Online Community – a force for social good February 9, 2010
Posted by James Ainsworth in Wheat.Tags: charity, community, like minds, likeminds, ROI, Social Media, twestival
1 comment so far
Community has been given a new lease of life online. As soon as you hop on to a network of people you are more than just connected. Community offers a range of elements, from support to strength in numbers.
Too often people can fear the idea of a business community because they think that being active within one will mean revealing too many secrets, especially in a community that contains rival companies. From the offset this can create a strained atmosphere, a stifling of group creativity and also, cliques.
A recent example, allbeit offline, of a barista introducing a dis-loyalty card in London’s trendy (Obligatory prefix) Shoreditch, is testament to businesses uniting together for the greater good.
Like Minds is proving to be a bit of a social change movement, with a lofty aim of generating £100,000 of revenue for the City of Exeter and in doing so proving the often questioned ROI from social media. The conference will bring great benefit to more then just the attendees and in turn will make a great gesture of support to the local business community. Other conferences do nothing or simply make a token gesture of planting a tree to offset carbon emissions.
Coming together for social good is something that social media is uniquely set up for. The boundaries are reduced, the red tape of charity is snipped, and things just get done. Take the Twestival organisation, initially, a near impromptu coming together of Twitter users in a handful of cities hosting a simultaneous putting-faces-to-avatars meetup, doubling up as fun-filled fundraising event. In this its second year, it is a more coordinated affair and because of the exponential growth of smartphones and users of Twitter, it will be a more powerful force for good. Bristol’s Twestival takes place on Thursday 25 March.
I am wary that the role of social media is overplayed in circumstances. Social media is an enabler and nothing more but for charitable and community gain it can certainly get things going.
How do you work within a community and what opportunities has community presented you?
Condiments 2.0 January 18, 2010
Posted by James Ainsworth in Chaff.Tags: Firefox, Google Chrome, IE, internet, Internet Explorer, Ketchup, Snobbery
add a comment
“Ketchup is a simple and gorgeous web app for sharing meeting notes, ideal for home businesses that can’t boast a secretary. It’s free for a limited amount of time”
How useful, I thought. A free web based application that could be applied in the workplace and increase the integration of everything ever with the web. The review appeared on the Enterprise Nation website, a useful resource for home based businesses.
My interest in clicking through to the Ketchup website itself was sufficiently piqued thanks to the explanation of the simplicity of using the app, that and the name is a conversation starter in itself.
Keeping track of meetings, who said what and when that very ‘what’ was to be done by can be an infuriating consequence of meeting notes that dont make sense two hours after the conclusion.
A name like Ketchup for a professional business application already suggests a tongue-in-cheek attitude resides behind the branding but if you have the misfortune to land on their website using Internet Explorer you are in for a surprise.
OK, the message is a touch cheeky and other good web browsers are available but not only is the door shut to you as a potential user, the almost holier-than-thou-message you get is internet snobbery at its worst. Sure, IE has its foibles and I have a loyalty to Chrome for personal usage but why not cater for a further 37%, especially when there is evidence of the application changing to a paid for version in the future.
Just in case I thought it was just me suffering a momentary lapse or a complete funnybonectomy and getting uptight, I consulted my Twitter following and got the following reasoned responses:
As a Mac user, I sometimes find sites I can’t access at all. My thoughts aren’t printable. Let’s just say I go elsewhere
If you’re using IE, you deserve everything that’s coming to you. might be doing yourself out of a lot of traffic tho.
I’d be grumpy and wouldn’t go back, unless I got that message regularly from lots of sites due to using an ancient browser.
What do you think? If a website was condescending about the browser you were using and didnt let you use their site…what would you think?
Nothing to see here December 13, 2009
Posted by James Ainsworth in Chaff.Tags: Christmas, reconstruction, sinister
1 comment so far
That’s right, move along now. This blog is undergoing a ’strategic review’. It shall cease to provide content, a reduction in function and endless requests to click to here until the new year.
