Author: Jas

Jas Dhaliwal is a highly experienced International Social Media Strategist. Currently working as AVG Technologies, Director of Communities and Online Engagement, he specialises in building and engaging with social communities across the web. Born and bred in London, he is passionate about technology and social anthropology. Prior to AVG, Jas launched the social media program for Microsoft’s MVP Award program. Jas holds a BSc (Hons) in Information Systems and has an MBA from Brunel University in London, England. You can follow Jas as @Jas on Twitter or on Google+

Facebook Flyers

Charlene Li over at Forrester has written a great post regarding the potential of using Facebook Flyers as a marketing tool. Facebook Flyers allow members to create small display ads that are shown in the left navigation bar within Facebook. If you are already using a Facebook group to promote your business, you may also want to think about using Facebook Flyers as a quick and efficient way to promote your business.

Incidentally, I’ve also wondered how much it costs to ‘sponsor’ a group on Facebook. There are already quite a few organisations who have sponsored groups and the numbers are growing rapidly. Unfortunately, Facebook doesn’t provide the costs on their site, so I decided to email them. Here is the response I received:

“Sponsored Groups provide marketers an opportunity to integrate into the Facebook group experience with a completely customized destination. Sponsored Group enables brand lovers and new customers to share common
interests around your brand, connect with their Facebook friends and other users, communicate frequently and honestly, and exchange thoughts experiences, and recommendations. Please note that there is a minimum
monthly spend of $50K with a 3 month commitment“.

So, if you have $150,000 spare, you might also want to look at sponsoring a Facebook group to promote your business.

I’ve linked to Charlene’s recent presentation which makes great reading.

The Blogging Tailor: An interview with Tom Mahon of English Cut

 

Savile Row is home to some of the greatest tailoring of gentleman’s suits in the world. The blogging tailor, also known as Tom Mahon is an ambassador for the craft with an honest and insightful blog known as English Cut. Initially, I read about English Cut from Scoble and Israel’s excellent book called Naked Conversations. I really wanted to interview Tom and I was lucky enough to do so a little while ago. Tom is truly a great bloke, the type of guy you’d happily have a pint with at the local pub. Tom blends charisma and elegance and was completely unlike my pre-conceived stuffy images of Savile Row tailors! What makes Tom so different? He’s a wonderful, passionate story teller.

Tom launched English Cut back in 2005 and operates from both Saville Row and his Cumbrian workshook. Tom and English Cut set a great example for others to follow. On his blog, he shares with us about his business trips, he talks about the cutting process of the suits he makes, his past searches for an apprentice as well as the best pubs in and around the Row. I can’t see Gieves and Hawkes doing this, can you? English Cut has helped Tom build his business and for many years he has been showered with work. Tom is an advocate of blogging and firms believes that blogging can help any business, as long as you are passionate and have a great story to tell.

Please find below a mini excerpt of my interview with Tom Mahon

What difference has technology made in communicating business messages?

“In the distant past everyone had a horse and cart and everyone was living by candles. How did you find out about things and get things done? You had to talk. The only way was to find somebody and ask them, where can find this? There was two-way communication going on. There’s wasn’t a book you could open up in the 17th Century to find where to find people you needed. In those days, people communicated through talking. Then, in the 20th Century we were bombarded with billboards and signs and effectively, people stopped talking and started telling! This is the best drink in the world! Why? Because that’s what the sign says”

“All of a sudden technology comes along allowing for people to communicate faster and quicker than ever before and nobody is aware of it. You suddenly realise that everybody is talking again. So, the sign isn’t going to tell me that Guinness is good for me, I’d rather ask someone if Guinness is good for me. Today, I can ask millions of people quickly and efficiently and that’s all it is. It’s a bit weird, its using technology but its gone back to communicating in the old way!”.

How did the other Savile Row tailors take to you blogging?

