Most of the pics I post to Twitpic go out on Facebook too and I get on average about 30 to 40 hits, however a recent upload went totally off the scale! Readers might have heard about the recent controversy involving British Petroleum (BP) when they released a poorly Photoshopped (edited) image to the media depicting a BP monitoring room where workers were keeping an eye on the oil leak. The image was edited to make it look like they were a little busier than they actually were but it wasn’t a great job!

I spotted a link from Wired magazine on Twitter asking for members of the design community to have a go at altering the original BP photo for the laugh and to see if they could do a better job than the botched BP one so I gave it a bash, seeing a good oportunity to get my Photoshop skills some coverage and maybe get some work in considering the Twitpic links to my main Twitter account with all my business info and web links attached!

Here’s the result below depicting some ‘alternative/lighter viewing’ in the BP control room and here’s my Twitpic with stats (currently 17,864 hits):

Live May 2010 – www.IdealDoors.ie

What do you do?

The total number of respondents who started the survey was 1,145.  Of these respondents, 829 completed the survey.  This constitutes an overall survey response rate of 72.4%.  However, a quota sample of 376 was determined to be sufficient for the research at hand and so this amount was utilised for the research based on the judgement of the researcher as,

In quota sampling researcher judgement is used in establishing the categories and choosing the sample from the categories

(Wrenn et al., 2002, p.167).

Findings from the survey highlight the following key statistics:

Overall:

• 73% of respondents use SNSs to connect with current friends, 65% to connect with old friends and 28% to make new friends.
• 67% of respondents either agreed or strongly agreed that the SNS they were most active on had become an important method of communication for them.
• Facebook is the SNS that respondents had been most active on in the last 30 days (53%)
• 30% of respondents had over 200 friends on their most active SNS, 25% between 100 and 199 friends, 20% between 50 and 99 friends, with 25% detailing they had less than 50 friends on their most active SNS.
• 84% of respondents have joined a group on a SNS.
• 51% of respondents have visited a company profile page on a SNS.
• 26% of respondents have completely public profiles on their most active SNS.
• 22% of respondents have had a negative experience on their SNS, which include viruses, unwanted friend requests, spam, online predators and bullying.

Product and Marketing Findings:

• 17% of respondents make comments to friends about products on SNSs.
• 37% of respondents agreed or strongly agreed that they would make comments to their friends on the SNSs about products if that product was of interest to them.
• 52% of respondents outlined that when a person is a close friend offline, they are influential on a SNS, 40.7% highlighted that they are influential when they are members of their family.
• 51% of respondents explained that they would discuss products with friends on a SNS to provide friends with product information relevant to them and 41% to voice their opinion.
• 40% of respondents have clicked on an advertisement on a SNS.
• 24% of respondents with agreed or strongly agreed that SNSs have become over-commercialised.
• 57% of respondents highlighted that they notice advertisements on SNSs but 53% detailed that they do not like the presence of advertisements on their SNS.  Furthermore 43% of respondents noted that they do not trust advertisements on SNSs.

Many thanks to all those who took part in the survey.  It is greatly appreciated and contributed significantly to my research.

Sarah Diffley

If you would like to contact Sarah in relation to these survey results, please leave a comment.

Leon.

I’ve only relatively recently got into the habit of asking enquirers where they found me but I can honestly only account for a very small handful of direct sales from my precence and activity on sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin, The IIA, etc..

I realize that there are other conversion factors ranging from; my market (whether there still is one or not!?), increased competition,  my website usability and ability to convert enquiries but should all of my efforts to brand myself as a professional, accessible and affordable design service provider not account for a little more return?

Off the top of my head I’d say I probably spend a few hours each day reading posts and engaging on Facebook and Twitter especially. I even check these sites first before email these days! I do get lots of great, free info but inevitably I get drawn into entertaining but ultimitately non business related conversations with people I barely know or people who are never ikely to be clients. Result? Time I could and should be spending actually working or maybe learning something new is possibly wasted.

I think these are things I and lots of other social media marketing exponents are going to have to think hard about and try to accurately measure in the near future as the initial social media furore passes.

Leon

For a start, it has to be mentioned that no website can ever be as well trafficked as the likes of Facebook so it makes sense to be where everybody is. I used to always say this about eBay to people who wanted to sell online, ie – go where the people are buying then try drag them back to your own site.

