Tip Tours – A Social Media Experiment

Posted by Ian McKendrick in Featured, Social Media | 1 comment

Jul 18, 10

Every week, for the next 100 weeks I will be going to a new, inspiring location where I will use AudioBoo to record an interview with the accomplished author Joe St Clair. Joe will be describing not only the scenery and the surroundings but also why he chose each unique location to demonstrate a connection with one of the inspiring tips drawn from his best-selling book “100 Tips for Total Life Fulfilment”.

This is part of a comprehensive social media experiment in which I choose to combine the strengths of different Social NetworkingMobile social networking sites, each offering specific benefits and reaching entirely different audiences, namely AudioBoo, FlickrFlickr, SuperBlog, FaceBookFacebook and TwitterTwitter, the resulting AudioBoo interviews being published to iTunesiTunes. The final icing on the cake is the heavy use of the Apture plugin that brings all of the background information that’s available across the internet together on the page, allowing the user to explore the content in far greater depth while listening to the AudioBoo tips.

My goal

My goal is to bring out the best of these sites to create a feature-rich and far reaching social networking campaign designed for anyone who would like to join us on our journey of inspiration. Putting this experiment together has been a privilege and a joy for Joe and I and we hope our followers will find that it enriches and improves their lives as much as it has done for us.

You can follow us on our journey through these links:

Here’s a video of what we’re up to, after you’ve watched it please continue reading below about how I came up with this comprehensive social media strategy and how it’s being implemented.

Choosing the right medium is critical

As a result of the research I’ve been doing into Social Mediasocial media over the last two years it was apparent that different people consume their information in many different ways, and the medium we use to deliver that information is critical if we want it to reach as many people as possible. Some like their information to be presented very formally, others informally. Some like reading on the screen, others like printing it out on paper, or even buying the book. Some like to watch, or have the freedom to explore, or download to their iPod / iPhoneiPhone / MP3 playermp3 player so they can consume the information at their leisure and listen to it when it is convenient for them.

I decided to build a fully integrated social media campaign that covers all of those areas, and I wanted to create something that would not only be simple to maintain with the minimum of effort, but would allow us to deliver this incredibly rich content in a way that would satisfy the interests and needs of all of our followers.

Documenting our progress

It’s early days yet for me to be able to say whether this approach will be a success or not, but I’ll be charting my findings on this blog where I’ll be regularly posting updates as we progress through the project. In particular look out for my next post where I’ll describe in a little more detail how I put this whole social media project together, and where I’ll also give you an insight to the decision making process I went through for selecting the technology we used in the field, and how I decided on the specific social networking sites we picked for broadcasting our campaign.

Join in and take part

It’s all free, so why not follow the journey yourself using the link below, and we’d appreciate you telling your friends too so please use the re-tweet buttons to regularly to tell them, and let’s see if we can get them on board too: http://tiptours.co.uk/

I welcome any thoughts or suggestions you may have. Do you think I’ve I got this right, am I missing an opportunity, do you think it’s overkill, or am I wasting my time? Please let me know with your comment below.

Riding the Social Media Surfboard

Posted by Ian in Featured, Social Media | 0 comments

Mar 21, 10

The media loves a good story, particularly when comparing what is ‘currently ‘hot’ and what is ‘not’. Take the phenomenon of social networking for example. First it was ‘FacebookFacebook’ and ‘MySpaceMySpace’ that was hot news and then it was ‘YouTubeYouTube’ followed by hordes of others. Now it is the simple concept of ‘TwitterTwitter’ that is suddenly everywhere. Such is the media frenzy about Twitter that recently we have started seeing reports that ‘blogging is dead’. Apparently, we all now prefer ‘tweeting’ instead.

Blogging growing faster than twitter.

The reality of course is that the true facts are getting lost amid the media hype. Yes, social networking is now de rigueur for the aspiring business or business professional but blogging is seeing a new renaissance as individuals and businesses wake up to the potential of a good well thought out blog message. Blogging platforms such as Killer SEO SuperBlogs and WordPressWordPress is thriving, and WordPress in particular is reportedly growing even faster than Twitter. The popular media are still keen to shout about the amazing success of Twitter but few commentators mentioned that Twitter’s growth rate has slowed significantly in recent months.

Large corporations are waking up to Social Media.

Whether you are a Twitter or a blogging aficionado, or both, you are in good company. All of a sudden, after a long period of burying heads in sand, large corporations are starting to wake up and see the light. Big business is blogging and twittering like never before, suddenly realising that social networking has moved out of teenage bedrooms and into the mainstream.

Abandoning traditional marketing in favour of on-line social media media marketing.

Take Coca-Cola for example. Always innovative (remember the 1970’s anthem about teaching the world to drink Coca-Cola?) the company has always been prepared to be creative, forward thinking and professional in its approach to promoting its products. And now Coke has embraced the age of social media and rewritten the rule book. Coca-Cola is now dropping traditional websites in favour of using social networking sites to promote its brands. Unbelievably, this giant in the world of advertising is scrapping ordinary campaign websites and instead focusing entirely on social media.

