Simply Zesty» – SimplyZesty

Why You SHOULD Look A Gift Horse In The Mouth

Niall Harbison — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 22:40:26 +0000

Over the last 3 years I have been immersed in start up life and due to the very nature of the game you often find yourself short of cash and scrambling to do business deals and make a little money out of thin air. Cash is at a premium. During that time I have taken part in all sorts of free work and revenue share deals. There have been advertising revenue splits, content distribution, website builds, free marketing, joint builds of apps etc. The list goes on. I would say nearly 95% of projects that I have taken on have seen no significant return for either side. They were all deals that both parties struck at the time bartering a little work or content in exchange for something in return with both parties hoping to further their own interest but most of the deals fizzled out, why is that?

People like money. It does indeed make the world go around. We know the value of a cup of coffee. We know how much a car costs and most of us would have a fair idea how much a day of our time would cost. We all have a deep connection with money and we respect it. It dictates what we can and can’t do. If I work long hours and don’t waste much money I can treat my friends and go on holidays. When we buy an ice cream we know the value of it, we don’t try to barter or exchange our services in return, it’s a fixed price and everybody comes out of the deal happy.

The problems arise when you start to do work with people when there are no fixed prices and the goal posts are constantly moving. Most work I have done on a revenue share basis or taken on for free has been when I have been promised something by the other party that sounds too good to be true (it more often than not is too good to be true).

Most of us also have a moral commitment to money. If you pay me 100 Euros to dig a hole the chances are I will dig you a hole that I think is deserving of your 100 Euros. The trouble starts when you take the money out of the equation. Ask me to dig a hole and that you will pay me 50% of the revenues from shop that the sign post points to after it is in the hole and the chances are that I will dig the hole for free. What usually happens though is that either the sign is pointing in the wrong direction or the shop is so bad that 50% of the revenues did not even equate to the amount of effort I put in to digging the hole.

I know some revenue sharing deals do work. Just look at Apple and the app store or iTunes. I do however think for small businesses and start ups in particular that the revenue share deals that work are few and far between. It has taken me quite a lot of time to figure out but whenever I am doing business now either selling my wares or buying them from somebody else I prefer to have cash involved.

Run for ActionAid Ireland

Lauren Fisher — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 23:36:30 +0000

I don’t often write about client projects here on the blog, but this one is a particularly worthy cause that deserves a mention We’ve just started working with ActionAid in Ireland, to help them with their campaign for the Flora Women’s Mini Marathon. They’re looking for ladies in Ireland to run for them in the marathon, to raise money for schoolgirls in Uganda and give them access to clean, safe water. I could tell you all about the project, but a video tells a million words…

Walk and they won’t have to

ActionAid are keen to use social media as part of this project (hence our involvement!) and we’ve set them up with a Twitter account and Facebook page. It’s great for us to see a new organisation so keen to embrace social media and particularly for such a good cause.

Ladies – if you want to get involved, register on the Flora Women’s Mini Marathon site, then email veronica.waters@actionaid.org to receive your free race pack and register with ActionAid Ireland. Then all that’s left to do is get training and fundraising! To help you get race-ready ActionAid are putting on a training session at Fallon & Byrne with the former presenters of the RTE Health Squad programme, on 28th April. We’re also encouraging people to fundraise with a mycharity page. Even if you don’t take part in the run, I hope you enjoy following them online. ActionAid have some great stories to tell and we’re happy to help them build a whole new community through social media.

How To Get Coverage Online Using Images

Niall Harbison — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 16:23:36 +0000

There are plenty of lazy journalists out there who like to take press releases and copy and paste them to form the basis of their story. It’s easy, the hard work has been done and it means they can get down to their local for a beer once their copy has been filed and the deadline made. Now there is an even better way of getting coverage…designing a slick image with some stats from social networking sites or online services and sending it to tech blogs. This has been going on in the offline world for years with images being sent to newspapers and magazines featuring branded content for years and now people trying to get coverage on social media blogs have figured out that they can stand out from the 100s of other stories by simple getting their graphic designer to knock up a quick image with some stats. The beauty of this method is that you don’t even have to own the service or tool you are doing the image for. Most of the stats on the examples below are simply publicly available information nicely cobbled together by a designer. Have a think about it? Is there a way that you could get all the stats from your site or a service in your country and do something like this? The guys who designed the Google one below have had their logo and URL posted all over the web. It’s a smart way of getting the message out there about your site for the price of a simple little design and crucially when it lands in a journalist or bloggers inbox it will really stand out…

