Interesting tool for identifying who you interact with most (recently) on Twitter:Twazzup.
According to Topsy, I’m highly influential on Twitter! Be interesting to see their rationale for that, as my other Twitter feeds are not demonstrating the same accolade! Nice.
Well, I guess I do spend quite some time on Twitter… I get all my news, etc. from there!
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Ha ha, bit of crowd-sourcing continuing (without success yet, but it’s got to happen sometime right!), using Paul Windo’s idea of #freedrbexl, started by @emptybelly, with @Ulfilas coming up with the most appropriate slogan!
[17th July] It worked, I’m back on Twitter @drbexl!
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Dr Bex Lewis, awaiting resurrection… of @drbexl on Twitter!
Posted on: 17-07-2009
Category : Digital Media
Still awaiting the un-suspension of my @drbexl account. Still can’t work out why it could possibly have been suspended, aside from the fact that I tweeted roughly every minute for certain sections of the conference! Got the conference guys starting a campaign – well, you never know!!
Check out #freedrbexl!
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Proof positive I was there tonight (and I know, I have a bit of a backlog of other blog material on this blog). My other blog has gone crazy today after that New York Times article yesterday, and yes, I am behind on my tasks for today (and yes it’s nearly tomorrow)! See more about the Winchester Web Scene, formed in November 2008, growing monthly I do believe – not a networking business-card exchange kind of evening, but a chat with people who have shared interests – some coders, some developers, some content writers, some social media types…
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LEAF: ‘Linking The Environment And Farming’
LEAF (Linking Environment And Farming) was set up in 1991. At that time, the gap between consumers and farmers was getting wider and the need to meet and understand both sides of the debate was essential. For the first time a group of farmers, environmentalists, food and agricultural organisations, consumers, government and academics got together to do something positive for the farming industry.
They were motivated by a common concern for the future of farming and keen to develop a system of farming which was realistic and achievable for the majority of farmers. Based on work in Germany that had been carried out since 1986, LEAF was established to develop and promote Integrated Farm Management.
Open Farm Sunday (Next Date: 13th June 2010)
Open Farm Sunday is a fantastic opportunity for everyone, young and old to enjoy the living, vibrant countryside. Take time to listen to the birds, soak up the scenery, experience the smells of the farmyard and really get in touch with the land that feeds us. Discover at first hand what it means to be a farmer and taste the produce. So come and feed your senses on Open Farm Sunday.
Each event will be unique with its own activities – based around the host farm’s own individual story. Activities during the day may include a farm walk, nature trail, tractor & trailer rides, pond dipping, activities for kids, mini farmers market or picnics.
Read more (including my niece’s Press Pack report)
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Currently at the Churches’ Media Council (officially retired last night, to be renamed the Church and Media Network) Conference in Swanwick, Derbyshire. Already over halfway through, and it’s really interesting. Haven’t got time for a full-blog as need to get back into the swing, but thought I would register my presence here, and can add a blog, or blogs later, as the mood takes!
So far we have already heard from:
- The Attourney General, the Rt Hon the Baroness Scotland, QC: Faith in the Public Sphere (see this blog for a good summary)
- John Lloyd, Pastor Nims Obunge and Professor Mona Siddiqui: What are the media doing to our… (respectively) politics, young people, God?
- Hardeep Singh Kohli: Comedy
- Olly Hamilton: Music
- Torin Douglas and Philip Graf: “Faith and Values in Digital Britain: PSP RIP?”
- Joel Edwards, Andrew Graystone: “Launch of the Church and Media Network”
- Paul Jackson, Nick Booth on Beyond Broacasting: What Next?
Plus I’ve been to Strand events on “Online and New Media” (see photo 1, photo 2) and Fringe Events on “Googling God” and “Bliss Radio“, plus chatted with several people and eaten far too much stodge! Special dinner in about 15 minutes! We still have more to come tomorrow…
Twitter at #cmconf
With no official hashtag designed for the conference, and #cmc and #cmc09 already in use by other organisations, have started the hashtag #cmconf, which would be great to use longer-term! I have identified the following Twitterers as being at this conference, mostly by searching for “churches media”, but also identifying some face-to-face. Today I’ve worn my “Keep Calm and Carry On” t-shirt to help identification of me: http://www.twitter.com/drbexl:
- royzoner
- inspirenews
- podnosh
- russbravo
- annamdrew
- nickbaines (see his blog post)
- quaysie
- RevArun
- David_Cifbelief
- r_rabbit
- radiopatrick
- WayneDaybreak
- BeckyHartwell
- rechord
- qpalm (first time back on Twitter for a year – hmm, that link doesn’t seem to work!)
