Everyone’s heard of the flagship social media websites – Facebook, MySpace and Bebo. In today’s society “social media marketing” is an increasingly common method of site promotion and traffic generation.

Many companies use a blog or news feed on their website to interact with their customers and keep them abreast of brand and future developments within their industry.
However, the concept of “micro-blogging” might not be as familiar to you as some of the more commonly accepted social marketing methods.

Pioneer company, Twitter, launched the concept back in 2006 and in the past two years has grown considerably; boasting over 2 million user accounts!

The idea of micro-blogging is focused on the provision of quick, easy, bite-sized information. A Twitter account gives users the facility to “tweet” remotely from any PC or mobile phone and encourages them to submit easy-to-digest micro-blog posts at increasingly regular intervals. Similar to a RSS feed interested parties can subscribe to a company or individual’s Twitter feed and receive real-time updates directly to their system.

The Telegraph, the Guardian and even NASA are all represented on Twitter. In an environment where customer interaction and brand promotion are essential, new mediums like Twitter are leading the way. HeadRed are currently in the process of setting up Twitter functionality for featured client Ajay Ahuja, which we hope will give Ajay an effective and regular dialogue with his customer base.

Whilst the ghostly spectre of the credit crunch has us all reaching for the Tesco value baked beans it seems to be having little or no effect on the level of online advertising spend.

Statistics taken from the IPA’s Bellwether Report show that online ad spend continued to grow above average in the last quarter, accounting for 6% of overall marketing spend – the highest proportion it has ever recorded.

So, as we slip ever closer to a recession it seems that online businesses are far more resilient than their bricks-and-mortar counterparts. In times like these more and more companies are looking online to keep their business afloat.

So don’t let the credit crunch eat into your margins; with a strong online presence your profits can still flourish. For an example of the potential available from PPC advertising see the Spaceslide case study.

Half of UK internet users have never clicked on a banner ad, according to recent research. A whopping 50.2% said that banner ads turn them cold, whilst only 6% said they click on banner ads several times a month.

The research revealed more bad news for advertisers as other forms of display advertising were also shunned by internet users. Pop-up ads were found to be even less popular than banner ads. Nearly seven out of ten people (69%) said they had never clicked on a pop-up.

Indeed, experts aren’t surprised by these statistics with many feeling that internet advertising should be more about awareness than direct response. To this end SEO takes on an even greater importance, ensuring visibility of your site above your major competitors.

If direct response advertising is proving so incredibly unpopular then organic optimisation can be seen as a more acceptable, cost-efficient and effective way of reaching your customers.