Tumblr Stats

Facebook

Google

Go Easy On Social Media And Blogging Newbies

Niall Harbison — Sun, 07 Mar 2010 19:49:57 +0000

I was at Wordcamp this weekend and a talk by Darragh Doyle got me thinking about social media and blogging for beginners. It’s very easy when you are immersed in the online world of social media to come out with statements like “just throw up a Wordpress blog” or “open a twitter account and start talking to people”. They feel very easy steps for business owners to be able to make in trying to establish an online presence. I’ll tell you now that they are not. All my work is online, I tap away at a computer for 16 hours a day and live and breath this sort of stuff just like many other people do on Twitter and other social networks, it comes as second nature to many of us but I remember blogging for the first time and sending my first tweet and it is bloody hard at first, daunting even. What I saw as I listened to Darragh’s talk was a room of people who were eager to learn and I could feel the delight as Darragh talked them through it. You could feel the tension ease as people were able to ask simple questions like “who will read my blog” and “how will people find me online” and get the simple answers they were looking for. Child’s play to seasoned internet people but a whole new world to many.

Using Social Media Is Like Driving A Car

Most of us know how to drive. We take it as second nature when we jump in behind the wheel. You hardly need to think about what you are doing and your mind is usually elsewhere as you cruise around on autopilot. It wasn’t that way at the very start though, we all had to learn. You probably had a few lessons or had a friend show you the ropes. Simple skills like changing the gears and parking felt totally alien to us all at the start and we needed to repeat them over and over until we knew how. Social media and using online tools like blogging for your business are no different…

Getting It Wrong

Here is the classic example of how people start. It is one of the biggest supermarkets in Ireland who have clearly heard that twitter is the place to be to increase sales and they have come along, followed 100 people from a list they have found and sent one tweet which is a special offer thinking it will increase their sales. Are they wrong? Yes absolutely. Should they be vilified and slagged off? No not at all, it’s new to whoever is running the account and they’ll figure it out in the long run but at the moment they have just jumped in the car without any training and are getting it wrong. Nobody jumps in to the car for the first time and speeds off around the corner like Jenson Button, most people will stall on their first uphill start. It takes time.

Would You Slag Off A Driving Instructor?

I always hear people giving out about the simplicity of talks like the one Darragh gave at Wordcamp or about blog posts that we write here like 50 resources to improve your blogging or about people “teaching twitter” but the reality is that these sorts of posts and talks are aimed at a totally different audience, the beginners. I saw the look of relief on some people’s faces when Darragh explained what a blog actually was and how people could find your business through your blog, yes it’s obvious to me and you but to some of the trout farmers and hostel owners in the room it wasn’t. As the girls from Beaut.ie (Ireland’s biggest fashion blog) explained earlier in the day their readers don’t have a clue that they are even on a blog, to their readers it is just a website.
I just think we should all take a little time and help people who are starting off like Darragh was in his talk. Sometimes we have a tendency to all sit around and snigger at beginners which would be like Fernando Alonso, Schummacher and Jenson Button sitting in the pit lane in Monaco sniggering at driving instructors. I know some people might take the piss when it comes to teaching services like Twitter but there are also a whole bunch of people out there who don’t know how to tweet, blog, update, share or post videos on Youtube so if you spot somebody like that maybe give them a hand out and nudge them in the right direction instead of slagging them off about their inability to grasp something that you find so simple.

Separating business and pleasure

Lauren Fisher — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 13:03:58 +0000

Image courtesy of colinjcampbell

At last week’s PR conference in London, Neil Midgley (assistant media editor at The Daily Telegraph) warned journalists and PRs that they shouldn’t be using Facebook for personal reasons, advocating Twitter as a more appropriate ‘professional channel’ where you can easily run personal and professional relationships. He made a clear distinction between the social networks that were appropriate for business and pleasure. I don’t want to take his comments out of context, that were directed just at journalists and PRs, but it raises an interesting wider issue and one that I frequently come across in my day to day use of social media.

It used to be the case that there was very little, if any, crossover between my Twitter followers and Facebook friends. But as my time of using Twitter has progressed, I’m starting to connect with my ‘followers’ through Facebook. Where once I used Twitter from a professional capacity and Facebook was strictly for socialising, this is most definitely starting to change. Now my Facebook feed is filled with interesting links and blog posts, as well as the mix of the usual ’social’ updates from friends. When my communities start to mix in this way, there is less of a distinction and my online community now jumps with me from site-to-site. It’s the style of the content that changes (length, media type etc…) rather than the subject.

