i-pic – which offers customised photo frames for any occasion – has just had a website refresh and Search Engine Optimisation boost thanks to Boomerang PR.

Working with the existing design, we provided a seamless blog integration and re-built the structure of the site behind the scenes to ensure it is SEO friendly while adding new content and copy throughout.

We’ve also introduced i-pic photo frames to Twitter and Facebook, adding to its social media and online marketing campaign. Boomerang will work closely with the i-pic photo frames team to offer ongoing SEO and social media marketing support wherever possible.

i-pic is based in Staffordshire and provides unique customised photo gifts for any occasion, whether that’s weddings, birthdays, new babies or celebrations. To find out more about their customised photo frames, visit Ipic-uk.com.

Avanti Driving School in Stoke-on-Trent has secured first page listings in Google in just two months thanks to Boomerang’s Search Engine Optimisation and social media marketing support.

The company, which provides expert driving tuition to learner drivers throughout Staffordshire and Cheshire, came to us last November with a simple request – they wanted to be found on the first page of the organic crawler-based listings of Google. But they only had a tight budget and we were limited as to what we could do for them.

However, armed with the keywords of ‘Driving School Stoke-on-Trent’ and ‘Driving Lessons Stoke-on-Trent’ and competing against nearly 400,000 competitors, we boosted the Avanti website behind the scenes and carried out ongoing search engine marketing to achieve the firm’s goals.

Just two months later and with limited budget, Avanti is featured on the first page of both desired search terms and has seen web traffic significantly increase as a result. Thanks to our support, the driving school has expanded and taken on new instructors to cope with demand.

Evidence suggests people don’t even look beyond the first page of search engine results, therefore SEO is becoming a crucial part of any company’s marketing budget. At Boomerang, we can provide a range of services to help you get onto that first page.

Thanks to Google Analytics, you can monitor how our work is helping to drive traffic to your website so you’ll always see a good Return on Investment, no matter what we do. To find out more, give us a call and we’ll see what we can do for your website.

Evidence yet again this morning that social media just isn’t going to go away… A report by Nielsen has revealed that the average person spends a total of more than five and a half hours, looking at sites such as Facebook and Twitter. That’s apparently two more hours than we were spending just 12 months ago.

The report – which analysed users from 10 different countries, including America – found that Australians spent the most time on social media during December while the lowest number was in Japan, where people spent an average of two hours and 50 minutes.

Interesting stuff. Social media is taking over our lives. We use it to shop – reading reviews and joining in with discussions about products and services. We use it to find love, chatting to other people online. We use it for business, that’s whether it’s for marketing, networking or general development.

Social media is a cultural phenomenon that is becoming huge. It’s bringing the world together on a scale that we never dreamed would happen. It’s helping to break down boundaries. It’s opening up endless possibilities. The power of social media isn’t going to go away. That’s clearly evident in how much time we’re now spending on social media.

If you haven’t yet embraced the new media of the 21st century, give us a call. We’ll be happy to have a chat.

We’ve just completed a website upgrade for Manchester Fertility Services – the North West’s leading IVF treatment specialists, adding lots of new features including an integrated blog, a pop-up survey and additional pages to support its expansion.

We’ve also introduced the fertility clinic to social media, adding Twitter and Facebook accounts to link up to its new blog and keep people informed of all the latest news and information regarding infertility and treatments available.

Boomerang will be using the results of the pop-up survey to support its ongoing PR, SEO and social media marketing campaign for Manchester Fertility Services. We’ll also be designing and writing a quarterly e-newsletter for the team, providing news, updates and information to all subscribers of the website.

To view the website, visit Manchesterfertility.com.

Social media can take many different forms, including everything from forums, blogs and micro-blogging to wikis, podcasts, videos, photographs and social bookmarking. Sites such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia, Digg – they all fall under the social media umbrella.

As we all know, the traditional media industry – i.e. newspapers and magazines – has been dying out for quite some time now. Jobs have been slashed left, right and centre as more and more people ditch the printed word to get their news online. And why wouldn’t they? It’s fast; instant; it’s part of a massive global two-way conversation and, more importantly, it’s free!

But media overall isn’t dying. It’s merely changing. And this is my point. To survive, newspapers are going online. They’re getting active on Twitter; launching their own online communities and forums; welcoming two-way conversation on their news stories; writing blogs – they’re adapting to our changing world. A world that is demanding everything online.

