In through the outfield

13 November 2017

Robert Eddison’s Wisdom & Wordplay – 300 original one-liners to enrich your day

I have long been a fan of great quotes, or aphorisms to give them their proper name. Dating back to well before I had even heard of that sophisticated word, and possibly triggered by this Monty Python Oscar Wilde Sketch.

I currently use three of my favourites quotes in my Introducing Social Media for Small Business Workshop at the British Library. The point being that if you are able to express something of relevance to your potential customers in just a few words (for instance less than the 140 characters required for Twitter) you are likely to be a success.

So, I was excited to receive a review copy of Robert Eddison’s Wisdom & Wordplay which contains ‘300 original one-liners to enrich your day’.

In the Foreword Gyles Brandreth, who is well known for his wit and encyclopedic knowledge rates Eddison as a possible match for Wilde.

I wouldn’t go that far, having just re-visited some of Wilde’s classics quotes.

But there are still some wonderful gems scattered across the pages.

Here are some of my favourites:

– The spendthrift is more spend than thrift

– It’s hard to lick your wounds after being stabbed in the back

– Trust, like money has to be carefully invested

– The curious are their own best teachers

– A clear conscience makes the best sleeping pill

– Verbosity acts like a weed throttling meaning

– Deep thoughts take time to surface

– Those with a way with words usually get their way

– In a democracy, it’s ideas that are flogged to death; in an autocracy, it’s people

– History teaches us that we rarely learn from it

– Reality, like the sun, can never be faced for long

– Given enough notice, anyone can appear spontaneous

– Coffee is not everyone’s cup of tea

– Dressing young adds years to the older man

– Knowledge is too often mistaken for intelligence

– Youth, like money, is valued when lost

You can read more on Robert’s Twitter feed @roberteddison1, where you may not be surprised to find he currently has over 30 thousand followers. Which proves my point above.

20 June 201720 June 2017

Top Tips on Social Media from 20 Industry Experts – Summarised

As well as providing an excellent event booking platform, Eventbrite also have some great advice on their Blog on Social Media Marketing.

A recent post gives some Top Tips on Social Media from 20 Industry Experts. But to save you the bother of having to read the lengthy article, I have summarised each point below:

Use hashtags, because “they allow you to gain the greatest opportunity to draw in your followers creating a social media buzz!”
Spend a little on Facebook because organic posts currently “average between 1%-5% reach, which means without a little budget, your authentic story might never be heard.”
“Participate in Twitter chats as often as you can…”
Post more often on Twitter. “…you have to experiment for you and your sector but I find for me it’s not one a day but one an hour.”
Focus. “…we think it is better to be great on one social media platform rather than being weak on five social media platforms.”
Collaborate on Pinterest. “On becoming a collaborator, our pins received much higher visibility”
Target your customers at conferences and events using hashtags. “Targeting hashtags on Twitter is particularly powerful, because everyone at the conference is going to be following and posting with that hashtag, and if you can pay to get your tweet in front of all of those eyeballs, you’re one step closer to connecting with your target audience!”
Brand your presence. “Make sure your name, bio, cover art, profile pic and URL look amazing. This seems like a basic tip, but for those just starting, it is the most important tip. If your profile page doesn’t look good, you already lost.”
Give stuff away. “Giveaways are a great way to build followers across Twitter, Facebook and Instagram as well as filling out an email list.”
Blog! “Business owners have to stop saying that they don’t have time to blog.”
Use ‘micro-influencers’. “Engagement decreases as the number of followers of an influencer increases. A recent study found out that Instagram influencers that have less than 1,000 followers had an engagement rate of 8%, while those with more than 1 million followers had an engagement rate of 1.7% from their audiences.”
Use Hootsuite. “It helps me plan and schedule most of the content for all our social media platforms for the week ahead. I leave a post open each day for something that is trending on that day and jump on the # in order to display ourselves to a wider audience.”
Ask questions. “One of the most successful Facebook strategies we have used is to ask our 110k followers intriguing questions. We also pair this with a timely blog post to ensure we remain a high authority on the subject as well.”
Us a call to action. “Getting people to engage in the social media space is like herding cats and they have the attention span of a goldfish so if you don’t tell them what you want them to do by using a call to action most people won’t do anything at all.”
Be personal. “If you have a local business and you have customers or clients who get to know you or members of your team through the service you provide, don’t forget to share photos of your team and some of the things they are up to. This strengthens trust and their engagement.
Be unselfish. “Actively engage. The only way to build a reputation as an expert and thought-leader is to continuously serve your community without expecting anything in return. Say hello, answer questions and tag people in posts you think are relevant or interesting to them.”
Co-create content. “Rather than trying to generate a high volume of quality content — which is a very daunting prospect — design a platform where your customers can serve as ambassadors for your brand and generate organic content on your behalf, uploading their own videos and photos.”
Quality over quantity. “Don’t underestimate the power of online tools and NEVER skip a social group, even if it has 200 or fewer members – go for quality, not quantity.”
Do your research. “Researching your competitors can be extremely beneficial before you start implementing your Social Media Strategy. You can find valuable information on what kind of content is well accepted by the audience, which social media channel is the most relevant one, how often you should post and so on.”
Have a strategy. “I create social media strategies for companies I work for. I like to use one technique that does not require much budget or effort…”

28 March 201428 March 2014

A revolution in websites has arrived 25 years after the birth of the Web

The World Wide Web turned 25 this month, and it got me thinking about how website creation has changed since Tim Berners-Lee first proposed it to his boss at CERN in 1989.

