photo credit: markomni

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) assumed extra responsibilities today that will ensure it is better able to regulate the growing field of internet marketing – and especially internet advertising via social media such as Twitter and Facebook.

Prior to this date, the watchdog was only able to examine and adjudicate paid-for advertising online, leaving a loophole when it came to social media, which lay outside its remit.

However, the ASA has received more than 4,500 complaints over the past two years which concern social media and online advertising. It now hopes that its expanded remit will be adequate to cover this burgeoning field.

It could, under its new powers, remove advertising from search engines such as Google, as well as being able to place its own adverts warning users about ads that are in breach of the regulations.

The ASA stressed that it will be “acting on and investigating complaints as well as pro-actively monitoring and taking action against misleading, harmful or offensive advertisements.”

Dan Coysh

Daniel has been a freelance journalist and providing SEO Copywriting services for over three years now at Online Media Direct, after eight years as reporter and news editor for a national newspaper. He has provided SEO news content for a number of sites and on several occasions has completely rewritten a website’s text – both in the public and private sectors.

The head of an online services company has urged online marketing executives to make sure that their campaigns are capable of having an instant impact on potential customers.

The Growth Masters founder and boss Robert Kintigh said that the growth of online marketing has represented “the most dynamic evolutionary step” in the unique medium of advertising that took decades to develop on the radio and television.

“Back then, you had to write down information on a paper pad. Today, you click on a website or a link and you’re instantly provided the information you want,” he pointed out, arguing that because of this, anyone involved with online marketing has a smaller window of time to grab the attention of customers and pitch the attractions of their service or product.

Mr Kintigh said that ideally, effective online advertising is able to both capture the attention of its target audience and make them wish to desire the products and services on offer.

The increasing popularity of social networks such as Twitter and Facebook is making the process of online marketing even faster, British Interactive Media Association (BIMA) Justin Cooke argued recently.

Mr Cooke said that social networks will become the favourite platform for many users buying products or services online in 2011, insisting that the UK was “fast becoming addicted to checking in, following and snacking on social media snippets while on the move,” before pointing out that growingsales of smartphones mean that people are able to log on to Facebook and Twitter from almost anywhere at almost any time of the day or night.

“I have no doubt that this love affair will continue to blossom in 2011 and even bear some new digitalicious fruits,” Mr Cooke added, predicting that “major brands will create social transactional applications and it will become commonplace for users to be able to make transactions on social media platforms.”

Dan Coysh

Daniel has been a freelance journalist and providing SEO Copywriting services for over three years now at Online Media Direct, after eight years as reporter and news editor for a national newspaper. He has provided SEO news content for a number of sites and on several occasions has completely rewritten a website’s text – both in the public and private sectors.

The Office of Fair Trading has warned companies that sponsor Twitter messages and blog posts that they must disclose their intentions as online marketing promotions or face possible fines and censure.

The watchdog took its first action this week, after finding that a London-based online advertising firm broke the OFT rules on disclosure. The 18-month old firm Handpicked Media was the target of the regulator’s wrath yesterday, but the incident raised questions as to whether it is now set to go after other online marketing companies that are just beginning to explore the potential of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter.

Although the OFT has not revealed whether it now plans to make online marketing companies apply the rules governing disclosure for newspapers and magazines to the Internet, its decision will nevertheless be seen as a precedent giving more power to the elbow of the Advertising Standards Authority, which will take over internet regulatory duties in March next year.

In a statement, the OFT said: “The OFT has received undertakings from Handpicked Media, an operator of a commercial blogging network, requiring them to clearly identify when promotional comments have been paid for.

“In taking this enforcement action the OFT has confirmed its view that online advertising and marketing practices that do not disclose they include paid-for promotions are deceptive under fair trading laws. This includes comments about services and products on website blogs and microblogs such as Twitter.”

The world of online advertising will surely now be watching developments with interest.

Dan Coysh

Daniel has been a freelance journalist and providing SEO Copywriting services for over three years now at Online Media Direct, after eight years as reporter and news editor for a national newspaper. He has provided SEO news content for a number of sites and on several occasions has completely rewritten a website’s text – both in the public and private sectors.

A new study this week by the international Boston Consulting Group urged companies to make greater efforts to harmonise their online marketing efforts and their strategies for online sales.

The research warned that although many brands have woken up to the possibilities of promoting their products and services through such global phenomena as Twitter and Facebook, but have not ensured that this follows on to an easy way for interested computer users to purchase the products or services online.

In many cases, Boston Consulting said that potential customers were forced to hunt down the providers offline – sometimes even on the high street – in order to avail themselves of their products.

In the course of the study, researchers found that some 65 per cent of firms with an online marketing presence had invested time and money in developing natural search techniques, and 62 per cent were heavily funding internet advertising.

Despite this though, only 40 per cent of firms surveyed said that their customer base was able to order their products and services online.

Earlier in the year, figures published by the IMRG Capgemini e-Retail Sales Index showed that there had been an impressive year-on-year increase in online retail selling – and with Christmas just around the corner, the smarter businesses are already gearing up to make online shopping as easy as possible for customers.