So you see, social media could be saving the traditional media industry. It’s just adapting to survive. The demand for media is still there and as strong as ever – but the medium in which we demand it has changed. The printed form will most likely die out, eventually. How newspapers will replace their subscription revenue is another matter entirely.

Whatever happens, all journalists will have to adapt and learn to blog, write news articles with SEO in mind and get used to sites such as Twitter. And if the media industry is changing, then public relations is changing, meaning that PR agencies will have to adapt as well.

But many PR professionals still seem reluctant to embrace social media, showing a real lack of understanding of the changing media landscape around them. Those PR agencies who ignore social media, don’t take it seriously or see it as just a ‘bolt-on’ service won’t survive themselves.

You see, public relations will always exist and PR agencies will remain. But only if they understand, learn and welcome with open arms this new form of media.

What’s even more crucial is learning the art of Search Engine Optimisation. All PR professionals and journalists should be fully trained in SEO by now, as well as writing in HTML. Because you can’t just apply your traditional PR skills to this new medium, oh no! You have to be thinking in terms of the search engines with every single word and phrase that you write. There’s far more to it than meets the eye. It’s a science. A craft in itself.

Even now – more than half a century since social media planted its roots – there are many PR dinosaurs plodding around out there, reluctant to even understand it and see where it fits. The fact is, public relations manages, protects and enhances reputations through whichever medium we choose. Social media replaces traditional media as the new medium in which we manage, protect and enhance these reputations.

So to conclude, let’s keep things simple. Traditional media is the old media. Social media is the new. It’s time to stop thinking about it in terms of just Facebook or meaningless conversations online. It’s not the shape of things to come, it’s already here. Social media is not a fad, it’s here to stay.

If your PR agency still has its head stuck in the sand, call us for a chat. We’d be more than happy to talk you through our range of services available. What’s more, we’re affordable, cost-effective and will tailor our services to suit your needs, not our own. Don’t forget you can easily contact us on Twitter @boomerangpr.

To see some of our work in action, check out Creative Boom – it’s an online magazine designed to support, celebrate and inspire the creative industries. It’s a live example of what we can do for your business in terms of social media, Search Engine Optimisation and web design and development.

During a recent meeting with a prospective client, I was asked whether I thought social media was just a fad. Something that would die out in the next couple of years. I didn’t even hesitate when I answered ‘No way!’

You see, social media has been around for a long time already. It’s just different, that’s all. Many believe the foundations of social media began in 1969 with the launch of APRANET, created by the U.S. Department of Defence, which later became known as the Internet, and became mainstream when CERN released the World Wide Web in 1992.

In fact, the first recognisable and ‘official’ social network site was launched in 1997 and called SixDegrees.com. It allowed users to create profiles and list their friends, helping people to connect and send messages to one another.

Although SixDegrees attracted millions, it failed to stick around and closed down in 2000. Many believed its downfall was simply because it was ahead of its time and that many of us weren’t interested in making friends on the Internet.

In 2002, that all changed. Friendster.com was launched, using a similar concept to SixDegrees. Then came LinkedIn in 2003, offering a more corporate approach to social networking and allowing people to connect in the business world online. It remains a successful service today and now has over 30 million users.

MySpace.com was born in 2003 and Facebook in 2004. Both continue to be widely used today and if Facebook were a country, it would be the world’s third largest. In fact, one in three people now own a Facebook account.

Micro-blogging was introduced in 2006 with the launch of Twitter, something that has proved to be hugely popular and is transforming the world. Look at what happened in Iran and how it linked protesters to the outside world when their government banned most social networking sites, apart from Twitter.

But there was plenty of foundations being laid for social media, before SixDegrees, Friendster, Facebook and Twitter. There was the Usenet systems first conceived in 1979 by Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis. Usenets allowed users to post articles to newsgroups and are the precursor to RSS feeds commonly used today on blogs and news sites.

What about bulletin boards? The first Bulletin Board System – or BBS – began in the late 1970s where users could log in and interact with one another. However, the systems were incredibly slow and only one user at a time could dial in to them, accessed over telephone lines via a modem.

