UK luxury fashion brand Burberry announced a 21 per cent rise in fourth-quarter sales, after spending the past year growing a social media strategy that leads the retail sector.

The company said its success was partly due to its investment in digital technology that has helped drive customer engagement and partly because of its growth in flagship markets such as China.

At the start of 2011, Burberry rolled out a new web site, Burberry World, which allows customers to connect with all aspects of the business such as its heritage, music, video and product offers through videos and instant chat with customer service representatives.

Burberry also partnered with social media sites and now has more than 10 million Facebook fans, as well as more than 7,000 Twitter followers and has had in excess of 10 million views on YouTube, making it the world's most successful luxury fashion brand on these sites.

Burberry has also launched its brand on a number of Chinese social networking sites. The country is now home to 513 million internet consumers.

V3 attended Salesforce's annual customer event in San Francisco last year where Burberry chief executive Angela Ahrendts took to the stage to explain how her business had used the Chatter tool to help manage social media.

"To any CEO who's sceptical, you have to create a social enterprise today, you have to be totally connected with everyone who touches your brand," Ahrendts said at the time.

Salesforce chief executive Marc Benioff, said he had worked with Ahrendts to put the Burberry social media strategy in place.

It's a success story others in the industry and beyond would do well to take note of.

The demand for high-speed internet access on the go shows no signs of abating, and Virgin Media has seen that it could capitalise on this market by offering a free Wi-Fi service in London.

Virgin Media chief executive Neil Berkett explained in an earnings call that a free Wi-Fi service is on the company's agenda as part of its work to innovate in the broadband market.

"We continue to run our pilots and trials, and we are in quite advanced conversations with some boroughs and councils in respect to completing a metro rollout in parts of the London area," he said.

"The proposition would be that we would provide free Wi-Fi access for all at 0.5Mbit/s with full access to Virgin Media customers up to 10Mbit/s, and we may consider speaking to mobile network operators about wholesaling that as an activity."

Berkett added that the "punt" is exciting given the demand for better mobile internet speeds. "I think it is a real opportunity if you think about consumers' needs for data outside the home," he said.

The revelation is interesting as it shows how broadband providers are boosting their offerings with better internet access on the go, much as O2 is doing with free Wi-Fi in its stores.

BT, which has held sway in the outdoor public Wi-Fi market through its paid-for Fon and Openzone products, will not doubt be watching with interest to see whether Virgin goes ahead with its plan as the two broadband giants prepare to clash again.

One thing is for certain: visitors to London for the 2012 Olympics will be hoping that the networks are up and running to provide internet access as they cruise the capital looking for information on where to eat, what to see and which tube lines are broken.