As more and more businesses start using Twitter and we become ever increasingly social, there is less of a distinction between personal and professional. I would have to say that I disagree with Neil Midgley. With the exception of a site like LinkedIn, which has a clear business focus, I don’t think we can say that you can easily contain one type of ‘networking’ for one site, where it is more appropriate. Like I said, the style of the content, yes, but not the subject matter or the community you’re engaging with.

Where does one start and the other finish?

Last year I decided not to integrate my Twitter and LinkedIn statuses, both for reasons of repetition, but also because I used LinkedIn for business reasons and this wouldn’t necessarily be overly relevant to my Twitter followers. That is starting to change though. I still haven’t integrated the two because I don’t like to repeat myself over different social networks, but in reality there is a ever-reducing differentiation between the content, as well as there being a reduction in the different followers I have between the sites. It’s not uncommon for me to meet someone new and receive invitations to connect over LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook.

This is an obvious progression for social media. We are obviously just one person, whether you’re talking about this in terms of offline or online. It is becoming increasingly difficult (and ultimately pointless) to manage different types of ‘you’ over the social networks you use. The more we use social media, the more it becomes necessary for your community to follow you from site to site. As I said in an earlier post, the social networks we use are intangible. The structure and functionality is out of our control. What we can control is the content and the community and we need there to be a solid relationship for this, regardless of which site you’re using. I’m sure not many people would be too keen about their boss seeing drunken pictures on their Facebook page, but we are going to have to progress in our intelligence and realise that our personalities and the way we function online is fluid. And visible. There won’t be places to ‘hide’.

Food Photos On Twitter – Now There’s An App For That

Niall Harbison — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 09:46:24 +0000

You may have noticed a trend on Twitter since it started of people sharing their food photos. People do it all the time and in Ireland they even started tagging them #foodporn so as users could find them easily. I used to post my food photos on Twitter as well and when people started to enjoy them and comment on them I decided to give them a more permanent Tumblr home so as I could look back over them in the future. See the thing is people love photos on social media (they are easy to view, visual and only a click away) and most people enjoy their food so the combination proved to be a winner. I was always thinking that there could be a better use for all these photos because although great content and a great insight in to different restaurants and hotels at the time the photos are never organized or add value in to the future. Well guess what… now there is an app for that….

Foodspotting App

I have always wondered why services like Foursquare didn’t allow you to take photos of food, it would have been a feature that would have actually got me to use the service as I would have seen that as real value. Thankfully the guys behind Foodspotting have brought 2 areas together that make sense…Food and location and are tapping in to Foursquare’s new API to offer an app that could go a long way. Now all those photos that people want to show off has been turned in to a game based around food discovery which is inherently useful for finding the best looking food in town. The pictures on Twitter and the likes of my blog are great but they have no real purpose but if people start to convert to using this app I could easily see a day where I arrive in a new city and stroll around town looking for food based on the photos of others and my current location.

Will It Work?

It has all the key elements to make it work. People are already carrying out the functionality of the app on Twitter in an informal way. The makers of the app have tried to include some game play to try and copy the success Foursquare have had and the fact that it involves food, something that we eat 3 times a day makes it interesting. It has barely even launched but if the makers of this app get enough users to start using it sharing their food photos they could be on to a winner. Could I see a day where I don’t have a guide book and just walk around town with my phone browsing food photos in the near future? Yes 100%. The revenue possibilities are endless because if they can get enough users on board as you could only imagine that restaurants would be pretty keen to partner up and have their photos appear at the top of the list.

Kickass – The Movie Of The Year

Niall Harbison — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 21:28:35 +0000

Full disclosure (Universal Ireland Are A Client Of Ours)
We don’t often blog about clients as we just like to keep the blog about social media tips and news from the online world but a combination of a busy couple of days and the burning desire to tell you about something really cool led to this blog post. Now you would probably think that as a client of ours we are of course going to say that this is an incredible movie but it’s not our nature to plug just any old stuff here on the blog and this is actually something that we are blown away to be working on especially as the plot has some strong social media elements.

We were lucky enough to see the movie recently (research) and it was one of those movies where you walked out the door and just said wow! I am not a huge super hero or cartoon fan and was actually thinking it would be just another super hero movie when I went to see it but the mixture of fast paced action and the real novelty of the script left me feeling as if Kick Ass would be a huge cult movie for many years to come. I Think Quentin Tarantino mixed with some superheroes, great script and a few kids thrown in to perpetrate the violence and you are only scratching the surface of this flick. Trust me you are going to love seeing this one and watch out for all the fun stuff lined up around town in the build up to the launch.

Why 2010 Will Be The Remembered As The Year Mobile Social Media Came Of Age

Manchester United Fans Trying To Do “An Obama” With Social Media?

