OTOinsights presents our latest customer experience research findings for several of the most downloaded iPad magazine applications including Wired, PopSci, GQ, Dwell, and Time.

“Digital publishing has changed consumer magazine consumption; in the past three years over 1,000 have ceased publication,” said webinar presenter Dr. Philip Rhodes, Managing Director for OTOinsights. “The iPad offers magazines a new digital publishing platform that allows them to better present, control and monetize their content.”

OTOinsights’ task-based analysis focuses on the homescreen, navigation, layout, advertisement placement and overall user satisfaction based on these criteria:

• How does the layout impact user experience
• How intuitive is navigation
• What is the nature and quality of the content
• How efficient is it to use
• How likely are users to revisit the iPad magazine
• Does the application engender trust in the user

This webinar will help brands and publishers participating, or planning on participating, in iPad magazine applications as developers, advertisers or content authors.

Join us for this free webinar where we discuss this latest customer experience research and conclude with a best practice guide on how you can create the best experience for your customers. Webinar attendees will also receive copy of this presentation free of charge.

Presenter:
Dr. Philip Rhodes, Managing Director and Director of Research for OTOinsights

When/Where:
Thursday, July 29 at 11 a.m. Eastern Time

Click Here to Register for Free

Dr. Philip Rhodes, Ph.D.

Philip holds a Ph.D. in Information Design from the University of Portsmouth. He has extensive research and teaching experience in hypermedia design and information architecture. He speaks fluent Portuguese, having lived and worked in Brazil. Before joining OTOinsights, he worked with US solution providers Rare Medium and Sapient, as Director of Information Architecture. Specializing in offering user-centric online solutions within the banking, education, and telecommunications sectors. He also taught at several universities in Brazil and the UK, and has been widely published. Philip is both the Managing Director and the Director of Customer Experience Research & Design at OTOinsights, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

OTOinsights Overview

Technology innovation continues to create increasingly sophisticated and complex interaction touch points between brands and their customers. A customer’s experience with these touch points define what a brand means to them and their continuing engagement with the product or service. OTOinsights helps brands succeed in today’s rapidly evolving landscape by providing customer experience research, brand research, neuromarketing research and user-centered design.

Paul Adams (User Experience engineer at Google) knows this and has released his findings about how we connect with our “friends” using popular social media sites. Turns out it’s not as simple as you’d think. His presentation is a must-read for anyone who is designing user interfaces and works in the social space.

Weighing in at 216 slides, it’s a bit of a biggie. Hang in there, the research that The Goog has done with regards to social influence, online and offline friends, strong vs. weak ties is information that you must be armed with.

Here are some of the highlights…

• People have multiple independent groups of friends that form around life stages and shared experiences. (Example: College friends, work friends, family, hobbyists.)
• There are three types of social ties: Strong, Weak and Temporary.  
• The stronger the social tie, the higher they influence us to buy products and services.
• Our brains can only keep up with a limited number of weak tie relationships.  For most people, that number is 150.
• People are increasing their reliance on social networks to make decisions.

Session Overview: 10:30 – 11:45, SES  New York 2010

Eye Tracking Research Update
Eye-tracking provides valuable information about a Website visitor’s focus of attention. This information is crucial in improving the design of Web pages and products to enhance the visitor’s experience. Effective search engine marketing relies on understanding user interactions with continually evolving search engines. Google’s universal search, which now includes media results, is one such evolution. This panel will discuss a neuromarketing study performed by One to One Interactive which analyzed user behavior through physiological, emotional, and qualitative data. Also covered will be the newest information in eye tracking of SERPs and the latest on heatmaps.

Speakers:
Shari Thurow, Founder & SEO Director, Omni Marketing Interactive
Jeremi Karnell, Co-Founder & President, One to One Interactive
Susan Weinschenk, Chief of User Experience Strategy, Human Factors International 

With one in four people looking to spend less on their travel by as much as fifty percent this year, travelers are flocking online to find the best deals. More than ever, it’s imperative that travel companies capture the growing online bookings market by providing an optimum online customer experience.

Join us for this free webinar where we discuss this latest customer experience research and conclude with a best practice guide on how you can create the best customer experience for your customers. Webinar attendees will also receive a copy of this report free of charge.