“They think its good, though some of them think I’m mad! The thing about blogs is, that you’ve got to tell the truth. I don’t say anything bad about anyone, because that’s a pointless exercise, I just tell the truth. So, there’s never any criticism, because there’s nothing to criticise You can’t criticise the truth can you? It might upset you, but you can’t criticise it, you just have to accept it. If blogging has worked for us, it will work any business as long as you have the right ingredients. Passion, devotion, honesty and a great story to tell. It’s probably especially well for me, because I’ve revealed how lovely the bespoke tailoring business is. I can put hand on heart and recommend all of the people I work with. That in itself adds an extra string to Savile Row’s bow”.

What benefits do you find from blogging?

“Blogging is a very good way of subconsciously examining your business. Because you talk and write about things, all sorts of things. People say to me, why do you do that? Sometimes you’ll say, I don’t know really. So, in a very informal way, I think you can actually improve the business because you are getting feedback. Not only customer feedback but from outsiders too, who can act as ‘sterile inputs’ into your business. In the past, it was difficult to answer all the feedback because I was always trapped in a realm of customers and tailors. So, blogging is quite a fine tuning tool. In simple terms it’s the best market research tool ever”.

“Often, I’m thinking about a new country or a city and I’ll say, I wonder if I could sell any suits there? The old way was to get all the results on which businesses were there? What their turnover was and what the average person earns there etc etc. Today, it’s totally different. I’ll write a post that I might go to Wichita Falls, anybody fancy a suit? If I get a response from people who say yeah, then I go! If they say no, then I don’t go. How fantastic is that? The blog gives me such a big voice”.

“I was traveling abroad on a particular occasion and was sitting in a hotel room updating a blog entry. I found an old post that I had written a year or so earlier. I started reading it and became fascinated! When I wrote that post, I was different person to whom I am now. The business was also in a different place. It was interesting to see how my thoughts had developed over the months and how the business had also grown. It was both weird and exciting in reading that post that I had written earlier. I didn’t want to go to bed!”

“With a blog, you can write if you feel like writing, or don’t write if you don’t feel like writing. Believe it or not, my blog was never written to impress anybody. It was not written to gain more sales. Hugh [MacLeod] said to me, just write down all your great stories Tom. Once you soon start blogging, you’ll find that you want to share your thoughts with everyone”.

“Blogging does have its dangers. You can start a blog and say all sorts of things. But sooner or later, if you tell any porky’s, oh boy are they going to be found out and your business will be destroyed! So it keeps you walking a very straight line. We had a tailor once who was a bit of a rogue on the road. He thought he had a command over the Internet as many of the other tailors were older and didn’t use the Internet. He thought no one was paying any attention. He thought he had this captive audience and basically he was telling lots of lies. He lied about other tailors, about his own business and his own credentials. It lasted for a while but then he came down with such a crash because the truth will always out in the end, he’s bankrupt now”.

 

English Cut has taken a unique approach to marketing by using a blog. Tom has broken with tradition, developed new customers from around the world and has changed the norms of the bespoke tailoring industry. It is essential for small businesses to develop a marketing strategy that corresponds with the changes taking place in the marketplace today. This is why English Cut sees continued success.

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A Blue Monster Special Reserve!

 

Congratulations to Hugh and Steve on the announcement of Stormhoek’s Blue Monster reserve!  

Blue Monster hits the Financial Times.  How cool is that?

http://www.gapingvoid.com/ftarticle0709.jpg

Microsoft launches a tipple for techies

Tonight, a select group will gather in a bar in London’s Soho to quaff a crisp, South African white wine bottled in their honour.

The hand-picked guests toasting the new vintage are not, however, wine connoisseurs but techies. The gathering marks the launch of the Blue Monster Reserve label, created by winery Stormhoek for Microsoft and its employees.

Own-label wine and personalised bottles have become increasingly popular in the corporate world, particularly among investment banks, as gifts to clients and offered to guests of corporate events. The companies hope the corporate vintages will add an air of class and sophistication to their image.

But unlike customised wine bottles given by banks and law firms to clients, this label did not originate in Microsoft’s corporate communications headquarters.