I’ve heard it said that your own site could never match the technology on Facebook etc but I disagree. Even a freely avaible and simple system like wordpress can emulate live blogging, commenting, video/photo sharing and social functions through the likes of Buddypress and various other plugins and templates. There’s also plugins to show Facebook Like buttons and Badges on your site and to export your site news or blog directly to Facebook and Twitter automatically so good connections can be made between Facebook and your own web precence.

I find a lot of my recent clients are aware of the fact that their own sites can be made communicate with Social Media sites and they specifically request this functionality when enquiring. I’ve not had any drop their sites or go with a Facebook page only yet.

Another important consideration is that while Facebook may be king of the hill at the minute, that may not always be the case. Who is to say in 3 years time that it won’t be shut down (possibly over privacy issues!?) or introduce fees or just succomb to a new site on the block. What happens to all your data and customer interaction in this case?

Also, with your own site you will always have full control over the likes of design, content and privacy, choosing exactly how you want it to work for you. As of now, there are no easy ways to capture specific customer data or sell products from Facebook but this is easy to do on your own site through forms and carts, etc..

The old online branding advice of avoiding the usage of freely available email addresses like @eircom.net or @yahoo.ie in favour of a professional business address like @your-company.com also applies in that people may think less of you for only bothering to have a freely available Facebook page rather than a professional custom web precence.

In short I think the way forward is to connect people’s sites with their business precence on the social media portals and not just decide on one or the other. At this point, as a web designer, I’m not too worried.

Leon.

• Website – No alerts. Feature light.
• Hootsuite – No notifications for replies, dm’s only. Slightly slow as it runs in a browser. No visual marking of read/unread tweets. No sync with iPhone.
• Twhirl – Buggy. Keeps showing tweets as unread on startup. No Reply all. No iPhone app.
• Echofon – Almost featureless Firefox plugin.
• Tweetdeck – Too large a footprint on the PC and hard to read.
• Twitteriffic – No PC client.
• Tweetie – No PC client.
• Seesmic – No iPhone client. No Multiple accounts. No lasting highlighting of unread tweets.
• TwitBird – No PC client.

Here’s a list of specs I’d like to see:

• NB Proper syncing between Desktop and iPhone versions of the same client. I really need stuff I’ve already read on the PC to be marked read on the iPhone app and vice versa.
• Ease of use and visually minimalist.
• Fast.
• Highlight unread and Reply tweets.
• Scroll to first unread tweet.
• Control over notifications, ie – audio & visual push alerts.
• Preview Short url’s.
• Multiple accounts.
• Select account to tweet from on each new tweet.
• Show quick profile, stats and follow/unfollow links.
• Quick links to Reply, DM users.
• Favorite following.
• Auto shortlinking.
• Tweet audio, video and photos.
• Tweet and link stats.
• Text compression.
• Sync with Outlook address book.
• Filtering – see replies, dm’s only.
• Auto suggest Twitter handles and Hashtags when composing.
• Advanced search for tweets and Profiles.
• Geotagging.
• Send to Facebook, Linked, etc..on each new tweet.
• Schedule tweets.
• iPhone Autosave on exit.
• Conversation Threads

Please correct anything I may have got wrong above or point me to my ideal Twitter client!

Leon.

I’m personally noticing a big increase in Foursquare usage among my friends and online contacts and the whole Location Based/Geo Tagging networking area is big news at the min. Here’s how it works in simple language:

Sign up at Foursquare.com and search for venues or add your own. These venues can then be found by others searching Foursquare from either the website or on their mobile phone and they can “Check In” and/or leave reviews and tips. Actions such as checking in or leaving tips can then be shared among the users friends both on Foursquare itself and on other networks such as Facebook and Twitter.

The benefit of this is pretty obvious if you are say a coffee shop or restaurant. A Foursquare user checks in, leaves a positive review and potentially hundreds of his friends see this review. There’s a good chance at least a few of them will drop by to check out the establishment for themselves.

Also, by claiming ownership of a business listed on Foursquare, you can access additional features such as offering specials for frequest visitors and visitor stats, further promoting your venue. You can also of course link to your venue on your website or Facebook page, etc..

As for all the scaremongering about people checking in on Foursquare and thus alerting cyber criminals that they’ve left an empty house behind, ready to rob – Bull. It’s a bit of a leap to think that A: Criminals will bother to find the exact property and travel to it and B: Presume that there’s no one else apart from the Foursqare user (or his rabid dogs!?) living there too.

Here’s my business on Foursquare! http://foursquare.com/venue/2509033

Here’s another interesting post re Foursquare – http://conoroneill.net/location-based-marketing-ireland-and-foursqua

Leon.

