Keith Shirley

I received this today via the IIA Newsletter:

IIA establish an International Strategy Working Group
Members sought for working group
The IIA have set up an International Strategy Working Group. The aim of the International Strategy Working Group is to assist Irish businesses in increasing revenues from Overseas markets through better use of the Internet.

This working group aims to achieve this by providing support to businesses on how they can achieve increased global reach, increased global market share and increased global revenues.

Topics covered by with group will include Localisation, Translation Services, Foreign Payment Methods, Legal and Taxation issues in other Jurisdictions.

If you are a member of the IIA and would like to work with the group please email Roseanne at members@iia.ie. 

Read more about the working group on IIA.ie  

From my own work with the Social Media Working Group I can warn you that it can involve a lot of work. It can also be very rewarding. For me personally it has rounded out my level of knowledge and exposed me to areas of Social Media that I normally don’t work with.

If you are in a business that has the potential for internationalisation (or of course if you have already done the legwork) then get in contact with Roseanne to find out who else is involved and how your experiences may fit in.

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Damien Mulley sent me an email last week with copies of his Online Marketing training notes and his Business Blogging notes. The good news is that he is making them available for everyone. Fair play to him for doing this – it’s a great way of spreading the word. He makes a good point when he says the value in training comes via the trainer and not the documentation. If the notes were the most valuable part we could just read a book.

I’m going to go through them in detail soon to see it there are any points I need to add to my own trainings. Maybe I’ll find something that I disagree with – Damien seems to like a good discussion. I’ll be seeing him at the Blog Awards but I’ll have to be very sure of my facts first.

If you download a copy of the notes from Damien – please make sure to leave him a comment.

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Why do some people freak out when they receive spam? There seems to be a weird kind of joy of the hunt within Irish web “guru” circles  when they receive a spam mail.

As an Irish business, God forbid that you should send a spam mail to any of the well known bloggers or twitter users. It might even be that the mail you send is relatively innocent but it probably won’t matter. You’ll be tarred and feathered in public from people on high horses.

I’m not saying it’s right to spam. The Irish government agrees that it’s an increasing problem and a recent news report talks about how the fines can now hit 250,000 Euro. The trouble with the new laws is that I doubt they will be enforced. What we need to do is help everyone understand what they can do to avoid sending spam:

• Get peoples permission to send them mail. Do it at the same time they sign up for an account if you can.
• If people sign up over the web – makes sure it’s really them by getting the software to send an automated mail asking for confirmation – This is called double opt-in
• Make it easy for them to be taken off your mailing lists. Make sure that they stay off
• If your customer database has not got email addresses or your customers permission to send them mails then phone them and ask them. Yes it’ll take ages BUT a real call will give you the opportunity to keep the communication channel open with your customers. Don’t be afraid to speak with your customers.
• Just because you don’t receive much spam does not mean that they don’t. Are you really going to be sending them information that is useful to them? Even with their permission – a boring sales pitch will just get deleted. Ask yourself why you want to send mails.

Update via Mulleynet - Denise Cox’s Blog has some great details on the new regulations.

Update2: They say when you look back on things you always have 20/20 vision. I’d like to point out that my link to Damiens blog was not meant to point the finger at him. In that particular post I agree with him – The PR company should have just apologised, removed him from their list and do better next time. When they try to convey the attitude that you should be greatful for being spammed they are damaging their own customers image.

I get 1000’s of spam messages a day and they do annoy me but the piles of junk mail that come through my letterbox at home annoy me more. Dan Sullivan has an interesting post on his blog about how people react differently depending on how they receive their spam.

Please make sure to read the comments for this post – there are a number of interesting answers.

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After my uncharacteristically negative comments about Webfusion – I wanted to highlight a shining example of good service that I’ve received.

A customer of mine has been using HelpDeskPilot for quite some time now. The are very happy with it and really missed it when their web server had problems. I was asked to help them restore the backup onto a new server.

The restore procedure and general setup of HelpDeskPilot is actually exceptionally easy. I had some issues with the hosting providers system and I can only say positive things about how helpful and patient the support at Helpdesk have been. They kept in regular contact and I knew they were working to fix it.

When I have problems – that’s what I want – to be able to trust that my supplier is really doing their best to get the problems solved and know that they will keep me updated.

You can now register to attend the Irish Blog Awards. The event takes place in Feb 2009 and will be a great way of meeting other blog users and writers. Don’t worry – you don’t need to be a geek to attend – there will be plenty of normal people there as well.

I’ll be there – I’m just not sure when I’ll travel yet.