Hugh MacLeod, a cartoonist, blogger and marketing strategist for Stormhoek, created the Blue Monster image after getting to know Microsoft employees.

Mr MacLeod met these “Microsofties” through his day job. “We sponsored a series of ‘geek dinners’ for bloggers and techies in the US and the UK,” he said. “I met a lot of people from Microsoft through these dinners, and they all said the same thing: we want to change the world.

That notion of a kinder, gentler Microsoft is at odds with its cut-throat corporate image. Critics have accused the software giant of abusing its dominant position and of stifling innovation in the industry. In 2003, the European Commission found Microsoft guilty of uncompetitive practices and levied a record €497m ($689m, £342m) fine. The result of its appeal against that decision is due on Monday.

The cartoon of a sharp-toothed blue creature and its tagline, “Microsoft – change the world or go home”, has now been adopted by some Microsoft employees and fans as a symbol of the company’s innovation.

“People see Microsoft as a big, bad corporate monster,” Mr MacLeod said. “Yet all the Microsofties I’ve spoken to say they just want to make great products and do good works. It was obvious that Microsoft had to get better at telling their story.”

“Wine is a social object, and so is the Blue Monster: they both inspire conversation,” he said. “And we thought the cartoon would look really cool on a bottle.”

Steve Clayton, chief technology officer at one of Microsoft’s UK affiliates and a nine-year veteran of the company, said Blue Monster reminded people that Microsoft “has a sense of fun and humour”.

Mr Clayton has been at the forefront of the Blue Monster movement: he uses the image on his business card and is the administrator of a “Friends of Blue Monster” Facebook group.

“[Microsoft’s HQ] has been very supportive of us using the Microsoft name alongside the Blue Monster image,” Mr MacLeod said. It makes sense; they’ve been around for about 30 years and are trying to reinvent themselves to embrace a new generation.”

Blue Monster-branded bottles will be available only to Microsoft and its affiliates. “We have no intention of selling the product outside Microsoft,” said Jason Korman, Stormhoek’s chief executive. “The wine itself only went live last week, and already we’ve had massive interest from different parts of the company.”

Mr Clayton readily admits the Blue Monster movement, despite his involvement, is outside any influence from Microsoft: “[The cartoon] has encouraged a whole new series of conversations by people who are passionate about Microsoft, both internally and externally. Blue Monster is a community which has developed its own distinct identity.”

For Mr MacLeod, the Blue Monster represents a revolution of sorts. “We started an underground movement within Microsoft, and we knew one day the guys in suits would finally take notice. That moment has finally arrived.”

If so, it will be marked in true internet-era style: not with an act of anarchy but a clink of glasses.

 

UK Business Blogging Still Rare – eMarketer

Only 5% of UK corporations use blogs on a regular basis, according to the WebTrends-commissioned “Marketing in the Dark” report, conducted by Loudhouse Research in January 2007.

WebTrends contrasted this finding with the 85% of marketers who thought an effective Web presence was important in achieving sales and marketing objectives.

“Blogging is much more than a ‘nice to have’ in business today,” said Nick Sharp, vice president and general manager of Europe, the Middle East and Africa at WebTrends, in a statement. “Corporate blogs can be very effective communication tools within or on behalf of a corporate community.”

But business blogging is different from other parts of a firm’s Web presence, and companies may have good reason to think twice before pouring out their corporate souls online.

For one, although WebTrends seemed bullish on the idea of business blogging, less than three in 10 UK marketers surveyed were satisfied with blogging’s results. More than one-quarter were dissatisfied, and the remaining respondents were neutral. Many companies aren’t blogging because they are not convinced it works.

There are plenty of business-blog skeptics in the US as well, according to studies by Socialtext and eMarketer. Less than 6% of the Fortune 500 and 2% of the Forbes 200 Best Small Companies blogged in April and June 2006, respectively.

 

Businesses do not have to publish their own blogs to make the medium work for them. Many companies that do not blog still monitor the blogosphere to keep tabs on their reputation.

