Last year social entertainment service GetGlue – a service which lets users check in and share what they are watching, listening to and reading with friends, passed the 1 million users mark. It also reached over 100 million data points which included check ins, likes and comments representing a powerful connection between social media and the people.

The finger ultimately points at the increasing interaction with television programmes via social networks, with Twitter providing a real-time online experience often referred to as a ‘virtual water cooler’ – a place where people meet to discuss the events or in this case the TV programme, from last night. Programmes in the UK such as ‘The Apprentice’, ‘The X Factor’ and more recently ‘The only way is Essex’ encourage an engagement with their programme which can be a great source of qualitative data for networks, who claim that off the back of their audience’s increased social interaction, show ratings went up by more than 10% last year. But ratings are only a small part of the bigger picture.

Word of mouth enables networks to forward think and influence program development; in 2011 this technique was used to promote adverts such as the Alicia Dixon & Weight Watchers campaign – Do it our way. The add finishes by pointing potential consumers towards YouTube and other social channels, aired on New Year’s Day to help inspire women to join, a perfectly timed campaign.

Another example of this happening is the Yeo Valley ‘The rapping farmers’ campaign which had a huge viral impact. Heavily planned and influenced by ITV, it helped raise the company retail value growth by 15% that year. Overall, over 10.8 million social impressions were calculated as a result of the adverts’ placement during the X Factor breaks, the single they released alongside the campaign also sold 2,638 units making the campaign an overwhelming success.

In 2012 television networks will undoubtedly be taking this into account, tapping into the behaviours of the people and engineering real-time conversation and social activity into their basic road map. Naturally networks will need to watch out for negative behaviours by playing their cards right, word of mouth can easily be turned sour so they must make sure they think smart in order to drive audience participation forward. Ill-thought social campaigns can quickly become a PR nightmare, something the recent McDonalds ‘Mcfail’ campaign illustrates perfectly.

Liam Atkins
Account Executive

>> Follow me: @Liam_SW4
>> Follow Digital Annexe: @DigitalAnnexe

Far too often people seem to get themselves in a muddle when it comes to basic web metrics; people confuse definitions all the time and in doing so, fail to realise the significance, or lack thereof, of the data they collect. I often find myself talking to people who run their own websites and don’t know the difference between page views and visits, or bounce rate and exit rate. In an attempt to tackle this problem I have collated a few of the basic terms and provided some definition and context. My future posts will start to take the basics and develop them a little further. So here it goes:

Page Views
A page view is counted every time a page on your site loads.

Visits
Sometimes called a session, a visit is counted every time your site is accessed. A single visit ends when the user leaves the site or is inactive for 30 minutes.

So what is the difference between page views and visits?
A visit is only counted once when a page (or group of pages) is accessed during a session. Page views count the number of times each page is accessed.

Example

A user enters your site via page A. They click on page B and then go back to page A. They are inactive for 30 minutes, then refresh page A before leaving the site.

Your site has had 1 unique visitor, 2 visits and 4 page views.

Page A has had 1 unique visitor, 2 visits and 3 page views.

Page B has had 1 unique visitor, 1 visit and 1 page view.

Unique Visitors
This is the number of unique people who visit your site. However, this cannot ever be 100% accurate.

Why can the number of unique visitors never be 100% accurate?
Repeat visitors are recognised by the cookie they received the first time they visited your site. Some people may have cookies disabled, or delete their cookies since last visiting your site. These people will not be recognised and will be counted as another unique visitor.

The number of unique visitors can also be over-inflated by users accessing your site from different devices. For example, a user may access your site from their home computer, their work laptop and their phone. Each of these devices will be given a different cookie and this user will be counted as 3 unique visitors.

On the contrary, multiple people can use the same device to access your site eg. a shared family computer. If cookies are enabled, they will all be counted as one unique visitor.

Entry
An entry to a page (or group of pages) is counted every time a user enters your site via this page (or one of these pages).

Entry Rate
The entry rate is the percentage of total visits to a page (or group of pages) that were entries.

Exit
An exit from a page (or group of pages) is counted every time this page (or one of these pages) is the last page to be accessed during a visit.