For the first few years websites had to be hand-coded by computer programmers, which rather limited their number and design.

My first website was built back in the mid 1990’s, for my then employer Hermes Pensions Management. I used, what was then, state of the art software in the shape of HotDog Pro from the wonderfully named Sausage Software.

It was something of a labour of love, as each new page was another step on a steep learning curve. However just like the game of Snakes and Ladders, one false step forward could result in many steps back. I still remember clearly the moment we realised moving one page, required manually editing links on every single page on the site.

We made a major leap forward when a colleague in our IT department suggested using FrontPage from Vermeer Technologies. This company was soon taken over by Microsoft who were keen to establish themselves in the world of web. As one of the first “WYSIWYG” (What You See Is What You Get) editors, FrontPage was designed to hide the details of the dreaded HTML (hyper-text mark-up language), making it possible for novices to create Web pages and Web sites. Even better, when you moved a page, it automatically updated all the relevant links!

However although FrontPage was wonderful improvement, it did have major deign limitations, and it was all too easy to spot ‘FrontPage’ websites.

Next on the scene for me was Dreamweaver version 2, the ‘Ferrari’ of web design software (beautiful and fast… and a bit flaky at times). After a couple of days training we were able to start producing complex websites with beautiful pages.

After many updated versions, Dreamweaver is still available today but is dying a slow death thanks to content management platforms such as WordPress and Drupal (Dreamweaver is still dying).

But in the last year or two the world of website creation has been truly revolutionised by template based, low cost services from the likes of Weebly and SquareSpace.

Now almost anyone can create professional looking websites, with no technical skill at all.
I surprised myself by managing to create a very simple but attractive website for my father within a couple of hours using SquareSpace. Compare that to the week it took me to create a 20 page website for SLA Europe using Dreamweaver ten years ago.

A great example of a Weebly website is Keep Me Jewellery from one of my clients here at the Business & IP Centre. As you can see from his amazing creatures, Tom Blake has a great eye for design, but he doesn’t have any background in building web sites.

Also, these new platforms enable you to easily add a blog onto your website (an essential part of your marketing strategy – Blogging for fun and profit). And if you want to sell through your site there are shopping modules available too.

So if you were considering a career as a website designer, now might a good time to think again.

18 March 201318 March 2013

Retail Trends – Online and Offline by Cate Trotter

The latest in Cate Trotter’s series of Trends workshops (see my previous posts on Key Trends for 2012, The Future of Online Marketing, The growing grey market in the UK) concentrated on Retail. In it Cate covered the rapid online developments, but also changes in bricks and mortar shopping, known as offline retail. She also explained how the smarter retailers are merging these two elements together to enhance both the online and offline experience for their customers.

Here are my notes from this highly recommended workshop:

Omnichannel retailing

Although the value of online clothing and accessories sales are predicted to double over the next five years, offline will still dominate with three quarters of overall sales.
There is a trend for online retailers to add a high street presence. Examples are FunkyPigeon, Made.com and ETSY.
The new Burberry flagship store on Regent Street is a leading example. It has a large screen showing live fashion events from around the world. And live music events held in the store are streamed onto their website.
Cate suggested using If This Then That or Hootsuite (which I have been using for a couple of year and can personally recommend) to manage multiple social media channels from one screen.
She asked the audience to review all their customer contact points and maximise buying opportunities for interested customers.

Burberry flagship store on Regent Street

Mobile

Use of smart mobile devices is currently increasing at 35% a year, so all websites need to be made mobile friendly using tools such as DudaMobile.com.

Retail is everywhere

Pop-up stores (Eat Street is dead – Long live KERB – for the best street food in London) are starting to fill the gaps left by recently closed high street retail outlets.
Services such as WeArePopUp.com and HireSpace.com can help find suitable locations.
Some publishers have become retailers, for example TheFancy.com.
Customers still want to browse on paper, so Ikea still prints 211 million copies of its catalogue a year.
Cate’s tip is to avoid duplicating paper and online content by using QR codes in printed material.

Social

Customers trust social media far more than advertising, for instance 90% trust recommendations from their peers.
Pinterest has now grown to 50 million users and is a great way to show products and designs.
This leads to an approach where products promote the brand which is a reversal of traditional marketing where the brand promotes the product.
Cate’s advice is to create remarkable products and services which your customers will want to promote through their social media networks.
An example is shops which offer free wi-fi enabling customer to take pictures of items and share them instantly online.

Speed and efficiency

The market is changing rapidly and social media trends show you where it is going. So monitor it using tools such as Google Trends or Editd.com.
Get your customers to choose what they want from you using funding sites such as Kickstarter.com.
Customers are demanding instant gratification to match delivery digital goods, so use services such as Shutl.com to deliver within minutes instead of days.

Customer experience

You can’t compete on price with the likes of Amazon.com, so develop an enhanced customer experience instead.
Be remarkable – be unique to compete.
For example the record company Rough Trade opened a record store designed to be a browsable experience rather than focussed on sales.
Look Mum No Hands sells and repairs cycles, but is also a trendy café for two wheeled fans.

A tailored experience

Track your web visitors using Viewsy.com.
Develop hyper-tailored marketing such as Thinknear.com.

A personalised experience

Amazon.com has increased sales by 40% through the use of its recommendations system.
Dressipi.com uses customer driven fashion retailing to get the lowest return rate in the industry of just 10%.
Cate suggested trying out Facebook’s recommendations plugin

23 January 2013

Writing about ‘Web in Feb’ on Twitter? Use our hashtag and see what everyone else is saying: #webinfeb