Digital Trail

I follow a number of people on Twitter with an interest in politics. I noticed, by chance, that one of them had linked to a website for prospective parliamentary candidate, Jacob Rees-Mogg. My interest was piqued as I am familiar with the gaffe prone Mr Mogg, the Tory candidate for North East Somerset. Mr Mogg is looking to gain the Labour seat currently held by Dan Norris MP.

In my previous employment as a journalist for ‘The Week in’ newspaper, in Keynsham, I had dealt with both the aforementionned gentlemen on a number of occassions and found Mr Mogg to be every plaid inch the stereotypical Tory that Cameron is trying not to include in his party – at a senior level – at least.

The website that I came across was www.jacobreesmogg.org.uk. A reasonably convincing site resplendent in the blue branding of the current Tory design scheme and would, for some, make you believe the site was the genuine website of Jacob Rees-Mogg. Mr Mogg for some reason has chosen not to landgrab a suitable vanity URL for his site proper and instead resides online behind the cumbersome http://www.northeastsomersetconservatives.co.uk/ which has itself opened himself up to someone pretending to be him or in part and to his detriment.

The .org website, in small print, outlines its spoof credentials but given Mr Mogg’s previous form, the line between reality and fiction are somewhat blurred from the get go. You can catch up on previous misdemeanours on the Wikipedia entry or that boxset of Ali G that is collecting dust in a charity shop near you.

So, the question that lay begging before me was, ‘Who was behind this website?’ Surely time and money could be better spent by Dan Norris, fighting for his very precious parliamentary life, by doing something more positive. I for one would love to see him active on Twitter and in the social media space where political campaigning is gathering momentum. (Heck, I would even offer to train, assit, do it for free – I like a challenge)

Maybe it was a loyal staffer who had been chronicling the efforts of Mr Mogg over the years and keeping a scrapbook of mishaps (or Moggisms). If this website came from within Dan Norris’ camp I would be suprised and disappointed. Mr Norris has a real fight on for his survival and in the wake of the Kraft/Cadbury fiasco (much of which was beyond his control) support will be lesser than previous elections, that and the boundary changes favour the Tories too.

I decided to undertake some rudimentary research. The clues were a drip feed from the start. This website had been set up by someone with exstensive knowledge of Mr Mogg, someone who is fiercely loyal to the Labour party, with a hint of too much time, and seemingly, a fond regard for the negative campaigning tactics of Damian McBride.

In the end it was almost too easy and like an episode of ‘Hetty Wainthrop investigates’, I could draw this out further in order to get to the whodunnit conclusion but I have seemingly waffled enough. A simple search of the website URL with a domain registration site revealed the details of the assailant.Hadleigh is a former President of the University of Bath Labour Club and loves nothing more than a cheeky blog and a bit of Tory bashing. If he was trying to hide all traces of being behind the Rees Mogg Blog, a site that is tactically (however poorly executed) intended to undermine the opposition, then he has scored a bit of a Moggism himself.

One of the things that has struck me about the presence of political activists and the politicians themselves on Twitter is the cheap point scoring and venomous sniping at ‘the other’ and yes this is partly what politics is like offline but if more time was spent using the platforms of social media for social good then so much the better.

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.

Originally published by Marketing Donut in my guise as a blogger for small businesses looking to get the most from their marketing.

In a downturn, it isn’t just small businesses that look to make their pennies stretch further or spend more time investing time resources into ‘free’ marketing opportunities but they certainly have a greater opportunity to do such things. If trade is down and money is tight, things might look bleak and the marketing resources cupboard somewhat bare.

One way that you may choose to keep on top of your marketing activities, even if the budget has run out, is to try out something that requires little or no money (beyond buying a computer and internet connection). Social Networking or online media resources are a great way to make use of your time in an inexpensive manner in order to drum up trade and to make sure your business is ‘out there.’

