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.

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.

So where have I been?

A little while ago I was having coffee with a developer and he brought up an idea he was playing around with, an idea to help retailers drive more business into their shops. It was a good idea but needed a little more work. We worked on it and before long we were looking at something fairly interesting. For the past few months we have been working on realising the vision we had in our minds and I can now let you know what we have been up to.

We along with a few other good people created Beep Treat which we think ticks a fair few boxes in the eyes of the retail sector. After all not a day goes by without you hearing about how challenging the current ecconomic environment is and how the high street is continuing to suffer.

So as a response to that we developed an app and web management system that retailers could deliver deals or treats through to draw in new and existing business. So what, that’s been done loads already, yeah I know which is why with me involved you would expect something a little better than just that.

The Power of One

As you well know I am all about delivering business benefits to business from the social web so we have created Beep Treat to do just that and to do it in such a way as those subscribing to the system can see exactly what the impact of it is on their business. Now I am not going to tell you how exactly it works as that would be giving too much away but lets just say that it connects social media with the real world in a way that is not currently being done and that at it’s heart is the power of one.

If you don’t know what the power of one is then just have a look at this video which is the best example that I know of out there.

Now what were doing with Beep Treat is using Facebook to do some really clever stuff. So instead of harnessing the power of one, with the average number of connection people have on Facebook at 120 were harnessing the power of one hundred and twenty….

Interesting times ahead it would seem so keep coming back as I keep you updated on how this groundbreaking project is going.

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……

Where’s the search facility?

Obviously with this being built by the world leading search engine providers they know a thing or two about searching for content but yet there is a distinct lack of this within Goolgle Plus? From my own observations in terms of what information is delivered to you through the platform it all seems to be centered around receiving the output of other users that you have organised you into specific circles.

Whilst that is fine it means that you are limited to discovering information through the platform as it is delivered to you by those you circle. It is easy enough to find people to place within a circle by using the people search facility but you are totally dependent on the content they share.

Now here’s the confusing bit….

They choose who they are going to share stuff with and you choose who you are going to listen to. What is missing seems to be searching on the basis of content rather than people something that Twitter has got so right. Now it’s early days yet but for me one of the most powerful aspects of social media in business is being provided with the means to listen to specific subjects. Not having that facility is Google Plus seems a little strange?

Perhaps they are working on it, or as privacy is the watch word with this new approach it will never be developed and you will have to hope that those circles you are creating continue to deliver what you are looking for. Who knows but I have to wonder about all the gems of information I am missing out on.

What do you think, is the lack of a search by topic a problem for you with Google Plus after all Facebook seem to get away with a very limiting search too?

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.

Consider this…..

Yes I know it is a social tool and that eventually if you are hanging around chatting business opportunities will turn up. The pub chat model of spending enough time hanging around in the bar where eventually enough people will turn up and you do some business will deliver the odd result now and again.

The thing with business though is that time might be better spent somewhere else doing something a little more proactive and a lot more productive. After all the role of every good business person is to make sure you get the best return on your time so you can maximise your margins.

So ask the question is hanging around having a chat the best way see a return on all those hours invested? Well it’s a good starting point that’s for sure as you need to build relationships first before the business will come but it certainly be the end point because if business is your focus why throw that out of the window when you start tweeting.

The thing about Twitter is that you can get super targeted about who you build those relationships with, and if you want to take the pub chat analogy a step further which types of bars you hang out in because the topics of conversation are more in tune with your business objectives and more importantly because your customers frequent them

When you start to develop this sort of approach and build these systems into what you are doing you are leaving a lot less to chance and beginning to develop a virtual sales funnel. A funnel that channels contacts, leads and new business in your direction far more effectively than randomly arriving in the hope that something will be bound turn up eventually.

If I was to tell you that it is possible to identify your market, to look for people within a specific geographical region, to find Twitter users that are looking for solutions to specific problems or the icing on the cake listen to what people think about you and your competition would that grab your attention? Would that make you think about perhaps there is a little bit more to this than simply turning up and having a chat? I suspect it would.

With over 200 million users the possibilities for your business are more than you can begin to comprehend and growing by the day. The pub chat approach works but for me getting a little more strategical and creating that virtual sales funnel is a much better way to finding that business on Twitter.

If you want to get a little more focused and strategical with Twitter

Of course there is a Not From Bolton solution. I run regular workshops in both London and Bristol that explore the most effective ways to use Twitter to promote your business. The emphasis is on practical solutions and strategies that work so if you want more business, contacts or leads and Twitter is not delivering this for you then get yourself booked in

Bristol Twitter Workshop

London Twitter Workshop

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.

The most common theme of all

One of the most common themes that that I come across though is that the authors experience is the definitive description of the social web and how it fits into business.  That there experience and subsequent articulation of it is pretty much what it is all about.

