Posts made in May, 2011

How I helped Azerbaijan win Eurovision

Posted by Mark on May 20, 2011 in Blog-Off, Social Media | 2 comments

When I was interviewed by German Television I knew I’d made it. My aim when I left Derby to go to Dusseldorf for the Eurovision Song Contest was to get on TV and I had a cunning plan.
I’d decided the best way to be famous (of a kind) was to support a country that no one else would. My wife Kerry had bought me tickets for the second semi final so I listened to all the 19 countries who’d been placed in that heat and did a lot of thinking. My guess was that if I picked a country which would have little support in Germany, I would stand out and get spotted by a TV crew either inside or outside the stadium.
I got my selection down to Moldova and FYR Macedonia (in case you’re wondering what FYR stands for, it’s Fry Your Rabbits) but plumped for Moldova in the end for three big reasons – it was a small country, the people were poor so unlikely to travel and most importantly of all, their song was awful – who’d want to support that? I ordered a giant Moldovan flag through Ebay – it was made in Taiwan of course – and flew to Germany.
The Moldovan song was performed by Zdob si Zdub (pronounced: Zdob si Zdub) and I knew they’d worn large black cone-shaped hats in their qualifier. So Kerry and I went to an art shop in Dusseldorf and asked the shop assistant to help us make a hat out of paper. I told her I was supporting Moldova: “Your English is very good,” the astute German replied.

Mark the Moldovan

So onto the concert stadium and the event. I got lots of stares as I wondered around but despite my lingering looks at television crews, none of them wanted to interview me. Then to cap it all, the BBC decided to focus on some real Moldovans inside the stadium while the band played. How ridiculous to film them, I thought – none of them are wearing pointy hats.
But it was while we were waiting for the announcement about who had gone through to the final that I had my biggest impact. I spotted Ell and Nikki from Azerbaijan above me in the stand and I raced up to say hello and get their autograph. “You were great in the first semi final,” I gushed. “I think you have a really good chance of winning on Saturday.” This was obviously a key moment for the pair. My words brought a flush of confidence into their faces and I knew straight away, I was the one who would be responsible for their victory in the final.
Still no TV interview though. The concert ended – amazingly the Moldovans got through – and Kerry and I made our way to the underground station. And then it happened. An excited German woman beckoned me over to her. At first I thought, “Great. Free currywurst,” but it turned out to be even better. She placed me in front of a TV camera and asked me about being a Moldovan at the Eurovision Song Contest. I gave a big shout out to Moldova to close the interview and the cameraman and interviewer exchanged big smiles – I knew I had made it.

Mark with some REAL Moldovans

What’s this got to do with social media? Well not much really but there has to be some spurious mention in my blog so here goes – I had a bit of a dilemma while I was watching the show. Should I tweet about the concert to my followers at home or should I just watch the show? Would I miss out on the full experience of Eurovision if I spent too much time staring at the screen on my phone? In the end I decided just a few tweets would do. After all, social media is a really great way of interacting with people but when it starts getting in the way of living your life, then that’s going too far. I may be a social media fan, but for goodness sake, this was Eurovision and I wanted to enjoy EVERY moment.

Five Free Twitter and Facebook Marketing Tools

Posted by Status Social on May 16, 2011 in List | 0 comments

There are literally hundreds of tools out there designed to help you make the most of social media. The problem is this: most people do not have time to trawl the web finding out which product to use and which ones to avoid. Here I have tried to put together a (by no means exhaustive) list of my personal favourite tools to make it easier for you to get started on Facebook and Twitter in particular.
Hootsuite
A good social media dashboard should be at the heart of your social media efforts and while there are plenty to choose from, I believe Hootsuite offers the best value for SMEs. Its freemium model allows you to run five social media accounts for free and also gives you free link click-through reports via the ow.ly URL shortening system. You can schedule tweets easily and it features Klout integration to help you identify key influencers. Upgrading to the extra functionality is also very easy and affordable.
Tweetpivot
Tweetpivot is an invaluable tool for business owners using Twitter. The intuitive user interface makes it easy for you to create pivot tables detailing your most influential friends and followers. You can then add them to a Twitter list in order to be able to monitor them and easily interact with them for potential campaigns.
Pagemodo
If you don’t know how to write code for the web, creating a custom tab on Facebook can be incredibly difficult. Most people will have to contact their website designer and pay out good money for a simple landing tab. Thankfully there is a solution to this problem in the form of Pagemodo.com. No technical knowledge is required to make a good looking landing tab. You can claim one tab for free and if you need more you can upgrade for a small monthly fee.
Scribd for Facebook Pages
The team at Involver.com really do make life easy for small business owners. They make powerful apps that are a sure fire way to spice up your business’ Facebook Page. They offer a range of basic free apps and one of the best if Scribd. Using this app allows you to share .doc, .pdf, .ppt, .xls  and more with your customers. Get your promotional literature online and in front of more eyeballs for free!
Proxlet
Twitter can be a very noisy place at times and the more people you follow, the more noise you have to filter out. Proxlet allows you to mute noisy people, block the constant stream of Foursquare check-ins, hide tweets according to hashtags and show tweets from only the more chatty and conversant tweeters. It works with a number of Twitter clients, including Tweetdeck, but it as of now there is no Hootsuite support.
Written by @MPBroadhurst.