You can skip sections by using the slider control at the bottom of the video clip.

All times are in Eastern Daylight Time (-5hrs). So the first time (07:35) is the equivalent of 1:35pm BST for UK and 3.35pm in Finland.

07:35:15  Toby Parkins : Hi Ryan and Martin=
07:51:05 uknetweb : Hi everyone. We will be starting shortly. There is no sound yet by the way.
07:55:54 habeyhl : Do I have to call in to hear the audio, or can I hear it through the web?
07:56:25 uknetweb : Audio is being switched on now
07:56:41 habeyhl : thanks!
07:59:05 habeyhl : is there a twitter hash tag for this?
08:03:35 Ray Bolitho : Nice shirt Toby!
08:03:59 Tony Conte : hearing you loud and clear Toby!
08:04:00 cathy : Hello
08:04:15 Charla Symons : Hi from Totally Truro
08:04:57 Follett Stock : Good afternoon everyone – Follett Stock Solicitors & FS Media
08:05:24 Kristin Zhivago : hi
08:05:31 Ryan Mcfarlane : Hello
08:05:38 Dougie Woods : Hi Toby!
08:05:56 Matt : Good afternoon from Matt, Rob and Mark from WDL
08:06:01 Jemiina Hautamäki : Hello from Finland, from Persoona
08:13:06 Toby Parkins : Hi Dougie, well done – you made it
08:13:45 Toby Parkins : Hi Jemiina, thanks for coming
08:24:18 Gary J : Twitter
08:24:22 habeyhl : Twitter
08:24:25 Tony Conte : Blogs/wordpress
08:24:26 Charla Symons : Facebook and Twitter
08:24:37 Craig : WordPress / facebook / twitter
08:24:41 Kristin Zhivago : Blog – since 2004, Twitter (business), facebook (personal only)
08:24:50 Dougie Woods : facebook
08:24:52 John Knowles : As a company? Facebook, Twitter, Forums, Youtube, LinkedIn
08:24:54 Follett Stock : Facebook/Twitter/UGC
08:24:58 Jemiina Hautamäki : Twitter, Skype, Facebook, blogs
08:24:59 Ryan Mcfarlane : Blogs, skype, facebook
08:25:08 evolutionpd : facebook, twitter, blog, slideshare, linkedin
08:25:18 Ray Bolitho : none I’m afraid
08:25:20 Kristin Zhivago : Kristin Zhivago here – agree with you about virtual worlds
08:25:36 Kristin Zhivago : Also skype
08:25:41 Toby Parkins : Yeah, virtual worlds are really powerful
08:25:54 Gary J : Just starting with wordpress
08:27:59 Josef Nankivell : twitter is always a great place to have a web dev question answered – with a transactive memory like twitter the answers find you
08:29:12 John Knowles : Gordon Brown on #w elovethenhs
08:34:06 habeyhl : what are ABC1s, C2DEs?
08:34:26 Matt : social bandings
08:34:37 Toby Parkins : marketing groups
08:34:56 habeyhl : thanks
08:36:07 Toby Parkins : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NRS_social_gradefor more information on Social Grading
08:36:28 Toby Parkins : (the link should open in a new window/tab
08:36:45 Toby Parkins : It’s a UK system
08:38:13 Paul : Not at all currently
08:38:14 Tony Conte : to increase SEO and drive more traffic
08:38:17 Gary J : Awareness, marketing, driving clients to site and SEO
08:38:29 John Knowles : Research, identifying/qualifying prospects, driving offline PR
08:38:33 Toby Parkins : at UKNetWeb we are finding that 70% of new business comes through some kind of Social Media
08:38:33 Ryan Mcfarlane : SEO
08:38:33 Kristin Zhivago : will be using it to launch my next book
08:38:41 evolutionpd : marketing, awareness, engagement,
08:38:48 habeyhl : we’re not using it well
08:38:49 Follett Stock : posting links to articles, driving traffic to site, a bit of PR and marketing
08:38:56 Charla Symons : Awareness of events and driving traffic to www.enjoytruro.co.uk
08:39:07 habeyhl : (thanks for the link Toby)
08:39:08 Josef Nankivell : using social media for research into starting a web business
08:39:19 John Knowles : also online PR.
08:39:25 Kristin Zhivago : already using it to raise awareness. and helping clients adopt it
08:39:49 Kristin Zhivago : Yes, already using a blog for that
08:39:50 cathy : Not using it in the offices-some volunteers are on it -casual references to our charity?
08:39:52 John Knowles : Even where our clients’ eventual targets aren’t that interested in social media, the journalists who cater for them usually are.
08:39:54 Kristin Zhivago : And Twitter
08:40:17 John Knowles : (In fact, you get a faster response from Facebook / Twitter than from email or phone!)
08:40:26 Kristin Zhivago : absolutely
08:40:30 Ray Bolitho : not using it at all but really feel that I need to
08:40:38 Josef Nankivell : very true, John
08:40:44 Toby Parkins : It’s really important to ensure that your Social Media strategy is integrated with the rest of your communication strategy
08:41:19 John Knowles : Toby… how much of this presentation is being recorded? (Just the slideshow & Aren, or chat etc too?)
08:41:38 Toby Parkins : Not sure if all chat is recorded.
08:41:51 Toby Parkins : The main presentation window and audio are recorded.
08:42:19 Toby Parkins : We may be able to record the chat for future use. Please let me know if there is anything commercially sensitive
08:42:54 John Knowles : That would be useful, Toby – it’s hard to read all the comments and concentrate on Aren at the same time!
