Category: General

General Interest and Topical Articles.

Crazy BP Photoshop Twitpic Stats

Twitpic is a Twitter related service for sharing photos via Twitter in real time and is normally included in the likes of Phone and PC Twitter clients by default. As you send out a tweet, you can attach a picture from your PC or Phone camera and the application will automatically embed a Twitpic link so your followers can view the picture. One of the best things about Twitpic is the stats it gives on how many people have viewed your pic and while I suspect they are not terribly accurate (Simply refreshing adds hits!) and possibly count search robot visits, etc..it’s still a good, rough indication of viewer numbers.

Most of the pics I post to Twitpic go out on Facebook too and I get on average about 30 to 40 hits, however a recent upload went totally off the scale! Readers might have heard about the recent controversy involving British Petroleum (BP) when they released a poorly Photoshopped (edited) image to the media depicting a BP monitoring room where workers were keeping an eye on the oil leak. The image was edited to make it look like they were a little busier than they actually were but it wasn’t a great job!

I spotted a link from Wired magazine on Twitter asking for members of the design community to have a go at altering the original BP photo for the laugh and to see if they could do a better job than the botched BP one so I gave it a bash, seeing a good oportunity to get my Photoshop skills some coverage and maybe get some work in considering the Twitpic links to my main Twitter account with all my business info and web links attached!

Here’s the result below depicting some ‘alternative/lighter viewing’ in the BP control room and here’s my Twitpic with stats (currently 17,864 hits):

BP

Business Quiet Poll?

I’m just wondering what business owners do when sales are quiet as they most likely have been for a lot of companies recently. I’m hoping no-one sits around moaning and waiting for something to happen or considers closing the business. Here’s a few things I try to do with free time: Learn a new skill or piece of software, Do some Blogging/Online Networking, Marketing, Research new trends in my business area, Go out and meet people.

What do you do?

Social Networking Survey Results

Below are some results from a recent study undertaken by Sarah Diffley, Research Masters Student at Letterkenny Institute of Technology:

The total number of respondents who started the survey was 1,145.  Of these respondents, 829 completed the survey.  This constitutes an overall survey response rate of 72.4%.  However, a quota sample of 376 was determined to be sufficient for the research at hand and so this amount was utilised for the research based on the judgement of the researcher as,

In quota sampling researcher judgement is used in establishing the categories and choosing the sample from the categories

(Wrenn et al., 2002, p.167).

Findings from the survey highlight the following key statistics:

Overall:

  • 73% of respondents use SNSs to connect with current friends, 65% to connect with old friends and 28% to make new friends.
  • 67% of respondents either agreed or strongly agreed that the SNS they were most active on had become an important method of communication for them.
  • Facebook is the SNS that respondents had been most active on in the last 30 days (53%)
  • 30% of respondents had over 200 friends on their most active SNS, 25% between 100 and 199 friends, 20% between 50 and 99 friends, with 25% detailing they had less than 50 friends on their most active SNS.
  • 84% of respondents have joined a group on a SNS.
  • 51% of respondents have visited a company profile page on a SNS.
  • 26% of respondents have completely public profiles on their most active SNS.
  • 22% of respondents have had a negative experience on their SNS, which include viruses, unwanted friend requests, spam, online predators and bullying.

Product and Marketing Findings:

  • 17% of respondents make comments to friends about products on SNSs.
  • 37% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that they would make comments to their friends on the SNSs about products if that product was of interest to them.
  • 52% of respondents outlined that when a person is a close friend offline, they are influential on a SNS, 40.7% highlighted that they are influential when they are members of their family.
  • 51% of respondents explained that they would discuss products with friends on a SNS to provide friends with product information relevant to them and 41% to voice their opinion.
  • 40% of respondents have clicked on an advertisement on a SNS.
  • 24% of respondents with agreed or strongly agreed that SNSs have become over-commercialised.
  • 57% of respondents highlighted that they notice advertisements on SNSs but 53% detailed that they do not like the presence of advertisements on their SNS.  Furthermore 43% of respondents noted that they do not trust advertisements on SNSs.

Many thanks to all those who took part in the survey.  It is greatly appreciated and contributed significantly to my research.

Sarah Diffley

If you would like to contact Sarah in relation to these survey results, please leave a comment.

Leon.

Social Media Marketing Return on Investment?

I’ve been using Social Media Marketing techniques for a few years now to help brand my small Design company. I can say my brand has definetly increased but I’m now wondering if this increased brand visibility is translating into sales, which is of course the desired and perhaps often forgotten goal. Is my return on time investment worth it?

I’ve only relatively recently got into the habit of asking enquirers where they found me but I can honestly only account for a very small handful of direct sales from my precence and activity on sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, The IIA, etc..

I realize that there are other conversion factors ranging from; my market (whether there still is one or not!?), increased competition,  my website usability and ability to convert enquiries but should all of my efforts to brand myself as a professional, accessible and affordable design service provider not account for a little more return?

Off the top of my head I’d say I probably spend a few hours each day reading posts and engaging on Facebook and Twitter especially. I even check these sites first before email these days! I do get lots of great, free info but inevitably I get drawn into entertaining but ultimitately non business related conversations with people I barely know or people who are never ikely to be clients. Result? Time I could and should be spending actually working or maybe learning something new is possibly wasted.

