Social Network survey - to pay or not to pay?

I Recently conducted a small, limited sample survey on some of our members to look at general views regarding subscription memberships to niche community sites. The findings weren't exactly unpredictable, but were insightful in the power ferocity with which views were expressed.

When asked how members felt about being asked to pay for something they originally were receiving for free, the response was fairly unanimous -
"it would be an extremely poor choice to charge for a fledgling service that was once free. rupert murdoch is proposing to start charging for internet news sites to make them cost effective. with the plethora of sites available for free he is just guaranteeing that his customers seek alternatives - damn it where is spellchecker!"

"think the difficulty with charging for an online community like ***** is that people can get the same stuff and same services elsewhere for free- with twitter, facebook etc etc. I probably wouldn't want to pay a subscription for it as I feel like with a bit of research I could find the stuff on there myself..."

"I would unsubscribe"

But when asked how they would feel about paying and receiving MORE (more being left open to interpretation) the tone changed a bit:

"the benefit would have to be tangible and almost universally attractive to each customer regardless of preference. any fee no matter how notional creates a barrier between the customer and the provider that is hard to overcome. when supermarkets charge for carrier bags, albeit only a penny, people will prefer to save the money and carry their goods. it is not the actual cost as it is miniscule, rather the knowledge that one is spending more than they need to. in poole town centre a £1 shop opended. several months later a 90p shop opened opposite and the 99p shop actually closed as all their customers sought the cheaper alternative."

"Of course, that is better but again it would really depend on what I would be getting and how frequently I would use it."

"I would be interested to find out what the value of the subscription would be, it would have to justify itself."


So the challenge is, if you are considering moving to a "freemium" model or subscription based service, to clearly distinguish between what is for Free and what has enough perceived value and use to be deemed chargeable. Not only is it about quality though. Timing is key, as timing could be the difference between a commodity or an item of great personal relevance, value and demand.

Interestingly, when asked what types of things people would perceive as Premium upgrade benefits, i.e. something worth a subscription fee, a high percentage (73%) voted for "exclusive discounts", whereas 66.7% voted for Free Stuff. This demonstrates, while not a significant difference between the two, that there is an inherent propensity to buy (with discounts) over getting freebies, largely due to the realistic idea that you get what you pay for, and what you don't, well frankly, it's hit and miss.

In fact, many of the comments about freebies were mixed - people like to receive a nice surprise for sure, if it is relevant and of intrinsic value to them personally - TIP: put someone's initials or name on something and it immediately becomes personally valuable, otherwise it ends up as landfill and the hidden environmentalist within us surfaces and attacks the freebie giver for their wastage. Ungrateful so & so's. No not really. It is easy to litter the planet and pepper valuable members of communities with free guff and people know this, so you must adhere to the three R's - Relevant, Relevancy, Relevance.

Is it a sign of the economic times that the members view on using subscriptions to raise money for charitable causes is not entirely supportive (<20%). Or is the question mark purely over the medium of collection - lacking creativity and inspiration? An interesting side topic.

And so how much is a "sensible" amount to charge for a member subscription? A significantly high proportion in comparison with any other suggestions, was £1-3.00 per month. This may not seem like a lot, and in reality, it probably isn't. It does signify the mental barrier you have to get over to move a free member to paying subscriber, not to mention the amount of comparable value to must deliver month on month, year on year, in return for this.

Is it worth it? It depends. It depends obviously on the size of your community. If you've got a half decent sized community, you're probably looking at 100,000 members. So that's £100,000 - £300,000 per month in revenue. That's a solid mainstay of cash every month which not only can you reinvest, spend, keep your bank manager happy with, but you can also borrow against such a solid revenue stream. This may hinder your growth, however, if you are not of a suitable size and you have limited capital to spend on promotion, marketing and member recruitment.

Perhaps you should consider other options for obtaining revenue directly out of your members, such as tip jars - a way to reward content providers, virtual or synthetic currency systems, or even affiliate partnerships where your community benefits from the spending habits of your members.

My favourite is the virtual currency and tip jar methods, and we are going to look at implementing that on Fidgetstick/ If you've got any tips on that, let me know!

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Social Media tools for your Business - Part 2 - Twitter

If there’s one word that is on the lips of every internet marketer or internet guru, CEO or SEO, intern or established internet veteran; it’s Twitter.

The hottest property on the internet right now, it has provoked immense debate over the site’s likely effectiveness in the long term versus its obvious impact in the short term. Furthermore, comparisons with the mighty Facebook and even Google put the fairly new and rising star of internet media and darling of the rich and famous, firmly in the spotlight.

