I’m off to try myself this weekend, and for some wonderful pictures (like the one below) see Bill’s Photos of Yorkshire.

Image by Bill’s Photos: Yorkshire Dales in Springtime, Littondale

What’s on in Yorkshire?

There is so much going on in Yorkshire (particularly today of course!) that you’ll be spoilt for choice for where to go and what to do.  The fact that tourist numbers are up massively compared to last year is testament to how brilliant Yorkshire is, fact. (See what the BBC said about that here.) If you are lucky enough to have today off work, or you have a free evening to fill tonight check out this handy list of what’s on from Welcome to Yorkshire. From cocktail competitions and an official Yorkshire sausage unveiling to musical sculptures I’m sure you’ll find something fun to get up to from that selection!

I couldn’t finish this post without a mention of a Yorkshire cricketer’s efforts for England today; Tim Bresnan made an outstanding contribution to the England team going out for 90 after an excellent innings.

Have a happy Yorkshire day whatever you do today; I’m off to start my celebrations with a cup of Yorkshire Tea.

It is with great delight that I consumed the news yesterday that News of World will be no more from this Sunday.  While I sympathise with those who suffered redundancies, (and weren’t to blame for any of the scandal), I’m very pleased that the paper will no longer be in print.

Old rags are best used for cleaning

I’m not bothered whether or not this used to be a brilliant paper, or that it has been going for 168 years.  I couldn’t give a flying giraffe if it had been going for 200.  The fact of the matter is that this has been a paper that prided itself on exposing personal matters to the public eye, with as much humiliation for whoever was involved in each story as possible, and hasn’t been afraid to use dirty and underhand tactics to do so.

Surprised? No.

I’m perplexed that everyone seems to be shocked by the hacking scandal to be quite frank- how can this come as a surprise to people?!  All you have to do is take a look at some of the headlines this pile of toilet paper has mercilessly churned out over the years to see that the focus has not been on operating in a manner that gives even an iota of respect to the subjects of each ‘story’.  I didn’t ever for one minute think that this ‘British institution’ dotted their i’s and crossed their t’s in making sure that the way they came about their intelligence was above board.  That’s why it seems strange to me that the hacking revelations, whilst obviously disgusting, are being received with surprise!

Why do we care?

News of the World has been one of the ringleaders in encouraging the celebrity obsession culture we are currently saturated in.  While there are arguments that if a renowned individual does something wrong we, the general populace have a ‘right to know’, (see my previous post on superinjunctions for more on that) I think that taking it too far in the way that NotW has been known to do, has consequences.  Here we have the sad yet satisfying fall after the pride of a rag that is being inexplicably described by its editor Colin Myler as a ‘great newspaper’.

What = NEWS?

What continues to horrify me is what this and papers like this one, namely The Sun, consider to be ‘news’.  The fact that a celebrity has been spotted shopping, in an outfit, is not news to me.  Tie onto that that, crikey, they’re in relationship with someone or that they USED to date a footballer and somehow a headline is constructed that is classed as a scandal.  Why do we care? The fact this closure is being described as the end of a British institution is actually embarrassing.  I’d personally like to be proud to be British, and don’t appreciate being lumped in with whoever was unfortunate enough to have regularly read NotW- I’m not proud if a paper of this standing is able to earn this title of institution.  What on earth does that say about the general populace of Britain today?!  I refer you to front pages such as ‘Heather the 5K Hooker’, ‘F1 Boss has sick Nazi Orgy with hookers’, ‘Sex, Lies, Girls and Pay-Offs’ and even ‘Andrew and The Sex Slave Beast’. Why would the British want to be associated with reading this tripe? It baffles me.

Sadly the Sun on Sunday

It is disappointing that the paper will most likely continue its churn of gossip under a new ‘Sun on Sunday’ name.  It would be really refreshing if what actually happened is that this is the catalyst for real change. A change that equals a stop to printing rubbish and a hounding people to within an inch of their life for a ‘story’.  I also think that the responsibility lies with the consumer to stop the obsessive chasing of celebrity gossip by ignoring it instead.  Why can’t people just stop buying the papers that give decent journalism a bad name? If we didn’t buy it, they wouldn’t print it and they’d be forced to step up and start reporting real news, and even use a bit of brain power to construct a sentence.