And Coke is not alone. The global food and household products giant, Unilever, has also woken up to the social media revolution. In other words, two of the world’s biggest businesses, with some of the most creative and forward-thinking people in their marketing teams, have realised that if they want to attract people to their products then they need to go where the people are – rather than trying to get those people to visit them.

So the message is clear, you can sit like King Canute and tell the relentless waves to stop and go back to the comfort zone of traditional advertising, but you will drown.

Or you can jump on the surfboard of social media and ride the wave into the hearts and minds of those you need to connect to, and outshine your competitors, the choice is yours. Maybe you have a different view, if so tell in the comments below.

Mind Mapping and Broadcasting your Expertise

Posted by Ian in Featured, Presenting, Social Media | 2 comments

Jan 26, 10

Yes we have all heard about mind mapping. It’s those funny squiggly lines and pictures that we draw in order to remember things right? Cute child-like drawings that are meant to trigger our memory because they branch like natural objects whether branches of a tree or the inner workings of our brains. This isn’t a lecture on mind mapping though; you can find out everything you know by contacting the leading thinkers in this field like Barry Mapp or Tony Buzan. I’ve been using mind maps for years to plan projects, remember speeches, link ideas or answer exam questions. And once you’ve grasped how to do it then it becomes a tool that can be used and developed over and over again in all different situations.

Mind mapping iPhone App – iBlueSky

I use the iBlueSky mind mapping software for the iPhoneiPhone by Tenero Software, pictured above. I find it really useful to develop and organise new ideas in front of my clients, and when we’re done, I simply send them a PNG or PDF of the finished mind map by email straight from my iPhone, there and then, with no fuss. iBlueSky even imports and exports in Novamind, OPML and Freemind formats which makes it really flexible and a great tool to work with.

The thing is, mind mapping as a technique really does work. Not only that but it starts opening up our minds to other possibilities. We all have some sort of skills, whether they be professional skills or hobby based and they are skills that we have learned that make us stand out from others. So why not use mind mapping techniques to show people what we have to offer? Yes, mind mapping can be a great business tool or memory jogger but it is also something more. It can also be a tool to ‘sell’ yourself in a fun, engaging and innovative way. Why not use the mind map concept to create the mind map of your business or to demonstrate your product or service? It will surely beat the hell out of a stale PowerPoint presentation and will help build a more ‘natural’ rapport with your audience.

Mind mapping “social media marketing” example

Here is a brilliant example of “broadcasting your expertise” which was created by Barry Mapp (one of our SuperBlog Subscribers – See his SuperBlog here>>) who actually created a mind map for his corporate Christmas Greeting card, which I thought was pure genius! It’s ideas like this that lend themselves well to social media marketing campaigns as ideas like this are shared, creating their own word-of-mouth, raising awareness of what you do, and giving your followers the opportunity to talk about you and what you do.

That’s what I like about mind maps. It’s not just about using a fun, creative technique to trigger ideas and associations. It’s also fun because it embraces real tangible ideas within a picture of childlike simplicity and innocence. Our eyes feast on the colours and the scribbled drawings and our minds feast on the links and the ideas. We relate to mind maps because we understand them – and like any great communication tool it’s the simple ideas that sell the best.

Your mind mapping feedback

What are your experiences, are you using mind maps, or have you seen them being used in an inventive way? If so, please share them with us here.

When Gordon Browns Cheque Bounced

Posted by Ian in Featured, Social Media | 2 comments

Dec 18, 09

Yes – it’s that time of year again when our minds turn to Christmas presents because despite the doom and gloom of the recession we still like to dig deep to give our loved one’s a nice present on Christmas morning. It’s no different for Gordon Brown of course, except he has to dig a little deeper than the rest of us. The banks will want some money to pay for their Christmas bonuses and the Army would like some more helicopters, the hospitals could always do with a little extra at Christmas, particularly if Jordan needs another boob job, and the police could always do with a few more festive speed cameras. Sorry Gordon – it’s time to get the cheque book out again!

Hold on a minute though…maybe that’s not such a good idea…

What if the cheque bounces?

Yes, it’s a little embarrassing, but then it won’t be the first time our beloved PM has had one of his cheques bounced! And if you check on TwitterTwitter, FaceBookFacebook, and trawl the blogosphere you will find that news about our dear Gordon’s bounced cheque is already winging its way around cyberspace – such is the power of social networking!

Bid for Gordon’s bounced cheque

You can even make a bid for the original cheque and accompanying letter from the bank which is now for sale on eBay, which might make a great Christmas present for someone!

So before you start writing those big cheques Gordon it’s best to check you’ve still got the funds in your account first. A bounced cheque from the PM might be bad news for the economy but isn’t it reassuring to know that our wonderful banking institutions still have the balls to return a bad cheque regardless of who wrote it?

Know what? I reckon the banks should get a bonus for getting something right for a change…and for bringing us a little festive cheer!

Anyway, I can lend you a fiver Gordon if you’re really stuck!
Or maybe our readers would like to give Gordon some suggestions in the comments below…