Great Way of Updating Contacts
November 27, 2008 at 9:30 am
With the best of intentions to update my Twitter following list, I never do. I often think it would be so beneficial to visit the websites of all the people following me, and find new folks to talk to, engage with, learn from. But I never do because I like to knock off work after the mandatory 10-12 hours!
Now that’s been made easy with the beautiful Mr Tweet. It’s a nifty little app that recommends people who are following you that you should follow. And recommends people you should follow that you’re currently not. This bit is based on who you follow, and who they follow also.
I like it. It’s neat, informative, works really well, and absolves me of guilt for not updating my following list. It gives you information about the person, the number of times they tweet on average per day, and their following response action - ie. follow everyone, follow some, etc. I don’t care about that last bit. I’m not in the business of following to be followed.
The one thing it doesn’t do is filter for annoying people! There are quite a few recommendations that I have simply ignored because I used to follow them and their constant moaning or bitching just got me down. For what it’s worth, I like to use Twitter to listen to people who:
- Have something interesting to say
- Are generous with their links, ie find something great and pass it on
- Are funny, witty, amusing. Positive, light, fun.
- Are not self obsessed and only tweeting about themselves and their lives
If this is you, and I haven’t found you yet, do please follow me on Twitter. When I see your follow, I’ll always have a look and if you seem sound, I’ll follow you too.
Email Marketing No Brainer
October 24, 2008 at 5:00 pm
Recently I reviewed our Email Marketing services page - updated the text, added a new image, and soon to be adding some fresh client testimonials. Did a Google search for “Email Marketing Ireland” and we came up on the first page - good - but what I noticed when I reviewed the competitor offerings for email marketing is that we are the only ones who are not trying to hawk our own in-house software onto clients.
What does this mean for Irish businesses who want to introduce email marketing to their communications mix?
All internet marketing agencies will sell you on the advantages of email marketing. That much is true. But most will try to sell you a license to use their software. You’ll find yourself paying out for training in how to use that software and no doubt will hear all about the robustness and excellent deliverability of their systems - but after that, you’ll be pretty much left to get on with it yourself.
I strongly disagree with this. And let’s call it what it is - companies pushing something onto unsuspecting clients that delivers the best return for their balance sheets, and not necessarily the best result for the client.
I’m a big believer in email marketing; in fact it’s my favourite! I believe in it so much that I’m happy to provide training to clients in how to do it themselves. But what I’ve known to happen is that training can be delivered, but when it comes to getting the email out, it’s a big stress on the client.
Doing it yourself eats up loads of time.
Testing takes ages and this drives up the cost. When you’re trying to get an email out, 100% perfect, on time, and it’s not your core area of expertise, it can be really stressful. It’s not surprising that many businesses start out with high hopes of doing regular email marketing and over time, they let it slide because it becomes too much hassle.
When I deliver training in email marketing - it’s about more than just how to use a piece of software.
- It’s about planning the messaging, who you’re communicating with, what you have to say.
- Putting in place an email marketing content plan so that you know what you have to write throughout the year.
- And most importantly of all, how to analyse the statistics.
- All that plus advice on list building, and of course design of beautiful and effective email templates.
If you’re interested in learning all about that, our last public training course of 2008 is on 27 November. Find out more… But know this - DIY Email Marketing is only for you if you’re comfortable using software and have the time to devote to managing your campaigns.
When we do email marketing for our clients, we sit down with them and work out messaging, frequency, list building, and design.
But after that we look after everything leaving them free to get on with running their business.
What this means is that our clients know that every email communication going out on their behalf reads great, is professionally designed, and is delivered using the best web-based software developed by companies whose sole focus is this. Not some two-bit piece of kit that was knocked out by the techies back when the ‘agency’ added email marketing to its list of services.
Then, one week after send, our clients receive a report detailing all the user interactions with the email and with recommendations on how future email content and offers can be targeted to get better results.
We’re about making our money by providing advice and best practice delivery. Not by selling software. It’s an email marketing no-brainer.
A Great Deal on Images - Some Good News For These Tight Times
September 4, 2008 at 10:58 pm
If you love animals and nature, you should probably turn your poor wee head away NOW!
Getty Images are targeting Ireland. Their Country Manager admits that the pricing for Ireland to date has been ‘all wrong’. [I agree].
This evening I attended a Getty evening where they got to show some of their amazing news, celeb, and global affairs images. We got to consume the message that ‘Ireland is just like Manchester’ [I think they mean in terms of market size, I certainly hope they mean in terms of style and beauty] and they [humbly = my words] acknowledge that they’ve been pricing our market all wrong.
