Personal | Totally Incorrect

David July 12, 2009

Social Media – Over Hyped?

You know what, I really like social media. I use some of the mainstream social media sites and I get a ton of value from them.

On Twitter, I’ve met a lot of really cool people, learned so much about many subjects and discovered 12for12k. I use Facebook mainly to keep in touch with my family and I also use some of the other sites such as Linkedin and FriendFeed.

For a while I’ve been reading how social media marketing makes all other marketing techniques obsolete and how the mainstream media might as well pack up and go home because social media is faster and more relevant.

I’m coming to the conclusion that most of this is just complete crap. In the marketing world, social media certainly has a big role to play in engaging customers and prospects in conversations. But let’s not kid ourselves here, any marketing person who is more away than Michael Jackson understands that social media tools are just one part of a balanced marketing plan – often not the most important part.

Ah, I hear you say – what about the news? It took the mainstream media 30 minutes to get to the Steve McNair story. Know what? I don’t care. The only people who I can imagine have any real interest in this (and others like the Jacko story) are family and friends – the people directly affected. And while we are on the subject of how great social media is for news, I was reading on Twitter just the other day how the Queen had died. As much as Prince Charles would love to take over the job, I think he has to wait a while yet.

Hey, I can live with all this stuff – whereever you go there is always some BS.

What really has me going is reading all over the Internet that Twitter should be awarded the Nobel Peace Price – mainly because of Iran.

Really, what has Twitter done to help Iran? To be honest not a lot. I know some people made their avatars green to show support for the opposition supporters in Iran who had adopted green as their colour. I must say, I’m at a loss to understand how this would affect anything. Even though a lot of people (in the comfort of their western home or office of course) had green avatars, all I’ve seen is dead people and the same government as before. I’m pretty sure that 90% of the green avatar people know little or nothing of the political and cultural life in Iran, I bet quite a few wouldn’t be able to locate the country on a map!

So Nobel Prize material? I don’t think so. But heck, Al Gore got one so maybe it is possible

While all this is going on, I’ll continue to look at social media as a great way to network with interesting people and as a learning tool.

What do you think? Should Twitter be a Nobel laureate? Is the social media hype getting too much for you as well?

Filed Under: Personal 16 Comments

David July 6, 2009

My Social Media Avatar

I was inspired to write this story after reading this great article by Gina LaGuardia on her blog.

In it Gina explains (much better than I could) what the 12for12k charity means to her and how important using the special avatar is for her. I strongly suggest you read what Gina has to say.

It got me thinking because people often ask me about my social media avatar and I don’t think I’ve ever done a very good job of explaining it. So here is an attempt to do so.

There are two parts to my avatar – the 12for12k design and the picture of me; both of these are important parts of what I do.

The 12for12k charity is something I really relate to. I’ve never really been involved in any charitable organizations before so this is all quite new to me. I’ve always used the excuse that I’m too busy or too broke to make contributions to anything – of course neither is really true.

Like many people I heard of 12for12k by coming across Danny Brown on Twitter. It seemed that everywhere I went, the guy in the cap was already there and (despite of the damage he does to the English language) I found I often related to what he had to say. As the founder of the movement, what Danny often had to say was that through 12for12k, a lot of ordinary each making a small contribution could really make a difference. Sounds good to me.

So since then, I’ve become an enthusiastic supporter of 12for12k which supports a different worthy charity each month. Sure, some appeal to me more than others but I think the movement is really important. We all get so much (a lot of it for free) from social media so there’s really no excuse at all not to give a bit back.

The photo of me is special to me as well. Our family has a wedding business. Photography for my daughter and I, hair and beauty for my wife.

Last year we shot a sunrise wedding at the summit of Mount Washington – the highest point in the north eastern United States. We were at the summit of the mountain at about 5.00 AM hoping for an outdoor ceremony. Of course, Mount Washington is famous for its bad weather so we were forced inside. The image of me was taken by my daughter on the steps of the Tip-Top House, a small building right on the summit where the wedding took place.

After the wedding we hiked down the mountain with the couple and their friends, an unforgettable experience.

So Gina is right – an avatar can be very important. Here are some images from the wedding.

Thanks for the inspiration Gina!

Oh, if you’d like to learn more about our wedding photography and beauty services, head on over to our UniqueDay Events site.

Filed Under: Personal Tagged With: 12for12k.avatar, social media 6 Comments

David July 2, 2009

Blog of the Week – SEOMoz

If you are anything like me, you probably find the whole Search Engine Optimization (SEO) a bit of a mystery. Let’s face it, how many of us could claim to know our link juice from our Page Rank? Not too many I bet!

It seems to me that getting one of my lame sites to actually show in Google (or other search engine) results is as much black magic as technique. What makes the whole thing even more frustrating is that for a business, getting good search engine placement is pretty much essential for success. What is a sad marketing person to do?

Funny you should ask that because I have a solution.

For a while now I’ve been reading the blog over at SEOMoz and it is one of the best places I’ve found to learn about the basics of SEO. If you hang out in Social Media at all you’ll have come across Rand Fishkin, the inspiration behind SEOMoz.

I’ve not met Rand in person, but I have a lot of time for what he has to say. He is one of a small core of people who seem to love sharing their knowledge and I find myself reading his blog just about everyday.

Rand not only shares his thoughts on how to be successful with your SEO, he also writes about his business, raising venture capital and is an all around interesting guy – someone you know would be good to chat with over a beer or two!

