Are Christmas Cards - Ghosts of Christmas Past ?

I read a recent head line suggesting Christmas Cards, your proper paper/card ones, are 'Greetings Cards' Ghosts of Christmas Past, and the email / landing page / PDF / animations etc are taking us all digital...

Interesting hypothesis.  Begs some other questions, do people under 30 send cards, or have they outsourced this to Facebook or compressed Christmas greetings into 140 characters and a bunch of followers?

Having a technical bias I got to thinking where's this going?  Indeed, what would the 'Greetings Card' Ghosts of Christmas future look like?

Tooled up with me Galaxy tab, Google, mince pies and a neighbours home made 'Mulled Port', off I went.

As an aside - a quick word on this 'Mulled Port'. DON'T! I know, I know - it's not big and its not clever, and I should have know better, etc etc, but its Christmas my shields were down, and he was SO sure this batch wasn't toxic... what could I say.

Anyway - off I went.  Did you know 20% of all searches on Google are unique!  You think that's impressive... quite soon ALL of mine were unique, typo's, fat thumb syndrome and Mulled Port Chuckles really nail it to Google.

By the way, is Port a hallucinogen?  Because it wasn't long before I was seeing 'Greetings Card' Ghosts of  Christmas Future everywhere.  But, remember, I am a techy, and I tell you, I have seen the future!!

Its .... '3D' / Hollogram cards, that's where its at, trust Michael.

Don't believe me?  Well - check this bad boy out I brought this classic Santa comedy routine  back from the future, if you're reading this blog on old an '2D' medium, trust me this is HILARIOUS, and remember you saw it here first !

I got quite carried away with all this - I was going all in with this one, even had a brand name all ready to go.   iHollo.way    How cool is that !  Has a certain subliminal message an inevitably successful future acquisition perhaps?

Anyway - like many a good idea, turns out I wasn't first to pick this one up.  Aha - you thought this was rambling nonsense.  iHollo and Future communications with 3D / Hologram technology, well - seems I have been beaten to it I am afraid.

Don't believe me? Well I wonder who else had the idea.... go on, Google 'iHollo.way' or Click HERE

Ho hum, back to the day job ... want help with these Twitter Christmas Greetings ?  :D


Here's wishing you a merry Christmas and I hope you have a fabulous time and if you like Port, maybe get to drink some of what I have been drinking ;)

Mick

What's your LinkedIn Connection strategy ?

It's a lovely sunny Monday morning, I love my job and have an exciting week ahead.  I have my coffee and my diary tells me its time for tending to my social media .... for me that's fun not ever a chore...

All in all i'm in a good place for early on a Monday morning, you just know some some rotter is going to come along and ruin it all for me ... so did they ?  No, that would be to cliche' for me.

But I did get inspired to create this blog.  I was in LinkedIn mode, 11 invitations to connect came in over the weekend, which was nice.  But then, not one had included an introduction of any sort, and not one had visited my profile before sending the invite.  <sigh>

But I am a player, in the networking / LinkedIn sense !!  I understand were all on LinkedIn to network, so I persist and check out all the profiles and where there was some synergy, interest or value I quietly accepted.  Which is in keeping with my 'current' connection strategy, in the early days I was extremely promiscuous, in the networking / LinkedIn sense (stop making up your own punch lines!!) and I would connect with anyone and everyone.  I was keen to grow my network, fair enough.

But strategies need to be reviewed and 18 months ago I decided my network was vast enough so I became selective over who I connect with and always check out profiles of invites I receive.  Also, I always visit someone's profile to decide if I wish to invite them to connect with me.  And always, ALWAYS send a custom invitation - if they are worthy of connecting with they are worthy of my time and attention and ... its professional and ooh getting radical... its polite!

One of the reasons for the change in strategy from 'connecting to anything with a pulse' to being selective was to help LinkedIn understand more about ... 'me' so LinkedIn can profile me better.  Which will help them more accurately filter 'Pulse' news, blogs (now linkedIn is a publishing platform), suggest companies to follow, groups to join and suggest people I may wish to connect with.  LinkedIn have invested millions in search and selection software that 'profiles' you so they can connect you with other LinkedIn members, groups, posts, news and now blogs.  I will be blogging on the whole 'Big Data' scene shortly.  Remembering LinkedIn started as a recruitment platform, so they have been good at vacancy / candidate matching for some time, and no doubt are continuing to apply this software to match vacancies with candidates ($'s)

And its working.  I get presented with excellent, relevant content, and some well aimed introductions to other members too.

So what's your Connection Strategy, is it working for you, and when was the last time you reviewed it?

