A radio interview about the power of social media to do good

In the interview with Dave Fanning on Ireland's national RTE2FM station I argued that social media is a force for good.

I believe the openness and transparency that is forced on us by being involved in social media are a huge long term cultural benefit. Corruption, trickery and fraud are all exposed by openness and transparency.

In Ireland we have suffered too much from all these ills.

I know social media is no magic wand, which will change us all overnight, but slowly, with each post, the veil of secrecy is lifted, just a little.

Listen to some of this argument in this ten minute interview here.

To support this site - over 60 free posts so far on social media for you to explore - please buy one of my novels, The Istanbul Puzzle or The Jerusalem Puzzle or my guide to social media. And enjoy!

AS/MS is growing! New projects and clients:

In the past month Advanced Social/Media Services, your global social media consultancy, has picked up a number of new clients and projects.

First off, we ran a one day course at the Irish Writers Centre July 14th, which was so oversubscribed a second one day course was organised on August 11th to deal with the overflow. Both courses were very well received with many compliments from participants and the centre. They were a wonderful experience for all and had a wide mix of people taking part in a very practical workshop.

Second, we have been invited to run an 8 week one-evening-a-week course at the Centre for Creative Practice in Dublin on How to Get your Work noticed from September 19. Details here. I look forward to working with people from all backgrounds to help them get the most from social media in the most creative ways possible.

Third, we have new clients for our consultancy including a leading Irish diamond jeweler, Turkey's most prominent event management company and one of Ireland's leading publishing companies. In addition our contract to manage a blog for a London property agency has been extended.

Fourth, our guide Social Media is Dynamite is nearing completion and will be available in September from Amazon. If you want to read a pre-publication copy for free email: lpob at outlook.com All we ask in return is that you reply with some comments on what you thought. This offer will close at the end of August 2012.

Below is an image of the 5 star hotel in Istanbul where our events management client in Turkey holds many events. 

Supercharging social media with storytelling techniques: #12 Subplots

Subplots are additional threads to a story, which add depth and allow you to weave complexity into what otherwise might be seen as one dimensional. They are a staple of novels and TV programs.

The technique of using sub plots can also be used in social media posting. For instance:

1. If you are posting from a bakery you can talk about "typical" customers, a woman with a birthday party, a man getting bread early in the morning for his family, a young man buying cakes for his girlfriend.

2. If you are a large business, say a bank, you can also talk about "typical" and anonymous customers by giving examples of clients the bank helps, and the practical examples of how your products and services help clients.

3. If you are an artist you can talk about your struggles to find the right paints or tools of some kind.

4. If you are a designer you can talk about the trips you make to visit suppliers. I am sure we would all love to hear about how they make silk in China these days, for instance.

Sub plots is probably one of the easiest ways to post about what you do. Many people are doing it already.

This series of posts were written to provide a structure and theory around the post types people create.

There are now 12 on the subject of storytelling techniques. I will switch to a different series from Monday, when I will be back from a weekend break.

The next series will be about puzzles & mysteries in the area of social media. I hope you have a great weekend.

Social Media in practice #2: An update: SM 4 a London premium property site

This post is the second in a series about putting social media theory into practice.

A small premium property agency in London has been looking to update their web site. Over a two day period I created the following blog:

http://allyttaproperty.wordpress.com/

It features a listing of properties prominently and is almost a crossover between a property listing site and a blog.

I then created two Twitter accounts - this is one:

https://twitter.com/AllyttaProperty

This post is an update on the results in the past two weeks. 

The blog/web site has had 263 views in two weeks. The best day was last Thursday, when 40 views were recorded. Here is a listing of where people have come from who viewed the site over the last few weeks:

Two Twitter accounts will slowly follow people interested in property in London. Already, within two weeks, they have 627 followers. A few of these will be likely clients. I don't expect much of a return for the time involved in setting all this up, Tweeting daily, and reporting on it all, until about three months has passed 

The Twitter account tweets a 50% mix of links to the Allytta blog and 50% London/property industry news.

The main benefits so far are probably more about good client relationships, but I do expect real business to be generated from the site and Twitter feeds soon. What do you think?


Come back here each month and I will update you on progress on this real life example of the use of social media for an SME business in the UK.

Social Media in practice #1: A London premium property site & Twitter feed

There are lots of great posts about social media theory. This post is the 1st in a series about putting the theory into practice.

A small property agency in London has been looking to update their web site. They have been getting few hits on their traditional site, and have to advertise offline and online to drive telephone calls to their offices and increase sales of their rental properties and for sale properties.

