We love working with clients such as Marks & Spencer, Westfield Group, Mark Warner and Yell Marketing to help them make the most of online opportunities. We're also proud to be a Brighton business. Our team love living and working in a vibrant, successful city and we want to help other Brighton businesses flourish too. So, we're offering local SMEs a chance to benefit from some expert help and advice from the consultants who advise some of the UK's biggest and best brands. We're hosting two open days on: - Tuesday, 29th May - Wednesday, 6th June This is your chance to get some time with our team of experts - the people who deliver success for clients like the ones listed above - and get answers to the questions about doing online business that are important to you. There is no catch. We'd like to share our knowledge with you because we think sharing is a good thing. The only thing we ask in return is that the people and businesses we help consider sponsoring...

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I recently attended a seminar covering the online remit of the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA). If you haven’t already heard (where have you been?) the ASA's reach was extended in March 2011, to include marketing communications on brands’ own websites, Twitter feeds and Facebook pages. The seminar was a great chance to see examples of online campaigns that have come into question since then, and, more importantly, to hear the reasoning behind the decisions made about them. As a search and social agency, keeping on Google’s good side has always been a priority for us; but it's clear that, as online marketers and consultants, the ASA’s remit is just as important (and potentially quite useful in battling unethical SEO practice). Here’s why… Unmasking hidden, paid-for links One example case we were shown concerned an advertorial Flora pro.activ (or an unnamed agency on its behalf) placed on the Telegraph’s website. A complaint was made that the...

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Q. When is a panda a black swan? A. When the farm is run by turkeys and not turkey farmers. I was on stage at Brighton Dome for BrightonSEO last week and I thought I'd use my 15 minutes of fame to talk turkey with the people responsible for running the farm that is the SEO industry. (The presentation's here - take a look if you have a spare five minutes - it will help with what follows) I say 'running the farm' but I'm constantly shocked by how many times a group of such bright people (the SEO industry) get their necks wrung by the latest updates from the Googleplex. I thought it was time to get a few things straight.. Read the rest of this entry...

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You're fashion insiders (and regular readers of this blog) so you already know how important fashion bloggers are becoming. But what's coming next? That's one of the things we asked the bloggers in the know when the Front Row Society convened at Shoreditch House. Here are some of things we discussed: Technological developments In the last year alone we have seen the introduction of some fantastic new social tools and technologies that have made the fashion blogger’s life simpler, more social and more creative. From Pinterest, to Instagram, to Google Plus, these tools are helping bloggers to share their interests and thoughts quickly with readers. By being on so many platforms, bloggers can appeal to a much wider network of fans but they also need to tailor their sharing to the different mechanisms – for example, Disney Roller Girl pointed out that, mostly, her Twitter followers expect a different insight to that found on her blog. If you’re a fashion...

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Have you seen Shawn Achor’s TEDx talk on The Happy Secret To Better Work? It’s utterly inspiring. Not only because he’s an exceptional speaker but also because his views and opinions are music to the ears of progressive business people everywhere. Researching and teaching about positive psychology, as the CEO of Good Think Inc., Achor's work has dramatically increased success rates and profitability at a range of educational establishments and businesses, by increasing happiness and meaning. But this isn't a plug for Achor. It’s a huge plug for the benefits of putting Health and Wellbeing at the top of the agenda when it comes to building and running a sustainable and profitable business. If you’ve not watched the talk yet you might want to start there but, simply put, Achor's premise is this: "The approach to life of 'If I work harder I’ll be more successful: if I’m more successful, then I’ll be happier’ is wrong." Why? Because if...

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If there’s one thing we learned from our Front Row Society meet up, it’s that working with bloggers should be seen as more of a collaboration than a traditional PR-journalist relationship. Brands need to embrace the fact that blogs in general are personal and subjective - more akin to personal journals than online magazines. No matter how much traffic a blog gets, or how popular it becomes, there is usually still just one person behind it. Every blogger has their own style and interests so it makes complete sense that they create unique content for their readers. Why would they want to cover the story that everyone is writing about, if it's of no interest to them? It’s no good sending out a press release to 100 bloggers expecting them to write about your new product or event because they just won’t do it. What is news to you might not be news to them. During our Front Row Society evening we asked the invited bloggers to give us a rundown on brands and agencies they...

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It’s astonishing how many High Street retailers are invisible when it comes to search. Google’s latest clickstream research claims that 76% of apparel purchases included a search in the research journey but there’s a long list of well-known brands that seem happy to ignore the opportunity to get new customers online. So why does the High Street need to get serious about search? Brand protection Maybe ‘invisible’ was a little harsh. A lot of brands have great natural search visibility for brand and product terms, so if a customer already knows about them, or that it sells shoes or trousers or even a particular range of products, they should be able to find the site using a search engine. The problem is that in many cases there’s also a full page of paid search ads from competitors and resellers eager to snatch loyal customers away. In the vast majority of cases a small investment in paid search on branded keywords would deliver incremental traffic and...

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With spring/summer fashions hitting the shops and London Fashion week here it’s been a busy few weeks for our Fashion team (Mark Slade, Isa Lavahun, Megan Hart and Rik Turner). But between trend keyword forecasting and creating content, they still managed to find time to swing by swanky celeb hang out Shoreditch House for drinks with their favourite people: fashion bloggers. The event, the Front Row Society, organised by the Propellernet team, is an exclusive get together for the crème de la crème of the Fashion industry’s bloggers and Propellernet. Apart from always enjoying a good old gossip with our favourite fashion bloggers, the Society has been set up with the intention of staying abreast of the online fashion world and for the team here at Propellernet towers to find out what the fashion pack love, hate and how they’re shaping the industry. The evening’s dinner and debate was private which meant no subject was off limit. The idea was to gain true...

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What if Google suddenly lost interest in your site(s)? They wouldn't penalise you. They'd just shrug or yawn or somesuch and start smiling at something else instead. No hard feelings. Just a simple: "It's not us, it's you..." Read the rest of this entry...

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It won't come as a surprise to those of you who are parents, that after my wife gave birth to our twin girls on 1st September, I haven't had much sleep.   Abbie and Tia decided to join this world unexpectedly early - more than 12 weeks early in fact. The run up to the births was a little hectic - lots going on at work and the impending likelihood of becoming a dad any day, but there was never any pressure on me to work if I needed to be at Brighton hospital.   If it came to it, my colleagues were happy to rally around and cover my work knowing I had more important things to worry about.   My wife went into hospital in the early hours of Sunday morning and the girls arrived early on Thursday, weighing just over 2 pounds each. A quick email in from my phone explaining the situation and putting on my out-of-office, and I was able to focus on my new family for a few days without worrying about work - unbeknown to me the senior team here had met and each taken some of my...

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