Me - a 'Fearless' Keynote Speaker ! How did that happen ?

"Unaccustomed as I am ..."

This time last week I was looking forward to giving my first presentation as a Keynote speaker.  I was nice and early, all set up … even the projector linked to the PC (phew) and I was catching up on some emails and Social Media while I waited for the audience to gather …

An Oasis of calm.

That I was ‘looking forward’ to the presentation, ‘genuinely’ looking forward to addressing a room full of people, all strangers of unknown mixed abilities, some who would be cynical – hostile even – regarding my message, that I was looking forward to this is a staggering indicator of the journey I have been on over the last couple of years.

I have always been a techy, and my presentation - on how to make the most out of that LinkedIn account you opened but have done nothing much with – is a subject I know well, and my technical knowledge allows me to talk on Technical, Social Media, WEB, Cloud or IT matters very wide of the core subject being discussed.   And in the Engineering and Technical sales/marketing phases of my career I was at ease presenting complex technical matters to both technical and non technical audiences.

What was so different here then? I guess you can see it coming … it was the public speaking, not so long ago I was FIRMLY in the “Fear Public Speaking more than Death” camp.

Driving to the venue I confess to wondering why I was so calm and whether I would be OK when the time came.  But those thoughts didn’t take hold, I didn’t allow them too – some simple NLP stuff I picked up on this journey.

It dawned on me that personal development comes in many guises, reading, mentoring, coaching and training for sure, but also in my case it was the ‘doing’ that has helped.  While this was my first key note speech, over recent years I had presented many tutorials and training courses on Social Media and Business Development – and I guess all that practice gave me confidence.

So – my blog message – to all those I have trained, mentored or coached – the most important thing and the new closing message for all my training… “Now go do it”.

Well – Whatever next ?  As I find myself saying more and more…

Showing your geographic contact details.... ?

I manage a number of Social Media Groups and Communities.  They are pretty dynamic groups with some excellent contributors and proactive members .... so you would think they take some managing?  Not at all, we have very few rules (no spam or blatant sales, keep it legal) and I rarely have to remove any content.  Of course I am regularly engaging with the groups - but then I would do wouldn't I?  So I don't see that as managerial overhead.

One thing I do do, I get to know every one that applies to join.  Doesn't take long, by definition they usually have various Social Media Profiles, so its a few clicks, a few minutes and I am up to speed.  And... BONUS - I grow my Network.

TIMEOUT to cartwheel for an observation, of course the points made above should encourage you to do more with groups, and consider administering your own group ?

Back on piste... Reviewing a recent applicant, and I found myself trying to find where they were from, geographically.  I easily found an email and mobile number, and could connect socially with a click... So they weren't 'Networking by Stealth' - which if you have been to any of my training courses or meetings you will know ... Doesn't work ;)

However there was no mention 'anywhere' of where they were geographically based.  And I found myself looking hard, checking Profiles, Blog posts, Group discussions, Tweets, I even checked their web site - I would have looked in the Yellow Pages if I had a copy ;)  And it was quite clearly a conscious and well managed decision not to reveal where they were based.

It was an entirely understandable position to take as this was an online 'virtual services' business, however I still found myself disappointed and a little curios [I flirted with saying 'suspicious' there] as to where they are based and why not let us know...

So, am I alone... what do you think ?  Is it preferable to clearly state where you are geographically based, or doesn't it matter?

I feel a Poll coming on ;)

Mick

Does Social Media take too long? - A Guest Blog from Jon Baker

Does Social Media take too long?

Jon Baker of venture-Now (see below) has written this guest blog for 24/7.

I've always been told, but now I’ve actually discovered that I get most benefit from Social Media when I engage in discussions, in a structured manner.

Underlying this is a need to have clear objectives, linked to your strategy. This article is about my daily one hour routine - my “socmed hour” (it’s normally more like 40 minutes by the way).

What’s your routine – or when are you going to create one?

My LinkedIn morning routine

• Groups: I’m a member of many groups which I break into 5 categories. I scan one of those categories daily. It takes 10 minutes, the objective: Contribute to interesting discussions, share information etc.
• My profile: Check to see who’s visited my profile. Often I’ll drop them a quick LinkedIn mail to say Hi. It takes 2 minutes, the objective is to engage with potential contacts
• Group discussions: I review responses to any comments I’ve made in discussions. LinkedIn only emails me when somebody responds to one of my comments, I focus on those threads. Those emails go to a specific folder in my email, not my inbox. It takes 10 minutes, the objective is to engage with potential contacts and prospects.