But what does twitter offer the sports industry and your company? Is it worth investing in as part of your marketing mix? How effective can it be? What are the risks?

Well, firstly and quite importantly, Twitter is free. OK, so we all expect to be able to use such tools for free as if it were our common right, but the fact is that this is no different and so removes one of the most significant obstacles we may face when deploying or even testing new technology to our companies every day processes.

Contrary to some reports, it’s also damn easy to use. All you need is a mobile phone or internet connection, the interface is clean and simple, and because the API is open to developers, there are loads of different 3rd party applications you can use to make your Twitter experience even more effective. I’ve tested a few, but my firm favourite currently being used at Fidgetstick/ is TweetDeck, which is available both on the iPhone and for your Desktop.

TweetDeck allows you to view and use multiple Twitter accounts in one easy to navigate interface (it also has Facebook integration too!). You download a piece of software to your desktop, sign in and BAM! You’re off and running. You can choose to view all updates, # tags, @ replies, RT retweets (I’ll explain more about these in the next blog post).

In all, I have 4 twitter accounts (having “streamlined” my profile pool down from 7), the main ones being Fidgetstick/ - for site updates, general communication, promoting the culture and appeal of the network; Fidgetstick/ Shopkeeper – for news relating to new products, exclusive offers, discounts, promotions and shop competitions and R3trosteve – my personal updates, interesting social media, my personal activities and views; along with a kind of separate private account. Imagine having to sign in and out every time I wanted to post a tweet on a different account!

Owning and operating multiple accounts is not uncommon, as it is all about being relevant and targeted to your audience. If you have different areas of your life and business and different agendas within those, then having multiple split personalities is much better than dumping everything into one profile and asking your followers to sift through the wreckage to find what they want or need. It is one sure fire way to LOSE followers. And that is the key to Twitter success.

So, for example, we differentiate between our main Fidgetstick/ profile to that of the Shopkeeper. The main reason being that the essence of the Fidgetstick/ community is that the shop is a value added resource for our members and that by being a member, you benefit from exclusive deals and offers you wouldn’t get elsewhere. We do not exist as a member network purely to move stock.

We categorically and emphatically believe that our shop should not lead the discussion, as this leads to a conflict of interest and confusion in our new and prospective members. Confusion = uncertainty and uncertainty = less action and less action = less members. And so we try not to mix the communication and therefore avoid such confusion.

By doing this we can concentrate equally on of each of these areas, without compromising the others message or value. Some people only follow Fidgetstick/, some only follow the Shopkeeper and some follow both, and that is fine. That’s as it is intended because you have to appreciate that you cannot satisfy everyone if you are truly focussed on your core message.

So what does this mean for your business? Let’s say you are a small, niche brand who has limited budget for marketing and looking to increase brand awareness, communicate your company culture and key messages to as wide an audience as possible. Have you considered Twitter as a medium? Well, perhaps you should, and here’s how you could do it…

1. Create a “Corporate Profile” – this will be professional, on brand, on message and relevant to the “business” side of your corporate personality. You tweet about company updates, new products and ranges, staff updates, marketing messages. A couple of things to point out here; 1) I’m not saying you should use this profile to sell stuff. Spammy hard sell “check out these products” and “buy this” just won’t cut it in the online marketing world. 2) It need not be boring. Your corporate communication should still impart the personality of the company, and so the tweets should be interesting, relevant, informative and of value to your followers. After all, they have selected to follow you because, at some point, they found that you met a need that they had at that point in time. The problem is, that it is very easy for you to be “unfollowed” if you fail to continue to meet that need. Try posting links to articles about your new eco-range of products and how the cradle to grave process impacts the environment, try generating consumer buzz by posting links to competitions for people design their own garments, or invites to talks, seminars or local events. Be creative. Be interesting. Be informative.
2. Create a “Personal Profile” – this will be an evolution of the corporate brand, a transformation into what the brand means to you as an individual. You may gasp in horror at the thought of this, but it is an effective way to communicate things that are a little more “off-the-wall” and perhaps not relevant to your company, but as they maybe relevant and personal to you, they have a different kind of value. Your company’s culture and values will be highly influenced by your own views, beliefs and interests – so don’t shy away from them. Just find the right time and the right place to make the most of them.
3. Encourage your staff to do this too. Effective management would recognise that they’re likely to have a personal profile anyway, so your efforts in trying to control this are futile. Your staff live the brand and their feedback and input can be of immense value to your business and your customers. Obviously, disillusioned and morale bashed staff are a risk, but no more of a risk than them being disillusioned and of low morale in the first instance. Do not think, not for one second, that if you do not plan and deploy this kind of strategy, that it won’t just happen anyway – such is the accessibility of these online communication tools.
4. Interaction between all of these.
• If you as a “business” engage in discussions with you as a “leader”, others will want to listen, learn and take part. What does this mean?
• If you as a “business” engage with your “staff”, you will be able to listen, learn and take part. What does this mean?
• If you engage with your staff as a leader, you will be able to effectively influence and improve the business. What does this mean?
The fact that this takes place in such an open forum may seem scary, but done correctly (with the correct guidelines for protocols issued to staff) it will naturally attract outside interest and participation from potential new customers.