Now I am not one to disagree, I guarantee that what they are describing is pretty much what it is all about but what needs to be appreciated is that this same courtesy needs to be extended to all.

The blind men and the elephant

When I see these circular discussions it always brings a smile to my face but I am reminded of the blind men and the elephant by John G Saxe. A charming fable that describes how six blind men attempt to describe an elephant through touch alone. Each man has a go but as they have grasped differing parts they all draw differing conclusions. Valid conclusions given the methodology but each very different. None were wrong but because they were unable to see the whole of the elephant there assumptions fell short of being entirely representative.

Social media is the same

I like to think of the social web as the elephant and those trying to describe it as the blind men. Basically the sheer size of it makes it impossible to give a definitive description that will ring true with everyone. It’s vast and continues to grow by the day. Those that use it, those that study it will only ever have a snapshot of the whole and what they see will be directly indicative of ho they use it.

So next time you see someone describing social media take a step back and before you respond with a stinging retort questioning the authors ability to cross the road unaided consider that actually what they are describing is accurate. It will be representative of the social web but only a snapshot, a fumbling in the dark as they try to make sense of something that is beyond complete comprehension due to it’s size.  Remember, that whilst you might not agree, whilst it might not be your experience or how you see it that it doesn’t make it any less valid.

Be nice to each other and understand that when it comes to the social web we are all a little blind and can only describe what is within our immediate vicinity.

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…….

Have I got news for you

What it boils down to is that gagging orders or super injunctions were brought by various individuals to ensure that particular details were kept out of the media. In a bid to circumvent this process a Twitter account was set up and the details that they were  allegedly involved in were published on the @injunctionsuper account sent into the Twitter-sphere and then promptly spread around the world like wildfire. The reach of this information was then amplified further as one of those allegedly affected sought to bring court action against Twitter and the community of users spread the details initially published through the @injunctionsuper account in an act of further defiance where it was reported around 75K Tweets were sent naming the individual.

That level of activity then leads to situations like this where Twitter gets a mention in the Houses of Commons.

What this demonstrates is that Twitter is now mainstream. It has entered the public psyche and the information that gets shared across is as much a topic for discussion in the real world as that TV show that everyone was watching last night, you know the one you wee talking about at work today.

The extent to which this information has been shared has seen what was effectively bleeped out of the first clip shown in this post left in the one below by the same show when the topic came up again despite the super injunction remaining in place.

Can you spot the difference, this is the impact of 75K tweets……

Ill Advised

As Bill Bailey points out the extent to which this information is now in the public domain despite the legal attempts to ensure that this was not the case would suggest that the advise given was not particularly good. As was discussed in a previous post of mine Wikileaks Does it Again. A post that explored the issue facing the US Government and the PR disasters they faced following the disclosure of sensitive material on the internet news travels fast in this environment and that this poses significant issues as a result.

My Advice

As with all communications in this day an age you can’t get away with doing one thing and saying another as you will get found out. Whilst the extent to which that might be the case varies trying to stifle the process by which information is shared online only seems to create a much bigger backlash than simply admitting  a misdemeanor in the first place.

So keep it simple, keep it authentic and most of all understand that ultimately you have little control on what information is shared regardless of what resources you have to throw at it because people will only ever see what they want to.

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.

Social Media Monitoring

There are a whole raft of solutions out there that you can use to listen to what is engaging people. Many are free and work quite well to provide you with a snapshot of what people are discussing around a particular topic. These work really effectively for the real time management of social media and in another post I will go through some of my favorites that I enable my clients to use.

But when you are serious about determining the return on investment or ROI of social media you need to bring out the big guns, the products that allow you to explore a broad spectrum of platforms and that aggregate content around specific areas of concern or strategical importance. These are tools that can provide a business with trends and indications of opportunities that go far beyond what can be delivered for free.

I recently suggested “you can make very good use of social media in business without sending one tweet or writing a single blog post”. Many will find that a little difficult to comprehend because there is a thriving industry heavily promoting content production. Regardless, the fact still remains that a businesses can learn so much from social media about their marketplace, their customers. their suppliers and competition without needing to engage in content creation.

Show us what you mean

In my last post I discussed the need for those involved in the restaurant industry to be vigilant, to listen for issues that there customers might be having and more importantly sharing with the entire internet. I also discussed that there are massive business/marketing benefits to fueling that level of online feedback and that they should be embraced ( the two eyes one keyboard approach).

In this post I want to kill two birds with one stone, that particular approach worked very well for a client of mine recently and I produced a case study to show the impact of the work we did on the business. In this post I want to draw your attention to a couple of reports that I have created on the data I collected from the social web that support that result. Reports produced using a little more that the free tools can provide.So I have decided to make available a benchmarking report and an impact study that look at Bath Ales and most importantly compare the results returned against two other Major UK breweries Marston’s and Fullers.