If you are unfortunate enough to have less footfall than you are accustomed to in headier times, you may be in a position to spend more time on Twitter, Facebook and any of the hundreds of online social networking sites where you can promote, network, converse or establish your brand and make real connections. If you do this well you may see that trade picks up again and so you have less time to commit to online activities as you are dealing with fantastic customers making purchases. When trade does pick up once again, does online marketing through social networking have to give?

I believe in the cliché that tough times make us stronger but beyond that I anticipate that this recession has rewritten the rules of small business marketing and the online marketing model of the future will see social networking as a standard practice in advertising for small firms. When the tills are ringing again and the ‘R’ word is but a distant memory, try and set aside short and frequent bursts of online marketing activity, be it Twitter, Blogging or Facebook, for great results long-term.

I started my new role within BHP Information Solutions this week and an integral part of this Online Editorial role is to run the hugely exciting Marketing Donut Blog. As another aspect of my job is to run the Twitter account for the Donut, I was very much aware of the Twitter downtime this week and the impact it had on the social media world. I wrote a blog post on the train in to work the next day as part of my reflective daily commute. You can view the blog post here

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The power of Twitter is in the Retweet. Links are currency and you invest them in your following by sharing your content via a URL link in the hope that having piqued your Followers’ interest they will pay you back with a kind Retweet.

On the assumption of using Twitter predominantly as a ‘microblogging publishing’ platform – as opposed to Tweeting the inane what you eat or weather updates model – Twitter is a critical tool in the dissemination of your content. Your website or blog is the host of this great collection of content and you wrap up individual gems of content into a shortened link within a Tweet to get noticed in the shopping window of the constant stream of Tweets.

Tweeting is as much about maximising each Tweet’s potential as it is about sharing. Obviously the larger your following the greater your Twitter reach. Twitter reach can be measured by adding up the number of followers each of the people who follow you have to give you a figure of potential maximum exposure should each of your followers ReTweet you.

The beauty of your followers (and beautiful they indeed are, having crafted your following through careful targeting on your part, right?) is that they want to follow you and have an interest in you and what you have to say and if they deem your Tweet content worthy enough they will share it with their following too.

Now you have written your spot on article, blog post or uploaded your latest set of stunning photographs etc, you want to show it off to the world. You know you have to work within the confines of the 140 character limit set by Twitter and you know you know you need to a) grab the attention of the reader and get them to click through to b) your shortened URL directing them to your target content.

The best tip you should heed for getting your wonderful Tweet Retweeted by a follower is to work to a character limit short of the 140 but still making it attention grabbing and informative. You need to leave enough space for your followers to start their Tweet with the following:

RT @yournamehere…

Doing this sets your Tweet free on a journey into the unknown and spreads your content to a wider audience, because after all, you put time and effort into your content, you certainly want as many people as possible to see it and as Twitter for Business expert Mark Shaw says:

@markshaw: The life of a single tweet is minimal. The life of a retweet is exponential. Spread great tweets. thanks @unmarketing

You can follow me on Twitter by clicking here

Hello Reader

I am in a charitable mood and looking to increase traffic and links in as organic a way as possible-for you and for me. For a limited period I will gladly add links to your blog or website to my ‘Links’ section on the right-hand side. This is all entirely down to whether or not I approve of the content, idea and intention of the supplied URL. Simply send me a message through my Twitter account and we shall see what we can do.

Thanks

When the Bath Bus Station Customer service blog and Twitter account hit the scene it made a big impact pretty quickly. For a company like First, so besieged by negativity and bad press (on the whole justified) it was a breath of fresh air to see them engaging with the customer at such a level that showed personality, empathy and above all, a desire to make things better.

The blog launched on October 13th 2008 and introduced itself in a polite and engaging manner. By the second day of blogging, they were answering the questions that the humble early adopters of the blog were all asking, ‘Why does a bus station need a blog for its customer services? Buses go from A to B, they breakdown halfway and are usually late, a blog isnt going to help me with that is it?’

The blog’s line was:

“In the Customer Services Department at Bath Bus Station, we are always looking for new ways to keep in contact with our customers… providing updates about local issues, events etc, and discussing the problems that matter to you so we can work to improve the quality of service you enjoy.”