So in all, there are a lot of reasons to invest – not financially, but in terms of time and resource, in the phenomenon that is Twitter. Done correctly, the open market of millions of users is not to be sneezed at. And that’s not all. Because of the level of access you have to the Twitter engine, the time you invest in Tweeting can be improved exponentially, when you take advantage of the many ways possible to lift your feed and place it within other sites all around the web, including social network homepages, your own website, your blog – in fact anywhere that will allow you to embed an html code snippet. The possibilities are limitless, and it’s only going to get better, as Twitter work out ways to use the information being tweeted and they refine the search mechanisms behind the hype enthused interface.

So I guess you should give it a try. But only if you're willing to work at it.

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R3TROSTEVE's Skydiving Adventure

Ha Ha (nervous laugh)!. I've done it. If you don't know what I'm on about, I'll enlighten you.

For a while now I've been talking about signing up for a sponsored Sky Dive, in support of our friends at the RNLI Life Guards. Well, rather than just talk about, I was stupid enough to actually sign up and pay for the priveledge of chucking myself out of an aeroplane.

Don't get me wrong, I am bang up for it and have wanted to do this for ages. I'm just not that great with heights and have a bit of an overactive imagination which is not going to help the anxiety levels at this moment in time.

Even more challenging, is that the event takes place on 9th September, ONLY 4 WEEKS AWAY!

I've set myself a target of £500.00 to raise, so I need everyone's help. Obviously, if I can get to £1000.000 I'd be well chuffed and perhaps we coR3
So please go to my Just Giving page and donate whatever you can or follow the link in the widget at the top of the page.

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Social Networking Sites for SPORTS

Firstly, I want to give a massive "biggup" stateside to fellow blogger, Jason Peck. I've followed Jason's blog for a while now and in terms of social media insight related to sports he's a must follow. Check out his feed "Take a Peck"

A few of his blog posts and countless others now have listed in their 10's, 25's, 50's and even 300's social networking sites and specifically those related to sports. You can see Jason's 25+ and 50 lists.

I'm gonna concentrate on a measly 5 sites that I think you should know about and consider going through the torment of putting in username, password etc. etc. again!

So here they are;

1. GrindTV
GrindTV are one of the big boys, with some major weight behind them in the shape of Yahoo!. An edgy, urban feel to the styling, they have quite a youth orientated skatey following. Some pretty cool features are used within the site, in particular, we like the athlete biog pages and the ability to follow them. Nice to feel like Shaun White is your mate and the Holly Beck videos are a thing of beauty!

2. Moredirt
Moredirt is a nice mountainbike rider community, largely UK focussed. They've grown steadily over the last 2 years and have a really slick design and interface. The forum is full of good banter and their trail directory is cool, where you can select your local trails for your profile.

3. Mpora.TV
Part of Factory Media, Mpora.TV is the place to go for Action and Extreme sports videos. With 50,000+ members and all the clout of their massive paper magazines, they are a force to be reckoned with. You have to put up with a bit of advertising on each video, but the quality os good and you can share their content around the web which is great when you find a gem of a film you just cant keep to yourself.

4. Shred Union
Shred Union is a funky stateside community of snowboarders. The site has some neat features, such as its snow days log where you diarise any trips you make in search of fluffy white powder. The site creators are really down to earth guys, I've come to know them and they're really open to new ideas and opportunities to grow and improve the site. This is a big recommend, particulalry as these die harders built this site from scratch and as such, it's got a real sense of individuality and character. I wrote another review on this site too, check it out.

5. MySportProfiler
MySportProfiler is pretty new, I was introduced to it at the Outdoor Show in Friedrichshafen by a freelance designer for Nike. And it's pretty impressive. Think LinkedIn meets Sports Recruitment International and voila. It's oriented towards people who work in the sports industry and profiles are geared towards industry networking and career searching. It's styling is very 2.0 and already has some pretty prominent players and some of the really big boys on board and I'm tipping to be pretty big. It's got quite a European flavour to it, with a big following in France and Italy, but I think will do well in the UK too.