Companies can also work with existing bloggers to get press for their products or services. Providing content to blogs requires the same respect for tone and forthrightness as would be needed if the company were blogging itself.

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Web 2.0 and ‘the mother principle’

As part of my research, I’m always trying to find new ways of explaining Web 2.0 technologies to small firms. Especially in a clear, confident and easy to understand manner. I’m specifically trying to engage them, into giving some of the technologies a trial run. One of the problems I find is that, most people tend to look lost when I mention ‘RSS’, or ‘blog’.  These are words that most people still do not understand. Though, their understanding is rapidly changing. 

Explaining Social bookmarking, RSS, social networking and wikis is not easy. Therefore, when faced with a situation of conveying the benefits of this stuff. I try to apply, ‘the mother principle’. In order words, would my mum understand it? I figure, that if I can explain it to my mum, then explaining these technologies and their benefits to small firms should be a piece of cake!

I came across the following Common Craft videos, which do a great job of explaining the above. I’ve linked to the Social Bookmarking one already. However, I’ve add the other ones now too. If you need to get a key decision maker up to speed with Web 2.0 technologies. A quick viewing of these videos should make your life a little easier.

As for my mum? She’s just signed up to del.icio.us after watching the first video! I reckon I can get her blogging before Christmas!

 

Social Bookmarking in Plain English

 

Social Networking in Plain English

 

RSS in Plain English

 

Wiki’s in Plain English

Are you Ready To Escape The Rat Race?

 

I met Sarah Rourke a little while ago at a Punch Above Your Weight Workshop. We got talking about blogging and how the platform can be used to tell your business story. Sarah’s an entrepreneur and runs a number of businesses. She’s also very passionate about coaching. 

Well, I’m very pleased to say that Sarah started her blog! Its called the The Rat Race Escape Artist. The blog is dedicated for all souls looking to escape the 9 to 5 of working life and the Rat Race.

Welcome Sarah, to the world’s largest conversation!

Please go check it out

Playing The Meme Game

Following on from Sarah blog, join in on meme game!  I’ve posted my five top web resources.  Why don’t you join the game?

There are Five Rules:

1. MUST be clean. No R rated sites.
2. Only FIVE links.
3. MUST tell 5 people.
4. An active link back to the person who tagged you
5. Laras Place is the meme originator.

My Five Links:

  1. Digg – The place I go for all my tech news
  2. Facebook – The place I go to catch up with the people in my world
  3. BBC – The definitive site on the web
  4. YouTube – For those moments of fun
  5. Apple – Beyond products. A business site that inspires me on so many levels. 

The Value of Social Bookmarking

Hat tip to David Brain, over at the fab Sixty Second Interview.

If you haven’t already tried Social Bookmarking, I suggest you give it a go. In a world of millions of websites, bookmarking useful ones soon becomes difficult to manage. Sites such as Delicious help to solve this problem by ‘tagging’ your favourite sites. This allows for easier retrieval at a later date. Delicious also allows you to share your links with others, say your fellow team members. Check out the video below, for more information.

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When gardening meets Web 2.0 – An interview with Heather Gorringe

 

I interviewed Heather Gorringe from a delightful company called Wiggly Wigglers a little while ago. Heather and her team are avid podcasters and blend a unique mix of home gardening and online promotion through podcasting and blogging. 

I highly recommend that you have a listen to the podcast. Subscribe to the iTunes link here! The highlights of the interview are blogged below.

Q. Why does your business blog and what benefits do you see from blogging?

"Wiggly Wigglers blogs as a direct result of starting a podcast in September 2005. We originally started a conversation via an audio file, and felt that a blog would be a really good backup to our podcast. The blog allows our listeners to post questions and also to get involved with the company. In fact, it brings us innumerable benefits. First of all, it raises our Google rankings. Secondly, we have people connecting to us from all over the world, which gives us global word of mouth marketing. But also, it enables us to update our website really easily, efficiently and helps us to be much more user friendly. So, we can put up answers to questions that would previously have been dealt with on an individual basis and still can be. But there’s the added resource online for people to delve into. Perhaps, for those who aren’t likely to ask questions but who do actually want to know the answers".

