Trying to collate user information for Facebook and Twitter can be slightly tricky at best. If for arguments sake we accept that Facebook has in excess of 750 million users and Twitter has just recently passed the 100 million mark, we can say with a large amount of confidence that these sites command a great deal amount of respect as online communities.
Furthermore, according to research from Basekit, 36 per cent of UK businesses are using Facebook to attract new customers, making it a more popular tool for advertising than the Yellow Pages and Thomson Local.

So we have established that social media is big and that in itself is a rather obvious statement. So, where is this going you ask? There has been considerable research into how people log onto social media sites in recent years. US digital world measurer’s comscore report titled “2012 Mobile Future in Focus”, gives strong insight into the changes in behaviour we have towards social media and our hand held devices. The report highlighted that in the US there were more than 400 smartphone devices on the market. Furthermore, 2011 saw the smartphone market overtake normal handsets in Germany, France and the US joining the UK and Spain which achieved this feat in 2010.

Given the fact that smartphone penetration grew at least 8 percentage points in the US and the five strongest European economies in 2011, I would suggest that it is the development of smart phones that have allowed social media sites to gain the edge I online marketing rather than anything ground breaking from Facebook or Twitter.

Hardcore fans of such social media sites would scoff at this. I suggest that they would point to the fact that smart phones have developed new technologies so that users can have easier access to social media. I accept that in recent year’s large phone manufacturers have been judged by consumers on how well they connect to social media but it is still my belief that the smartphone market is driving social media interactions. Would people be as engaged with Facebook if they were no longer able to access it on the move? I will allow you to forge your own opinions on that but I would argue interactions would decrease at some rate.

Although most analysts would refute that the desktop/laptop PC market was dying out, new methods of interacting are constantly evolving. As this evolutionary process continues, social media will grow.

As tablets develop and become more affordable, it is likely that in the coming years these devices will provide a challenge for the PC and laptop manufacturers giving grounds for the growing argument those users want to access social media on the move.

People want to interact with social media on the move in 2012, which is obvious. As a greater number of small businesses place an importance on social media in relation to marketing campaigns, this can only seriously take off if smart phones and tablets become more affordable.

So as smartphone brands are now tasked with rebranding and becoming life necessities, there is serious room for a budget smartphone to dominate the space. Nokia, once the world’s leading mobile phone provider, last month announced it would unveil its new budget smartphone, the Lumia 610. In China, a country that boats the largest percentage of smartphone users, the country’s largest search giant, Baidu, launched its first budget smartphone.

Whether we accept that smartphones have driven social interactions or not, what is clear is that people want to use social media on the go. It is the wrong strategy for companies to only sell from 9am – 5pm, Monday to Friday. If the cost of smartphones does begin to decrease, the potential customer numbers online and engaged with social media is potentially astronomical. Social media sites have of course benefited from this but the real winners have and will continue to be small/medium sized businesses.

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Logo design is something of an art form. It’s an endless task of trying to get a simple shape to do multiple jobs.

The core aim of a logo is to be:

• Unique
• Simple
• Communicative
• Memorable
• Eye-catching

The most recognisable logos tend to be very, very simple. Take Nike, McDonalds or Apple. No complicated illustrations or Photoshop filters in sight. Well, sometimes they use them, but what I am saying is at the core of the logo there are no gradients or filters. Simply using a flat shape is just as successful as it is when it’s made to look super glitzy.

Creating great logos is never easy, but given a set of guides, you could create great logos or even adapt an existing logo to be superior.

I will apply the steps to a fictional company – Bellisimo Diner (A Premium local Italian Restaurant, where you can order pizza online). Not all rules will apply to all logos, but this should give you an insight into the choices made in a typical logo design project.

1. Closely examine what you have to play with

First things first. Check out the logos of your competition and aim to improve on them. This gives you a goal. Aim to create something more appealing and unique than your peers.

Then, type out the logo in a standard everyday font, like Georgia and Helvetica, and examine the words in both uppercase and lowercase. This will show you what you have to play with. Look at the space between letters and how the letters interact. Forget what they say for now, this is all about shapes and letterforms. Is the letter-spacing even on all letters? What special shapes do I have to work with e.g. “G” with a closed hoop, or “G” with an open hoop.

You might identify glyphs, and unique forms made up from letters (See the Fed Ex Logo hidden Arrow). I find company names that are very long or contain numbers the hardest to work with (123-reg ).

Another good thing to aim for is a strong silhouette. As with good icon design, your logo needs to boast a strong, unique outline for the eye to scan and remember. Coca-Cola is a good example of this. If the outline is not clear, the concept will fail.