So there they are, worth a few minutes of your time to have a look and decide if the sites angle or niche is the right fit for you.

You can find links to all of these in the links section on Fidgetstick/ too.

Laterz.

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CASE STUDY: G2 Outdoor

Wow. It's a wonder these guys can get any work done. Well, when I say work, it becomes all to clear what work means when you watch the G2 guys comical video titled "hard day at the office" (scroll down to the bottom of the page aswell to see the video). Fitting in a spot of kayaking instruction, white water rafting, ski touring or canyoning must be difficult, when you take one look at their company website.

Like little ducks all in a row, are the icon links through to their Flickr, Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Trip Advisor, their blog and I know they also have a Fidgetstick/ profile page as well. Geez, I'm beat just typing those out, let alone keeping them upto date with compelling and relevant content. So do they?

Well, let's find out. But just before we do, another thing to mention is that these guys seem to appreciate the importance of a good web presence in the first place. Their site is well designed and totally makes use of many of the latest web 2.0 features that many more still refuse to acknowledge or choose to ignore. Straight away, without any additional work, they have a site that is nice to use.

Whilst the About us section indicates that the activity instructors at G2 are extremely experienced - over 15 years, the site seems to be fairly new. When doing a link:search on google, as well as quite a few keyword searches that I thought should be relevant to them, the site didn't quite perform as expected. One of the areas I would suggest concentrating on, is their external link building (this'll help a tiny bit) and SEO. I know that most activity centres rely heavily on word of mouth and referrals for new business and repeat business from existing customers, but the importance of SEO in an ever more competitive industry should not be underestimated.

It maybe that SEO and link building is just not as damn interesting as social media activity, at the moment any way. And so we begin to delve a little further into G2's social network. Straight away, you can see that photographic and video media plays a big role in content generation, and allows them to cross channels quite easily using the same media asset base. As I talked about in an earlier case study, this requires careful balancing and ensuring that the content is targeted and relevant to the types of users you may find on these different platform.

I love to see people who are fortunate enough to work in a job they love (in a job I'd love!) and share their experiences with others - especially those who dream of jacking in their 9-5 and getting outdoors. There's so much to do and see and so many adventures to have that means finding angles and topics to generate content from is endless. These guys recognise that and are not wasting the opportunity.

A quick glance at their social network pages and you can see exactly what it takes to get these things up and running. Flickr - some stunning adventure sports photos taken in the glorious scottish highlands (which happens to be one of my favourite places in the world, especially for canyoning!); youtube videos, many with over 1000 views; over 1000 Twitter followers; a struggling Facebook Fan page with 60 followers; a Digg page which is reminiscent of the Marie Celeste and some great reviews on TripAdvisor.

My advice; use Flickr for Photos, Youtube for Videos. Use Twitter like crazy to capture your thoughts. If your thoughts are interesting enough to warrant conversation, then Blog. Use this content to integrate into containers that support integration, such as Facebook (for mass market exposure) and (shameless plug) Fidgetstick/ (for targeted high conversion exposure). Let others Digg and Stumbleupon you. My two pence worth.

I would be interested to hook up with these guys and do a review of their activities for the Reviews section on Fidgetstick/, so if your up for it G2, drop me a note. If anyone else has been to G2, well, there's a million places you could tell us about it, but why not drop me a comment on my blog or against the G2 listing in the Fidgetstick/ Directory, let us know what you thought.


Find more videos like this on Fidgetstick/ adventure sport directory - community - shop - UK

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CASE STUDY: Plain Lazy

This is my first case study post, the first of many, as I locate the best and worst examples of social media application and strategy within the sports related industries. These may be anything from activity centres, sports brands and manufacturers, sports retailers and anything else that warrants a bit of time and consideration.

The first brand I've chosen to look at is, at the very least, pretty aptly named - PLAIN LAZY a funky and humorous street-urban lifestyle brand, that also resonates well with the mtb, surf and snow communities. But we are interested in how they are using social media to create brand engagement, increase their brand equity and generally create some buzz around their products.

And on the face of it, they do this really well. When you arrive at the Plain Lazy home page you are greated with bright colours and a fairly simple layout. Nice features, such as the countdown to the weekend stand out immediately, as well as some nice photography.

One of the simplest web 2.0 features implemented on the main page is the "Add This" social bookmarking add on. It is the same as we use throughout Fidgetstick/ and gives visitors a really easy way to share your link or content with others.



Getting under the skin a little bit, the site has an area dedicated to promoting the brands social networking presence; thos sites listed include Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Youtube, Bebo, Mpora, Flickr and Fidgetstick/.

