OK – so you’ve got on Twitter, worked out what the hell it’s about and then thought “How on earth am I gonna get more followers?”

It’s true – it would be best to have an audience when it comes to Twitter – yes, you can just tweet to yourself as after all it is a micro blogging platform but in order to get the most out of Twitter, you need to get involved in the real time conversation.

One of the main things that grates me about the common answer to the above question is “Just follow more people and most will follow back” – ok great, so you can handle a million tweets flying at you 24/7/365? Are you interested in all those people? No? What a surprise.

Instead of thinking of ways to gain fake followers, you’d be best off following a few easy methods to gain followers who are actually interested in you.

Besides – seeing a Twitter profile with an unhealthy ratio of followers to followed just doesn’t look genuine. Are they really listening to all those people?

So – lets get onto 5 ways to increase your Twitter followers:

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Listen up – I need to be quick.

Just finished recording a screen capture video showcasing the Google Real Time Search and I wanted to get this post out there. After all, if I waited, it wouldn’t exactly be “real time” would it?

Late last night (UK time), I saw the news, that Google had announced further information about their real time search (via Mashable – thanks guys!) Now this is BIG with a capital – well B of course!

Why? Simple – this affects EVERYTHING in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). The organic results aren’t gonna be the dominating factor on certain search terms. PPC (Pay Per Click) may be overshadowed even more if your ad appears down the right hand side.

If you’re an SEO that has been burying your head in the sand when it comes to Social Media and how it “doesn’t affect you”, then sorry – this is a kick in the balls for you. You woken up yet? This is as big as when PPC got introduced so deal with it, accept it and understand it.

It’s not just Google Real Time Search – it’s Bing. They announced before Google about their intentions to show Twitter AND Facebook updates in results. Bing also has a more exclusive relationship with Facebook as Microsoft (creators of Bing) have invested, and that includes exclusive deals, such as paid for ads and no doubt special treatment.

So Google will be showing Facebook PAGE updates and nothing more (yet), even this element doesnt appear to be live yet. Make sure you have your fan pages indexed! This is an awesome opportunity.

OK, make sure you check out the video below to see more about how Google Real Time Search will affect the search landscape.

Let me know what you think. Am I getting too excited? Too ahead of myself? Or am I just super awesome and know my shiz? Let me know!

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Bit of an unusual post from me today but it’s for a good cause so I thought I would share it with you! Naturally, I will take a look from a Social Media view

NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children) have launched a campaign to allow you to send a personalised letter from Santa to your children (or any child for that matter). This is a great little gift all for a suggested donation of £5. Here is the information below:

The NSPCC’s Letter from Santa fundraising initiative gives parents, grandparents and anyone else the chance to nominate someone special to receive a magical letter from Santa for a suggested donation of £5. The letter is personalised with the child’s name and age and is sure to confirm that Santa will be making his usual stop in the child’s home town to wish everyone a merry Christmas. The letter is written in a hand script font and is beautifully illustrated on quality colourful paper. The envelope shows that it’s been safely delivered through ‘express Rudolph Mail’.

Fundraiser Binita Patel said: “Letter from Santa is a brilliant way to put an extra twinkle into Christmas this year and make a child feel extra special. The appeal also helps us to raise money to support children who are perhaps not as fortunate.“

“It is important to remember that Christmas is not a time of celebration for every child. Over the 12 days of festive cheer last year, ChildLine – a service provided by the NSPCC – counselled over 3,500 children who were in danger or distress and had nowhere else to turn. By supporting this appeal you will be helping to provide support, advice and protection for these children who are in desperate need of help.”

Also on offer is a Baby’s First Christmas letter from Santa, which is the perfect keepsake for newborns celebrating their first festive season.

To order a letter from Santa for a child you know, visit http://www.nspccwishes.org.uk/ or call 0845 839 9304.

It does look a real cool little gift and I can imagine thier eyes will light up when they receive it. There is a video on the site to show you more, so go check it out!