If you are in the beer trade they will be interesting reading, if you are in business then they will also be an interesting read as they will show you a snapshot of what it is possible to monitor.

You can download these valuable reports and have a look, all I ask is that you pay with a tweet.

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.

Businesses have to be careful

There are many factors that a restaurateur needs to skilfully manage to ensure their enterprise is a success. They need to work hard to ensure their menu is mouth watering, the service is excellent and the ambience is just so. These are all finely balanced to ensure and that every customer leaves having had a great experience and they go and tell all of their friends what an excellent place to eat it was.

A great dining out experience is underpinned by the understanding from the management that every element is a public relations exercise. A process that needs to be managed to ensure that valuable positive word of mouth is flowing and keeping those tables full of hungry diners.

If the chef was having a bad night or the service was particularly slow unless you had a food critic in the place the impact would be contained. The restaurateur could get away with an occasional off night but not so much these days as in the immortal words of  Mr Bob Dylan;

“the times, they are a-changing”

We are all now connected in ways that ten years ago most normal people would have thought impossible; but the reality is now that anyone can publish and distribute information on an unprecedented scale with incredible ease. I am of course talking about the social web which of course happens to be a bit of a fascination of mine but it is everywhere these days, even in our pockets as we are sat eating out.

What this means is that, more than ever, we are constantly updating our status or tweeting. With the advent of the mobile web we can take pictures and use apps that share our location. Think about that for just a second, we are not only walking around with our entire contact book in our pocket but we can now send messages and photos to thousands of our loose connections with a few taps of a button. If you then factor in that anyone, and I do mean anyone, can search for that information then the mind boggles.
What this represents in the restaurant trade is both opportunity and risk:

• Opportunity, because if your customer is having a good experience everybody gets to know
• Risk, because if your customer is having a bad experience everybody gets to know

In an environment where we can all share information about what we are doing, where we are and who is with us we are increasingly doing it. Twitter recently announced on its fifth birthday that over one billion tweets were flowing though its system a week. That’s a huge amount of information and I can guarantee some of it will be about restaurants.

Take this one for example from my good friend Mr Dickie Armour

I'm sat in @jamieoliver 's Jamie's Italian in Bristol and not impressed so far. Service is terrible, not attentive & very slow. Zzzz

March 26, 2011 6:09 pm via HootSuiteReplyRetweetFavorite

@DickieArmour

Dickie Armour

I picked up on this and replied

@DickieArmour I am having a pint with a well known food critic later today, I shall alert him to your plight ;) #thepowerofatweet

March 26, 2011 6:32 pm via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@NotFromBolton

Peter Kay

Thousands of people had that conversation delivered to them and many were in Bristol.

Not an ideal situation….

Luckily Dickie let us all know this at the end of his meal

Frankie at Jamie's Italian redeemed our bad meal. She gave us vouchers for another visit. Very impressed @jamieoliver

March 26, 2011 7:32 pm via HootSuiteReplyRetweetFavorite

@DickieArmour

Dickie Armour

Good work Frankie, Jamie you should thank her  ;)

Opportunity snatched from the jaws of adversity…… Are you getting the picture now as to the power of these tools in business. If not and you need a bit more convincing have a look at the effect they had on the sales of  a well know local brewery here .

Wake up…..

What this means to restaurant owners is that every customer sitting in their establishment should be now seen as a critic. A critic with their own publisher and a massive audience sitting in there eating with them.  A sobering prospect, but full of opportunity. Opportunity because if they manage it right they can create the conditions where this activity is focused and beneficial to the business.

Just imagine if you created the conditions where you actively encouraged your customers to be creative and tell you what they thought of their dining experience whilst they were still eating but at the same time they were telling lots of other people over the internet. It would keep the place on its toes that’s for sure so service would always be good but it would also create lots and lots of digital word of mouth. Bring pictures into the mix and you’ve got a way to market your menu to the masses at a low cost. Ignore it and you could have PR disasters happening under your nose every day and the only way you will realise anything is wrong is when find your restaurant empty…..

Keep one eye on it during service and you can make sure that any issues are dealt with quickly and effectively so that you too reduce the risks and increase the opportunites that mobile social media applications provide the restaurant business.

Consider it the digital equivalent of checking the amount of food that comes back on each plate, it’s quality assurance and marketing all rolled into one.

Food for thought

Ignore social media at your peril. Reputations are made and lost in this environment and all it can take is 140 characters or less. In the restaurant industry where reputation is everything you have to know what people are saying about you and your products, venues and staff that way appropriate action can be taken and opportunities can be exploited. Get the combination right and your business will have a social media marketing engine that puts your customers first.

If you would like to find out how you can do this for your restaurant then lets have a chat today…..

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

Be careful what you tweet

I have been waiting for something like this to happen for a while now as it only had to be a matter of time before this was going to happen. When so much content is being constantly created at some point people are going to step over the line.

