Hootsuite is a great tool for managing your social media. This week’s video blog shows you how to integrate your Twitter lists into your Hootsuite Dashboard and how to create a search column to keep on top of the latest tweets in your area of interest.
February 26, 2010
February 25, 2010
Featured Workshop – Blogging For Business
Each week we are featuring one of the Work The Web workshops here on our blog.
This week it is ‘Blogging For Business’
Who is this workshop for?
Small to medium sized business owners who own a website but feel that they are not maximising it to it’s full potential.
What you will learn:
Each week we are featuring one of the Work The Web workshops here on our blog.
This weeks featured workshop is ‘Blogging For Business’
Who is this workshop for?
Small to medium sized business owners who own a website but feel that they are not maximising it to it’s full potential.
What you will learn:
If you would like to start a blog for business but aren’t sure where to start, we can show you how to do it from the ground up. We will show you everything you need to know in order to set up a blog easily and quickly and to maximise both SEO and branding potential.
This is ideal for small businesses who want to be hands-on about their online marketing and web presence.
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Choosing hosting and domain name
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WordPress vs Blogger
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Creating your blog online
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Configuring basic blog settings
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Changing the look of your blog
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Creating your first post
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Formatting and editing posts
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Using hyperlinks
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Embedding video and images
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Managing comments
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Tags, Keywords, and SEO
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Case studies – Blogs that work
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Setting a blogging schedule
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Different types of blogs
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Targeting your market
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What to write
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Goals and calls to action
Where & When:
We are running this one day workshop on:
Friday 7th May at at Jury’s Inn, Dublin 1
and
Thursday 27th May at The Maudlins House Hotel, Naas, Co. Kildare
A limited number of Early Bird tickets are available for €95
Full price tickets cost €145
Payment Details
If you wish to pay by Visa or Mastercard please simple pay online when booking your tickets. If you wish to pay by Laser or if you prefer to pay by Visa/Mastercard over the phone please call 091 399 939 and tell the receptionist that you wish to pay by credit card. To pay by cheque or EFT please contact Ruairi on 091 399 939 for details.
February 24, 2010
Your Social Media Questions Answered – Will Facebook become the hub for social network integration?
I’ve been asking for your social media question small or large and this weeks one is a biggy!
John Abbot from Abbot Consulting asked:
“would you agree with Gartner’s predictions about Facebook becoming the hub for social network integation by 2012.”
Lets have a closer look at what Gartner predicted:
“By 2012, Facebook will become the hub for social network integration and Web socialization. Through Facebook Connect and other similar mechanisms, Facebook will support and take a leading role in developing the distributed, interoperable social Web. As Facebook continues to grow and outnumber other social networks, this interoperability will become critical to the success and survival of other social networks, communication channels and media sites.”
There is no doubt that by 2012 Facebook will have continued it’s massive growth, maybe even reaching a billion users worldwide. However there is a danger that more users may result in less interaction with the site. It is possible that with so many friends to keep up with that users will be overwhelmed with the information coming in. There is also the danger that people will begin to feel that Facebook is too commercial, they will become fans of too many pages and find their news feeds full of marketing messages. For this reason it is important that page owners keep their posts interesting and relevant to their target audience.
Certainly Facebook are aware of the possible downside of growth and have been quite innovative in the way that they allow their content to be shared. Facebook Connect for example and the opening up of Facebook chat that puts them in strong competiton with other IM solutions. Mobile apps such as ‘Urban Spoon‘ will make the way we interact with our facebook friends very different and it is this move forward, creating a Facebook Profile allowing you to easily share experiences across both the mobile and standard internet, that could give Facebook the ability to become the ‘hub’ Gartner predicts.
In some ways Google Buzz is already attempting to make use of your Google profile in a similar way. By buying into several platforms such as YouTube and Blogger and by allowing you to syndicate these to your email contacts using Buzz there is the potential for Google to become stiff competition to become the ‘hub’ in the future. Whether Buzz succeeds as a social network will not be clear for quite some time. It may even be beyond 2012 before we see it take off in the way Twitter and Facebook has, but I would imagine that Facebook will be keeping a close eye on it’s progress in order to stay one step ahead.
February 19, 2010
February 18, 2010
Featured Workshop – Social Media For Business
Each week we are going to feature one of the Work The Web workshops here on our blog.
The first one is ‘Social Media For Business’
Who is this workshop for?
Small to medium sized business owners who own a website but feel that they are not maximising it to it’s full potential.
This workshop will provide you with the skills required to market your brand online and increase traffic to your website using social media.
This is a complete introduction to Social Media for business focusing on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and YouTube.
What you will learn:
- Case studies on the different ways businesses are using social media.
- How to set up pages, groups, and events.
- How to populate your pages.
- How to attract fans and followers.
- Key strategies for each network.
- How to syndicate your blog or RSS feed across each network.
- Top tips to remember about each network.
Where & When
We are running this one day workshop on:
Thursday 6th May at The Maudlins House Hotel, Naas, Co. Kildare
and
Friday 21st May at Jury’s Inn, Dublin 1
A limited number of Early Bird tickets are available for €95
Full price tickets cost €145
Payment Details
If you wish to pay by Visa or Mastercard please simple pay online when booking your tickets. If you wish to pay by Laser or if you prefer to pay by Visa/Mastercard over the phone please call 091 399 939 and tell the receptionist that you wish to pay by credit card. To pay by cheque or EFT please contact Ruairi on 091 399 939 for details.