08:43:07 Elliot Smith : Copy & paste into notebook
08:43:17 Elliot Smith : er.. notepad
08:44:03 Toby Parkins : Need to eat more fish and enhance your Corpus Callosum
08:49:08 Elliot Smith : Thanks Toby. Just suffering from sleep deprivation
08:53:11 Tony Conte : not getting google screen
08:53:19 Tony Conte : still showing Business Cornwall
08:53:56 John Knowles : Are Twilerts available within Twitter?
08:55:52 Toby Parkins : It’s available as a seperate site although I think it’s down at the moment
09:04:35 cathy : Can you join any of these at a “corporate ” level or do you have to have an individual as a front at least?
09:05:38 Toby Parkins : Cathy, I’ll let Aren answer that one
09:05:38 John Knowles : Some of them are a bit of both – on Facebook and LinkedIn etc. you can have a corporate page with linked personal profiles
09:06:15 Kristin Zhivago : do you advise CEOs to twitter? eg Zappos CEO – constantly twittering
09:06:37 cathy : I have no wish to “share ” with the world myself but it might help our charity
09:07:09 Kristin Zhivago : mostly i work with b2b companies
09:07:43 Kristin Zhivago : the problem is time management – the CEO seldom has the time
09:07:44 Gary J : C athy: We use our company name as our twitter handle
09:08:26 cathy : Thank you for those replies.Will try for a more general presence
09:09:04 Gary J : We are also just about to launch a new site (in a couple of weeks), so have used the URL (www.TheAntCan.com) as my twitter handle (theantcan)and use the logo as my twitter picture.
09:09:14 John Knowles : Cathy – a friend of mine has certinaly taken that approach. She’s self-employed, and has moved entirely from a personal to a business presence.
09:09:46 John Knowles : How easy is it to set up the sharing functionality if you’re non-technical?
09:09:55 Gary J : If using wordpress, how do you get the sahre this link
09:10:13 Elliot Smith : Every business should consider registering their company name / url on social networking sites, even if it’s only to protect your name
09:10:33 Gary J : What plugin do you use? and for retweeting?
09:10:48 John Knowles : Is wordpress subscription based?
09:10:49 Tony Conte : which is better, WordPress hosted or on wordpress server? from an SEO point of view?
09:11:08 Gary J : WordPress is free – we have it on our own server
09:11:10 cathy : Are there any downsides to all this? Does it take up a lot of time tracking and monitoring?
09:11:39 Gary J : Thanks
09:12:36 Josef Nankivell : When starting an online business, do you think it is important to share your new experiences/issues with others? Or wait until your business is at a certain level of success before using social media?
09:12:38 Tony Conte : makes sense, thanks
09:12:58 Gary J : Do you find the google adsense detractss from content on your site or do your clients linke it?
09:13:44 John Knowles : Cathy – as much as you let it, really. I suppose the main danger is that you spend ages catering for a very few people. You need to be very clear about objectives and how much time it’s worth to you, I’d say.
09:14:30 Elliot Smith : How about Facebook as an advertising platform?
09:14:38 Gary J : What’s best – adsense or paid-for banner ads?
09:15:00 Josef Nankivell : Thanks very much, I was thinkning along the same lines.
09:15:17 John Knowles : From whose point of view, Gary?
09:15:26 Gary J : Aren – this is really useful stuff. Thank you.
09:16:34 Elliot Smith : thanks!
09:16:48 Kristin Zhivago : thank you
09:16:54 John Knowles : Thanks Aren
09:17:03 Ryan Mcfarlane : Nice work – cheers
09:17:08 John Knowles : Media with a K?
09:17:10 John Knowles :
09:17:20 Paul : Interesting stuff. Thanks.
09:17:21 Josef Nankivell : Thank you Aren. This has been very helpful!
09:17:24 evolutionpd : Thanks Aren
09:17:32 Tony Conte : thanks Aren
09:18:46 habeyhl : managing
09:18:53 Charla Symons : Managing a website
09:18:53 cathy : Managing
09:18:56 John Knowles : As a company, we’re in the process of developing a new site
09:18:56 Elliot Smith : Just about managing
09:19:04 Jemiina Hautamäki : managing, designing & developing
09:19:04 Charla Symons : ww.enjoytruro.co.uk
09:19:17 Gary J : We have a wesbite, are launching a network www.theantcan.comand just starting to develop a wordpress site.
09:19:17 Joona : designing
09:19:19 habeyhl : www.womenshealth.gov
09:19:22 Craig : www.websitedesign.co.uk
09:19:22 Kristin Zhivago : had a website since 1995 or so – http://www.zhivago.comand blog since 2004 http://www.revenuejournal.com
09:19:31 Paul : Contributing and developing new site(s)
09:19:31 Tony Conte : design, manage and develop, plus offline.
09:19:48 John Knowles : For reference, we’re www.jkc.co.uk- although there’s not much there now!
09:19:52 Josef Nankivell : contributing to Bright Hub as a writer http://www.brighthub.com/members/kivster.aspx
09:22:07 Gary J : Can you recommend a banned words filter as part of an automatic upload feature?
