I hear lots of comments about the fitness or otherwise of Social Media, particularly Twitter, for use in helping to generate business income or otherwise be helpful in business efficiency.

There are many misconceptions about what this new media really is and how it can be used effectively. In this piece I'll try to address some of them.

Throughout my career, I've normally carried responsibility for the thing called "marketing", a term as much misunderstood as the subject matter of this article.

I've advertised in the locals and the nationals. I've taken covers on trade magazines. I've had big stickers on cab doors and bus backs. I've had direct snail mail, email shots, tele-marketing campaigns and I've sponsored rally cars and even F1 racing cars. I think that pretty well every channel for draining away the marketing budget, I or one of my people have found a hole to pour it down ...

In recent times, I've often been asked to help companies on thinking their way through how to target prospective clients and how to keep their active client base communications fresh and relevant. Today I can think of no better example of how to do it on a tight budget and with only a modicum of external resource than Social Media.

This medium suffers from two problems that "marketing" has suffered from for decades:
First, people don't understand it - it's still a black art and what they don't understand they often deride. Second, When they think they understand it, they want to "switch it on". You can't switch it on. You have to grow it like a greenhouse plant. Sometimes it can be painfully slow to get the result you need, though other times not.

From my own perspective I can point to several examples of business advantage from Social Media over the past year or so and I'll give you some living breathing examples of things that are worth thinking about.

To set the scene: My main Social Media Channels (My Big 4) are currently LinkedIn, Ecademy and quite recently, Twitter. I use the NING platform to excess to create specialist interest groups too.

I also exist on Facebook, Friends Re-United, Naymz, XING, Plaxo, FriendFeed, Ping.fm, and a dozen others, but my focus has narrowed down for the time being to the My Big 4 (MB4).

First thing to say about Twitter is that it added desktop currency immediately I used it, to the other networks. I somehow discovered the ease with which I could initially broadcast and then latterly more precisely NARROWCAST my communications. The links that have now been implemented between MB4 platforms make it a delight to use them in a co-ordinated way.

This article is going to be added to periodically and I will be bringing the experiences of others to this as examples of good practice, so for the moment I'll give you a headline view of some business victories of my own and a few that I have observed.

@BTcare has saved the broadband account from migration to Virgin, simply by responding to my moans on Twitter. No Indian Callcentres were ever involved and we got great results.

@brucehallas - we've done business together in a modest way and we haven't actually met yet. There is more to come for our collaboration in the IT Security field.

@London_Law_Firm - we've exchanged advice on our respective specialities and built a basis for doing business together soon. Not yet met. Some modest gains there for me in terms of legal costs.

@efficiencycoach - she's done business for substantial fees with others that I know on Twitter. She picked up the opp through Twitter and met with the client a few times before signing a contract for circa 50% of her new business target for the year.

@regan73 - we originally joined up on LinkedIN and we signed a USA distribution contract for a security product without having met, though we have met many times since. We also now have a Social Media project underway.

@ladybizbiz linked up with @receiptangel and became their first user. Initially LinkedIn and then Twitter have been great ways to make this business relationship exist and then work well.

@margit11 @philhart @colinbartram have all contributed free articles to MJBtimes and in the first two cases - we've never met.

There are more examples that I will bring to this column in the near future of how this so often maligned medium can be used for definitive business advantage. If you want to seek advice on making the medium work for you drop me a line at: mjbtimes@briercliffe.com

We'll call this one Episode One of series I think ....

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The Australian #Cleanfeed or #NoCleanfeed Issue

This is a short piece of editorial to open this column's debate on a deep subject; that of internet censorship.

I've been around the matter for quite a few years now with a couple of my business interests focused on protecting the "on-line vulnerable".

Clearly there is a need to weed out the nasty people that prowl the ether and equally there's a need to halt the use of the web for hosting content that the vast majority of us find offensive. So simply opposing the principle of what Senator Conroy & Co are trying to achieve is not a good thing to do.

What has to be addressed is the fact that most people who drive legislation on this planet, don't understand the technologies that they're dabbling with. I don't believe I've met more than a handful of politicians in my whole career who have the faintest idea what they're doing in this environment.

"Using a Tank to Mow Your Lawn" is a phrase I used on Twitter this morning and it rings true for many of my followers. The fact is there are ways of dealing with this effectively without reverting to state snooping across the board, which is what the Australian situation seems to be heading for, so far as I can tell.

The Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are the ones who can fix this and there are enough associations in that field to come up with a code of conduct and have it "policed" in a balanced and "light-touch" manner. If they took action and had the vision to wear a "cleanfeed" badge that indicated their ability to protect the vulnerable and banned dodgy content, the Australian Initiative wouldn't be necessary. If there was such a protocol the only people who would not buy their services would be the offenders, surely?

Unless the issue is adequately addressed, more heavy handed politicians will feel obliged to enter the fray and that will be no good for any of us. So let's start demanding that our ISPs are acting as responsibly as they possibly can, with the technology that is available. Where the technology isn't available, I know many many clever people will leap to make it so.

We need to make this a call to action for Internet Service Providers across the globe.


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TOAST OF THE DAY
"Here's to those who keep going until it's done ...
they're often forgotten when the victory's won" ... anon

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Previously ...
"it's always dark at the bottom of a lighthouse" ... Keith Hutton

"Who ra-ra's the ra-ra man?" .... John Arnold

Are you a RADIATOR :-) or a DRraain :-( ?
When you enter a room does the energy level rise or does it drain away? ... Frank Noon

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I will also create here (in lower left column) links to the many companies in which I have played and in many cases continue to play a part.