Exit Rate
The exit rate is the percentage of total visits to a page (or group of pages) that were exits.

Bounce
There are different definitions for a bounce but the most common is the same as a single access visit. This is a visit to your site during which only one page is viewed.

Bounce Rate
The bounce rate is the percentage of entries that were bounced.

What is the difference between exit rate and bounce rate?

Exit Rate =         Exits / Visits                             Bounce Rate =     Bounces / Entries

The exit rate of a page (or group of pages) considers the total traffic to this page (or group of pages); the bounce rate only considers traffic that entered your site via this page (or one of these pages).

For more web analytics definitions, see Google’s list of metric definitions.

For more information and advice on how to improve bounce rates, look at this infographic: Bounce Rate Demystified.
 
Laura Dadds
Junior Web Analyst

The New BBC Sport Online Homepage

After noticing that the ‘New BBC Sport’ site was trending on Twitter I was quite excited to see what their first major design update in over a decade had to offer. I was promised a site that would “put live coverage at the heart of its output in what is poised to be an unforgettable year of sport” and one that would place “the changing needs of sports fans… [who] go online to get up-to-the minute updates on the biggest sporting events, as they happen” at the core of its design.

The initial response to the design has been mixed to say the least, which one Tweeter succinctly summarised; “’I love the new BBC sport site!’ ‘I hate the new BBC sport site!’ Please delete where appropriate.” I have to say that my initial response is anything but mixed. Without trying to appear too critical, to me the new BBC Sport site looks like a subconscious advert for German title challengers Borussia Dortmund or a new site for flailing rivals Setanta Sports – which I thank God it’s not as I can barely deal with having to go to the pub every time Arsenal are on ESPN. The overwhelming use of bright yellow has meant I have had to lower the brightness on my screen as I write this post – in fact, I just opened up a new tab to shield my eyes – and the sheer amount of content has left me not knowing where to look first.

Ben Gallop, Head of BBC Sport Interactive, in his Editor’s blog claims “we have to embrace change – but we need to do so in a considered way; by listening to our users; by researching and analysing; and by using our editorial, design and technical expertise to make the best decisions we can.” He couldn’t be more right, no matter what industry we are in we all need to accommodate change and none more so than the digital industry. But whilst doing so, we must do something that, to me it seems, his design team may have overlooked – remember the basics. I am a huge advocate of simplicity in design and to ensure BBC Sport users have a smooth user experience the site must be logical and easy to navigate. As it stands there is simply way too much going on and it is difficult to know where to look first, and second for that matter. To be fair to him, Gallop does go on to admit that the work on the site is far from complete; to be honest I couldn’t agree more.

Daniel Webb
Account Executive

Follow me: @Daniel__Webb
Follow Digital Annexe: @DigitalAnnexe

Following a successful past year, Digital Annexe is looking to expand its digital team and is searching for seven candidates to join the team on a permanent basis. Digital Annexe specialises in providing efficient and effective digital marketing services to big-brand customers including Mercedes-Benz, smart, AGCO and Laura Ashley. Web analytics is a core part of our service and we are Omniture and Google Analytics certified.

Here’s a short overview of each of the seven roles we are looking to fulfil:

Junior Creative Digital Designer

A Junior Creative Digital Designer is required to support mid and lead designers across a broad range of digital projects during concept and design stages for mediums such as full sites, microsites, iPad/iPhone apps, social, banner advertising and email. Due to the profile of our clients, consistency and attention to detail is a vital part of the role. A solid understanding of basic design principles is a must.

A successful candidate must have great typography skills, experience in Adobe Photoshop/ Illustrator and a good portfolio to present. Exposure to digital design, HTML and Flash would be considered a bonus. It is essential that you harbour an eagerness to learn, explore new technologies and stay at the very top of cutting edge design trends.

This is for a permanent position following a six month trial period.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Mid-weight Creative Digital Designer

The successful applicant will be responsible for supporting the lead designers across a broad range of digital projects during concept and design stages for mediums such as, full sites, microsites, iPad/iPhone apps, social, banner advertising and email. Due to the profile of our clients consistency and attention to detail is a vital part of the role. A good solid understanding of basic design principles is a must.