P.S. Sorry if this post appears twice. I had already posted it but it seems to have disappeared. I hope it’s not too late for you to register if you are interested.

Releated Posts (and all blogs well worth visiting):

A Blogger Table Quiz | DarrenByrne.com

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Grannymar » A Babble of Bloggers

Some time back: A dedicated server I maintain at Webfusion had problems rebooting. No big issue I thought – Webfusion have 24 hour support. What I didn’t realise is that it’s a very limited support.

When I called I was informed that while I could request a reboot – there was nothing else that could be done with the machine until the next work day. I guess they have a trained monkey that presses the reset button and that’s all. The annoying thing was – this had happened once before during the day. It was back so quickly that I’m sure only a key needed to be pressed.

3 Dec 2008: I receive notification that the servers are being moved to a new data centre. I have just one week to make sure my customer can live without their website as they are switching off the server for up to 9 hours. The mail does say that it will only be off for some of the time – maybe it won’t be so bad. Christ! What would have happened if I had been on holidays?

Tuesday 9 Dec 2008: I remembered the problems that I previously had and made a point of calling them to say there might be an issue when the system is restarted and they just need to do whatever they did the last 2 times. I was told – don’t worry, as soon as the technicians see that it does not respond to pings they will fix it. Looking back now I should have forced them to create a ticket or called again shortly before they turn it off.

Wednesday 10 Dec 2008: The server goes down as expected. I stay at my desk to wait for it to come back online so that the Asian users of the site will have access as soon as possible.

Thursday 11 Dec 2008:

3am: I start to get worried that something is wrong and decide to get some sleep in case I need to be alert the next day.

5am: Wake up and check the status. Still down. The firewall (a separate Cisco device) is online so I know they have done the move.

6am: Wake up and check the status. Still down

7am: The server is officially due back online but there is no sign of life.  I call them and am informed that they will work on it. I ask – what do you mean “will”. I had been told that this would happen automatically. No – a ticket has to be created. I’m still calm. I’m a saint.

8am: No news. I call. I ask explicitly – is there a bigger issue or a backlog that will cause a delay. No – They’re working on it and it will be back soon. I inform my customer that the server will be back soon – they inform their customers.

8:30am -> All day: Repeated calls by me. Repeated answers of “we are working on it”. I’m promised on 3 separate calls that they will email me an update – they are never sent. I’m completely blocked in my attempts to get any sort of info. I’m told there is no way to get the issue prioritised. I remind them that based on previous issues it should be something small. I ask again – is someone really working on it. I feel like an idiot having to keep asking.

Luckily I had the online backup (Note: I own Shercom) with all the config and files. After discussion with the customer we decided to setup an emergency site so their customers are not blocked. The basic site is up and running quickly but there are 8 gigabytes of additional files (about 3 million of them) to be restored. This takes a while.

Evening Time: Finally – after over 10 hours of asking I get a call from the Webfusion Sales Team (not support). They can’t get the system started and they will have to give me a replacement system and attach the old disk so the “files can be transferred”. Being a salesman he words it like I should consider myself lucky since the new system is faster and has more memory etc. He does apologise – for which I’m grateful. He also says I’m going to get the months fees credited. I’m also grateful for that. He then says they had 20 systems that would not restart. Now I’m pissed. I stay polite but give him a bit of a bollocking – they should have told me at the beginning that there were bigger issues. I was explicitly told at the beginning of the day that the move went well.

Like an idiot I believe him when he confirms that they will copy the files to a backup folder. At least that way I can configure the new server in the morning. I was wrong again.

Friday 12 Dec 2008: I get a call in the morning to tell me that they need my credit card details before they can start to setup the machine. Grrr. On top of that it will now be my job to copy the files across.I’m told I will receive an automated mail but I’m not to use it until the sales guy contacts me. I make a point of saying that it’s not to be a new contract but rather an extension of the old one.

Saturday 13 Dec 2008: Still no news on the availability of the new server. The killer is – I really wonder did they try and fix the old server? I could easily imagine that when it didn’t start it was just written off.

An email arrives later in the day. My initial hope is wasted: It’s an invoice for money that I was promised I would not have been charged AND it says the contract is for 12 months. I feel my saint status slipping away.

At least there is some light at the end of the tunnel – the emergency server is working well.

Monday 15 Dec 2008: I got a call at the end of the day to say that the caddy for the old hard disk is in use with another customer. On the bright side – at least I got the call. I was also told the invoice will be credited back – the one I received is part of the automated system. That I can understand.

