Archive for the ‘Birmingham’ Category

A blog critique, new media junkies and the second Birmingham Bloggers Meet

Monday, February 18th, 2008

Last week proved interesting, firstly I took up an offer by Rhett Soveran of Epiblogger; Rhett was looking for willing bloggers to have their posts critiqued for upcoming posts on writing samples. I obliged his offer and my post ‘Social media transparency pitfalls for businesses’ was selected. Rhett put together ‘Blogging in the Microwave Age’ which is a very interesting read on fragmentation of posts and he showed some insights into my blog post structures that I didn’t even realise I was doing but are working well from what I hear. I leave bite sized chunks to reel in the readers and progressively lengthen the paragraphs as I reach the conclusion. This may be because I spend a lot of time reading usability expert, Jakob Nielsens’ approach to writing for the web. In my opinion he is the authority on the subject and his insights are ground breaking. I could write a whole post on this so I will leave it for a day when I wish to do exactly that. Other influences are probably from reporters and news reports where the inverted pyramid style is used; the article is explained in the first few lines and then more and more detail is added to the background of the story the further you read. Anyone dropping out half way down the page already has all the detail they need. I would like to thank Rhett for a glowing write up.

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Tags: birminghamuk, epiblogger, New Media Junie, Rhett Soveran, upYerBrum
Posted in Birmingham, Blogging | No Comments »

New Media Junkie

Monday, February 11th, 2008

Friend and colleague, Mark Steadman is a self confessed new media junkie. As a result he has brought together the website ‘New Media Junkie’ which is the home of collective thoughts, silly bollocks and generally interesting emails that are circulating at the time. Mark is a big fan of radio and ever since he was a young lad he has had high aspirations of becoming a radio disc jockey. Unfortunately he is condemned to a life of developing websites. We both must have done something hideously awful in a previous life to have not only been lumped together but to be thrown into such a frustrating sport as hunt the error message problem. Fix the bloody CSS issue in Safari or dream-crusher (Marks’ fond name for FireFox) is another we while away the hours together to. As a creative outlet, the brand spanking NMJ podcast has been born. What a little cracker it is, I have almost forgiven Mark for erasing material we had recorded for the first episode. Mark is however still chastising himself. Nonetheless, Mark has pulled together a cracker of an introduction of what he has to offer. I will however be featuring on the next episode and hopefully (if he will have me) make this a regular occurrence.

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Tags: BiNS, birminghamuk, jon bounds, Mark Steadman, New Media Junkie, upYerBrum
Posted in Birmingham | No Comments »

