PublicPolicy.ie
January 9, 2012 at 11:54 pm
It’s great when a project comes along that combines a worthy cause, the smartest minds, and a blank white page to begin from.
I’ve been working with the Irish Fiscal Policy Research Centre to create a website that will house the research and thinking that is sure to become the ‘goto’ place for Irish people when they want to get information. There is a lot of noise around the key economic and political issues of the day – that affect all of us. And it’s so important that we get accurate information if we are to understand and make our own opinions.
Perhaps the best explanation of what this is all about comes from the Chairman himself, Prof. Frank Convery.
In Ibsen’s A Doll’s House , Nora says: “I can’t be satisfied any longer with what most people say, and with what’s in books. I must think out things for myself and try to understand them.”
Our job at publicpolicy.ie is to make “thinking things out” as easy as possible.
Read the Irish Times article about publicpolicy.ie.
Sign up to receive an email alert when the site launches.
Tags: publicpolicy.ie
Give This Guy A Job
August 17, 2011 at 8:47 am
I was approached in a novel way this morning by someone looking for work. His approach shows understanding and applied knowledge of how to make Twitter and Google work for you. His CV shows someone who has worked hard all his life (throughout college = always a good thing in my book), has done lots of sales/biz dev jobs… speaking to other business owners these last few years, it seems to me that the most prized skill these days is a good sales person. Even in a recession, a good salesperson can help get the cash flowing through the business again. If you’re on the lookout for a go-getting sales person with experience for your team, you’d do well to follow up with this guy!
First I got a tweet, directed to me personally (pity he didn’t have an avatar as I nearly overlooked it):
Click the link and you’re taken over to Google Docs where you can check out Martin Newell’s CV.
Nice. Some organisations block their staff from accessing Facebook, Twitter, even Gmail. That, in my opinion, is so wrong. People like Martin Newell know how to use social media, it’s in their digital DNA. Shutting down access to key tools is like stopping your staff from having access to a toilet. It’s so essential – and detrimental if you go too far!
But is your business really using social media?
July 27, 2011 at 8:51 am
There’s a lot of talk about how many businesses are using social media. There was an article in Sunday’s Business Post about it last week – claiming victory for Ireland over England and the US:
The research also reveals that there was a rise in Irish companies using social media to win new business, with 44 per cent of firms successfully winning new customers online.
Although this was below the global average of 47 per cent, Irish firms lead Britain (41 per cent) and the US (43 per cent) in their usage of social media for customer acquisition.
It goes on to list all the different types of social media tools being used by Irish businesses:
Websites such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are the most popular forms of social media used by Irish businesses. Firms are also availing of blogs, microblogs and online forums to connect and engage with customers. Nevertheless, firms also emphasised the need for a balance of marketing media, made up of traditional and digital techniques.
I can imagine some business owner, faced with this survey from Regus, ticking the boxes of all the tools he’s ever heard of. Or ticking yes because they have a Twitter account (not touched since March 2010) and a Facebook Profile with lots of friends….
On the same weekend, over the course of being out and about, I met 3 small business owners – all very different to each other and in very different lines of work – but all were expressing worry about the same thing.
- “I know I need to use social media but I don’t know how.”
- “I have a Facebook Page because my mentor from the Enterprise Board said I should have one, but I don’t really do much with it… I don’t know how to get fans.”
- “Don’t talk to me about the other things apart from Facebook and Twitter, I haven’t even got them right.”
And now Facebook rows in with the announcement on Tuesday of its new online education centre aimed at helping small businesses use the social networking site. It’s interesting timing as it underlines Facebook’s support for businesses to be a part of the social network (provided you do it according to their rules!!) which is in contrast to Google’s controversial shut down of business accounts on Google Plus.
Tips for Small Business Owners in Using Social Media
- Don’t set up Pages, profiles, accounts unless you are willing and able to dedicate resource to manage them on a weekly basis
- How often? Try and commit to posting on your Facebook Page 3 times per week for starters. Use Tweetdeck to live on Twitter and it will become second nature and not something you have to count the tweets about!
- Allocate a little budget (doesn’t have to be much) to Facebook ads to reach your target audience. If they are on Facebook and it is an appropriate channel to engage with them, you should grow your fan base pretty easily.
- Once you’ve got fans you have got to engage with them. Write a Facebook editorial plan and stick to it. Try and mix it up in terms of chat, pushing product, and chat again. Images work well, so go and find beautiful images that will start conversations. Be creative.
