I’ve just made the switch – or as we speak, I’m starting to learn about this ‘new’ tool for writers called Scrivener. Described as the app for writers, journalists and anyone that needs to write short or long stories, Scrivener collects together scraps of articles, research material and helps to draft your writing.

To me, the biggest problem with regular blogging is the interface. If you blog on the go then you already know that the WordPress admin suite is not very accessible when you’re in a plane, train or automobile. The WordPress web console is best for the finished product – drafts and ideas of posts and pages need to be made somewhere else.

My motivation in switching to Scrivener is to make it easier for me to take concepts of new posts, write them as scraps and then finish them off — to help overcome ‘writers block’.  I’d also like a tool that makes it easy to write longer blog posts that could become longer articles, whitepapers or split up over a few days and weeks.

I guess I’d expect big things from such a tool – It’s definitely got a lot of features. I’ve read of Scrivener in a number of places, it’s biggest appeal is linked to the concept of allowing yourself time to write and not trying to force yourself to publish a post on your blog to a Daily Deadline.

Let’s see if Scrivener makes an impact – If you’re an Apple Mac user you’ll find Scrivener in the App Store.

Damien Saunders

As more people become aware of HTML5 it’s time to review how tagging written content will impact search engine optimisation. Tags like <b > and <i > are redundant – instead <strong > and <em > have been in use for a few years by many blogging and web developer tools. Now the HTML5 standard recognises that <b> and <i> should only be used for visual style.

You can do more with CSS styles

If you remember writing HTML back in the 90′s you might be more comfortable using <b > and <i > .. I still prefer to use <br> too. It’s just age, I think.

But seriously – and I’m learning this myself … it’s easier to setup a CSS stylesheet to do the same and more. Perhaps the most obvious reason is that tags like <B> can be plastered all throughout at blog post and end up looking alot LIKE IM SHOUTING WITHOUT ANY MEANING.

The point here is that using CSS you can set the look and feel of text – I like this highlighter effect. I like how I can update the style at anytime and know that this style will be applied across the site.

WordPress and other tools support <strong> & <em>

Somewhere along the way, most web blogs switched to using <strong> and <em> instead. WordPress made this switch a few years back. You probably don’t notice, you probably didn’t care. You’re missing out then.

<strong> & <em> are critical thanks to HTML5

The careful use of <strong> and <em> need to be included in your SEO optimisation strategy. That’s because the HTML5 standard has recognised these tags as being important to the text but that <b> and <i> are for markup and not for indicating importance.

To be clear <b> is styling your text to make it look bold but <strong> tell any reader or search engine that the text is important. So it makes good sense to highlight a few keywords with <strong>. It also makes sense to not highlight everything as <strong> instead use <b> or another CSS style to achieve the same thing!.

Good luck with tagging your content

Ok I had a lot of fun writing this particular blog post – browsers like HTML and tags, so it became quite a task to write a post using <em> and <strong> .. remember careful tagging of your content is good. Careless tagging of content is just noise

Damien Saunders

As travel professionals know, your customers want holiday experiences to always remember and preferably off the beaten trail. This week I started a new series focused on Ideas using Foursquare for social media marketing with guides that will help increase customer satisfaction and improve retention.

Today, I will be looking at how you can use social media to offer up some pretty amazing travel experiences using Foursquare. If your clients don’t want to read a Time Out or carry a Lonely Planet – then Foursquare is the perfect guide for locals!

Easy guide to Foursquare Marketing

Try these tips to get value added to social media marketing

Create your travel store on Foursquare

1. Create your own store or travel brand identity on foursquare
2. Put a Add To Do tip button on your website and blog
3. Cross promote Foursquare on your website, email news, Twitter, Facebook or printed material
4. Tell your customers to put Foursquare on their mobile to discover places to go while they are away
5. Checkin and leave tips at interesting locations just like locals or tourists do.
6. Create Tips on Foursquare that help get people visiting your shop or website.
7. Create a list of key tourist places including the Foursquare short url for them.

Advanced Tip – use Twitter & Foursquare to follow and friend your clients – invite them to ask you ‘questions’ about places to go see.

Do you need help with Foursquare marketing? Let me manage your social media marketing? I’ll give you an individual proposal tailored to your needs.

Damien Saunders

Social media marketing is no longer a buzzword and many brands and businesses are choosing to recruit full-time staff to develop and deliver the quicksilver successes of the best viral campaigns.

What’s the difference between a social media consultant, digital planner & a community manager?

If you are looking for an independent social media strategist to come in as a consultant or freelance gig then you need to know why a social media marketing consultant is very different to a digital planner or community manager.  And before deciding to work with a social media consultant or another social media senior, it’s very important to understand what you’re getting into.

A marketing consultant who specialises in social media is capable of looking into the future, coming up with trends based on real data, assessing current  business models and helping to prepare a marketing plan which includes social media.

A very good social media marketing consultant will be using any number of social networks or social media tools and they can recommend the networks and channels which should best fit your business or clients needs.

Of course the best business marketing consultants – would already have added you to LinkedIn, friended you on Facebook and be following your every tweet, maybe they’ll be snopping through your music tastes on last.fm too.

What makes a good social media marketing consultant?

