Twitter User Statistics
A recent study done by Barracuda Labs show that most Twitter users aren’t “active users”. The study analysed approximately 19-million Twitter accounts and according to them only 21% of Twitter users are active. An active user is defined as a user that has tweeted at least 10 times, has at least 10 followers and follows at least 10 people. The study show that 51% of Twitter users follow less than five people and 73% of Twitter’s users have tweeted less than 10 times. The conclusion: the updates on Twitter are coming from about 25% of Twitter’s user base. Download the full report from Barracuda Labs’ website for further statistics and information.

Facebook to add location sharing service
According to insiders Facebook users will be able to see the current location of their friends from April 2010. This new service has been in the making for about a year, according to the New York Times, although no formal announcement has been made by Facebook. According to Facebook they have more than 400-million active users and 50% of those users access the network at least once a day with 100-million people logging on from their mobile phones. It will be interesting to see how Facebook users receive the new service, read the full article for more information.

DM2PRO and Quattro Wireless compiled a report last year where they questioned over 600 respondents to determine whether or not the respondents have been integrating mobile apps with their brand’s current marketing strategy. According to the report the majority of the respondents haven’t invested in mobile apps yet but 65% of them planned to develop a mobile app in 2010.

On the other hand, those that have invested in mobile apps seem to be limiting the success of their app by not properly marketing it. If the aim of developing the app is to build brand awareness or convert impressions into profit, then a proper promotional plan is needed. On Emarketer.com Noah Elkin looks at the opportunities and challenges mobile apps provide marketers in “App-ortunity” Knocks. To summarise his key points; make sure that there is a consumer need for your app, pay attention to user feedback and keep users engaged with regular updates.

Read the full report by DM2PRO and Quattro Wireless for more information and statistics. Do you think South Africa will follow the same trend and see a significant increase in the number of mobile apps developed in 2010?

The data derived from Google Analytics can be used strategically as part of your web strategy to improve the overall performance and usefulness of your website to visitors. Some of the criteria that can be tracked in Analytics include:

Visitor statistics
Among other things, Google Analytics will show you how visitors found your website as well as the actions they performed whilst on the website. This data can be used to improve the overall functionality of the website, for instance a page with a high bounce rate may need tweaking. If visitors found your website with a certain keyword and almost immediately left the website it indicates that they did not find the content they were looking for. Make sure your website copy is easy to scan by bolding keywords and key-phrases and make use of interlinking. If a visitor lands on a certain page they need to be able to determine within seconds if your website has the information they are looking for.

Visits through mobile devices
Do you know how many people are viewing your website on a mobile device? In Google Analytics you are able to see which mobile devices they used to view the website as well as which cellular networks your visitors use under the Visitors tab.  Have you accessed your website through a cellphone yet and is it loading properly? If not, check it.

Site overlay tool
Another useful tool in Google Analytics is the Site Overlay under the Content tab. When you select this option you are shown where visitors click on your website as a percentage of clicks over a certain period.

The above are only a few of the things you can track through Google Analytics. To find out how to make the most of Google Analytics visit Google’s Conversion University.   Do you see your website as a project that needs continuous management or not?

Joey will attend SXSW as part of a group of South Africans who will be representing the South African geek community. If you are attending and have an iPhone you can download the official my.SXSW app to make sure you get the most out of the SXSW conference. This app allows you to “view/build your schedule, map conference and festival events each hour, exchange contact info with people you meet, view news, and search events, and venues.”

For a full list of attendees, visit GeekDigest.co.za. Keep in the loop by following their tweets on Twitter, the official hash tag is #sxswSA. Keep an eye on our blog for a SXSW update from Joey!

In order to determine your website’s performance you need to know what to measure. Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) is defined by Wikipedia as “a measure of performance…such measures are commonly used to help an organisation define and evaluate how successful it is, typically in terms of making progress towards its long-term goals.” Essentially most websites are there to generate leads for the business and to sell products online. Below is a list of possible KPI’s for websites:

-  Filling in a contact form to be contacted by a consultant
-  Signing up to a newsletter
-  Subscribing to an RSS feed
-  Downloading a brochure or requesting more information
-  Viewing the contact pageThe website’s

KPI’s can also be thought of as the goals you want visitors to complete on the website. Each website’s goals will depend on the type of industry that you’re in and what you want to achieve through the website. Below is a list of indicators that can be used to measure your KPI’s:

-  Visitors
-  Total number of visitors
-  Number of page views
-  The number of new versus returning visitors
-  Visitor loyalty
-  Bounce rate
-  Top content
-  Searches conducted within your website (if you have a website search bar)
-  Goal conversion rate

Goal conversion rates are an important aspect to consider. This will tell you what percentage of visitors to your site convert into leads or sales.

In order to provide more accurate reports you can apply a filter in Google Analytics. For instance, you can exclude your company’s IP address from your reports for more accurate website visitor numbers (read more about filters). If you want to track certain campaigns (i.e. email campaigns or see how popular a certain link to your website in an article is), you can tag your URLs with variables to create a unique URL.

Are there any KPI’s that you consider important that are not mentioned here?