I got addicted to the show and Gerry’s style pretty quickly and the hours from 9am to 12pm flew by as the show’s eclectic and often controversial topics generated heated discussion among my co-workers, some amazed at his direct style and ‘potty mouth’, others annoyed by him constantly interrupting his guests! The rest of the day crawled after he went off air.

In recent years, it’s been the custom in my house to get out of bed, come down to the kitchen and turn on the radio before anything else. It kinda kickstarts the day to hear what’s going on in the world with Gerry’s paper reviews or hear a bit of music and if the radio wasn’t set to 2FM then I’d tune it until I could hear Gerry’s voice.

It’s always very peculiar when a celebrity dies. Why the hell are we so affected by it (me included) even though the deceased has absolutely nothing to do with us!? In Gerry’s case it’s a bit different since you could say he was practically in the room with us every day, live. His voice and personality were also larger then life and dying just didn’t seem like the kinda thing he would do.

I’ll miss your show Gerry and I’ll be affected by the change to my routine as will thousands of others.

Enjoy the afterlife as you obviously enjoyed living.

Leon.

What John said was to “Tackle a Frog” every day or to tackle your frogs first thing each morning or at the begining of your week. His definition of a Frog is a task that you constantly put off because it’s one you simply don’t like doing. Putting these things off leaves them hanging over you like a dark cloud and creates a negative and stressful environment.

Conversly, if you get them out of the way early in the day or week the dark cloud lifts and your mood lifts along with it. The sense of relief and achievment in getting the nasties out of the way and leaving only the nicer tasks to be done sets you up nicely. This works well for me for everything from making invoice chasing calls to cleaning the house!

Try it for yourself for a while and see how different you feel. I’m deliberately posting this early Monday morning so you can try it out at the begining of the week!

Leon.

Posted via email from Reverb Studios’s Posterous

I dream of the day we’ll have the same upload speed as download!

Check your actual up and down speeds here www.SpeedTest.net

For example, the last few revisions/designs of my main business website www.ReverbStudios.ie have been purposely different from most other web design sites. I’ve ignored the rules of always using bright pastel colors in favor of darkness and I’ve tried to have different copy and content preferring to personalise the language instead of the usual corporate bullshit. Plenty of clients have told me that my site stuck in their head because it was a bit different and they chose me when they needed work done for that reason.

With that in mind I’ve hatched a cunning plan to make my personal self more interesting and memorable at business meetings and networking events. The pictures below should explain all!

Have fun in life and work, business doesn’t have to be so dour all the time..

[View with PicLens]

The weird thing is that it was fairly calm and sunny only minutes before and we were thinking of going out with the dogs and baby. My partner said it got dark really quick, start lashing with hailstones and severe winds then minutes later it was calm and sunny again! I even thought it might have been some nuclear type wind!

Scary global warming…

Leon.

Today I rang O2 support to see if they had any other ideas on what to do and thankfully they had! I had totally forgotten that there are a whole serious of Divert codes you can use with mobile and one in particular is a redirect/divert when your mobile is unreachable or turned off. I now have this setup to redirect to my land line whenever there’s no signal as it kinda comes and goes in the new house. This is more efficient than a full/permanent redirect and should cover me whenever and wherever I am out of coverage.

Here’s the full list of O2 Divert codes:

• To divert all of your calls: ** 21 * divert number #
• To divert all calls when not reachable (phone off/no coverage): ** 62 * divert number #
• To divert all calls when you are busy (on another call): ** 67 * divert number #
• To divert all calls which you don’t pick up (mobile is ringing out): ** 61 * divert number #
• 3 in 1 divert (phone turned off, on another call or ringing out): ** 004 * divert number #

To cancel a divert option press ##002# and then the “send” / “call” button.

Simply adding a code above (including the cancel one) as a new contact and calling when required is an easy way to use this service but I don’t see myself turning it off ever now.

* PS – Call diverts are charged to your mobile as if you rang the divert number yourself. Your inclusive monthly minutes cannot be used.

Leon.

Fine normally, I’m open to different views and criticisms but what if they want something that is clearly wrong or what if they presume to know better than me even though they’ve presumably hired me for my expertise!?

Should I stand my ground or let the client ruin the site and have my name on crap? Is the customer always right?

Vote now..

Leon.

