The opportunity would have been to put this back to a public vote which could have bought lots of new people to their site with the shortlisted entrants sharing their entries on social networks. The winner was a twelve year old boy from Leicester called Tom Spring , his product idea which is currently being developed by Firebox Labs is Putty Monsters.

I tested some simple ads which have been proven to work on Google previously with the added bonus of being able to add an image too, the image is again one which has proven successful in small banner ad positions previously. The ads were pointing to an established landing page so I had a pretty good foundation for the test.

It's a rare product today that doesn't come with a barcode. Stickybits lets anyone scan any product barcode and append their own music, text, photos or video content.

Stickybits lets consumers add digital content to any barcode out there. Users need only download the free Stickybits app—it's available for both Android and iPhone—scan a barcode, and attach content. When the geo-tagged barcode is scanned again by someone else, they'll see whatever was attached to it along with who else has scanned it along the way. Users can even be notified when a barcode is scanned, gets new attachments or changes location. Also available from Stickybits, meanwhile, are barcode stickers that can be attached to anything, as well as downloadable, printable barcodes that can be glued, ironed, printed, tattooed or otherwise stuck onto anything in the real world. Stickers are priced starting at USD 9.95 for a pack of 20. Thanks to a partnership with Zazzle, Stickybits also offers birthday cards, business cards, mugs and shirts with unique, content-enabled barcodes printed on them.

Within those parameters, however, there are many opportunities to use social media to distribute keyword rich content and attract links that can boost your natural search rankings. Here are seven tactics Marketing Sherpa recommend:

According to the final edition of ExactTarget’s “Subscribers, Fans and Followers” report, the differences between email, Facebook and Twitter also include their influence on customer loyalty.  Daily Twitter users who followed a brand were more than twice as likely as daily Facebook users who “liked” a brand to say they were more likely to purchase from the brand after becoming a social media follower. What’s more, Facebook fans were the most likely group to actively disagree with the question. Subscribers to opt-in marketing emails fell in the middle.