1. Google Alerts

Google Alerts can be set up using your Gmail account and will send a notification to you when your client/brand or keyword has been mentioned on the web. You can receive your notifications daily or on a weekly basis. Once you notice that your client/brand has been mentioned in an article for example, you can approach the publication and ask for a link to your client`s website.

The set us is extremely easy and looks like this:

Simply enter your brand name or keyword and create the alert.

A problem with Google Alerts that it has now become a little bit unreliable and hit and miss so it is recommended to not use this as the only tool to monitor mentions of your brand on the web

2. Buzzsumo

BuzzSumo, the content marketing platform allows you to set up alerts as well as well as see the social mention count of the content straight away which can help you make a quick decision on which type of content is worth going after in order to get a link and which isn’t. After all, social media mentions likely factor into Google`s ranking algorithm as Facebook and Twitter are crawled by search bots.

Setting up an alert on Buzzsumo is easy:

1. Go into the ‘Monitoring’ feature on BuzzSumo
2. You can set up a new alert by clicking on ‘Create new alert’ which will bring up the following options:

3. Choose the type of alert you would like to receive
4. Create alert to receive alerts

BuzzSumo’s interface as shown above allows for more detailed searches on a variety of types of alerts such as ‘backlinks’ which is a handy alert if you would like to monitor earned links to a piece of content for example.

The last thing you will have to do is to approach the publication/influencer that mentioned your brand. You may have to look for their contact details or even approach the general outlet if it is a newspaper for example and ask to be directed to the relevant person that mentioned your brand.

This approach works well for brands that are already a bit better known and get mentioned on a regular basis, however, once you start putting out content about your brand, chances are it will get picked up by other sources than the ones you actively approach yourself which is where brand alerts come in handy.

The post How to get links to your site by using brand mentions appeared first on Tug | Digital Media Agency.

It hurts in similar ways when you run a report on your backlinks and find out you’ve lost them or your competitor has been taking all the good links away from you.

But not all is lost after all.

Below are a few ways of identifying and getting back these lost links or filling in any link gaps seen through our competitors:

1. Moz Open Site Explorer

Moz has an easy to use tool on Open Site Explorer called ‘Reclaim Links’, which identifies broken pages on your site (these can be pages with 404 Not Found errors or 302 temporary redirects) that have inbound links. Pulling a report together shows you how many links you could possibly reclaim if you 301 redirected the error pages and also the number of links to the page therefore allowing you to prioritise any pages with more links than others.

2. Majestic Lost Backlinks

Majestic allows you to find lost links, and even gives you a nice timeline graph of when the loss occurred. You will see a bit more information here, such as the referring domain, reason why the link was lost and how valuable the link was in terms of URL flow metrics.

3. Majestic Clique Hunter

Now, let’s look at what our competitors are doing.. Majestic’s Clique Hunter allows you to compare your site to 4 other competitors and see what links they have that you don’t, therefore identifying competitor link gaps. It’s useful information to know, especially helpful in terms of outreach because it shows valuable sites worth reaching out to.

4. Moz Unlinked Mentions

Another useful Moz Open Site Explorer tool called ‘Unlinked Mentions’ gives you a breakdown of any mentions of your brand or product found online that you may be able to request a link from. This information is prioritised by domain authority, which helps when identifying the most valuable site to outreach to for the citation link.

The post How to Fill Gaps in your Backlink Profile! appeared first on Tug | Digital Media Agency.

According to Group M, one in four people are genuinely more trusting of a chatbot with their personal information than a human. I know as well as you do that we are living in a (very) digital age but should we draw the line when it comes to human/AI interaction? I’ll hold my hands up and admit I often find it easier to ask online. Last week I went out of my way to book a table online as opposed to calling the pub, not because my palms get sweaty at the sheer thought of speaking with a stranger, but merely because it was the first thing to come to mind. The digitalisation of our lives has led to a shift in how we think and resolve. We want the quickest and easiest solution. No queues please!

The ‘Humanity in the Machine’ report, which Group M ran, found that 63% of people would consider communicating with a chatbot to contact a business or brand. Fair enough. The report also found that 48% of us also feel it’s “creepy” for a machine to pretend it’s a human, but the reality is that chatbots are becoming hugely popular in digital marketing, and it’s vital that brands embrace becoming an “experience business”. Facebook recently updated its Messenger features, meaning chatbots can now link to an account to make personalised suggestions. “Oh you liked that book, right? How about your read THIS book? No, don’t worry, you don’t need to go look for it, we’ve done that for you!” Simple, easy and effective. Move over redirecting, the chatbot age is well and truly in full swing. Read more about Messenger bots here.