Companies that have yet to marry their online marketing and online sales should take note of the way the wind is blowing and seek to bring the hordes of Facebook and Twitter users on board.

Dan Coysh

Daniel has been a freelance journalist and providing SEO Copywriting services for over three years now at Online Media Direct, after eight years as reporter and news editor for a national newspaper. He has provided SEO news content for a number of sites and on several occasions has completely rewritten a website’s text – both in the public and private sectors.

Social media are going to play a large part in online marketing campaigns this Christmas, according to new research.

Research by internet marketing affiliate network LinkShare found that at least 43 per cent of companies involved in some form of online advertising campaign over the holiday period this year will be taking advantage of the unprecedented opportunities offered by Facebook, Twitter and other social networking websites.

Another 37 per cent of online marketing respondents said that they would be hoping to tempt customers over Christmas with online vouchers and special offers, while 17 per cent would be creating videos to promote their online advertising.

Just 18 per cent of companies surveyed believed that next year’s rise in VAT would have a deleterious effect on their online marketing budgets – with 30 per cent sure that the increase would spur companies on to make more effectively targeted campaigns than ever before.

The network’s managing director Liane Dietrich commented: “A call for more targeted and measured campaigns is certainly in line with what we are seeing from our own customers who are looking to increase their efficiency, and after the Christmas sales boom this will remain important.”

With the growing popularity of iPads and smartphones, many companies that use internet advertising believe that video campaigns are set to become more important than ever next year.

Nearly 30 per cent of respondents surveyed agreed that online videos, which can be searched for using Google or other engines, would be the largest digital advertising format, although another 28 per cent were sure that the likes of Twitter and Facebook would continue to reign supreme in 2011, dominating the online marketing world.

Dan Coysh

Daniel has been a freelance journalist and providing SEO Copywriting services for over three years now at Online Media Direct, after eight years as reporter and news editor for a national newspaper. He has provided SEO news content for a number of sites and on several occasions has completely rewritten a website’s text – both in the public and private sectors.

The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has revealed plans next spring to extend its regulatory arm to encompass online marketing and online advertising.

From 1 March 2010, the ASA will have what chairman Chris Smith has described as “the most comprehensive approach to the regulation of advertising in website space anywhere in the world.”

Over the past few years, the ASA has received some 4,500 complaints concerning online marketing, yet has been unable to take little or no action.

However, from March next year it will be able to intervene to maintain online advertising’s self-regulatory system – particularly when it comes to protecting the safety of children on social networking sites such as Twitter and Facebook.

The ASA website will feature a “rogues’ gallery” of online marketing offenders against its code of practice and warnings will appear in the results of Google and other search engines. There will also be a list of products and brands that defy the code.

The Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP), which wrote and maintains the code of practice decided to extend the ASA’s remit after a formal recommendation from a wide cross-section of British industry.

The advertising and marketing industry has itself agreed to apply a standard 0.1 per cent levy on all paid-for advertising on internet search engines, extending the existing funding mechanism across other media that pays for the ASA. Google is providing the initial seed capital.

Website owners and online advertising agencies are urged to sign up to CAP Services to receive guidance and training so their sites will comply with the new rules before they come into effect.

CAP chairman Andrew Brown said, “Our aim has been to extend further in the online world the principles that are already well established in our system, namely those of effective consumer protection and fair competition.”

Dan Coysh

Daniel has been a freelance journalist and providing SEO Copywriting services for over three years now at Online Media Direct, after eight years as reporter and news editor for a national newspaper. He has provided SEO news content for a number of sites and on several occasions has completely rewritten a website’s text – both in the public and private sectors.

Despite being described as “the best tool to aid stalking since Facebook,” location-based social media platform Foursquare will prove a massive boon to online marketing companies, one expert has suggested.

Judith Lewis, head of search at media consultancy Beyond, told readers of Marketing Week that in fact Foursquare is the “king of social media marketing.”

After downloading the application, iPhone or other smartphone users can to be located using the phone’s own GPS system. Foursquare then gives them local locations of possible interest and the option to “check in”. Security concerns have been raised because this can be broadcast on other social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, which could give stalkers and other criminals valuable personal information as to a burglary or stalking victim’s whereabouts. However, Foursquare does make available the option to prevent this, so it is up to the user to stay secure while using the app.

Many businesses have already seen its vast potential as an online marketing tool, Ms Lewis pointed out. Famous brands such as Starbucks, Domino’s Pizza, Pho, Hummos Bros, The Breakfast Club, Evans Cycles and many others have added their businesses to the network in order to ensure that their nearest branch is always pointed out to Foursquare users.

But they also use it to do more than that. Ms Evans stressed that such companies have“realised that the future of interaction in “real life” is becoming firmly based within the digital world.”

“For these and other businesses, Foursquare has become a valuable way of interacting with, and rewarding, regulars,” she pointed out.

“While one of the most difficult things to measure is how much online marketing drives purchasers to offline shops, Foursquare is one tool a marketer can use to help measure, as well as engage with, this customer.”