A morning blogging in Birmingham

Sunday, February 10th, 2008

Another fresh spring morning in Birmingham and DigiKev is sitting on the steps of the ‘Floozy in the Jacuzzi’ by Victoria Square working on a blog post about the effects of social media and how it can benefit both businesses and individuals. He has decided to take his laptop into the centre of town to, in his mind, blow away some cobwebs and get some new perspective by writing in unfamiliar territory. He has done it before and knows it works, so, confidently he bashes away at the keyboard of his laptop while the rest of Birmingham revolves around him, hurriedly carrying out Saturday morning tasks, shopping frenzies and commutes to work. WebBrochure, an acquaintance of DigiKev is part of this melee of Birmingham society and enters Victoria Square from New Street and spots DigiKev doubled over his laptop.
“Hey Digi, what are you up to man?” asks WebBrochure inquisitively, he hadn’t seen DigiKev out with his laptop by the ‘Floozy’ before— actually, he thought to himself, he could’t remember seeing anyone he knew with there laptop out on the steps of Victoria Square before. DigiKev looks up and has to squint with the sun in his eyes; it is difficult for DigiKev to work out who is greeting him up until WebBrochure is directly in front of him to block out the suns rays.
“Alreet dude, not seen you in a while. I am just working on a blog post. I know it is random that I am doing it out here amongst the madness of the Saturday morning shopping rush but I am trying out blogging in different places at the moment. It kind of brings some clarity to what I am doing.”
“Blogging? You’ve lost me mate I haven’t heard of that before. I guess it is something web related?”
“Yeah that’s right; it’s a web log of personal events or, in my case, a log of articles on social media.” DigiKev pondered over why WebBrochure, who owned his own website hadn’t heard of blogging before as he explained to him what it was.
“To be honest WebBro, I am surprised you haven’t got one as you own a personal website.”
“Yeah, well you say it is a personal website but it is in fact more of an online store. I design and sell t-shirts you see. It isn’t exactly ecommerce but it makes me a few quid so can’t complain” says WebBrochure, rubbing his hands together while talking through the side of his mouth which causes his left cheek to screw up and eye to partially close. He would always talk like this in a very casual, laid back but down to earth manner. DigiKevs’ eyes brightened,
“Perfect! This is just the kind of business that can benefit from a blog and social media”
“Huh?” webBrochure was confused,
“Seriously” DigiKev applauded
“It will not only help you with the creative process of gathering together snippets of new design work into a journal but you can also get direct feedback and input from visitors to your store” DigiKev beamed. He continued,
“This in turn will also mean that you will be producing more content for your website so there is more for Google and other search engines to index, which in turn pushes you up the rankings. You will also gain popularity from this and the interaction with customers will mean they spread the word of your service. It is just like having a little shop down New Street and being able to talk with people that come in.” DigiKev was on his feet now, still clasping his laptop and taking WebBrochure through an example of a t-shirt company doing exactly that, using a blog to interact with web visitors.
“It all sounds well and good fella, but won’t all of this take a long time to keep adding to. You know, this is just a sideline business so I don’t want to get completely bogged down in writing every day” criticised WebBrocure.
“Not at all, with what I am thinking on how you could use blogging is to post up potential new design work and to ask for feedback from your web readers and customers. You are more than likely producing designs already and the blog engine has a user interface, like a login area with a dashboard where you just quickly upload your work. A quick few sentences of explanation won’t eat into your time. Everyone is busy, but everyone has the same 24 hours in a day. Just spend, oooh, I don’t know, 15 minutes every evening before bed adding design work or writing a few sentences. You will be content rich in no time.”
“What can I say Digi? It sounds great. I always thought that you build a web store, open the doors and in come a flood of customers. I have done some search engine optimisation, added some keywords and descriptions and all that jazz…”
“Search engines such as Google and Yahoo are getting cleverer with their algorithms my friend. If their little spiders find that you have fresh content added and updated regularly they will keep coming back for more. By providing a good service to visitors it will mean that you will begin to get linked to. You will also gain a certain authority on your area of expertise. Interact with web visitors and allow them input and your website will become, what we call, sticky. They will keep coming back for more. If you were to open up a shop in the real world you would have to market your wares and provide customer service otherwise no one would know you exist or no one would do business with you if they did. Same principals apply on the web!”
“Wow, I have been really missing something Digi, this is incredible stuff and makes so much sense now. Why haven’t I heard or thought of this before?”
“Don’t worry WebBro, there are plenty of web retailers just like you, you’re far from the last to see the light.” DigiKev chuckles. “Tell you what lets go and grab a cup of tea and chat some more about what you can do to make your website more social, fancy it?”
“Oh, would you mind? That would be top” WebBrochure says appreciatively. “You have got me thinking you see I can make all of my blog posts push different merchandise and sell, sell, sell…”
DigiKev interrupts “Nah-uh, that will be a very bad thing to do WebBro, you know how annoying it is when you walk into a shop and suddenly get pounced on by the shop keeper and shown different items and given suggestions, blah, blah, blah- well same thing in blogging. Don’t whatever you do make it too corporate or sales based or else you’ll come a cropper. Just talk with your visitors, show them what you are up to and about. It is all softly, softly and friendly.”
“Man, I have a lot to learn. Glad you can point me in the right direction or else I would shoot myself in the foot, cheers Digi, lets get some food too, I am getting peckish”.
“Now your talking my language” said DigKev cheerfully.
“So are many people writing blogs then Digi or is this something new?”
“Oh there are plenty, last count in December 2007, Technorati who are a blog search engine had 112 million weblog indexes. Blogging is a web phenomenon and is here to stay.”
“Looks like I am going to have to change my name Digi, what do you think?” said WebBrochure teasingly.
“Haha, yeah you are damn rootin’ tootin’ there WebBro, online brochures are old hat. It is all about conversations and interactions now…”

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Tags: birminghamuk, Blogging, digital media, social media, upYerBrum, writing techniques
Posted in Birmingham, Social Web | No Comments »

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