In January, 3.6% of all referral traffic measured by Shareaholic came from Pinterest. This may seem  to be a fairly inconsequential amount, but in comparison to other better known social media networks it actually fares rather well.

Pinterest was only marginally behind Twitter (3.61%) and considerably ahead of YouTube, Google Plus, and LinkedIn for referral traffic generated. The significance of the figure is considerably enhanced when the number of active Pinterest users is taken into account; the site is dwarfed by those other networks in terms of size but has a comparable or better click through rate.

Pinterest is ideal for companies directly selling products to consumers. The company can ‘pin’ its products to boards to share with other users. It is also possible to create different boards to group similar types of products or to categorise boards by market; children, teens and so on.  It can also help a company’s search engine optimisation efforts by providing high quality links back to a website.

There are many social media options for companies to use for marketing and it is virtually impossible to maintain an effective presence over them all. However, Pinterest with its high referral rate may be worth taking a look at.

Last year, our Twitmas Grand Prize was a break at a beautiful cottage in France. Hard to beat, but this year, we think we just have.

Our 2011 Twitmas grand prize – isn’t just 1 prize.. but THREE. Giving more people a chance to win, and experience a real taste of luxury!

Starting on Friday (23rd December), we’ll be promoting prizes from without doubt, 2 of Glasgow’s best hotels – The Grand Central Hotel, and the ABode Hotel on Bath Street.

Both are offering one lucky Twitmas winner the chance of a free double or twin room on a “Bed and Breakfast” basis for an agreed date in 2012. If ever you needed a city break, now’s the time!

Then we move to Saturday – Christmas eve… and an exclusive offer from The Douglas Hotel on the fantastic Island of Arran! One final Twitmas winner will receive a TWO night stay, complete with breakfast, and a bottle of bubbly on arrival thrown in too! A perfect romantic getaway perhaps, allowing you to start 2012 in true style!

We’d like to thank all three of the hotels for agreeing to take part in this year’s Twitmas fun, but a very special thank you also to Alan Tennant – Regional Director of Hotels.TV Glasgow. Alan has been critical in securing these prizes, and so a massive thanks for helping us better our grand finale prizes!!

Follow @NSDesign on Twitter to ensure you don’t miss a thing..!

Best of Luck, and Merry Twitmas when it comes!

To recap:-

Day 5, on Friday, we had our first ever #FollowFotographers on Twitter – with prizes from not 1, not 2, but 3 photographers!! Our wonderful photographers in question were: @AFraserPhoto, @MarcdeRidder &@RonYoungPhoto.

• alasdairfraser.co.uk – gave away 3 x photo sessions inc 7×5″ print
• circleinlight.co.uk – is donating 2 free VR panos for your website
• ronyoungphotography.co.uk – free family portrait photo-shoot & CD of the images

Winning the voucher from @AFraserPhoto for a free photoshoot & 7×5 print were @LCbeauty @SandraCub and @garyckerr! Well done all 3! Then, @globalaudit won an amazing Virtual Reality Panoramic images for a website from @MarcdeRidder. Finally our congrats to @tracyknixon – for winning the free family portrait photo-shoot & CD of the images from @ronyoungphoto.

Day 6 – It was a variety of hosting, domain packages and Master Class places courtesy of,  well, NSDesign…so congrats go out to @LornaK_uk, @auld_guy @Glasgowbud1965 and @headphonaught too. Well done to you guys!

Day 7 – Our colleagues from the Luggage and Bag Shop donated some electronic luggage tags so your bags will never be lost again. What a brilliant concept!  The two lucky travelers who will benefit from the tags are – @almac1965 and @UtopiaScotland

Now don’t forget we still have a whole week to go on our Twelve Days of Twitmas! There are some real Christmas Crackers still to come. You’ll definitely want to keep following us right the way through the week until the grand prize on Christmas Eve!

Last week, Sheryl Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook, announced the remarkable new expansion plans from the website’s New York office.

Sandberg said that Facebook would increase its operations, adding a slew of new engineers to make current features even better and to write code to create new features.

The website currently has more than 800 million users – a figure that could increase as the website itself expands.
In order to facilitate the expansion, Facebook will open an engineering centre in New York City early next year. It will be the first such office for Facebook outside of the West Coast.