Unfinishedchris is also here, but (s)he wants their identity kept a secret!
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Wired Wessex sponsored an event by Tony Treacy on Blogging for Business on Thursday 28th May. Social Media is exploding and Tony’s right there, giving us advice via econsultants.it.
SuperFunDaysOut
In discussions with SuperFunDaysOut about taking over their blogging, Twitter and bookmarking strategies (looking forward to all that adrenaline flowing online!), I thought I’d see if there was more to learn – there always is – but was pleased to note that much of it was familiar, although I need to put more of it into practice!
In discussions with SuperFunDaysOut about taking over their blogging, Twitter and bookmarking strategies (looking forward to all that adrenaline flowing online!), I thought I’d see if there was more to learn – there always is – but was pleased to note that much of it was familiar, although I need to put more of it into practice!
Inbound/Outbound Marketing
Previously Tony had given a talk on outbound (interruption) versus inbound (permission/opt-in) marketing – with social media falling into the second category, and much the way that business now goes. How it all fits together.
Previously Tony had given a talk on outbound (interruption) versus inbound (permission/opt-in) marketing – with social media falling into the second category, and much the way that business now goes. How it all fits together.
Blogs, SEO, Tools
- Blogs are outdoing the web for SEO/traffic, as they are indexed quicker, therefore move up the Google, or Technorati, chain faster.
- WordPress is Tony’s recommended tool for blogs, with its own analytics software. It’s free, strong, professional (around 4,500 themes), and 6000+ plug-ins available. He particularly recommends allinone. As WordPress also functions as a CMS, can have a consistent look to website/blog.
- Particularly recommends Ping.Fm, allowing autoupdates of all social media.
Keywords
Keywords are the key to everything, as Google is simply a database, albeit a very sophisticated one! I’ve forgotten the name of the new tool that Tony mentioned which Google are developing in response to the success of Twitter…
On a website, with organic methods, optimising and tweaking the content, it can take around 6 months to reach the top-spot in Google, but with blogs, it can be possible in 3-4 days!
Time, however, needs to be spent in the early stages to define the keywords – it’s not rocket science, but experience demonstrates that it takes around 3 days to develop this.
What do you write about?
Write about what they want to learn about, not what you want to sell (aside from any possible benefits it may have for your viewers), as it’s all about a process of relationship-building.
Know Me -> Like Me -> Trust Me -> Buy Me
In the UK studies have shown that visitors access a site 6-7 times before they buy.
What should a post look like?
- Internal headings (indicative of content)
- At least one graphic
- 500-800 words (ok, view many of my posts so far as extended reportage, rather than blogs!)
- Lists – not too many (e.g. 10 things for x)
- 1 idea per post, keyword related.
- The headline should assume that the reader won’t read the article.
- Can surprise people with twists on words, etc [although I would add I'd take care not to be nothing to do with the words, as I get REALLY annoyed by that]
- No problems with being commercial if it’s a personal opinion, clarify as such.
- No spelling errors!
A couple of free-ebooks are on his website.
Publishing Schedule
- 1-2 times per week and stick to it.
- With WordPress (and probably others) can set a date to publish
- Create keyword content/strategy.
What can you put in a post?
- Interviews (including via email)
- Video interviews
- Guest posts from similar blogs (copy but provide a backlink, this is your CURATORIAL slant – pointing people to the best material)
- “Best of” lists
- “How do we do it” posts, including screenshots
Can you get someone else to write it?
Yes, plenty can be found on eLance, but no one knows your business as you do, and you’re missing out on participating on the conversation.
Tony, however, cited an example of tallshipsraces.org, which he took from a static site, which was targeting the 16-24 age bracket, and turned it into a site which generated great publicity/its own content, including YouTube.