That’s the nature of us passionate types though in the heat of the moment we say things without thinking about the consequences, take that onto a twitter feed and you have a whole other situation. A situation that is recorded and available for everyone to see for as long as the internet remains with us.

Now I am not suggesting you remove all passion from your tweets far from it but you have to be mindful that there are consequences to a 140 characters or a status update.

It’s the consequences that are the point

What ever we tweet for (and there a as many different reasons as there are people using the platform) each message has consequences. The possibilities are endless but in this case they were quite a hefty legal bill at the end of a libel court case.

Is it the tip of the iceberg?

With the ever growing numbers of people using social media I have no doubt that there are countless libel cases out there just waiting to happen. Quite what the impact this will have on social media when they all start to be brought I have no idea. People will continue to post irresponsible things but perhaps we will see a new area of law practice to meet it?

Perhaps I might just have to start working with one or two lawyers to help them bring these inevitable cases?

How was it done then?

Don’t be silly, I am not going to give that sort of information away to the masses although I will be doing a series of posts on social media strategy and Twitter techniques fairly soon.

What is very clear

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.

The comment that got me thinking

Heidi had made an observation that she had spent the whole day with the mother of my eldest child’s best friend, this was of course interesting as I like to know what my family have been getting up to when I am working. However it was the next comment she made about the unlikelihood that this could have happened that really got me thinking. Heidi is a mature student at the local university, she had just spent the day with a senior lecturer at the university. The observation she made was along the lines of…..

“I have just spent the day with a Dr of international Law, who would have thought that would happen?”

It turns out that whilst they had been at the local ball pit the two of them had got chatting about what they were up to at the university. Heidi knew that the other mother was  lecturer in Law but was quite surprised to find out at what level.

She went on to make the observation that when we went to university first time around spending time with a lecturer was an unlikely activity at the best of times let alone a senior member of the teaching staff of one of the top areas of academia.

Role theory basically is a sociological perspective that considers most everyday activity is acted out as result of predetermined roles for example manager and worker. It is the framework by which all those unwritten rules about how we act in certain situations are justified by the academics amoungst us.

If we were to consider that these were the only roles the two of them inhabited then perhaps it is quite unlikely that they would have spent the afternoon together. The reality is though that these roles were interlaced with many others and as such there existed much common ground.

Where was the common ground?

The reality is that there was more common ground than not between these two, our children for one, the proximity of where they spent their days etc. In fact, I wouldn’t be wrong if I was to suggest they had far more in common than not and that this is why the matter of their professional roles was not an issue. I put together a little diagram just to illustrate the crossovers that I could think of, I am sure if I sat down with the two of them and went through it in more depth there would be much much more.

Where the social media bit then?

Well we are all made up of different roles and we can increasingly play them out online, what we chose to expose is entirely up to us. What we have to understand is that some roles can be restrictive and others leave much more space to play around with.

If you are using social media for business and one of your goals is broadening your appeal, think about that for a moment. Consider how that business role could be restrictive as it closes down options and potential markets. Of course businesses are not one dimensional but the promotion of a them often is and fundamentally it is not particularly social.

Consider how the other elements of your roles could be incorporated into what you are doing, focus on those and you will broaden your appeal considerably.

Just like Heidi, form relationships based on the broader more appealing roles. Business will get done but you will have created the basis by which people will buy from you which is a framework of trust . Selling to them or talking shop will turn them off. Seems like a back to front approach to doing business I know but I can assure you it is highly effective.

Can you think of any times you have been in a similar situation and the implications that had for you and your business? If so I would love to hear about them.

Twitter is like going into a pub full of 100,000 people. You can choose who to talk to, or listen to, and what to talk about.

November 21, 2010 10:06 pm via HootSuiteReplyRetweetFavorite

@ovationchris

Chris Budd

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.

So back to the point

Chris Budd has hit the nail on the head as far as I am concerned, his insightful tweet demonstrates in less than 140 characters exactly what Twitter is and how it can be useful in the world of business. Its about people chatting, millions of people chatting at any one point in time about millions of different subjects. It like being at the biggest pub in the world except than rather than it happening and the conversations getting lost into your pint the rest of the world can now have a listen and if  they are clever they can even jump in and chat with you.

The reality of this is that businesses are now beginning to wake up and see the value in these conversations, it’s word of mouth but in a digital form so you can collate it examine it and use the information to deliver a competitive edge.

How would you like to know what your client base actually thought of your product or service, you know the sort of things they would talk to their friends about in the pub. How would you like to find out what they were saying about your competitors?

The accuracy of Mr Budd’s observation  goes even deeper. The last thing you expect to happen when you are having a chat in the pub is that someone will suddenly interrupt you and try to sell you something.  As in the pub this just isn’t welcome in Twitter. So if this is how you are using it we really need to have a chat about getting you using it properly

Listening, Listening, Listening

Its all happening out there, companies with the resources are actively listening for your views and opinions so that they can capitalise on the information they receive. Predominately this has been the realm of the bigger business but the beauty of this environment is that the smaller ones can also capitalise on it too if they know what they are doing and how to filter out all the noise.

