Many more businesses will be keen to embrace social media tools after new figures revealed that people spend almost a quarter of their time on-line using social networks. Why not talk to WebCreation UK about their social media services?

A report by Nielsen claims that in April 22% of on-line time was spent looking at social networks and/or blogs

Other stats to come from the Nielsen reported include:

•    Worldwide we spend more than 110 billion minutes on social networks and blog sites each month.
•    The average visitor spends 66% more time on social media and blog sites than a year ago.
•    We now each spend 6 hours a month on average compared to 3 hours, 31 minutes last year.

A social network usage chart shows that Brazil is the most sociable on-line country, followed by Italy, Spain, Japan, the US, the UK, France, Australia, Germany and Switzerland.

We blogged recently about the dos and don’ts of retweeting. But tweeters should also think about the potential of their tweets to be retweeted. Of course, this is what most tweeters are aiming for. They want their news and posts to be spread to other followers and so they are keen for retweets.

But all too often you find that when retweeting the resulting tweet ends up being longer than the required 140 characters. This is because when you RT, you own account name is added into the tweet (think now many characters that takes up). Many people also like to add in a comment to a RT (so that’s more characters again).

Because of this it’s a good idea to keep your own tweets to a maximum of 120 characters. Less if possible. So many times we have gone to retweet an interesting tweet only to find it breaks the character limit by up to 20 characters. Being good tweeters we then try to cut the resulting tweet back before pressing the send button. But not everyone will bother to do this.

So, if you want to be a successful tweeter, think about how long your tweets are.

Retweeting is a big part of Twitter and it’s one of the ways that tweeters can engage with other. In terms of business, retweeting can create loyalties, friends and brand awareness. But there is an art to retweeting for success. Here we bring you some dos and don’ts:

Do retweet:

• Relevant and newsie articles, blogs and websites that are interesting to you and should therefore be interesting to others in a similar niche.
• Questions from other tweeters that you think your followers might be interested in answering.
• Funny or quirky posts that make you smile. (Be careful, though, as not everyone will have the same sense of  humour.)
• You own blog posts.
• A few nice things that folk have said about you. But not too many in case you look big-headed!

Don’t retweet:

• Every mention you get. This is annoying.
• Old news. Keep up to date to impress fellow tweeters.
• Obvious promotions for your company.

The growth of on-line retailers and e-commerce sites has been incredible in recent years. Many such business owners find that they can earn a good living from an e-commerce site. But not all sites are successful. Here we bring you our top tips for a great e-commerce website.

Easy to find: Make sure that products are easily found on your website. Place them in categories that, as a consumer, you would think to look. Some products may feature in several categories. Just make it simple to find your products with lots of obvious labeling and click-thrus. We’re thinking more supermarket than TK Max.

Keep it simple. Categories, navigation and paying need to be simple. The more complex they are the more likely it is that people will click off your site and find another. Also ensure there is a customer service number so that people can make phone enquiries if they want to.

Photographs can say so much more about products than text only. He best e-commerce sites have good photos of products as well as great descriptions.

Make sure that the payment process is straightforward and secure. PayPal is a good starting point as people trust the service.

Don’t just sit there waiting for customers – go out and market your e-commerce site. No-one will know it’s there unless you embrace traditional advertising avenues and the new range of on-line promotion tools.

WebCreation UK are experts in designing and creating e-commerce websites. Check out their e-commerce link and take a look in the WebCreation UK portfolio.

Two years ago Bebo fetched a price tag of $850 billion (£574 million). Last week AOL is believed to have sold the social networking website for less than $10 million (£6.8 million) to private equity group Criterion Capital Partners. That’s less than 2% of the original price.

In April news was revealed that AOL, the internet giant that is based in New York, was considering the option of a sale or shutdown of Bebo.

The company said it couldn’t afford to fund a revamp of Bebo, which has proved a flop in America.

According to analysts, Bebo’s worldwide unique visitors dropped more than 50% to 12.6 million in April from a year ago. Meanwhile Facebook had 519.1 million unique visitors in April and MySpace had 111.2 million.
It will be interesting to see what Criterion Capital do with Bebo.

A recent report revealed that many more small and medium-sized businesses think that video emails are the way forward.  The survey by GetResponse found that more than 80% of respondents will use video emails this year and more than 90% who have used video emails claim the results are “significant conversion rates”.

More than half of respondents said video emails can increase click-through rates. Also, a third of those surveyed believe that video can improve brand image and increase customer loyalty.

Only 4.7 percent of email marketers do not see any benefits from using video email.

The reason for the increased interest in using video in emails is that many believe that video content brings the human element back into marketing.

WebCreationUK are able to implement video in to any package we offer. Speak to us today about the use of video web design.