Starting with Social Media – Part 2 Micro-Blogging

As discussed in part 1, when I spoke about Google Alerts, listening is as important as broadcasting your message.

Both these aspects of social marketing are perfectly embodied in the simplicity of micro-blogging.

So What is Micro-Blogging?
Twitter is the leading exponent of the micro-blogging format, so we’ll take our cue from them though other services may differ slightly, but basically it allows you to post a message no longer than 140 characters. This message is similar to the status updates you find on Facebook.

And What is the Point of That?
People use this service to post messages about subjects which range from particle physics, to what kind of sandwich they are having for lunch, and at first glance you’d be forgiven for thinking that there isn’t much use in any of it. But the revelation comes when you use the search facility to find things which are of interest to you.

It’s important to remember that there are some 40 million people on Twitter, and this number is growing rapidly.

Using Twitter, you can effectively listen to other people’s conversations. For instance someone may enter a message such as ‘Going to Edinburgh for a week, can anyone recommend a good place to eat?’. And if you happen to be a restaurant owner you can reply directly to them. This is a small but powerful way of communicating directly to potential customers.

Twitter also allows you to search for people you may wish to ‘follow’ on a regular basis. These can range from celebrities to leading figures from all walks of industry, all of whom are providing regular updates which you can ‘listen’ to. The simplicity and immediacy of Twitter has seen it become a place where news breaks first, and this means it can give you a valuable edge when tracing new developments in your marketplace.

The other aspect of Twitter is it’s a very easy way to promote the personality of your business. With these small, informal messages you can subtly develop a relationship with others.

So How Do I Use It?

1. Register
   Registration is pretty simple. Visit https://twitter.com/signup and fill out the form.
   
   
   
   
   
2. The next step is to sign-in at https://twitter.com/login, then either search for people you are interested in following, or use the advanced search to find subjects or key phrases.
   

Once you find people who are publishing relevant information to you, you simply click ‘follow’


The next step is to get people to ‘follow’ you, and this is where you really begin to learn about social networking.

Gaining a Following
Social Media is about one thing, ‘6 Degrees of Separation’. The theory is that we can be connected to everyone on the planet in 6 steps at most.

So if you post a message to 5 friends they will post it to five other friends and so on until eventually everyone has seen your message.

Many people believe that this means you have to be ‘friends’ with as many people as possible, but this is missing the point.

Social media is about communicating on a personal level with people and they can still choose whether to listen to you or not.

The best ways to succeed are as follows:

1. Follow relevant people, other people judge you on the ‘quality’ of your friends (if you follow everyone you will quickly find your inbox gets jammed)
   
   
2. Publish useful information, let people know what your business is doing that might be helpful to them (special offers, improvements etc.)
   
   
3. Don’t publish too often, 4 or 5 times a day is usually more than enough, but this depends on how relevant your comments are.
   
   
4. ‘RE-tweet’ other people’s comments which you find interesting, and maybe the favour will be returned
   

Monitor what other people are doing and see what feels right for your business and spend time developing relationships. Listen, as well as talking.

Useful Tools
There are many tools available to help you manage your ‘Tweets’.
Two of the best are ‘Twhirl’ and ‘Tweetdeck’, both of which sit on your desktop and keep you informed when anything happens in your circle.

There are also many tools which will help you integrate Twitter into other social media apps, like Facebook, which is, coincidentally, our next topic.

Anderson, Shaw & Gilbert - Contract Win

We're pleased to announce that we have recently won a contract to develop the new Anderson, Shaw & Gilbert website.

As one of Inverness' leading solicitors and estate agents Anderson, Shaw & Gilbert have provided legal services to the Highlands and Islands since 1881.

We will be providing them with a fresh, clean website which allows visitors to search through their property listings, as well as finding out more about their legal services. It will also be easier to update and conform to web 2.0 standards of useability and accessibility.

We'll let you know when the site is live.

Starting with Social Media – Part 1

Some of you will be fed up hearing about it, others will be intrigued but confused so let’s ignore the buzzwords, disbelieve the hype, and let’s get down to how this ‘social media’ thing can help your organisation.

I’m not a ‘marketing guru’, a ‘futurologist’ or a ‘fad addict’. Just someone who’s been working online for a decade and gotten used to sorting out what’s useful and what isn’t. So, over the next few posts I’m going to cover several aspects of this heady marketing field, and hopefully put it in plain and simple words, with a few pictures to back it up.

Feedback and questions are always welcome, that is what it’s all about after all.

Step 1: Get yourself a Google account
Whether you see them as benevolent demi-gods or malignant internet tyrants, Google are (for the time being) unavoidable, and very useful to you.

So visit https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount?

Register and sign-in.



With your Google account you can now access Adwords, Adsense, Youtube, Google Maps, Analytics and a very neat little function called Google Alerts.

Visit http://www.google.com/alerts

Here’s a screenshot.



Simple huh? Too simple?

So what does it do?
Well, Alerts simply let’s you know when specific search terms have been mentioned on the web or blogs, groups etc.