Then came CompuServe, a service that began in the 1970s as a corporate mainframe computer communication solution, later expanding into the public domain a decade later. CompuServe allowed its members to share files, access news and offered social interaction. It meant you could send a message to a friend via new technology called ‘e-mail’, something that was already around but CompuServe helped to launch into the mainstream.

CompuServe also had lots of discussion forums where members could interact. These paved the way for what we know as social media today.

Despite all of the above, the one true precursor to today’s social networking websites has to be AOL, or ‘America Online’. AOL had member profiles, communities and pretty much all the basics of what we now recognise as social networking.

So you see, social media is no fad. The concept has been around for more than half a century and has been in the public domain for around 13 years. It isn’t going to go away. It’s human communication at our fingertips.

Of course, things will change. Facebook, for example, might fade away, others might take its place. The way we communicate online might be completely transformed through new technologies. Look at the introduction of the iPhone and how websites are now being built with iPhones in mind.

Whatever is likely to happen, I believe social media will simply evolve and get better and better. It’s amazing to think what we had just 10 years ago. Therefore, no one can predict where it will be 10 years from now. One thing is for certain, social media isn’t a fad, it’s here to stay.

The company – which employs around 30 staff at its headquarters in Wrenbury – is a leading supplier of steel-framed buildings for the agricultural, commercial and industrial sectors throughout the UK. Established for over 16 years, it provides everything from general purpose farm buildings, cattle buildings, grain stores and crop stores through to riding arenas, greenkeepers stores and workshops.

Boomerang is working closely with its team to design and build a new website that includes bespoke software to enhance the overall customer experience. We will also provide Search Engine Optimisation, including SEO friendly web copy and content throughout. Finally, we will get the company set up on Twitter while potentially introducing Graham Heath to other social media sites, such as Facebook and Flickr.

Boomerang will then provide ongoing support over the next 12 months through Search Engine and Social Media Marketing. To visit Graham Heath Construction’s current website, visit GH-Construction.co.uk.

Our predictions were correct. The rumours were true. However, nobody anticipated that Google would be silly enough to put our privacy at risk. As widely reported, in its initial launch phase, Google was automatically signing up Gmail users for Buzz, rather than waiting for them to ‘opt in’. It also revealed the identities of the people we tend to email most frequently.

This naturally put Google in lots of hot water as word spread like wild fire throughout the globe – mainly on Twitter, ironically – that Google had made a mistake and Buzz could almost certainly ‘Buzz off!’ and complaints flooded in, including one woman who claimed an abusive ex-husband could now follow her every move.

Now, only days after its launch, Google has been forced to go back to the drawing board and hastily revamp Buzz.

Today, the company apologised and announced it will introduce an option that will allow people to turn off Buzz completely as well as allowing Gmail users to choose who they want to be ‘friends’ with. This will be implemented in the next few days and not a moment too soon.

The whole charade has been a PR nightmare for Google, who – let’s be honest – really did get left behind when Twitter and Facebook fast became the social media giants.

We’ve just completed an exciting upgrade for Manchester Fertility Services’ Donors website, providing a seamlessly integrated blog within the existing design and adding various new features, such as links to the leading IVF treatment provider’s new Twitter and Facebook accounts, E-newsletter sign up facility and a new pop-up survey, which is going to support our ongoing PR campaign.

Not forgetting Search Engine Optimisation, we’ve boosted the existing web content accordingly, carried out keyword analysis and re-drafted all copy so it’s even more SEO friendly while introducing new meta titles, descriptions, keywords and tags throughout.

Over the next 12 months, we’ll work closely with the team at Manchester Fertility Services to provide ongoing SEO, social media marketing and both online and offline PR support, helping the organisation to attract lots more sperm and egg donors while raising its profile throughout the region.

Apparently, the search engine is set to introduce extra features to its successful email service that allow users to post and view messages about their daily activities, almost mimicking the status updates that make Facebook and Twitter so popular.

Up until now, we’ve been able to update our status and tell our friends, family and associates what we’re up to through our Google Chat on Gmail. But the new additions are set to expand on this and offer even more social networking capabilities.

The fact that Google is looking to put more emphasis on social networking should be a warning to all those businesses who haven’t yet embraced this form of communication. Whether that’s through marketing or public relations – social media is such a powerful and hugely dominating global phenomenon that it can not be ignored any longer.