Sandberg told journalists at a press conference: “We’ll be adding thousands of employees in the next year.”

The social media behemoth currently employs more than 3000 people in California and 100 in New York.

Recruitment for the New York office has already begun, with Michael Bloomberg, the major of New York City, telling reporters: “They’re accepting applications if any of you need a job.”

The website already offers a wealth of benefits to SME internet marketing through fan pages, targeted ad campaigns and other brand awareness initiatives. It is expected that the new engineers who join Facebook will work to create newer offerings for marketers to help them reach even more clients and consumers.

In the ring, WWE superstars John Cena and The Rock will face each other next spring at Wrestlemania 28.

Tonight, they’ll fight on the same side as tag team partners against The Miz and R-Truth at Survivor Series.

But on Twitter and Facebook, they’ve been competing against each other for months – fighting for followers and “LIKES” and taking fan engagement to previously unseen levels.

Your business might be more familiar with invoices, spreadsheets and databases rather than pin falls, count outs and submissions,
but there’s still a lot you can learn from what these two athletes are doing on social media.

Let’s take a closer look and see whether The Rock or John Cena is doing it best.

Facebook.com/johncena has a staggering 9,225,814 LIKES. More than 9 million people engage with this guy on Facebook. A recent post attracted more than 19 thousand comments and there were more than 51 thousand responses to a poll asking fans “Was it fair or foul for Cena to use duct tape to win a last man standing match against Batista?”

Huge numbers and any business would be delighted with that level of response. But wait a minute, put it in context. 19 thousand or 51 thousand responses out of 9 million? That’s a tiny proportion.

Why don’t more people talk back to him on his wall?

I think it’s because they never see him speaking directly.

All the content is obviously written by someone else. It’s interesting and engaging and provokes a response, but it’s not coming straight from Cena himself.

Posts like this…

“John Cena’s father John Sr., came out to scold the Boston crowd for
booing his son. But the ultimate rebuke came at the hands of The Great One!”

and this…

“TONIGHT, RAW GETS ROCKED as The Rock returns to Monday Night Raw LIVE in a special 3-hour episode, starting at 8/7 CT! How will John Cena react when his tag team partner for Survivor Series brings it live… and not via satellite?”

Are good but lack authenticity and emotion.

If I was to give John Cena a tip to make his Facebook even better, it would be this – talk directly to the fans on your wall.

Now let’s look at how The Rock does it.

Facebook.com/dwaynejohnson has 4,454302 LIKES on his Facebook page. Half as many as Cena, but he’s using it much more effectively.

At 6”4 in real life The Rock has a 3 inch height advantage over Cena. And on Facebook a custom size profile picture means The Rock dominates the left hand side of the page with a large “strip” picture, while Cena makes do with a small thumbnail in the left hand corner.

2^nd tip for Cena – make full use of the space available to you.

Another victory for The Rock now, he’s using a custom landing page to talk directly to fans BEFORE they click LIKE on his page. A
video message starts rolling and he asks visitors to take a pledge..”to stand fearless in the face of adversity and bring it everyday”.

I can become a member of “Team Bring It”. There’s a clear call to action. I get the feeling The Rock really WANTS me on this page, it matters to him, he’s actively involved in this. I feel like he’ll even notice me becoming part of his community and be pleased with me.

Cena? He’s getting the guys that do the company magazine to stick his messages up.

The Rock’s big on Twitter too and he brings added energy to his Facebook page by embedding his Twitter on it. So I can see in real time what he and his fans are talking about and it makes me want to join in.

On his wall, The Rock talks directly to his people. With messages like this…

Our connection: POWERFUL.

It’s my honor being The People’s Champion.

Team Bring It.

And…

Bad guys, good guys and monsters – I HUNT ‘EM ALL. Boots To Monster Asses.

And…

Let’s strive for perfection today…

We won’t ever be perfect – but in the process we’ll find our greatness.

He gives advice, he shares his thoughts, feelings, and even tells his fans what he’s praying for. There are behind the scenes pictures (he dressed up as Fred Flintstone at Halloween) video clips he’s shot on his mobile phone and content not just about himself, but people he admires (Mike Tyson and Muhammed Ali).