When/Where:
Session 1: Europe & USA east coast
Time: 11:00am EST (16.00 hrs GMT)
Date: Thursday 25th February
Join this webinar @ https://get.netviewer.com/meet/join.php?sinr=769828885&sipw=nv64

If you already have Netviewer, simply enter the session number: 769828885

When/Where:
Session 2: USA & Latin America
Time: 11:00am PST (16.00 hrs EST)
Date: Thursday 25th February
Join this webinar @ https://get.netviewer.com/meet/join.php?sinr=907061072&sipw=nv64
If you already have Netviewer, simply enter the session number: 907061072

Audio: Netviewer presents with VOIP, however, if you are on a Mac or are on a slow connection, please use this audio dial in option:

Toll free: +1 (800) 605-5167 passcode 759450 | International direct: +1 (719) 457-0339 passcode 759450

If you have any trouble registering for this webinar please contact marketing@fhios.com or call 0207 886 8245.

The report shows that UK brands spent £ 1.75 billion dollars for online advertising just in the first 6 months of 2009…and 60% of that was spent for search advertising! Of course Google, one of the world’s largest Internet search engines, has been the driving source behind the UK’s rise in online advertising.

It’s a give-give situation with the UK and Google – the UK gives Google more advertising money than any other country in the world, and Google gives UK citizens a chance to step away from TV and print ads and into the abyss of the Internet.

So, what’s your take on the UK’s first place finish over the US in online advertising and search?

You can read the entire article on Telegraph.co.uk.

Most of us do it every day: check our email, text our friends, turn on the radio and make a phone call. In fact, some people are so skilled that they can do all four of these things at the same time! However, it is fair to say that if you work in any type of job that includes computers and marketing, this kind of multitasking ability is usually a requirement.According to a recent study by Stanford University researchers, it was found that people who constantly deal with several different types of electronic information and switch from one task to another:

• Don’t pay attention
• Can’t control their memory
• Switch from one task to another worse than someone who completes a single task at a time

Stanford calls these people “high-tech jugglers,” and they apparently don’t do any better than someone that chooses to take their time completing a single task. Stanford Professor Clifford Nass even says these people are “suckers for irrelevancy” and that “everything distracts them.”

So, are you offended like I am? I consider myself to be a fair multitasker, and I always thought that it was a good thing.  Apparently the researchers at Stanford are out to prove the old theory that it’s impossible to process more than one string of information at a time.

If you’re interested in reading more about the Stanford study that put 100 students through a series of multitasking tests, you can read about it at Stanford University News.

Here are the 6 questions and a five of the best answers to each one:

Question #1 – How would you suggest other small businesses get started on Twitter?

Rachel, Baying Hound

Web: www.bayinghound.com

Twitter: @bayinghound

“Use linked in contacts or your business card collection to look up and follow people in your field: vendors, peers, and, importantly, competitors. Then, browse through who they are tweeting with and add those people. Join the conversations and tweet questions of your own.”

Heather Smith, MYOB Trainer

Twitter: @myobtrainer

“Alternate between something relevant to your business and something irrelevant. I work in the accounting world, so I tweet comments on the budget, tax season, an opportunity that clients may like etc. I then will tweet about something positive, upbeat, but irrelevant to my business…my passion fruits have come into season and they are yummy…”

Mark Decker

Web: http://qvinci.wordpress.com/

Twitter: @decker_m

“My suggestion for getting started would be to find twitters’ in different fields to follow. Everyone wants to talk to others in their field, but part of the beauty of twitter is meeting new people. It’s like a mixer, you don’t want to spend the whole night talking to the people you always talk with. Meet someone new. Network!”

Jen Harris, Caffeinated Marketing

Web: http://caffeinatedmarketing.com/

Twitter: @jenharris09

“Be visually stimulating! We have all seen that looooonnngggg URL on the back of someone’s car promoting their website but trying to figure out what http://www.seewhatmyconstructioncompanyis.com is hard on the eyes – same goes for your Twitter handle. Capitalize the first letter of your name/business.”

Eric Nagel

Web: www.ericnagel.com

Twitter: @esnagel

“To gain followers, run a Twitter contest. @Mozy does a great job at this, by not only picking a winner, but offering everyone else a discount on their product. So even if someone doesn’t win, they at least get something out of it. To enter the contest, users should have to RT a specific message, chosen by the company.”

Question #2 – What’s the right way (or wrong way) to promote your business on Twitter?