So a qualified social media marketing consultant should be able to:

• Assess market conditions and look into future trends
• Review a business model
• Develop a sales & marketing which integrates social media
• Be able to talk about the differences between social networks
• Be able to quiz and question you about the hoped for benefits
• Be technically competent and use all the tools and social networks
• Have done all this already – for themselves and others
• Be good at listenening to your needs
• Get along with you and your team
• Have some good qualifications

Social Media Marketing Consultant is focused on

Here then is the difference – the best marketing consultants should have a presence in every major social network and understand how to integrate these networks – but will tell you that they couldn’t design their way out of a paper bag. That’s to say you can’t just pick up a telephone book and find a social media marketing consultant with excellent programming skills, graphic design skills and enough years of experience in marketing strategy and project planning to do it all for you.

So what is a digital planner and community manager

That’s a harder question to answer – I could be a community manager, I could be a digital planner – but I wouldn’t do a great job at it.

A digital planner can take a social media strategy and marketing campaign and break it down into all the project tasks and deliverables. They would also be able to build the assets in graphics packages or with other web tools. A very good digital planner could also build very good fan pages or websites to fit a marketing campaign.

Community managers are very important people and that’s why there is a lot of demand for them right now – they are a super-powerful customer service manager combined with web developer and written comms skills. This means they can talk to customers, respecting your brand and tone of voice (TOV). A community manager will also know how to build the best fan pages, what widgets or applications to add and how to monitor your social networks.

It’s important to not just offload your social media marketing to a community manager if you don’t have it clear how they would ‘talk’ to your customers. To my mind, its critical to not outsource your social media marketing to any agency or individual unless you understood what they can and can’t do for you.

What do you think? If you’ve hired a social media marketing consultant – or are one – does this help you?

Damien Saunders

As I’m a certified Scrum Master and very good at project and task management I can say I enjoy running planning sessions with teams I do work with. Now I’ve started to discover the freedom of the Post-It Note for planning and brainstorming.

Even better, its essential for any startup to be able to focus on what has to be done and avoid distractions like outsiders wanting extra work or changes to scope.

Use a Visual Aid like Sprint Charts

With Scrum, it’s important to have the Sprint chart setup to visually show all the work being done. And it’s so much easier with a Post-It Note. You just write the task on the note and put it on the wall chart under ‘not started’ and then as you need to, you just remove the note and move it along to the next stage.

If it’s on a Post-It Note – It needs to be done

Is that not liberating? I’m not trying to mimic a complex time management strategy with prioritised lists each day to figure out what tasks are still open and overdue. I’m not trying to follow a GTD approach … If it’s on a Post-It Note, it needs to get done.

Be Specific, Be Clear, Be Concise in Task or  Sprint Planning

I’ve also enjoyed reading Getting Real or Rework from the guys at 37 Signals (aka Basecamp, Highrise, etc) – the last point to make is … if you can’t fit the task onto one side of a Post-It Note, you’ve got too much detail.

Source: the99percent.com

Damien Saunders

Fresh off the press and updated for everyone that loves Foursquare – 9 step guide to Foursquare for businesses will get you started today.

This guide covers the 9 key points for any retailer – including Why Foursquare! What’s covered in the guide you ask? — then just have a look

Damien Saunders

Are Twitter Followers better than Facebook Fans was a topic discussed on emarketer recently. It’s a question I get asked all the time – relatively speaking – Which is the best social network to start social media marketing? The thing is you need to try them both at the same time.

And here is the problem every social network has its pro’s and cons – and here is the answer. If you were a criminal, on trial in the Old Bailey, the prosecution’s job is to prove you had the intention of committing a crime, so it was just an accident.  The same is true for social media marketing  – well not all marketers are criminals!

The Case Against Facebook Fans

The case is simple – anyone can press a like button – On Facebook I am a Fan of Music, the London Barbican and Joanna Newsom – it doesn’t mean that I’m going to buy a ticket to see Joanna Newsom perform her latest album at the Barbican (she didn’t she played at Royal Festival Hall). So from my point of view, a Like or adding yourself as a Fan has next to no value. ‘I had no intention’ is the plea from the criminal.

Open and Shut Case?

The Case Against Twitter

I have said that Twitter is a river of noise and that it is pointless trying to follow every individual tweet that a business or person makes. You wouldn’t have the time! and that is the problem. Marketing on Twitter can be like trying to catch a fish in a dried up lake – You cant! and if there is low usage in Twitter in your country, you may argue there is no point. ‘Not Guilty’ cries the defence.

Case Closed!

Twitter Followers make better value for ROI

Twitter is better for social media marketing because your message can be followed, linked to, forwarded to friends and can include a url that links to your website or landing page.

Assuming you have your marketing strategy right, you will know why you are using Twitter for business marketing and you will be send out the right messages on Twitter as a result.

When Twitter has more value for social media marketing

Outside of North America and Western Europe, there needs to be an established base and good usage of Twitter in your country to make Twitter (or Facebook) work for social media marketing. Or I would look at smartphone sales as an indicator of potential app usage and relevance of Twitter.

The primary thing to remember is that unless there is a game or some lead / conversion mechanism, then you should start again with your [ id="1192" type="post"]social media marketing strategy[/].

Source: http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007928

Damien Saunders