09:22:44 John Knowles : Are blog homepages more effective as a list of full articles, or just headlines / first paragraphs where you can click through?
09:26:04 Mark : im going camping this weekend
09:26:15 John Knowles : Ooh… that’s interesting. Why did you choose Dimdim?
09:26:40 John Knowles : Hold on – if Toby’s doing the presentation, who’s anwering the questions? Oh…
09:26:44 Aren : Not me – another Aren by the way
09:27:05 John Knowles : Surely there can’t be two Arens!
09:27:38 Aren : I believe he’s actually called Joe.
09:27:41 cathy : What’s on your ceiling?
09:28:27 Aren : Sorry with regards to Q’s I will pass to Toby when he stops unless best answered by me.
09:28:36 Aren : On the ceiling?
09:29:05 cathy : Something keeps catching Toby’s eye up there!
09:29:11 Ryan Mcfarlane : Live Chat – surly its just a good way for a company to have a low cost base in india and use images / names of british people to make them look like they are using local staff?
09:29:31 Kristin Zhivago : good way?
09:29:42 Kristin Zhivago : I wouldn’t call that “good.”
09:30:23 Aren : In the example used the live chat is managed locally.
09:30:47 Aren : I am sure some companies may use it to outsource customer service abroad.
09:30:55 Josef Nankivell : That’s a very good idea. I have purchased several items due to a friend’s regarding the product!
09:31:02 habeyhl : I’ve found it’s often call center staff that staff the live chat. I’ve gone from chat to phone call with the same person sometimes
09:31:03 Charla Symons : Very locally – i went to school with Aaron!
09:31:07 John Knowles : Risky though
09:31:14 Josef Nankivell : friend’s excitment*
09:32:21 John Knowles : You have to be pretty confident to say: “Here. Ask your friends to help you find a cheaper price”
09:32:24 Aren : By the way, Toby is not looking at the ceiling – we have a projector screen in front / above displaying the view you see
09:33:52 John Knowles : Still not very clear on Facebook connect. is it to facilitate you sharing content without leaving a site, or are you effectively adding that site as a facebook friend? Or something else?
09:33:53 Ryan Mcfarlane : haha – yeah not good as in good – if that makes any sense!
09:34:31 Craig : Facebook connect is an API that enables visitors to your site to use 1 link to share the content on their facebook profile
09:34:45 Craig : developers.facebook.com/connect.php
09:34:52 John Knowles : How does that differ from a “share” plugin?
09:35:26 Kristin Zhivago : seems to me that faking faces would lead to the company being “outed” for the fakery…!
09:35:28 Aren : The ‘Share’ plugin allows users to pos content to a variety of sites
09:35:41 Craig : an API is a bunch of code that a developer codes into your site.
09:35:57 Aren : Yes, Kristin.. very true
09:36:07 Kristin Zhivago : API = application programming interface, I think – a code module
09:36:11 John Knowles : I don’t see why Facebook connect would be better
09:36:13 Kristin Zhivago : with hooks
09:36:40 Aren : Facebook connect links the profile to the website and allows them to login in the future.
09:37:11 Aren : Share this functionality allows users to share content with their friends, followers etc only
09:37:12 Josef Nankivell : It is similar, however, it usually allows the site to broadcast to your facebook prfile
09:37:24 John Knowles : Sort of like a share button that remembers you?
09:37:52 Aren : Well, sort of.. however, share this buttons can recognise you and let you login to their service only
09:38:16 Josef Nankivell : for example, “Josef registered for an event using Eventbrite! Webinar: Social Media for Business Taster”. Opposed to “I am attending an event using Eventbright!”
09:38:16 Aren : Toby can say more during Qs – I don’t do technical, ha ha
09:39:30 John Knowles : So your activity with the website is automatically posted to your profile? (I’m not technical – after more of a “what it does” level answer!)
09:39:51 Josef Nankivell : it depends, but that is a possibility
09:40:02 John Knowles : Wouldn’t that just be really annoying?
09:40:47 Josef Nankivell : It wouldn’t be in a companies best interest to be annoying with the facebook connect feature
09:41:00 Aren : Yes, possibly… it depends on what that content is. Spammy content can do more harm than good
09:41:21 John Knowles : Well, exactly. I’m struggling to think of an example where it would be a good thing for the user.
09:41:45 Aren : In defining a strategy you need to take time to consider the options. Just because a feature exists it doesn’t always make it a good idea to use.
09:42:22 Josef Nankivell : if you look at my profile http://facebook.com/josefnankivellyou might be able to see some examples, such as Eventbright.
09:42:38 John Knowles : Thanks Josef
09:43:45 Josef Nankivell : no worries
09:48:42 John Knowles : I keep hearing RSS. What is it?
09:48:43 John Knowles : (Sorry – too many questions)
