I loved his books, his ideas, his passion and his drive. And this love has been mainly (and manly) quiet over the years. So today when seeing this great blog about his newest ADventure I have decided to proclaim my love to the world….. strangely theraputic.
Now you may not know about DrawSomething… or whatever it is called. But its BIG, real BIG, 20 million downloads in 5 weeks big!The people who made it have been snapped up by those who made Farmville etc (or whatever it is called)…. but what does it all mean. One thing it means is that the world of gaming is getting more and more mobile 
And so it seems with download software that the eulogies have been written already with the advent of tablets and smartphones. Apps are the future and people won’t want desktops computers anymore…. but is this true? Apparently not…
Joshua March, co-founder and CEO of Conversocial, joined this year’s WebMission trip to the heart of the web 2.0 scene, Silicon Valley.
He describes the experience.
Standing in a luxurious San Francisco mansion surrounded by the ‘Silicon Valley elite’, it’s easy to believe that this small valley is the centre of the entire web 2.0 universe. This affluent group of entrepreneurs have made a name by creating and investing in numerous fast-growth global companies, and being able to talk to and take advice from such people is an invaluable opportunity for any ambitious tech entrepreneur. Relaxing at the party were the likes of Dave McClure (LEGEND – ed) the straight talking founder of 500StartupUps, serial investor in many of the most exciting new web businesses, including Mint.com; Max Levchin the phenomenally intelligent co-founder and CTO of PayPal and Slide – recently acquired by Google; and Philip Rosedale, founder of virtual universe Second Life, which has created several real millionaires selling digital goods. The party was hosted by Michael and Xochi Birch, the UK founders of Bebo, which they sold to AOL for $850m. It was part of WebMission, a tour of Silicon Valley investors, partners, press and customers for a set of 18 fast-growing UK based tech start-ups.Gosh I wish goAugmented had made more mobile applications with augmented reality so we could have made it into the party!
Partly sponsored by the UK government, the trip included visits to Twitter, Salesforce and Microsoft, amongst others, and was designed to help build networks and relationships across the Atlantic. The trip was definitely some kind of pilgrimage to the holy land of web 2.0; but that doesn’t mean the entrepreneurs are just waiting for their chance to relocate. Most of them already have thriving, growing businesses in the UK – and any future US presence is more likely to be a sales and marketing office to help grow their customer base than anything else. In fact, although the valley certainly has all the biggest consumer social sites – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube – when it comes to businesses serving enterprise, London is more than standing on its own feet.
A number of the companies on WebMission are leading lights in serving business needs in the new world of social media. On the Sunday morning after we arrived, we were hosted for brunch and cocktails by Susan Best, of Best PR – well known for handling all the early PR for Craigslist. One of her more recent clients is the US based Klout, that works out the influence ranking of people on Twitter – useful for companies to identify influential customers (or potential customers). Klout’s founder, Joe Fernandez, got to clink glasses with Azeem Azhar, the founder of WebMission company PeerIndex, which is hot on their heels (and a company which I, Dan Sodergren, really rather love…. here about me rant about it…)
PeerIndex works out influence within peer groups or industry, for example recently working out who were the most influential investors in the UK for the Telegraph Start-up 100.