Niall Harbison — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 10:51:37 +0000

It’s not often that I get to write about my great passion of sport on this blog but I have noticed something brewing around Manchester United and seen a few early signs that merit looking at it further. Without going in to too much detail Manchester United are now owned by some fairly dodgy Americans who seem intent on ruining the club as they plunge it in to over $1 Billion in debt to help line their own pockets. A fans revolt has been brewing for the last couple of years but things seem to have stepped up a little recently and it is not just because fans are getting angrier but just that the protests are getting noticed by more people mainly because the fans have recruited a very powerful force…The team behind Barack Obama’s online election campaign…Blue State Digital.

Who Are Blue State Digital?

Blue Sky Digitial are an Internet marketing, strategy and crucially online fundraising agency who are widely regarded as one of the main reasons that Obama got in to office. Blue State Digital’s campaign for Obama resulted in more than three million individual donors contributing more than $500 million and they have been recruited by the Manchester United fans to do exactly the same sort of job for their club.

Why Would They Do It

Blue State Digital seem to be specialists at mobilizing large groups of people and getting them to rally behind a cause and dig deep in to their pockets. With over 300 Million Manchester United fans all over the world you are looking at an amount of people even larger than the population of America. The Glazer family who own Manchester United are said to have no interest in selling even at a $1 Billion valuation so the cause would seem like an impossible one but some would have said a couple of years ago that it was impossible to elect a black man to the White House.

How Are They Doing It?

Social Media To Spread The Word

The key with this capaign is the social media element and getting the word out to mobilize the group troups (the Manchester United fans) in to action. The mialing list has more than trebled from 30,000 to nearly 90,000 in just a couple of days and the campaign is already starting to feel as if it is taking hold. This will be a long hard slog and many channels will be used over the course of the campaign but early signs are that Blue State Digital are already starting to make some great traction.

Rally the troops

The first thing they have done is to target fans who attend matches by telling them to start donning the colors of the original Manchester United team or green and canary. This will start to hurt the owners in the pocket and crucially get the word spreading from the hard core fans on the terraces out to the millions of fans around the world. For all of Barack Obama’s online presence he was incredibly powerful on television and in the real world so for any campaign to succeed you need that catalyst.

The Money

There have been countless fan revolutions in the past but none that have involved this sort of money. To prize the club away from the Glazers this new movement is going to have to raise north of a Billion and that sort of money is not easily come by. It will be a combination of some institutional money but also fans are expected to be asked to get involved.The number become a little easier when you think that each fan would only have to donate $3 each to raise the billion dolloars.

Will It Work?

Trying to take control of a football club is a very different animal to trying to get somebody elected. The biggest stumbling block is that the owners say the club is not for sale and if they keep that stance there is simple nothing that fan power can do no matter how much money they raise or how well they leverage social media to reach out to the 300 million Manchester United fans. The one thing that is apparent is the need for change and the fact that this very noisy and passionate group of people want change. This was the same emotion that fueled Barack Obama’s run at the white house and with Blue State Digital behind them you never know, the Manchester United fans might just get the change they are looking for.

How To Create An Effective Business Blog

Niall Harbison — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 17:29:49 +0000

A trend that I have been noticing over he last 6 months is the massive proliferation of business blogs. You used to be able to stand out online if you had a blog but things have changed and it is getting to the stage where you would stand out if you didn’t have a blog. As with most blogs there are good and bad ones and some people take it more seriously than others. There are of course plenty of benefits for a business to have a blog including SEO (appearing for terms around their business in search engines), letting their customers know more about their business or simply as a creative outlet to share ideas and show knowledge in your area. The reasons to get in to business blogging vary greatly but there are some basic rules that you can follow to help engage your customers and create a compelling and exciting blog…

I Don’t Really Care What Awards You Won

Too many companies seem to think their blogs are a place they should post once every three months about the latest award they have won. This really annoys me as they are in effect saying “hey look at us we are amazing” rather than actually trying to add content of real value. I don’t mind seeing a quick post about your achievements as everybody needs a good pat on the back every once in a while from their peers but don’t make it your only blog post.

Have A Timetable

I don’t care if you can only commit to one post a week or even one every couple of weeks the only thing I’d say is make sure that you don’t promise on a posting schedule that you can’t deliver. There is nothing worse than starting to enjoy a blog only for the business not to update it for weeks. We all get busy but having a schedule and sticking to it are important as there is nothing worse than landing on a blog and seeing that the company has not bothered to update it for 3 months, that sort of scenario is actually doing more harm than good in my opinion.