09:49:12 Elliot Smith : Really simple syndication
09:49:45 Josef Nankivell : its a way of having information that you are interested in come to you
09:50:10 Josef Nankivell : instead of visiting a news website, you could have news headline appear in your RSS “feed”
09:50:45 Kristin Zhivago : it’s the orange button on a lot of sites. If you click on it, you can get that site’s content sent to you via an RSS reader like Google reader
09:50:59 Kristin Zhivago : go to google reader and you’ll get started
09:51:04 habeyhl : and you can view a RSS feed in igoogle or google reader, or display a feed on your web site
09:51:27 Aren : Wikipedia definition: An RSS document (which is called a “feed”, “web feed”,[3] or “channel”) includes full or summarized text, plus metadata such as publishing dates and authorship. Web feeds benefit publishers by letting them syndicate content automatically.
09:52:03 Josef Nankivell : when you subscribe to more than one rss feed in your rss reader, it becomes a very powerful tool allowing you to get information relevant to you in one place
09:52:05 Aren : We use RSS (naturally present on WordPress blogs) to feed info across to other sites. i.e. To Facebook profiles
09:53:26 Aren : And as Josef says.. you can use RSS as a method to subscribe to the stories /articles from a site and read them in your RSS reader such as Google Reader
09:53:45 Aren : instead of visiting those sites to check for new content all the time
09:55:37 Josef Nankivell : Exactly! If it helps John, imagine one tv channel with all your favourite programmes on all day!
09:55:47 Kristin Zhivago : you can also set up an automatic feed – from your RSS reader to tweets – using twitterfeed.com
09:56:20 Aren : Yes, this is how Business Cornwall sends new stories out on twitter
09:57:17 cathy : It’s been very interesting ,thank you.Some of it went over my head but I will see how it might help us at www.penhaligonsfriends.org.ukin the 3rd sector.
09:57:46 Tony Conte : would you say then regsitering a Facebook business page is better than a personal one?
09:57:47 John Knowles : Just a few. Sorry…
09:58:05 Tony Conte : sunny
09:58:15 Gary J : When moderating comments, do you have an automatic banned words filter? What do you recommend?
09:59:40 Tony Conte : thanks Toby
09:59:41 Kristin Zhivago : do you see that linked in is all business, twitter is a mix, and facebook is becoming more personal?
09:59:50 Josef Nankivell : I think you are providing a very useful service to people who are unsure about social media. Once you help set them up, you are introducing them to a community full of helpful people!
10:00:51 Aren : LinkedIn is mostly business, Twitter and FB are what you want them to be, in my opinion… it depends on your friends / followers- you are in control
10:00:54 Josef Nankivell : I do not know of many businesses that offer that “leg-up” into social media for small businesses
10:01:02 Ray Bolitho : Thanks Toby & Aren. I’ll be in touch with Toby shortly.
10:01:23 John Knowles : Everything in moderation!
10:04:19 Kristin Zhivago : good summary, thanks
10:04:56 Gary J : All done – great info Thank you
10:04:57 John Knowles : me: me: Are blog homepages more effective as a list of full articles, or just headlines / first paragraphs where you can click through? me: What about Facebook Causes? Can you communicate with everyone at once on those?
10:05:01 Kristin Zhivago : how do we contact you?
10:05:27 Charla Symons : Thank you very much Aren & Toby, Totally Truro has found this webinar very useful
10:05:40 Aren : To contact Toby call +44 (0)1872 555933 or email toby@uknetweb.com
10:06:07 Aren : My contacts are: 07501 259000, aren@tonickmedia.com
10:06:23 Kristin Zhivago : thanks
10:06:27 Paul : Lot of good info to think about/explore. Thanks.
10:06:35 Aren : search our names on Google to find profiles and other contact details
10:06:42 cathy : I wanted to know which if any you would most recommend for a charity viz last statement ?
10:08:01 Josef Nankivell : Using facebook for fundraising events would be useful!
10:08:27 Kristin Zhivago : muxt go thanks so much. great meeting
10:08:37 Kristin Zhivago : will be in touch as soon as I reboot
10:08:45 habeyhl : can a facebook (fan) page post an event?
10:08:47 Jemiina Hautamäki : thank you very much, this was a good two hours! will follow you guys on twitter
10:09:08 Aren : Thank you
10:09:32 Gary J : Thanks – see ya !
10:09:38 Tony Conte : many thanks guys, much appreciated.
10:09:48 habeyhl : thanks, this was great
10:09:48 John Knowles : Tom and David want to know if you’re all at Skinners later.
10:09:50 Josef Nankivell : Thanks very much Toby & Aren! It has bee a very enjoyable and helpful experience!
10:09:57 Aren : Yes I will be at Skinners
10:10:20 Aren : For the Cornish delegates – pls check out http://cornwall.twestival.com
10:10:21 John Knowles : Well, have a great time!
10:11:19 Aren : Thanks John, I’m sure I will. Are you not going?