Any potential candidate must have great typography skills, a solid digital portfolio and experience with Adobe Photoshop/ Illustrator. It is also essential to possess the ability to perform basic HTML, CSS & Flash when required; skills in video editing, After Effects and JQuery would be considered a bonus.

This is for a permanent position following a six month trial period.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Junior iOS Role

The role available is for a graduate/entry level iOS developer. The ideal candidate will be proficient in both Objective C and the iOS/Cocoa Touch frameworks and be confident enough to get involved with multiple ongoing iOS projects and a team of senior developers. Our expectation is that you would look to improve and extend your skills in iOS development and take on a middle-weight role as the mobile team grows.

The ideal candidate will be confident and prepared to hit the ground running with an eagerness to learn and expand on their current abilities. Our projects involve working closely with the design team and there is an expectation that the right candidate can work with this department (as well as the project managers) to take ownership of specific elements of an app with other designers/ developers and deliver.

This is for a permanent position following a six month trial period.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

AS3 Web Developer

We require a technically focussed Web Developer to work within our existing Digital Creative Design Department on range of technical and design-based projects mainly built around Flash. Although this is a technical role, you will mainly be working alongside Digital Designers and bringing their creations to life. You will need to be experienced in integrating raw data files into and out of Flash using technologies such as AS3, XML and CSS. Experience with Flash would also be beneficial.

For the right candidate, this can become a challenging and varied role that expands into the development of mobile based applications and bespoke Content Managed Based solutions.

This is for a permanent position following a six month trial period.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Account Executive / Junior Account Manager

A confident and enthusiastic Account Executive / Junior Account Manager is required to help assist our growing digital team and specifically the Account Managers and Directors on a range of big brand accounts. The right candidate will be required to manage client expectations in a support role on a day to day basis and be heavily involved in hands on marketing and project management. They will also be expected to accompany senior members of staff on client visits where required.

A can-do attitude, the ability and willingness to work in a team and the confidence, sensitivity and diplomacy to communicate with a range of audiences (clients, team members, etc) is essential. An interest in digital marketing, project planning ability and commercial awareness are equally as important.

This is for a permanent position following a six month trial period.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Account Manager – Digital

We are looking for an ambitious and motivated Account Manager to join our current team of Client Services people. An ideal candidate would have a strong knowledge of the digital market, outstanding client relationship skills (which would ideally have been developed at a previous agency or another client-facing position) and be comfortable managing budgets, client expectations and team members simultaneously.

You must have; a creative eye and impeccable attention to detail, proofreading and copy editing skills, excellent skills in Excel and PowerPoint and ideally some experience working with a CMS.

This is for a permanent position following a six month trial period.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Group Account Director

Reporting directly into the company’s two Directors, this is a new, senior role within Digital Annexe with huge potential for professional development and job satisfaction. We require a hands-on multi-tasking Group Account Director to head up our most senior client relationships and manage a continually growing and enthusiastic Account team. You will be taking responsibility for all digital output and growth of the agency on our largest account, Mercedes-Benz UK. This account is already staffed with a team of Account Managers, Account Executives and Graduates who will report into you.

This role requires a strong, confident personality with prior digital agency experience (additional client experience is a bonus) who is digital to the core. At this level, this candidate needs to have, and be able to demonstrate, their interest and knowledge in digital marketing and be able to show strong strategic planning skills plus the ability to control budgets and teams across multiple projects.

The ideal candidate will be looking for a real opportunity and challenge to develop their own skills and to contribute to the growth of the company.

The role will be split into roughly four key areas:

70% – Existing Business

15% – Admin

10% – Account team development

5% – New Business

This is for a permanent position following a six month trial period.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

That’s all folks! For any further information and a full specification about any of the above positions please email Susan@digitalannexe.co.uk Alternatively, why not view our latest show reel.

After developing a smart Facebook ‘cover creator’ on behalf of smart car UK, Digital Annexe’s work was today featured online in New Media Age. The smart cover creator is an integrated Facebook App that allows users to create either a mosaic of one of their photos from their remaining photos, or an infograph tabling their key Facebook statistics.

