Tip Tours – A Social Media Experiment

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

Jul 18, 10 Tip Tours – A Social Media Experiment

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 networkingMobile social networking sites, each offering specific benefits and reaching entirely different audiences, namely AudioBoo, FlickrFlickrFlickr, SuperBlog, FaceBookFacebookFacebook and TwitterTwitterTwitter, the resulting AudioBoo interviews being published to iTunesiTunesiTunes. 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:

Audio Boo 80px Tip Tours – A Social Media Experimentfacebook 80px Tip Tours – A Social Media Experimentflickr 80px Tip Tours – A Social Media ExperimentiTunes 80px Tip Tours – A Social Media ExperimentSuperBlog 80px Tip Tours – A Social Media ExperimentTwitter 80px Tip Tours – A Social Media Experiment

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 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 / iPhoneiPhoneiPhone / MP3 playermp3 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.

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2010-03-14

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Mind Mapping and Broadcasting your Expertise

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

Jan 26, 10 Mind Mapping and Broadcasting your Expertise

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 iPhoneiPhoneiPhone 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.

barry mapp christmas greeting mind map Mind Mapping and Broadcasting your Expertise

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.

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-10-18

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Twitter Weekly Updates for 2009-08-16

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