Now, I wouldn't neccessarily say this is Plain Lazy, so to speak, as it has to take hours to make the most of all of these platforms. The reality is thatthere will be a lot of duplication of content and cross promotion of the different sites. This is no bad thing, but it does make it harder for followers to distinguish between the channels that would be most valuable to them and also makes following the brand in multiple channels irrelevant, in some cases.

The main challenge is ensuring that, within their Social Media strategy, they recognise that Social Networking is not a one size fits all solution. In order to ensure that their investment is not wasted, Plain Lazy have to distinguish what the user base of the different sites is actually interested in and how that relates to their brand and their target audience.



For instance, Plain Lazy have recognised that video media is an important and ultimately valuable asset to have and promote, particularly where viral distribution is achievable. Step up Youtube of course.The same content can also be leveraged through more niche orientated media hosting web community sites as well and so Plain Lazy have also established a presence on Mpora.TV.

The fine line between success and failure in these cross channel strategies comes down to quality, originality and relevance. So long as Plain Lazy ensure that the common media content they put out there onto the likes of Youtube and Mpora is of high quality, then it will prove an effective method of combining mass-market distribution and targeted niche exposure, without over investment on their part.

It is questionable whether Plain Lazy can sustain their current Social Media activity levels and there may come a time when this strategy may be "streamlined". Will their music affiliation be enough to warrant a continued Myspace presence or is the link to the brand less tangible and is the tool right for them? Well, ultimately time will tell, but they seem to be having quite a time figuring out which path is for them and as they say, if you don't try, you'll never know.


Subscribe to my feed and keep up to date with future case studies and other interesting posts. Thanks for reading!

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Snowboarding Outlaws

OK, so I've just avoided doing any work since writing my blog earlier today, about the reported presence of some outlawed men in mountains of Afghanistan, fighting the Taliban on Snowboards... So I've been poking around on the web and found this account of how this came to be. Take a read and let me know if you heard anything different, if you know who the men are, or where any more information is. In particular, I really want to know what the names of the brothers are and who the little boy may be?

It's a bit loosely written and factually questionable, but certainly makes some interesting reading.

"A couple of months ago, some whispers were heard around the military bases located in the northern areas of Afghanistan that some lone soldiers had scored a number of significant “hits” on Al Qaeda militants in the mountainous regions, north east of the Taliban stronghold of Asadabad, on the Pakistan border. We did some considerable digging and after many hours piecing together elements of the story, accounts from local villagers, rumours from the nearby US army bases, even chatter on the Taliban radios, we were able to give what we think may have resulted in such a compelling story of extreme bravery born out of desperation and a will to simply survive.

This type of story in itself is not remarkable; there are numerous accounts of such acts taking place in the likes of Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan. What is intriguing about these silent assassins is their modus operandi. Rumour had it that a small container shipment was travelling by road from China to Uzbekistan. En route, the consignment was hijacked and the goods, largely winter sports equipment headed for the former CIS state, were distributed amongst the local folk in the northern Afghanistan villages.

Among those to benefit from the misfortune of a few sporting goods companies, were 3 Afghan brothers who are now said to live in a small makeshift camp, fashioned from a network of caves, high in the mountains bordering Pakistan and close to the 76km of border with China. Sick of the torment and anguish they had endured through years of poverty and oppression from Taliban forces, the pain of losing family members, their wives and children being tortured, raped and starved, missiles and RPG’s raining down on their homes and seeing friends killed and maimed by improvised explosive devices, they fled their small community near Jalalabad, after a minor fracas with some Taliban soldiers made them marked men, and headed North.

Ahmed, returning from his job herding cattle for a local farmer, came across a small child stumbling aimlessly along the dusty road about ¾ of a mile from his home. With matted hair and torn clothes, it became clear to Ahmed that the child had suffered severe injuries and bruising, and was struggling to keep hold of something which looked disproportionately large and heavy for such a small person, in such a condition, to be carrying. Ahmed dropped his bags and ran to assist the small boy, taking the load from his arms and setting the boy down by the side of the road.

Looking down into his arms, Ahmed turned over the mass of fur and as he did, the head of a small dog dropped back, its eyes open and fixed, its tongue hanging lifeless from its mouth. As the boy looked up at Ahmed and then down to his beloved pet dog, he began to sob uncontrollably.

It was at this point, according to some local villagers who weren’t overly keen to give their statement, that 3 known Taliban soldiers rounded the corner, laughing and shouting. They had their AK47’s perched on their shoulders and seemed oblivious to Ahmed’s presence as they made straight for the small boy and dog. There was some exchange between the soldiers and then they shouted something at the boy, who just carried on crying.