Put an RSS feed on and talk to your market. A number of US blogs are now using blogs as cusomter service. Time consuming but gets results.
Comments
- ="font-weight:normal;">Take comments seriously
- Comment back – share an example, etc. (don’t just market your product). Tony recommended CommentHut for commenting (along with another product he’d forgotten the name of!), aiming for 10 comments/backlinks per day.
- Off thought leadership.
- Find out who people are and follow links.
- Subscribe to blogs and follow on Twitter
- There are pros/cons to monitoring comments, but easy with WordPress
Twitter
- Use it as part of your blogging strategy.
- Check out the “social media experts”, who’s following them?
- Aim for 95% personal tweets, 5% sales, otherwise likely to be de-followed.
- Place Twitter URL on homepage, press releases, business card, email signatures!
Technorati
Technorati is the Google of the blogging world, so get your blog registered there. Find some big bloggers and start to link to their material (so you start to feature in their comments, etc.)
Google Reader
There’s a number of RSS feed readers [I use Newsgator], and Tony recommends Google Reader, which I use to follow blogspot blogs.
Tony Treacy
I like Tony’s approach, offering advice to allow clients to run their own blogs! He’s passionate about what he’s doing and you can hear the excitement in his voice as he talks about the explosion of social media and how few companies can survive with a website alone!
Age Groups (Roughly!)
- Under 35: Digital Natives
- 35-55: Digital Immigrants
- 55-65: Digital Aliens
- 65 + Silver Surfers (who largely want to PhotoShop their family history then email it!)
Meantime, I’m looking forward to the end of this month when I’ll be adapting my WordPress for websites to WordPress for blogs to schoolkids who are engaging with University for the first time, shall think how best to structure the session!
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#assk64
Finally, I am “trendy”, and was ahead of fashion!
The website “64 words for Aung San Sui Kyi” launched yesterday evening at 9.30pm (GMT), and I was only the second person to Tweet using the hashtag #assk64. Working late on something, I watched it start to take off, particularly once @SarahBrown10, @jimmycarr and @eddieizzard started tweeting about it.
Trending Topic
The image to the left is a screenshot from Twitter in the last 10 minutes, showing that #assk64 is now the third most popular topic on Twitter right now – that’s pretty impressive in less than 24 hours! Most are redirecting people to the website although of course there’s always a few mis-using it – ignore them!
The image to the left is a screenshot from Twitter in the last 10 minutes, showing that #assk64 is now the third most popular topic on Twitter right now – that’s pretty impressive in less than 24 hours! Most are redirecting people to the website although of course there’s always a few mis-using it – ignore them!
So Where are most of the Retweets coming from?
The organisation behind this hasn’t been slow in asking celebrities to post their “64 words” (although many, like me, have tweeted about it, rather than written their 64 words), and I suspect that @stephenfry (with over half-million followers) has had quite a bit to do with an extra spurt in popularity and the official @64forsuu should be worth following too! @assk64 has dropped off the top trending topics, but still plenty of activity, particularly triggered by Alan Davies this afternoon.
On the Website: George Clooney, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Vaclav Havel, David Beckham, Daniel Craig, and the British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown have all written messages of support.
The News: Waiting to see it start to appear, only 1 story in Google at the moment.
Update 11th July 2009: Interestingly #assk64 is still circulating on Twitter.
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#assk64 : 64 Words for Aung San Suu Kyi
Posted on: 27-05-2009
Category : Charity & Social Action, Digital Media
Aung San Suu Kyi: 64th Birthday Coming Up
As Aung San Suu Kyi approaches her 64th birthday (June 19th 2009), and around 13 years of imprisonment, this site was created to collect hundreds of messages of support before that birthday. Created in only 6 days by Rechord, and launched only a couple of hours ago, the site already has a buzz going on Twitter, largely thanks to @SarahBrown10 (Gordon Brown’s wife, he’s also posted an entry, but it keeps disappearing thanks to the volume of Tweets!) and @JimmyCarr, and now @eddieizzard! You can read more about ASSK, and her fight against illegal imprisonment.
Add your voice: Website; Twitter Feed (using hashtag #assk64, let’s see if we can get it trending!); become a friend on Facebook.
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