Hmm, quite obvious what this year’s theme is about then? However, walking around for a bit longer it seems that I’ve got it all wrong. Hosting was not quite the theme of the show (in terms of the exhibitors) but Email Marketing most definitely was. At times it was hard to see how you could have so many companies competing for the same service in such a confined space. This also meant they were almost side by side in some cases! Wandering through the packed aisles in a quickened pace to get to the seminar theatres the last thing you want is people to block your way and ask, “Have you considered Email Marketing Sir?”

Is this the worst exhibitor stand you’ve ever seen? >>>

I’m not having a go at the Email Marketing industry at all as I’ve used it extensively in the past and find it very effective for CRM, lead generation and sales. What is less preferred is when it is taken in the context of saturated sales pitches. I found it hard at times to find stands I wanted to investigate as the word “Email Marketing” were being uttered at every corner. However, I do have a big gripe about one thing and that is the sales techniques. I’m the type of person who likes to feel in control of sales. I hate being sold to and I hate listening to sales pitches. The more aggressive sales people take the position of blocking you way. You have no choice but to engage in conversation (or listening) with the sales pitch and are not released until they have finished. Some are good and let you go when you say no…others want to know why you’re not interested. Bah, I can go on about this.

Lets not say that anyone is at fault here. The seminars were brilliant and very diverse for all areas on the internet world. In particular the E-Commerce theatre was very appealing and informative. In one seminar about the current Social Media Trends, even the speaker remarked about the theme of the stands…”So have everyone bought enough hosting and email marketing for you company so far today?” Spot on. Also spot on from this particular seminar was understanding you environment and what the appropriate action is to take within the current social media setting.

Stand-out points from Internet World:

• Content is still king
• Content is in multiple forms and is closely connected with data analysis
• Tradition bread-and-butter SEO is slowly being replaced with social media for success.
• Planning your marketing mix should include the channels where you will have the MOST success
• Understanding and knowing how to respond in your environment is key for success

Should I be on Twitter?

Hmm, the point of this…yes Twitter. I’ve been kept busy recently with the amount of meet and greets I’ve been doing with new and potential clients. People really want to be found on the web right now and are really desperate to find the right people to help them. Online marketing is now becoming such an integral part of business, large or small, as having a website is. Perfect! One topic of conversation that keeps coming up is Twitter and more specifically, “Should we be on Twitter and how do we do it?”

Well yes…and no. In fact, this question has led me to think about this in greater detail. Are you a person that likes social networking and finding stuff on the web? The answer is defo yes. However, what about being a business? Hmm, I’m starting to say “That depends”.

Twitter Overload!

This is starting to become one of my pet hates. I can remember a time when Twitter was all for and populated by online marketing people (or mostly). There wasn’t much of the hoo-harr or newsreaders say “Follow Me on Twitter” and it was an exchange of information for Online Marketing professionals. Now, everyone is there to tell people what they think about the colour pink, the overuse of hash# tags – #don’tyouhateitwhen – or my own personal hate, people who tweet 50 times per day.

There is a most certainly a finite number of people that you can follow on Twitter. You can see some people that claim they follow a few hundred, possibly thousands, of other people. How do you keep up with that many tweets per day? I did a quick calculation based on some averages on people I follow…and I don’t follow that many people.

Say you followed around 150 people. Each of the 150 people did on average 4 tweets per day. This equates to having 600 tweets to check out each day.

Lets say half of those posted links to other sites/photos/articles. This takes on average 5 minutes to read each. This is (providing my maths is correct) 25 hours worth of reading time. That is a lot of time to spend on Twitter!

Of course I was generalising but check how many you’re following and see how many you are actually ‘following’. I would say mine is about 10-15 lucky people

Is Twitter good for Business?

I get asked this question a lot and my answer is always ‘that depends’. Twitter is becoming a bit of a fad at the moment and just like my trend post, most people follow trends. Here’s some important points that businesses should think about before they should consider it:

What are you going to say? – Do you actually have anything worth saying or telling your audience? Commercial B2C companies have more direct contact and interest on Twitter than B2B companies as they can directly offer discounts and sales messages. Do you have anything that people will be interested in reading?

How are you going to get people following you? Is there already an interest or competitors using Twitter from your market? If there isn’t then it will be hard to be part of a community of updates or people wanting to read your information. You may then find it hard to get people interested in you – cue the ‘auto follow’. If you have a blog, this is the best place to start as you can entice people to read your Twitter for further updates and to become the all important authority on the subject.

Who will administer your Twitter? Quite a forgotten part this one as it may become difficult to get the right person to take ownership of the project from the start. ” We’ll nominate Marjorie, she like to gossip”. I’ve heard that before and Marjorie’s response was, “What is Twitter…I don’t even have a Facebook!” Not a good place to start. Finding someone who will interact with Twitter and be able to use it effectively by promoting the brand and also being part of the target market community is vital to success. Also, you don’t really want someone who will post photos of the drunken Christmas party on Twitpic or post 300 updates per day about rubbish. That will certainly do more harm than good.

So is it useful? Yes, I love Twitter but I love to be in control of who I follow and how much time I spend on it per day. There could potentially be a lot of wasted time telling people what you had for breakfast and how that compares to Opera Winfrey’s.

BTW: Follow The Tai Pan on Twitter

Something that has been bothering me for such a long time is the Wordpress update requirements. When I first started this blog last year, I was running version 2.7.8. Nothing wrong with that and the appearance was pretty much the same as version 2.8 and even 2.9. Over a couple of months is it really necessary to have so many updates? I had a few clients who noticed the ‘Upgrade Now to Version…’ appear at the top of the blog and after clicking it promptly called me to say what they had done and now the blog doesn’t appear. The automatic upgrade, in my opinion is bollocks.

So after much deliberation and preparation I decided to try the upgrade myself. In fact, come to think of it I was trying to install a plugin that required Version 2.9 to run. Yes, that was the catalyst I remember now. So into the upgrade process I went and I promptly made a hash of things. Completely. I even managed to loose the entire back end and the whole blog became a blank page. Never fear, this kind of thing really makes you learn…fast! Off came Wordpress from the server and my old holding page was put back. Not very professional but I there you go. Wordpress 2.9.2 downloaded and put on the server and then start the upgrade process manually. About one month later The Tai Pan is back online with a new design. Needless to say I’m happy now and really pleased with my ability to get myself out of trouble. Again.

So now I have taken my Wordpress skills to the next level by totally destroying my site only to resurrect it to enlightened glory (if I don’t mind saying so myself lol). More to come with this and never a dull moment with playing with stuff. Anyhow, I did make things even better and also learned in the process. Only when you’ve totally wrecked something can you only see how to rebuild it to even greater heights. Hmm, I like that

And yes, F has been toned down a bit these days but still lingering. One crisis down, one bigger one to go. Wish my luck!

Catch me in the Land of Smiles this June.

Until then please check back soon as something should be appearing jolly soon.