David Moth

Six tips for increasing your Facebook fans

Interacting with fans on Facebook is no longer the mystery that it once was, with a majority of brands realising the benefits of posting regular content and engaging in conversations with users.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean that engaging with fans is easy.

Wildfire has produced a report that looks into the best ways for brands to interact with consumers on Facebook and generate earned media by encouraging them to share content with their friends.

It evaluated almost 700 brands to understand how they managed their social initiatives and identified six best practices that helped them recruit more brand advocates.

by David Moth 09 August 2012 10:27am 5 comments

Paddy Power is top performing gambling site on social networks

Earlier this week Facebook announced that it was teaming up with UK gambling firm Gamesys to launch new apps that allow users to wager real money.

Due to the tight restrictions on gambling it could be seen as a controversial venture for Facebook, but social media and gambling are already firmly intertwined.

The UK’s top gambling sites all have a social media presence, with a benchmark report published by QuBit showing that Paddy Power has the best ‘social score’ followed by Betfair.

The report evaluates the UK’s top ten betting sites based on monthly page view statistics from Doubleclick Adplanner. These also include 888, William Hill, Ladbrokes, Bet365, Skybet, Betfred, Stan James and Coral.

by David Moth 15 August 2012 15:54pm 9 comments

Start Me Up! A profile of Usurv

Usurv is a new market research firm that uses a network of websites to run fast, cost effective surveys.

Clients can target different demographics and see the results start to roll in within the hour.

To find out more about how it works and who started the company I spoke to marketing director Guy Potter...

by David Moth 09 August 2012 11:12am 0 comments

Coral tops gambling website usability study

The UK online gambling industry is worth more than £1.7bn per year, so it’s no wonder that Facebook is trying to get in on the act with its new bingo game.

But which of the main bookmakers are making the most of the lucrative opportunity by offering gamblers the most efficient and user-friendly experience?

QuBit’s industry benchmark evaluates the UK’s top ten betting sites based on monthly page view statistics from Doubleclick Adplanner.

These include 888, William Hill, Betfair, Paddy Power, Ladbrokes, Bet 365, Skybet, Betfred, Stan James and Coral.

by David Moth 08 August 2012 11:53am 2 comments

10 essential features for creating great product pages

Designing product pages is a fine art - sites need to make sure they include enough information to inform the customers' purchase decision and encourage a sale, while also making sure the page isn't cluttered and unusable.

We've previously looked at 10 great e-commerce product pages, and here we examine 10 features that have proven to either increase conversions or improve the user experience.

Obviously cramming all these features onto a single page could make it difficult to navigate, so in reality it’s down to each retailer to test each one and see which work for their site.

If a particular feature isn’t helping to improve conversions then there’s probably no use in having it on your product pages, but in general all of these tools enhance the user experience and help to encourage sales.

If there are any you think I've missed off or that have proven to work on your site then let us know in the comments section...

by David Moth 08 August 2012 09:46am 7 comments

If you could ask Facebook for one new metric, what would it be?

Facebook gives brand page admins a whole host of numbers and reports on user interactions, but are they the ones we really need?

If you could ask Facebook for one new data metric, or an improvement on an existing one, what would it be?

We put this question to our Facebook fans and Twitter followers, with the general consensus being a clearer measure of CTRs and cost per like.

Other suggestions included a tool to allow you to see what other brands your fans like or a function that allows you to compare insights for two or more periods in one deck.

I also put the question to several agencies, with the responses proving that the current range of Facebook insights aren’t giving marketers what they need...

by David Moth 07 August 2012 12:28pm 1 comment

55% of shoppers abandon carts due to shipping costs: infographic

A large proportion of abandoned shopping carts are unavoidable as consumers never really intended to make a purchase in the first place.

Data from comScore shows that 57% of consumers have abandoned a purchase as they were only window shopping while 56% said they abandoned a transaction as they were just saving items for later.

However the next three most popular reasons for abandoning a shopping cart were all to do with shipping costs.

A separate survey that we conducted last year found that 74% of respondents had abandoned a basket due to high delivery charges, while a survey by Trimble found that more than half of respondents (58%) would choose free or discounted shipping as the main way to improve e-commerce.

by David Moth 07 August 2012 10:57am 6 comments

Tesco unveils interactive digital grocery store at Gatwick Airport

Tesco has unveiled new interactive digital billboards in the departure lounge at Gatwick Airport that allow consumers to order groceries to be delivered to them when they return from holiday.

Using Tesco’s iPhone and Android smartphone apps holidaymakers can add products to their shopping basket by scanning the barcodes displayed under the items on the adverts.

Sliding screens on each ‘fridge’ can be scrolled by hand allowing customers to browse and select around 80 of Tesco’s most popular products.

Deliveries can then be scheduled for up to three weeks in advance to coincide with the user's return home.

The use of interactive billboards in the UK follows a successful trial in South Korea’s subway. Commuters were able to purchase items from a virtual shopping aisle by scanning QR codes with their smartphone.

by David Moth 07 August 2012 09:24am 6 comments

The seven major problems with the new Digg

News aggregator Digg relaunched last week with a new ad-free design that puts more emphasis on big images to lure in readers.

It is a big step away from its previous design that displayed all links in the same way, and now looks more akin to a curated news site, as opposed to an aggregator.

The way stories reach the homepage has also been changed – it no longer relies on diggs from regular users and instead takes into account shares on Facebook and Twitter as well as employing editors to curate the content.

For old users or those familiar with the previous site the new version is almost unrecognisable, so it seems Digg’s new owners have realised that the old way didn’t work and are pitching for a whole new audience.

But in the short term most of its traffic is going to be from previous users who want to see how the new site works.

by David Moth 06 August 2012 10:08am 13 comments

Nine awesome Pinterest infographics

Pinterest is no longer the new kid on the block - it has clocked up more than 10m users and has proved to be a valuable tool for generating both traffic and conversions.

We've seen several reports that it drives more sales than Facebook and taken a look at Sony's Pinterest strategy.

Furthermore, we've looked at six brands making good use of Pinterest and two that aren't, as well as blogging nine best practice tips for brands.

And here are some of the best Pinterest infographics we've seen, including details on its user base, how marketers can make best use of it, how Pinterest will change social commerce and why pinning has proved to be so addictive...

by David Moth 06 August 2012 10:36am 1 comment