The Connector Roadshow with (Irish Small Medium Enterprises) ISME is about to start and we can’t wait to get the show on the road! The idea behind it is to share our knowledge and try to connect with people all over the country!

We will be visiting between 10 locations over the next two months, driving there and taking part in business events hosted by ISME.  We will be speaking on why social media and will be joined by 3 other speakers -

AGENDA
- Banking Issues for the SME – Eddie Fitzpatrick, BankCheck
- Online Marketing & Social Media = Better Business – Conor Lynch, Connector.ie
- Employment-Understand your responsibilities and avoid disputes & litigation – John Barry, MSS Ltd.
- Tendering for Government Business- Dos & Don’ts – OPW and Enterprise Ireland

You can see out route map below!  If you would like to attend, please contact conor [@] connector.ie for details or click here to reserve a ticket.

CONNECTOR ISME ROADSHOW

21^st Sept – Fairways Hotel, Dundalk (10am-1pm)
21^st Sept – Stillorgan Park Hotel, Dublin South (5pm-8pm)
28^th Sept – Clarion Hotel, Limerick (10am-1pm)
28^th Sept – Silversprings Hotel, Cork (5pm-8pm)
5^th Oct – Mount Errigal, Letterkenny (10am-1pm)
5^th Oct – Clarion Hotel, Sligo (5pm-8pm)
6^th Oct – Carlton Hotel, Galway (10am-1pm)
6^th Oct – Prince of Wales Hotel, Athlone (5pm-8pm)
12^th Oct – Newpark Hotel, Kilkenny (10am-1pm)
12^th Oct – Clarion Hotel, Liffey Valley, Dublin West (5pm-8pm)

Thanks to Bernie Grogan for her great map design!

This was the question posed by Deanna Lee of The New York Public Library (NYPL) at Blogtalk 2010 last week. The NYPL has recently been acclaimed for its effective use of social media. As the Vice-President for Communications and Marketing Deanna Lee came to Blogtalk 2010 to show how a traditional institution such as a public library utilised social media to spread awareness as well as run campaigns.

Deanna Lee knew they would have to go beyond a Facebook page to get the library’s message across. So they embarked on an online communications strategy than spanned across numerous platforms. The library wrote not only their own blog but also wrote posts for the well known blog the Huffington Post. They wrote about hard news but also maximised the appeal of soft news through their blog and micro-blogs on Twitter.

Deanna’s strategy went further than just blogging, everyone knows the appeal of viral video the problem is coming up with the concept that makes the video popular enough to go viral. While many institutions can afford to pay for celebrity endorsed videos these often don’t provide enough ‘bang for your buck’. Instead the NYPL invited the well know improve group Improv Everywhere to come and perform in their library. I am sure you have seen the video which has received almost three million hits on YouTube, and shows the ghostbusters chasing down ghosts in the NYPL. The video was fun and interesting and took the library out of the ‘normal’ perception that people have about libraries.

The real value of social media kicked in for the New York Public library when budget cuts of $37 million of funding were looming. The New York Public Library pushed their social media up a gear with the ‘Don’t Close the Book’ campaign. A supporters micro-site was set up where people were able to send a letter protesting at the budgets cuts on behalf of their local branch. The map on the site signified all of the branches by dots which grew as the number of letters grew also.

The library needed more traffic to the site so another viral video was concocted. This time it was the turn of Tillman the skateboarding dog. Tillman also happened to be looking for a long corridor to attempt to break the world record for fastest skateboarding dog so it was a win-win for all involved. People of course went wild for the video and the campaign got some great exposure. The campaign over all was a huge success, with over 130,000 letters sent and $144,000 worth of funding was raised. In the end an incredible $27 of $37 million of proposed cuts was recouped.

So what did the library get right? Well it all comes down to Deanna’s first question, are you being interesting? Is the content you are creating worthwhile? Content must be meaningful to people on some level for it to be successful online. Another element of the NYPL’s campaign was that it was a people’s campaign, libraries are a public service and people did not want to see their local branch close. Individuals became personally involved because the message meant something to them. They uploaded videos, there was an independent Facebook page set up and many schools created artwork to show their support.

All of this boils down to ‘engagement’, one of the founding principles for social media and the reason many companies don’t get it right. It does not matter what tools you use to connect with people but without engagement your campaign will never get off the ground.

Facebook Targeting allows you to reach your audience by enabling you to target potential customers by Gender, Likes & Interests, Age and other targeting filters.

Facebook has recently enhanced this feature by offering “broad match” for age targeting.  This means that you can deliver your ad to potential customers just slightly outside of your target age range for less than what it would cost to serve the ad to people within your target range. In addition to getting what might be a good deal on these extra clicks and impressions, you can also increase your opportunity to reach more customers. Before broadened age targeting, choosing to target your ad to people aged 24 – 35, say, meant your ad would have only been shown to people precisely within that age range. But isn’t someone who’s 36 and interested in your ad just as valuable as a 35-year-old.  Hence the  expanded offering.