My Twitter morning routine

• Scan through the followers I’m most interested in. Respond to interesting comments. If you think there are too many tweets and not enough time, try using lists differently. It takes 10 minutes, the objective is to engage with potential contacts.
• Produce 10 RTs: Scan through source material looking for interesting tweets and schedule RTs throughout the day (one of my favourite tools, bufferapp is great for this). It takes 10 minutes, the objective is to become known for providing useful material, attracting new followers and engage with existing followers.
• Review best responses to RTs: Look at the retweets from the previous day, look for the one that created the most interest and consider using it as a LinkedIn discussion group topic. Total time 2 minutes and the objective is to source good material for LinkedIn
• New Followers: Review the tweets from my new followers, respond to some and decide to follow them, or not. I take no more than 5 minutes, and engage with new followers

Twitter spare time.

A couple of times through the day I spend 10 minutes (and no more – use an alarm clock), look at tweets mentioning me and respond where appropriate.  Read tweets made by people I’m most interested in, respond where appropriate (A-listers). Time: 2-3 minutes. Favourite any tweets I see that I might later RT

LinkedIn spare time.

Look at my home page, like or comment on entries as appropriate, for no more than a minute.

LinkedIn weekly activities

• Group discussions: Start an interesting, useful discussion in each of the groups I’m in every 2-3 weeks. These are based on useful material I can share, seeking views on issues. Using LinkedIn groups for growing business makes lots of sense. Time: 10 minutes. Objective: Engage with potential contacts and prospects.
• Connections: Seek target connections and either connect, get alongside or develop the relationship off line. Time: 10 minutes (excl speaking offline). Objective: Increase business.

Summary

That’s about 4 hours a week (equivalent to one networking meeting) during which I get to influence and “meet” a lot more people than one face to face networking meeting.

Fundamental to this philosophy is that:

• providing useful and interesting material is important. This may be mine (blogging) or based on other peoples (sharing good content)
• Social media success requires one to engage in conversation and getting to know people – not pumping out your message and waiting for clients to arrive at your doorstep.
• Doing the right things gets the right results, being unfocussed doesn’t. The default diary and time blocks help with this.
• Some people are far more interesting than others – even if they’re not prospects! Knowing not all networking contacts are equal is important.
• There are some great tools to save time, my 6 favourite social media things in 2011 show some of those tools. But you can’t just automate social media

That's the thinking behind the way I use my time; what's yours?

Jon Baker is a 24-7 Group Director in Milton Keynes. He is a Business Coach, Sales trainer and experienced public speaker. He works with the owners of businesses that have 5 to 50 staff and helps them to create focus, clarity and more profit in their organisation.

24-7’s philosophy on Social Media Training..

24-7 Business Networking help Small Businesses and SME's... create more LEADS, and make more SALES, using SOCIAL MEDIA!  We do this through high quality training showing you how to use Social Media and how to link Social Media into your marketing strategy, you grow your business in a focused way. 

This training is delivered as ‘byte’ sized tutorials in our Fortnightly Meetings and through a growing portfolio of Training Courses.

When it comes to Social Media Training, for the Cautious or the Capable, our constantly updated tutorials and training courses take you beyond your self taught knowledge, and shield you from the existing, changing and emerging technologies. 

We keep it SIMPLE, we keep it PRAGMATIC we show you HOW, and we HELP you to make the most of Social Media, quickly taking you from Cautious to Capable.

Our training is structured around our Social Media - Success Circle…

We have a strong and growing portfolio of Tutorials and Training Courses covering each of the five elements in the Success Circle.

Our Social Media Phylosophy can be explained using our 'Success Circle' ...

24-7 Success Circle

At the heart, before anything else (inclulding developing your business goals and strategies), you need to have a complete understanding of your Brand.  If you need help with this - give Mick a call, or seek out a good business mentor / coach.  You could also try reading a highly recommend book - Simon Sinek's "Start With Why".

Once you understand your brand, then you can work on your goals and the business strategies that you are going to deploy to achieve those goals.  NOW 24-7 can start working with you and putting together a Social Media Strategy that supports your Business Stratagies in achieving your Business Goals.  There has to be a clear tangible link between what you do in your Social Media and achieving your Business Goals.

Why do it? What do I want?  We help you consider the VALUE of what you are looking to achieve in your Social Media and how that will support your wider Business Goals.  Are you goals to get:

•          Leads

•          Sales

•          Known 

•          Web traffic

•          Increased profile

And we help you determine how much time, or resources, you can devote to achieving this.

Who do I need to connect to?  Having worked What you want from your Social Media te very strategic question 'Who do I Connect with?" should be fairly easy to answer.  Visualising your ideal client, developing the persona of the people that will help you achieve your business goals should be straight forward IF you have a clear understanding of your brand.  If you are struggling with "Who do I need to connect to?"  its very likely you haven't fully defined and understood your brand.

