Mobile technology has been leading the charge of technological change for a decade, and it’s hard to exaggerate just how big an impact this has had. Mobile is now a key tool for digital communications. I’ve been working on a new report called ‘Making the most of mobile for union digital communications’ as part of my involvement with the TUC’s Digital Labs initiative. It’s now available to download from digital.tuc.org.uk. As of November 2021, it is estimated that about 54% of global web traffic came through mobile phones. Union websites are no exception – 65% of visits to the TUC website in

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the art of getting web pages to rank near the top of the results displayed in search engines like Google and Bing. SEO focusses on the natural - or ‘organic’ - search results, not the paid ads that appear in prominent positions on search engines. I’ve been working with the TUC’s Digital Lab on a new report into Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and trade unions. The report is now available for download at digital.tuc.org.uk. SEO is a big topic, but this report concentrates on why unions need to understand the importance of SEO and the advantages it can bring

Every year I carry out an analysis of all the websites of the TUC affiliated unions, so see how they rank for Domain Authority. The focus is to see how authoritative the website is, as measured by the leading Domain Authority metric from Moz.com. Previous results can be see for 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013 and 2012. This metric reflects how often a website is mentioned and linked to across the web and social media and considers both quality and quantity of links. It’s important to note that Domain Authority doesn’t measure how good the actual website is. Search engines look

Expectations around good quality online services and facilities have never been higher. This isn’t limited just to internet-based companies, but for all organisations with an online presence. This includes trade unions. Back in 2012, I carried out research into online joining facilities, looking at the offerings from all the TUC affiliated unions. I’d developed one of the first ever full union online joining systems for Prospect back in 2005 and had always been keen to see progress in this area. In 2012 I found that 18 unions offered full online joining, with a further 10 offering a partial

Every year, I carry out an analysis of the TUC affiliated unions to see how they rank for influence on Twitter. I compile the results into a league table, so unions can monitor their movements over the last year. I have been carrying this out since 2012, with the previous results available on my blog ( 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019). For this analysis, I’ve used a tool called Kred. Kred analyses tweets, retweets, followers, mentions etc. to gauge the influence of each active account on Twitter. No Union Name Kred Notes 1 (1) Unite @unitetheunion 968 2 (3) FBU @fbunational

Every July, I carry out an analysis to see how the websites of TUC affiliated unions compare for their perceived ‘authority’. This is a technique used in the Search Engine Optimisation industry to estimate how influential a website is. The previous years can be seen here: 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013 and 2012. The more a union’s website is linked to or shared online, the more important it is seen by search engines like Google. This usually results in higher rankings when calculating search results. I’ve used the leading Domain Authority metric compiled by Moz. They actively monitor

I’ve been working with the TUC on the development of their new Intranet. It’s just been launched and is developed entirely in SharePoint. The TUC uses the Microsoft 365 platform as their core business software, for example, for email and document management. A key part of this offering is SharePoint online - a powerful document management and file storage facility. SharePoint can be complicated to set-up and migrating from a traditional, server based, file system to SharePoint is a hefty project. It also requires training and support, as it’s quite different for users who aren’t familiar with

I’ve been working with the TUC on the latest version of their digital healthcheck tool, with our third major release (version 3) seeing a significant revision. It has been several years since the last revamp, and so these latest changes reflect the fast-moving world of technology. For those who have never used this tool before, our digital healthcheck is a simple tool that allows unions to benchmark their digital and technical maturity. It is an interactive Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, providing ‘best match’ choices across a broad range of categories. Alongside the use of technology, it also

In November every year, I carry out an analysis of the influence of twitter accounts for all the TUC-affiliated unions. I compile the results into a league table, so unions can measure their progress over the last 12 months. This is the eighth year I’ve been doing this analysis, and previous results can be found on this blog ( 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017 and 2018), As with last year, I’ve used Kred, a service that attempts to measure social influence of Twitter accounts by analysing data such as Retweets, Replies, Mentions and Followers. The influence score is scored on a scale of 1,000

Every year I carry out an analysis of the websites of all the TUC affiliated unions to compare their perceived ‘authority’. I compile the results into the trade union website league table (see previous results: 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013 and 2012). I use metrics that indicate how influential or authoritative the website is. This is done by analysing how often a website crops up in a link or a mention across the internet. For example, a site with lots of mentions on social media and links from news outlets is judged to be more ‘authoritative’ than a site with fewer back links. These