Address Updates:

You will probably need to contact the following a week or 2 before your move in order to change your address details on file. I’ve included the organization/bill name, how to contact them and other relevant details beside each listed item. (This list is based on my own utility setup and might not include all companies.)

• Bank of Ireland Bank Accounts/Visa/Loans – You’ll need to visit your home branch or put details in a letter (Company headed paper for Business accounts).
• Permanent TSB – Over the phone.
• House/Car Insurance – Phone as close to moving day as possible. You may be able to change your details online too.
• Car Tax/NCT – Send in your amended License certificate (VLC). Changes will automatically go to the NCT office within a week or 2.
• ESB – Ring in meter reading and close old account the day you move out of old house. Ring in readings and open new account in new house soon as you move in.
• Eircom/Broadband – Ring in to move your account. Takes about a week to switch on a line int he new house and activate broadband. You will loose your number if you’re switching exchanges.
• O2/Mobile – Should be able to change online or ring.
• Tesco Clubcard – Phone or email.
• Sky - Phone in details. You might have to install equipment at the new address and update your landline with them.
• Health Board/Hospital/Doctor – Phone in new details.
• Oil/Gas – Phone in details. You may also have to give meter readings in old and new addresses and open/close accounts.
• Vets/Dog licenses – Phone in new details to receive license and immunization notices. An Post issue dog licence reminders.
• Revenue/Tax – Phone or post in details to your local tax office.
• TV License – Email or phone your local head post office.
• Life Insurance – Phone the insurance company or your bank if with them as part of a mortgage.
• Business – Update your address with all clients who have outstanding bills.
• Website – If you’re in business and have a website don’t forget to update your contact details anywhere they appear online (Google yourself!).
• eBay/Paypal – If you use either of these services, it’s very important you change your address quickly to receive goods and payments.

Tips:

• Dump stuff you don’t need before moving (we will definitely do this next time!).
• Write out a list of things to do well in advance of moving.
• Change to paperless billing to make address changes less required.
• Start picking up cardboard boxes from local shops well in advance.
• Book your van and help if required a few weeks before. Having a van is invaluable and not too expensive.
• Move essential stuff like beds, food, etc.. last.
• Clean the old house if rented as best you can to improve the chances of getting your deposit back!

Hope this all helps.

Leon.

the most important readers of your Twitter Business posts are the Search Engines

Here’s my own conflicting and simple opinion on the best way to use Twitter:

1. READ other people’s tweets and get excellent and relevant info for free.
2. Return the favor and give your own valuable content to your followers.
3. Interact with people on Twitter and make valuable friends and business connections.
4. Brand your business effectively.

I think the above will guarantee longer lasting benefits to your business than simply hammering twitter for SERPS although this is beneficial too of course! Google has publicly stated that it will be indexing ‘live’ content from social networks even more in the near future. Here’s a recent article from the Google Blog about this:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/relevance-meets-real-time-web.html

What’s your opinion?

I believe Blogging, Tweeting and Facebook status updating is one big ego trip. What better validation of one’s self can there be than sending out a message to hundreds of listeners and having them ‘Like this’, Retweet or comment positively on it!?

The Parallels between social networking and organized religion are hard to ignore in my opinion. With most networking sites like Twitter and Facebook, etc..its’ all about Following people and spreading messages. Followers could otherwise be referred to as disciples who subscribe to the preachings of the Blogger/Messianic figure and by aggreeing with his views and reccommending to others thus follow his particular Gospel.

Then there’s the networking or connecting aspect which is akin to joining a group or Cult which has in place as it’s leader the group founder or Moderator.

Summation? Social Networking is the newest Religion!

Leon

Well done guys.

In the morning I caught Damien Mulley’s talk on the benefits of Social/Online Media and although I’m fairly heavily involved in this area already there was plenty to learn, proved by all the notes I took! The new idea is that you have to “earn” your online space and give great value in return for followers, connections, search rankings and sales leads.

Damien covered the basic and advanced reasoning and features behind the likes of Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin and gave some great stats on just how important and effective this whole area has become for businesses.

Of particular interest to me was when Damien spoke about the amount of targeting you can do in both Facebook Ads and also Status updates. It was also nice to hear him suggest that websites weren’t a thing of the past just yet and that they need to be optimized correctly. His movie and comments (below) on exactly where people look in Google search results was sobering. It seems if you’re not in the top 4 or 5 then forget it!

Following a nice lunch and catch up with an old friend in The Cedar Tree Lebanese restaurant it was over to Trinity (slightly drunk!) for the well attended and anticipated Dublin Web Summit.