Share Your Data

Sharing your data is one of the smartest things that you can do in a blog post in my opinion. By doing so you are offering your readers something of real value and something that they will return to on a consistent basis. Some of the best posts like here, here and here are from businesses that I would normally have little or no interest in (health sector and property website) but because the blog authors have created something of real value to myself and other readers I am now subscribed to their blog and checking in for regular updates.

Let Your Personality Shine Through

Nobody really wants to read a blog written by a company logo. They want to read a blog that has a person behind it, a big of personality. We do that here with myself and Lauren where we try to bring the personality of the company through in our writing and people hopefully enjoy hearing the voices of the people who are running the company. It doesn’t even have to be the people who run the company who blog as lots of other employees from different areas within the company will have an interesting story to tell as well. Identify the right person within your organization and start letting their knowledge shine through.

Forget The Hard Sell

I see so many people trying to make a quick buck on their blogs by giving out constant special offers or even running ads on their blog. Sure you need to think about your blog as a sales channel but it needs to be done as subtly as possible and all of the sales that you make will most probably come indirectly and come after you have built up a certain amount of trust with your readers.

Be Patient

I see the same pattern with nearly every business blog I see emerge. It goes….Great start, lots of shouting about new blog, posts every couple of days, no comments or interaction, posts once a month, no more posts, blog dies. It’s amazing just how many times this repeats itself and the reason for this is that people need to realize that it takes time. You are going to have to have a lot of patience as it will take months of consistency to get you a following. Don’t give up like most others after a couple of months when you don’t see a sudden spike in sales.

Write About Your Passion Not For SEO

I have seen so many blogs where people try to pump out lots of content that is just copy and pasted videos, links or just content that has been lifted from other sites and given a new slant but although this may be a quick fix you are just not going to be able to build up community and a following around your blog by following those sorts of principles. You need to write from the heart about something you are passionate about (If you are not passionate about your own business then you have a totally different problem)

Is there something rotten in the state of the internet?

Lauren Fisher — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 22:35:37 +0000

Image courtesy of UltraBobban

According to Richard Dawkins, there is. Following a series of fairly hateful posts on a forum on his site, he withdrew the discussion board and posted on his blog that he felt there was “something rotten in the internet culture”. Given that one commenter said he wanted to ram a fistful of nails down his throat, you can see where he’s coming from. So does Dawkins have a point? Is there something inherently rotten in our internet culture? There are a few interesting points from this discussion that are worth looking at further.

One of the clear things that Dawkins takes issue with, and I have to side with him here, is the reference to language. He questions why there is the need for such over the top language and in a tone that he describes as sometimes ‘hysterical’. Anyone who has read the comments for pretty much any youtube video, can’t help but agree with him here. But youtube aside, which seems to have spawned it’s own subculture of inane, irrational and spiteful comments, he does also have a point when it comes to the language that’s used online. I’ve been on the receiving end of some pretty hurtful stuff myself and I’ve seen others go through worse. Sure, you eventually learn to accept it, you become almost desensitised. The thing is that this can sometimes come from people you know ‘offline’ and the tone and language used for some of their online communication can often seem like it’s coming from a different person altogether.

Hiding behind the wall

The anonymity factor is clearly at play here, to an extent. Sure, when no-one can trace you, you can voice your inner most thoughts and angers, no matter how hateful they may be. But anonymity in itself is not sufficient enough an explanation. You can often see people who are in no way trying to hide who they are, acting in a completely different way and sometimes in a more unpleasant way than how they normally would. Or how you could conceive anyone acting towards someone else, especially people they don’t know. I want it to be clear that I’m not talking trolls here, but rather the more general way in which we conduct ourselves and communicate online.

Whether you’re being transparent or not, there is a clear comfort in the ‘wall’ between you and the internet. No matter how much you try to be yourself online, there is always that level of knowledge that you have time to write out what you want to say, that you can self-correct, self-censor. That you can say what you want without the risk of an immediate response or a need to make eye contact. You can turn the screen off and ignore it, if you so wish. Or you can compose yourself for the next comment. Lately I have found myself thinking more than I usually would before sending a tweet or writing something on Facebook. I’ve found myself going to say things that I would normally never say to someone, and I have always tried to be the same person offline as I am online. I’m finding myself getting increasingly drawn into this habit of mouthing off about individuals or companies and using language I never normally would. And I check myself before I do it, because being that way just isn’t me. So what is this strange thing that happens online, that allows you to become almost a different person, at times unrecognisable to the people that know you?