Q. How has the Web today changed for small businesses?

"I think the web has often been used as a tool to disguise the size of your business. For example, when I first started online in 1996, we missed off the word farm in our promotion. In those days, it was all about small companies being able to compete on a level playing field with the corporates. Almost as if, to be big made you better. But I think it’s now completely around the other way now. I think that niche, is the way that people want you to be and it’s perfectly acceptable however small you are. In fact, transparency and honesty to me are the revelations of Web 2.0, compared to what I call the ‘conventional web’. It makes everybody level on the playing field. You know all about the company and where they are. But, you don’t necessarily judge it on size any more. You are judged on customer service, communication and great products. So, we have come full circle and instead of not mentioning farm as we did in the early days. Now, the farm is used as a serious marketing tool. Mainly because its part of us and people want to buy from people, not just buy products as far as I can see".

Q. How do you measure podcast downloads that translate into direct sales?

"Everyone always asks this question! What I do know is that my podcast is being downloaded all the time and I figure that if you are going to download it, you are probably likely to be interested in what I’m doing. So I already have a warm relationship and a warm prospect there. Regarding direct sales, I just can’t tell you. Mainly, because our customers reach us from a variety of different ways. So for instance, they’ll say I listened to your podcast, but I read about you in the Daily Telegraph. Over the past two years, I’ve smashed my advertising budget and my job is to get between two and half to three thousands prospects a month. I’m still achieving that without spending much extra money. I’m spending time, effort, ingenuity and having genuine conversations with people like you".

"I’m trying to engage people, so that our customers go out and tell other people about our business. I know that what we are doing, is working very well for us. Maybe it will dry up? Maybe it will change? But I think the way people buy, is to get them to be enthusiastic. I’ve always thought, people don’t buy on price. They buy on whether or not they care about what you are doing. So, all I have to do is to make you care and hopefully we will get your business! I don’t think people care about advertising anymore".

"What used to make products great used to be the advertising budget you had. I don’t think that’s the case anymore. I do think it’s all about goodwill. Our job is to keep goodwill with our customers, readers and listeners. Not only does that involve encouraging a conversation to find out what others think. But also, to make sure that if we have got that goodwill, that they bother to tell other people and that’s the difficult thing".

Q. Apart from podcasting and blogging, what other tools do you use?

"We use Google Adwords to promote the company. Over the past two years, I have gradually reduced our conventional advertising budget to virtually nil. It did stand at over £110,000 per year, which is a very considerable change for this company. We’ve achieved this process very gradually, month by month. People say to us that must have put £110,000 on your bottom line. I wish I could say it had, but it hasn’t. Its not like we’ve saved that money completely, but we’ve certainly made major differences to our profit and also our spend. It’s completely changed the way we operate".

"With regards to the other tools that we use, a lot of what we do is to comment on other people’s blogs and use social networking in that way. But, we also send out a regular e-newsletter. I haven’t got a Squidoo lens but that is next on my list. I think they are wonderful. We have recently setup a Facebook group and we are in the very early days with that. I have found that to be really exciting! We have just started our first two videocasts, the most recent one has so far had about 7,000 viewings, which I’m really pleased about".

"Regarding the expense, compared to any other form of marketing that I can think of including normal word of mouth marketing. This new media, just doesn’t even compare. It’s so inexpensive compared to other forms of communication because it’s just so efficient. Our commitment to this form of media is such, that from next week we’ll have one of our team dedicating three hours of her day to blogging".

Q. How much feedback do you get from your readers/listeners?

"I think we are probably the first company who put their podcasts on their answer phone. So, if you are on hold to Wiggly Wigglers, you will hear a little bit of the podcast. We have over thirty reviews on Apple’s iTunes UK podcast page and they are all 5 five stars. So, we do get feedback but personally, I don’t take too much notice of it".