2.       Size and Proximity

The next step is to balance the text and investigate different layouts of text. If possible, you’ll want to distinguish the business core differentiator. In this case the company is a Diner “Bellissimo” is just filler; it’s redundant to the viewer so this becomes secondary in size, or weight.  Initially I set the logo out in all uppercase, as this gave me good solid edges to work with.

When playing with the size of elements, try to apply simple maths rules to the layout. For example, if line 1 of your logo is to be smaller in height than line 2, as with our “Bellissimo Diner” logo. Try to make line 1 half, or a third of the height of the line 2. This will give it some order and vertical rhythm.

3.       Typography and additional elements

This is where you identify which fonts are suitable for your identity. And this is also where there are so many pitfalls to avoid. I see far too many logo’s with strong concepts that with an unsuitable font choice have been ruined. In my opinion fonts are the nuts and bolts of any design, choose the right one, and the design is in a good place to succeed, the wrong one and it will fall over.

Font selection is like a tone of voice. Do you want your company to sound like a corporate newsreader (Think Michael Burke – Garamond), or a surfer (Rockwell), or the 80’s Movie Trailer Guy (Trajan).

There are millions of freely available fonts all over the internet. Dafont is a good starting point for free fonts, but and this is a big but, the best, premium fonts you have to pay for. Check out fontfont.com or myfonts.com. Choose wisely and these fonts will make your brand sing.

For our fictional firm, i’ve gone with the bold sans serif “Avant Garde” for the DINER which is fairly stylish and understated, and Harlow, an Italian looking script for the “Bellisimo”.

At this point you should have a decent concept to take further. From there you can go on and introduce colour and texture. But remember, if the logo doesn’t work in black and white, it certainly won’t in any other colour. One final rule is to try and produce a logo that works on a dark background and a light background. If it works on both, your on to a winner.

Have a play with the several concepts, derived from the steps above. Then choose one that feels right and develop further. A good rule of thumb is to leave a concept for a day or two and return to see if it still feels as good. Another good tip is to look at it in a mirror, and see if it still looks balanced.

If it feels right go grab a beer and put your feet up. Your new logo is well on it’s way.

Good luck with your logo project, I hope this helps…

The author of this post, Ian Ryde is a Designer who has worked at 123-reg since 2006. He designed the current logos for 123-reg and our sister brand Webfusion. He is obsessed about typography, and nuts about all things made from pixels.

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This is one of the most frequently asked questions in SEO. Unfortunately, there is no exact time frame as there are many factors that determine how long it takes for an implemented SEO strategy to be effective.

SEO should be a long term strategy, but few companies understand this and expect immediate, if not instant results. SEO campaigns take time and money as well, but if done right, these can bring amazing results. If you really need to know a time frame, usually it can take up to 18 months for an SEO campaign for a new domain to get results.

So, don’t expect overnight success because that’s impossible, and those who promise you the moon will only end up hurting your site. Usually the consultants and agencies that assure you your site will rank #1 for a keyword in a very short time frame are tricking the system. This won’t take long for major search engines to discover and it can damage your site and, more importantly, your brand in the long run. All the time and money you will have invested will have been for nothing.

What factors to consider

To determine how long it may take to see results, there are some factors to consider, such as the time and money you are investing, the competition and SEO specific-factors like link building and search engine indexing.

Indexing - If you have a brand new website, it may take a few weeks for search engines to find it and index it. To help the process, publish fresh content as often as you can as this can speed up the indexing process.

Link building – There is really no time frame for link building. This should be an ongoing process where you focus on building a steady and natural number of links.

Competition – If the market is extremely competitive, it may take longer to get results. That’s why we recommend optimising for long tail keywords that are more specific to your products and services. This will help you gain rankings much faster than if you would target general keywords where the competition is fierce.

Time and money – As in most cases, the more you invest, the better the return of investment. This is especially important for new sites that have a lot of competition from older sites with authority.

When it comes to SEO campaigns, you should be prepared to invest time and money and, if everything’s done by the book, you will get great results, you just have to patient.

How long before you started getting results from your SEO campaign?

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The internet is an amazing place. It can unite, inspire, move and arouse. There are an infinite number of sites to look at and an amazing amount of information out there, waiting to be accessed.

Why then do I only ever really look at 4 sites – Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and eBay? I have to confess, I am a massive eBay addict, despite the fact it’s written with a lower case e and then a capital b. That makes no grammatical sense whatsoever and is actually quite annoying. Still, where else am I going to spend money I don’t have on tat I don’t need?

