Like it or not, blogging is now an essential part of doing business. Statistics show that companies whose websites include blogs get 55% more website visitors than their counterparts with static sites, and 57% of marketers have acquired customers from blogging (figures from Hubspot). Most of the UK’s biggest brands now have blogs, and SMEs are catching up.

However, it’s not just a case of rustling up an article and letting it sit in the Google archives. If you want to see results from your business blog, you need to construct, format and promote it correctly. Here is our take on the worst blogging errors – and how you can avoid them. Read More »

Plenty of coverage on Brand Republic today about the Financial Times and how its digital subscriptions surpassed print subscriptions for the first time.

The news coincides with some good news/bad news from the New York Times.

While it has reported an operating loss of $143.6m, compared with an operating profit of $31.5m in the same period of 2011, it has also seen paid digital subscribers rise by 12% to more than 500,000. Read More »

Four years ago in Beijing, social media (although in its relative infancy) ran free with no restrictions. In Vancouver in 2010, social media use had evolved to necessitate some relatively simple “blogging guidelines” for athletes and other participants in the games.

Fast forward to this year, and such is the explosion in social media use that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has deemed it necessary to release in-depth social media, blogging and internet guidelines. These cover the use of photos, videos and audio, as well as URLs and domain names and more. Read More »

Paul Chambers, the 28-year-old accountant, has won his high appeal for jokingly tweeting his girlfriend he would blow Robin Hood airport up.

It brings to an end an incident, since dubbed the #Twitterjoketrial, that took place more than two years ago and has been hanging over the head of Chambers ever since.

Chambers was initially fined and ordered to pay costs at Doncaster Magistrates’ Court back in May 2010 after being convicted of sending “a message of a menacing character”, contrary to provisions of the 2003 Communications Act. Read More »

Twitter looks to be making a fascinating move into become a fully fledged media player, producing original content, according to an Ad Week article.

It says that the San Francisco-based company, along with multiple Hollywood producers and network executives are in serious talks about the possibility of launching several original video series via Twitter. Read More »

After seven long years of anticipation, the Olympics are finally upon us. And, as widely noted within digital circles, London 2012 will be history’s first truly social media Olympics.

Whilst there has been much frothing at the mouth about non-official brands taking advantage of the Games, LOCOG restrictions on Tweeting sportspeople and the fact that massive media outfits like NBC are partnering with Twitter and Facebook to ensure social coverage of the games, no one has taken a step back to look at how official Olympics partners and sponsors are amplifying their prestigious (and expensive) connections to the Games via search and social media. Read More »