Over the nine month duration, of what is termed as a social media experiment, the blog and Twitter account brought us such delights as Diversion – Service 5, numerous service updates as and when they happened and my favourite blog post, ‘Lost Property‘. Perhaps the greatest success story was the provision of detailed and honest updates throughout the disruption caused by the snow chaos in February.

Bath, as a destination has been richer for its pioneering use of social media when relating public transport to those that use it and for First, it was a true feather in their cap to put funding and resources behind the venture, it is just a shame that when cuts need to be made, the customer service element is what goes out the door, especially when their profits are up!

Of course these cut backs are common place in larger organisations. First will be streamlining their customer service workforce and decamping the overall operation to a regional arm in Exeter, another common practice in itself.

It is a great loss that this service is being axed. I can not think of a customer service presence across any social media platform that I have found more engaging and informative-even as a non-Bath bus user. Perhaps it is too late to instigate a Twitter petition and I dont envisage the 605 followers of the @bathcsc Twitter account turning their pictures First Bus blue in solidarity but First have let themselves down once again.

The experiment comes to an end as of Friday 26th June. I for one have taken great pleasure and learned a great deal about how to be the voice behind a company presence online in my own employment. I hope that the online media savvy operators of the service are not facing unemployment as a result of First culling their activities and hope that First reconsider their position.

As part of my ever increasing and ever exciting PR Support role with BHP Information Solutions and their Donut projects, I have written the first of a number of blog posts for the latest addition to the Donut family. The Start-up Donut is for the entrepreneurial amongst us who have always wanted to start a business venture but never known how to do so. I will be blogging on issues relating to starting-up and the general theme of my posts will lean towards the social media aspects of how to go about starting-up. The first can be found one click away:

‘NoWhere is NowHere’ – Starting up and naming your business

+++UPDATE+++

I have now also written something for the lovely Marketing Donut-click below:

‘Monitoring your company online – Tweetdeck‘

On Saturday morning there was the familiar sound of un-oiled letterbox creak giving way to package hitting floor thud. I like getting post. This particular delivery was a neat brown box that I had been expecting.

The arrival of this package deserves back story, for no back story would render this postal delivery superfluous and indistinct from junk mail or bank statement hallway litter.

Having read Stephen Waddington’s brilliantly engaging and readable blog, I had taken great interest in his post about the healthy food delivery service provided by Graze. More pertinent was the appearance of a voucher code, of which I took full advantage and hence the Saturday morning delivery of a small brown box.

Put simply and in their own words, Graze is ‘Healthy eating by post.’ You pre-order as many boxes as you want and specify just when you want them to be delivered direct to your door. You view the myriad of healthy snack options on their site and rate them according to your personal tastes.

To quote Stephen’s blog post and by way of highlighting the wide ranging choice of snacks available, read on:

My box today contained red grapes, dried fruit and cashews. Last Thursday I got freshly cut pineapple, japanese rice cracker mix and cajun seed mix.

The Graze website registration process is simplistic enough and once registered you have the opportunity to grade your preferences so as to determine as to what might be in your packages. The random nature of what your package may contain is one element of what you buy in to and engages the ‘Try Something New,’ horizon broadening aspect nicely.

Saturday’s box contained fresh Baby Cherries, Raisins infused with Pineapple Juice and a Goji Berry Seed and Nut mix – providing at least two of your 5 a day and all to my door and within minutes, also my stomach.

Graze is a convenient way to get great tasting healthy food while you are at work. Everyone is different but we have found that most people find a box just the right amount of food for a whole day’s grazing

If you too would like to try the service out at a discounted rate then I have a voucher code (LVVXK3L) for you to use also. This is the viral effect of product awareness leading to the conversion of a sale. Having been introduced to the product by word-of-blog, something i would not have bought into without the voucher code hook, you now have the opportunity to do the same and take advantage from this here blog and voucher code and to join in the healthy to your door grazing experience too.