Customer engagement is all about engaging your customers with your company or brand and it can lead to increased order values, customer loyalty and word of mouth recommendation.

Given that a recession is around the corner or already upon us, keeping customers is something that any well minded company should be focusing a lot of attention on.

Yet, in a survey reported in Brand Republic last week it was revealed that just 51% of companies have placed greater emphasis on customer engagement as a result of the economic crisis. 

The survey uncovered that those planning investment in new customer engagement strategies planned to spend their organisations’ money on a range of techniques, including many so called ‘Web 2.0’ areas such as blogging, user generated content and feedback and review systems to name a few. 

These services offer great ways to engage your customers. Blogs give you the opportunity to share wisdom or advice with your audience. User generated content allows your customers to create value with your organisation. And feedback / reviews offer that word of mouth recommendation to your goods or services.

Implementing these types of strategies can vary in cost and other resources; however, the investment can be more than worth it if it results in better relationships with your customers.  

So where do you start?

Have a look around at what the competition are doing. Start with the market leaders and work your way down to your own level (presuming you’re not one of the market leaders). What do you see as innovative? What would your customers react well to? How can you see their ideas working for you? 

Once you have the basic research sit down and brainstorm some of your own ideas. Put it all together and look at the resources you have to hand; money, time, personnel and skills. 

Perform a basic cost to return analysis – run each customer engagement idea through this process, determining whether the benefits to be had, match or exceed the investment required. 

This may sound difficult to ascertain when looking at customer engagement but there are ways to get a basic idea. Here are some questions you should ask yourself when evaluating any potential changes:

What is the average order value? – Can you make changes that will lead to greater order values? How much greater would you expect order values to be after making any change?

How long do you usually retain a client for? How valuable is the average client over that period? If you retain a customer what value would you be retaining in the business? 

How many customers do you normally lose? What target would you set on retaining customers after any changes? How much value would the retained clients bring you?

What does it cost to gain each new client in the first place? How much is your marketing, advertising and PR spend compared to the number of customers acquired? What would the value of keeping clients be over acquiring new ones?

Armed with the information you can make informed choices on the customer engagement strategy that is best for your business. However, remember this is an evolutionary process and should not stop there. Record your progress and ensure that you tweak your strategy regularly to ensure the best results. 

If you would like help or advice on preparing your customer engagement strategy or implementing and integrating blogging, user content or feedback systems please call and speak to Aren on 01872 555933 or send an email using the contact form provided.

Facebook’s Year on Year growth of 172% (compared to June 2007) shows that FB’s dominance is having an impact on the competition here in the UK too, with major competitors; Bebo, MySpace, LiveSpaces and FriendsReunited all showing heavy percentage losses.

These figures are in sharp contrast to the US market where MySpace still dominates the first position spot with a massive 71.92% market share and Facebook only managing 16.91%.

The full tables from Hitwise for the UK and US are shown below:

The innovative party was planned by the company to demonstrate how businesses can use emerging technology to cut business running costs while adding new and exciting ways of promoting their businesses.

The party began at 12.30 on Tuesday (29th July) when a link was published on the old UKNetWeb site. Guests were told to go to the company website, UKNetWeb.com and follow the on-screen instructions to enter a virtual room.

On entering the room, guests could select their own music from a selection of preloaded tracks and carry out conversations with other attendees via on screen text based chat. At 1.00pm Managing Director, Toby Parkins, made a speech to the room where he introduced the new site and recession guide.

All guests were given an opportunity to introduce themselves to the room, following a similar structure to conventional face to face networking events. Guests came from all over Cornwall and further afield, with at least one international guest signing in from an Icelandic advertising agency.

The launch of the new site and recession guide was well received with over 300 people accessing the site and over 150 downloads of the recession guide within the 24 hour period after the launch.

Toby Parkins, MD, UKNetWeb

Managing Director, Toby Parkins said, “The possibilities opened up by emerging technology offers exciting prospects for businesses that want to cut costs and attract new sales. This launch party demonstrated that there are alternatives to travel and we hope that businesses will adopt some of the ideas within the guide to help them through more difficult times.”

“Since the event we have been inundated with interest in similar events. It seems everyone who attended has been telling their friends about it and now there is a real buzz for more virtual events to be organised.” Toby continued.

The new website can be found at www.uknetweb.com with the recession guide available for download at www.uknetweb.com/recession-guide.

Understanding how these networks can be of use to your business is still only just becoming clear, but we’ve done our best to highlight some of the ways the biggest, Facebook, can help you and your business.

Facebook Groups

If you have something to talk about why not set up a group? A group on Facebook is just like a group in the real world; it has officers or organisers, members and events. Setting up a group on Facebook takes just a few seconds and if you have something to share then it makes for an effective means of communicating for free with your audience.

You can publish events and even compile the attendance list for an event easily with the tools built into the application. You can message all members at the push of a button or post information or links they might want to read.

Facebook Pages

Facebook pages are like profile pages for your business. They allow you to upload company information, including opening times, contact details, links, pictures and logos. Like groups they cost nothing to build and have options to message all your ‘fans’ (the term for anyone who likes your page enough to link to it).

Every person that links to your page displays a neat little icon showing they adore you, what could be better! And, if you want to see just how effective it is, all the data relating to people visiting your page including; gender, ages etc is stored in the system for you to see.

Check out Facebook Pages here.

For an example of a working Facebook Page you can visit ours here.

Facebook Advertising

Facebook offers one of the most highly targeted forms of advertising around. Using the details stored on individual member profiles, the Facebook advertising system can target advertising to be displayed for your exact target market alone.

The system works on a pay per click or pay per impressions basis; with fees charged only when someone clicks on your ad in the first instance or for every display in the second.

Profiling options include: gender, location (right down to town), job title, interests, education status, relationship status and sexuality.

Ads can be used to promote a Facebook page, group or application; or a company website or micro-site.

For more information check out http://www.facebook.com/ads/

Networking

Chances are that most business people have undertaken a form of networking at some point or another. This may have involved going for breakfast with members of your local chamber of commerce or BNI, it may have been a speed networking event organised by a local company – either way networking on Facebook isn’t much different.

The principal behind ‘social networking’ is that through publishing a bit about your social activity you will find shared interests with friends or colleagues, helping foster a closer relationship between you.