This seemed to make the soldiers angry and one of them prodded at the boy with the butt of his gun. The boy didn’t even flinch, for it seemed he had endured much worse abuse than this. Ahmed, however, could not stand to see any of this and what he felt sure was to be the inevitable outcome; the small boy ending up in his arms, much like the dog. Whether it was pure reflex, pure anger or most likely, a mixture of both, Ahmed grabbed the gun from one of the soldiers’ hands. Taken by surprise, the soldier couldn’t respond in time and before they knew it, Ahmed had rounded and pointed the gun in the faces of the Taliban men.

The boy looked up and immediately stopped crying. Ahmed took his arm and brought the boy behind him to shield him from the now agitated soldiers. Ahmed gestured to the remaining two armed men to release their weapons and discard them to the floor. They understood and did as requested. Now Ahmed was left with a dilemma – he really hadn’t thought beyond grabbing the weapon and rescuing the boy. He could shoot them between the eyes there and then, take the boy and make his escape. But no matter how much he wanted end these evil monsters lives and secure their safety, he could not do it. So, what to do.

Ahmed noticed an old truck coming around the bend ahead, so thinking quickly he decided upon his exit strategy. 6 blasts, one to each leg and the men were writhing in agony on the dusty road.

Grabbing the boy, Ahmed made for the truck and his escape, according to local villagers, who by this time had made their way out into the village road and were gathering around the wounded soldiers. He and the boy were never seen again.

Rumour has it that Ahmed went home and quickly rounded up his two brothers. They had arrived home only a few moments earlier, and were making busy stuffing a load of the loot they had come across into the pit, covered with sheeps wool and straw. When they saw the look on Ahmed’s face, they knew something serious was going on, and immediately thought that the Taliban had discovered that they had been involved in the hijack of the container shipment and had not paid the local warlord their taxes.

Ahmed did not have time to explain, other than that they would have to leave the village and make their way as outlaws into the mountains. Not wanting to question their older brother, the two men grabbed their new gear, thinking they could sell it and raise money for food on the way, along with a few of the bare essentials that they owned, which really wasn’t much. As they left the hut, the brothers met the small boy Ahmed had rescued, waiting for them outside. Now they were confused, but seeing the continued frantic look on Ahmed’s face, did not question, but followed their brother and the small boy with their gear and headed for the mountains in the truck they had stolen to escape the Taliban soldiers.

And so they began a new life on the run from soldiers, outlawed from the village where they grew up and destined to spend the rest of their lives in hiding…"

If you've heard anything, know anything or want to suggest any theories on this, please leave comments....

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Snowboarders fighting the Taliban

Just a quick post about a story I heard recently, that inspired me -

I wrote a post about a new film that was coming out,God Went Surfing With The Devil about a group of surfers in Isreal who defy the bombs, to live out their dreams and continue to surf in the face adversity and some horrific injuries.

Well, in a similarly inspiring but more impressive and mysterious way, I want to talk about some guys in Afghanistan, who, rumour has it, fled to the mountains in the north east of the country and with their snowboards and some basic weapons have secured a number of hits on the Taliban fighters in the area. Their story is becoming something of legend in the area and is causing an amount of buzz around the US military bases around Kabul and Jalalabad.

So, I'm looking for the details - who are these guys? Rumour has it they are brothers who stumbled on some wintersports equipment, hijacked from a container lorry headed for one of the former CIS states from China. They got into some sort of quarrel with local Taliban soldiers and fled.

I'm gonna dig around and try and find out more - let me know if you come across anything...

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Social Media tools for your Business - Part 1 - Facebook

Choosing Social Media tools for you or your business, it's a real minefield. there are many right ways and there are many wrong ways. The fun bit, is that while one thing may be right for one person or company, that may not apply to another person. Hmmmm. So where to start? We certainly can't tell where to finish - wow what a minefield of hypotheses that would be (maybe another post there, I think...). Let's look at my online presence as an example....

OK, so you've got me here, on Blogger. This is where my main blog is hosted. But as you'll come to learn, successful social media strategy does not rely on an "all eggs in one basket" approach. In fact, quite the opposite and the key is ensuring that your profile is being seen by the right mix of volume and relevance. No, that's not the name of a new drum 'n bass setup, but I mean the difference between 'generic mass market' and 'targeted niches'.

