Walkears.com was named the fast mover site by HitWise for the week ending 10th March 2007. Shows how a social networking site like bebo.com can really help build traffic from within a community.

Position for week ending 3rd February: 5,421
Position for week ending 10th March: 529
Positions jumped: 4,892

To coincide with Red Nose Day, dubbed “The Big One”, the Walkers Crisps walkEARS website (www.walkears.com) and the official Comic Relief - Red Nose Day website (www.rednoseday.com) both saw their market share of UK Internet visits soar. Visits to the Red Nose Day website increased 3-fold in the four weeks leading up to Red Nose Day and the walkEARS website’s visits were up 6-fold.

The share of UK Internet searches for “red nose day” were up nearly 3-fold in the four weeks before the charity event, with the share of UK internet searches for “walkears” rising 7-fold, though they still trailed those for “red nose day” by 63%.

Bebo was the #3 source of upstream UK visits to Walkears in the week before Red Nose Day, accounting for 7.42% of the site’s visits. On the Bebo home page, a featured sponsored link promoted a “Big Bebo Takeover” contest challenging Beboers to design a Red Nose Day themed home page. This is a great example of harnessing the creativity and energy of an online community, with recognition within the community as the reward.