This may sound all too frightening for many businesses; however, once you have spent a little time working out just what you want to share (and the bits you might want to keep private) it can prove an effective means of building stronger relationships with potential customers or partners.

Each profile comes with something called a ‘status update’ (see example below), this is a small one line statement detailing what you are doing, thinking about etc at the very moment in time. Using these to publish small sound bites about you or your company can present interesting results. Try experimenting with different statements and watch as people mention them the next time you meet or call.

Bebo is a popular social networking website, founded in January 2005. It can be used in many countries including Ireland, Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia. A Polish version was launched recently, which uses a different user database. There are plans for French, German and other versions. Founded by husband and wife Michael and Xochi Birch, Bebo had a major relaunch in July 2005. It was bought by AOL on March 13, 2008 for $850m (£417m). Read More.

Blog / Weblog

A blog (an abridgment of the term web log) is a website, usually maintained by an individual, with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse chronological order. “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog. Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject; others function as more personal online diaries. Read More.

BNI

Business Network International (trademarked by its abbreviation BNI) claims to be “the world’s largest referral organization.” BNI was founded in 1985 by Dr. Ivan Misner, a consultant who now lectures and writes on networking and word-of-mouth marketing. Its motto is “Givers Gain” – members who provide referrals are theoretically more likely to receive them. Chapters allow one person per professional classification, and prospective members must be approved via an application process. Read More.

Display Advertising

Display advertising is a type of advertising that may, and most frequently does, contain graphic information beyond text such as logos, photographs or other pictures, location maps, and similar items. In periodicals it can appear on the same page with, or a page adjacent to, general editorial content; as opposed to classified advertising, which generally appears in a distinct section and was traditionally text-only in a limited selection of typefaces (although the latter distinction is no longer sharp). Read More.

E-commerce

Electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce, consists of the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. Read More.

Email Marketing

E-mail marketing is a form of direct marketing which uses electronic mail as a means of communicating commercial or fundraising messages to an audience. In its broadest sense, every e-mail sent to a potential or current customer could be considered e-mail marketing. Read More.

Digital Marketing

Digital Marketing is the practice of promoting products and services using digital distribution channels to reach consumers in a timely, relevant, personal and cost-effective manner. Whilst digital marketing does include many of the techniques and practices contained within the category of Internet Marketing, it extends beyond this by including other channels with which to reach people that do not require the use of The Internet. As a result of this non-reliance on the Internet, the field of digital marketing includes a whole host of elements such as mobile phones, sms/mms, display / banner ads and digital outdoor. Read More.

Facebook

Facebook (branded as “facebook”) is a social networking website launched on February 4, 2004. The free-access website is privately owned and operated by Facebook, Inc. Users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and region to connect and interact with other people. People can also add friends and send them messages, and update their personal profile to notify friends about themselves. The website’s name refers to the paper facebooks depicting members of a campus community that some American colleges and preparatory schools give to incoming students, faculty, and staff as a way to get to know other people on campus. Read More.

Front End / Back-End System

Generally, the terms front-end and back-end refer to the initial and the end stages of a process. The front-end is responsible for collecting input in various forms from the user and processing it to conform to a specification the back-end can use. The connection of the front-end to the back-end is a kind of interface. Read More.

Google Adwords

AdWords is Google’s flagship advertising product and main source of revenue ($16.4 billion in 2007)[1]. AdWords offers pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, and site-targeted advertising for both text and banner ads. The AdWords program includes local, national, and international distribution. Google’s text advertisements are short, consisting of one title line and two content text lines. Image ads can be one of several different Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) standard sizes. Read More.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics (abbreviated GA) is a free service offered by Google that generates detailed statistics about the visitors to a website. Its main highlight is that the product is aimed at Marketers as opposed to webmasters and technologists which is where the industry of web analytics traditionally grew from. Read More.

Instant Messaging

Instant messaging (IM) and chat are technologies that create the possibility of real-time text-based communication between two or more participants over the internet or some form of internal network/ intranet. Read More.

ISO 9001

ISO 9000 is a family of standards for quality management systems. ISO 9000 is maintained by ISO, the International Organization for Standardization and is administered by accreditation and certification bodies. Read More.

Keywords / Key-Phrases

On the web, a keyword is a reference to the content and/or the type of meta element included in a given web page’s HTML code to aid in the page’s indexing. A keyword meta element may include several comma-separated keywords (or keyword phrases, each of which may contain several individual words) as follows: Read More.

Micro-Blogging

Micro-blogging is a form of blogging that allows users to write brief text updates (usually 140 characters) and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user. These messages can be submitted by a variety of means, including text messaging, instant messaging, email, MP3 or the web. Read More.

MySpace

MySpace is a popular social networking website offering an interactive, user-submitted network of friends, personal profiles, blogs, groups, photos, music and videos for teenagers and adults internationally. Its headquarters are in Beverly Hills, California, USA, where it shares an office building with its immediate owner, Fox Interactive Media; which is owned by News Corporation, which has its headquarters in New York City. Read More.

Search Engine Optimisation

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a web site from search engines via “natural” (“organic” or “algorithmic”) search results for targeted keywords. Usually, the earlier a site is presented in the search results or the higher it “ranks”, the more searchers will visit that site. SEO can also target different kinds of search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search engines. Read More.

