I have been really busy recently, with this launch and that, but in my spare time I have been reading quite a lot on the ROI of social media and scratching my head. As more and more of these amazing buzz monitoring tools spring up out of the woodwork providing us with this set of data and that, it seems the big question is still what is the return on investment from social media? Sure data is all good and well but unless you have someone with half a brain who can process that data and tell you why this spike in conversation took place it’s pretty much useless – as useless as giving a caveman a microwave. ...

As many of you know for the last six months or so I have been really busy working in online public relations both freelancing for my own clients and working as a digital consultant for the lovely people at Lucre Communications in Leeds. To be honest that’s not all I have been doing, I have also been working late at night, burning the old midnight oil to produce Tweasier which is my Twitter management application. Why have I done this? Well over the last three years ...

Those of you that read my blog regularly will know I have been working on a couple of exciting internet projects during the last six months in my quest to become the next Steve Jobs (Joke obviously). One of these said projects is TheFashionPixie.com which I wrote about way back in December. The idea behind TheFashionPixie is people send in details of the latest retail sales they have either seen on the high street, or in their local independent stores, and they are collated in one online community. We then share all of ...

UPDATE: This will now be launching around end of April as we have decided to add a few more features following feedback from some Twitter users. A while back I wrote a post about an internet (fashion) community I am involved with (http://www.thefashionpixie.com/) and I said it was just one of several web projects that I was undertaking as well as my usual digital pr and social media consultancy. Well I have been working hard during the last five months on a Twitter application and the wait ...

If you work in marketing or public relations, the chances are you are now regularly being asked to use social media to spread your client’s messages. I have met lots of marketers and business owners who are surprisingly still trying to figure out how to get the most out of these channels with many trying something small but not measuring the results effectively. In light of that fact, I thought it would be good to share some useful Twitter tools with you – so you can measure that and see how you are doing. The truth is Twitter is all about conversation, not just marketing offers, although that said they do help to a certain point. To ...

It is no surprise to any of us that the housing market, although picking up a bit in recent months, is still suffering from the dreaded R word. Many first time buyers have been struggling to get mortgages from banks and even long term property owners are finding it costly to sell. Well things might be on the up as some clever little chaps (which I met recently) have come up with a new concept on private property sales and buying or renting for that matter. Bethemiddleman.com does exactly what it says ...

Just as we all started to think that advertising revenues were dropping off from the more traditional channels. Something has come along to show everyone that advertising does still work. Is the video below the catchiest television advertisement ever? Even if it isn’t, it does appears to have done its job. Yell’s sales have increased by a huge 70% since this campaign started and needless to say it plans to carry it on. I have to admit it I can’t get the song out of my head after watching it just once. ...

I received an outreach approach this morning about a new search engine which has been launched to rival the likes of Google. Oparla, which pays users to search, claims to use social media technology to provide a more accurate search. Visitors can rank sites, comment on results and message other users asking for advice. The release states: “Oparla will reward one user every day with a cash bonus of up to £1000. The lottery like system will be based on account holders signing in and using the search ...

As marketers, advertisers and PR practitioners are all scratching their collective heads looking at ways to benefit from using social networking it seems the very networks themselves are still struggling to figure out what to do. Yes hot on the heels on ITV looking to sell Friend’s Reunited, Facebook and more recently Twitter having a difficult time to bring in the cash from users.This morning YouTube has been tipped to make a loss of around £321m in 2009. Revolution magazine reports: “The cost of bandwidth, content licensing, ...

We all know that we are now locked in a recession, negative news everyday and Mr Peston has officially become the voice of disaster. However, I can’t help feeling that one business has taken the bull by its horns to beat the credit crunch. Pizza Express has been running 2 for 1 voucher schemes since late last year and every time I pass one or pay a visit, it always seems to be packed out. In fact, it has become so successful that other restaurant chains which are feeling the crunch have started their own schemes too. Prezzo, Pitcher and Piano, ...