I have made it my personal mission to delve deeper into the www and find gems that are hidden away, waiting for someone to stumble across them, dust them off, and hold them up to the bright sunlight of scrutiny. OK, I got a bit lost in that metaphor (or simile, I’m not fussy) but hopefully you get the idea. I find good stuff. I show to you. You like.

Recently I have been marvelling at 19^th century technology via 21^st century machinery. The photograph has taken many shapes and forms over the years, but it’s always going to be a part of our lives and with the sale of Instagram for $190 billion , photos have never been cooler.

The best sites are the ones that keep on giving. Well, actually, the best sites are the ones with free knockers, but let’s try and keep this clean.  www.dearphotograph.com is deceptively simple.  At first glance, it’s people taking photographs of them holding up photographs. Wow. AMAZING! But look closer, it’s so much more than that. It’s pictures of ghosts.

Author Taylor Jones has collected hundreds of photos of people standing in the site where old photos were taken, whilst holding those old photos up in the same position they were taken. There, got it? No, because it is bloody hard to describe.

OK. Imagine you have a photo from the 70’s of your mum stood on some church steps. You then go back to those same church steps, armed with that photo and a camera. You hold the photo up so it looks like mum is still on those steps, and snap, you take a photo of that! There, that should help get an image in your head. I was thinking of explaining this with a comparison to the ‘Crush Your Head’ guy, but how on earth a reference to a long forgotten character in cult Canadian sketch show Kids in the Hall with help is anyone’s guess. But it’s sort of similar. Have a look http://youtu.be/1pKXMcfx1d8

While I may not have sold this site too well, it’s definitely worth checking out. It starts off cute, but as I kept looking and reading the stories that go with them, I started to get very emotional. I’ll be honest, the picture of an old man holding a baby with the caption ‘This is how my granddad used to hold me…now I am holding him’ had me in tears. But shh, don’t tell anyone or I will have to kill you. And then take a photo of it.

If you want proper spooky pics, then have a look at this www.scienceofghosts.com – this is genuinely amazing. Do ghosts exist? Of course not, don’t be silly, but this corner of cyberspace almost convinces me they do. Some of the pictures need a bit of concentration, but when you finally ‘see’ that head of a dead man hovering behind a 2 year old in a garden (I realise I needn’t have put the word dead, as ghosts do tend to be rather deceased by definition) a tiny little bit off wee will leave your body. Or what about the wedding photo? Nothing there, but hang on, I can see something behind that dudes trousers, and if you look up a bit…IT’S A TINY DEAD MAN POKING OUT FROM BEHIND!

Again, it almost definitely isn’t because I am not a 12 year old girl and so I KNOW FOR A FACT that ghosts DO NOT EXIST. It’s a shame, because I’d love to meet one, but it just ain’t gonna happen.

Some paranormal photos that aren’t quite so impressive can be found on www.ghostphotos.org This site claims to contain pictures of ghosts. I can tell you now, they aren’t. They are just very, very bad photos. Circling a blob and saying it’s a man’s face, does not make it a man’s face. It makes it a blob. Seriously, I have never seen such bad ghostly images in my life. One is titled ‘Ed eating a peanut butter and jelly’ and that’s all it is. A man wearing braces, eating a sandwich in a really blurry photo. THAT IS NOT SUPERNATURAL OR SPOOKY ON ANY LEVEL! It is, however, very funny that someone could think these pictures were worth sharing with the entire world. Worth having a look just for a giggle.

If you’ve got any sites you think I should be looking at, please let me know iainATiainlee.com (you know replacing AT with @ so the spammers don’t get me!)

You can read Iain Lee’s very own take on the internet here on the 123-reg blog every last Friday of the month.

A familiar face on television since he got his first break landing the job hosting Channel 4’s thrice weekly topical comedy show the 11 O’Clock Show at the age of 25, Iain is also an award winning radio presenter, top podcast creator and a genuinely funny guy with an eye for the bizarre.

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The internet truly offers a world of possibilities. You can connect to friends on the other side of the world, you can purchase almost anything your ever wanted (and lots you never needed), you can watch video, listen to music, you can even remotely control appliances within your home. The internet is fantastic at giving power and knowledge to everybody and anybody, but the one thing it can’t guarantee is protection for the stupid.

That may sound harsh but sometimes, as the wonderful Darwin Awards have been showing for years there are some people in this wide world who  are just beyond help. If the Darwin’s used the internet to make more aware of the fact, the internet itself is now doing its best to highlight the shortcomings of more and more people in this world we live in.

