LinkedIn announced last week that they will be making influencer posts available to their members. “Combined, our members have extremely valuable and varied experiences; however, their knowledge and expertise has not yet been captured and shared.” LinkedIn believes that by opening their publishing platform to members, it will encourage people to build their personal brands and share their industry insights. The professional networking site provided some impressive statistics showing that influencer posts enjoy higher engagement and shares.  “The average Influencer post drives more than 31,000 views and receives more than 250 likes and 80 comments.” The value of LinkedIn influencer posts: Unlocking the Experts from LinkedIn If you want to get early access to writing your own influencer posts, you can register on LinkedIn. WSI offers LinkedIn training, make the most out of your LinkedIn presence by contacting us today. Please follow and like...

Popular motivational speaker Michael Jackson interviewed WSI Internet marketing consultant Francois Muscat for Mix 93.8 FM last year. In the radio series, Michael interviewed a number of movers and shakers in the conference industry and professional speaking world in South Africa. During his interview with Francois, they focused on the industry that Francois has got to know like the back of his palm – the digital marketing industry. “I help companies and people get found on Google,” explained Francois when asked what WSI does in a nutshell. “Every single type of business needs Internet marketing in some way or another. Whenever a person wants to find out more about a company or person, they jump online to do research. Companies need to manage what gets presented online,” said Francois. One of the best things a person can do to manage their online reputation, said Francois, is to set up a Google Alert. This is a simple – yet effective way – to get notified whenever your name (or your company’s name) gets mentioned online. That way, you get an e-mail immediately whenever someone writes about you online. Whether you’re a regular person or a business owner, you should pay attention to what is known about you online. One of the ways you can do this is by Googling your name. “I always advise people to go out and own as many web properties as possible. Personal web properties include a Google profile, LinkedIn account, Twitter account and so forth. When you own these web properties, you basically control what comes up on the first page of Google,” explained Francois. Want to learn more about online reputation management? Listen to the entire podcast here Please follow and like...

The UK based money saving community, Happier, released an interactive infogram to graphically show how much money top earning tech companies earn per second. The tech companies included on the infogram include Blackberry, Facebook, Google, Amazon, Samsung and more. According to Happier’s stats Samsung is the highest earning company, earning approximately $6486 per second, while Apple earns $4540 per second. The infogram also has a counter next to each brand showing you how much money they have earned during the time you have been on the website. Take a look at the infogram here The top earners that made the list:   Source: Happier   Please follow and like...

This has been a busy week on social media with news developments from all the major players. If you haven’t heard, Twitter listed yesterday after months of speculation. In case you haven’t been keeping up with developments in the digital marketing world, here are our top stories of the week: 1. Google Analytics ads a Speed Suggestions report Google is trying to speed up the internet, and they are taking it seriously. Google Analytics is now offering a speed suggestions report to help you identify the slowest web pages on your website for desktop and mobile browsing. Google will give your pages a score out of 100 to show potential improvement – the closer your page is to 100, the better. Speed Suggestion reports together with their PageSpeed Insights tool are meant to help web-masters to optimise their most visited pages. 2. Facebook refreshes the like button The Like button is synonymous with Facebook, so when the social network decides to re-design a button that is seen 22 billion times a day it is a big deal. The Like button has been the same since it was introduced in 2010. Take a look at the old and new Like buttons and let us know what you think! 3. Twitter’s IPO listing finally happened and the market loved it Yesterday, Twitter listed on the New York Stock Exchange yesterday selling 70 million shares priced at $26 each, making the company worth an estimated $18 billion (including restricted shares). Unlike Facebook, Twitter timed their listing well as the year on year, the market is up 25% and November is historically a strong month for trading. Buyers responded well with stock prices seeing a high of $50.09 and closing at $44.90 a share by the end of the day. We will have to see what the long term trends will be, but if you would like a good comparison between the Twitter and Facebook’s listing, this article on Forbes is a good read. 4. Pinterest makes a big push towards monetization with a big hire? This week Pinterest hired Joanne Bradford as Head of Partnerships, showing their commitment to developing commercial and content partnerships. Pinterest introduced promoted pins in October as a first attempt at monetizing Pinterest. According to TechCrunch, Bradford will oversee partnership strategies and sales organisation. Pinterest wants her to work on product development for advertising products. As the former chief revenue and marketing officer at social media company, Demand Media and president at the San Francisco Chronicle, she is seen as a big hire and it will be interesting to see what Pinterest plans for the future. This has been an interesting week in social media. For more social media news,...

WSI OMS‘s Francois Muscat will be in Lagos, Nigeria this week to present on Digital Marketing. The event is being hosted by WSI-Axon, a Nigerian WSI franchise based in the country’s capital. Muscat will be joined by Michael Monaghan, director of WSI Digital Marketing and Krista LaRiviere, the CEO of gShift labs. The theme of the Smartcamp is “Propel your brand, harnessing Digital Media Strategy”. Attendees have the opportunity to learn more about uncovering digital media possibilities for their businesses. The WSI thoughtleaders will be illustrating why and how digital media has transformed the competitive landscape for companies across the globe, including Africa. Delegates will also learn about the top tools for companies regardless of size and sector as well as what this means for their own business. The WSI-Axon Smartcamp runs from 31 October to 1 November at the Radisson Blu, Ozumba Mbadiwe Avenue, Victoria Island, Lagos. If you would like more information on the event or if you would like to book Francois Muscat for training and speaking engagements, contact WSI OMS today.   Please follow and like...