It’s been a busy year at GWS Media, and quite a few new articles have been written and posted on the site in that time, some of them attracting considerably more attention than others.
To pick out the most popular ones, we used Google Analytics to show all the articles on the GWS Media website in descending order of unique page views during the 12-month period spanning 3rd July 2017 to 2nd July 2018. After noting down the Top 25 most popular ones, we adopted the Top 10, but then edited out three of ephemeral relevance in positions 8, 9 and 10 that we felt were no longer topical enough to feature, and selectively substituted an editorial choice of three others from the 11-16 zone.
Here we show the actual rank order of all articles featured. Are you surprised by which ones are most popular? The articles at No. 3 and No. 5 are both over three years old but are perennially popular. But more importantly...
Which is your favourite? Please let us know!
No. 1: Benefits and Risks of Social Media
In a recent article, we discussed the history of social media on the Internet and its precursors. In this follow-up article, we take a look at the benefits and dangers of social media today, for both personal and business users.
3 Personal Benefits of Social Media:
There are several benefits of personal social media use in today’s world, including:
- Cost savings on long-distance personal communications – social media networks and instant messaging services are much cheaper to use than the telephone, with messages generally being free of charge, so keeping in touch with distant relatives and friends, and even those a few miles down the road, has never been more affordable
- Opportunities to meet others with shared interests all over the world and to discuss those interests together with them
- Opportunities to strike up personal friendships and potentially relationships with compatible individuals all over the world
Read the full article here
No. 2: Five of our Favourite High-tech Companies in Bristol
Bristol and the South-West of England have become home to a significant concentration of modern technology companies in the early 21st century.
Surveying the scene with a view to writing an article on the exciting start-ups and established backbones of industry in our region, we found we were spoiled for choice. With hundreds of eligible and eminently worthy candidates to choose from, we can only say that the following five are a small selection of some of our favourites.
No. 3: Celebrating the Release of Windows 10
Over the past few years, the fast, dynamic Apple has been creeping in. Microsoft started to lose traction with the young, cool, consumer tech crowd. But Microsoft has managed to rejuvenate its perception, retaining its B2B following but also reinventing itself for a new audience of consumers.
One thing is for sure, branding, marketing and PR have played a key part in the war of the desktop. The logo has been a centre piece in this strategy.
No. 4: GDPR Legislation: Advice for Businesses
In the past couple of months, we have been contacted frequently for advice related to GDPR. We’ve also noticed that it has been a hot topic at networking events for the past six months, so we felt it was time we wrote up an article on what it is and how in particular it affects small and medium-sized businesses.
What is this so-called GDPR, and why is everyone in business going on about it lately?
GDPR is a convenient acronym for the General Data Protection Regulation (EU) 2016/679, a piece of binding European Union legislation adopted on April 14th 2016 that will come into force on May 25th 2018. The legislation governs how businesses handle personal data they collect or process. It is intended to integrate and supersede all previous separate pieces of national legislation binding upon these areas of practice.
No. 5: Bristol Street Art and See No Evil
With Bristol’s spectacular Street Art Festival ready to return in an explosion of colour and creativity next week, we thought it deserved some attention.
Street art has played a big role within the culture of Bristol, with many walls and buildings around the city transformed over the years by the addition of murals and graffiti art. Some of the most famous Bristol street art is by the legendary local artist Banksy.
Bristol street art is now an internationally recognised cultural and creative phenomenon which seems to inspire and attract a wide range of people and has featured in the news and on TV programs. There may always be some dissenting voices however, and also a few who spoil the positive appeal of graffiti art.
No. 6: How Future Developments in Marketing will Transform Business
On 31st October, our creative director David Graves delivered the following speech at a Bristol business seminar event that we co-hosted with Peninsula Group Limited.
Like many, I fight shy of predicting the future in terms of new technologies.
Some of you may remember the hover cars, antigravity devices and bizarre-looking buildings predicted in the 1960s when artists were called on to predict what the future might look like; and weren’t we all meant to be colonizing Mars by now?
Anyway, while those things do all seem to be on the cards (except people seem to stubbornly prefer old-fashioned houses), we’re in the rather amazing position today of being able to see in embryo the technologies that I think will be the key drivers of change over the next decade.
No. 7: How to Work with Web Designers
We here present a brief checklist of guidelines worth bearing in mind when you liaise with web designers, although the same principles are equally applicable when you approach print designers, and in fact similar ones apply to any relationship with professional consultants whom you hire for their expertise.
1. Be clear on your purposes
What is it that you are trying to gain from hiring a professional web designer? What is your overall business concept, and how can hiring a web designer help you?
- If you are an independent professional answerable only to yourself, you are the one who is going to be calling all the shots in this regard. Make sure you know what you want before you make first contact with a designer. If your business vision is still developing, you may be best advised to seek professional business advice before proceeding to the design stage.
- If you are a professional working as part of a team for a business or other organisation, then it is incumbent on you to ensure that you have internal agreement with your directors and / or other responsible colleagues on considerations such as your collective budget and business goals in hiring a designer before you proceed further. It may also be wise to plan to take at least one responsible member of the team along with you to any meetings so as to ensure that you have a cross-section of points of view from your organisation represented. This can also lead to more effective brainstorming on any issues arising in consultation.
No. 12: 15 of your Favourite Movie and TV Show Fonts
Have you ever noticed the dramatic impact different fonts have on the mood generated by the main screen titles of films and TV shows?
So much more than being just bland pieces of text, they are an intrinsic element of branding for the entire production. They should create a feeling that is complementary to the ones evoked by the content, and an impact that makes the title memorable and exciting.
Here we examine fifteen examples of well-known productions whose title fonts are worth commenting upon.
No. 15: How to design a Great Landing Page for your Adwords Campaign
1. Efficient Conversion
The first principle to keep in mind is that the main aim of a pay-per-click landing page is to convert the visitor and capture their details – whether that means they submit a form, or buy something from your website.
You must include at least one of the following elements above the fold in desktop view – and the more flexible contact options you include, the greater your chances of converting the visitor. Bear in mind that some customers may prefer to make telephone contact while others will prefer electronic messaging in one form or another.
- Telephone number
- Email address
- Contact form
The contact form, if included (which we strongly recommend), should feature a clearly recognisable Submit button and preferably have separate input fields for the name, email address and telephone number of the enquirer, as well as space for a message.
What you don’t want is to drive traffic away to other places, even other pages in your website, because that is a probable path to losing those conversions.
No. 16: Meet Our New Hire: Pepper the Robot!
During his first days on the job he explored the new working environment, showed his skills and spent some time getting to know his new colleagues. He is usually talkative but sometimes he’s shy, he loves to tell jokes and he never leaves the office. Just like the average employee during his probation period, right?
Except for the fact that our “new guy” is a robot.