- At the same time as you’re using Twitter to chat to your followers, start using the Advanced Search feature to find people talking about your service/product in realtime. Choose whether it’s appropriate to engage with them.
That’s what you need to do for starters. Next up is how to extend that activity beyond Facebook and Twitter. How to listen to what’s being said about you and your business across the social spaces and how to respond and engage. Consider how you can move the social activity away from just being something you or your marketing person look after, to something that is second nature to everyone in the organisation.
More on that in another post. Please leave a comment if you want to see this soon. That’ll incentivise me to write it before this season is out. 
Unsubscribe Me
July 13, 2011 at 8:21 am
I’ve just unsubscribed from all of the daily deals I had been getting; decided I didn’t want opportunities to consume hit me every day.
- The best unsubscribe process of all is our very own Rate My Area Deals. One click and they give you a one click option to resubscribe in case you did it by accident. I also like the range of their deals – they do more than just the beauty, teeth, and restaurants the others concentrate on.
- Living Social’s unsubscribe process was OK – once click, but I had to think, just a little! Their deals weren’t great.
- Pigsback.com was a one click, but one of these ones that don’t update their records for 7 days. Annoying.
- Groupon Citydeal’s is AWFUL! I had to log on to their site to unsubscribe from the daily emails, remembering my details. Then, faced with just 3 options (my orders, my credit, my data) – the only one I could think of that could stop the emails coming was ‘my data’. The only thing I could do was change my email address to something not real: bullshitprocess@unsubscribe.me is what I used. So when you next hear about the millions of people that Groupon have got signed up, think again! Maybe half of those are people like me trying to get away! Another thing I didn’t like about Citydeal is their refer a friend process. Does anyone know anyone who ever got the €6? I put loads of people on to Citydeal at the start and because I didn’t log in, on a full moon, with a special password, I never got nada!
So I’m done with the dealsters. I trust that I have enough friends on who will flick any relevant ones on to me so I don’t miss out. In the meantime, it’s hello inbox and messages from friends, and bye to teeth whitening, skin rejuvenating, cheap deals on restaurants I don’t want to eat in, all delivered by some poor overworked person who has sold 350 deals and now has to deliver to a horde of budget conscious demanding and possibly not very pleasant customers!
More Tumbleweed…
June 21, 2011 at 11:53 am
I’m putting together slides for a talk I’m giving next week. Examples permeate the web on US brands doing it with social. I want to give some good meaty Irish ones, so I decided to check out the winners of the recent Irish Social Media Awards to see what they’re up to.
Loving Dublin Zoo. And Meteor.
But Maltesers? Where are you?
You won the “Best Integrated Campaign” but obviously the integration bit stopped a long time ago. The “About” section is still referring to Winter – and yes I know we’re not having a great summer, but that is two seasons out of date. If you click on “Maltesers Ireland” to see what they have been saying, it’s obvious that their agency is on a once a month retainer to post since the end of March. Before that it was a daily post, now it’s just slipped off into nothingness.
This is another great example of how people just don’t get it that “social media is for life and not just for a campaign”. The sooner we start living in terms of conversations that are ongoing, rather than campaigns that die off, the better.
I’m off to find me some good US social media examples…
In the meantime, here’s some well meaning words from Malteser’s social representatives in Ireland… it’s so… touching.
Open Data Challenge
June 16, 2011 at 1:54 pm
If you’re a fan of those think-in’s where different types of skilled people get together and work on something for 18 hours, then this one is for you. It’s Ireland’s first open data challenge, taking place on 4 & 5 July in the Digital Hub, Dublin.
Open Data is part of a new wave of governance. Public data is being released across the world, with the aim to inform citizens, stimulate new economic activity, innovation and competition, and foster cultures of openness whereby governments are more responsive and accountable to their citizens. The purpose of this – Ireland’s first Open Data Challenge – is to show how viable businesses can be developed.
They’re looking for entrepreneurs, facilitators, product and graphic designers to work with local council experts to brainstorm; generate and prototype new ideas based on Dublin City Council and Fingal County Council open data sets.
It should be a bit of fun. And a great way to expend lots of creative juice in a very short space of time. If this kind of thing floats your boat, then cruise on over to inventorium to register. You have to register in order to take part.
We are not jam jars…
April 27, 2011 at 11:31 am
So quit the labelling.
“We are extraordinary, brilliant, limitless people” – so says Caroline Casey of Kanchi at Ted Talks.
Caroline Casey is amazing. I would not be one bit surprised if she became President of Ireland someday.
