This week...Our next Big 10 competition, CWT Digital announces a new service and Twitter introduces promoted tweets

Welcome back to another instalment of ‘this week’. Here at CWT Digital it’s been another busy week, we’ve launched a new Big 10 competition as well as a brand new service we’re offering to our customers. You can also catch up here with our top picks of the latest in the travel and technology world.

CWT Digital news:

NCL are nominated in the TravelMole and Travolution awards- 11th July- The ncl.co.uk website powered by CWT Digital has been nominated for 2 awards! The site is up for best cruise line website for Travoloution and best cruise/ ferry site for TravelMole. We hope you join us in wishing them the very best of luck in both awards!

Next Big 10 competition is announced- 11th July- We’ve just launched the next competition for our Big 10 campaign which is to win a full e-mail marketing campaign. The winner will win a consultation with our e-mail marketing specialist from which our design team will build a fully branded e-mail template. The campaign will then be sent out using our ClickMail technology. You can enter via the Big 10 section of our website here and you have up to the 29th July to apply.

CWT Digital launch new usability service-11th July- We’re very pleased to announce that we’ve added a new usability service to our online marketing department. We have teamed up with the University of Sussex and have access to some top quality usability suites. As part of our service we will give you a consultation of what you are planning to achieve/ learn and on the day we will provide a facilitator, participants to test your site (based on your target audience), and a DVD of the day.  We will also provide documentation of our findings and any follow up support needed. Usability testing provides crucial data about how consumers react to your design, content, navigation and general use of your site. If your interested in finding out more about our usability services then please do contact us.

Travel News:

Travel companies fight back on the News of the World crisis- 10th July- Yesterday was the last ever edition of the News of the World after several phone hacking scandals the paper was forced to shut down. It is believed that the online Twitter campaign to get advertisers to remove their ads from the paper was a key factor in the papers demise. Travel companies that pulled their advertising were Virgin Holidays (one of the first to withdraw), Co-op, Tui and Butlins. The campaign had a massive effect on both the News of the World and the advertisers, showing just how powerful social media has become.

‘Hands off our Holiday’ campaign is launched-11th July- This week agents are being urged to join the new ‘Hands off our Holiday’ campaign in an attempt to fight the ever increasing APD (Air Passenger Duty). The campaign is supported by the Airport Operators Association (AOA), the British Air Transport Association (BATA) and the Board of Airline Representatives in the UK (BAR-UK). Agents wishing to get involved can write to their MP or join the Twitter and Facebook campigns. To find out more you can go to the official website www.handsoffourholidays.com


Technology news:

Twitter advertising launches- 11th July- Twitter has revealed that promoted tweets will now appear in your timeline within the next month. Up until now the social networking site has little advertising with the occasional promoted trend or account. With the new promoted tweets users will now see tweets on the top of their timeline from brands that they are following. This new feature provides brands with another tool to market on social networks, of course they have to get users to follow them before they can advertise.

Google pays millions into TV research-8th July- Google has teamed up with research company Kantar to investigate consumer’s behaviour on both TV and online. Google is hoping that by studying 3,000 households (opted in) they will gain a better understanding of how people react to both platforms. It is hoped that Google will be able to conclude where to place ads on both platforms.

Google+ announce brand pages- 7th July- Google+ have announced that they will be building a page from which businesses can advertise. The service is expected to be released by the end of 2011. Companies have been warned not to create personal accounts as brands as they will be removed.

That’s all from CWT Digital this week, we hope you enjoyed reading our picks for this week. If that’s not enough for you then you can follow us on Twitter and like us on Facebook as we will be regularly updating you with all the top news.