In the past week we have seen stories of the internet cafe robbers who left themselves logged in to Facebook and now the iPhone thief who uploaded his own family photos to the phone’s Photo Stream on iCloud. In days gone by we may never have learnt of such stupidity yet, the internet is full of tales like this in ever growing numbers.

Yet don’t confuse stupid with ignorance. There is nothing to be ashamed of about being ignorant on certain aspects of the online world. Even this blogger – a so called expert – gets caught out every now and then, the topic, the possibilities are so vast. In fact, that is why 123-reg is here. We aim to make the internet simple and make its possibilities accessible to all. We aim to educate and inform via this blog. Not just on our own products, but on the wider world wide web in general. Via our support site, we also aim to guide and hand-hold our customers attempting to get the best out of our products and each and every tweak to our site and product range is designed to open more doors and more potential revenue streams to our customers, whatever their level of understanding.

The internet is a world of possibilities, waiting to be tapped. Your 123-reg account is the most resourceful tool you are ever likely to come across to use it wisely and use it well.

If you have any particular aspect of 123-reg products, of the world wide web, or technology in general that you think needs explanation let us know.

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If you need to know something, clarify something or just check some facts you used to be told “phone a friend”. Nowadays even your gran would probably tell you to “Google it”. Yet, as Google’s vast database has grown and SEO experts have tried hard to hog the top search results, actually finding those facts and knowing that they are from a trusted source has become a little more cloudy. Once found, then citing that in any homework, coursework or article has then remained complicated too. Google always on top of customer feeling have spotted this and tried to address it, especially for professional writers and researchers.

Google recently unveiled a new research tool as part of its Google Docs offering, aimed at helping writers streamline web-research and how it flows into their end documents. The tool enables you to effectively search in an in-page window of the Google Doc you are working on. The results thrown up can then be 1) viewed in a new window 2) created as a link straight into your document or 3) created as a footnoted to text creating a citation for the web link. In terms of images you can search via licence (ie immediately sort out those free-to-use) and drag and drop from your search into the Google Doc. There’s a similar drag-and-drop usability for Google Maps.

While not perfect and not really combating the issue of sorting the wheat from the chaff, the tool is a time-saver for those trying to put papers or presentations together to tight deadlines.

Have you tried the new research tool? Do you enjoy the new functionality? Do you have any tips for others using the web as a research tool?

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The biggest barrier facing social media advocates trying to convince CEOs and senior managers of the benefits to be had from social media is that too many they are preaching too think they ‘get it’, but don’t even know the half of it.

Social media isn’t one person’s role, it isn’t a separate department, it is the way modern people do modern business. That means it needs to be part of each and every role in the business and each and every department in the business too. Just the sheer possibilities and options makes it impossible for even a global company to be covering all bases, that’s how large social media is.

This great infographic from BuddyMedia shows just why covering it all is impossible and why business chiefs should be better educated as to the possibilities social media offers. It’s not just networks; it’s apps, it’s data sorting, targeted advertising, analytics, curation and more.

So this Friday afternoon, bookmark this post. Then next time somebody jokes about the simplicity of social media, or the lack of ‘reality’ you can print this off and show them that social media is more than just some retweets and likes.

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I am sat on a London Underground tube train on my way into London as part of the commuter morning rush-hour. I don’t do this journey often now but 15 years ago it was part of my daily routine. Boy has it changed!

Back in the day, we (myself and fellow commuters) would sit staring into space, out of the window or into each others eyes. Sometimes a few would scan a paperback novel and the odd newspaper but mostly it was a time to reflect about the day ahead – or the heavy night before.

Nowadays WE are all connected! Standing (the overcrowding issue hasn’t really changed) here tapping away on my tablet, I look around and think that an alien landing on earth for the first time seeing this scene may believe us humans are actually powered by electronic devices. All bar three people on this crowded train carriage, from what I can see, are plugged in, absorbed or certainly engaged with an e-reader, a tablet, an mp3 player. I can even see one guy turning contortionist as he attempts to type on a full-size laptop with less arm room than a corpse in a coffin. Even those flicking through the pages of he free commuter newspapers are all plugged in with headsets into another device hidden about their person. Some fight with reception as we dip in and out of tunnels and they optimistically attempt to continue their mobile phone conversation. It’s a modern world!

Then I look further at our surroundings. The adverts in the carriage, the branded clothing worn by my fellow commuters, the bags they carry, the buildings flashing by outside the odd overground bits of our journey, there another wave of technology is becoming day-to-day with few consciously realising. Back in the day, I would probably have been one of a few on that train with a domain portfolio. Many probably hadn’t even used the Internet! Nowadays the domain name is as vital as your formally adopted name – indeed some even think more important! Domain names are everywhere…and quite rightly too.