Tags: TedTalks Kanchi Caroline Casey
How Electricity Companies Should Use Twitter
April 13, 2011 at 9:50 am
It’s quite simple really – there are only 3 competitors in the Irish market. Very easy to use Twitter effectively to listen out to people at their ‘point of need’. This could be negative….
Or, er, negative (I couldn’t find any positive tweets about Airtricity, Bord Gais, or ESB!)
Assuming that we’re ESB, the newly relaunched competitor.
How to find people who are itching to switch? And score some positive WOM while you’re at it
- Open up Advanced Twitter Search
- Do a search for “Airtricity”… you’ll find a lot of tweets coming up about the football league, and job ads, etc.
- Insert those words in the “none of these words’ box
4. Review your results. In the case of disgruntled customers, consider tweeting them with a special offer code. It’s very important to get your tone right. Be engaging, empathise. Whatever you do, don’t be too salesy. That will backfire.
5. For the example above about charging higher standing charges, I’d suggest tweeting “ESB standing charges X. Bord Gais X+2. Airtricity X+3 #we’renotsneaky“. Straightforward display of pricing, with a nod to the original tweeter’s use of the hash tag.
6. Wait for the person above to respond – because folks – this IS a conversation and that’s how conversation works. If they choose to engage with you (the brand), then you can come back with an offer code. See what they say, be polite, answer their question, and end with a call to action – preferably a trackable link – for making the switch.
7. I’d suggest creating a switching page on your website that is written to disgruntled Twitter people coming over. Everyone knows personalisation works, so why not write your body copy on this page to talk to directly to these people? All links to this page should be tracked so you can capture the number of leads you’re getting from Twitter.
As regards the positive WOM stuff… I use an example in training about how impressed I was when @VodafoneIreland responded to a tweet I made about Vodafone network being down, Twitter being all I’ve got. Vodafone tweeted me back a few hours later to say “we’re back on now”. That simple tweet was very effective. It turned a negative (the network being down) into a warm and fuzzy feeling (“oh they listen to me… they care…”). Whenever I share this story (telling people = positive WOM), course participants are always quick to jump in with similar tales of positive actions such as this. So apart from hoovering up leads by using Twitter in this way, you’re also generating lots of instances of positive WOM. I still believe that, despite what one of my more cynical buddies on Twitter had to say on the matter yesterday! What do you think?
I do hope you can understand my equation stuff above, I did go to seek out the electricity standing charges in Ireland to use real numbers, but it’s a bit of a minefield and I couldn’t get my head around it in the time I have now. I’ll come back to it.
Note the use of the hash tag. I will write about hashtags shortly. They are, simultaneously, the most abused, and the most well used device on Twitter. Hashtags were invented (by Chris Messina) specifically for use on Twitter. Sadly, they’ve been hijacked by overzealous marketers.
Finally, while you can create searches in Twitter applications such as Tweetdeck to deliver tweets to your app on specific search terms, the big failing here is that you can’t use negative keywords, and you cannot geotarget, so while you can set them up, you may be at risk of getting a whole load of noise. But if that’s what you want, that’s OK. I like the “since this date” feature in Advanced Twitter Search because you can task your team to perform this activity every couple of days (hoovering up sales leads!) – so all they have to do is insert their keywords since the last date they performed this search, and away they go
What about your business?
Are you using Twitter in this way, which incidentally is Number 3 on Mashable’s List of 9 Digital Marketing Lessons. Do you need a little help?
Why I’m Leaving Airtricity
April 12, 2011 at 8:44 am
When the electricity market became deregulated, I was one of the first to investigate my options. I like a bargain me, and I jumped ship from ESB to Airtricity. Now almost 2 years on, I’m jumping back again. Why?
Because of the worst customer service I’ve ever experienced
- Worse than eircom when it first started selling broadband back in 2003 and it didn’t really know what it was doing? Yes
- Worse than snooty British banks before they all exported their customer service to India? Yes
- Worse than Westwoods Gym (joint holder of the Worst Customer Service In Ireland award)? Yes… mmmm well nearly
I’m actually the best kind of customer for electricity
I quite like having electricity and all the things it lets me do of a dark night. I’m also one of these organised types who checks to see that direct debits have left my account as they should. And yes, for certain companies I will sign a direct debit and give them access to grab an unfixed amount from my personal cash. I believe that companies are valued based on the number of direct debit mandates they’ve got. (Westwoods is a case in point – they grab it from you on first flush… then kind of ignore ya… )
So what happened with Airtricity?