OK, from the social media side of things, there’s one thing that I’m pleased they’ve done, and that’s include the “Add This” button on the top right. This allows people to share the page via several social bookmarking sites – so that’s a pretty cool touch.

What would I do? Well, I wouldn’t just rely on that. A lot of people aren’t really sure what that is and why they would click it. Instead? I would allow people to order as normal, and right before the final confirmation, allow them to share what they’ve just done via Facebook and/or Twitter.

This is a real opportunity to allow people to spread the word about the campaign via thier networks. You could set up a pre-defined tweet that reads something like:

@NSPCC – Just ordered my Letter From Santa, they’re gonna love it! #letterfromsanta

OK, what that does, is not only get further exposure to NSPCC’s Twitter account by mentioning them in an @reply and get a hash tag going for the name of the campaign, which will become clickable and that will take people to a stream of tweets containing that hash tag. Of course, there is a chance of a Retweet for it to be passed on further.

Now the above is all depending on NSPCC using their Twitter account. At present there isn’t any activity, depsite over 200 followers. It’s not the easiest of subjects to use Twitter for, but I’m sure they could get creative if they had the right Social Media advice

On to Facebook – by using Facebook connect, this would allow people to log in via their Facebook account and post to their wall what they have just done. Again, this has the potential to spread very nicely via the newsfeed and in turn attract more traffic to the page and hopefully more orders!

As I say, this looks like a real nice gift for any children in your life. They’re bound to love it and cherish it. I wish them luck with the campaign. Guys – if you’re reading this, please take the above into consideration to get as much coverage and exposure as possible.

Hopefully that helps!

As usual guys, let me know what you think and let me know if you’ve placed an order!

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Hey,

Super quick post that I’ve slapped together. This is a review on the book Crush It by Gary Vaynerchuk which I have to say is awesome.

This is how quick I wanted to share with you my thoughts. My room is a mess, I used my in built web cam and the sound is a bit ropey – but hey, I wanted to give you an unscripted review a real true insight from the heart.

I have never read a book so quick, I couldn’t put it down and I know I will read it again soon too.

Anyway, check out the video below:

Oh, how about grabbing the FREE Chapter?

If you want more information and videos about the book, you really should check out the dedicated site: Crush It Book

I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Have you read it yet? Let me know your thoughts!

Still not sure? Feel free to ask any questions and I’ll see what I can do

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Calling all recruiters and recruitment agencies – you need to pay attention to this if you wanna get further.

I’m not normally one to call people out – especially to get a bit of sensationalism and extra publicity but I just had to do this in order to show how NOT to approach potential candidates.

Picture the scene – on 5th November (remember, remember) I get an email saying I had a new message on LinkedIn – so as the curious little bunny I am, I log in and check it out. Here it is below:

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Hey Everyone,

Just another quick post (they don’t ALL have to be long do they? )

I caught an advert from Vodafone this morning and I thought it was quite cool. It was showcasing their new 360 service which allows their customers to integrate a LOT of supported social networking and instant messaging together in one service.

The advert can be seen below:

I think it’s a cool advert. It really showcases what is/will be possible when it comes to organising things all via your mobile.

Vodafone will be providing customised devices to allow this service to operate, with models from Samsung and others being available soon.

It’s great to see that not only are the phone manufacturers getting onto the case in making social networking more accessible on your phone, but the networks (UK at least) are also lending a hand.

I think it’s still early days for adoption as not everyone will be into this kinda thing yet, but I cant see it being long until this kind of use of a mobile becomes commonplace.

Really looking forward to the developments of this service. I will also be covering other mobile based social media platforms and phones but wanted to cover this as it was fresh in my mind today.

For the Vodafone press release on the 360 service, check it out here.

Oh and one disappointing aspect of this campaign, is that Vodafone show a URL (redheadsunited.net) and it isn’t even live. To me a school boy error. The least they could have done was redirect that URL to the Vodafone site – or use it has a whole microsite showing off the possibilities.

Vodafone – you dropped the ball on that one.

