Articles Tagged with Twitter

How I (Briefly) Became An Internet Meme…

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Meme sketchA short, lighthearted post while I continue the transition from employment to self-employment…

Earlier this week I shared one of a number of professional headshots I’d had done, taken by the wonderful Peter Rowlands of P & M Photography:

I chose a green background for a few of the photos to coincide with the branding. However I didn’t expect people to make this observation…

Uh-oh. Well you can tell what happened next…

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A Blog 365 Project – 50 Days On

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* Update: Unfotunately WL365 is no more… *

Calendar picIn early April I started a blog 365 project: Whose Line 365, a blog dedicated to sharing a Whose Line Is It Anyway? clip from YouTube every day for a year. As it’s just hit its 50th post, I wanted to go into the reason why I started it and also what I’ve learnt so far from the experience.

Well… the first part – the reason – is as simple as this: I love the show. The blog’s About page reveals how I came up with the idea to do it as a blog 365 project:

I once joked with my wife that “watching a Whose Line clip a day is good for the soul.” As a keen blogger elsewhere, the light-bulb moment happened, and the rest should be obvious!

I’ve had a lot of fun doing it so far. Watching a clip a day – or a few in one go – has been awesome. I was watching clips regularly anyway, so it’s not really that much more effort to grab the YouTube embed code and throw it up as a blog post.

That said, I can’t believe I’m only 1/7th of the way through it all. It already feels like I’ve been doing it forever! Even this early on I feel like I’ve learnt a lot and so I wanted to share my experiences so far as well as advice for those thinking of doing a blog 365 project of their own!

Make sure it’s viable

If you’re doing a blog 365 project that’s similar in nature to mine then make sure that there’s actually enough material to last 365 days. Fortunately for me, there’s a ridiculous amount of WLIIA scenes on YouTube. I mean crikey – I could probably do 365 clips of just Party Quirks scenes alone!

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My First Ever Online Marketing Campaign (Was An Absolute Failure)

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Bob Dylan Fail imageI recently got into a bit of an… umm… ‘altercation’ with a South Wales-based business (who shall remain nameless) via Twitter. They followed me and then sent me multiple copied and pasted @mentions basically saying: “we’ve followed you, so the least you can do is follow us back.”

I politely told them that this wasn’t a good approach to social media, to which they replied telling me that while they appreciated the feedback, they were annoyed at me for doing it in a way that was public (i.e. not via DM or email instead). I informed them that in a social media space, others wouldn’t afford them that luxury (and would be a lot harsher than I was), and reiterated that I wasn’t having a go – I was only trying to help. They then unfollowed me (charming… but quite funny).

But it’s true. I wasn’t having a go. I was trying to help. I was speaking from experience.

You see, my first ever online marketing campaign – years before I got my start in SEO – was for myself, as a solo musician. In early 2006 I released my first CD (Bad River, a 5-track EP) and wanted to promote it online. So I did it via the social media website I was most prominent on at the time: MySpace (my MySpace profile is still there by the way).

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#SMsceptic: Etiquette Tips For Gentler (Yet More Effective) Twitter Outreach

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Megaphone graffiti imageIt’s been a little while since I wrote an #SMsceptic post (i.e. moans about social media), but following a recent first-hand experience and various conversations with colleagues/industry peers/fellow tech enthusiasts, I wanted to discuss Twitter @mentions some more, especially in the context of conducting outreach.

For the record, in my opinion, outreach via Twitter is awesome. I prefer it to email (which is I guess the more standard approach in an online capacity) for a fair few reasons:

  • It’s quicker and easier. “Hey, I wrote about you – check it out: [shortened URL].” Boom! Done.
  • It’s less pestering to an extent (…at least I think so, as I see email as a somewhat more formal means of communication and therefore Twitter as less formal – with that in mind, an ill-timed or unwanted @mention may be viewed with less dislike than an email of the same intent).
  • It holds more weight from an authoritative point of view – if someone’s thinking “who is this guy/girl?!” then they can check out your profile. If you have stuff in common or they realise that you have mutual acquaintances then it might help with the process. They might not be able to assess all of that by email alone, e.g. if you don’t have any info in your email signature.
  • It’s visible to those who have an interest in both of you – i.e. if someone is following both the sender and receiver of the tweet, they’d be able to see it in their feed and – as they know both of you – they might be inclined to check it out as well.

Also, @mentions are generally more effective than DMs (Direct Messages) as the latter requires that both people follow each other, which may not be the case all the time, especially if you’re conducting outreach with people who may not know you (yet).

Anyway, I digress. Apologies… I tend to do that.

The main point of this post is help you to avoid a few common pitfalls, take a softer approach and generally piss as few people off as possible (which can sometimes be the nature of the beast with this type of thing).

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How To Market Your Live Music Bar Online

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Intro from Steve: After my first guest post publication, Mike – who I’ve known on Twitter for a while – asked if he could publish one as well. Given its subject matter, I couldn’t say no. I used to work at a live music bar a lifetime ago (The Musician Pub in Leicester, if you’re ever in the area), so this post struck a chord (oww, sorry!) with me. Enjoy!

Following the Live Music Act 2012 (which allowed venues with a capacity of less than 200 people to put on live music without a license*), it seems a growing number of bars are taking advantage and starting to book live bands. With the growing number of options for live music lovers, how do you stand out and persuade potential punters through your door?

The following tips will help you to stand out against your local competition and dominate the online arena.

*Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-19783855

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