One of the most interesting aspects of digital marketing currently is watching and advising companies developing strategies for how Twitter can support their business.  I did a roundup in Feb 2009 on different approaches businesses are taking in their Twitter strategy. So, I was pleased to receive a review copy of the Twitter book by @timoreilly who is best known for first defining the Web 2.0 concept and has over 600,000 followers (not bad for a business bod) and @SarahM who is a Twitter specialist who describes herself in her bio as  the 21st user of Twitter. This post gives a brief review of the book and highlights, what for me, were the 10 most  useful practical tips for companies developing their Twitter business strategy. Since I like to be useful, I'll also summarise some of the tools I found useful in the book which I wasn't aware of. …

In my experience, many companies fail in their link-building, even when they know it's important, because an integrated approach is not used. Many other companies fail because they don't know the importance of backlinks to SEO, so they just concentrate on on-page optimisation. This post talks about companies who know its importance. I was reminded of this when browsing the June issue of the excellent Search Marketing Standard (everyone serious about SEO should be a subscriber). In an article Link by Link: Reconstructing the Past 15 Years, link-building specialist Eric Ward reviewed some of his learnings from the last 15 years and I thought it would be useful to pass on a summary of his key learnings and recommendations - they're relevant to everyone:  site owners, marketers, PRs and of course SEOs. I always listen to what Eric Ward has to say about using link-building for SEO since he has been a…

I announced the publication of the 4th edition of my Ebusiness and Ecommerce management book via Twitter recently and a couple of people asked me what was new. Fair question! So, here from the preface is a chapter-by-chapter summary list. [amazon-product]0273719602[/amazon-product] [amazon-product region="us"]0273719602[/amazon-product] If you're not familiar with the book, I have also included this figure which provides a framework for managing resources needed for sell-side E-commerce in a large organisation. It gives an idea of most the ebusiness management issues that I tackle in the book. OK, so on to the changes. The chapter structure of previous editions has been retained, but many other changes have been incorporated based on lecturer and student feedback. There are two main new features. First, new case studies in boxes "Real-world E-business experiences - The E-consultancy interview" are introduced at the start of most chapters. These are interviews with…

Microsoft's Bing search engine launched on the 1st June. This post summarises my recommendations on the features for marketers to consider. We have to start with popularity - how many will use the new search engine. Microsoft has been somewhat successful in retaining market share in the US primarily through it's cashback affiliate scheme and the launch is likely to increase this. It has an 8% share of searches. In the UK Live Search had a lower share of around 1% according to Hitwise comScore Core Search Report* April 2009 vs. March 2009 Total U.S. "€“ Home/Work/University Locations Source: comScore qSearch Core Search Entity Share of Searches (%) Mar-09 Apr-09 Point Change Apr-09 vs. Mar-09 Total Core Search 100.0 …