Tuesday 16 Dec 2008: At 11:55 I received an email to say the server was connected. Now, after over 5 days of downtime, I can start to copy files and configure the server. At this stage it’s probably too late – I and my customer have lost confidence in the service and the emergency server will most likely become permanent.

Conclusions

• The value of good customer service can’t be overestimated. I’m not asking for a dedicated engineer here – but I should be kept up to date as to the status.
• System’s crash – you must have backups of the files AND the configuration settings
• If you rely on your website – you need to have a disaster plan in place.
• If you really really rely on your servers then you may need co-location services. This is what Shercom does for the Online Backups. If any of our systems goes down we can get our hands on it and swap out hardware. We’re not waiting for others.

Sometime in the near future I’ll put together a post reviewing the hosting companies I know personally and preparing tips on how to select the right one for you.

Geansai Gorm – The Background

In connection with the Geansai Gorm competition I ran a Google Adwords campaign. It fit very nicely with a Google Adwords training I was providing and I thought it would be fun.

The competition finishes on Monday 1 Dec at 15:00 so I thought I’d prepare some details of the results I achieved and add my personal conclusions.

Keep in mind that I have not actually maintained the ads so please don’t take anything here as a “best practice” example. Maybe a “wasted opportunity” example. I guess that’s the first lesson:

Lesson #1: Make sure before starting a Search Engine Optimisation and/or Adwords campaign that you are going to have the time to maintain it.

The Geansai Gorm Ads

I created the initial ad as a joke and then decided it might actually produce some interesting results. It was along the lines of:

I nearly got sidetracked into creating ads to see how much bad language I could sneak into Adwords but that’s a project for another day.

Lesson #2: Even if Google policies say no – you should experiment. You might get away with it.

What surprised me was how quickly people started clicking on the ads. I guess there was a general curiosity to really see what gobshite was spending money on ads that linked to Geansai Gorm and had no incoming revenue associated with them.

Lesson #3: Keep your ads interesting and catch people’s attention.

I must admit I was a little concerned with getting lambasted by Damien Mulley for messing around with his competition and was relieved when he left a comment on the blog. I might still get a telling off when he sees that I used his name as one of the keyword phrases. It’s a big no no to use someone else’s name/trademark in that way. I’ll buy him a pint the next time we meet and beg for forgiveness – hopefully you’re open to bribes Damien.

Lesson #4: Don’t break trademark rules – you’ll seldom get away with buying a beer and saying sorry.

After the bad language ads I had something a little different:

This actually did pretty OK for something I put about 10 seconds work into – I was getting a click through rate of 1.56% (i.e that percentage of people actually clicked on the ads). At that stage I added some extra variations and decided to stop messing with the ad and see how it ran over time:

That’s when the campaign started to fall apart. The number of impressions (how often the ad was displayed) was increasing quite rapidly but the click through rate was dropping. If I was doing this for a real product then I’d need to start tweaking my ads.

Lesson #5: Keep tweaking your ads and try out different variations.

So why were the ads “failing”? Maybe people misunderstood my sense of humour and thought they would be linked to an inappropriate site. I suspect that the number of people searching for Geansai Gorm was actually quite low and the ad had been seen by most who were interested. The large number of impressions was most likely people refreshing the pages to see if their position on Google had changed. It’s quite possible I’d reached some form of saturation and without doing something to reanimate the “target market” my ads would continue to fail.

Lesson #6: Never loose focus of who the ads are trying to attract.

I didn’t change the ads afterwards which means my totals were not as good as they would have been for a properly maintained campaign. If nothing else this experiment made it clear to me how important it is to maintain the ads and make sure they stay focused.

The Geansai Gorm Ad Results

The ads were started on 6 Nov (a little over a week after the competition started) – what are the results?

Upto Saturday:

- 9895 Impressions on the search network
- 112 Clicks

- 54341 Impressions on the content network
- 20 clicks

At the end of the competition today (Monday):

- 11,233 Impressions on the search network
- 126 Clicks

- 63,209 Impressions on the content network
- 24 clicks

I used just 4 keyword phrases – picked because they were the first things to spring to mind

- Geansai Gorm (118 clicks – up 14 since Saturday)
- Ireland SEO (3 clicks)
- mulley.net (3 clicks)
- Damien Mulley (2 clicks)

Conclusion

Not exactly what I would call a stellar success rate. A total of 150 clicks with a CTR of 0.20 percent. I’m glad I was not actually selling anything. Of course – how do you measure success? If I just wanted to get my name displayed then I can say it was a success if someone remembers the ads when I meet them at some business event. In that case the total cost of €28.36 €33.52 is a bargain.

I just hope they don’t remember my name and the word gobshite at the same time.