One recent post attracted more than 62 thousand LIKES and 11,241 comments. He doesn’t post as often as Cena, (once or twice a week rather than once or twice a day) but when he does it makes a deeper connection. He’s getting the same, or sometimes even higher levels of engagement on half the number of followers John Cena has.

And for that reason, I declare The Rock the winner. He might not have quite such massive numbers, but he’s doing it better and that makes him my social media champ.

Now check out both their pages yourself and see what else your business can learn from them.

Rumours aren’t information. They are mis-information therefor Google should help us distinguish between the two. And a company with its size and clout could do this very simply.

As things stand, Google’s search algorithm picks up frequent search terms and gives them prominence, even returning them as suggestions before you’ve finished typing. For example if there was a sudden surge in people using Google to find out if I was dead, then after a short while, starting to type a  search for “Colin Kelly” would throw up the automatic suggestion “Colin Kelly Dead” alongside other frequent search terms associated with my name. You can see how this fuels the rumour.

People trust Google and it is often their first port of call on the internet. It is the place many people turn when they’ve heard rumour or misinformation on Twitter or Facebook, or even Wikipedia.  ”What does Google say?” is, rightly or wrongly, many people’s response.

By returning the “xxxx dead” suggestion Google is actively contributing to the spread of rumour and misinformation. People spot made up nonsense on social networks and turn to Google for help. When they see the “xxxx dead” suggestion they of course proceed to click it which gives that search term EVEN MORE prominence on Google, making the whole thing worse. This is all based around common searches, remember there is NO actual website stating that “xxx” is dead, simply chatter on social media

If they simply removed all Google Instant suggestions that include the words “dead” Google could help clear this up. If someone actually is dead, then a simple search for their name should return a reputable website explaining this. There’s absolutely no need to include “dead” as a suggestion. They could fix this now and I believe it would go a long way to helping stop the spread of rumours which begin on social media.

Celebrities could also play their part by NOT paying tribute to dead people directly on social media but instead linking to a tribute on their official website. This will stop fake celebrity accounts helping to give death rumours credibility.

And the rest of us need to stop behaving like sheep and realise no friend or family member with any sense would announce a death purely via social media. For things of this nature there will be a more appropriate source. Don’t give the rumour any credence or response until you’ve seen it.

It annoys me when a tiny minority give social media a bad name and I believe there are simple mechanisms which could be put in place to improve things for everyone.

Godwin discovered that his force did not have the legal power to shut down the social networking site and subsequently raised the subject with the government.

Mr Godwin told MPs at the home affairs select committee: “I contemplated seeking the authority to switch it off. The legality of that is very questionable. We did not request that it was turned off but it is something we are pursuing as part of our investigative strategy.”

Many of those taking part in the violence organised themselves on Twittter as well as BBM. BBM cannot be monitored by police as easily as Twitter can.

In fact, many of the discussions on Twitter helped police to stop further trouble: they secured the Olympic site in Stratford, east London, after talk on the site suggested that it was going to be targeted.

Keith Vaz, chair of the home affairs select committee, said that he did not realise that the police had even considered shutting down social networks but that this option should be examined because Twitter and its counterparts had “allowed people to turn up at very short notice to demonstrate and riot”.

He said “We should look at whether we should give power to the police to order social media sites to behave in a certain way.”

Any use of technology to help fight one of the world’s biggest killers is a great development and I’m convinced smart phones and the internet can make a massive contribution to solving health problems BUT I’m a bit worried about this.

I should stress I haven’t used this app yet and can’t comment specifically on how it operates. But we’re always told the key thing with skin cancer is to go to a GP and get any strange spots, moles, or patches checked out immediately. My fear is this might put some people off and they’d get used to monitoring the situation on their phone, rather than going to visit a professional.

I’m sure this app makes it clear that it’s a guide and no replacement for a physician but I think there’s needs to be very careful guidance when using such readily available technology for such a potentially serious condition. Maybe Apple should launch a seperate “health division” which works with the professional agencies and experts and decides what’s suitable to include and issues some official guidance on their use? I’m interested in your thoughts.

