11 Out Of 10 Blog

At the beginning of this year Pinterest was labelled to be the hot new social sharing networking site and has taken itself to a new level. Pinterest was first launched back in 2010, but it has only really taken off over the last few months where it has been recognised as one of the fastest growing social networking sites, with more than 10 million users. It has even over taken other popular sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, for month on month growth. Pinterest doesn’t just hold a social value but an effective SEO one too, enabling businesses that use this site to track traffic referrals and site visits on Google.

What you need to know about Pinterest. Well firstly, it’s virtual pin board allowing online consumers to pin photos to the different boards. These photos can vary from your own personal ones such as recipes to an item of clothing you like on a fashion retailer’s website. Other Pinterest users are able to see your pins and re-pin them, like them or follow your boards. Confused? Well don’t be, it’s rather quite simple. You do the same as you would on Facebook and Twitter, if you like something you re-tweet it, share it or ‘like’ it for your friends and followers to see. The only difference is its photo’s your sharing. Here are a couple of examples. Continue reading ‘Pin Up, Pin Down’ »

Google recently launched another attempt to break into the social networking market with Google+ and it is further evidence that they are integrating search with social to try to deliver more relevant search results.

Running a company blog can be time consuming and you might think it’s a waste of your time, but there are many benefits to having a regularly updated blog. You can create a more enhanced user experience, add a personal side to your website, as well your business and improve your rankings in the search engines.

We have pulled together our top 5 tips to help you in your blogging journey Continue reading ‘Top 5 Blogging Tips’ »

All those that have a Blackberry phone will be aware that their server has crashed….for another day.

There were constant Facebook messages and tweets on Monday from Blackberry users, all complaining that they can’t use their phone for BBM messenger. I just brushed this off, thinking it may have been a quick mobile phone network provider’s service that was down (as us Orange customers will know) and that it will be sorted in a matter of hours. However, when I got home last night, messages of outrage were will still being expressed.

Orange sent out this message to their Blackberry customers -

‘Hi from Orange. We’re sorry, some BlackBerry customers are still experiencing problems with sending & receiving emails, browsing the internet & using BlackBerry Messenger. BlackBerry are looking into this urgently and hope to resolve it soon, so there’s no need to get in touch. Thanks for your patience’

Whilst getting ready for work on Tuesday, I quickly heard on the news that there were server problems at RIM’s Slough Data Centre. This problem didn’t only cause a huge issue in the UK, but for the rest of Europe, the Middle East and Africa too! News has just broken out that it has reached the U.S. and Canada! Who would have thought that the Berkshire town of Slough would cause such mayhem?!

Blackberry owners have been complaining on social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter. The below message made me realise that one, it’s to do with the Blackberry themselves and two, how glad I am to have an iPhone!

And so the problems continue…

It has now been reported that Blackberry users are experiencing a new service disruption and are unable to send messages or emails too. So, first it was not being able to send BBM messages or browse the internet and now this? What can the phone be used for? Just when you thought the worst was over…absolute outrage!

Blackberry has around 70m users around the world and how many of these do you think are slightly unhappy right now? Quite a lot I’d say!

Blackberry has already seen a drop in market share to their rivals Apple, so could this take a turn for the worse for the popular smart phone brand? We’ll have to see how they deal with this and what they give their customers in return.

This is perfect timing for Apple as they are due to launch the iMessenger today. Doesn’t look like Blackberry will be feeling too fruity right now!

But, I guess I had a lucky escape with upgrading to an iPhone, the Blackberry was an option!

Are you a Blackberry victim? Leave your comments below and tell us your views on this.

So the world is becoming Twitter fanatics (including myself), following their favourite celebrities (I have to admit that I do this…@OllyOfficial), brands, latest news trends and of course tweeting for a response back, but how do you get so many followers?

It is obvious that celebrities or well established brands and individuals will gain a staggering amount of followers. We can all admit to watching X Factor at the weekend and in last night’s vote off show, Take That singer and the new ‘Simon Cowell’ X FACTOR judge, Gary Barlow sent out his first tweet in during the xtra Factor show and gained over 2000 new followers within seconds.

Gary’s tweet was sent out around 10pm last night (9^th October) and now has 287, 514 followers, in which I would like to contribute to!

Now, obviously, we can’t all achieve this in such a short space of time, but here are a few tips to help you get started!

• Share relevant information to your followers – who are trying to target? If you’re a business, tweet messages that are key to what you do.
• Tweet interesting messages and information that can gain a response and not pointless posts –

People don’t want to know this!

• Post fresh content including videos, images,  blogs, press releases etc… This can gain a response and will appear on the respondents Twitter feed, therefore give you more attention.
• Join in with conversations. You would in a normal everyday setting, why not online too? Getting yourself known is a good way to gain followers!
• Re-tweet relevant/ interesting articles, blogs and put a reply with it.