So now they invite us - the Irish - to go online, find an image we like, and then contact them directly for an Irish specific price! A thrilling challenge indeed. And I’m not just talking about images. You can do it for sound to go along with your video, and even for video moving images. We used Pump Audio on Kanchi videos and it was really easy.
The Getty country manager is:
Marek Wystepak, his telephone is 010 246 2700 and you can contact me direct for his email or mobile if you need it. If you’re looking for contacts in relation to sound or moving image, there are direct contacts there too! [Almost sounds too good to be true eh!]
If you’ve ever been searching for amazing images for your website, found them on Getty and the cost was prohibitively expensive, well those days are gone. Now all you have to do is contact Marek and strike a deal {accordingly]. Maybe this is the good news story of the week?
I took a look around. For me, Getty Images are great. But when it comes to stock shots, good looking people in a contemporary life environment, iStock rocks. Where Getty excels however, is in news, current affairs, and key issues.
The following image is one I gleaned from the web [ie. didn't pay for] that was included in the exhibition and truly brought a tear to my eye.
Down with poachers. Boo!
Followers on Twitter
May 12, 2008 at 9:36 am
I’d be interested to know how others choose who they follow on Twitter. And general thoughts on following/unfollowing policy!
There seems to be two appoaches:
- Active, ie. those who peruse others’ followers lists and randomly add new names.
- Passive, ie. the ones who rely on the notification system to alert them to new followers. If they like the look of, they’ll follow them too.
I fall into the latter category, although I have aspirations to join the Actives. I’d love to have the time to select someone whose thoughts I admire and follow, and click through their list of ‘following’. I’m sure it’s a great way of expanding your horizons and getting to hear new voices.
My (Evolving) Process For Following:
- I tend to add anyone I’ve met in the flesh. If we’ve had an interesting conversation in person, then I’m very happy to subscribe to your daily Twitterings. I see that as one of the real values of Twitter allowing a continuous ongoing conversation.
- I do check all notifications. If someone follows me, and I recognise most of the other people in their followers list, then I’ll follow too.
- If I land on a twitter page, and I don’t know the person/followers, then I’ll click the link to their blog or website. If it interests me, I’ll follow.
[I'm really not that fussy you know! Like most users of the internet in general, all I'm looking for is some relevant content.]
My Process for Not Following:
- Brand newbies who I don’t know, who have nothing to say, and who have not posted a link to a blog or website
- People who tweet in a different language to me. I have to understand you! Note that this includes overly technical language. The exception to this is @briangreene because I admire his passion even if I don’t understand his broadcast frequency language!
- Americans who tweet mainly about the election, particularly those who display ‘vote hilary’ badges on their sites. It’s not that I’m against having a woman leading the US, I’m just not that politicised
- Spammers because they are the scum of the universe
Other Thoughts:
- While I don’t pursue an active Following policy, I do tend towards an active Unfollowing policy. If someone isn’t doing it for me, I unsubscribe.
- For a while there, I was following quite a few Americans, ones who would have a large following on Twitter and their blogs, but I found the level of detail about how many coffees they were having a day a bit on the boring side. [I think Irish Twitterers rock - there's a great mix of interest and wit]
- I like thanking someone for the add, it’s polite. @damienmulley is very good at this, despite the huge numbers of people he must deal with.
- In general, I don’t get an ego boost from displaying long lists of friends on social networking sites. One of my favourite is Goodreads.com and I’ve only got about 3 friends on there. Half of my friends are on Facebook. The other half are not. Facebook has started recommending friends to me. [Should I worry?] It’s just based on common friends. Most of the people whose mugs appear are those I chat to most days on Twitter. I don’t feel the need to add them to FB as well.
So that’s my policy for following/unfollowing on Twitter. I’d love to hear yours.
While I was away… Twitter’s gone Mainstream
April 22, 2008 at 8:19 pm
Can you believe it? I took myself off on a 5 week holiday and not a mention of it on the blog. The thought did cross my mind at various times while soaking up the sun on Brazil’s gorgeous beaches, or breathing deep the air of the rainforest … but hey, that little thought was cast back to where it belonged (dark recesses).
While I was away - Twitter went mainstream
The signs were there…. I use my Gmail account for Twitter and there was a steady stream of ‘add’ notifications going on. Most were people I don’t know. And hardly any were marketing. But the daily numbers were growing.
Just a moment ago, Paul Walsh tweeted about breaking the 1,000 followers mark on twitter. I don’t believe he’ll try to sell his Twitter account like the dude in the US is trying to - with 1500 followers.
Neatly summed up (again today!) in Tech Crunch article on how Twitter has become a monopoly:
For others the Twitter habit started long ago. And for most people, it is yet to start. But the trend is clear: Twitter is becoming an Internet utility. And their monopoly power via the network effect they’ve earned means they don’t have to worry much about downtime. We’ll all still be sitting here patiently, waiting for it to return.