This is due to a relocation of Me and the need to change the purpose, design and function of this blog for Me. In the meantime you could do no worse than to check out the following blogs:
The Fixed Factor – cycling and sinister foods in equal measure
EmailFail – the good, the bad and the html purist
Trick Click – a great website packed with resources
…a pinch of salt – the tastiest blog in Bristol
Answer Me This! – The best podcast around
Happy Christmas y’all and see you in the shiny new year!
Please Vote me your Golden Twit November 15, 2009
Posted by James Ainsworth in Chaff.add a comment
The @MarketingDonut Twitter account (Essentialy, my online professional guise) has been shortlisted in three categories for the very first Golden Twits awards. The Twitter awards are being organised by The Drum, a PR industry online publication.
Obviously I am delighted to be recognised as a Twit, golden or otherwise. I would very much appreciate if you would click through and then press the VOTE button to give us the nod.
BELOW: Shortlist details lovingly borrowed from the GoldenTwits. Original is found here
Your company: BHP Information Solutions
Twitter username: @MarketingDonut
Why do you deserve an award?: Our Twitter account has made small business advice accessible, engaging and an enjoyable daily resource to help small firms to thrive
What were the objectives?: Use Twitter as a means of sharing the best ideas & using our following to get involved to share experiences with a wider connected audience
What have you achieved?: #mydonut trending topic online conference for smallbiz. UGC from our followers to create a Marketing Manifesto. Fun, laughter & conversation
Categories: Business to business, Information service, Public service
Like Minds – why bother? October 25, 2009
Posted by James Ainsworth in Wheat.9 comments
The first Like Minds social media conference took place just over a week ago. Many people got something out of it and some people left empty-handed questioning whether or not the event did exactly what it said on the tin. It was certainly a tall order to have the intention of answering the big ol’ ROI question when applied to Social Media and to do it in one afternoon. Olivier Blanchard got the closest to bringing some insight and cold hard examples as to why businesses should be using social media. His presentation was engaging and also available for further viewing online.
The big question for the conference is where does it go from here? There has been a backlash, there has been a whole wave of in-jokes and hashtag hijacking during and after the event and this is something that needs to be carefully addressed if the future event in February is to be as open and inclusive as the original event set out to be.
One aspect that struck me as shooting oneself in the foot (but with good honest intentions and using all the social media tools available) was the coverage of the event online. Of course, I was there and bringing live-blog coverage. The extent of this coverage was to bring the key sound-bites and to feed in questions from those who could not be there. It did not offer full coverage.
The foot shooting came in the form of the real-time stream of the entire conference online. Filming the event and broadcasting it live to 500 people (Organisers’ figures) is all well and good but if you had paid your ticket price first time round, you’re sat there as the announcement is being made that there is to be another conference in February, why would you pay to go to that one? Ticket price, travel, accommodation etc will not need to be found when you know it is likely to be streamed in its entirety for all to see and for free.
For me, the live video feed should have covered the keynotes but then when it came to the panel discussion where the real ideas and discussions came about, the cameras should have been switched off. This would have offered more added value for money to those who paid to be there and would have led to more buzz being created for the follow-up event.
Of course this may sound overly critical of an altogether fantastic and cleverly organised event (All tickets sold through social media), one that I am certainly keen to attend again and to take on a more active role ( A panel discussion about small business use of social media, anyone?)
So what was the ROI for me attending the event over those who saw it all on a screen from anywhere in the world? The connections made in the networking before and after the event, the traffic that blogging about the event has brought and the ideas of how to apply social media practices in a more meaningful way than I had previously done so.
Bring on February and Like Minds II but bring it all online? Perhaps not.
I’m a celebrity get me endorsing October 8, 2009
Posted by James Ainsworth in Chaff.Tags: barry scott, cillit bang, compare the market, facebook, meerkat, pr, Social Media, Twitter
add a comment
Celebrity endorsements are nothing new, if anything, in this uber celebrity 15 minutes of fame driven society they are on the increase but what do they actually do for brands and where are the endorsements of the future going?
