This month's menu

Just off the wire

Why Microsoft's acquisition of Linkedin is an indication of the future.

Blot Links

16 Layout Tips

Drayton Bird has been described as someone 'knowing more about direct marketing than anyone in the world', so his advice is always well worth listening to.

This month we got an email from Drayton's company prompted by people asking for guidance on using photos and images.

Drayton came up with 16 tips on using images in advertising, backed up by his testing and information from Gallup.

The tips are short, sweet and simple to implement.

So the next time you're looking for an image to put on your webpage or email, have a look at the advice before you put it in.

Read the 16 tips…

Facebook prioritises for friends and family

The Facebook 'algorithm' that works out what appears on your news feed is changing to give more prominence to posts by the user's friends and family.

This is a reaction to a 20% drop in these kind of posts last year and complaints that personal posts were being drowned out by news and company posts.

While this change will be appreciated by the majority of Facebook social users, companies that have invested marketing effort in a company Facebook page may feel betrayed and suffer a drop in traffic, although Facebook say this should be a small drop.

What it also probably means is that it adds weight to taking paid out advertising on Facebook - if your company posts aren't gaining traction, you may well get better results from paid adverts.

Find out more …

Evernote limits devices, bumps up prices

Evernote has announced some significant changes in their pricing plans that may see users looking for alternatives.

The note taking app will only be available for a maximum of two devices on their free plan, and cost of their Plus and Premium paid plans are increasing by 30-40%.

This represents quite a departure in strategy and is perhaps linked to the appointment of a new CEO last year. Perhaps financial reality has struck.

Many Evernote users have taken to the Internet to complain but it is not clear yet how many will abandon the app.

In a bid to take advantage of the change, Microsoft's OneNote has announced an Evernote import facility.

Read more …