• Tell the world what you think about what has been said whether its industry news or any latest news.
• Get involved with #FollowFriday (#ff) and respond back to those who mention you in a #ff.
• Be witty and humorous with your tweets, keep your followers interested. They are more likely to respond back to you or re-tweet to their followers.
• Try keep the number of people you’re following below how many followers you have (shows you’re not too keen or desperate for followers).

Hope this helps to kick start your Twitter followers numbers!



Shortly after receiving our award for Best Use of Search at the Big Chip Awards, the 11 Out Of 10 team is up for another award at the Some Comms Awards 2011. This social media award is for agencies that show a consistent great understanding and use of social media with their clients.

The Some Comms Awards is in its second year of celebrating the best in UK Social Media. This event recognises the ‘Mavericks’ and ‘Pioneers’ who are revolutionising the use of online to communicate in cool and innovative ways. There are 18 categories and have some of the biggest names in UK communications on this year’s judging panel, such as Martine Edgell, Digital Communications Specialist at Mercedes-Benz Cars and Charlotte Thompson, Head of Media and Audience Engagement at the BBC.

Our social media strategy for Pure Gym has developed over a number of years and the social media community has reached over 15,000 fans/followers in 18 months. We run various campaigns for Pure Gym as well as act as the face of their online presence.

The Some Comms Awards will be held at the Manchester Hilton Hotel, on the 19^th October 2011.

Wish us luck!

The recent UK Riot destroyed many lives and businesses around the UK, but capturing the 1000s of looters and rioters involved is the hard part.

Greater Manchester Police became frequent Social Network users in order to keep residents of Manchester and Salford up to date with any riot action that was predicted to take place on Tuesday 9^th August, advising those to shut businesses early in preparation, during the riots and also after.

Continue reading ‘Greater Manchester Police Uses Social Media to Capture the City’s Rioters and Looters’ »

The London riots are into its third night and spreading across UK cities such as, Birmingham, Liverpool, Bristol and Nottingham like a disease. But how did it get so out of control?

What began as a rioting protest in Tottenham, North London after a police shooting on Thursday 4^th August, killing Mark Duggan. Social Media websites such as Facebook and Twitter have been strongly accused of spurring these riots into what can only be described by the nation as ‘Anarchy’. A Facebook page was created to remember the victim ‘R.I.P. Mark Duggan’, but certain posts were alerted.

“Please upload any pictures or video’s you may have from tonight in Tottenham. Share it with people to send the message out as to why this has blown into a riot.”

Twitter feeds began to publicly display where the rioters were heading next, whilst uploading photos and videos of looting and burning police cars. Could Twitter have been a warning to the public and police about these unsociable attacks on the Capital?

With the activity on Twitter being publically displayed, Blackberry Messenger became the popular option to communicate between rioters.  One BBM reading:

“Everyone from all sides of London meet up at the heart of London (central) OXFORD CIRCUS!!, Bare SHOPS are gonna get smashed up so come get some (free stuff!!!)…… Dead the ends and colour war for now so if you see a brother… SALUT! if you see a fed… SHOOT!

Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Steve Kavangh argued that, Twitter held the primary blame for organising levels of ‘greed and criminality’.

With Twitter being blamed for this ‘war zone’, Scotland Yard tweeted that, over the next 24 hours, 13,000 police officers will be on duty in London. Controversial?

Editing tweets on Twitter is as serious as the recent phone hacking. One tweet read –

AshleysAR ‘I hear Tottenham’s going coco-bananas right now. Watch me roll’, after a top UK Newspaper had edited it, published by the BBC. It should have read -

‘I hear Tottenham’s going coco-bananas right now. Watch me roll up with a spud gun :/’. So how was Twitter to blame? It wasn’t. It was misleading. According to the BBC, experts fear the extent to which technology is to blame may have been overstated.

In fact, Twitter and Facebook has brought the nation together in supporting the victims and wanting to put a stop this indecent mayhem #prayforlondon #staysafe. Twitter account @riotcleanup has attracted over 18,000 followers and aiding to coordinate cleanups around the badly hit London areas. Other Twitter users were using the #riotcleanup to arrange meet ups and help clean the areas surrounding their homes. There is little evidence to suggest that these out of control riots were orchestrated by on Social Media public feeds.

The Metropolitan Police have uploaded recent photos from the London riot onto Flickr in an attempt to identify looters.

The public have been advised to contact the police or Crimestoppers if they know of anyone rioting on the streets, 0800 555 111.