There are recent notable examples of brands dropping their celebrity face in the wake of revelations and tabloid conjecture. Notably, Kerry Katona, the bastion of motherhood, being ditched by Iceland on the back of Sunday tabloid revelations relating to substance abuse beyond a £1 Iceland ready-meal.
When pairing up a celebrity with a brand and things go well, it is easy to kick back and relax. That massive chunk of funding you have given this public eye entity was money well spent. Gary Lineker never got booked in his career and has carved a niche as ‘Mr Nice Guy’ so no sweat over him doing something bad like popping a cheeky Pringle.
But a brand can not control the one they pay to endorse. You can have as water-tight a contract as you like that says as a beacon of the brand you can not do this or dabble in that, but celebrities are human, they are suckers for temptation when they are offered the world and they do stray.
To the future, I envision a slight change in the role of celebrity endorsements and this is with a view to the use of Twitter and Facebook. This theory is based on observations of how things are starting to unfold on these platforms.
Agencies can now create the celebrity and thus control their brand endorsing face more carefully. For example, Compare the Market and their ingenious and ubiquitous Compare the Meerkat campaign has seen sales increase and thanks to a combined social media assault through Facebook and Twitter, Sergei – the little furry face of cheaper car insurance has single paw-dly hit the big time. Through an interactive and engaging Twitter and Facebook account, not to mention the Compare the Meerkat website itself, our little Russian friend has driven traffic and sales to the desired Compare the Market website without a single mention of the target site in its Facebook or Twitter activity. No tweets with links to the best deal or target site homepage, just pure character based tweets and a killer catchphrase that has reverberated around playgrounds, offices and everyday conversation. Simples.
Facebook and Twitter celebrity accounts with mass followings (and comparatively minuscule follow backs themselves) provide a ready made platform to endorse anything for a fee to their impressionable and idolising following. The rules have changed and results are there for the taking.
If you take the example of Stephen Fry and his Twitter account, not through paid for endorsement but out of his passion to share great Tech tips, on several occasions, Mr Fry has brought small time websites to their knees by Tweeting a recommendation to his vast following to go and check out site X. Site X not being prepared for such a volume of traffic crashes-the hat tip from Mr Fry a blessing and curse in equal measure.
So of the future, celebrity accounts will be created and maintained by agencies and not the Celebs themselves. (I am still hugely sceptical that Andy Murray updates his Twitter given the nature of the Tweets-all smiles and positivity-it appears awkward, forced and just not personable.) As soon as the following is built up, then the link to product or website X is casually dropped into Twitter conversation and the loyal following navigates to the intended source and laps up what their idol has recommended.
Sure the same pitfalls apply in that you cannot control the celebrity’s behaviour in real life, that is of course unless you create a fictional Meerkat, but you can cultivate the following and control the brand message with a yield of higher results for a fraction of the cost of a television advert.
Labour Conference 2009 – A Wordle of the key speeches September 29, 2009
Posted by James Ainsworth in Wheat.Tags: Gordon Brown, Lab09, Labour Conference, Peter Mandleson, Social Media, Wordle
2 comments
As a point of interest and using Wordle, a favourite tool of mine, I took it upon myself to run the transcripts of the two key speeches of this year’s event through the program to create a visual representation of the speeches.
Firstly, Lord Mandleson’s effort-which to watch looked clumsy, choreographed and almost beyond Carry On parody-we can see the key phrases used were ‘Change,’ ‘Party,’ ‘Back,’ and ‘Growth.’ For me this indicates the theme of looking back and looking forward. If New Labour is dead then New New Labour is now being offered as a choice and the party is on the cusp of a rebirth or a landslide. Time and the democratic process of an election will tell if Mandy’s speech was the healer or the false hope of the Labour party.
Gordon Brown’s speech ran along a similar theme of ‘Choice,’ ‘Change’ and ‘New,’ with policy revisions tantamount to backtracks (ID Cards) and whoppers of vast financial implications such as a National Care Service. No doubt the NCS will be talked up as revolutionary as the NHS when such a system was first pitched but will it ever see the light of day?