The logic behind why so many brands and businesses are now turning to an AI-led customer service is due to ever-changing and ever-rising customer expectations. Brands must improve the experiences their customers endure in order to maintain customer trust and brand advocacy. Where social media gives the customer the driving seat, chatbots are allowing brands to (sort of) take back some of the control, even if it is through a creepy, fake human. Like it or not, this is the direction our online customer journey has taken and now is the time to embrace it. After all, who wants to wait in line in store? Just send that Tweet, sit back and let the digital magic happen.

The post Humans V Chatbots: The Modern Customer Journey appeared first on Tug | Digital Media Agency.

There are events taking place all over the world: agencies, brands, industry leaders and more are coming together to talk around social media issues. For example, from a quick browse of the global event hashtag #SMDay2016 on Twitter, I’m able to tune into a live Facebook stream from Ahmedabad about digital video in India, I can catch tweets from the Philippines about social star Sebastian Castro’s talk about how YouTube changed his life and I’m able to follow threads from all around the world (kind of speaks about the power of social for itself, doesn’t it?)

Interested in getting in on the action? Follow the hashtag #SMDay2016 on Twitter and Facebook, check out the events going on around the world and share your own story: how has social media made a personal impact on who you are?

And make a note in your diaries: Social Media Week, a worldwide event focussed on sharing media insights around social media’s influence in business, culture and society, is happening 12-16 September 2016. For those of you in London, events will happen at BFI Southbank and it will feature speakers from big names like National Geographic, Buzzfeed, Forbes and more. To learn more about the event and how you can get involved, click here.

Until then, a happy #SMDay to you all!

The post Happy Social Media Day! appeared first on Tug | Digital Media Agency.

Chimp & Zinc, an India-based design agency, have morphed each of the show’s characters into advertising professionals.

Those busy scheming, with their fingers in many a pie…

Those omnipotent SEO team members, ruling over page 1…

Even those thrifty media moguls spending the crown’s coffers…

From client service to media manager, or the unfortunate intern, find yourself here.

The post Game Of Agencies (…No Spoilers) appeared first on Tug | Digital Media Agency.

“RAR” stands for “Recommended Agency Register”, and if you work in the agency world /or look for agencies to fulfil media, creative and design work, they’re a pretty big deal. What makes the RAR Awards unique is that they are compiled exclusively on client testimonials and voting systems, which basically means we have our clients to thank for being finalists!

Bowties and evening gowns to the ready for the 16th of June where we will be at the Lancaster Terrace Hotel in London celebrating this achievement with some of our amazing clients and Tug team members.

Tug lends itself to being very tactical ensuring that all components needed to execute an effective and successful campaign are led by a “strategic thinking” client service team which ushers nicely into our second and third nominations.

The list of all 2016 RAR Finalists are (Finalists here)

If you are at the RAR awards on the 16th, stop by our table and share a drink with us!

The post Finalists for 3 awards in the 2016 RAR Line-up appeared first on Tug | Digital Media Agency.

Before the event

Obviously this is where the majority of your time will be spent, start planning well in advance so things don’t get too hectic in build up to your event.

Decide on a clear brief – Make sure you know exactly what it is that you’re trying to achieve from your event. Once you identify what your aim is, start thinking about how you’re going to achieve that and what you’d like to actually do during the event.

Determine a budget – Figure out the budget you have available and what is actually possible with that budget. This will give you a clearer idea about which of your initial ideas would be possible to pull off. Things to consider include venue, refreshments, outside hire, goodie bags, travel costs etc.

Who should you invite? – Once you know what the aim of your event is, this should determine the audience you are trying to target. Think about the influential bloggers in that audience, and whether you have room in your budget to cover the cost of their travel, or if you should just invite bloggers from nearby the event.

How is the event going to run? – It’s really important to run through how the event will run from start to finish. Note down everything that you want to happen during the event, with timings of how long you think everything will take, to make sure all the time is filled. Don’t forget to allow time for bloggers to arrive and network, and make sure your event is held at a time they will be able to attend, in case they have full time jobs etc.

During the event

Arrive early – Make sure you get to the venue in plenty of time before the event is due to start, especially if you aren’t able to check out the venue in person beforehand. Arriving early will allow you to set up the room and sort out any issues that may arise beforehand.