Kira Wampler, Intuit

Web: http://smallbusiness.intuit.com/

Twitter: @Kirasw

“Our #1 tip for smart marketing on Twitter is to start by NOT talking about yourself all of the time. Spread some love. Retweet others and talk about yourself a *little*.”

Imnotadoctor

Web: www.imnotadoctor.com

Twitter: @imnotadoctor

“Setup an RSS Feed of Twitter Search for your brand name and major keywords. Then interact your heart out in realtime.”

Yiana, DIY SiteExpress

Web: www.diysiteexpress.com

“Always keep up with your business branding! This means creating a custom Twitter background that shows your brand. You can get tips and a free template in a recent blog article that I wrote “Brand Recognition: Creating a Custom Twitter Background” http://tiny.cc/NGWJA”

Heather Vreeland, Atlanta Occasions

Web: www.atlantaoccasions.com

Twitter: @atloccasions

“The right way to promote your business on twitter is to participate! Talk about what you’re doing… new happenings at your business…mention your clients and people you are collaborating with… pay attention to your followers and what they are doing and engage in conversation with them. The wrong way – talk about yourself and only yourself. People don’t want to be spammed about all things you. It’s true, people don’t care about what you know until they know that you care… so stop posting about only your business…Constantly tweeting the same exact phrase like “John Doe Event Venue is a great place for weddings” will get you nowhere.”

Paul Rosenfeld, Fanminder

Web: http://fanminder.com/

Twitter: @fanminder

“My favorite tip is how to use Twitter to find new customers. I first use Google and type “Twitter for ______” and fill in the blank with a vertical that might use Twitter – for example, restaurants. I typically get a few articles that are round-up articles of all restaurants in a given city using Twitter. Then I follow these restaurants and engage in conversations with them – we’ve gotten one customer so far this way and I expect we can generate many or even most of our new customers in the next six months this way.”

Question #3 – What is your #1 Twitter etiquette tip for small business owners?

Robert Brady, Righteous Marketing

Web: http://righteousmarketing.com

Twitter: @robert_brady

“Automated DMs aren’t worth sending. If you won’t invest a few seconds to compose a 140-character message I don’t want to invest 5 seconds reading it.”

Brandi Starr, Star Studded

Web: http://yourstarrstuddedevents.com/blog/

Twitter: @starrstudded

“Tweet about things other than your business & products. If you are constantly tweeting about your business or products you will be viewed as a SPAMMER and no one likes spammers. Instead become a resource in your field, share useful information, converse with or comment on others posts, network with businesses that line up with yours. If you build relationships you will gain a lot from using Twitter.”

Tim Milburn

Web: http://studentlinc.typepad.com/

Twitter: @timage

“A quality “T.W.E.E.T. is: Timely, Worth-reading, Educational, Entertaining, and Tweople-connecting.”

Wendy Piersall, Spark Plugging

Web: www.wendypiersall.com

Twitter: @eMom

“Give before you expect to receive. In fact, give MORE than you expect to receive. People always need to know WIIFM = “What’s in it for me?” Answer that question as often as possible and followers will flock to you.”

Tac Anderson, New Comm Biz

Web: www.newcommbiz.com

Twitter: @tacanderson

“Religious and political views don’t belong on a biz acct. get a personal acct for personal views.”

Question #4 – What is your best tip for getting re-tweeted?

Maria Marsala, Elevating Your Business

Web: www.elevatingyourbusiness.com

Twitter: @mariamarsala

“Put PLS RT (please retweet) at the end of appropriate messages so that your tweets get re-tweeted. It’s that old fashioned “call to action” stuff that helps spread your marketing efforts.”

StalkerB, Flash SEO

Web: www.flashseo.com

Twitter: @stalkerb

“Best tip for getting retweeted is to leave enough characters for people to just RT as is. If people have to start editing your message to fit “RT @your name + message” then they often don’t bother or miss out (what you thought was) an important part. View RTs as 120-ish character messages and really work on what you have to say and how to say it. Also if it contains a link make sure it’s clear what people will be clicking through to.”

Anita Cohen-Williams, My Twitter Apps

Web: http://mytwitapps.com/

Twitter: @searchguru

“Best way to get retweeted is to post valuable content for others, such as a link to online resources or a useful blog post. But don’t ask for the RT, people will do it on their own.”

Mark Dixon

Web: http://blogs.sun.com/identity/

Twitter: @mgd

“Three words: Original, Relevant, Succinct.”

