I know one of the rules of social networking is to be positive, no-one likes a whinger. However BT have led me to the edge and pulled me over. I rely on BT services, and generally they do the job, but the customer interface is appalling. At the point where the customer attempts to interface with BT it turns into some mythical beast with the power to split into many diverse parts, ‘oh no, that’s broadband not phones’, or ‘that’s a residential issue, not business sir’, or ‘no sir I can’t access that system’. This is the point where days of my life were lost. In the interim I found that,

• None of my email addresses were recognised as email addresses by BT websites
• When I subsequently used ‘Live Chat’ I had been sold another residential problem by Kim
• The nice man from Wales (after Kim) chose to miss spell my name, giving me a great new email address
• The nice man from Wales also chose to miss spell my password locking me out of my account
• The nice man from Scotland who apologised for the nice man from Wales gave me a duff phone number to resolve it
• As a reward for all of this BT charged me £31 for choosing to leave them
• On a further Live Chat the nice man greeted me as Andrew, the name I have grown used to, and bade me a fond farewell as Anthony

So, we get the idea. Firstly I would like to thank Bhavana, she was polite and courteous and has cancelled the ridiculous charges. I would also like to thank the tech support man who helped me resolve a problem with the new router. But I would also like to thank the BT Twitter people, whoever they are. You see, I had sinned, I had vented some of my frustrations on Twitter and something rather strange happened

So, I aired my frustrations and someone offered to help. That’s all we want really isn’t it?

I like to think that I am reasonably adept with technology. I’m not a total natural and for me this is useful, it helps me understand problems that customers may have who are novices. I found the BT website un-navigable, I’m sure the information is there but the bottom line is that their staff time costs them money, my time must seem cheap by comparison.

There is nothing revolutionary about,

Hi, anything I can help with?

but, in this instance the delivery of it was new to me,

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If nothing else this election is a lesson in the power of media and I am talking about digital media. Here we see Gillian Duffy an ordinary woman making powerful comments to world news with aplomb, at one point she even takes a mobile call while live on TV.

Just in case you have failed to hear Gordon Brown’s comment you can listen to it here.

Clearly social media has seen it’s fair number of Gaffes, David Cameron’s “Too Many Twits Make a Twat” for one and the sacking of Moray candidate Stuart MacLennan after his “coffin dodgers” comment (amongst others). Lets not even venture into Channel 4 Dispatches sting on Hoon et al.

It still hurts 16 years on

Gerald Ratner reveals the pain of becoming a national laughing stock in this Times Online article

Despite the fact that I didn’t kill anybody, I didn’t do anything illegal and I didn’t even say anything that I hadn’t said before, that speech caused me to lose my business, my reputation and my fortune.

It says something about our society that people like to list what I lost in monetary terms: a £650,000 salary, £500m wiped off the valuation of my company, and a billion-pound turnover slashed overnight.

Oliver Sacks made the following observation in The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat

“The President’s Speech”,[3] about a ward of aphasiacs and agnosiacs listening to a speech given by an unnamed actor-president, “the old Charmer,” presumably Ronald Reagan. Many in the first group were laughing at the speech, and Sacks claims their laughter to be at the president’s facial expressions and tone, which they find “not genuine.”

The point here is that we are all part of these new media and although some of the forms are relatively new our ability to see through them develops with our ability to use it.

This is why I found David Cameron’s running along Exeter Quay video slightly incongruous, where were all the people? Yes I know, busy man, up early, before the rest of us… that’s what we were meant to think. I’m not certain what we were meant to make of a recent shot of Gordon Brown sitting in a kitchen with a yogurt on a dinner plate and a chinese take-away in the background.

There are lessons to me learned here for many and anyone using any form of public media could do to consider the maxim,

Don’t talk unless you can Improve the Silence

Or put it another way:

“If you like, I am a penitent sinner. Sometimes you say things you don’t mean to say, sometimes you say things by mistake and sometimes you say things you want to correct very quickly.”

G Brown

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Why am I annoyed? Well, as I see it, a blog needs commitment and constant fresh content, that’s what I tell my customers and that’s what I believe. As the Wall Street Journal says;

Social Networking: Common Mistakes Small Businesses Make

– Bare Profile: Signing up for a Facebook account is the easy part. Before you blast emails to 1,000 of your customers and friends, a business should spend some time thoughtfully building a profile with an attractive photo, background and contact information.

– Too Little Personality: Lighten up. The social-media world is about engaging customers on a more personal level. Your “About Me” shouldn’t just be dry facts about your business. Make sure you add some personal touches. Humor often helps.