What do you think of the campaign? Do you see you using your mobile phone like this in the future? Do you think it will catch on?

Let me know!

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Since viewing a lot of sites that have included their Facebook Fan Page box (well done guys – it really is a great move) I have noticed a bit of a pattern which I felt warranted a post.

This post wont be long (well it doesn’t need to be) but I thought it was an interesting point and one worth pointing out. If you have a Fan Page – you’d be silly not to include a Fan Box or a badge, or some form of promotion of it on your site.

After all, the more fans you get, the better chance you have of engaging with them in a way you may never have before. If you haven’t got a fan page – what can I say? Shame on you! If you’re interested in getting one set up – let me know!

OK, back to the point. Most times out of ten I’m logged into Facebook. It’s mainly idle but I’m logged in all the same. Now, if I’m surfing around on some of my favourite sites and they have a fan page installed, a VERY clever thing happens.

The fact I’m logged in, it picks up who my friends are and SHOWS me who else is a fan of the same page that I am friends with on Facebook, along with other randomly generated fans.

Let me show you an example with me logged in:

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Hey Guys,

I have been meaning to compile this list for a little while and have been looking forward to putting it together.

I wanted to introduce you to the 5 women I feel are not only using social media but understanding it and using it effectively.

Now just to confirm – this list isnt a “top 5″, or ranked in any order what so ever. I’d also like to point out that these aren’t the only 5 women out there using Social Media effectively – these are the people I personally follow, and enjoy following that are in the industry. There are plenty of people out there that are using this medium in different industries.

So – without furtherado – lets see the list!
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This morning I got ready just like a normal Sunday and logged onto the laptop.

I opened up Tweetdeck and logged in. I’m then confronted by the news via Twitter and a few Facebook updates that Stephen Gately (from Boyzone) had suddenly passed away whilst on holiday in Majorca with his partner.

My thoughts and condolences go out to his friends and family.

Now, I’m not usually the one to use this type of news to create a blog post around it but this is the first time I’ve come across this type of thing whilst searching for a particular topic on Google.co.uk at least.

Now, the initial information I had was from someone I’m following on Twitter and that was “RIP Steven Gately”. Now, I naturally did a search to find out how this happened. First stop Google.

Why Google when I found out via Twitter? Well two reasons:

1. It’s still an automatic thing for me to use Google to search for stuff. I’m starting to utilise Twitter Search more but it’s still not my first port of call.
2. I wanted to get straight to the full story rather than snippets of what has/hadn’t happend, so I thought a search in Google is more likely to bring up sites such as the BBC.

There are a few ways I could have found out the information but I still chose the search engine rather than going direct to the BBC for instance. This could just be down to how I personally tend to navigate the internet, but with the advent of “live” search, it was worth noting the results I got from  the three main search engines, Google, Yahoo and Bing. Please note, these results are all for the .co.uk versions and searched whilst in the UK. These searches were also conducted roughly an hour after the news broke (the first I was aware of it).

Google Results

OK, so lets start with Google. I went extremely broad for the search and went for “Stephen Gately” rather than any reference to his passing. This is the result I got:

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This post is actually earlier than expected, as I wanted to give more foundations to the what is Social Media? post I kicked off with but I thought I might as well hit this whilst it is fresh in my mind.

I’m feeling very passionate this morning, so there may well be swearing in this post. I’m not gonna apologise for that – I just wanted to warn you.

With Social Media being such a “hot topic” right now – it stands to reason you’re gonna get a few dodgy people out there trying to sell the new Snake Oil 2.0 so it pays to be vigilant.

I’m not gonna jump on the whole “guru” bashing that I’ve seen recently. To be honest, I feel that some of those posts that are attempting to bash Social Media Guru’s are smoke screens to say “well hey, I know what I’m talking about so use me instead”.

Look, there are people out there that get Social Media, use it with fantastic success and the main reason? Well, they don’t use it as a marketing channel – they are themselves, transparent, share their interests and passions and the bonus is they get people who wanna buy from them.
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