One of the benefits of Buzz is you can link your account to your Picasa, Twitter and Flickr account showing all your updates in Buzz. There is also the option to set individual posts to public or private or even to specific groups you have set up in Buzz so if you wanted to let a certain customer base know about the latest product release or sale you could easily share this information to all your followers. One of my current favorites is that you can associate pictures with Buzz in Google Maps and conversations will appear on Google Maps, allowing you to see what other people are saying nearby.

Although Buzz has got off to a slightly shaky start as some users were automatically connected to those they emailed frequently on Gmail and then those connections were showed publicly to everyone. The problem with this for some users which include doctors and solicitors is that it publicly showed their patients / clients to their other contacts which could lead to clients and patients to feel exposed. On a personal level one Buzz users abusive ex boyfriend was added so he was then able to see all her current contacts. These security issues have lead to a privacy review and Google have been in talks with Federal and Provincial Privacy Officials in Canada and other countries. Google will need to address these as quickly as they can to satisfy users and keep them hooked.

I am undecided about Google Buzz at the minute but I have been using it a little this week and will continue to use it, I will keep you up dated.

If you are running a company wordpress blog you can add the Google Buzz bookmark button here.

This story is a little different however; this is about the United Airlines handling of a complaint made by a guy called Dave Carroll that UA damage his guitar while on a short internal flight. This I am sure has happened to a lot of people but guitars are particularly expensive as well as obviously fragile and the baggage handlers really should have known better.

Anyway after a year of chasing them Dave decided that he world should know of his problems, so he and his band put together a song and video and put it on YouTube.  It’s embedded below.

It’s really funny and well put together and a deeper background of the song is available on his own blog.

Obviously this is a huge embarrassment for UA, they have a company Twitter profile that was basically bombed with RT of this video and the video itself has thousands of comments and a full 5 star rating.

At this point SEOMoz featured a post about management of this type of problem and how so many companies don’t take social media seriously etc. It’s a very good post which I recommend you read but the crux was that UA should take this as a marketing opportunity, get in touch with him and make sure everyone knows you are doing what you can to rectify it.

Well it seems someone paid attention because shortly after they did contact him and since then have taken several positive steps for both themselves and customers.  Dave did a video response here .

The company offered a decent amount of compensation which Dave has diverted to charity and the company have gone as far to actually use the song as a training video according to Twitter. There are also talks of a follow-up song made in co-operation with the two.

Fantastic move by UA and great initial effort from Dave and his friends. Social media management si becoming a necessity in todays business world and case studies like this should be shown to all the “savvy” marketing guys heading up multinationals.

There are many different ways to market your product but some companies are taking advantage of the currently very popular social messaging site Twitter.  Twitter gives you the potential to connect with many “followers” and Moonfruit have explored the potential of this with their latest competition.

If you haven’t heard of Moonfruit they are a free website builder site currently celebrating their 10 year anniversary marking the occasion by giving away 10 free MacBooks.  All that you have to do to be in with a chance to win this great prize is tweet “#moonfruit”.

Other companies have also tried the same technique but Moonfruit have taken on board how they could make the campaign work better for them.  A good example of this is SquareSpace (also a website builder) who offered the chance to win iPhones (gift certificates) and are now under scrutiny for deceptive advertising.  I think the more expensive prize and it not being a gift certificate easily makes this prize stand out – although I would love an iPhone too.

Moonfruit have gained a lot of interest in this social media campaign and went almost instantly from 1,000 followers to 30,000 followers.

If you have not signed up for Twitter yet – may be this post will encourage you to see the potential for your company.  But, whether the tweeters that have helped promote Moonfruit in the last few days (in order to be in with a chance to win the MacBook) will use the sitebuilder is another question?

That’s because I usually have a phone with an MP3 player, why would I buy another? Well I needed a new phone and after all the hype I decided to go headfirst into the world of Apple and choose the iPhone 3GS.

As you have guessed this is a review post however the difference is that I am presenting it from two unique angles, firstly my view of the product as someone who typically would never spend £500 on a phone and secondly from the SEM professionals point of view.

Top 5 Things My Anti-Apple Side Likes About the iPhone

App Prices are great, most good apps are free and even the games and apps that do cost are generally worth it. Well done Apple for vetting entries and well done developers for making them worth downloading.

