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.

Social networking – An introduction for beginners

Posted by Ian McKendrick in Presenting, Social Media, Training | 0 comments

May 10, 09

Unprecedented growth of Social Media

As I continue bringing Social Networking and Social Marketing to the masses through my seminars, I find many people are very confused or even intimidated by the sheer number of social network applications available for people to use these days, and the number continues to grow. When we made our “Introduction To Social Networking” training video earlier this year there were around 375 mainstream social networking type applications. It’s now estimated (only 5 months later) to be in excess of 3000 applications and services!

Don’t be confused by Social Networking

Many of the people I’ve met while presenting tell me that they find the whole Social Networking scene really daunting and offputting, and this can be true, especially if you’re a newcomer and you want to get started quickly. Initially there are many things you need to think about and do, and altogether it can seem like a huge, tangled pile of spagetti making it  difficult to know where to begin. To help address this Mark Peters (of Star Radio fame) and I are in the process of putting together our Social Networking video training series. We decided to make it easier by breaking everything down into a series of small simple steps that were easy for anyone to follow.  So, if you’re puzzled about whether you should be Tweeting or you’re just wondering what all the fuss is about then you’ll find this training video is especially for you.

Sit back, relax and learn

Mark and I wanted to produce something that you could not only give to your Granny to get her to use TwitterTwitter or FacebookFacebook ,but would also appeal to the fully competent IT “SuperGeek” that doesn’t get out enough, and could even be watched by people who know a little and wanted to learn a whole lot more. The video below is the result of our first module of 20 which will follow over the coming months – and it’s totally FREE!

My advice to you all is “don’t worry” and don’t feel intimidated or put off. Go and make yourself a nice hot cup of tea /coffee, relax, hit the play button, sit back and enjoy!

Download the full FREE version HERE>>>
(includes iPhone/iPod/iTouch/MP3/MAC/PC versions + training notes)

Download Introduction to Twitter HERE>>>
Download Introduction to Twitter Productivity Tools HERE>>>

Book me for your event HERE>>>
Get a FREE SuperBlog like mine HERE>>>