Matt Mullenweg's Nexus One Photo!

Matt Mullenweg’s appearance at the summit was what brought me to Dublin from Leitrim. How could I not go see and hear the man who has revolutionized my business!? He created and continues to work on my CMS of choice, WordPress. A legend. He didn’t disappoint either with a lively talk and fantastic shoes! He was responsible for one of the quotes of the night – “Learn to code. Scripting is the new literacy.” I hope to take up that particular challenge.

The summit was interesting, inspiring and educational with excellent and entertaining talks from all speakers and was well chaired by RTE’s Mark Little. Craig Newmark of Craigs List said: “We need a business culture that doesn’t stigmatise failure,”. Final and best quote of the night came from Wired UK’s editor, Ben Hammersley who said: “Whatever you do, make it Beautiful”.

Off to change the world now!

Leon.

1. Domain or Website Address Renewal
2. Website Hosting

You never actually own your web site address you just rent it for periods but once you are renting it no one else can have it.

Your hosting is also rented and this is basically website space you rent so the files/pages (and emails) on your site have somewhere to exist and be shown to the world.

You need to make sure you pay these bills as soon as the invoice comes in because if you don’t and possibly without warning, your web address could expire automatically and your site will go down. If it’s expired longer than the few weeks grace period you get then you’ll be faced with a hefty bill to recover it. If you wait a couple more months you can avoid the hefty bill and your address might come back up for registration but anyone else could buy it too. All this time your site will be down.

NB – Don’t rely on your web or hosting company to pay the bill on your behalf, sort things out for you or chase you too much for the money. They will often have a lot less to lose than you if your site goes down.

I personally have a policy of not paying to renew clients domains/hosting until I receive payment first.

Leon.

I would highly recommend starting your own business, especially in the current climate. You know it’s unlikely you’ll ever be happy in your 9 to 5, doing the same thing day in day out and all for the benefit of someone else. Working for yourself means no more boss looking over your shoulder, no more restrictions on your time, no more journey times (if you can work at home!), no more repetition (self employment is never boring!). However you might also be saying goodbye to a regular wage and some security!

Here’s the best advice I can give to anyone unhappy in their current job and dreaming of working for themselves..

For a start I’d recommend not starting any old business on the basis that “there’s money in it”. You might make a lot of money relatively quickly but eventually, if it’s not something you like doing, then you will loose interest and might end up in the same situation as in your old day job.

Sit down and think about what you like doing best in life or what you know most about (normally the same thing) and investigate if you can possibly make money out of it. If your main hobby is Tiddlywinks maybe it might not be so obvious but who’s to say there isn’t a gap int he market for new Tiddlywinks games!?

Next, approach your local Enterprise center and ask for some startup support. They’ll probably help you write a business plan which is a tedious job but it helps you think through your business and see where it might head. They should also help with identifying a target market and supplying training courses to help you gain the skills you might need.

Consider giving away very cheaply or even freely your first few products/services just to get them out there and of course try to generate some publicity everywhere you can especially online.

Working for yourself is definitely not the easier option but of course if it works out it will be far more rewarding in the long run. Who wouldn’t love to be working for themselves, from home at something they love!?

Leon.

Credit to Sergio Palumbo for compilation.

Enjoy!

Beatles Complete Guitar

Over the last few months since the site was launched it has generated more and more traffic. Here are some stats for the past couple of months:

I’d like to offer a 30% discount on the Advertising Rates to both my Leitrim Based clients and members of the Leitrim Business Network. You can Contact Me if you are interested in this offer or require further information.

Advertising online is fast becoming the most efficient way to spend marketing resources and having an ad on a well trafficked and relevant site like AboutLeitrim.ie should be very useful.

Regards,

Leon.

www.thewebdesignblog.co.uk/web-resources/share-your-web-design-prices-anonymously

I’m glad to say I’m way below the average cost of a finished site and about the average for hourly rates!!

What do you think?

Most photos courtesy of Tony Beattie

[View with PicLens]

On this occasion I personally think we are showing ourselves to be bad losers and moaners and we’ve jumped on an easy reason for the ultimate failure of the qualifying campaign. Where were we in the first match in Dublin and where were we for all the other games!? And why didn’t we take some chances and nail the French when we had them on the ropes last night? The RTE panel got it right when they pointed out 2 things – 1. What if we had handled it? & 2. Henry didn’t plan to handle it, it was a reflex action…

What’s your opinion!?