Skype

Skype is software that allows users to make telephone calls over the Internet. Calls to other users of the service are free of charge, while calls to landlines and cell phones can be made for a fee. Additional features include instant messaging, file transfer and video conferencing. Read More.

Social Media

Social media is an umbrella term that defines the various activities that integrate technology, social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio. This interaction, and the manner in which information is presented, depends on the varied perspectives and “building” of shared meaning among communities, as people share their stories, and understandings. Read More.

Social Networking / Social Network

A social network service focuses on building online communities of people who share interests and activities, or who are interested in exploring the interests and activities of others. Most social network services are web based and provide a variety of ways for users to interact, such as e-mail and instant messaging services. Social networking has created powerful new ways to communicate and share information. Social networking websites are being used regularly by millions of people, and it now seems that social networking will be an enduring part of everyday life. Read More.

Spamming

Spamming is the abuse of electronic messaging systems to indiscriminately send unsolicited bulk messages. While the most widely recognized form of spam is e-mail spam, the term is applied to similar abuses in other media: instant messaging spam, Usenet newsgroup spam, Web search engine spam, spam in blogs, wiki spam, mobile phone messaging spam, Internet forum spam and junk fax transmissions. Read More.

Stock Management

Stock management is the function of understanding the stock mix of a company and the different demands on that stock. The demands are influenced by both external and internal factors and are balanced by the creation of Purchase order requests to keep supplies at a reasonable or prescribed level. Read More.

Time Management

Time management is commonly defined as the management of time in order to make the most out of it. Read More.

Twitter

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send updates (otherwise known as tweets) which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters in length. Updates are displayed on the user’s profile page and delivered to other users who have signed up to receive them. Read More.

Video Conferencing

A videoconference (also known as a videoteleconference) is a set of interactive telecommunication technologies which allow two or more locations to interact via two-way video and audio transmissions simultaneously. It has also been called visual collaboration and is a type of groupware. It differs from videophone in that it is designed to serve a conference rather than individuals. Read More.

Webex

WebEx Communications Inc. is a Cisco Systems, Inc. company that provides on-demand collaboration, online meeting, web conferencing and video conferencing applications. Read More.

WordPress

WordPress is a blog publishing system written in PHP. All data is stored in a MySQL database. WordPress is the official successor of b2\cafelog, developed by Michel Valdrighi. The name WordPress was suggested by Christine Selleck, a friend of lead developer Matt Mullenweg. Read More.

Content covered by Wikipedia’s GNU Free Documentation License which can be viewed here.

With many companies, organisations and individuals generating new content all the time it is worth taking the time to see how each may improve the way you do business, research or networking online.

In this post I have attempted to catalogue some of the many sources I have found useful in my role researching and advising companies at uknetweb on the possibilities presented by Web 2.0.

Some of the links refer to other list blogs cataloging the best of the web, others are my own selections and some are link to directories I found useful when browsing the web.

Free Useful Software

Open Office – Why pay for MS Office when you can get most of the functionality for free with Open Office?

A suite of software with programs offering many of the functions found within the Microsoft Office Suite. Worth downloading and playing around with – it works across operating systems and platforms . (The Draw program is particularly useful for preparing flowcharts and process models.) If you’re interested how these programs are free – click here.

Open Workbench – Specifically for Project Managers

Similar to OpenOffice this is a program for Project Managers available as a Free Full Download. This neat little bit of software has all the functions to make a project run according to plan and timescales.

Free Online Applications and Downloads

Flock – Manage the Web 2.0 World

Already the subject of one of my past entries I am still loving the functionality of Flock, an alternative version of the Firefox browser system. The Flock browser brings together all of your social networks, bookmarking sites, picture sites, blogs, rss feeds and much much more.

WordPress – More than just a blog site!

WordPress is one of many free blogging systems available free of charge on the web. With loads of functionality in the hosted or download ble versions this great piece of open source content management software makes it easy to publish anything online. Try it out to see what I mean.

Slideshare.net – Get presenting to the World.

I first used Slideshare to publish a presentation given by my MD to a local Chamber of Commerce (click here to view – E-commerce 2008 and Beyond). I never intended Slideshare to be anything more than a convenient place to host presentations for interested parties to download; however, on the first morning after uploading we received 65 viewers from across the globe.

Ning.com – Host your own network

If you’re getting bored of using other social networking sites, Ning.com provides a great location to host your own network. Featuring many of the functions you’d expect to find on other social network sites, Ning gives you control over the name, content and style of your own network. Desktoptwo – The Desktop that travels with you. A handy little online environment featuring a range of online applications accessible through one secure online virtual desktop. Features 1gb of free storage.

The Best Lists

The Top 50 Proprietary Programs that Drive You Crazy — and Their Open Source Alternatives

The title says it all – Packed with links to useful software that gives you the opportunity to put two fingers up at our dear friend – the Big Mr.G.

25 Firefox Extensions to make you more productive

If you have switched to Firefox or Flock this list features a host of add-ons / extensions that make your day that little bit more productive. Warning: you might not like the results of MeeTimer – an add on that identifies where you spend your time online – splitting it into neat sections which include; ‘procrastination’.

ReadWriteWeb – List of Web 2.0 Lists

As it says this is a list of the best lists of Web 2.0 applications, this is a veritable list bonanza!