Vicky H, Remarkable Parents

Web: http://remarkableparents.com/

Twitter: @RemarkbleParent

“If you ask for a RT (retweet) leave at least 15 characters to let people that are RT’ing your message have space so they don’t have to shorten your message. Many times that’s the difference between a RT and no RT.”

Question #5 – How do you manage your time on Twitter?

Walt, BizSugar

Web: www.bizsugar.com

Twitter: @bizsugar

“If you do not have time to use Twitter (I do not), set up an automatic feed of items and send it to your Twitter account. Doing so populates your Twitter account with fresh content even when you do not have time.”

Lisa Picarille

Web: www.lisapicarille.com

Twitter: @lisap

“I recommend checking twitter first thing in the morning so you can respond to any questions or join in conversations. Then I typically wait about two hours and then limit my time to only 10 minutes.

I do searches on keywords I care about and have some alerts already set up. I also look at my @ replies. I don’t usually look again until lunch time. And again, I limit my time to 10 minutes. I follow that about every two hours.”

Maria-Gabriela Hoza, H-Urban Faciliware

Web: http://faciliware.typepad.fr/

Twitter: @faciliware

“When I know I can plan my tweets by advance I use TweetLater.com. On my blog I use a widget that allows me to tweet when I submit a post. If available, I also use the bottom links allowing me to tweet an article directly when I find it interesting. Otherwise I tweet “ad-hoc” only when I have something interesting to say. And I scan other tweets once a day.”

Sher Graham, Bay Coast Coaching & Consulting Partners, Inc.

Web: http://baycoastcp.com/default.aspx

Twitter: @shergraham49

“I make it one of my regular bookmarks on my tool bar so I remember to click it on daily. It is a part of my business protocol in the morning as is reading and answering emails.”

Dave Fecker, Power Works Automation

Web: www.powerworksautomation.com

“Write your goals for the day, week, or month down on paper. Set the time slots you wish to spend doing your online networking at stick with those times. Pick 2 to 3 slots a day so you can review and adjust any of your content. This is like a workout! If you under, or over do it, you will get poor results.Set times that work best for your personality and available schedule. As part of your goals, set plans to expand your knowledge, or present valuable information to your viewers.”

Question #5 – What is your best kept secret (something not widely known) for using Twitter in business?

TJ McCue, All Business

Web: www.allbusiness.com

“Mine is a tool – TwitterBar. It allows you to tweet from the address bar in your browser. Type in your 140 characters like you’re typing a website URL/address and then click on the little “t” for Twitter and it goes to your account. No need to open another application, or use your phone.”

Michael Hartzell

Web: http://rejuvenateyourrestaurant.com/

Twitter: @michaelhartzell

“Create a unique landing page for twitter specifically with a greeting, service, and introduction. It offers a unique message to those via twitter and assists with tracking those who visit the ‘secret page only twitter’s know’.”

Mike Campbell

Web: www.louisvillesoup.com

Twitter: @louisvillesoup

“Post a link to your job postings on Twitter. That’s how I found my latest new hire.”

Desiree Scales, Bella Web Design Inc.

Web: www.bellawebdesign.com

Twitter: @DesireeScales

“A great online Twitter management tool I’m loving (advanced tip) is called http://www.hootsuite.com. It allows small businesses to track tweets and actually get metrics on their links posted through the application. This is one of the first tools I’ve found which allows measurable ROI on Twitter. The lack of measurable metrics in social media is something that needs to be addressed. Most marketing directors and agencies are struggling to talk companies into using social media because board members and upper management demands to see measurable results out of this activity. Hootsuite is a step in the right direction and also allows people to manage multiple Twitter profiles through a single interface.”

Chris Goddard, Affilorama

Web: www.affilorama.com

“We’ve seen that a lot of people find it difficult to know what to tweet – especially when it comes to interesting, relevant content and links. What we do is have someone set up with a Google Reader account that subscribes to 10 to 20 blogs that we know have consistently interesting content like Smallbiztrends or Copyblogger, then we use a tweet scheduler like Tweetlater to schedule 5 or 6 tweets a day, spread throughout the day, with a link and a blurb about the blog post. Takes about 20 minutes a day once you’re in the habit of doing it and makes your feed a consistently interesting source of information.”

These are just a few of the small business Twitter tips offered from Small Business Trends followers. You can find a pdf with over 137 answers to these questions here.