- I moved house in August – the house I was moving into was already an Airtricity customer. I asked to get my name put onto the account. I didn’t hear from them, never received a bill. Knowing that I wouldn’t be lucky enough to get free electricity, I telephoned Airtricity some 5-7 times between September and Christmas to try and sort this out.
- During the week of the “second snow”, I managed to get a person who was able to tell me how much was owing on the account. Quite a hit just before Christmas, so I negotiated to pay them in 2 installments in the new year. After all, it was their fault that I hadn’t been billed.
- While I wasn’t able to view my own account online, they had managed to give me online access to view someone else’s account though.
- I’ve paid the two installments and just last month was the first month of paying just the regular usage amount. The money was in the bill paying account all ready to go. And it didn’t go. I kept an eye on it, and two weeks later, it still didn’t go. Yesterday a series of events happened that just pushed me over into “I”m taking my business away” mode.
- I received a snotty letter in the post saying my account was overdue and if I didn’t pay it, there’d be steps taken….
- I also received an email telling me I “only had 4 days left” in which to submit my meter reading
- Being the good customer that I am, I logged on to submit said meter reading and I couldn’t get into the website. The password retrieval wouldn’t work for me – it said there was no account under my name!!!
- Then I telephoned to try and sort things out, and their very unprofessional message which sounded like it was recorded by “Nicola the nice intern” said that they were very busy in customer service right now and could I please call back!! No “we’ll take your number and call you back”. Not enough staff. This does make a change however from the usual recorded announcements asking “have you made the switch yet?”… repeated over and over and over while you’re waiting for someone to take your call… the voice slowly spells..out… the… website address… it’s extremely annoying to be sold to when you’re on hold for a customer service issue.
So I tweeted about how I have decided to leave Airtricity
And guess what? Airtricity have come on and offered to help me!! Isn’t Twitter an amazing tool for getting attention?
Not only that, but ESB Electric Ireland have started to follow me.
Interesting if you look at Airtricity on Twitter, they use it about once every couple of days. They’ve gone to the trouble of having an elaborate ‘official tweeters’ set-up, but they’re not even using it properly. It’s a smashing idea to use Twitter to deal with customer service issues (especially when you’ve not got a functioning phone line) but if you’re going to do, do it right. Looks like Airtricity might be suffering from the same problem Bord Gais had – where there appears to be no senior buy-in to Twitter so it’s not really used as it could.
Well Airtricity – the answer is “no”.
It’s too late. I’m one of your earliest customers, I’ve been patient, and you’ve failed miserably. If you spent less money on door-to-door salespeople and slightly more on a working phone and website service, you’d have me for life.
Now how do I submit my final meter reading to you – by carrier pigeon?
Tags: Airtricity, Airtricity fail
Digiweb Leave A Sour Taste In My Mouth
October 28, 2010 at 8:36 am
I made the decision to shift my business from Digiweb to Magnet over the summer, and documented it here. Digiweb might have been in the running but for the fact that they never took it upon themselves to tell me over the four years I was with them to tell me I was eligible for free landline phone calls, so boo to them, I’ll take me and my broadband and phone business elsewhere.
I’m with Magnet and am enjoying the improved customer service and lack of broadband downtime.
- I like the way that Magnet ‘heard’ me talking about them on Twitter and jumped in with a response.
- I like the way that Magnet found my blog and added my kind words about them to their home page.
- I like the way their customer service people dealt with my query about an invoice on the day it was received in a friendly and polite manner.
- I especially like the way that Magnet staff don’t all have dire Meath accents!
While I have come in from the cold and am relishing the feeling of being treated well as a customer, Digiweb are still being bitter and nasty. Like a spurned lover who cannot accept that the time has come to move on, they delayed the porting of MY telephone number for 4 weeks so I was without phone which is akin to being without a limb. If you’re looking to avoid bad broadband providers Ireland, read on.
Now the latest thing is that some people who have been trying to call me have reported hearing a weird error message. It turns out that this is because Digiweb has still refused to transfer all parts of my phone business. According to my smart Magnet customer support people:
It is digiweb’s responsibility to “announce” with all other providers your number has changed to magnet, it seems they have not done this with O2.
So anyone calling me from an O2 number can’t get through.
If you are thinking of going with Digiweb, I’d suggest you think twice. Unless you plan on being with them forever more you can expect to be treated like this – even 2 months after you’ve taken away your business.
Thankfully there are more competitors in the broadband space these days, so you don’t have to go with bad broadband providers.
Tags: bad broadband providers