But the ultimate sign of mainstream has got to be the Coca Cola Earth Day home page. Recognise the little birdy?
Made it to the Tweeterboard
February 1, 2008 at 10:20 am
Thanks to Bernie Goldbach for bringing it to my attention that I made it to the Tweeterboard on Wednesday! Thanks too for capturing the moment on flickr
I didn’t know what the Tweeterboard was either, but seemingly “it’s a way of looking at who is influential on Twitter based on their conversations with other Twitter users.”
And that’s not all. There seems to be a whole little sub-industry of tools to measure your twittering-ness. Here’s my Twitter stats.
2007 - Twitter Year
December 18, 2007 at 12:44 pm
For those of you who don’t know, Twitter is a microblogging tool. It enables you to post short messages of 140 characters to your friends and followers. It’s like texting, but public and online. And it’s greatly enhanced my life in 2007. Here’s a Fast Company article by Robert Scoble that explains why he thinks so too. While I wouldn’t be going the way of some American commentators who refer to Twitter as ‘contributing to the evolution of Connected Consiousness’ or ‘when they day comes to take to the streets, time will be of the essence, and perhaps Twitter will light the way…’. No I wouldn’t go that far!
But I would like to share with you why I like Twitter and why it is the most positive addition to the business tools I use.
I use Twitter everyday, one of the first things I do when I switch on my computer is turn on Twitterific. There I get an update of who I follow and what they’re up to. The people I follow are not clients, nor are they from my real life social circle. They are people who are involved in the web, people who are as passionate as I am about things online. Some of them I would deem to be the smartest people I know; on top of their game, and generous with it too.
Why I like Twitter
- First and foremost, it’s an outlet where I can be real, honest, and share my thoughts. It allows me to connect with a group of like-minded people on a daily basis.
- Sometimes I use it to push out a recent blog post. For example, when I was complaining about being spammed by the Golden Spiders, I popped a note on Twitter to say that I had posted something really important on my blog… (and there’s a happy ending to that story!)
- It’s a great place to get quick answers from your network. On work or non-related issues!
- And I really enjoy when some people post links to good articles they’ve read.
- It’s also interesting to get to know people I’ve collaborated with in a whole new light. That smooth professional who has really cheesy taste in music. The usability expert who’s secretly a closet wine buff.
The people I follow are made up of activists, bloggers, cheerleaders, developers, easy listening fans, French migrants, Google workers, hip people, Internet lovers… When I suffered data loss back in October, I got such great support from my Twitter buddies. Advice, assistance, and phone support. These are people I didn’t know this time last year, or I knew their names and they were ‘competitors’.
So if you are reading this and you’re thinking you could do with a bit of this in your life too, then sign up to Twitter, start following people who write about things you are interested in, get your friends on board, and before you know it, you’ll be twittering!
1st Dublin Tweetup
August 17, 2007 at 9:28 am
Today is the morning after the first Dublin Tweetup and I have a sore head. It was really nice to meet Ellybabes, (who seemed to have a little trouble getting home), Lexia, Eamon, Eoghan, Olivier and the rest in the flesh, shoot the breeze and drink copious amounts of wine. Chat was stimulating and included just the right amount of gossip that you wouldn’t get online. Thanks for Olivier for oganising. And to Italy for producing such fine wine and cheese!
How I Use Twitter
June 29, 2007 at 10:59 am
This past week I’ve been twittering a lot more than before! Thanks to Olivier who switched me on to Twitterific, an extremely cool little app that sits in the bottom of my screen and updates whenever one of my Twitter friends makes a comment. I also like Twitterific because it only works on macs; in a world of ’sorry that’s pc only’ it makes a pleasant change. 
I’ve noticed that there are two approaches to Twittering:
- The Literal - ie. answering the call “What are you doing now?” I’m in this camp and enjoy posting about the fact that I’m singing along to Damien Dempsey on Wednesday, or sharing a website that made me laugh. Stewart Curry is at this too - and God, I thought I had cheesy taste in music!
- The Microblogger - people who post in an abbreviated way to how they’d post their blog. In fact, Niall Larkin has just announced that he’s taking a blog holiday to concentrate on microblogging. These tend to be links to sites/articles/news and are informative/educational in nature.
Neither is right nor wrong. Because it’s how you make it. But I have enjoyed an extra layer of communication this week. It hasn’t affected my productivity. And it’s helped me get answers to some things when I needed them. So go Twitter!
The Thing I Love Most About Twitter
March 20, 2007 at 10:17 pm
And I’m not even a cat lover. But if you are, check these, you’re sure to go aw (or paw? Sorry it’s late. I had to…)