I am an information junkie and a domainer but I know I am not alone in getting excited when I see a new domain name, perhaps with a catchy ring to it, or an intriguing description built in. One of my domaining regrets is letting a batch of off-the-wall domains expire when I had a domain cull, because nowadays it seems the quirkier the name for a business the better, especially if it includes an animal. So back to my commuter train. You see, full domain integration into our daily lives is not far away. You can already have a full range of personal domain names, some people have even tattooed that onto their physical being in some form or other. On your way to work you will probably ‘see’ tens of domain names but you may not take them all in. Domain names are very close to becoming a commuters norm as the electronic device has, but domains will become more powerful, especially for businesses. They will stand alone, with the catchy, memorable ones becoming etched on the minds of commuters, while many more will also be accessed during the commute via one of the multitude of connected devices the commuters handle.

So there has never been a more important time than now to secure your domain name. Commuters love them, kids love them, even business entrepreneurs love them, so make sure it is your domain they are loving.

A commuter train is not exactly the most obscure location for a domain name to be promoted, but is there anywhere in the modern world yet untouched by domain name fever? We’d love to hear the most unique place you have used or seen a domain name promoted.

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We’ve written before about the best time to post on social media for the biggest engagement but URL shortener experts Bit.ly recently revealed their own findings which are also well worth studying.

The report is based on Eastern Standard Time, so skews any UK data but the premise of what time in day works best, looks a familiar pattern however, that certainly those just starting out would do well to follow. It seems the lunchtime, post lunchtime slot is the best time to catch the Twitter traffic with the highest click count occurring between 1 and 3pm Monday through to Thursday).  So not the full week. Friday it appears is a bit of a lacuna. In fact the weekend starts early as according to bit.ly if you are looking to use Twitter as a way to drive traffic to your content you are wasting your time posting after 3pm Friday until Monday morning.  Facebook is similar but with a bigger window of 1pm to 4pm in the afternoon Monday to Thursday. If you want peak action then Wednesday 3pm for a Facebook post is the ultimate for traffic click through – who’d have thought it?

It’s pretty scientific from Bit.ly – did you know your post has a half-life - but not so it is difficult to understand.

The most interesting revelation from the report is the impact of Tumblr on the world of social networking. Many are looking at it as an option to perhaps bridge the differences between Twitter and Facebook, but as a business tool it is certainly still in its infancy, yet it does appear to interact much differently from it’s two bigger siblings. According to bit.ly. Tumblr traffic hits its peaks between 7 p.m. and 10 p.m. on Monday and Tuesday. There are similar traffic spikes on Sunday when other click through rates are tiny. Amazingly, against almost every result shown by Twitter and Facebook, Friday evening appears to be the optimal time to post on Tumblr, perhaps reflecting the younger demographic and types of posts (ie social events) make good posts on Tumblr.

Of course, as we have said before, each and every sector and each and every business is unique. What you actually want to be doing is tweeting and posting when your own followers are most likely to be watching, or better still when your would-be followers are most likely to be watching as you also want to be increasing your follow too.

When have you found works best for your business?

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Royal Mail’s recent price increase has left many small businesses fearing that their business may not survive this change. The cost of first class stamps have risen 30%, from 46p to 60p, and second class 38%, from 36p to 50p, a massive burden that many businesses, at least in the short term will have to absorb themselves.

Four in five small businesses in the UK believe this change will affect their business as well as the way they communicate with customers. Recent research conducted by Pitney Bowes revealed that small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are concerned that the postal rate increase will have such a negative impact that their business may not be able to recover afterwards. These are businesses that were relying on Royal Mail to send out correspondence and orders to their customers.

Cut costs with electronic mail

The change in postal rates is actually forcing businesses to look for alternative methods to communicate with their customers. Sure, you cannot download a shirt or a bike, but you can try cutting costs by switching to electronic email to keep in touch with customers and send them special offers.

With email, it’s so much easier and a lot cheaper to send e-cards, bills or marketing material. Take our professional email hosting service for instance.  You can create your email address personalised to your domain, such as office@yourbusiness.co.uk, and you can access it anywhere, anytime you want.

With email hosting, you will be able to manage all your emails, calendars and contacts from a single location. Also, you can communicate easier and faster with your customers and ensure your messages get to their inbox and are not lost along the way.

How are you planning to cut costs?

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