Chris owns Ovation Finance and the amount of information that is flying around these days is not going unnoticed by him, the only issue is capturing it as simply as possible and making use of it all.

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.

What am I on about this time?

I recently had one such moment of inspiration whilst running a seminar on the place that social media is taking within the business world. The seminar was attended by small business owners that were using social media in their marketing mix. I had been discussing the importance of  a business to realise that the knack of these tools is not as an advertising medium but as a tool for building a community and that the strength of that environment is where the business comes from.

Just as a warning note: Community building is not a quick process by any means, it takes time but if done well it is a good investment for your business and can provide you with many benefits. In fact I will be as bold as to suggest that anyone who tells you differently or goes further and ventures that they can do it for you is severely missing the point and needs to be given a wide berth, but that’s a topic for another post.

Anyway, So I was going through various case studies and we were looking at the importance of listening. The importance of using these applications to find what is being said about your products and services and the impact this can have on your business processes. We were looking at Twitter and companies that were doing this very well and some great examples of companies that weren’t doing this at all.

Whilst I was doing this I was asked by one of the delegates “so what should I be searching for to help my business move forward?” An obvious question but one that ended up producing one of those lightning strikes. I responded along these lines:

” The power of these tools is when you have a community of advocates, followers that will see opportunities for you and guide you towards them. The quickest way to build this powerful  resource is to look out for opportunities for other people. It’s the law of reciprocation. If you help others out they will help you in return.

Look out for your associates, suppliers, clients watch to see if you can help them by pointing business in their direction. Use twitter to search for the following phrase can you recommend. Do this and you are looking out for yourself.”

The impact of this suggestion was instant, the room was full of  4 Networkers of which i include myself and this suggestion did not fall on deaf ears. I went a little further and suggested that later that day I would post my thoughts on the 4 Networking forum as the beauty of that community is that it is full of people that you can confidently recommend because you know like and trust them. Have a look at what was posted here 4N Do you want more business?

Just imagine the power of that for a moment, 4 Networking is a vibrant community of business owners and there is a very good uptake of Twitter within that community. If only a few of them took up the suggestion then the impact would be of benefit to quite a few business across the network. It would strengthen the bonds that were being formed and provide an enormous listening tool for SME’s using Twitter.

Having taken this public the response was incredible and it spawned a few more ideas on how this can be used to drive business and strengthen your community building efforts. Lee Rickler saw the original post and immediately opened up the @canyourecommend twitter account and invited me to get involved with it. We had a think about what could be done and Lee quickly wrote some code to automate the whole thing.

Have a look at what he got up to here : 2 4Ners, never met, had an idea that is a great resource and put it into action

Just another warning note: Automation is not something that I would advocate for community building but in this case it makes sense. The idea is to popularise the use of the hashtag #canyourecommend so that it gets used across Twitter as a means of finding a trusted/recommended supplier. For us to sit there and respond to every use of the phrase “can you recommend” would be a massive drain on our resources so Lee set up a piece of code that does it for us. If you don’t believe me then start following that phrase and see how many people are asking for a little recomendation.

So what?

Well there are a few issues within this post that I want you to take away with you:

First of all, community building is what it’s all about in social media, without that you are missing the fundamental point of the exercise both in business and life. Its all about having the right people around you.

Secondly, this process takes time as there are real people involved and you have to develop trust first and foremost. Something I touch on with my first post ‘The 1st rule of social media”

Thirdly, questions are a great way to challenge yourself to go forward.

Finally, when you build a community the whole is greater than the sum of it’s parts as has been ably demonstrated by this whole experience.

So what now?

If you are not already doing it follow @canyourecommend and set up Hootsuite or Tweetdeck to listen for “can you recommend” help someone out today and it will come back to you soon enough and you dont need to be a 4 Networking member to do it.

Most importantly though, and this is the bit you must never forget when they are asking for a recommendation for some one who can help them out with social media think of Peter Kay at NotFromBolton

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.

Following a recommendation I was approached by the marketing team at Bath Ales to help them develop what they had already been doing further. I was invited in to advise them on what they could do with the social media platforms they were already using to develop the brand and leverage more business to both their online store and the many pubs they have in the region.

Of course I was absolutely delighted to be asked to get involved, as I say I have been a big fan of their product for some time so to get to know the people behind the brand was a real joy.

This week saw the beginning of the process where I lead a social media workshop with the marketing team, we looked at what they were currently doing and what tactics they could be employing to grow and develop their reach with the platforms they are already using. The session was extremely productive .

Testimonial for Not From Bolton

‘Hi Peter,

just a quick email to say another big Thank You for the time you spent with us.