We are delighted to announce that we have been nominated to receive the ‘Best Use Of Search’ Award at Big Chip 2011, the 13th annual Big Chip Awards celebrating the cream of the digital industry in the North.

It’s our second consecutive year in attendance at the Big Chip Awards as nominee’s and with walking away as winners last year with the ‘Best E-Business Project’, we are thrilled just to make the shortlist, but we can’t help but think about how nice it would be to ‘Do The Double’!

Whatever the outcome, being recognised at this prestigious awards ceremony two years in a row, shows just how far we have come.

Best Use Of Search Award

Our nomination for the ‘Best Use Of Search’ Award, which we are up for this year, is a result of the work we have carried out for Pure Gym in developing and executing an effective search campaign, integrating PPC, SEO and Social Media Marketing with the marketing activity and rapid expansion of Pure Gym as a company, in order to deliver a highly successful online marketing campaign to our client.

11 Out Of 10: Road To Big Chip 2011

New Pure Gym members are required to sign up online via the website, making it even more important for us to deliver highly targeted traffic to the site through these selected channels.

As a Google Certified Partner, we are recognised in our ability to deliver top level PPC campaigns for our clients and we used our experience, specialist skills and tools to instantly begin to drive highly targeted traffic to the site, generating a steady volume of new member sign ups through it. At the same time we worked towards constantly driving down costs whilst increasing conversions, resulting in a highly efficient ROI.

We combined this with a long term SEO strategy to ensure visibility was maintained in the Search Engine results pages, for key search phrases related to Pure Gym. We developed and executed a highly successful SEO strategy, resulting in the Pure Gym website being found within the top 3 positions in the search results for the key phrases we are targeting for each gym location i.e. “gym in manchester”, “leeds gym”, “gyms edinburgh” etc.

In addition to this we also built up a solid Social Media Marketing strategy, utilising all relevant platforms to engage with current members as well as potential members. Through connecting with our clients audience effectively we were able to build a solid online brand presence for them as well as manage their brand reputation, increasing their reach to potential customers and interacting positively with the target audience.

We have put a lot of hard work and effort into this search campaign and we are really proud to be recognised for our achievements at the Big Chip Awards 2011.

Being nominated is an honour in itself and we are up against two worthy opponents in Lakestar Media and Fluid Creativity.

We will be attending the ceremony at the Palace Hotel, Manchester, where the winner will be announced on June 16th.

Wish Us Luck!

Here at 11 Out Of 10, we have been working hard and investing into our online marketing services, to make sure that we continue to offer a top level service.

We have recently invested more into acquiring  industry leading, professional tools, to utilise alongside our ever growing knowledge and experience, ensuring that our clients receive the very best online marketing service that there is to offer.

From PPC and SEO, to Social Media Marketing and Brand Monitoring, we won’t be beaten on efficiency. We understand the importance of investing time into continuous learning, within our specialist service departments and investing financially, into cutting edge tools, helping us stay ahead of the game in our constantly developing industry and provide our clients the expert level online marketing service that they need.

Have you thought about how our Online Marketing Services could help your business?

PPC Management – As Google Certified Partners, we are proud to have the stamp of approval from the number 1. This means that we have been recognised by Google in our ability to provide an expert level PPC Management service. We drive only the most relevant visitors to your site to generate new business and deliver the most efficient ROI possible.

SEO Management – As part of our recent overhaul, we have invested more into cutting edge tools to help us deliver a fantastic SEO Service. We analyse your site, industry and competition, as well as what your most relevant customers are searching for online, so that we can work our magic and improve your rankings in the search results and place you in front of them, when they are searching.

Social Media Management – We build a strong presence for your brand online and engage with your customers directly through individually tailored Social Media Marketing campaigns. Connecting with your customers effectively online promotes a positive brand image and extends your reach to your target audience.

Email Marketing – Whether you want to contact your customers with a marketing message for a sales promotion, to keep them up to date with a newsletter or even target potential customers with an appealing message, we can take care of it. We can also track exactly how successful each Email Marketing campaign is.

Content Marketing – We ensure that the actual text on your website is not only optimised towards turning visitors into customers, but also that it contains the correct keywords and language that will ensure your website appears high in the search engine rankings for relevant searches with our Content Marketing service.

Brand Monitoring – When people are talking about your brand online, what are they saying? how can you track all of their conversations? Leave it to us, we use cutting edge tools for Online Brand Monitoring and ensuring that the majority of conversations are positive.

SMS Marketing – Our SMS Marketing Service is quick to set up and allows you to send bulk messages to your distribution list. Personalise individual messages with names, account numbers etc and brand your message appropriately.

If you would like to talk to us about any of our services then pick up the phone and give us a call on 0161 798 7977 or email us at marketing@11outof10.com.