We need to do this, there’s no doubting its importance, but I wonder if we’re becoming guilty of overlooking the content side of things.

After all, it doesn’t matter if you’re in print, broadcasting, sharing links or Audioboos on social media or making something available as a podcast..if the content is rubbish, no-one’s going to want it.

The other side of the coin is that if the content is strong, it can be spread across all those different platforms, have a bigger impact and ultimately make more money.

One man who fully understands this is Ryan Seacrest.

He’s known around the world as the unflappable host of “American Idol” but to me, he’s the best example of how to make great content work in this new digital world.

Seacrest studied journalism and got his start in radio and I’m a big admirer.

He’s worked his way up over the last 15 years and now hosts a daily breakfast show at KIIS FM in Los Angeles.

That programme gives him access to some of the biggest names in showbiz. So when tabloids run a story about Britney Spears’ love life its Seacrest’s programme she calls to clear up the rumours.

His great skill lies in knowing what his audience wants and not getting in the way of it. You’ll see it on “Idol” where he describes his own role as that of a “traffic cop” gently guiding the audience and the contestants through the show. Keeping everyone moving, but never overshadowing what’s going on.

It’s the same with his radio programme. Listen to it and you might ask “What did Ryan Seacrest actually do in that programme?” But take him away and there’d be a gaping void.

 I know this seems like a strange compliment but the place he occupies when he’s on air is similar to the role Kermit The Frog plays on The Muppet Show.

 He’s not particularly funny, doesn’t reveal much about himself, doesn’t have “an act” of his own but represents the “everyman” keeping the viewer engaged and guiding them through all the sleaze, scandal and turmoil of another day in showbiz central.

 And like the best journalists, when he gets a nugget of great content, Seacrest absolutely maximises its worth.

 He recognised years ago that the 4 hours of content he generates on air every day had a value beyond Kiss FM Los Angeles.

A producer sits listening to his programme and takes clips of the best material. References to time, place and the music and adverts are cut out and the content is re-packaged into a syndicated programme available to radio stations all over the world.

This week, Real Radio in Scotland (and its sister stations throughout the UK)  joined in and now broadcast Seacrest’s programme from 11pm-1am weeknights.

It’s a great listen and the programme team at Real Radio are able to insert their own choice of music, Seacrest provides a few specific mentions for “our listeners inScotland” and the Scottish audience gets access to a presenter they know from television and the unique content he’s able to provide.

Seacrest gets millions from the worldwide syndication and his content continues making money long after he’s left the radio studio.

He then takes that same content and sprinkles it across social media and his own website while simultaneously promoting the Bing search engine AND the following day’s radio programme.

And he’s smart. While almost every other radio presenter in the world wears giant “ear defender” headphones during their programme, Seacrest prefers tiny in-ear iPhone style models so his team can film segments for his You Tube channel without him looking ridiculous.

Seacrest works hard, but his content works harder. And without understanding how to harness it he’d never have enjoyed so much success.

What can we learn from this? It’s about figuring out what we’re best at and giving it 100%, giving it a life cycle beyond the initial broadcast, publication or sale.

The lessons apply to every business but require discipline, creative thinking and a firm focus on what you do that actually generates value, rather than what you’d like to do or what you think you should.

Consider how you can make the most of what you’ve got and go for it. As Seacrest says himself on his Twitter page – “The day will happen whether or not you get up”.

Although the attack happened in May, the banking giant has only just revealed the news – something which has drawn criticism from the banking industry and consumers alike.

Customers’ names, account numbers and contact details were exposed during the attack, although the bank says that other data such as dates of birth and card security codes were not revealed.

A Citibank spokesman told the Reuters news agency: “We are contacting customers whose information was impacted. City has implemented enhanced procedures to prevent a recurrence of this type of event.”

Around 1% of the bank’s 21m customers were affected by the theft.

This is the latest in a string of internet hacking attacks on major corporations, with both Sony and Google falling prey in the last few weeks.

The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), which regulates the USA’s banks, is now pushing them to introduce enhanced account security measures.

The events should act as a warning to UK banks – and indeed all organisations that store customer data – to step up their internet security measures.