Battery Life is better than I expect. Maybe it’s because I have 3GS or maybe it’s because I turned no essential service off but it easy lasts a day and I had heard stories of 8 hour lifespan and worse.

Keyboard is nowhere near as hard to get used to as I expected. Sure for the first 60 seconds I was pressing things I didn’t mean too and taking half an hour to send an SMS but I have adapted to the interface very quickly. That’s when you know it has been designed well.

Gaming is fantastic on the iPhone. It’s like a cross between a PSP and a DS, that’s the good sides of each too, great graphic and sound on addictive, small but great games. Crystal Defenders Vanguard, Field Runners and Tap Tap Revenge are my current favourites.

Build Quality is what surprised me most, because it’s amazing. The iPhone is solid. I had tinkered with them before but you always hold you own things differently to others. Yes it’s kind of heavy and big but it still fits in my pocket and it feels like it’s worth that bit extra. When I pick up my old phone it now feels cheap, really cheap.

Top 5 Things about the iPhone as an SEM

E-Mails are pretty much an essential part of being an SEM, now I can access them on the move without having to pay £2 per MB downloaded. Yay.

Twitter Apps are amazing, now I can keep up to date with all the latest SEM news (and my mates of course) without being near any other form of tech. Great for knowing everything that changed while you were out of the office!

WordPress App is pretty cool, I can update blogs, send pictures etc from my little iPhone. Obviously it’s not as easy as from a keyboard but when you are on the move it’s a real useful app to have.

Google App is ace too, check my rankings from a different perspective, find what I’m looking for news wise, pretty much the whole package converted for easy use on the iPhone. I hear the docs stuff is good too but I don’t use them.

Notes are really useful. Voice Memos are pretty much the same thing but equally as useful. In the hustle and bustle of everyday office work these can be so useful to keep you on top of stuff. I know that even my old phone has this functionality but the iPhone makes it so much easier and more fun.

So there you go, I’m converted. OK so I won’t be rushing out and buying a MacBook Air quite yet but I have taken a big step and no matter how much it costs, I really like my iPhone, lets just hope o2 can deliver some semi-decent service.

Now I guess that Facebook being the number one ad publisher is only common sense really, after all it is still by far the most used website on the internet, despite Twitter making a serious challenge to this claim in recent months.  But the fact that the next nearest display ad publisher, Microsoft Websites, achieved less than 1/3 of the ad impressions with figures of 3.8 Billion, demonstrates the huge advertising potential that Facebook offers.

These stats make very interesting reading, and they will undoubtedly have marketing professionals once again questioning the effectiveness of display advertising.

Do people buy from adverts displayed on Social Networks? Surely people are on these sites to socialise and not to buy goods and services!

Do these display adverts have any impact on the viewer when there is so much else going on on the page?

Etc, etc – the questions go on.

Although I cannot give you a definitive answer to whether display adverting is an effective use of your valuable online marketing budget, what I will say is take a look at the type of companies who are spending the most on display advertising (again published by ComScore recently). 5 of the top 10 display advertisers in April where telecoms companies.

Why? Well these companies rely heavily on reinforcing brand awareness and it is an ongoing process for them. They do not know when you or I may want to change out telecoms provider, but when we do make that decision they want to know that we are aware of their brand. These companies are not necessarily looking to make a sale from their display advertising instantly, they just want to ensure that we know they are out there – and what better way to do that than have a strong presence on our favourite website.

Obviously not all of us can afford to take this route. Generally we need to know that our money is being spent effectively, providing a good level of that all important phrase, Return On Investment.

However, if building brand awareness is one of your targets, and you have some funds to put towards this aim then I suggest that running display ads on Social Networks is an excellent place to start.

How is it going out there in the digital world? We just wanted to give you an official welcome to the Soula Blog.

On an almost daily basis you will find the Soula Blog is updated with the latest insights from the digital design and marketing field as well as the adventures of the Soula team in our office and around the world!

Want to know more about us? Check out the main pages of the site, follow us on Twitter or check out our latest photos on Flickr!

The blog itself is going through a revamp so expect to see some great new designs, more information about us and pictures soon.

Goodbye for now but expect to hear more from us soon!

-The Soula Team