Is it really as bad as Dawkins suggests? Is it something rotten with the internet that encourages us to be like this? I wouldn’t go so far as to describe it in the way that he has, but you can’t ignore the fact that online, people can become quite nasty. This isn’t to say that it’s the internet that’s making people act this way, that it is in some way responsible as a medium (you won’t find me burning copies of Child’s Play here) but it is a fascinating insight into human behaviour, in that it’s allowing us to access a whole new level of communication and act in a different way. We’ve always had written communication, but never with the immediacy of the internet or social media. The fact that it can bring out such different sides of people , both good and bad is affecting not only how we communicate, but is spreading out into entire industries.

To come back to Dawkins’ post, there is something else interesting in what he says. Not the fact that the internet can bring out this ‘hysterical’ behaviour that he discusses, but the act that brought this about. The issue in question was that Dawkins was making changes to the existing forum on his website. Something that, I think, he unfortunately plays down too much. The difference was in changing it from being an open forum, to one that would be moderated. To the extent that starting a new discussion would require approval. Even though I don’t agree with the treatment Dawkins received online, it is understandable why some would have reacted badly to this. Even though he claims it is his right as the owner and editor of the site to extend this editorial control. This is not, however, the function of a forum. It is a discussion. One that should be open and free from control (libel etc.. notwithstanding).

But further still the problem is not so much the editorial control Dawkins was inflicting, but the fact that he was making changes to an already thriving community forum. I feel it is expertly summed up in this post, in a thread unfortunately titled ‘Richard Dawkins is a dick‘

“It may sound ridiculous to those not involved with online communities, but I feel hurt and displaced. It was like coming home to find the locks have been changed.”

Even for those not involved in online communities, it is a pretty compelling and understandable argument. This guardian article also provides further interesting insight into how the old forum moderators were treated. Not all that nicely.

So here we have two incredibly interesting insights into the way we function both as individuals online and how we act within our wider communities. It is evident that Richard Dawkins was in the wrong. Not for wanting to exert editorial control on his own site, but for thinking he could do that and in any way still call it a forum. Our online communities and behaviours are something that we hold quite close to us. Just wait for Facebook to make a change to their site and see the ensuing ‘petition’ to change it back. This is not wholly unreasonable and is a reflection of how we function online. In many cases we conduct a large portion of our lives through an environment that someone else ‘owns’. We have no control over it, it is physically intangible so changes like the one that Dawkins made shouldn’t be overlooked. Bearing this in mind also provides an insight into the language and general tone with which we carry out our online communication. Online our words are all we have. There’s no subtle body language, no hints and no real tone of voice. But inn lieu of these subtleties do we resort to nasty, intimidating language to get our point across?

When all you have is words, every one counts.

Are You A Social Media/Internet Addict?

Facebook Application Notifications End Today

Niall Harbison — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 12:44:23 +0000

From a personal point of view I am delighted that Facebook will finally stop allowing application developers to send notifications to people from apps from today onwards. It means that when I log in to Facebook I won’t have 50 useless notifications telling me that my friends are playing scrabble or that somebody has added me to some spammy photo calender app. Facebook will today remove these notifications and make developers think of new and innovative ways of having to engage their users but as much as I like the idea personally I would be up in arms if I was a developer with a successful app or a brand trying to attract users through apps as this just complicates the process and removes that “viral” effect that apps creators rely on to spread word about their apps.

Facebook has released communication channels best practoces to help developers migrate over to the new system but there is bound to be confusion and less interaction with apps over the coming days as these new changes take hold. New app requests will not move to your inbox in a step that is set to further anger users who already find their Facebook inbox full of noise and spam.

The move is controversial but then due to it’s sheer size and amount of users so is every change Facebook makes these days. It is just another step in Facebook’s step to clean up the homepage and make it a better user experience with less clutter and better “real time” information and a heavy emphasis on search. Applications are not going to go away as they form a key part of the engagement strategy on Facebook but they are going to be slightly more hidden from today onwards. What do you think? Are you glad to get rid of the noise?

What The Hell Is Social Media?(Video)

Niall Harbison — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 14:27:59 +0000

It’s another one of these videos that people produce to sum up all the buzz words and key statistics that people have heard about social media. The part about Facebook is of particular interest though as some of the stats that are coming out of there like over half a million new users added daily are truly staggering. This is not going to be anything new to all the people who have been immersed in social media of the last couple of years but if you were trying to convince senior management in your backward thinking company to think about engaging in social media then little snappy videos like these really do help to sum it all up and get people thinking…

Are we having fun yet?

Lauren Fisher — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 19:20:55 +0000

One of the great things about social media and why I love what I do, is that you get to have fun! Whenever we’re thinking about projects for clients, we always ask ourselves if it’s something that we’d actually enjoy doing. It may not always be crucial, but it’s certainly important. More and more companies are coming up with great social media campaigns where the emphasis is on having fun with your community. This is one of the great benefits of social media and something that brands should be aware of if they’re experimenting with social networks : be prepared to have fun and most importantly, laugh at yourself.