I came away feeling very inspired and keen to put loads of good ideas into practice. We’ve written up some notes and are sharing these with our colleagues and we hope that our enthusiasm rubs off. When you’re looking for it, there are actually so many articles about Social Media and its importance to businesses everywhere.

You made it all very clear and concise, gave us some really good ideas and your passion for the subject has really inspired us.

Bath Ales Marketing Manager’

I always like to get such positive feedback from a client and I am really looking forward to working with the team at Bath Ales over the next few months as we integrate social media communications further into their business activities. Strategies, applications and tactical approaches that will be of both value to the company but entertaining to those involved .

So what am I doing then?

I cant give too much away at this stage but expect some interesting developments coming from Bath Ales very soon that will set them even further apart in the very competitive brewery trade.

‘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.

Wake up!

The reasons for this post are not to dissect the morals behind the recent security leaks, I will leave that to the rest of the world who are debating whether it was right or wrong. No, the reason for this post is to discuss the story that seems to get lost in all that noise, the issue of spin and how it is so easily unravelled in today’s connected world.

The message is simple, whoever you are, whatever your size or business you just can’t say one thing and do another  it’s completely counterproductive.

In my first post ‘The 1st rule of social media’ I discussed the need for authenticity in your online activities, the need to be reliable. What the Wikileaks cases have shown with the two separate incidents of vast quantities of highly classified information finding its way into the public domain is that there really is no merit in conducting your business in any other way than in an open and transparent manner.

Why?

In todays social age anyone from anywhere can can comment on any subject they like. It’s the power of the platforms that are now available to anyone with an internet connection or a smart phone. What this really means is that regardless of how carefully you craft a brand or public persona if it is just a facade covering issues that you would rather remain hidden there is nothing you can do to prevent it being exposed. All it takes is a disgruntled employee, associate, customer, supplier, family member etc etc to take exception and the whole house of cards can very quickly fall down.

The US government is currently having to deal with the sticky situation of their own creation, they told us one thing whilst the situation on the ground was very different. It can be argued that in this case it was necessary to do this for security reasons but how is this any different to business.

On the large end of the scale there are multinationals that are out there spending vast amounts of money on PR and marketing to present a clean image whilst at the coal face their employees are involved in less than ideal activities. Like it or not this is the dark side of  business, profit and shareholders are powerful driving forces and this is unlikely to change but perhaps what we are about to witness is a paradigm shift in the way business is conducted?

Of course business has to make a profit and shareholders need to get there dividends but at what cost?  As social media takes a greater part in our lives and information can be passed around the globe in an instant business is going to need to become mindful of these issues more and more.Just consider Gerald Ratner in the 80′s where one slip of the tongue saw that business quickly closed down as word spread. A slip of the tongue that exposed dislocation between perception of the brand and the reality from behind the scenes. Unfortunately for Gerald that slip was caught on camera and quickly found it’s way onto the news and as we all know the rest is history. With the development of the internet the means of distribution have now shifted away from the news organisations to the rest of society. It is now possible for anyone anywhere to do a Ratner

Corporate responsibility

Corporate responsibility is a term that has been bandied about now for a few years, it is a term the refers to a process of self regulation where a business balances the need to make a profit against the social environment in which it operates. What I am suggesting is that this environment is rapidly changing as the internet continues to evolve around us. Every business and organisation is now at risk of having their very own ‘Wikileaks’ situation regardless of how tightly they have their sensitive information locked down.

Things are going to get very interesting

In my honest opinion things are going to get fairly interesting over the next few years. As the means to publish and distribute information get even easier we are likely to see ever increasing leaks of sensitive information and the subsequent exposure of dodgy practices and unauthentic behaviour.

My advice is, simple don’t say one thing and then do another because if you do get found out all that hard work will have been for nothing. Be honest, be authentic and be responsible.

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?

What do I mean?

Well lets explore this a little further. Granted, if you are a nomadic tribesman living in a desert somewhere herding goats then I might be a little off the mark. However, whilst an extremely valid existence the very nature of this level of disconnection from communication channels means that it is a little unlikely that they will have heard about what Lady Gaga has been up to on Twitter however it’s not impossible.

But for the rest of us that are not herding goats I suggest the opposite is the case. ‘What on earth do you mean by this’ I hear you ask? Well I am certainly not suggesting that it has got to the point where everybody is Tweeting or on Facebook but that with the extent to which social media is now integrated into our lives it is almost impossible not to be very far from someone who is. You could be old an infirm and never switched on a computer in your life, never even used a mobile phone and yet you will visited by your Grand children who do.

What has lead me here ?