At 24-7 we help you consider…

•          What type of people are best positioned to help with your objective?

•          Which Social Media platforms are they on?

•          How can you connect to them?

•          Work out what they are interested in?

•          Work out what can you do for them?

Where do I find them?  Now you understand 'who' you need to be reaching out to, attracting, engaging and networking with you can consider where these poeple will be - online.  Which platforms is the obvious starting point.  But within the platforms, where do they go?  Do they read news, attend to their time line or maybe hang out in groups, in whihc case ... which groups?

•          Which platforms are they likely to be on?
•          What are they interested in?

•          Search your existing connections

•          Which Groups, Pages, forums etc

What do I say to them?  As your networks grow what you say becomes increasingly important, we help you consider …

•          What your network are interested in?

•          What your personal brand should be?

•          Where you can find interesting material for your network?    (Curation)

•          How you can easily share that material with them?

•          How you can write interesting material for them?      (Content)

How do I organise them?  Now you are growing your Networks in a targeted and focused  way, we help you consider …

•          How to manage your network using LinkedIn Groups, Twitter Lists,
      Google+ Communities /Circles to manage your network.

•          Automation tools to help you engage with your networks

•          Tools to find appropriate material to share with

•          How you can manage and listen to all that NOISE

How do I know it’s working?  With your social media campaign under way – like all strategies - you need to measure to ensure how things are going, we help you consider …

•            What was the objective?

•            How can you measure your Social Media against your objectives?

•                Followers and connections

•                Interactions

•                The results of it all?

•            How do you adjust what you are doing to improve it?

And at the heart of the circle sits your Brand and Business Strategy - everything you do Social Media wise must be consistent with achieving the Business goals and objectives.

We are always looking to improve 24-7's support for Small Businesses and SME's, we have Social Media Training on hand with a growing syllabus of courses.  But what other training do you think Small Businesses and SME's could do with to improve their businesses and achieve their strategic goals and objectives?

How come Google are so good at what they do...

Recently I was at a presentation by Google, at their London HQ, I was invited to hear about their plans for the future.  For me such a title from such an organization is pretty well aimed and guarantees I’ll be there. 

I came away with mixed feelings and a little disappointed in that I didn't learn much about future products, technologies or strategies.  But mixed feelings because I was quietly content that I was keeping myself on top of most things Google, including anticipating tomorrow.

So I didn't get the revealing insights to the future I was looking for.  However, I did learn, to my mind, why Google have done what they do and done it so well.  A few facts and features that I picked up …

1. In January 2013 Google announced they had achieved $50Bn in revenue for 2012.  With 54,000 employees, that’s about a staggering £600,000+ contribution per employee.   
2. Google don’t see themselves as a Search Engine, Social Media or Web business.  They see themselves as a Technology company.
3. Half of their employee’s are technical
4. These Technical Employees are allowed half a day a week to work on their own research projects, researching … anything they are interested in.
5. These projects are reviewed and selected projects are developed further… By teams of these Technical Employees who are allowed a further one and a half days a week to work on these projects.
6. Google Apps For Business, their cloud based solutions are an increasingly compelling option for any business.  At $50 per user per year (February 2013) it is virtually free !

I spent 16 years as a technical software engineer.   I know what motivated me, and how to build a focused and motivated technical team.  If you aspire to be world class and looking to attract world class people … Allowing your technical people to spend 40% of their time in research does it.

Little wonder to my mind why Google have done so well, been so dominant.   And I came away with a confirmed belief of just how well google have developed their tools and offerings.  And what about Google+ ?... Simple - 'Social' is central to everything Google are doing and planning, so Google+ will continue to be much more than a Social Platform.

Consequently, something for us to consider is the whole issue of change and change management because to many executive's, or over 30's, non techies and even those that can sense the future is all about being Social, its just so unfamiliar.  Not everyone understands it and may need help embracing it - otherwise they will hold their businesses back.

24-7 Business Networking are doing our best to help Micro Businesses and SME's... create more LEADS, and make more SALES, using SOCIAL MEDIA.  We do this through high quality training showing you how to use Social Media and how to link Social Media into your marketing strategy, to grow your business in a focused way. 

What barriers do you see to people adopting cloud technologies, or making their businesses more Social ?

Does Santa use Social Media?

Does Santa use Social Media?

