Posts Tagged ‘social media’

So you have your social media in place – what now?

Business News | Posted by Katie
Feb 09 2012

So, you’ve got your Twitter account, your regularly posting on Facebook, you’ve uploaded all your photos to Flickr – what now?

Well there is nothing more frustrating for us going to see a customer we have been working with who doesn’t let their customer know that they are on all of these social media platforms.  As we all know, we are now living in an instant gratification world these days thanks to the nearly immediate actions you can take online, so for example if I am sitting in your hotel room with my smart phone and I am loving the tea and coffee making facilities, I may be tempted to talk about you on Facebook with my friends….. now what was your hotel called again?  I put the search in my Facebook on the phone and it gives me 10 different options based on your hotel name and I have no idea which one you are…. right, won’t bother then.  The same applies to Foursquare and to Twitter.

We know that you don’t want to cheapen your look by being on a constant sales drive, but we also know that customers rarely open bedroom folders, or look on the back of menus, or look at your company brochure for this type of information.  You need a simple, cost effective way of getting that kind of information across.  So our ideas are as follows:

  • Tent cards with small icons and your profile name next to them on every table in your business
  • A proper email signature that goes out on absolutely every email you send that includes the icons and your profile name
  • Business cards with all of your contact details, social media icons and profile names rather than a picture of your business logo, scattered about the place or put in an envelope with every mailout you send
  • Anything that electronically leaves your business, i.e your newsletter – make sure you always include the social media icon with your profile name

We used to find ourselves saying all the time, what is the point of having a lovely website if no one finds you on Google?  These days we find ourselves saying, what is the point in setting up all of this social media and making sure you use it if no one knows you are on it?

If you want to find us you can like us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, view screenshots of our work on Flickr, view our website, and we don’t have a YouTube chanel because us talking about SEO will send you to sleep!

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do you have a moderation switch?

SEO Scotland | Posted by Katie
Feb 07 2012

Listening to Radio5 this morning the call in of the day was entitled something like ‘the Internet ruined by life’… actually what they were focusing on was social media and how people have lost jobs because the photos of the big night out were posted on their profile the day that they called in sick, or pictures on their profiles including pictures of items stolen from the work place – well quite honestly these people are stupid and should know better.  There were of course the extreme examples of lives really ruined by social media and the practices of some horrid people targeting and using social media to bully, however, the upshot of the phone in was basically – think about what you post on the Internet.

We have all read the stories and heard the horrors of privacy on Facebook and of stalking on Twitter but as ever I would like to take a balanced view of social media.  Without social media we would struggle to do our job, businesses would lose that direct contact with customers and on a personal level I would miss being in touch with friends and family across the globe.   However, I would also like to think I have a ‘moderation switch’.

So what is my switch moto ‘if I walked into a room with friends, acquaintances and a smattering of people I don’t know, would I say out loud my status update’?  And as far as privacy and people finding out about you and your personal information, bear in mind – its not just Facebook and Twitter where you are actively sharing your information, think about Google – they know your shopping preferences, your health scares, your celebrity stalking tendencies and don’t forget Tesco and that clubcard you use, oh and your bank account with linked debit and credit cards…. you know that argument of identity cards or not – they already know all that information and it is all accessible for the right price.

In my opinion, and it is just my opinion, use social media with some basic moderation rules and you should be just fine… and if things get out of control or you are being bullied report the people that are doing the bullying, there are so many in built tools especially on Facebook and Twitter so use them!  And my last comment on the subject, if you don’t want people to know anything about you then don’t use the Internet and work on a cash only basis.

Comments gratefully received on our business Facebook page :)

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Is social media ruining our grammar?

Everything Else | Posted by Katie
Dec 09 2011

OK I feel another rant coming on….  I have ranted before about spelling and how it portrays your business poorly if you make glaring mistakes, but now I am starting to get completely riled by the shortening of words on social media posts.

Thanks to the 140 character width on Twitter I appreciate that you sometimes have to be a bit canny with the way you word things, but using sum instead of some just is not right and I am here to stand up for the English language!  I can almost (and I mean almost) put up with numbers being used instead of words i.e. 4-for or 2-to/too and 2B-to be or my personal favourite (not) m8-mate but to change words completely so that their meaning makes no sense just makes me shake my head in shame like a grown up adult – who’d have thought it?