– Too Much Hype: Using social media shouldn’t be about blatantly selling a business. It’s about making connections and creating credibility so that people will like you and trust you and eventually want to buy from you. Use it to interact and meet new people – don’t get overly promotional.

– Not Enough Fresh Content: Engaging others through social media needs to be an ongoing, frequent process. You can’t just build a profile and let it sit idle. Preferably you want to be refreshing your content regularly (daily, if possible) so people come back for more.

There it is, number four, hands up. Guilty as charged, and the stats prove it, readership drops off if you don’t keep moving on.

Recently I have been given the same advice by a couple of professionals. Bodie and Doyle? Nope, Accountant and Solicitor. The advice?

Do as I say, not as I do…

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OK so he’s got a geeky American accent but there are some good suggestions here, listen and absorb.

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Search Engine Marketing is a must if you are to going to get people to view any website. Nowadays everyone seems to be an SEO specialist, at least they do in Exeter and Devon, I imagine it is the same throughout he UK.

I am more aware of the abilities of WordPress than other blogging platforms so this is what I will use as my reference point. I have to say that I am totally enamoured with WordPress, I think it is great, but first a bit of general knowledge.

WordPress comes in two distinct flavours

1. .com Most people start with a free WordPress blog which you can start straight away and I would recommend you to go and sign up. If you blog a for a while and chose to migrate to self-hosted this can be easily done.
2. .org If you have access to hosting then self-hosted blogs open up a world of possibilities. You will need hosting with a database which is necessary to store all of the posts, images, comments and information about the site. My hosting supplier now throws one in with even the starter hosting package. You don’t really need to understand about databases (MySQL) but it can be quite interesting looking around, seeing how all of the data and information is organised.

WordPress can be thought of as a modular entity.

1. Core
   The site itself, everything that is needed to make it work. This includes a user friendly interface that will allow you to update the site without knowing about web deign.
2. Themes
   There are a huge number of available themes that make the basic WP blog look different (1 column, 2 column, colours styling etc.)
3. Plugins
   These add to the functionality of the blog, they make it do more things, (display images in galleries, add contact forms, etc. )

Search Engine Friendly Blogs

It helps if your blog has a focus and a appeals to a niche. Write with a clear view of your target audience, in particular what your readers are looking to find and what words they would use to search. Incorporate these words in your text. These keywords are fundamentally important.

WordPress plugins add to the functionality of the blog. In particular there are a range of SEO aids such as;

• XML sitemap generator
  This will enable the blog to develop an XML site-map that helps Google and other search engines locate the pages in your site. (you can get a plugin to create a people friendly site-map such as the one on this site).
• HeadSpace
  This lets you create a good page title and meta description. These two items are very important. Gone are the days when ‘Home’ was a good page title, it needs suitable keywords. The Meta description is what will generally appear in the Google snippet, the bit of information that appears when your page has been found on Google. This should be descriptive and keyword rich.
• Share This buttons
  Make it easy for people to share your site. Not strictly SEO stuff but it all helps.
• Twitter feed and Tweetmeme buttons
  As with Share links Twitter is a great way to network.Don’t underestimate the power of other social media such as Twitter and Facebook, cross-link your accounts try to keep a similar focus with to your blog, otherwise you will fail to appeal to your niche. There are a huge number of sites that will do the job for you, have a look at the Google search results for designcredo. There are loads of re-tweets and niche re-tweet sites in this list. Good news!
• WordPress Stats
  Statistics are your source for data that lets you find out how many people use your site and how they find you. You occasionally will find unexpected results.

I will finish with one further plugin PuSHPress (a PubSubHubbub Plugin For WordPress by Joseph Scott)

This plugin adds PubSubHubbub ( PuSH ) support to your WordPress powered site. The main difference between this plugin and others is that it includes the hub features of PuSH, built right in. This means the updates will be sent directly from WordPress to your PuSH subscribers.

I have recently mentioned PuSh with WordPress and my experience is that WordPress is quite PuSHy as it stands. I am currently developing a WordPress blog for a customer (several as it goes) but the one that is nearing completion has found it’s way on to Google already. This is a tad annoying because the location that it was Googled at is not it’s final resting place so in this instance the PuSHy little blog has caused me a bit of work. For now I will leave PuSH as a topic to return to.

The bottom line is that blogs should no longer be seen as SEO problems, my experience is quite the opposite. Within a couple of hours notification of the first draft of this blog had been returned to me via Google Alerts (SEO, Exeter) but in the same alert I was informed that the post had already made an appearance on another site. Don’t forget, this is organic search engine marketing my investment is time not money.