As for the competition – as far as I know the rules exclude me using this blog so I can’t enter. Having said that – this blog did appear at slot 77 at the closing bell. You can’t be lazy when it comes to SEO – it won’t get you anywhere.

We had the first meeting of the IIA Social Media Working Group on Wednesday night. Even though I left at 16:00 I still managed to arrive late. Thankfully I received no dirty looks when I arrived. I’d much prefer to be able to take the train but with the increasing number of unannounced strikes I don’t fancy the risk. On a positive side however – it makes me very glad I don’t work in Dublin and have to drive there every day. Anyway – back to the meeting.

It was interesting to compare this meeting to working groups in the Telecoms sector. I know the remit of the group is not to formulate a new standard but the atmosphere was very positive. Why do I mention new standard? In the telecoms world it was often quite difficult to filter out which suggestions were being made to push a standard in the direction of one parties plans and which were genuinely meant as useful comments. For the IIA working group I got no impression if this, which is very refreshing.

The exact details of what the group will focus on is going to take a little time to solidify. The whole area of Social Media is so big that it could quickly become a quagmire. There is a good mix of people in the group from various backgrounds which should help keep it balanced. Possibly I would have liked there to be more “non-traditional” tech users there but there has to be a limit on the size. There is a very healthy attitide within the group to sharing information and trying to release drafts to the public for comment at an early stage.

One topic that keeps coming back to me were the comments about the fear factor sometimes associated with this area. It was only a tiny part of the meeting but it really stuck with me. The worrying part is that it’s a fear of “attack” (my words – not the group members) by members of the blogging community rather than a general PR issue with customers. The point being that if a business makes a mistake with the way they try to get invloved in Social Media it can turn into a mini disaster because some fanatic has taken exception to it.

This is something that really pisses me off. I’ve seen it so often in the tech area where some arrogant guru decides that everyone must follow a specific set of rules and God forbid that they step out of line. Yes – I get annoyed when someone sends me a spam mail BUT as long as it’s not with intentional bad manners I don’t get too worked up about it. If I end up receiving new product announcements and I didn’t ask for them – big deal. Oh – and I get 1000’s of spam messages a day to my domains so I could have a “right” to be annoyed. I also don’t get so upset if someone forgets to use BCC when sending out a mail to a group of people. I try to calmly take the time to educate them and help them improve. Damien Mulley has recently made an offer on his Blog to open source his training materials on how to do Business Blogging. I think this is a great idea – and unfortunately I was too late replying to be able to take part. I know at least one member of the Working Group will be there however so I have no doubt he will have a very positive influence of the output of the group.

At this stage I’d like to confirm that the group is really pushing to get everyone with an interest in Social Media involved at an early stage. The drafts will be made available for review an comment as soon as they are in a half decent state (again – my words) – we won’t be publishing a definitive guide and saying take it or leave it. It really is a great opportunity for bloggers etc to make some comments without the time commitment that actively taking part in the working group involves.

A blog report of the first meeting of the Social Media WG is available on the IIA website.

Krishna De comments on her blog about the reticence of connecting with bloggers.

Bernie Goldbach calls us Social Media Plumbers, which I though was a very interesting term. Personally I’m certainly trying to figure out the best (or just good if there is no best) way of putting techniques and technologies together to get Social Media “flowing” within a business.

Image via Wikipedia

I’ll be going to the first meeting of the IIA Social Media Working Group next week. To quote their website -The Social Media Working Group seeks to support businesses in the development of strategies for engaging with social media, including blogging, social networking, community sites, RSS, tagging, and podcasts.

I’ve always been facinated with how technology can best be applied to business – especially a small business. It’s often tricky to know which technologies are going to prove useful and which ones are a fad. I’m lucky in the sense that it’s “ok” for me to experiment with different tools and technologies as I get paid to pass on what I learn.

The small business owner generally can’t afford to spend much time experimenting. During the startup phase it can seem impossible for a new business owner to manage to get everything done. Social media can be really helpful at this stage – not only does it provide a mechanism for people to get their name publicised but it can provide a great support community during what is often a very lonely time.

Of course the other side of the coin are the costs to a business when people spend hours on social media sites.

The output from the working group will be available to the public and now is your chance to influence proceedings:

- Do you have any comments on how and why you use or don’t use social media?

- Do you have any success stories or failure stories? A wise man (or woman) can learn from the mistakes of others. I’m personally especially interested in comments from “non-techie” businesses.

- What kind of results would you like to see the group produce?

Feel free to leave comments on the blog directly or email me at K.Shirley@Shercom.com

Keith