Not From Bolton
My name is Peter Kay. No, not the one from Bolton. I am the other one, Not From Bolton.
If you are looking for someone to help make sense of social media for your business then you have come to the right place.
Call me now to find out what I can do
0117 905 9270
Netiquette
With the world being such a connected place these days and the ever increasing use of smartphones the way in which you conduct yourself online is important. Never before has it been so easy to create and distribute digital content.
This has massive implications for those using these spaces not only for business or professional use but for the wider recreational user.
Now the purpose of this post is not to evangelise the benefits of dropping digital breadcrumbs all over the place but in an environment of real time communications; an environment where conversations and content remain in the ether forever to give you an overview of how to conduct yourself.
I know, I know….
It’s been ages since I have been blogging on here but I am about to let you know why. No not because I am lost for things to say, that would be nonsense as so much is going on in the social media world right now that is worthy of a blog or two but because I been heavily involved in the development of something quite unique.
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Google Plus is live
So Goolge have launched Plus, a second generation social media platform that has been created as the felt there was room for another. There is no denying that it has element of Twitter and Facebook but that it also stands on its own as something a little different to those both.
I am not going to spend the rest of this post trying to describe it and go through all of the features that set it apart from the other big players after all I have only been playing around with it for a short time so I am sure that their are many subtleties and features that I have not yet fallen across. There are plenty of other blogger out there that are doing that already.
One feature though that I have yet to find which for me is a fundamental with any social media platform is apparently missing……
Read the rest of Searching Google Plus ? »
If you are using Twitter as part of your marketing mix how effective is it at developing new contacts, leads and business for you?
More often than not the answer to that question is a well kept secret or a dismissive it’s all working fine thanks, well let’s face it how hard can using Twitter be, after all you have got to do is turn up and have a chat isn’t it? Not that many are ready to admit that all those hours sending out messages and chatting with the world has not delivered those all important extra sales the majority of users are going through the motions kidding themselves that everything is working well. After their follower number is up so they must be doing something right. Let’s face it, if Twitter provided a fraction of the potential it promised to the majority of those using it then the UK would have tweeted itself to recovery a long time ago as it has one of the highest concentration of users of any country in the world.
The reality is though that the vast majority of those using it for business are missing a trick or two and are too focused on engaging in meaningless banter and are chasing the hollow promise of increasing their presence and followers. Now don’t get me wrong banter has its place as world would be a much poorer place without it but just turning up and having a chat on Twitter is only scratching the surface.
Read the rest of Twitter pub chat or sales funnel »
It’s just too Big
One of the things I come across a lot on my travels through the forums and places where business types hang out is people trying to describe social media. I am always fascinated by the accounts that are offered by those that use the social web as whilst there are often common threads that run through most the reality is that each one is as individual as the person or business offering it.
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Twitter use is going through the roof…..
There has been a raft of news events recently that have seen the traffic records broken time and time again, there was the Royal wedding, the storming of Osama Bin Ladens hideout in Pakistan and most recently the issue of the super injunctions…….
Read the rest of Super Injunction Can You Spot The Difference? »
Listening, listening, listening…..
They say in sales you have two ears and one mouth and to be a successful you need to use them in that combination. I tell my clients something similar for social media you have two eyes and one keyboard and to be successful you need to use them in that combination.
For me the real opportunities that exist within social media are not the presence you or your business can create but the wealth of information that is constantly being updated by those that use it. People are increasingly sharing vast amounts of information about who they are, where they are, who they are with and what they are doing. So lets face it, if you are in a business that provides a service or product that people buy knowing what floats their boat is fairly important.
Read the rest of Open your eyes and start listening! »
These days we are all food critics……
Now there is nothing new and particularly bold in this statement, I grant you, but the environment in which we sit as judge and jury of all that surrounds us has changed dramatically over recent years. These are changes many people in the restaurant industry are struggling to keep up with.
Read the rest of Are you in the Bristol restaurant game? »
It only had to be a matter of time
“A Welsh councillor has been ordered to pay damages in what is believed to be the first libel action resulting from comments posted on Twitter.