February 17, 2010
Your Social Media Questions Answered – Facebook Groups
We were asked by Lorna from Garrendenny Lane Interiors:
“Wondering about the effectiveness of forming a group on Facebook – how do I invite people -is it friends or fans or both? “
Facebook groups are a good way to create a bit of a buzz around your industry. A business should always have a ‘Page’ first but a group is a good way to add value to your brand. They can be a great place for people with a similar interest to share information. For example, it might be worth Lorna starting a group about interior design in Ireland, that way she could keep on top of the current sentiment attached to her industry, share information, start discussions on particular trends all whilst gathering a group of people together who would have an interest in her brand and what she has to offer.
Mashable published a great article on the difference between Groups and Pages recently.
There a couple of things you should consider when you are setting up a group:
- They have a very short shelf life – group pages do not update members news feeds the way that Pages and Profiles do so it can be easy for people to forget about them.
- They are connected to your personal profile. Members of the group will know it is you that is administering the group, unlike a page which appears as an entity on it’s own.
The advantages are:
- You can message members directly. From a business page it is only possible to send ‘updates’ which often remain unread in a fan’s inbox. From a page you can send a message which appears in the inbox the way a personal message does. Be aware not to overload your group members with messages though, use this feature sparingly to avoid people leaving your group.
- If your business already has a page and you are running a new initiative it can be a way to gather together those with a specific interest in it, rather than overloading your fans news feeds with the same message. For example, Spiderworking.com just launched it’s Work The Web Workshops. Imagining that a number of the poeple interested in the workshops would already be fans of Spiderworking.com we decided against setting up a business page. Spiderworking.com’s page will be promoting Work The Web and clogging up fans news feeds with the same recurring message could result in loosing them. For this reason we set up a group. It also means that we will be able to message directly those interested in the workshops.
- People may be more inclined to join a group because they know that a group cannot pollute their news feed.
Inviting people to join a group
You can invite your ‘friends’ directly to join your new group. You cannot invite ‘fans’ of your business page directly but can post details of the group on your wall and ask them to join.
If you have a social media question that you would like answered no matter how large or small leave a comment on this post or tweet us @spiderworking.
February 12, 2010
What software should I use to record from my screen?
Video blogging is a great way to increase traffic to your website, and offering value like video tutorials can be an even bigger draw. But how do you record what you are doing on your screen so that you can insert it into your videos?
Last week Amanda investigated a few of the solutions.
The two applications featured are:
and
Spiderworking.com offers tailored training to businesses in recording and editing Youtube videos.
For more information contact us: http://spiderworking.com/contact.html
Spiderworking.com offers tailored training to businesses in recording and editing YouTube videos.
For more information contact us.
February 11, 2010
Work The Web – Workshops announced.
Thanks to everyone who completed our Work The Web survey, your responses have helped us create a set of workshops which we believe will help you unleash the power of your website.
Today sees the launch of our new website: www.worktheweb.eu . We have designed five, one day workshops covering everything from Social Media to E-commerce running at two locations: Dublin and Naas. The workshops will give you the knowledge you require to really start making the most of your website.
There are a limited number of ‘Early Bird’ tickets available for €95 per workshop. Full price tickets are €145.
Book Now
Click the links below to find out more and book your place today:
We are running 5 training courses in two venues (Dublin and Naas) this May.
Social Media for Business – Dublin / Naas
Creating a Social Media Campaign – Dublin / Naas
Blogging for Business – Dublin / Naas
E-Commerce and Selling Online – Dublin / Naas
Owning Your Own Website – Dublin / Naas
Social Media for Business – Dublin / Naas
Creating a Social Media Campaign – Dublin / Naas
Blogging for Business – Dublin / Naas
E-Commerce and Selling Online – Dublin / Naas
Owning Your Own Website – Dublin / Naas
You can purchase your tickets online with Paypal
or
Call Kro IT Solutions: 091 399 939 To pay by credit card, Laser or cheque.
For more information contact Spiderworking.com: 01 442 9410
February 10, 2010
Creating lists on Facebook
The average Facebook user has 130 friends, add to this fan and business pages and your news feed can begin to look a bit daunting.
Lists are a great way of filtering your friends and pages into categories, allowing you to view their news in seperate sections. You can use it to separate friends from work colleagues or to categorise your pages by type, for example restaurants or Irish Businesses.
How do you make a list?
- Log into Facebook and click the ‘Account’ tab on the top right hand side
- Select ‘Edit friends’ from the drop down menu.
- On the left hand side of the next page click the ‘All connections’ tab:
- Click ‘Create New List’:
- A window will open, here you can name your list and select which friends and pages to add to it.
- Once you have set up a list it is simple to add connections and pages to it. When the window is closed you can scroll down through your friends and use the drop down menu on the right hand side to choose which lists to add them to.
- Now go back to your home page. Click on ‘friends’ on the left hand side of your screen. Your lists will appear here. By clicking a list you will be able to see the updates just from those on the list.
February 4, 2010
Want to know what is twitter saying about you?
This weeks video blog from Spiderworking.com concentrates on the free tools which you can use to monitor Twitter.
These tools help you:
1. Monitor what is being said about your industry and Brand.
2. Help you find people of interest to follow.
The three tools featured in this video are:
Tweetbeep
Tweetscan
and
Tweepsearch
01 442 9410