To update you ad settings, to include  broad match for age targeting, go to the Facebook Ad Manager and

• Go to the Settings
• Click on the “Update” button at the bottom of the page

To include broad match settings in new ads,

• Click on Create an Ad
• In Targeting, leave the “Exact Match” box unchecked

For more information, visit the Facebook Ads FAQ section

Digg

Last week the new version of Digg was taken out of beta testing and set live for the world to enjoy. We first heard about Digg version 4 about four or five months ago at the South by South West Interactive Conference in America when then CEO Jay Aldelson hinted at new features like personalised feeds among other things. Jay Aldelson has since left Digg and was replaced as CEO by founder Kevin Rose.

According to Mashable the new version of Digg focuses on delivering a more personalised experience for the user. The overhauled social network now boasts quicker loading times as well as a “My News” feature (replacing the “Digg Effect”) which displays stories that have been dugg and submitted by people you follow. These are then displayed directly onto your homepage. Other new and improved features include the prominence of the Digg it button which sits at the top right of the page. Once you select a link that you want to Digg, the site will import titles and images and let you write a description of the link making it easy for fellow Diggers to understand and Digg the link.

The homepage has also been redesigned. At the top left of the interface are two tabs, Top News and My News (mentioned above) which is the default homepage for all users. The main difference between the old and new Digg is that now content on your homepage is submitted by people you follow as opposed to the larger Digg community making it more relevant for you. It also now focuses on which of your friend’s dugg the link as opposed to submitted it which is more in keeping with the brand. You can see a screen shot of the new Digg below.

New Digg Homepage

However for those of you who are not such big fans of change the Top News feature pulls articles and links from the wider Digg community and is basically the same as the older version so there’s no need to worry.

Over all I think the new Digg looks cool and it is definitely more user friendly than the previous version. In the same way Facebook took inspiration for its Places platform from Foursquare, Digg are definitely using Twitter as their mews when it comes to finding and suggesting people to follow. Digg have created suggested user lists that divide diggers up into categories in the same way Twitter does but unfortunately there isn’t as much choice as there is on Twitter due to the fact that Twitter simply has more users.

Below is a cool video of Kevin Rose introducing the features of Digg Version 4. In my opinion it is definitely an improvement and although it isn’t perfect it makes finding content that is relevant to you a lot easier. I definitely digg the new Digg but unfortunately still prefer twitter. Have a look and see what you think. As always please leave your thoughts, they are all welcome.

Kevin Rose explains the new Digg

1. At the moment Google is really worried about the fact that Facebook have over 500 million users and Google doesn’t get access to all that conversation so they are working on their own social network.  Allfacebook.com questions if Android will become the social operating system of the future.

2. Bill Liao shared out an interesting new social network called Empire Avenue.  You register on the site and you are assessed for your value based on your influence online, you can build up your network with people you value and you can make virtual investments in them.

3.  Iarfhlaith from webstrong shared out a great video from a recent presentation from TED about the importance of gaming in the online world.

4.  A tip – If you really want to contact someone in a company and you don’t have a link in with them ask a question on LinkedIn to see if someone has a contact in the company.  I seen this week somebody was looking for a contact into the American company Groupon and there were many responses.  Everybody is so helpful on LinkedIn.  Save this up for that big important contact you need!

5. Readwriteweb article on the latest changes to Digg the social news site.  They are just after making it a whole lot more social.  Note:  They now also support automatic import of RSS feeds so if you have a blog make sure to add it in.

6. Great video on how Google Ad Auction works.

If you come across good articles/videos you want to share send them on.

Below is a video Connector recently produced for HP Snapfish.  Although this video is for the UK market and used in a large marketing campaign with the Daily Mail, we had a happy client for this ‘How To’ video produced here in Dublin.

The lovely voice you hear is from the excellent voice-over artist Nicola Lyndsay sourced from Piehole.ie

I have an aunt who insists that all parties in a house should happen in the kitchen.
She emigrated from Ireland 40 years ago and when she returned last Christmas she stayed with my family for our new year celebrations. She has fond memories of growing up in Ireland and all of her memories are of being with her family in the kitchen. She insists that any gathering or event in a house should take place in the kitchen. Invariably after a few glasses of wine she carves off one of the guests in the sitting room and works them slowly towards the kitchen. Which is always empty and cold.

Much digital marketing is wasted when all it tries to do is move the party.
We try to move people from where they are online to our empty websites. We expend all of our budget, energy and efforts trying to move the party, trying to move the audience from one site to our site. instead of just join the party where ever it is happening.

The solution? Join the party.
Your target audience is active and engaged on the internet. Your challenge is to meet them there.
Meet them where? Meet them where ever they are.
Despite the fact that there are hundreds of TV channels available to us, we all tend to gravitate around 4 or 5. Similarly on line we tend to gravitate around 4 or 5 websites. Trying to move people from one of their haunts or introduce a new haunt is a very expensive and often wasteful activity. Better to find out where the party is happening and interact with your audience where they are rather than expending effort and expense in trying to move them somewhere else.