Key is to create balance:

This throws up a problem that any company operating in the social media space can potentially come across; the issue of creating a balance between not biting the hand that feeds you on two fronts! On the one hand, you need users to get advertisers interested, and on the other, the more you can offer advertisers in terms of presence, the more appealing your space will become. But potentially at the cost of your users..the loyal folk that got you to this charmed position in the first instance!

Treading on the toes of Google+ and Facebook

Twitter intend to offer “brand pages”. Users will still have the option to decide whether they want to visit a brand page or not. So it should not be too intrusive. Furthermore, an enhancement of the “hashtag” system will result in users being able to view content based on their interests and location.

The redesign of the company pages will essentially allow for more customisation from the brands. It will give brands more control over the look and feel of their page, and give them the ability to show embedded multimedia.

Brands signed up already:

Coca-Cola, McDonalds and Disney are just some of the companies that are already signed up. However, it will not be available to companies in the UK until some time in 2012. The objective in social media is to engage in innovative ways with in the desired audience. All you tweeters out there, be sure to let us know if these companies succeed in achieving that through these new channels!

There has been a lot of media space devoted to Twitter in the past few days. It has reached the grand old age of 5. Without any clear revenue path, some think that it is doomed to fade away. But for something that started as a forum for “short bursts of inconsequential information”, and is now a gateway to 1 billion tweets each week, this is nothing short of a phenomenon.

Focus on service and users is its core strength

It has become a stream of the world’s consciousness, and that can never fade away. It is first and foremost a service, and users appreciate that. We all need to make a profit, everyone knows that. But the fact that the forum has not been besmirched by intrusive advertising, actually endears this all the more to Tweeters. In fact, the founders have maintained their focus on Twitter as a service. Their philosophy is “to create value before profit”.

Twitter has enhanced lives, it has damaged lives. It has facilitated revolutions, and given people a voice that would otherwise never have been heard. It’s worth having a “Tweet” to that.

Social Media creates a new type of celebrity

Social Media as a whole, has opened the way for Influencers. Normal people like you and I can become social media celebrities. Tweeters with large followings can have authority that they can only dream about in the “real world” And we all crave power secretly. We can be different people on Twitter. Reinvent ourselves. It relieves boredom for many in a way that nothing before it can. People can come together in so many ways..by means of a news story or event, through finding commonality on particular issues and causes. You can come and go as you please. And be somebody else or, dare I say it, just yourself.

Will Twitter be 10? We think so. Do you?

Twitter may not be here for ever. After all, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn..they are mere platforms and harnessing the latest technologies. Both platforms and technologies are ever evolving. But Twitter can not be dismissed. It levels the playing field, and enables everybody from the A-list celebrity to the oppressed Arab citizen, to be heard..Now we should all “Tweet” to that.

Liverpool the Twitter Table leaders

Incredibly, over 1 million tweets about the premier league were recorded in January, with over a third of that traffic related to Liverpool F.C . Arsenal were close second.

Another interesting development here is the widespread use now of Twitter by players. Fans have unprecedented access to players now through this medium. They are still heroes to many of course, but the social web has made them mere mortals too!

Twitter own goals

We all read about Ryan Babel’s recent vilification of referee Howard Webb. Indeed, he was charged by the FA for it You couldn’t imagine 12 months ago, that players would be being charged by the FA for Twitter misconduct!

My own team Coventry City..are one of the teams that are least tweeted about, according to the survey. I can’t for the life of me imagine why. Indeed, this throws the whole survey into question!!

Do you follow your team news and any players on Twitter??

Everybody wins!

You need to either be trained in this ability yourself or at least be aware of the tools you can use to help manage the reputation of your business. Online reputation management is a key aspect of running a business in today’s environment and it will probably become more and more important as more people use the internet to help them decide on products and services.

Of course it could be that your business or organization currently has an excellent reputation. Perhaps your support team, your sales group, and other customer-facing pieces of your business do a wonderful job and their efforts are reflected as such on the internet. While this may be true, you have to know for certain this is the case. Guessing is not wise.

If, on the other hand, you have a bad online reputation, deserved or not, you need to know. Perhaps there was an incident that caused a pain for one of your customers, or maybe your competition is being malicious. Either way you must be up to speed on what is being said, where they are saying it, and what your options might be.

If you are going to run a successful business in today’s internet environment you will need to be aware of both the good and the bad things that people are saying about your products and services. You will need to recognize the way these comments can help to determine your company’s bottom line at the end of every month.

With the popularity of the internet all it takes is one bad apple, so to speak, perhaps even something typed as a joke on a social networking site, to bring your reputation down considerably. News travels fast on the internet, and bad news travels even faster, and consumers will stick together if they believe a company has taken advantage of a customer.

Managing your reputation online is not a single action but rather a process. This includes maintaining high visibility, positive publicity, and the right kind of marketing. They move beyond the negative you need to do everything within your power to gain high web site rankings from search engines. This can help to keep the negative comments off the first page of search results.