Looking at the evidence I would say so…  Social Media helps with -

Networking – Everyone knows Santa, what he does and when he does it.  How he does it is the closely guarded secret…

Brand Awareness – Santa is one of the most successful globally recognized brands.  And he doesn’t advertise, no flyers, no call centre’s, no TV – and how his clients flock to him!  Has to be his Social Media, google ‘santa’ and you get over 2Bn results… 

In Bound Marketing - Given one of the goals and major benefits of Social Media is 'In Bound' marketing.  Where clients and prospective clients come to you.  Santa's historically been THE master of inbound marketing...   Because of Santa’s strong Brand Awareness?

Improved Communications - With millions of children, and some 39 year olds, regularly writing to him, despite sending the letters via the chimney, Santa gets every single letter.  But now Santa’s simplified it all and you can email Santa, Directly Message Santa on Twitter and even post on his Facebook wall.

So how would Santa use Social Media

• List’s.  With Social Media Santa research’s his market.  Learning people’s desires and what they have been up to.  So he can check – “Who has been Naughty and Who has been Nice”, and its digital so EASY to check twice.
• Follow trends.  Santa knows whether he’s getting  mince pies or stolen cake (cookies and milk are so last year).
• Recruitment.  Santa needs more Elves and Toy Makers, there are 176 vacancies for ‘Santa’s Helpers’ on LinkedIn…
• Following trends he knows peoples wants and needs.  So Santa’s good at logistics, from Sourcing gifts online to delivering millions of presents World Wide in one night, and we can track his route – check out the excellent Santa tracker at http://www.noradsanta.org/

Then he brings it all together on his website http://www.northpole.com/

HAPPY CHRISTMAS

Mick

Finding Time to be Social

Finding Time to be Social

We’ve covered a lot ground in the last 9 articles, and the most common question I get asked is “how do you find time for all these platforms, followers, blogs, updates “ etc etc.  This month we look at 4 tools for Managing your Social Media.   LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Google+…  logging in to so many accounts can be daunting and time consuming.  Let me introduce Social Media aggregation and dashboards, apps to help you manage your Social Media, BufferApp and Hootsuite.

BUFFERAPP.COM – If you are relatively new to social media, bufferapp is a nice, easy to understand, easy to use introduction to managing your social media.  Buffer users a straightforward, intuitive interface to schedule tweets, and gives some simple analytical data.

SOCIALOOMPH.COM  - A cloud based twitter (and facebook / blog if you subscribe) management tool.  Social oomph will also help you schedule tweets, but it has some clever extra functions like helping you vet new followers, spot keywords people use to find you, analaytics and you can set up ‘auto responders’ to automate thank you’s / replies  when someone follows you etc.

TWEETDECK.COM – is a social media dashboard for twitter and facebook, very useful for quick overview and monitoring of multiple accounts, or running continual searches.  Easier to use than Social Oomph, but with fewer features, and FREE.

HOOTSUITE.COM  - If you are more experienced with Social Media, you should look at Hootsuite.  A social media dashboard that helps you monitor, post and explore ALL of your social media activity and only needing to login to one place.  Comprehensive connectivity with just about every social media resource you could wish for, and custom analytics that can tell you how things are going.  A basic hootsuite account is FREE.

Introduction to Blogging

In this, my 9th blog introducing Social Networking, we move on from looking at ‘operational’ matters, such as what tools and websites we should be using for our Social Networking, and we start looking at content.  In a nutshell, Social Networking is about getting your digital messages out there, ‘findable’ and easily sharable – to get yourself noticed and spread your message further.

So, what messages and how do we start telling people about ourselves?  One way is to start blogging.

What is a blog?  The word stands for ’web log’ and can be considered as online diary entries.  While there are no rules over a blog’s length, I aim for 300 – 500 words. 

Why blog? As a marketing tool, blogs have many benefits.  They are short ‘snippets’ and can be easier to produce than say a newsletter.  Once published they can be updated and commented upon.  They have an extended shelf life as they remain published, and findable, on the internet until you remove them.  And … they can easily be shared.

When you start writing a business blog as well as the above benefits, there are a number of ‘side affects’ – 

1.  You tend to keep up to date on your industry/sector news.

2.  Your writing skills improve as you get better at communicating messages accurately and
     succinctly in 300-500 words.

3.  As you build a your library of blogs, you work your way through many aspect of your business,
     and therefore develop your idea’s, answers and opinions on ALL these aspects of your
     business.

4.  Blog’s bring many SEO benefits - Google likes changing content.

One thing to consider is how often you publish your blog.  Set a publishing frequency you can keep up with as your audience will expect you to be consistent.  When considering how many blogs per week or month allow 1-2 hours work per blog.

Remember - People buy from People they trust - Good blog content develops trust