I think these are things I and lots of other social media marketing exponents are going to have to think hard about and try to accurately measure in the near future as the initial social media furore passes.

Leon

Web Site V’s Facebook Page

The question of whether or not businesses still need a full website or not has come up a lot at the Business Networking and Social Media events I’ve been to recently including yesterday’s Open Coffee Sligo. I’ve not given it much thought until now but here’s my honest opinion as both a Facebook Page and Website owner myself and regardless of the fact that I’m a web designer!

For a start, it has to be mentioned that no website can ever be as well trafficked as the likes of Facebook so it makes sense to be where everybody is. I used to always say this about eBay to people who wanted to sell online, ie – go where the people are buying then try drag them back to your own site.

I’ve heard it said that your own site could never match the technology on Facebook etc but I disagree. Even a freely avaible and simple system like wordpress can emulate live blogging, commenting, video/photo sharing and social functions through the likes of Buddypress and various other plugins and templates. There’s also plugins to show Facebook Like buttons and Badges on your site and to export your site news or blog directly to Facebook and Twitter automatically so good connections can be made between Facebook and your own web precence.

I find a lot of my recent clients are aware of the fact that their own sites can be made communicate with Social Media sites and they specifically request this functionality when enquiring. I’ve not had any drop their sites or go with a Facebook page only yet.

Another important consideration is that while Facebook may be king of the hill at the minute, that may not always be the case. Who is to say in 3 years time that it won’t be shut down (possibly over privacy issues!?) or introduce fees or just succomb to a new site on the block. What happens to all your data and customer interaction in this case?

Also, with your own site you will always have full control over the likes of design, content and privacy, choosing exactly how you want it to work for you. As of now, there are no easy ways to capture specific customer data or sell products from Facebook but this is easy to do on your own site through forms and carts, etc..

The old online branding advice of avoiding the usage of freely available email addresses like @eircom.net or @yahoo.ie in favour of a professional business address like @your-company.com also applies in that people may think less of you for only bothering to have a freely available Facebook page rather than a professional custom web presence.

In short I think the way forward is to connect people’s sites with their business precence on the social media portals and not just decide on one or the other. At this point, as a web designer, I’m not too worried.

Leon.

My Perfect Twitter Client Please

Twitter is running on my PC all day (and on the iPhone when I’m away) and I dip in and out constantly but my head is wrecked trying to find a Twitter app that has all I need. Lots come close but all let me down in one crucial area. I’ve tried the following:

  • Website – No alerts. Feature light.
  • Hootsuite – No notifications for replies, dm’s only. Slightly slow as it runs in a browser. No visual marking of read/unread tweets. No sync with iPhone.
  • Twhirl – Buggy. Keeps showing tweets as unread on startup. No Reply all. No iPhone app.
  • Echofon – Almost featureless Firefox plugin.
  • Tweetdeck – Too large a footprint on the PC and hard to read.
  • Twitteriffic – No PC client.
  • Tweetie – No PC client.
  • Seesmic – No iPhone client. No Multiple accounts. No lasting highlighting of unread tweets.
  • TwitBird – No PC client.

Here’s a list of specs I’d like to see:

  • NB Proper syncing between Desktop and iPhone versions of the same client. I really need stuff I’ve already read on the PC to be marked read on the iPhone app and vice versa.
  • Ease of use and visually minimalist.
  • Fast.
  • Highlight unread and Reply tweets.
  • Scroll to first unread tweet.
  • Control over notifications, ie – audio & visual push alerts.
  • Preview Short url’s.
  • Multiple accounts.
  • Select account to tweet from on each new tweet.
  • Show quick profile, stats and follow/unfollow links.
  • Quick links to Reply, DM users.
  • Favorite following.
  • Auto shortlinking.
  • Tweet audio, video and photos.
  • Tweet and link stats.
  • Text compression.
  • Sync with Outlook address book.
  • Filtering – see replies, dm’s only.
  • Auto suggest Twitter handles and Hashtags when composing.
  • Advanced search for tweets and Profiles.
  • Geotagging.
  • Send to Facebook, Linked, etc..on each new tweet.
  • Schedule tweets.
  • iPhone Autosave on exit.
  • Conversation Threads

Please correct anything I may have got wrong above or point me to my ideal Twitter client!

Leon.

Promote Your Business With FourSquare

I’ve been playing with location based Social Networking site Foursquare for a few months now and trying to figure out what use it might be for me from a business point of view other than simply another site my business details are listed on. I havn’t managed to come to a conclusion on that yet but I reckon businesses with an actual shop front or public location (unlike my private home office) should sit up NOW and take notice. Continue reading Promote Your Business With FourSquare

My Thoughts on Gerry Ryan

My earliest memory of Gerry and his morning show is from around 2000. I’d just started a job in Portside Business centre on East Wall road and occasionally I’d see Gerry drive by in the opposite direction, me on my way to work and him on his way to RTE from Clontarf. It was cool to see someone famous up close then hear him live on the radio a few minutes later! The guys in the job had the radio permanently set to 2FM so I had no real choice but to listen to Gerry’s talk show even though I would have probably preferred some music. Continue reading My Thoughts on Gerry Ryan