Well its just an observation really. The most recent time I have observed this was when I was giving a presentation to a group of entrepreneurs about the place that social media is taking in the world of business as a tool that impacts and informs across the whole business.  I was discussing what BT were up to these days using Twitter to monitor for issues of concern and one of the attendees made a comment about a recent advertising campaign that IKEA had run. A campaign that had only used social media and how this was ridiculous as he didn’t use social media. My response to this gentleman was that despite the fact he had not been able to experience the campaign for himself he had just commented about it to a room full of people. So whilst he had not been directly touched by the campaign but had been moved enough to discuss it and draw attention to IKEA.

Now to me whilst it is impossible for IKEA to attribute this one interaction to a sale it was a positive outcome they got  a mention that could lead another to a sale, it has even got me blogging about them.

So what  ?

This is not an isolated incident as I come across examples like this all the time, people that for what ever reason have no direct connection to the social web but still discuss what is going on with it allowing an extension of its reach. It really fascinates me when I think about it as for me this is a huge driving force in true value of social media marketing, its about extending reach, leveraging responses creating word of mouth in the real world.

Of course there is a lot more to it than that because the process  is two way, it’s a conversation. As well as reaching out beyond the multitude of screens to plant seeds all over the place the really clever companies are listening to what is coming back in the other direction. That’s when it get extremely interesting as they can get incredible levels of feedback that provide the business intelligence a company needs to develop and maintain their competitiveness.

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.

It’s all too easy to lose focus

In Business Twitter is an application that is growing in popularity as more and more people get to hear about the potential it holds. The beauty of it is that it is fairly simple to get an account and begin to get involved. As you use the application you will begin to pick up followers. Of course you want people to follow you, the more followers you get the more people are able to see your content. This is what makes it attractive to business as a communication tool.

The problem is that for many users the process of picking up followers can become the primary focus and seemingly all the justification they need for their business to be involved. In Business you have to remember that activity needs to be justified, it has to pay for itself otherwise it removes valuable resources from where they could be put to more profitable use. Twitter is no different, the impact it creates on the business needs to be viable and  just measuring the number of followers you pick up to determine this is a little short sighted.  After all, you can’t pay your bills by cashing in your twitter followers, it would be great if you could but businesses really have to make sales to survive.

Where Twitter becomes a really powerful tool is when you use it to build a community. A community of  advocates and users that connect and engage with you and draw in attention, credibility and ultimately by association more business.  The number of followers you have managed to gain needs to be seen as more than just a statistic to bandy around in the vain attempt to impress,  it is an online community and really it has to pay for itself, there has to be a return on your investment or ROI and this can be a little tricky to determine.

Quality over quantity

You have to consider your relationship with your community to be the focus and not the size of it. Quality over Quantity is the name of the game. It is much more effective to have a handful of followers that are interested in you over hundreds or thousands of loose connections that have just been out trophy hunting following you in the hope you will follow them back. Depth of connection is where the magic begins to happen and when Twitter comes into it’s own delivering that all important ROI.

Focus on the people, don’t just focus on the numbers you achieve as getting a thousand followers is the easiest thing in the world to do. All you have to do is go out and follow two thousand, but if they are not listening to you what the hell is the point.

Do consider numbers but consider which ones carefully, try to quantify and measure the impact of what you are up to on Twitter. Focus on it’s effectiveness not it’s size. Measure retweet’s, measure mentions, measure click throughs but most of all measure what impact your community has on your levels of business.

If you want to learn a little more about the basics of social media ROI then I suggest you have a look at this slide share presentation from Olivier Blanchard aka @thebrandbuilder as it explains it pretty damn well.

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.

How do we work?

We are all just big information filters, people see what they want to see, they hear what they want to hear. We have to otherwise we would all suffer from sensory overload. Organising  the continuous information we receive is a personal a process,  it’s individual.  Take this optical illusion for example, it’s as old as the hills but it extremely effective in visually getting my point across .

Which do you see? The old lady or the young lady. Which one presents itself to you will be completely dependent on your perspective.  Ultimately onlookers will only draw from the process what they want to, what they choose to, even if they don’t realise it.  So as this is the case why do so many businesses go through such long convoluted processes to ensure that they project the right message. They are in my view missing the point.

Whatever the content of your message, your approach, people will either get it or they won’t. SO why spend valuable resources worrying about those that don’t or never will?  They are too much hard work and are not really the sort of people that you should want to connect with. There are now enough communities out there to explore that what you produce will appeal to somebody somewhere.  The key to using the opportunities that social media provides is to make connections with people that do get what you have to offer.

What’s the point?

There is a great old saying that ‘you can please some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time but you can never please all of the people all of the time’. This  rings so true in today’s social world, so why try to do the impossible. Why spend valuable resources attempting to be all things to all people. Concentrate on what you are passionate about and what your business does well. This is infectious and will attract the type of connections you really need,  it’s a self selecting process that ensures strength.

So, don’t be paralysed by indecision, social media is in the eye of the beholder something you just cannot control so get something up there  today create something now and see where it leads you, you might be surprised.