Remember The Milk
“Never forget the milk, or anything else, ever again.” According to the developers of this app creating and sharing tasks have never been so easy. With Remember the Milk you can manage your tasks from anywhere and easily share them with third parties. Twitter integration allows you to send new tasks to Remember The Milk by following @rtm and sending the task as a direct message. The app syncs with your Google Calendar and task reminders can be received via email, IM or sms.

Toodledo
Toodledo is an online to-do list that aggregates your tasks in one place.  Toodledo is a handy tool that can sync with Microsoft Outlook’s calendar and allows you to access your to-do list from anywhere, at any time.

Twittercal
Do you spend a lot of time on Twitter? With Twittercal you can add events to your Google Calender by following @twittercal and sending event details as a direct message.

Tempo
With this paid-for app you can track how much time you spend on certain projects (even when you are not in the office) and generate reports based on certain criteria. Twitter integration makes it easy for users to keep track of what they spend their time on by direct messaging the application with details of where they are and what they are busy with. Pricing for Tempo starts from $12.00 a month.

• The News24 app helps you stay up-to date with the latest breaking news from News24.com.
• Want to connect with others who enjoy reading and writing about the same topics as you? Join Networked Blog’scommunity for bloggers and blog lovers to promote your own blog and discover new blogs.
• Testimonialsis a handy app that gathers your professional, academic and personal references in one place.
• The Slideshare app adds all your SlideShare presentations to your Facebook fan page and you can upload presentations from either Facebook or SlideShare.
• Want to know how your fans feel about a certain matter? The Poll app allows you to customise polls and shows you graphs of user responses.
• Make the most of your current network and add a LinkedIn badge to your Facebook profile. The LinkedIn Profile app links to your business profile from Facebook.
• The EasyCV app allows you to insert a summary of your CV onto your profile page and will link to a more detailed version on a dedicated page.

Are there any other Facebook applications that you use and find worthwhile?

The same goes for your representation in the online space - your website.  As soon as a new visitor lands on your website, they will decide whether they like it or not based on what they see. Perhaps they will stay on your website for a while in the hope of finding the content they are looking for, but if they don’t find it quickly, they’re bound to look elsewhere. For this reason, it is very important to think about what visitors would like to gain or take away from your website.

Nando’s website is a good example of a pretty but impractical website. Nando’s is a fast-food restaurant, so one can assume that the main reason why someone would visit the Nando’s site is to look at their online menu. Not only does Nando’s not have a menu listed on the site, but the website is built in flash and the navigation is atrocious. So really, other than being visually attractive, there is not much use for the website.

We have previously covered usability and design factors that influence user perception in “How important is your website’s target audience?” and Web development pitfalls to avoid Part One and Part Two.

For actual examples of what not to do, here is the world’s worst designed website and a list of 20 very badly designed websites.

Essentially satisfaction and ease-of-use will ensure repeat customers for your website and positive word-of-mouth. Usability can be explained as the quality of a user’s experience when interacting with a website. Your website’s usability score can be measured through the System Usability Scale (SUS), a questionnaire that determines how well an interface serves its users. The questionnaire comprises 10 questions and yields a score in the range of 0 – 100.   According to Wikipedia the measurement of usability focuses on:

- Effectiveness: Can users successfully achieve their objectives?
- Efficiency: How much effort is expended in achieving those objectives?
- Satisfaction: Was the experience satisfactory?

Positive word-of-mouth is one of the most powerful marketing tools and it is generated based on your customer’s brand experience. The customer experience can either be in-store, face-to-face, over the telephone or on your website. Since there are so many customer-brand touch points it is important to cover all your bases.

As part of your web strategy a goal can be to increase leads and sales through your website but, that being said, it is important to not focus purely on making the sale. Repeat customers contribute to the success of many businesses therefore it is important to attract visitors to your website, provide them with what they are looking for quickly and easily and make the experience memorable so that they will come back and tell others about their experience.

Some usability factors that can influence a user’s experience include:

- Page load time
- The website’s overall look and feel
- Easy navigation
- Informative content

Read more in Why You Should Invest in Good Development.

ShoZu

Share content easily with Shozu to a wide variety of social websites like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Twitpic to name a few. This app is available for many different types of handsets, check here if the app is compatible with your phone.

A virtual cellar: Drync Wine

Whether you are a wine newbie or connoisseur Drync Wine for the iPhone is the perfect wine partner. Drync acts like a virtual cellar with reviews and ratings for over 800 000 wines. With integrated Twitter access, you can easily share your wines of choice with your followers. Buy Drync from iTunes for $3.99 and add all your favourite wines to your virtual cellar list. This is the perfect app for foreign visitors who want to try out the Western Cape’s famous wine routes.

Pano

This app for iPhone allows you to take “beautiful, seamless panoramic pictures” straight from your phone. Panoramic photos are created by taking multiple shots and then stitching them together in the app. No additional software is required. Pretty cool!

fring

Perfect for staying in touch with family and friends while you’re away, fring is an instant messenger mobile app. Social networks that work through fring include Skype, Google Talk, Twitter, Yahoo, AIM and MSN Messenger. You can also use fring to make affordable local and international calls via Skype.

amAze GPS

amAze GPS offer users turn-by-turn navigation and the latest, most detailed maps. Additional features include a 3D bird’s eye view over detailed satellite imagery in major cities. The app is available on a number of handsets and subscriptions are either $3.99 on a monthly basis or $33.99 per year.

Any favourite apps you would like to share?