You will find it necessary to keep a close eye on the opinion of the public. Watching social networks and blogs are essential. You will have to take a long look at the comments being made and you must make every effort to protect and defend your company’s trademark and logo.

As you research online reputation management you will find there are a number of companies available to help you keep your reputation clean or help you cleanse one that has been tarnished. Find out what each company offers and consider using one to help you manage your business image and reputation. Remember that information on the web travels fast and you need to be one step ahead of those who might seek to affect your bottom line in a negative way.

Here is an introductory video to show what it’s all about Collective Buying Power

But we have put together a few of the common mistakes that are made in Social Media, in the hope that you can avoid the pitfalls, and ensure you make the time spent on social media much more effective.

1. Don’t follow people for the sake of it! You will spend too much time being interrupted by irrelevant tweets, blog posts and status updates. Results are achieved slowly, and over time. Followers, “friends” etc. does not equal sales necessarily.

2. You don’t need to use every social media tool. Focus on the social media sites that are most relevant to you and your business. The ones that are a good fit to you.  If you are selling holidays to the over65s, then designing a glitzy page and profile on MySpace will not be the cleverest move you will make.

3. No flash in the pan. It is not easy to keep going..we know that, and we sympathise with you.  If you are not prepared for the long haul, you simply won’t get anywhere.  You need to have a long-term social media strategy.

4. Don’t treat it as kids stuff either! Give it the respect that it deserves..it is not easy, and you must not take your company’s online reputation in any way for granted. Set expectations and create policies in-house to enhance your online reputation.

5. Social Media is not free. You can sign-up for accounts on Twitter and Facebook for free, sure, but your goals will not happen without a significant investment in time and money. Start allocating a budget and some resources to it ..no budget, no time = No results.

6. Don’t say things for the sake of it! Your company has far too  much to lose if you ruin your online reputation. Make everything relevant, honest, and in line with the values of your company and your clients.

7. Measure your progress..set realistic monthly targets for social media. Experiment all the time, but benchmark the time and money against the targets. Social Media, like all other marketing efforts, must result in a positive ROI/ Return on Investment.

8. It won’t happen overnight..small steps…

We know it’s not easy; but our clients continue to be surprised by the measurable results they are achieving working with us on their social media strategies. Drop us a line, and let’s see what we can do for you!

I thought I should write up a little post about how well the brewery are doing. I played golf with John last Friday and he tells me that they are even getting business from Twitter now – which of course I will claim full credit for putting him onto! The Shropshire Star wrote a good article on his tweets last week – click here to read what they said.

In my opinion a brewery, like any other business, needs to have excellent customer service. Having a number of John’s clients as clients myself I know that they are really good, but it is the fact that certain things others fall down on are considered “de rigeur” that sets them apart – if I was running a pub I would want to know that my beer would arrive on time – apparently this is not a given in the licenced trade, but it is with The Three Tuns Brewery who have never been late with a delivery since John and Bill took it over.

They are really busy and approaching capacity again – John even suggested there might be a waiting list soon! My advice therefore is get in touch with them sooner rather than later – my personal recommendations would be the XXX and Clerics Cure beers – excellent, if a tad too moreish!

I’m sure John would also agree that their website, designed and built by Morello Digital of course, has not done them any harm either!

At Morello Digital we recognise this and that is why we have always hosted our client sites on a quality dedicated server. For those of you who wonder why hosting costs can vary so much it is more than likely that you are not comparing like with like. When we say a “dedicated” server we mean exactly that – our server only has our sites on it. This means that you are not potentially sharing your site with some dodgy porn site that could end up getting your own site blacklisted by Google through no fault of your own!

As a company, Morello Digital uses Rackspace to look after our server. They are by no means the cheapest, but as with most things in life you get what you pay for. A server is just like any other computer – it will occasionally develop some sort of glitch – what one needs is a company that fixes those glitches quickly – that is why we use Rackspace and also recommend them to those clients who need their own server too.

After a couple of years happily living in one box, we are going to be moving our sites to a new server over the next few weeks. For those of a technical nature, this is the spec of the new machine:

Dell 2970
OS : Red Hat 5 (64 bit)
PLESK 8 (unlimited domains with Spam Assassin and Dr Web)
Processor: Single Quad Core AMD Opteron 2347 processor
RAM: 4 GB RAM
Hard drive: 4 x 146 GB SAS Hard drives
RAID: – Hardware RAID 5
Hot swappable drives
Dual power supplies, Nics, Fans
Fanatical support,
Rackwatch Platinum
Managed Backup Agent + MySQL Agent

It is rather a good machine and has all the usual security, firewalls and back up you would expect. We look forward to improving our client’s hosting environment over the next few weeks.

If you are unhappy with your current hosts, please give us a call and we will be more than happy to give you a quote on our managed hosting services.