And why should you use it?
As you will find out more and more, social marketing is as much about listening as it is about broadcasting your message. Alerts lets you know what people are saying about your organisation, enter your business name and you’ll be sent an email every time it appears on Google’s radar.

But, and this is the good bit, you can also monitor what is being said about your competition as well.

Alerts lets you monitor lots of different terms, and with a bit of practice you’ll narrow it down to the ones that are important to you.



What do I do with this information?
If you find your business is being mentioned a lot, and in a complimentary fashion you can now visit these people and thank them for their kind thoughts.

Establishing and maintaining relationships is the key.

If your business is being criticised then you can :

• A) If it’s true, listen to your marketplace and learn some valuable lessons, and make changes accordingly

• B) If it’s wrong, correct people’s misunderstandings and deal with the problem directly

And if you’re not getting mentioned at all, it’s time to look at your marketing strategy and you could do a lot worse than follow the next few posts to help get you noticed.

So there you go, it’s a small start, but an important one.

Next step, micro-blogging. Join the twittering masses and find out how apparently trivial updates can change your business.

Is there such a thing as web 3.0?

I haven't been posting onto my blog very regularly recently and ironically this is because of the internet. Inverse to all predictions we are actually very busy at the moment, and, like all self-employed people, I am grateful for it. However, this has led to me not being able to spend as much time on my social networking as I would like.

But, as everyone knows, keeping up with the daily machinations of the world wide web isn't easy, and in my business (and probably everyone else's) it is fundamental to at least keep abreast of what's happening out there. Hence I have my 'Twhirl' app floating on my desktop all day long whilst I bury my head in practical daily tasks like layout, useability, accessibility, seo and more besides.

So now and again I am raised out of this web designer's dwam by a little dinging noise. 'Twhirl' has alerted me to the latest updates on my Twitter network. Inbetween the ongoing furore over the conviction of Pirate Bay's founders, Newsnight requesting Stephen Fry's opinion on the matter, and various other bulletins I see someone opening a discussion on Web 3.0. on LinkedIn.

And I pause.

Web 3.0! I'm still trying to explain to clients what web 2.0 is all about, and now we have an upgrade, why wasn't I told?

And the truth is I was, by a web 3.0 app.

So what's it all about then?

Well, if web 2.0 was all about the democratisation of internet publishing (and I mean that in the widest sense possible) via blogging, RSS feeds, podcasting, youtube etc. Then it seems that web 3.0 is about how we gather and how we use this information, as well as how we publish it.

Social networks, micro-blogging and aggregators are the key to this, Facebook, Myspace, Bebo, LinkedIn, Twitter, Friendfeed, the list is endless. But all have two things in common, intimacy and immediacy.

So I started digging a little bit deeper in order to educate myself, and to prevent the embarrasing situation of someone supposedly less web savvy than me bringing up the subject. And to be honest I'm still not clear on the specifics. All of the talk rings familiar bells and bears huge similarity to the discussions about web 2.0 several years ago; it is all about marketing.

Yes there is a huge and very welcome change in the way people are conducting business, what customers expect, and how people communicate. And the aforementioned websites are all growing geometrically to facilitate this. But I'm still wary of the motivations behind those marking this period as a watershed in the history of the web. And, when it really comes down to it, I don't feel the need to box up and re-brand such an amorphous media, but I understand that some people do.

My clients are generally too busy focussing on their own industries to be too bothered, but, at least if they ask I can give them a short explanation without feeling the embarrasment of not knowing, then I can return to my developer's fugue.

Sixth Sense Computing -

It's not often I am blown away by new innovations, but some things just tickle my 'geek' buttons.

This video below will explain more than I ever could.

(Stick with it past the toilet roll talk and you'll see what i mean)

Macleans Bakery Website Launched

Macleans Highland Bakery have been producing buttery shortbread goodness for four generations, and it's still a family concern.

We recently received a commission from them to re-design their outdated website with e-commerce functionality and a full content management system.



Users can now view their product range in detail, request info and make comments on the products, and staff can easily update all text, links, images, products and articles through the content management system.

They were also keen to expand their overseas markets particularly in the far east, and to this end we integrated Google's translator facility into the site. This has been a successful feature as it provides a relatively accurate translation of the site into complex languages like Chinese and Japanese.



Full e-commerce functionality will also be included shortly which we will take the website to a new level.

For mouth watering treats visit the website here.

Tweetdeck Adds Facebook Updates

There's no doubt about the popularity of Twitter in the UK anymore as these latest figures reveal:

"Market research company Nielsen Online says Twitter grew by 1,689% from February 2008 to February 2009.

That means there are now more than 1.78 million people signed on.

This time last year the social networking site only had 100,000 members." Source BBC News

This also means that it's time to get onboard for your business as well, but it's not always easy keeping track of all your followers and those you follow, and that's where something like Tweetdeck comes in.

Tweetdeck allows you not only to tweet till your heart's content but also to follow everyone else you are interested in via your desktop.

Based on Adobe's AIR platform it's a very slick interface, here are some screenshots:




And with their latest added Facebook functionality you can now also track your friends' Facebook updates as well.

Looks like a very promising piece of kit.