The 30th Anniversary of the World Wide Web

The 30th Anniversary of the World Wide Web

The 30th Anniversary of the World Wide Web

the internet is and oldy, but a goody, right?

This week, the world wide web we have all come to love and hate in equal measure turned the big 30.

Wow, 30 years eh? Instead of moving out of its mum’s basement, getting a job and settling down, it’s been constantly evolving and changing almost all areas of our life.

From changing how we communicate with each other, to helping us quickly settle arguments with a few taps on a phone screen, we here at Giant Campus thought it would only be right to take a look back over those 30 years to see just how much has changed. For better and for worse…

Communication across the nation

If there’s one thing the internet changed more than anything, it’s how we communicate with one another.

Gone are the days of picking up a phone (or god forbid) meeting someone in person. Now with the internet and social media, we can simply comment on each other’s posts and have a quick chat with the promise of “we should meet up sometime!” – even though you secretly both know you never will.

There is an argument to be made that the world wide web has encouraged us to devalue face to face conversations, but it’s not all doom and gloom. For families and friends who live in different cities or even countries, the internet has provided an easy way for people to keep in touch that isn’t going to end up costing them the world in phone bills.

And on the topic of communication, it’s opened up entirely new avenues for businesses to communicate with their customers. With social mediaPPC advertising, not to mention email and content marketing, businesses now have a multitude of additional options to explore to help get people interested in their brand and buying their products/services.

 

“Hang on, let me Google it”

The world wide web has a lot of information. Like a lot of it. There are over 1.5 billion websites to explore, which according to Google, equates to over 60 trillion web pages. It’s easy to take it for granted these days, but the unique ability to access practically limitless information is perhaps one of, if not the biggest change to come out of the world wide web.

Of course, with so much information out there, it can be difficult to separate the good, the bad, and the just plain weird. That’s why search engine optimisation (SEO) is so important. With the right knowledge, you can ensure search engines know your site is great, meaning they rank higher in search results.

 

Jobs jobs and more jobs

When we think of what the internet has done in terms of jobs, it’s easy to blame it for the death of the high street. Yes, it’s true, the internet has made purchasing things so easy that physical shops are struggling to keep up, with no signs of it slowing down.

But while it has limited jobs in that respect, it’s also opened up a whole new world of job opportunities that simply didn’t exist beforehand. The rising popularity internet required whole new hosts of trained people to build sites, fix them, and help draw people to them in the first place (that’s us btw!).

Yes without the internet, the whole idea of digital marketing simply would not exist, so thank you internet for allowing all of us here at Giant Campus to have our job in the first place. Here’s to another 30 years.

We may be the digital marketing experts, but we’re eager to share our knowledge with those that want to learn more. Check out our other exciting blogs, or browse our range of digital marketing courses.

 

Ben Hawkes

Ben Hawkes

Digital Creative

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The Ultimate Guide To Social Media Style Guidelines

The Ultimate Guide To Social Media Style Guidelines

The Ultimate Guide To Social Media Style Guidelines

start standing out or get lost in the abyss

With over 60 million active business pages on Facebook alone, it is clear that when it comes to standing out on social media, it requires a little more than just being active.

With so much competition, social media profiles can’t afford to be someone who blends into the crowd. Instead, your Facebook, Instagram or Twitter profiles need to be the person dressed in a bright pink tutu, screaming the lyrics to God Save the Queen through a traffic cone, from the roof of a car.

To help with this, and to put it in slightly less metaphorical terms, we have collected some of our top tips to spruce up the style of your social media profiles.

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Tone of Voice

Anyone who has ever heard me talk, especially in my Social Animal training for Giant Campus (plug, plug, plug) will know that I am never one to shy away from my love of the wonderful smoothie brand that is innocent.

If you read any of their social posts, comments, website material or the bottles of their drinks, you will see the same light-hearted humour and positivity. In today’s age of declining organic engagement, it is a testimony to innocent’s strength of voice that people flock to the comment section to see what witty replies lie in wait.

For businesses and brands on social media, it is important to make sure that every element of the posts and pages themselves reflect the tone of voice of your brand that’s seen elsewhere. Keep it authentic, keep it friendly, and keep it relevant, and you’ll see greater results with your posts.

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Be ambitious with your images

A good way to imagine your social media efforts is a bell curve with low to maximum effort on the side, and a breakdown of every business profile on the bottom. In short, there is a level that everyone else will be doing, and then there is the section above that – where people spend more time and effort but get better results.

Nowhere does this apply more than in the images you send out with your posts. Everyone and their nan can use stock photos – or worse, rip photos straight from Google – but the best businesses on social media are the ones who put their own personal stamp on it.

Using tools like Canva, Snapseed and Photoshop make it super easy to add your own branding to images, or to make them look more professional within a few minutes. And while photos are great, do you know what’s better? GIFs or videos. With smartphones and free apps, it doesn’t have to be a trial making these types of visuals, so give it a go.

Platforms are releasing new post formats constantly, so there are plenty of options when it comes to creating interesting content. 360 photos, live video, and memes are just a few of the many tools at your disposal. Struggling to use know how to use memes on social media? Check out our recent blog which talks about this very thing.

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Make it consistent

Whether you get your social media fix from Instagram, Facebook, Twitter or one of the other social media platforms of choice, branding should be the same.

Logos, names, descriptions and cover photos should all be consistent, regardless of their channels. This stops people getting confused with other brands, or stops your profile coming off as unprofessional.

Create some guidelines and company practices for images sizes, replying to comments and dealing with complaints, and make sure this is the same for all channels.

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Mix it up

Now, this isn’t only here to check to see if you are all still paying attention. Though elements like the tone of voice and branding should be consistent between channels, it is important not to discount the fact that all platforms are different.

Don’t be one of those people who auto-post across all of their channels. You are better than that. We know it, and deep down, you know it too.

To help with this, here are some things to consider when posting on different channels:

  • Image size
  • Hashtag usage
  • Profile audience
  • Tagging in other businesses
  • Post length

There are some great tools to help with these aspects in case you are wondering what is best for each profile. An always up to date guide to image sizes can be found here, and to find hashtags to use, Rite tag is a great tool to help.

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In short

Following the above advice will set you well on your way to increasing your social media style, and helping you stand out from the crowd.
These practices are what we follow at Sleeping Giant Media and Giant Campus (alongside our infamous social media mantra), so try our advice and let us know what you think.

Dan Otway

Dan Otway

Digital Creative

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