On Tuesday, we were hosted by the hugely influential technology blog Techcrunch. This was a great opportunity to meet their journalists, including Sarah Lacy who recently published Brilliant, Crazy, Cocky, a book about fast growth entrepreneurs in developing countries. She got to swap stories with Lucian Tarnowski, founder of UK based Brave New Talent – a rapidly growing recruitment company focusing on building up connections between companies and talent through social media – which already has an office in India, and is well connected to Indian businesses and entrepreneurs. In the end, WebMission was a great week of huge value to all participants. The relationships forged with press and partners in the valley will help the companies on their quests for global domination, and the friendships formed between the WebMission companies themselves will last for years. All of us have come back to the UK full of excitement. WebMission shows that the UK’s start-up community is growing in stature. However, it is still missing one of the defining characteristics that has led to the success of Silicon Valley: the ‘Silicon Valley elite’. These experienced entrepreneurs, rather than retire to some big country house, keep starting companies and actively investing and passing on their knowledge on to new entrepreneurs. They provide a ready source of money and experience to start-ups that are too early for traditional venture capital investments, something that is very hard for entrepreneurs to get anywhere else in the world. Despite all the noise about the fast growing technology hub in east London, it is this smart, seed-stage money that we really miss (as we do in the North!!! – ed)
There are a few entrepreneurs starting to buck the trend – Max Niederhoffer, one of the WebMissioners, was a successful entrepreneur turned venture capitalist. Since then, he has created a new start-up – Qwerly, a leading B2B social media business that provides data on the connections between social accounts – and is actively investing and advising other entrepreneurs. Maybe, in a few years, the WebMission alumni will be some of the first ‘east London elite’?
Here’s to you – as the rest of Britain goes under 
Part of the beauty of football is that every fan believes they are an expert, and every fan believes they know better than the manager how to run the team. But usually fans do not get a chance to manage a team. This past summer, Carling Black Label changed all of this, and gave football fans in South Africa the opportunity to “manage” two of the most famous teams in South Africa for one of the biggest matches of the year. But would we allow it in the UK?
| The Magic Numbers… |
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• A 60 second video is worth 1.8 million words – Forrester, January 09 |
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According to a study by Hitwise, in December, the UK alone accounted for 606 million Internet visits to YouTube.
Now, I have been lucky enough to have been backing this horse for a while as we have seen some greatmarketing results for our clients from YouTube – both PPC and by using channels.
However, even I didn’t think it would be this BIG….
The study shows that video sharing sites, citing YouTube and BBC iPlayer as examples, received 936 million visits last month. This figure has been steadily increasing, and in October, we saw a 36% increase in visits to online video sites.
But YouTube is clearly ahead of the pack. The site is one of the fastest growing according to Hitwise’s data, and accounted for 65% of visits to video sharing sites in the UK in December 2011. In fact, YouTube now accounts for 25% of social network visits overall in the UK, a figure 800 times larger than it is globally. The UK seems far more interested in social video than the rest of the world, with the worldwide figure sitting at just over 0.03% of all social network usage online.
YouTube is second only to Facebook, which takes the lion’s share of the market with just of 50%. Twitter trails in a distant third place with just 2.98% of visits in December going to the microblogging site.
These figures also put YouTube’s UK growth into perspective, with a 45% increase from the figures we saw this time last year. In December 2010, YouTube received 417 million visits in the UK. As far as its share in the social networking market as a whole, the site has increased from 18%.
Google’s market share in the online search space has held steady at 92%, a figure we’ve seen since June, and during the Christmas season, 43% of all visits to retailers came from a search engine.
The Google Mobile Ads Blog is an informal blog which occasionally provides good insight into Google’s view of the mobile world. Clearly they think that 2011 was a good year for mobile advertising, as they say that the conversation has shifted from ‘Why should I advertise on mobile or build a mobile website?’ to ‘How do I get started?’.
A lot of this below may be from America – but you know what starts over there comes over here
Here is their view of the top trends from 2011 which will carry on and be important in 2012 and beyond:
Just got this through from a marketing company – love it so much am going to blog it here for safe keeping. We will be using some of these tactics for the relaunch of www.yourmarketingtrainer.co.uk
20 Easy ways to get leads
There are plenty of low-cost ways to generate more leads for your business. The following 20 tactics cover some of them and include referrals, testimonials, and affiliate programmes.
1. Continue to build a relationship with clients, customers and colleagues by anticipating their needs.
If you want to create top-of-mind awareness, provide value and do it fast. Referrals love speed. The more actions you take, the more referrals and introductions will happen. Actively share information that the other person finds useful to his or her life.
2. Offer discounts for referrals.
If you can afford it, offer discounts on future purchases to those who refer your company to others. For example, offer the referring customer 10% off the next job order if they refer someone to you and that individual uses your services. Discounts are a great incentive for many to refer companies to potential clients.