At the heart of the build is the data provided by the Facebook API, including tags in posts, tagged photos, users albums and “likes” to name few. The app then analyses the data and interprets it to generate more usable structures. Amongst all the tech, we’ve tried to make it as user friendly as possible with big colourful buttons to keep users entertained while they wait for their cover we have built some playful loading screen.

>> Read the full article here
>> Try the smart cover creator out for yourself

Keep up to date with Digital Annexe by following us on Twitter: @DigitalAnnexe

We’re very excited to have been shortlisted by the Blades Awards for smart foryou and we’d like to say a big thank you!

The smart foryou Stickorator allows you to drive around a 3D smart car and customise it from a range of decals and body colours. Over here in the Annexe, we like hitting the ‘handbrake’  for some tire skidmark action and bashing into the cones! Have a play for yourself at smartforyou.co.uk.

This is my first blog for Digital Annexe, and it comes at the end of my first week, making this inevitably a reflective piece. In my first week I have been involved in a whole variety of projects; I’ve helped produce marketing reports for Mercedes-Benz’s varying market areas using Adobe Omniture, I’ve learnt the basics of HTML when updating our digital brochures and I have started to increase DA’s tweeting frequency.I also spent a morning exploring i-Pad Apps in the search of ‘cool and interesting’ interfaces which could be applied to an upcoming project for Mercedes-Benz – pretty cool eh? Next week I’m told I’ll start learning how to update the websites.

That’s why I chose to work for an agency as opposed to a larger corporation, I wanted to get stuck in and “learn by doing”. Yes, it puts pressure on me not to make mistakes, but at a larger company it could be sometime before I was given such responsibility. I’m convinced that this way is far more beneficial…

For example, whilst reading a presentation about Search Engine Optimisation (SEO,) produced by one of the guys at Digital Annexe, I found out that the number one use for search engines is to find out information about specific topics, with 88% of users doing so, followed in second place, by those getting directions at 75% and in third place those looking for news and current events at 64%.

In my first week I have Googled the following:

Google+, Mark Zuckerberg, Justin Timberlake , CTA, Second Life , Google Adwords, B2B, HTML5, Flash, Mercedes-Benz, Drayton, Signet, Mercedes Fleet Manager, w3schools, Volkswagen rebel manifesto, Greenpeace, Marshalls Mercedes, Lancashire, National Rail and bitly.

Now this might not mean too much to you all, but to me it is very telling.

Everything I have searched comes into one of the top three uses for a search engine – I’m finding out a lot about how I use the web. I’m not only learning about the list of aforementioned skills and jobs; I’m learning how I, and the world, uses the internet. So yes, I am learning how to use new programmes and the basics of HTML but in reality I am learning a whole load more than that. I guess that is why, so far – touch wood – I’m sure I have made the right decision to start my digital career here at DA.

Daniel Webb – Graduate Trainee

I came across some pretty cool displays in The British Library. This is a device which allows gesture control on the projected image.

I was there to view ‘Out of this World’, an interesting exhibition which explores the thoughts, ideas and insights of science fiction writers such as Arthur C. Clarke and Mary Shelly. Worth a visit even if you’re not a big geek. http://www.bl.uk/sciencefiction

We always aim to work with some of the latest digital tools where they can make a difference for our clients, and our recent Virtual Test Drive With A Difference project was no exception. Created to support the Test Drives With A Difference smart car campaign, we took actual footage from a run of the test drive and incorporated Facebook Connect technology to produce a personalised journey to run alongside the live event. The Facebook API cleverly pulled in profile photos, names, hometown addresses and finished with a Virtual Test Drive snapshot album to take away – all very smart!

Take your personalised test drive here.

We’re delighted that our recently launched MadeforthePeople.com site, a feature-packed microsite for Mercedes-Benz Vans, has been shortlisted by the public on The FWA. Alongside the interactive 3D CGI walkaround and backgrounds, the site also includes the opportunity to compare or configure the M-B Vito range, and the chance to enter a competition to win a new van. The Vito tour section integrates Google maps to make finding and participating as intuitive as possible. Check it out for yourself here.