Source: Small Business Trends

Remember when MySpace was the social network of choice for everyone from teenagers and college students to musicians and celebrities?  It was definitely the best way to get in touch with childhood friends, as well as to hear new music from up and coming bands.

According to an article on CNET, not only is Google considering not renewing its ad space contract with MySpace this year, but MySpace is also planning on laying off up to 750 people to afford to keep the network alive. So, can MySpace really survive the flourishing of Facebook and the awesome invasion of online music sites like Pandora, Imeem and Hype Machine?

Matt Rosoff, who writes for CNET’s music and technology “Digital Noise” section, offers his advice on how MySpace could try to save itself from social media catastrophe with a few tips:

• Offer free online music streaming that instantly takes you to a real artist’s page instead of guiding you through a maze of advertisements and  fake musicians impersonating real bands.
• Stop allowing pop up banners and tons of glittery advertisements to show up on a page. If you follow the layout of Facebook pages, which puts all ads on the right-hand side of the page, people will be more likely to stay on a page rather than veer away from ad annoyance.
• Apparently when you search for a band you have to include every “a” or “the” in order to get the right band. If MySpace can fix this search mishap then people may actually find what they’re looking for.

Okay, these are some great tips from Matt, but can they really help MySpace get back on the social network track? It’s highly doubtful when an article in The Washington Post says that Facebook :

• Has seen 26.6 million unique monthly visitors
• Has visitors spending at least 186 minutes on the site per month
• Has seen the number of registered users age25-34 jump 181% over the year

I guess we’ll have to see what new MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta will do with the future of the site.

Source: CNET news

Ferris recently appeared at a WordCamp conference in San Francisco and shared some great advice on how beginner and veteran bloggers can create successful blog posts. Here are a few tips that I found most helpful from an article on SocialMedia.biz:

• Another option to Google Analytics is CrazyEgg, which has plans that start as low as $9 per month.
• Instead of using Digg to spread the word about your blog, try Slinkset, which lets you create your own social news site.
• New bloggers need to have their “own voice” that reflects who they are, not who they are trying to be for an audience.
• Since new visitors are biased to older blog posts, don’t show a date or timestamp.
• Create multiple drafts of blog posts, and only post a few at a time. You can then go back and add more meat to the unpublished drafts.
• Find out when you write best (early morning, afternoon, late at night, etc.)
• Focus on only one idea for a blog post so you don’t bombard people with too many thoughts.
• If you use videos in your blog post, in the next post write a summary of the video so that the text can be indexed.

These are just a few of the blogging tips that Ferris offered at the WordCamp conference. If your website features a blog, these suggestions are definitely worth trying.

One to One Interactive’s OTOinsights research division is happy to announce its latest research white paper titled “Implications of User Engagement with Search Result Pages“. 

It is well established that rankings on a Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) have much to do with whether a user is likely to click on a given result and higher rankings can actually have a positive effect on a brand’s perception and ‘likeability’ (MarketingSherpa, 2009). With the onset of Universal Search, this study sought to measure the user impact of this new generation of search engine result pages that include multimedia elements such as images and videos.  Specifically, we wanted to understand if there was a difference in emotional engagement with the results and if that would impact click propensity in Paid and Natural Search.  The study compared user engagement with Universal search results vs. traditional text-only results by recording the users’ eye tracking, physiological & emotional reactions, and click tracking behavior. 

Our research uncovered two significant insights.

Insight 1:

SERPs which include Universal Search results reinforce eyeballs to stay focused on the first page’s top paid and natural search results

Implications:

• The advent of Universal Search demands that companies optimize not only their text, but also their media (images, videos, etc)
• Image and video results may anchor users to stay at the top of the SERP
• Images and videos will begin to impact what users will click on first in a SERP

Insight 2:

The inclusion of Universal Search results increase emotional engagement during interactions with a SERP

Implications:

• Users will get an ‘instant gratification’ from images – perhaps more so from branded images
• Higher engagement with Universal results may stop users from exploring the rest of the SERP

OTOinsight’s “Implications of User Engagement with Search Result Pages” white paper is free and available to download here. 

Below is a PowerPoint presentation of the research findings that Dan Berlin and I shared earlier this week at the Usability Professionals Association (UPA) Boston’s Annual Conference at Bentley University.

We welcome your comments, feedback, and suggestions.