Now this isn’t to say that social media doesn’t offer great things in the way of functionality and adding to your daily life, but having fun is more, well, fun. This week I found myself clicking on a banner ad for the first time in a very long time. It was for Cadbury’s Creme Eggs (not sure who’s behind the campaign) and the reason I clicked is because it looked like a good game to play and it actually interrupted my normal browsing activity. It just looked a little bit different and I think if someone can achieve that with a banner ad – something we see hundreds of in a day, then that’s pretty much a good job done. The site itself is great, and really carries through the Creme egg brand

I’m not suggesting that it’s absolutely groundbreaking, but the beauty is almost in it simplicity, it appeals to my inner child.

As a consumer, I personally respect those brands that take a risk in the name of doing something interesting, if not for direct sales. The great thing for those of us who work in the industry is that social media has made marketing more fun. It’s no longer a question of ‘how am I going to compel the consumer to buy the product’, it’s ‘how am I going to get the consumer to talk to me?’. While the end game for any business will always be sales,or a conversion of some sort, this is nonetheless a fantastic brief to work with. The great thing is that any brand has the ability to have a bit of fun online. Creme Egg may be a quirky brand that gets to create engaging sites like this, but there are plenty of others in the social media space who are pushing the boundaries with even the most mundane of products. We need only think of what a fantastic campaign ‘will it blend’ is and was, or how an office supplies company had us all dancing around on animated elves.

The fact is that no matter what your brand, you can find a way to make it sexy by making it relevant. As human beings we’re fairly simple in that we like stuff that interrupts the mundane, that makes us stop and take notice. This is what brands now have the opportunity to do – they can interrupt the norm and do something that really speaks to people. Often this is about the packaging rather than the concept itself. How you are presenting something is just as important. Don’t just send a blogger your product – send them an empty box and a clue for where they can find it. Don’t just create a game, but create a unique code that unlocks the game.

What I try to iterate again and again on this blog is that you don’t need a huge marketing budget to do something unique in social media, you just need a great idea and a means to distribute that idea. Last year Wired magazine proved this with a brilliant contest whereby one of their writers disappeared, and the challenge was for readers to find him. This year they’re doing their Vanish experiment again, this time with Universal Pictures (disclaimer, we work with Universal Pictures in Ireland). An absolutely fantastic idea that uses a simple concept. Hide something from us and we’ll generally try to find it. Incentivise us, and we’ll try even harder!

So to go back to the point of this post, never forget that one of the many benefits of social media is that you get to have fun. Sometimes I have to pinch myself that I get to do this for a living. Don’t get me wrong, it can sometimes be a challenge to get brands to let go and have a bit of fun, but when they do, it’s a beautiful thing

No related posts.

Why Do We All Suffer From Island Mentality?

Niall Harbison — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 08:53:40 +0000

I am using an Irish example in this post but for those of you reading this in other parts of the world you will be able to apply your country, small village or city to this post with the same logic. Our business is based in Ireland. As I am sure you know Ireland is an island that is cut off from main land Europe and the UK by water and we are a country that suffers from island mentality. We get caught up in our little country thinking it is bigger and better than anything out there but in actual fact it is only slightly bigger than Manchester which is one city in England. One city! So what does this have to do with social media or business? Well it is about thinking big and getting out of your comfort zone.

I can be in London quicker than I can get to Galway or Cork from Dublin. If I wake up at 6 I can be in London for a 9.30 meeting. I can check in from the comfort of my home, take no baggage and if I am smart enough I can get tickets cheaper than the cost of Irish train tickets. The possibilities for winning new business in other countries are endless but for some reason we all tend to stick to the geographic boundries of our own country. We have clients in France, Belgium and UK that we have only met once each yet due to technology and improved cheaper communications we work together as if we were in the same city. This is unusual though and I am always fascinated why most of us only pitch for business locally? Why do physical borders come in to play when the Internet and social media has broken down all borders and frontiers?

Ireland is struggling at the moment and in a very deep and long recession. Times are tough and work is thin on the ground for many. The builders and plumbers have to physically head off to greener pastures to find their work but any business that has an online presence should be looking in to international markets. We all need to get out of the mentality of thinking we are all islands marooned away from other markets because we are not, social media and the Internet connects us in new ways that we could never have imagined and where the people you choose to work with come from is only limited by your own imagination.

