Featured posts
Failure to Communicate isn’t the fault of Technology
An impassioned response Recently I was pointed towards an article entitled 'How Not to be Alone' on the New York Times website. In it, the author reflects on an incident where he comes across a young girl crying on a bench, and upon the following internal debate that played out on whether or not to intervene. As part of that process, he turns to discuss how the existence of his phone, or other 'favorite iDistraction' make it easier for us to decide against making that interaction in similar … [Read More...]
How to Write Effective Tweets
140 characters. Talk about a pair of pixilated handcuffs! But that limit shouldn't be seen as an issue, it should be seen as an opportunity. It can be hard to get your point across within that limit, never mind getting people to actually act upon your tweets, but with the right approach, writing effective tweets will become like second nature. Read on for some key pointers... Think message first! Twitter moves at lighting pace - that means your tweets have to catch the eye! Lets imagine a … [Read More...]
Facebook Page Insights Broken Since May 13th
I do weekly reporting for a Facebook page that I 'm a Page Admin for so I got a bit huffy when I couldn't complete this week's report because my Page Insights were several days behind. Is it me, did I break my Facebook Page? I immediately took to the web in an attempt to find out about the possible Facebook glitch. But low and behold, there was not a post on it to be found. Which I thought was odd considering the thousands of sites that post any and all online hiccups, important or not. I … [Read More...]
Retweeting A Compliment: Bragging Or Brand Building?
It’s a dilemma the majority of businesses face in their social media campaign at some point or another. A happy customer tweets you thanking you for providing a great blog, excellent customer service or brilliant products… you want to retweet it and share it with the world (after all, you need to take all the free publicity you can get – and what could be better than a happy customer?) but you’re in two minds. Will a retweet suggest you’re blowing your own trumpet or will it show … [Read More...]
Being won over by Google+ Communities
Despite being well aware of the inevitability, I still had my doubts that it would actually happen in reality. Today, I must confess that I have wholeheartedly adopted use of Google+ There's no doubt that this is due in part to the implementation of Google Authorship (click through for a more on this elsewhere), but I could just as easily treat my G+ account as a static placeholder required for SEO purposes… so there's more to it than this alone. In truth, the real reason I've found myself … [Read More...]
Three Online Photo Editing Apps Reviewed
A huge part of creating good content is creating good images, or at least creating entertaining images. I have Photoshop on my work computer but am far too cheap to put it on my laptop (especially with Adobe's latest subscription model). And for me, Photoshop is a bit over-complicated for what I want to do anyway. Here are some great web-based apps for creating and editing snappy dapper photos when you only have a few minutes to spare. Picmonkey Seattle-based Picmonkey has been a favourite … [Read More...]
What is Social Proof and How Do I Use It?
When you want to buy a new washing machine, 9 times out of 10 you don’t just go out and buy the first one you come across. You ask your friends and family for recommendations, you search the internet for reviews and you search sites to see what the top sellers are – why? Two reasons – 1. Because you don’t want to make an uninformed decision that will spectacularly backfire on you and 2. Because (and this is where it gets a bit psychological – so hang on!) you want to assume the … [Read More...]
Friday Freak Out – Stop The Desperation to Blog About Facebook
Did you hear the major news about Facebook during the week? No, Mark Zuckerberg's perpetual smug look on his face hasn't waned, they've not reached 100 million uses on Mars and they haven't managed to find a way to stop people whinging about their utterly miserable lives via status updates. No, this news is much much bigger. They made a change to the admin panel No, your eyes are not deceiving you! This revolutionary change will make your Facebook Page experience so much better. No, it … [Read More...]
Top 6 Tips for Generating Leads via Social Media
Is your business still struggling to use social media to generate leads? Businesses need to choose either a direct sales approach, leading straight to a sale with no need for further endorsement, or self-promotion, showcasing their knowledge and skills to generate leads and do the selling bit later, the traditional way - face-to-face. In most cases social media is best used to generate leads, or send traffic to your website where you get a chance to do this again. Producing great content … [Read More...]
Friday Freak Out – Stop Stealing My Freakin’ Blog Posts!!!
I blog here on The Social Penguin and also over on the blog for my consultancy, Velocity Digital. Last week, one of my posts on the Velocity blog made it through the Social Media Today filters and appeared on the popular site. I was happy with that as SMT gets great traffic and can only be good for my 'personal brand' awareness. Yes, I did just say 'personal brand', you can slap me next time I see you. Since that happened, the search I have set-up for my name (a must have thing for all … [Read More...]
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