For instance, and I'll use these examples a fair bit because they're the talk of the town at the moment, you will undoubtedly invest in a Facebook and a Twitter profile. Why? Because they get the most hits, they are the most talked about and they are sooo easy to use. But as everyone else is doing the same thing, it will take some considerable time and/or money and/or luck to make it pay - in the traditional sense. I'm not saying you shouldn't invest that time and money, but you should do it wisely and with a wider strategic Social Media plan in mind.

So, I have these pages;

Facebook
Twitter

I mainly use Facebook as a personal page, to keep in contact with old and current friends. I have a Fan Page and a Group page for Fidgetstick/ here too;

Fidgetstick/ on Facebook - Fan page, Group page

To be honest, because I mainly use Facebook for personal reasons, I haven't spent much time using it to promote my business. Sometimes there's a fine line between business and personal use that's hard to distinguish. And that's important. In my opinion, that's something that makes Facebook a very difficult nut to crack in terms promoting your business as most of the sites users are simply there to talk about what they're doing at the weekend, where they went at the weekend, and whether they are drunk or sober or a bit of both.

However, you can get it right and your message can reverberate like wildfire within the Facebook community. There have been some great case studies of how Facebook can be used - this is a nice article by Callan Green on the website www.mashable.com, which looks at 5 good examples of Facebook fan page use, from Pringles, Coca Cola, Starbucks, Adidas and Red Bull.

Now, obviously all of these guys are big name household brands. Arguably, they have just got to create a Fan Page to automatically get a hundred thousand "Fans". Your small, medium or even large sized business isn't so fortunate. The difference here, and what Callan rightly points out, is that it's not so much the fact they have a page - but it's what they do with it that makes them ultimately successful in their own right, and oddly enough, each in slightly different ways.

For instance, the Pringles fan page stands out because of it's interesting video media content. People love a good video or photos or music and that's something you can learn from as it's so accessible by all, with sites like vimeo & youtube, affordable hardwear such as camera phones, helmet cams, waterproof cams, handheld HDD cams - you don't have any excuses and you can capture some amazing footage from your own personal experiences. As a result, my last count showed Pringles had over 2 million followers, and once they've popped, they just can't stop. I'm sorry. I couldn't help it.

The Red Bull fan page is also interesting, as Callan points out. Being quite close to home for me, this is a particularly interesting case study of how a brand who knows its target audience can maximise the effectiveness of social media to take user engagement to the next level. And in such a simple manner, it's beauty is in it's clean and relaxed but humorous approach, not taking itself too seriously in the process. And that's important too.

Another lesson to learn from Red Bull is how stepping outside of the vanilla "one size fits all" template that Facebook provides can really generate interest. One example that Callan highlights is the Twitter integration that, in itself is not uncommon, but Red Bull have gone a few miles further and brought in the twitter feeds of some of their popular riders, snow and skateboarders - such as Shaun White and Ryan Sheckler. So not only are Red Bull trying to get yuo to visit their page, they actively want you to leave and find something else that you'll find interesting and engaging.

And that's the point, your task doesn't stop with getting any old Tom, Dick or Harry to find you. You want Tom - who rides DH in the summer, frequents the board parks of Avoriaz in the winter and loves copying SW's latest tricks and fashion trends. Harry, his brother, surf's Biarritz in between backpacking trips around the States and Thailand. He's been bungee jumping and does spear fishing. He loves buying kit and has a shed full of it back home.

You don't want Dick. He's just not interested. He plays chess. But the fact is, any of these people can find you on Facebook and unless you are relevant and specific to your target audience, you may just find yourself with a Dick, so to speak. And more than that, 100,000 Dicks are useless. OK, this is running away with me now, but you get the point.

So by all means create a Facebook page, at the very least you should capture your businesses URL. Be prepared to invest considerable time and effort into consistently building relevant content that your target audience would find interesting, funny and useful.

Next blog, we'll take a look at the other main example I mentioned earlier - Twitter

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One small step for man... a giant leap for me.

The dawning of a new era. R3tro style.

I have a blog. Here it is. Post numero uno! I've had other blogs. I've dipped a toe in, swirled the water around, even swam around a bit with my head above water, careful not to get my hair too wet. Then, without much thought and consideration for others, I've stripped down to my brown paisley Y-fronts, slicked back my hair and plunged head first into the deep blue below. Let's just hope I can not only tread water, but avoid the shark attacks, floating sewage and somalian pirates to survive the long haul, perhaps even managing to impress a with a few "rocket splits" and "eggbeaters" (check out my synchronised swimming jargon!) in the process.