So, what has driven me to a blog post like this today, well normally I wouldn’t name and shame, however, as the company in question this morning is a large well known and well respected company I thought I would actually say GLASGOW AIRPORT why oh why are you letting someone write public notices (Twitter posts) for you who clearly has a tenuous grip on the English language?  They are promoting your business and regardless of the fact that this is social media, this doesn’t mean that you can use teenage slang does it m8?  Oh and by the way Glasgow airport – the link to your Twitter profile from the home page of your website doesn’t work – just kind of makes everything even worse!

Text messages are predominantly personal, but a Twitter stream or Facebook page especially for large companies is out there in the public domain and I find it incomprehensible that work is not vetted prior to being published online?  Perhaps I just need to shut up and realise that this is the way things are going, but I hope not.

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People say ‘I don’t get Twitter’ – I don’t blame you!

Business News, Everything Else | Posted by Katie
Jul 11 2011

As far as we at ABS towers are concerned Twitter is a wonderful thing, yes it can be time consuming, frustrating, comical and down right ridiculous sometimes but, from a keeping up with what everyone’s doing point of view it is invaluable.  Oh and yes we have got business from it.  All good reasons in our eyes why being on Twitter is a must for our business.

However, the same can not be said about many people we meet.  Don’t get me wrong, many have embraced Twitter along with Facebook and actively get involved, but you know, after the last week’s worth of tweets from ‘some’ people we have been following, it really is no wonder people don’t get Twitter.

Scenario….. as most of you are aware we live in beautiful Scotland and for the past week or so have been living in a golfers paradise thanks to the golf up at Castle Stuart, which, let me be clear whilst it’s not a million miles away it most definitely is not on our immediate door step and as a neighbour showed us yesterday in order to be there for the golf he had to leave here at 6.30am on a Sunday morning!  However, if you had been watching our Twitter stream you would be excused from thinking we live and work next door to Castle Stuart and actually its not the golf that people have been here for it has been for the wonderful shopping, accommodation, lunches and dinners that they can have #castlestuart #golfopen #golfspecial !

Before I go off into rant mode, I personally don’t have an issue with hanging onto the marketing coat tales of a big event.  What I do have an issue with is blatant advertising made to look like it is a public service, somehow it just seems wrong to me.  In our eyes ramming sales messages down our twitter stream throat is a sure way to make us unfollow.  It also makes us more aware of why people don’t get Twitter.

So we’re asking please…. remember the old example : would you stand in a room full of people you don’t know and without any prompting start shouting out a sales message?  The answer hopefully is no!

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Is Facebook going to the dogs?

Business News, SEO Scotland | Posted by Katie
Jun 21 2011

There has been a lot in the news recently about whether Facebook is on the decline.  The main number being bandied about is that 100,000 users closed their accounts in May 2011 in the UK.  Well in my opinion, these numbers need to be taken with a pinch of salt.

Having read an article in This is London – and can I just say thanks to Robin Dalton for pointing me in the direction of this article – in my view there are a lot of people who would just love for Facebook to fail.  However, I dont think FB is going anywhere.  I agree it is going to have to change to keep up with some of the feedback they have been receiving recently, however, in the grand scheme of the FB world is 100,000 user profiles really going to make much difference?  As one person commented on the article, the actual number of users will never be a true figure will it?  Think of all the forgotten profiles, the duplicate profiles, the people ‘still’ using profiles instead of business pages.

Marc Hindley from Canary Dwarf (@canary_dwarf) tweeted recently that he can’t believe that Twitter doesn’t use a 6 month innactive user profile will be deleted policy – I think this is quite right, and in fact more businesses would have more realistic user profile figures if this policy was rolled out across the majority of social platforms.

Ultimately, we will all vote with our feet, or in the case of social media we will vote with our profile deletions… but to all of those people who scream and shout that FB is using their information, is putting in place face recognition software, is changing the way their profiles look, you must remember that you signed up to them and you probably didnt read all the small print – do any of us?

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