All Things Web 2.0 – Top 100 Top Rated

This is a link to a directory of the Top 100 (Top Rated) Web 2.0 resources. Navigate the site to find apps etc listed by top recommendations, number of users or category. Really useful site to keep up to date with the latest developments on Web 2.0.

I hope you find these useful. If you have any of your own suggestions please let me know and I’ll get them up here as soon as I can.

]]> http://www.uknetweb.com/blog/technology-and-commentary-blog/business/the-best-free-software-online-apps-and-lists-on-the-web-20/feed/ 0 http://www.uknetweb.com/blog/technology-and-commentary-blog/technology/wwwdontclickit-cosmetically-lovely-fundamentally-flawed/ http://www.uknetweb.com/blog/technology-and-commentary-blog/technology/wwwdontclickit-cosmetically-lovely-fundamentally-flawed/#comments Thu, 28 Feb 2008 14:49:18 +0000 Aren Grimshaw http://uknetweb.wordpress.com/?p=24 Here at uknetweb we are all for pushing the boundaries of web development and coming up with ingenious new ways for customers to interact with businesses online. We have produced a number of European and World firsts for our clients, not driven by technical superiority but from a good understanding of how people do business online.

When we first heard about the dontclick.it project we were excited to see what it had to offer and whether this might just be the start of an entirely new way for websites to work. Driven by my passion (and if I’m honest geeky desire) to search out the best of Web 2.0 projects and emerging internet technologies I first came across dontclick.it through a random Stumble and at first site was pretty impressed.

Not wanting to stop at my own first impressions I felt it was time to let the site do the rounds of the office and see just what the designers, techies and normal polite members of society thought about a site that doesn’t need (or allow) to be clicked.

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John Thornton… resident PHP Programmer and general ‘codehead’ at uknetweb

The user interface is definitely a novel and very innovative one; however this kind of site operation is likely to prevent site visitors suffering from motor control problems or other special needs due to the nature of the programming employed.

The various button control techniques shown, set about destroying some of the only positive arguments for an interface control system of this kind. i.e. that you don’t need to keep clicking or pressing buttons!

The delay while you hover waiting for an action to start makes the site clumsy to use, confusing and slower than clicking. The continuous mouse wiping and waving motion is more likely to cause Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) than a single movement and a click.

In all it’s a great theory which unfortunately lacks any forethought (but it does look lovely).

Score: 2 out of 5 – awarded for innovation and looks.

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Richard Collett… resident CSS expert responsible for making client sites ‘look pretty’.

What an annoying site! OK, so on first impressions it captures every aspect of the Web 2.0 style – bold colours, reflections, crazy page structures and so on but come on is there really any need to remove the click function?

Within minutes of hitting the site I couldn’t help myself, I pressed the button on my mouse, sending me to some strange page of snow that told me I shouldn’t have done that. The site creators just can’t help themselves after all this site is more about standing out from the norm and doing something different rather than anything useful.

My annoyances in the site didn’t stop there. Try using this site with a laptop touchpad, I beg you to!

OK so lets be serious here for a moment. What does this site achieve?

Very little I’m afraid. I have spent my time putting together sites and ensuring ease of use for site visitors but this site is just so confusing. You are never quite sure where you are or where you’re supposed to be going, that’s fine for a crazy test site but it just isn’t applicable to any real world scenarios.

Score: 0 out of 5 – because it’s so god damn annoying!!

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Esther Caulfield…a rose amongst the thorns, she handles all the lines of communication coming into the Engine House.

Ummm. I’m confused why do you want me to go to this site?

Hey, what’s the point of all this.

It just told me to click and now I have been told off for clicking! Oh, how annoying is this!?

I’m bored can I go now… ah, wait a second I’ve just found a giveaway!

Score 1 out of 5 – it has a giveaway!

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So at the end of the day the team here at uknetweb were not impressed by the dontclick.it project giving it a final score of 1 out of 5. Our end message to the developers has to be ‘Why? – If it isn’t broke don’t fix it!’

The entry looks at how sites like Wikipedia and Digg, which purport to be web democracies actually work more like an oligarchy, where a small segment of users are responsible for the majority of content and the sites general direction.

Where I find problems with Wilson’s view starts in his title. It is clear that there may be an argument to show that sites such as Digg and Wikipedia are in the control of a select bunch of users. However, these users have not been selected, appointed or employed but have risen through the ranks (so to speak) through active participation, knowledge and the support of other users.

The whole principle of the so called ‘Web 2.0′, Crowdsourcing and the Read / Write web is that it offers open access to the collective commons. It seems only natural to me that those who put the most in would naturally achieve a higher degree of ability to affect changes across those sites operating in this way.

As such the title used in Wilson’ s blog, describing ‘Web 2.0 democracy’ as a ‘myth’, does not really seem accurate or fair.

I believe that the Web 2.0 phenomenon may not be perfect and is in fact still at a relatively early stage. Where I see that it offers many advantages over the web as it existed until this time, is in the open ability for most, regardless of technical knowledge or ability to participate in a creative commons un-bound by mainstream corporate concerns, financial restrictions or censorship.

It is difficult to apply terms such as ‘democracy‘ to such a subject when countless sites struggle to provide an accurate definition of exactly what it is. If we take the literal meaning listed by About.com as ‘the will of the people’ then can anyone really argue that Web 2.0 is anything but democratic, after all, are we not all free to participate as we choose to do so.