The High Court in Cardiff last week ordered Caerphilly councillor Colin Elsbury to pay £3,000 in damages, after he used the social network to wrongly claim that a political rival, Eddie Talbot, had been removed from a polling station by police during a byelection in 2009.
Elsbury, a Plaid Cymru politician, was also ordered to post an apology on his Twitter site, and could have to pay around £50,000 costs after acknowledging that he defamed Talbot.”
Source The Law Gazzette 15th March 2011
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Bath Ales | An ROI of social media in business case study
The results speak for themselves
Roles are a funny old thing
I just wanted to share with you a real life observation I made the other day and how it jogged my memory of the role theory in sociology.
I had been having a conversation with the mother of my children Heidi about what she had been doing that day. She had taken my eldest son to visit his best friend and his mother, nothing spectacular in that I will agree but she made a point that got me thinking about the issue of roles in society and how they can effect the circles you move in.
Read the rest of I know my place »
This made me smile, but he’s not wrong ladies and gentlemen
Except Websitemonitoring.com suggested earlier this year that the figure stood at 106 million Twitter users. Granted this was a few months ago now and it is notoriously difficult to get accurate and up to date figures on the numbers of Twitter accounts out there. So whilst this is the best I have to go with I suspect the true number of people in that pub to be a little higher than the 100,000 Chris suggests.
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Training brings the best out of me that’s for sure
You get to feed of the energy in the room and the questions that get fired at you create the perfect environment for being creative and a few moments of blinding inspiration. Let me take a moment to tell you about a recent seminar I was holding and the incredible outcome it produced.
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Beer and social media, a match made in heaven
Well they are if you are me anyway. It is always a real pleasure to begin working with a new client but when that client is a well known regional brand, they understand the power of social media in business and I have been a big fan of their work for many years the combination of all these factors adds up to what is becoming a very exciting project.
Read the rest of Bath Ales have been Not From Bolton’d »
‘At 5pm EST Friday 22nd October 2010 WikiLeaks released the largest classified military leak in history. The 391,832 reports (‘The Iraq War Logs’), document the war and occupation in Iraq, from 1st January 2004 to 31st December 2009.’
Source Wikileaks
Whether you agree with the reasons given for doing this or not is beside the point. What businesses now need to realise is that despite the vast resources the US government has at its disposal they have been exposed again to the issues of authenticity and information security by the internet and social platforms.
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That’s a fairly bold statement!
If you search around on the internet you will be able to find statistics that tell you the number of people tweeting, the number of users that Facebook has or the amount of hours of content that is uploaded to YouTube every minute of the day. Impressive figures that’s for sure but really only a small percentage of the population of the planet so why I am making the bold suggesting that this activity now touches all of us?
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Lots and lots of followers is what you want, right?
Kind of, but really this should not be the focus. When you begin to use twitter for your business you can be forgiven in thinking that there is a direct correlation between the number of people following you and it’s effectiveness. To a certain degree there is as you will achieve nothing it if no one connects with you. However, there is another factor that should be a considered and that is what I want to explore in this post.
Read the rest of Twitter, it’s not just a numbers game »
ROI Social Media Twitter by .
People will only ever see what they want to see
When people begin to delve into the world of social media as a means to support their marketing efforts the whole process can seem a little daunting. It is all to easy for a business to concentrate far too much on how will it be perceived. Of course it is wise to have a strategy but don’t focus on it to the point you become paralysed by indecision just get on with something today.
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Absolutely no doubt, social media is a powerful force
Recently in Bristol I managed to get a room full of business owners to wear pink, what you see above is actually an accountant. Why did I do this? Because I could, perhaps too simplistic but my reasons went a little deeper. Belive it or not there are still many social media doubters out there. Getting a room full of business owners to wear a little pink was a social media stunt of mine. It provided a little bit of fun but it did have a very serious objective at heart.
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Case Study Social Media by .
The 1st rule of social media is that really, there are no rules
However, for what my opinion is worth there is one key thing that you should consider as a founding principal.
au·then·tic·i·ty
Authenticity Social Media by .
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