3. Swap referrals.
Set up a system to swap referrals with businesses you deal with. Offer to send referrals to them and vice versa.
4. Concentrate on swapping referrals with businesses whose clients are likely to need your service or whose service your clients might need.
Establish a way of tracking the referrals you send and receive. Give leads in return. It’s one of the best ways to get referrals. Kick start the process by providing referrals to other businesses and customers. Only recommend businesses that you know will deliver a quality product or service – your reputation is at stake too!
5. Swap referrals with rivals.
Pass along jobs or contracts your company can’t handle to your competitors and ask them to do the same.
6. Remind your suppliers that you want referrals.
Ask your suppliers for referrals. Send out brochures or samples of your work to your suppliers and remind them that when your business prospers, so does theirs.
7. Host a ‘bring-a-friend’ event to get more leads.
Invite your best clients to an event at your premises (or a nearby venue), and ask each of them to bring a friend along. On the invitation, include a list of the type of clients you help which will help them to know who to choose to bring along.
8. Use your website as a referral tool.
On your website, have a ‘click here to earn cash’ button, which takes customers through to a page that explains how their referrals will earn them cash rewards.
9. Use ‘invite your friends’ or ‘send article to your friends’ buttons on your website.
Have an automated email referral system that your customers can use to email to their friends. Since the emails will be sent from your customers, they’re less likely to be regarded as spam mail.
10. Start an affiliate programme.
An online affiliate programme means you pay others a set fee for their referrals.
11. Query customers who decided not to buy from you.
Find out why potential customers passed up the opportunity to do business with you. Even if they don’t want your product or service, they may know others who will so do ask them for referrals.
12. Train all your employees about the value of referrals and how they can get them.
Offer bonuses and rewards for those who generate new ways of getting referrals. As with any behavior, you want to reinforce, reward referral-generating behavior.
13. Track referrals.
Keep track of how and from where you are getting successful customer referrals. By tracking referrals, you will know what works and what doesn’t work. Target your top performing customers, the ones who make the most referrals, and reward them lavishly. Find out why and how they make their
referrals. Use the information to increase referrals from other customers.
14. Collect testimonials from your customers and use them in your marketing materials (both offline and online).
This allows your customers to do the ‘talking’ and convincing for you and your business. When people see other people using something, it removes many of the barriers to purchase for them. They will assume the solution must be safe, must work if so many other people are using it.
15. Scepticism works well in testimonials.
One of the most powerful testimonials is the one in which the customer admits they were hesitant or sceptical before they tried your product or service, but now they are converted. This will go a long way to convincing prospects who have the same doubts or objections about trying your product or service.
16. Negative testimonials attract positive attention.
A good testimonial can begin in a negative vein (but obviously finish in a positive one) because it shows a change in attitude and highlights the sorts of doubts or fears that other potential customers might have.
17. Make sure that you give as many details as you can about the person who has given a testimonial.
It’s down to you to prove that your testimonials are real. How believable is ‘Mrs B. Of West Midlands’ compared with ‘Mary Butler of the Solihull’ right next to a head and shoulders photo of her? If possible, use your customer’s photograph, real name, company position and location with their testimonial. It adds authenticity to the testimonial.
18. The best time to ask a client for a testimonial is after you have delivered to them the first time.
Don’t wait for the relationship to settle down before asking; ask why they are still madly in love with you as a supplier.
19. Use testimonials with lots of detail.
Instead of testimonials that say ‘Wow, this is brilliant!’ use ones that explain how your product or service helped your customer.
20. Use testimonials that focus on different aspects of your service or product.
Have one that says what great service you provide; one that talks about the quality of the service; one that describes how easy it is to do business with you; one that explains how you provide value for money; and one that talks about the outcome a customer achieved using your product or service and how it exceeded their expectations. You could also add one that says how much a particular customer has recommended the product or service to other companies, colleagues or family/friends.