Oh and just a final thought on the theme of ‘Choice,’ which of the speeches was to the public and which was to the party? Mandy addresses his audience as “Conference” on numerous times but Gordon was more engaging with the camera and less erratic in his movements. So, PM for PM or stick with GB…?
Can social media command and conker? September 23, 2009
Posted by James Ainsworth in Wheat.Tags: Business, likeminds, Marketing, ROI, Social Media
1 comment so far
Consider this–social media–all bells and whistles and caught up in a storm of hype and false industry. Been knocking around for a while finding its feet and having many people shout about what it is but where is it going?
There is a lot of talk and trumpet blowing by those who use social media about just how great it is. This is dull, I’m guilty of it myself. If we are to take this highly polished conker and to make it last, it is imperative to talk about the ‘how’ and not the ‘what’ in order to defend its role and to gather a pool of wisdom on how best to utilise it.
You can varnish and buff up a Conker to make it look good and if your the kid in the playground you can talk it up as you take it into the challenge ahead in a Conker fight. You can blow the trumpet of social media all you want and talk it up as a great thing but that won’t keep it up there or concrete it as a true marketing practice of value and return. Just because it looks good and on the surface does not mean it has a soft and vulnerable core when the challenges come in.
I invited Brrism member Nigel Legg to offer his insight into the matter of how social media can offer value for businesses looking to get in on the act and where it fits in the marketing mix. Based on his expertise as a social media practitioner who researches its nuances and practical applications, Nigel said:
“The only way you are going to be able to measure ROI is with numbers – so it is vital that you decide what numbers you want and how you are going to measure them before you start. And the appropriate metrics for a biscuit company may well not be appropriate for a construction firm – the metrics will depend on who you are, where you are, and what you do.”
In October there is an exciting conference on the horizon that has set it’s stall out from the start in saying it will focus on the ‘How’ and less so on the ‘What’. Of particular and crucial focus is the look at return of investment to be had from social media.
I shall be in attendance at the ‘Like Minds‘ event in Exeter on Friday 16th October and will report back on the ‘How’ and we will see if we can get this sweet social media nut flourishing into a long term practice with true value and purpose.
I think it is very true that as social media users, the honeymoon period is over and the ‘What’ is a known entity. The real way to achieve longevity is to suss the ‘How’ and to use it to supplement marketing practices, not replace them.
The blog is mightier than the sword September 18, 2009
Posted by James Ainsworth in Wheat.Tags: blog, Blogging, care, complaint, customer, holiday, internet
add a comment
In the old days a quibble over a product or service not being up to scratch would be resolved through an exchange of letters with a customer service department. A swift resolution ensuing, the customer would be happy and the business might have gone beyond just saving face and reinforced its brand values, too. Today, this model is not quite so strong.
According to Webuser.co.uk, a holidaymaker has secured £600 in compensation for a disastrous holiday as a result of the prominent Google search ranking he achieved for the angry blog he fired off when a complaint letter to the holiday firm yielded no result.
The holidaymaker had originally penned a letter of complaint (ten pages of letter, in fact) detailing a depressing series of problems he encountered during a less than satisfactory Tunisian holiday. After six weeks, having only received an acknowledgement for his rant, the increasingly angry traveller went public and recorded his troubles on his personal blog.
In no time, he was getting lots of traffic – much of it from people who had simply typed search terms relating to holidays in Tunisia. In fact, the critical blog entry’s Google ranking was creeping ever closer to the summit on all the key search terms the travel company would rather see taking you to the holiday package they were trying to flog.
Once the holiday company became aware of the growing popularity of the blog post, blogs about the blog post and probably even blogs blogging about the impact of blog posts about the original blog post – such is the way the Internet feeds off itself – it became apparent that an “elevated” level of response was required. Compensation was paid to the blogger and an apology posted on his blog, to boot.
However, it may be too late for damage limitation – the rant, of course, has been widely seen and still exists in the public domain. The digital footprint of a blog post that would never have seen the light of day had the travel company responded sooner is now leaving the most indelible – and embarrassing – of stains on its reputation
Originally published by Marketing Donut in my guise as a blogger for small businesses looking to get the most from their marketing.