Yes, yes, time is money I know…

At Design Credo we design websites. We are equally as happy to set up a blog for you. This includes researching theme styles, editing them to suit and branding your site. We will install and configure the plugins and most importantly guide you through the interface. Give us a call (07790 322176) or contact us here.

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Dorsey's 2006 sketch of Twitter

The original product name or codename for the service was twttr, inspired by Flickr and the fact that American SMS short codes are five characters. The developers initially experimented with “10958″ as a short code, though later changed it to “40404″ for “ease of use and memorability.”[7] Work on the project started on March 21, 2006, when Dorsey published the first Twitter message at 9:50 PM Pacific Standard Time (PST): “just setting up my twttr”.[9] wikipedia.org

The First Tweet

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Spark Plasma Cutter

This plasma cutter is a great machine, an ideal way to deliver ICT Control education as well as being an ideal Technology department tool and is finding its way into many schools as well as FE and HE facilities.

Yorkshire based Techserv looked to Design Credo to update their website. As well as updating the site-design we have looked at the search-ability of the site in particular the way that keywords are employed throughout the site.

Further to this we have taken an overview of the existing online activities that Techserv are involved in and are looking at ways that this can be united and improved.

Techserv Twitter

Techserv are also using social networking on their website. This allows rapid updates and exchanges of information, within hours of the site being uploaded Techserv was being followed by people with CNC interests

As if that isn’t enough good news we are pleased to hear that they have received a quote request for a plasma cutting machine through the website form, within a week of the site being uploaded

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hi, i’m 24/female/horny… i have to get off here but message me on my windows live messenger name Paris545love@hotmail.com

I knew deep down that government agencies had boundaries to their marketing strategies. When I found that I had DM’d myself through Twitter I had a Homer Simpson moment,

..doh!

Twitter Advice

Due to concern that your account may have been compromised in a phishing attack that took place off-Twitter, your password was reset.

Please make sure to:

• Scan your computers for viruses / malware, especially if unauthorized tweets continue to be posted in your accounts even after you’ve changed the password.
• Check the Connections page at http://twitter.com/account/connections and revoke the access privileges of any third party applications that you do not recognize.
• Avoid providing your username and/or e-mail and password to untrusted third-party sites.
  Remove any updates that you did not post personally.

There is also a specific help page here.

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I heard this on t’wireless last night, World Service. It’s worth a listen just to remind ourselves of the phenomenal change that has happened since Sir Tim Berners-Lee started the ball rolling in 1991.

(A great quote by Andrew Keen around the 18.25 mark.)

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Some time ago whilst working in a Pupil Referral Unit I, along with the deputy head teacher, Googled ‘LOL’. Shameful but true, we were trying to decipher a bullying letter that was thrown in the bin. On the evening of the Brits I can genuinely say that I did LOL on a number of occasions. For me this is one level that Twitter works, just a bit of fun, Mr Brydon, just a bit of fun.

Hei an Ah wasn’t meimin eitha. It’s them new TVs that yiz have. They sort uv make the pickchaz jorky leike man pet an that. Cheryl Kerl

Ah’m ganna sack mei horstyleist t’neet! Coz wei didden Ah get a well mentil horsteel leike Ladee Gawgaw and Lily Allen’s got? Cheryl Kerl

The day after the dialogue continued on Facebook. A friend commented that she didn’t get the British love of the ‘simeon one’. I at once knew that she was referring to ‘he who nods to camera with furled eyebrows’. My what a Facebook onslaught this opened up from offended fans.

Twitter adding value to your business

However if you choose Twitter can add value to your business. Recently attention has been drawn to the potential security risks of Twitter with the Please Rob Me site. I suspect caution rather than fear is the best response here but the simple point is that these micro blogs are searchable, and they can and do get searched.

Last week I attended a local networking group. I was invited to attend because one of the group’s active members had read my tweets and as a result looked at this blog. She messaged me directly through Twitter and commented how she thought that the down to earth approach was what the group were looking for. This has to be seen as a result even though initially the contact presented opportunities rather than confirmed business.

Techserv HS_4000 Plasma Cutter

I still get a bit knocked out by this technology. It genuinely excites me that within a matter of hours, someone has offered some sort of response to a new website and that the response came to the customer.

I realise though that for many this is all a bit difficult to buy into. However if one looks at it as a new ingredient that is part of the mix, adding too rather than replacing then it becomes easier to understand. In an ideal world we would open our metaphorical doors and wait for the customers to come to us. I believe that Social Networking can help guide people to your open doors.

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