Brief your team – It’s good to run through the plan of the event with anyone else that is working on it. Make sure everyone knows what they are responsible for and be sure to greet any external staff (eg. Videographer) so everyone is clear on what is happening.

Know your bloggers – having a list of all the bloggers that have confirmed or might attend the event is really useful. Include a picture, their website or blog, and a small bio about each person so you know who they are when they arrive and can network more easily.

Paperwork – if you are photographing or videoing the event, with the aim of publishing this afterwards, then make sure everyone who attends has signed a waiver giving their permission to be filmed.

WiFi – If you want your bloggers to live tweet from the event then make sure WiFi is available and that the login details are clearly displayed.

After the event

Follow up – Be sure to follow up with everyone that attended your event, especially if you want them to blog about the event. If you have any photos or videos from the event, or other information they may find interesting, then send this over. It also encourages a good relationship in the future.

Debrief – It’s important to have a debrief with your team after the event so discuss the successes and learnings that can be improved on next time.

Follow these simple steps and you’re sure to pull off a successful blogger event!

The post How to Plan a Successful Blogger Event appeared first on Tug | Digital Media Agency.

Here is a list of things you can do to help your social media profiles come out top in the SERPs:

1. Optimise descriptions such as your Twitter bio for SEO: Use keywords and hashtags. Make sure you stick to under 150 characters so that your description is visible in SERPs. Your description is effectively a Meta description and will be regarded by search engines as such.
2. Interlink all of your social media profiles with one another and make sure they are referenced correctly: If your Facebook profile is mentioned on your Instagram account for example and vice versa, it will help search engines establish relevance between your properties.
3. Google+ is a platform that is no longer used as much as a few years ago, however, sharing your content will still have a beneficial effect on your rankings in Google.
4. YouTube acts just like a search engine: make sure your descriptions are long and informative and your video is in the right category so users can find it more easily.
5. Referencing your key landing pages on your Google+ page will do wonders for their ranking.
6. Instagram is a great place for keyword optimisation. Use your keywords as hashtags but do not overdo this as it will look spammy.
7. The Notes-Section in Facebook is a great section to share content. Many brands neglect this section but adding new content will mean that your profile is crawled by Google more often.
8. Contact details such as address details and telephone numbers also help search engines to establish relevance and authority of your brand

Social Media Optimisation is a way for your SEO and Social teams to work together. Carrying out regular audits of your social profiles is important in order to make sure that they are relevant in terms of keywords for SEO.

The post Why Social Media Optimisation matters appeared first on Tug | Digital Media Agency.

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As everyone expected from the Google’s Performance Summit, Google is yelling more and more about Mobile (at this rate mobile will rule the world very soon according to Google). Interestingly the starting point of most of our decisions in a day to day life that we make are depending on our mobile searches anyway (your swiped date, place for the date, the movie you want to watch, the place you want to go for holiday, things you want to buy and many more). So it’s fair to say that Google have a point.

The impact of mobile in the search engine is so overwhelming that Google decided to make some drastic new features to the core AdWords products (audacious!). One of the main 4 ballsy moves they are going to implement is; expanded ad text formats, responsive display ad units, bid adjustments on impressions according to device and expanded advertising in Google maps.

Expanded text ads:
An enhanced character limit for the headline (25 to 35) will allow the brand to show the product information before the click. And early testing proved this with an improved Click through rate by 20%. Instead of having a 2 description line with 35-character limit, there will be one consolidated description line with a limit of 80.
Manual entry of display URL is always having the disapproval issue because of the Google’s advertising guidelines even with minor changes. And it will be automatically extracted from the final URL to ensure accuracy, with a customized path.

Responsive ads:
Google Display Network is now offering ad units that can adapt with the various content across publisher’s sites and apps. By providing the headline, description, image and URL Google will optimize and serve the ad accordingly.

Device level bid adjustments:
This feature allows the bid adjustments in the device level (e.g.: mobile, desktop & tablets). Finally, they are separating tablet from the desktop which is always a best way forward (after a lot of complain). This will allow the campaign to have a specific KPI based on the devices which is good measure to check the efficiency.

Local search ads in maps & Google.com
This feature allows a more customised involvement which improves the brand awareness and driving more in-store visits to assist the retailers. As feature still on the testing phase, with formats like promoted pins for the nearby businesses, an innovative look at local business pages with browsing option for the products, this feature allows a comprehensive experience for the customer rather than top line results on the Google maps.

The post Google’s eternal love towards mobile is changing the AdWords core products appeared first on Tug | Digital Media Agency.