For the latest developments on the above, please see the BBC website

This seemed entirely logical request, so rather than build this as a piece of functionality unique for one client, we took the opportunity to develop this as an additional feature within our core ecommerce platform.

This approach has therefore benefited our customer, our future customers using our core ecommerce package, and Bloom as an agency, as it is yet an additional feature of our ecommerce system making it just that little bit more attractive.

While discussing this with our Head of Operations he said “Excellent…beyond the brief…”, and hence the inspiration behind the article!

What IS going beyond the brief?

To get a good well balanced overview of what going beyond the brief is, I put this exact question to a selection of the Bloom team…

“We push the boundaries of new technology to deliver new and exciting user experiences.  It satisfies our passion for what we do, and ensures the user experience is better so the client sees more user engagement on their site… and ultimately conversions.”

Matt Martin, Creative and User Experience Director

“A client of ours wanted a mobile website and many companies would have just put together a quote and left it at that.  Instead, one of our Account Managers suggested we revisit their market place, re-examine their customer and set that against the mobile market to ensure we delivered a mobile site which not only met current market and demographic requirements, but would slip in seamlessly to the client’s existing marketing mix.”

Stu Turner, Account Manager

How DO you go beyond the brief?

To go truly beyond the brief you need to tap into the skills and resources of your team to exceed both your client’s expectations and your own!

You need to cultivate the organisational culture within the business; encouraging your team to interact and all get involved in discussing projects, clients, and how to continually add value to the relationship. Here at Bloom Media we hold weekly production meetings with the entire team, to ensure everyone has visibility of the current projects.  At the end of each meeting we have a 30 minute presentation by a team member which encourages the cross-pollination of ideas, skills, and latest discoveries from the industry.

Bringing the team together this way helps build relationships, but it also important to build relationships with your client.  Claire Hunter-Smith, our Social Media Manager at Bloom says, “Building a relationship with the Client is about more than just understanding what the client requires, but also what the person (your client contact) requires in order to understand and deliver their side of things most effectively”.

We find this is largely the responsibility of the Account Managers who should be encouraged to be bold and actively challenge the briefs they are given.

Stu Turner, Account Manager at Bloom suggests, “Challenge (where appropriate) the client’s brief against their brand – how does the project they are proposing fit in with their aims as a team, the aims of their department, the aims of the company and how does that fit with their brand?”.  It’s not just the client who should be challenged however, it’s also internal team members.  Stu goes on to say “it’s very easy to get sucked in a ‘we’ve always done it this way’ mentality or jump to the first/easiest solution. I find taking people out of the normal environment and capturing ideas as and when they happen (rather than in an enforced ideas meeting) is often to most rewarding and exciting way to answer a brief.”

Some More Considerations

It is important to bear in mind a few things before going that extra mile.  Mainly, the time involved in doing this work – invariably, time spent means additional costs, either to you or your client.  It is important to gauge whether investing the time will benefit either party enough to warrant the additional costs.  Claire Hunter-Smith advises, “Keeping your eyes and ears open even outside offices hours for inspiration/opportunities to help your clients e.g. seeing a local event that your client would benefit from attending and advising them about it, or seeing a TV Ad that gives you an idea that could directly inspire your client’s next Ad.”.

It is also essential that expectations are managed so that the client is aware that additional effort has been put to further strengthen the relationship.

Honey for Everyone

In your personal life, going beyond the brief is simply doing more than is asked of you to help another person.  Afterwards, the recipient will hopefully treat you more favourably and this leaves you feeling better about yourself.  It is the same in business but the benefits to both parties are often on a bigger more noticeable scale.

Coming back to the example of our client who needed a mobile website; this meant that Bloom had the opportunity to become even further ‘mobile enabled’.  So when we engaged with our client to conduct a research project, Bloom committed almost double the charged time to bring every team in the agency further up to speed with mobile; from development, design and UX, through to implementation and tracking.

I welcome any thoughts, comments, and inspiring examples you would care to share.

To infinity, and BEYOND the brief (allow me one).