We do the same on the blog here. The map below shows you visits in the last month and we are actually proud that only 10% of the visits come from Ireland. It’s an important market and one where we get most of our business but too many blogs and websites focus on their home country or geographical area rather than trying to spread their wings. Why not network with Australian bloggers? Why not add a few American people on Twitter? Why not attend a social media conference in France? I guess what I am trying to say is that there are just endless possibilities out there in different countries and you have the amazing free tools now at your hands to make a mockery of international borders and make your business international even if you are only a 1 man operation working out of your granny’s spare bedroom

No related posts.

A stunning new Irish blog

Lauren Fisher — Thu, 25 Feb 2010 21:47:53 +0000

Ireland is home to a beautiful new photoblog, and I’m very proud to say that it’s our very own Sarah Kavanagh’s! She’s just started blogging over at slkav.com

Now she claims that she’s only just started using a ‘proper’ camera, but I find that very hard to believe as the photography is absolutely stunning. Sarah has a very keen eye for design and is incredibly creative in her work so I’m looking forward to seeing the blog grow over the next few weeks. If it’s anything like what she does for our clients, it will be amazing

(Picture is shamelessly stolen from her site, I will ask for permission tomorrow.)

Simply Zesty» – SimplyZesty

Why You SHOULD Look A Gift Horse In The Mouth

Related posts:How A Butcher Could Increase Sales Using Social MediaDoes Twitter Bring You Cold Hard Business And Drive Sales?

Run for ActionAid Ireland

Walk and they won’t have to

How To Get Coverage Online Using Images

Tumblr Stats

Facebook

Google

Related posts:10 Simple Ways To Get Media CoverageAre Tech Blogs The Hello Magazine Of The Online World?

Go Easy On Social Media And Blogging Newbies

Using Social Media Is Like Driving A Car

Getting It Wrong

Would You Slag Off A Driving Instructor?

Related posts:Social Media Arrogance Towards NewbiesWhat’s Between Blogging And Twitter? Instant Blogging (With Top 10 Examples)

Separating business and pleasure

Where does one start and the other finish?

Food Photos On Twitter – Now There’s An App For That

Foodspotting App

Will It Work?

Related posts:What’s Between Blogging And Twitter? Instant Blogging (With Top 10 Examples)Why 2010 Will Be The Remembered As The Year Mobile Social Media Came Of Age

Kickass – The Movie Of The Year

Manchester United Fans Trying To Do “An Obama” With Social Media?

Who Are Blue State Digital?

Why Would They Do It

How Are They Doing It?

Social Media To Spread The Word

Rally the troops

The Money

Will It Work?

Related posts:TV Adverts Need To Embrace Social MediaWhy Social Media Will Hopefully Help Kill Micro Sites

How To Create An Effective Business Blog

I Don’t Really Care What Awards You Won

Have A Timetable

Share Your Data

Let Your Personality Shine Through

Forget The Hard Sell

Be Patient

Write About Your Passion Not For SEO

Related posts:Top 5 tips for your company blogNew Movie Paranormal Activity Uses Social Media To Create Buzz

Is there something rotten in the state of the internet?

Hiding behind the wall

“It may sound ridiculous to those not involved with online communities, but I feel hurt and displaced. It was like coming home to find the locks have been changed.”

Facebook Application Notifications End Today

Related posts:10 Awesome Apps For Facebook Fan PagesThe Ultimate Guide To Facebook

What The Hell Is Social Media?(Video)

Related posts:New Social Media Trend – The Apology YouTube VideoWhat Is The ROI On Social Media – Video

Are we having fun yet?

Why Do We All Suffer From Island Mentality?

No related posts.

A stunning new Irish blog

Related posts:
How A Butcher Could Increase Sales Using Social Media
Does Twitter Bring You Cold Hard Business And Drive Sales?

Related posts:
10 Simple Ways To Get Media Coverage
Are Tech Blogs The Hello Magazine Of The Online World?

Related posts:
Social Media Arrogance Towards Newbies
What’s Between Blogging And Twitter? Instant Blogging (With Top 10 Examples)

Related posts:
What’s Between Blogging And Twitter? Instant Blogging (With Top 10 Examples)
Why 2010 Will Be The Remembered As The Year Mobile Social Media Came Of Age

Related posts:
TV Adverts Need To Embrace Social Media
Why Social Media Will Hopefully Help Kill Micro Sites

Related posts:
Top 5 tips for your company blog
New Movie Paranormal Activity Uses Social Media To Create Buzz

Related posts:
10 Awesome Apps For Facebook Fan Pages
The Ultimate Guide To Facebook

Related posts:
New Social Media Trend – The Apology YouTube Video
What Is The ROI On Social Media – Video