Adam I’ve just come across The Print Effect by Cartridge Save. If you haven’t already seen it go take a look (then come right back… I’ll wait).
What is it? It’s a Twitter app that creates an infographic-like page for each Twitter user you enter. There have been similar things in the past, and this particular one I think is genius:
Why is this one a little different to the others? It appears the output content changes for different users (take a look at mine and Matt’s- I’ve got badgers, Matt has cows!)
Why Do I Think This is Such a Cool Idea? (Aside from the cows, obviously)…
Linkbait is getting harder and harder- people are getting bored with infographics and the sharing element to infographics is somewhat limited (I’ll happily forward on and link to good content but I’d do it even more if it’s about me, the selfish human that I am). This takes on a new twist- linkbait via dynamic infographics!
What I like about this is it’s a little different for every user, and people want to share (and link to) interesting things that are about themselves!
As an SEO I would’ve implemented a different URL structure to prevent creating hundreds of pages for each user, however judging by the shares this has already received I’d be surprised if it doesn’t pick up a decent amount of links too.
Perhaps it’s time to get a web developer involved as well as the designer or content writer when crafting your next linkbait campaign?
Click on the image to expand to full-size
Images are a fantastic way to present data and abstract concepts, they’re a much clearer way of getting information across and more people take the time to digest it. I thought it would be a good idea to try to present solutions and explanations to the more common SEO questions that we hear from our clients.
Click here for the full sized version….
The image covers everything from basic keyword research concepts, through site architecture, page optimisation, link building, SEO tactics, social media, and some basic SEO and PPC clickthrough stats and explantions.
Big thanks to SEOMoz, Pharmas and Social Refection for their inspiration on the SEO tactics and social media sections.
With the UK elections fast approaching I thought it would be interesting to take a look at how well the major UK political parties were using social media to connect with voters.
With Barack Obama famously using social media to court the youth vote in the US elections, social media is now a viable platform for politicians to connect with people on a large scale.
All of the UK parties are maintaining a social media presence, with Facebook pages, Twitter and YouTube accounts prominently linked from their respective websites. To take a snapshot of activity and a gauge of its success I recorded the following metrics,
- Facebook page friends
- Twitter followers
- Twitter tweets
- Twitter reach
- Klout score – a measure of Twitter influence
- Compete score – a measure of website traffic
While all parties get points for maintaining a social presence on the major social sites The Conservatives are way ahead of their competition when it comes to the number of raw followers and the reach of their campaign. The Green Party received the highest Klout score, a measure of their influence and interaction on Twitter.
Interestingly enough the extremist BNP received by far the largest level of traffic to their website, but were one of the lowest scorers when it came to followers and interaction levels – perhaps an indication of voters researching their headline grabbing policies, but a degree of unwillingness to follow and interact with them, will this translate into a lack of votes?
On the whole though the UK parties are doing a fairly poor job of leveraging and interacting with social media users. Compare the Conservatives 23,000 Facebook page friends with Obama’s profile currently over the 7.5 million mark. Even allowing for a smaller population and lower levels of social media engagement it’s clear that campaigns are failing to achieve what they should be doing. It’s difficult to tell if this is due to campaign mis-management, or simply voter apathy after recent political events.