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.

Social media in business

The way I see, there are two types of businesses. There are those that get social media and those that don’t. I appreciate it’s a fairly simplistic view but why over complicate things? So, having being involved in the business community in and around Bristol for some years now I had been wondering just how do you really open the eyes of those who just don’t see what’s going on around them. I wondered how best to demonstrate to those that don’t understand the power of the internet society the very real benefits of getting involved.

Of course the only reasonable conclusion to draw was that I needed to get them to see the effects of a social media strategy first hand. I need them to see a little pink.

Why on earth pink?

Well it really was a combination of factors that presented a great opportunity for a little bit of social tinkering. As I have mentioned I am a member of the business community in Bristol. I am sure you will appreciate its a fairly broad community. You can divide and subdivide a group of people or community to an almost infantesimal point if you want but that can get a bit pointless so I won’t.

Recently there was a networking event in Bristol called Network Central 2010. It brought together all the main face to face networking organisations under one roof. It just so happened that this also coincide with several other factors.

1. A networking group I am a member of called 4N were having a breakfast meeting that day
2. The group normally held its meetings at Redwood Lodge
3. It was the first time that Chris Harding would be taking on his new role of Group Leader
4. For reasons only known to Chris he has branded himself as Pinky
5. 4N is supported by a national online forum
6. Many 4N members already have a social media presence

It was like an astronomical event, all these factors came together perfectly and were crying out for a little bit of social tinkering and #Pinkwood was born.

I worked with Chris mentoring him, providing him with the strategy and guidance he needed to get the message out there. We used the tools that were available and most accessible to the members, Chris’s website, the forum, Twitter and of course good old fashioned word of mouth. The response was incredible. The breakfast meeting was massively oversubscribed. You would normally have expected around 25 to 30 attendees, perhaps a few more as this was at  Network Central. In the end we had 73 in the room from all over the country and the best thing for me was that most of them were wearing Pink.

Of course social media is not something that is suitable for everyone but this was a measurable, tangible result and something those not involved could clearly see for themselves.

The results

It was a bit of mucking about really, I was just playing but it demonstrated the power of social media to a wide audience of people by bringing it back into the real world. Of course not everybody wore pink and the ones that didn’t were generally those who didn’t use social media in their business.

If you want to have a look at the results for your self then please view this slideshow where the flavor of the meeting was documented by D & D Carrington Photography. Alternatively,  have a little dig around on Google for #Pinkwood as the content it produced got all over the place.

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

For example we need to breathe we need to eat and we need to make sure we don’t step out under a bus. Get these wrong and the consequences will quickly catch up with you. These are extreme examples, but they do illustrate the how you have to constantly assess what is going on both around and within you. We exist in a constant dialogue with the world whether we realise it or not, its how we survive the challenges of life.

The relationships that we have with these ever changing environments inform our actions, or looking at it another way. You can’t stay underwater for too long, you will drown, your environment dictates that you have to come up for air. You can choose not to, but only for so long.

So what is the relevance of this to Social Media?

As I suggest authenticity is key. We all have environments that we need to successfully negotiate and the social sphere is no different. It’s a two way conversation or dialogue between yourself and the communities you enter.  To negotiate it effectively we all have to rely on the quality of the dialogue taking place. After all it’s all about involvement and interactivity these days so there is plenty going on all the time.

Trying to pass one thing off as another is always possible but why bother?  Why try to be something you are not, why try to market a product or service that does not deliver? There are so many streams of information constantly arriving these days from so many directions that something or someone will always give the game away.

In the physical world this can be forgotten and assigned to the past. In the digital world there is always a trail that can and will be followed back to source. I suppose  you can consider it a little like the difference between Hansel and Gretal. In one instance they used bread crumbs and got lost, next time around they used stones and made it home.  Activity on the Internet is just like dropping stones, everywhere you go and every interaction you take place in is another stone dropped.

So my point is this. Be authentic because if you’re not you will get discovered and in an age where this can be blasted around the world quicker than you can read this sentence the consequences can be severe.

Whats the most simple step you can take today towards achieving this?

Put your name to your dialogue, to your interactions and be proud to do so. Ultimately be accountable. This is a basic step but if you want people to be sure of your intent, your dialogue, then it’s the small things that make a big difference.

Unfortunately for me that’s not  an option on much of my Internet activity, but I do it where I can.  I have nothing to hide, quite the opposite but if you Google Peter Kay your going to get thousands of links to some bloke from Bolton.  Apparently he is quite successful and owned a nightclub called Phoenix Nights. My name, but nothing to do with me. What did I do then? I got creative. Not From Bolton is about as close as I can get to using Peter Kay without using it. Not my name but you do know who it is ;)

This is just my perspective on a reoccurring theme but let me know your thoughts as they are always welcome. After all the whole idea is that dialogue should be a two way thing……