With its seamless integration of online and offline behaviour and the growing popularity of smartphones, Ms Lewis concluded that Foursquare “is set to be the new dominant force.”

Dan Coysh

Daniel has been a freelance journalist and providing SEO Copywriting services for over three years now at Online Media Direct, after eight years as reporter and news editor for a national newspaper. He has provided SEO news content for a number of sites and on several occasions has completely rewritten a website’s text – both in the public and private sectors.

A new report from eMarketer has revealed that the USA is leading the way when it comes to the ascendancy of online marketing across a variety of different platforms.

The organisation said that some 6.7 per cent of all online advertising budgets this year will be earmarked for social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, thanks to the slow but steady economic recovery in the US and the focus among marketers of reaching the millions of users of social media.

Researchers estimated that this year will see over $1.68 billion spent by US advertisers on Twitter and other social networking sites in 2010, which represents an increase of more than 20 per cent compared to last year. By 2011 this figure will have rocketed to over $2 billion, they added.

In December last year, eMarketer said that there would be some $1.3 billion spent on online advertising across social networks during 2010, but online marketing across these platforms has been so successful – particularly on Facebook – that analysts have been forced to drastically revise their forecasts upward.

The eMarketer report said that around half of all advertising spending on social networks will go to Facebook, due to the continuing eclipsing of MySpace by the site. Twitter has become part of the eMarketer calculations for the first time, after launching its advertising arm earlier this year.

The group said that while 2010 will see relatively little spent on Twitter by online marketing campaigns, its potential to grow over the next few years is massive.

Dan Coysh

Daniel has been a freelance journalist and providing SEO Copywriting services for over three years now at Online Media Direct, after eight years as reporter and news editor for a national newspaper. He has provided SEO news content for a number of sites and on several occasions has completely rewritten a website’s text – both in the public and private sectors.

Just over a year ago, the Tweetmeme company decided to add another dimension to social networking – and opportunities for online marketing – by providing a single place for retweets.

This gifted content providers with a whole new stream of traffic and soon soared in popularity, leading to this week’s announcement by Twitter that it will officially be taking over operation of the retweet button, known properly as wp-tweet-button.

Tweetmeme’s retweet button currently receives more than 750 million hits a day, and its runaway success has unsurprisingly led to its transferral to an in-house feature on the Twitter site.

The new wp-tweet-button function is little changed from the Tweetmeme original, apart from a new design and colour scheme. Nevertheless, the are some new functions which will help content providers and online marketing experts promote their own brands, sites and services on Twitter.

Once the button is used to retweet, the user will see a list of suggested Twitter accounts to follow, which can be taken up by the website itself for its own promotional purposes, helping to make a retweet the next viral sensation.

Twitter has got a lot of interest going already about the new button, with the likes of YouTube and news outlets such as CNN, USA Today and the Huffington Post all ready to add it to their own sites.

On the company’s blog, Tweetmeme chief executive Nick Halstead revealed that his firm would be assisting Twitter with the switch.

“This will manifest itself in the launch of a number of new products and the first of these is being unveiled today,” he said.

One of these is EDataSift, which will allow website developers to create “streams of data” from the millions of tweets held on Twitter’s database.

Dan Coysh

Daniel has been a freelance journalist and providing SEO Copywriting services for over three years now at Online Media Direct, after eight years as reporter and news editor for a national newspaper. He has provided SEO news content for a number of sites and on several occasions has completely rewritten a website’s text – both in the public and private sectors.

Micro-blogging phenomenon Twitter is contributing to the excitement surrounding the start of the 2010 FIFA World Cup today with a special website set up for football fans around the world.

The social network unveiled http://twitter.com/worldcup, which is dedicated to all things World Cup – giving Twitterers information about the match schedules, flag icons of all the countries participating in the tournament, and of course the promise of live tweets throughout all the World Cup matches.

Writing on the official Twitter blog, its co-founder Biz Stone pointed out its advantages for fans and the potential for online marketing, with the dedicated site giving them a perfect opportunity to link up with teams, players and official sponsoring brands during the World Cup, not least through the medium of Twitter advertising.

He said that the Twitter FIFA World Cup page boast such unique features as live widgets, real-time search facilities and Top Tweets sections. The latter in particular is interesting, as its algorithm seeks out and republishes the most popular and interesting tweets about the tournament. By clicking on the View Match link, Twitterers are able to check out a live stream of all the site’s updates concerning an individual match.

But there is more to the Twitter/World Cup tie-in than that. It has also introduced a facility that causes a football icon to appear next to any tweet concerning the World Cup which features the #WorldCup hashtag, as long as users are viewing them via the Twitter Web interface.

When Twitterers use the hashtags with the first three letters in a participant country’s name, such as #ENG for England, the nation’s flag will appear next to the tweet in question.

Dan Coysh

Daniel has been a freelance journalist and providing SEO Copywriting services for over three years now at Online Media Direct, after eight years as reporter and news editor for a national newspaper. He has provided SEO news content for a number of sites and on several occasions has completely rewritten a website’s text – both in the public and private sectors.