Even better, SEOMoz isn’t a one-man band. A number of people from their team write on the blog or take part in the videos – serious geek factor sometimes, but always done in an accessible way. While SEOMoz clearly has the mission of selling their consulting and SEO products, there is just so much great info that they make freely available for anyone.

So here’s my thought – getting our websites found is vital for success so part of my strategy is to make sure I read the SEOMoz blog. That’s why it’s Blog of the Week!

How do you get found in search? Do you use a company like SEOMoz to help? Do you read Rand’s blog?

Filed Under: Personal Tagged With: blogs, google, search, seo 4 Comments

David June 14, 2009

Blog of the Week – Kids are Heroes

OK, so Kids are Heroes might not strictly speaking be a blog, but I want to recognize it anyway.

Kids are Heroes was set up my Gabe O’Neil and his daughter Mary Margaret and it strives to help young people do great things – become heroes!

As I understand it, the idea for Kids are Heroes came from Mary Margaret and she was able to get her dad on board – I think she was 9 at the time so this is pretty cool. It was also rather fortunate that Gabe just happens to be a web designer so he was able to put the whole thing together.

Check out the Kids are Heroes site to see some of the cool things Mary Margaret and Gabe have been able to set in motion – really impressive.

Kids are Heroes was recently chosen to be featured on PitchTV, on Virgin Atlantic flights. Watch the video, introduced by Richard Branson.

And, as if this family isn’t amazing enough already, Gabe’s brother Greg is heavily involved with another children’s charity Sleeping Children Around the World (SCAW). Gabe himself also finds time to be an enthusiastic supporter of 12for12k which I really appreciate. I’m really hoping that we can somehow get Kids are Heroes to be a 12for12k charity one month.

Oh, since this is supposed to be about blogging, you can check out Gabe’s blog as well as follow him on Twitter where he is @kidsareheroes.

Quite a family and a worthy Totally Incorrect Blog of the Week!

Filed Under: Personal Tagged With: blogs, charity, kids are heros Leave a Comment

David June 2, 2009

Blog of the Week: Vlad Dolezal

According to Wikipedia, Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia, more commonly known as Vlad the Impaler (Vlad Ţepeş), or simply in Romainian Dracula (November/December 1431 – December 1476), was a Wallachian (present-day southern Romania) Voivode.

Um, excuse me a second …… what’s that? Oh, wrong Vlad!

Sorry about that; let’s start again.

Vlad Dolezal is a blogger who lives in Leeds – life there is just as exciting as that led by the other Vlad. Now, it so happens that my Dad is from Leeds and I’ve spent a lot a time there. This leads (no pun intended) me to believe that our friend Mr. Dolezal isn’t really a Leeds native, but I’m a sporting guy so I’ll let it go.

Vlad Dolezal is a great blogger. His blog shows up in my Google Reader as “An Amazing Mind” although he has recently changed the name to “Fun Life Development.” Whatever it’s called, you’ll find Vlad’s blog at http://vladdolezal.com/blog. I prefer the original title because this guy’s mind is indeed amazing.

Read any of his stories and you’d swear it is written by an older guy, someone who’s been around and experience a lot. You’d think the stories were were written by someone who has been studying for many years at the highest levels of philosophy. When you realise that the blog is written by a bloke studying mathematics at college you’ll be – well, amazed.

I’ve been reading Vlad’s work for quite a while and often thought that he needs to be Blog of the Week sometime. Two of his recent posts have ensured that he gets this unique accoclaid. The first one was where Vlad announced that since he is a huge open source fan, he felt it was only right to change the copywrite licence for his blog. So now Fun Life Development blog is licensed under the WTFPL Licence. Go and read his post about it right now.

The other post is the one about his “Free Hugs” session. Vlad actually went out onto the mean streets of Leeds with a big sign offering free hugs. Crazy or what – I mean no one in their right mind would do this; least of all in Leeds. His story of the day is just so funny and inspirational.

No question, Vlad Dolezal is an inspirational guy. That’s why he is the writer of this weeks Blog of the Week!!

Sorry about all the Vlad the Impaler references Vlad. I know I’m hardly being original – just couldn’t help it

Filed Under: Personal Tagged With: blogging, blogs, hugs, Vlad Dolezal 1 Comment

David June 1, 2009

Google Reader Widget

You might have noticed that I’ve been making some changes to the Totally Incorrect homepage layout. I’m trying to make everything easier to use and more – well more me.

One of my passions is reading and learning (OK, that’s two passions but the two are strongly connected). As part of this, I’m a huge fan of Google Reader where I subscribe to lots of great blogs and other sources.

For a while I’ve been wondering how I can share great articles and stories I find with the reader of Totally Incorrect. I think I’ve found it.

Recommended Reading is a WordPress plug-in designed to display my shared items in Google Reader. It is just so simple, once I had it installed and configured, every time I share an item in Google Reader, it shows up at the top of the reading list in my sidebar – Brilliant!!

So in future, every time you visit Totally Incorrect, you’ll be able to see what I’m excited about. Clicking on the article name in the sidebar will take you right to the blog post. Social Media is all about exploring and sharing so I hope you’ll check back often to see what new gems I’m reading that day.

Do you use Google Reader (or another RSS feed reader) to keep up with your reading? Which reader do you like best?

Filed Under: Personal Tagged With: blogs, google reader, widgets Leave a Comment