OK, random intro over, here's what I really intend to use this site and my blog for, so you know what to expect and hopefully, so you'll find something relevant and appealling enough to eyeball for a few minutes whilst enjoying your sandwich break or instead of flicking on the TV to catch Jeremy Kyle dish out anothe DNA test result. You may even feel compelled enough to chat back - please do, more's the welcome.

So, who the hell am I and what do I want?

I am 28 years old, I've got 3 bassett hounds and I live in the Dorset countryside with my wife of 3 months. Since making the transition from relaxed, somewhat misaligned student I have turned into a driven and passionate entrepreneur, having cut my teeth in the world of retail design, global procurement and working with some of the worlds largest sporting and telecommunications brands.

A few years back, I lost my father to lung cancer. It was and still remains a dificult thing to talk about. I found that writing down my thoughts and sharing with strangers was a great release for me. My family was able to read and understand what I was feeling, when I may not have been open to discussing it at the time. It proved very powerful and I discovered that people were affected by my writing. And that felt good.

My father suffered for a long time with acloholism. I talk frankly about this and I'm not ashamed of it - the embarrassment I used to feel has been replaced with a sense of sympathy for those who go through the same thing as I came to learn that the support systems to help the affected individuals, families and friends are severely lacking in this country. I'm not going to talk about htis right now, but may come back to it in later blogs.

At the time when my father deteriorated and eventually passed away, I took a look at my life in many ways and tried to assess my direction, ambitions and beliefs. I was also determined that in these times of trauma, I would react differently to how he would and instead of finding solace in the bottle, I channelled my grief into more physical exertions, sports, the more extreme and challenging the better. And I loved it. I thought that if I could do this for the rest of my life, I would be totally happy.

I don't think that's entirely true, but not far off. I love business too. Since I was young, I've known that I would, one day, be running my own business. I recall being at university, and instead of working in a bar (well, I did work in a bar as well) I worked for a security company, guarding office buildings, airports, even protecting the sacred stonehenge from scraggy haired, smelly hippies. Working through the night while everyone was out drinking, I used the time to do a bit of college work, my dissertation (which I got a 1st for!) and write business plans for ideas that came up with - such as commercially run exercise referral schemes to treat and prevent illnesses such as diabetes, obesity, CHD and cancer using exercise and a healthy lifestyle as the preventative and treatment measures. I just did my drinking during the day ;-)

So, in a style suited to one day going in my autobiography, I was sat in the pub with a friend and former colleague, conversing in the usual mix of character assassinations and where the best XC trails are at the moment, we began chatting about our lives and as the nectar flowed, everything got a little more serious...

I had to start a business. Full stop. I was putting pressure on myself to stop talking, stop writing, stop thinking and DO. I had no money, in fact I had less than that, being a student I was carrying the burden of debt most are now faced with. I was young and fairly inexperienced in terms of running a business, whilst my career progression in my roles to date were good, it was enough to knock my confidence a bit. Only a bit. But I knew I could do it, i knew I could get through the inevitable issues and problems and challenges I would face and I was so up for it.

I had the idea that people would be interested in reading what I had to write and talk about. I thought that if I could travel around taking part in all sorts of amazing new activities and sports, people may be interested as it might be something they have been considering doing but didn't know where to start. I'll talk more about this in future blog posts, but needless to say it was a noble concept of providing information for general mass consumption, whilst at the same time, allowing me to keep doing the things that I love doing so dearly, and ideally, doing it for free...

I pitched it to Spud, and he was in. Spud is an amazing creative. When he gets to work, the end result is always WOW. At times, requiring some delicate handling, his expertise is unquestionable. Typical creative types!

We were introduced to Funker, the self-confessed technical geek, recognisable by his crazy trousers and programming related T-shirt slogans.

And so, Fidgetstick/ was born.

Actually, I wish it was that simple! I'll talk about this more, but man, naming a website business is a pain in the arse! Anyway, we settled on Fidgetstick/ and we were off.

Since then end of 2007, when we were first introduced to the back end of social media - inside the engine room of your Facebook's, your Twitter's your MySpace's. We went looking for own and geez, that didn't get any easier either! But we have learnt a lot about creating your own network, creating your own internet business, branding, marketing, content, business startup, finance, partnerships and everything else you need to make the step from 9-5 to whatever you need it to be, dictating your own route, making and learning from your own mistakes and ultimately creating the lifestyle of your dreams.

And that is why I decided to create this blog. By sharing my experiences, my knowledge and chucking in a bit of fun content as well, I hope this will prove an interesting, valuable and inspiring resource for you and to share. It will also keep you bang upto date with what we are doing, where we are going, and how you can come along too.

I hope you enjoy and I would love to hear back from you on anything I talk about...

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