"I figure that the feedback you are going to get is probably from one extreme. I don’t want us to become diluted by the loudest voice. So, we carry on in our own sweet way really. We are on a mission rather than trying to react to every bit of feedback. We do generally try to acknowledge it however".

Q. What have been the major barriers in the adoption of Web 2.0 tools?

"I’m the founder of the company. So when I listen to my first podcast that was in June 2005. I found out about the Podcast conference in September 2005. I went on the Saturday, I made the podcast on the following Wednesday and I put it out on the Friday. So it was within days. I got the help from our web guy, who had been a sound engineer in a former life. Therefore, there were no technical problems for me to overcome. If I hadn’t had him, I would have had no clue about how to work out the RSS feeds etc. I guess I was lucky in that sense. I then went to the team and said, I want to divert some money from our advertising budget to this, because I believe that it will be miles better. So we did ten shows, I figured I needed to give it a proper chance. So there wasn’t really a barrier".

"The barriers that I find now are getting people to understand the importance of social media within the company. I find it is important for me to keep up with it all. But things like Facebook are so user friendly, that it gives me a real heart. Because I think that those things will win through. If I can work them, then it’s likely my audience and my customers can also work them. If I can’t work them, I figure they probably can’t either".

Q. What are your concerns in using Web 2.0 tools?

"Well, as in everything else in life, if you put yourself up, you are more likely to get shouted down. If there was someone who wasn’t in agreement with what you were doing, there may be a risk of exposing yourself and your business globally to nutters. My concerns regarding Facebook as a platform, are that the people who run Facebook have got a lot of statistics regarding people’s political views etc".

"As a company and as a leader, your whole point is to change the way people think. My passion is to change the way people think about their gardens and the spaces outside their houses. So, the more ways I can change people’s thinking, the better. I guess if you Google Wiggly Wigglers, you’ll probably get perhaps a thousand positives and maybe one negative about something. A further concern is that there’s so much good stuff out there. I have to cut down the podcasts I listen to, because of time".

"I don’t worry about competitors because I figure, as we have a fairly loyal base, they will always stick up for you and so I don’t worry about that at all. If a competitor starts blogging, that will just raise the profile of the whole thing. Rural businesses and farms have a great story to tell. There are tons of ways now to get your message across, whether it’s through a podcast or a YouTube video".

"It makes me laugh so much when the corporates say we don’t believe in it, we’ve got nothing to say, it’s too difficult to do, we have to get approval or, we’ve got the lawyers to think of. I think fantastic, don’t do it! Because there are tons of small businesses out there that are better than you, but haven’t got the large corporate advertising spend. Small businesses can use Web 2.0 tools cheaply and get a foothold in the market. I don’t care about the corporates, I care about people who have a passion for their business and that’s usually the smaller people. So, I just think that its completely going to change that way that we operate, as long as the small business gets to understand it quickly enough".

IM on the Enterprise 2.0 hot list

Hat tip to Read/WriteWeb

A new Forrester report states that Instant Messenging (IM) is by far the most valuable ‘web 2.0’ tool for enterprises.

The report was compiled based on feedback from 275 IT decision-makers. Other than IM, the report found that RSS and podcasting showed “the highest average business value”, while social networking and blogging showed the lowest. RSS is mostly being used in enterprises for corporate communications or content aggregation, while only one in three Forrester respondents uses RSS for external marketing purposes.

In terms of measuring the success of web 2.0 tools, Forrester states that most firms use traditional value measurement techniques like ROI and total cost of ownership (TCO). The most popular benefits cited by IT leaders are ‘soft’ benefits like business efficiency and competitive advantage. All of this indicates that Web 2.0 is still very difficult to measure.

I’m surprised on two counts regarding Forrester’s research. Firstly how significantly large firms are discarding blogging as providing ‘substantial value’. Secondly, the 21% figure on the value of podcasting.

Is audio, really mightier than the typed word?