Blogging success? Pretend to be Moldovan.
Who would have thought writing about a trip to the Eurovision Song Contest disguised as a Moldovan could lead to a new business connection? I wrote about my 40th birthday trip back in May – it was a mix of my adventures in Dusseldorf with a social media lesson not to let Twitter take over your life. A alien spaceship prepares to beam up Eurovision fans in Dusseldorf A real Moldovan - artist Mihai Grecu (photograph: Ion Chibzii used under Creative Commons licence)
Several months later I received an email from the owner of a design agency in Derby. He wrote that he had heard of me but we had not yet met. Could we do so? It’s always intriguing to get a message like that – how did I get on his radar?
So we met in his beautiful city centre offices and he was a man worth meeting. Creative, dynamic, fascinating. The most surprising moment of the meeting was when he told me why he wanted to chat. It was all down to Eurovision. He’d read my blog and said he’d really enjoyed it. I was, he said, a man who had an aim (to appear on TV as a Moldovan) and I achieved it. He wanted to meet the writer behind the blog.
This incident really demonstrates the power of blogging. Getting your name out there for people to find you, to know what you do. It gives people the chance to discover some of your personality and your passions – often difficult to do from afar in business.
I’m not a fan of blogging for blogging’s sake and I get asked how often should someone blog? Well only if you have something interesting to say. I know of one regular blogger whom I’ve stopped reading because her musings are too hit and miss on the quality front. Every blog you write should lead your readers wanting to come back for more.
Blogging can be one of the most rewarding things to do in the world. As a BBC journalist, I would sometimes broadcast to millions of people on national radio but I get much more of a buzz to see a few hundred hits on my blog – especially when it’s shared on social media. To know your creative writing is being appreciated is a wonderful thing.
Social media is a key way to promote your blog. Too many blogs remain unread because no one knows about them. And don’t be shy about promotion. Status Social Media Marketing manages the social media of Visit Cleethorpes, which includes a weekly blog. As well as plugging it on Facebook I use Twitter as a vehicle for traffic. Rather than just tweeting about the blog once, I tweet about eight times a day, each with a different headline, often with a different reason for reading. The result? Most of the traffic to the Visit Cleethorpes website comes through my blog.
So if you want blogging success, make sure your writing is of good quality and that EVERYONE knows about it. Especially if it mentions Eurovision and Moldovans…
Read Mark Saxby’s blog How I helped Azerbaijan win Eurovision
If you’d like to know how Mark can help you with your blogging, get in touch.
Cheese wars divide Reddit readers
If you read my contributions to the blog regularly, you’ll no doubt know I am a big fan of the social news website Reddit. It turns out that I am not the only one who loves it. Over the past 15 months the site has tripled in size and it has transformed itself from geek niche into one of the most popular websites in the world. Reddit used to be a place for the internet’s hipsters. It was where people found content before it was cool. Now Reddit can play a big part in making things cool.
A few weeks ago the staff at Reddit decided to find out who was using the site. They surveyed the users and took details ranging from age and marital status to favourite cheese and dog/cat/turtle preference. 30,000 people took part in the survey (myself included) and yesterday they unveiled the results for all to see. So who is using Reddit? Find out below.
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The Day That Google Owns You
When Larry Page replaced Eric Schmidt as CEO at Google in April, you might not have expected any major changes at the search giant for some time. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.
In the short time that Larry has been in the role we have seen the Californian-based company shift direction in some significant ways. The purchase of Motorola and the launch of Google+ shows that Google is serious about both mobile and social.
Google+ is adding more users everyday and it is quite clear that in the future Google plans to be your online passport, so to speak. Eric Schmidt recently said as much at his MacTaggart lecture. If Google can get users to migrate from Facebook to Google Plus it will make some serious money (on top of the serious money it already makes) through its advertising business.
With Google owning your online passport, it gives it a wealth of information about you. When you couple this with its ever-expanding mobile offering through the Android OS and Motorola hardware, you can see Google is definitely planning ahead. Part of the process of planning for the future involves assessing the present. That is exactly what Larry Page has done and changes announced this week significantly reflect that.
Google is well known for having “20% time” where employees can spend time working on projects that interest them and might also benefit the business. This has resulted in some great products, such as Gmail and Google News, but it has also left the business with many small projects that are not profitable and under-utilised. As a result, Google has announced the closure of ten services, including Google Fast Flip and Sidewiki.
This follows on from the announcement back in July that Google were going to wind down the Labs project. Google Labs is where new products were beta tested, occasionally becoming full services. I check Labs from time to time to see what is new but for the casual Google user, Labs was easily ignored.
So Google is now focusing its product development in more efficient ways. It says it will continue to take risks but will target its resources more effectively. This most likely means it will concentrate on improving the three main areas of the business (search, social and mobile) rather than developing these micro-products or services that have little long term financial value.
Oh. And did I mention Google TV…
Sight Support Derbyshire: Sweets for Sight
Our magnificent Status F1 Duck
Status is a business that likes to give something back and while it is often seen as the done thing to have a CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) strategy, we decided from day one that we were going to make sure we supported local charities in some form or another.
As such we have been working closely with Sight Support Derbyshire since the start of the year. We have supported its social media efforts and joined in its fundraising events, such as when we took part in the annual Ey Up Mi Duck Race at Cathedral Green early in summer. The event was a success and our duck was rather impressive, even if we do say so ourselves.
Now it is also launching a new and delicious way of fundraising – Sweets for Sight. The new scheme will see lollipops appearing in offices across the county where staff will be able to buy a lolly in exchange for a small donation for the charity.
If your business would like to stock Sweets for Sight, contact the fundraising team at Sight Support Derbyshire.
Sweets For Sight
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