Over a 2 day period I created the following blog:

http://allyttaproperty.wordpress.com/

It features a listing of properties prominently and is almost a crossover between a property listing site and a blog.

I then created a Twitter account:

https://twitter.com/AllyttaProperty

The parts that took up most of the two days were deciding on the Wordpress template, I tried four before picking that one, getting the most out of the template options, and putting all the images into the right format.

The Twitter account will slowly follow people interested in property in London. Already, within 6 days, it has 106 followers. A few of these will be likely clients.

The Twitter account tweets a 50% mix of links to the Allytta blog and 50% London property industry news.

Some say this should be a 25% ads to 75% news mix, but with the people the Twitter account is following being interested in property and there being no question that this is a celebrity site suddenly pushing cola - a bait & switch technique. I think such a percentage is reasonable. The Allytta Twitter account is 100% up front about what  you should expect if you follow it.

It will be some time, 3 months I have suggested to the property agency owner, before we know what impact such a linked social media to blog/site will have on sales. Come back here each month and I will update you on progress on this real life example of the use of social media for an SME business in the UK.

Now, the fact that it only took me two days to set up a reasonable looking site and social media strategy for a small business made me think about a few things:

1. Why do some web design agencies charge so much for sites?

2. Why are there still so many static web sites, which are not using Twitter to reach out to potential clients?

3. What else should I be doing for Allytta to show them the practical benefits of social media?

I have considered Facebook & LinkedIn options, and they will probably come in a few months, so it is really other ideas I am hoping you might contribute for us all.

Pinterest, if we have some great pics of some of the apartments with flowers and lovely meals on the table would be nice, I think, but would it generate sales?

What do you think? What have I missed? What social media strategy do you think works?

Supercharging social media with storytelling techniques: #10 Romance!

Romance, how the hell am I going to involve romance in a technique for social media?

Can you guess?

Romance can be used in a social media context. Romance is often either the main plot or a subplot in most popular movies, TV shows and books. Isn't it time social media postings included a little romance too?

We can use a little romance, a little bit of emotional openness, to engage blog readers and post readers. Here's a few examples:

1. Offer a 2 for 1 price on dinners at your restaurant, on the day you met your wife.

2. Similarly, you can offer romantic weekends, 2 for 1 gym memberships, his and hers perfume deals/jewelry deals or chocolates with books and flowers or whatever fits in with what you are involved in, on a special day for you, or a member of staff or whenever suits you.

3. Respect the power of love with links to romantic poetry, books or movies, at special times for you or others.

4. Celebrate family and/or couples with images pages on Pinterest or Flickr for anniversaries, special occasions etc. You can make these open only to people you know, if you are worried about privacy.

5. If you are a big stuffy corporate you can post images from any family day or barbecue event or wedding event you are involved with. Start by posting these on an internal private blog or Twitter account, as part of your internal social media program, and occasionally you might let the public see what is going on, if participants agree to the images going out.

Use a little of the magic of romance to spice up your posts occasionally and watch people come back for more.

Auto posting - chocolate cake on special today!

Your cake is here:



Facebook has, at last, introduced a feature called scheduled posts, for Pages only. This will allow people to decide when their posts will appear on their Page timeline. Watch for the clock symbol on the post and click year, then month, then day and time. You will be able to post up to six months ahead.

This has a number of practical benefits. For people like me who get up at 5AM and create posts early it will mean a post can be delayed until a more suitable time, or even for when I'm away trying to make some real money.

Such practical benefits will lead to fundamental changes on Facebook and also, eventually, on Twitter, blogs and every other social site. The idea that you have to hit the "post" button yourself will go out of fashion. The era of the auto post has arrived.

Sure, third party auto posting services have been available for years. I use Buffer to schedule Tweets during the day. But when Facebook and Twitter finally get around to allowing posts to be scheduled tens of millions will use their service. Setting up a stream of auto posts will allow people to Tweet and post more often too. And it will force people to think about what they're posting.

And it will lead to auto posts from devices, such as fridges.

And soon the parking meter will Tweet that it's free, if you've signed up for the coffee shop's posts.

And then your Ford will auto-post where you've parked to your friends on Google+, while you're on your way to the coffee shop.

And all that because the coffee shop fridge auto-Tweeted a special 70% off deal on chocolate cake an hour before closing. 70% off!

The temptation will be hard to resist, won't it? Would you like a bite? It's soft and crunchy all at the same time.





Your imagination is the only thing that will stop you enjoying it.

Who said they don't like auto posting?