Five reasons why your company needs a social media presence

You know a few friends who use Facebook, and you've heard Twitter mentioned on the BBC.

You're a creative thinker, someone who has been responsible for your company becoming a market leader. And you want to know more.

However, there's a limited amount of time and money at your hands. Your e-mail inbox recieves a hundred emails a day, ranging from new meetings you have to go to at short notice to a customer's outlook on life.

What you need is someone who can give you advice on what social media tools to use and how to use them.

Like me.

In this post, I'll be explaining five reasons why your company needs to use social media.

1. New ways of marketing your company:

Forget spending thousands of pounds on outdoor advertising that might be covered with flyposters, or paying people to stand in the rain handing out flyers to people hurrying to the underground.

Everyone who signs up to your company's Facebook page will be able to recieve messages about your products or updates on your company's growth.

Everyone who follows your company's Twitter account will be able to recieve your news whenever you want to send it, seconds after you do send it.

Everyone who is able to bookmark a webpage about your company on a social bookmarking site such as Delicious will be sharing your information with hundreds of other Delicious users.

Social media is cheap, has a wider reach and more interactive than other marketing methods. This leaders on to my next reason...

2. New means to have a conversation:

Anyone who follows you using social media is able to send you direct messages either asking or giving information.

If a customer has a complaint about your product, for example, you can discuss the complaint with them using social media.

The customer will be impressed at your quick response and will be more inclined to recommend your company to others than if she had to ring up or travel to a branch to register her complaint.

She may even use the social media site to praise your fast response, providing your company with more good publicity.

Customers are also able to provide feedback and suggestions on your product, which will help your company to adapt quicker to customer desires.

3. A means to find new markets:

Who is following you on Facebook or Twitter? Where are they from? What do they do? Viewing their profiles can give you more information about your potential customers and how to reach them.

4. Damage limitation:

PR mishap? Problem with one of your products? Get your site of the story across quickly. Many journalists are expert social media users and will note your quick response to a problem, whether raised online or offline.

For example, Asda could use a Facebook page to quickly inform customers of product recalls as well as taking out adverts in newspapers.

Customers will therefore feel confident that Asda is committed to quickly informing cusomers when a product does not meet high standards, and will feel more confident about shopping at Asda.

5. Keeping up with the competition:

If you don't optimise social media to help your business, your competitiors will. And they'll be the ones taking advantage of the above points.

Just you and I and nature and the Father in the garden

Today, March 20th 2010, is the third anniversary of the death of my friend and mentor David Brunton, to whom I owe so much.

David was someone who had the rare gift of being able to inspire others no matter what subject he was discussing, from the Handmaid's Tale to Chris Morris' Brass Eye.

He taught me English at Magdalen College School from 1999 to 2004 and Media Studies from 2002 to 2004, and has been one of the biggest influences on my life.

I feel sure, if he was still here, he would have been making numerous wise and humourous observations on the current economic crisis and other political events of the day.

His presence, kindness and humour is greatly missed. You can read more about David in a post I wrote on March 20th 2008.

The title of this blog post is taken from Van Morrison's In The Garden, which was played at David's funeral in Magdalen College Chapel, Oxford.

Virtual Backpack online storage facility used to help the vulnerable

The Big Issue's stories are not online so I can't link to them, but last week's magazine, which I was sold today, has a very interesting report about Virtual Backpack.

Virtual Backpack is an online storage facility, created by St Basils youth worker Steve Rainbow and Active Web Solutions.

The system is intended to be an online filing cabinet, and the developers claim "Unlike a phone or computer it can never be stolen, lost or broken and is always accessible wherever they travel."

Rainbow told the Big Issue that the system has been designed "for the lowest common denominator-someone with no particular IT skills."

Currently, Virtual Backpack is used by members of Birmingham-based St Basils, who gave feedback during its development, and next month Big Issue vendors in London and Brighton will also be able to trial the site, according to the magazine.

You can find out more about Virtual Backpack at this ubelly article, including information on site safety:

This uber-secure storage area is vital – most people using it won’t have their own PC and will use public places to access this personal data.

It’s therefore vital people can’t see that information or access it without permission.

The section has a ‘store and hide’ function that means personal information is on the screen for as short a time as possible.

Key workers only have access to shared folders in the Sky Drive to collaborate on CV’s and other documents.

There is no access to the Virtual Backpack other than by the user.

It was annoying to be sold last week's Big Issue this week as I couldn't enter the competition like I usually do, but the magazine is always a fascinating read and I'm glad I found out about Virtual Backpack.

Will you be signing up to the site?

North Korea's Kim Jong-il in pictures

The Boston Globe's photo blog Boston.com has an interesting collection of photos showing North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il visiting various locations to inspect the activities of his people.

Places visited by Kim Jong-il in the pictures include the July 18 Cattle Farm, the Kangdong Light Electrical Appliance Factory in Pyongyang , the Pyongyang Cornstarch Factory and the Huichon Ceramic Factory in Jagang Province, northeast of Pyongyang.

The photos, which were released by the government-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), are of good quality.

Via the excellent Mick Hartley.

Boing Boing also reminds me of a photo series entitled Recent scenes from North Korea that the Boston Globe ran in 2008.

David Askew: another hate crime victim

Another victim of disabled hate crime has made the national news, though as with Fiona Pilkington it only happened after he died.

64-year-old David Askew collapsed and died while being abused by youths in Hattersley, Greater Manchester.

Neighbours claim that Askew and his family were harassed every night for ten years.

Tom Shakespeare, a research fellow at the Institute for Policy and Practice, Newcastle University, has written a Guardian column on the abuse that disabled people like himself and Askew face on a daily basis.

David Askew's tragedy follows the deaths of Raymond Atherton, Rikki Judkins, Steven Hoskin, Barrie-John Horrell, Kevin Davies, Fiona Pilkington, Christine Lakinski and Christopher Foulkes over the last few years. Each of these individuals was targeted because they were vulnerable and disabled, exploited, humiliated, and finally killed. Looking again at the evidence, and thinking more deeply about the problem, I realise how mistaken I was to trivialise hate crime. It's not just a matter of bullying. It's not something that people can just ignore or laugh off. It is a scourge on our society. We are members of a community where the most vulnerable people live in fear of their lives and where they are being terrified on a daily basis by the bored or the loutish or the dispossessed. I think my mental block arose because I did not want to believe that human beings could be so vile. I was wrong.

Aside from Fiona Pilkington, how many of the people are remembered by the general public today? Please take a moment to click on the links that I have added to the above post to learn more about the terrible deaths of these people, who deserve to be remembered.

Disability Now has a longer list of disabled hate crimes.

Some people commenting on Tom Shakespeare's column claim that these people were not looking to specifically pick on the disabled, and that anyone could be at risk from their abuse.

In a letter to the Guardian in 2007, Catherine Taylor,principal speech and language therapist, South West London and St George's Mental Health NHS Trust, explains why disabled people can be more at risk from yobs, when discussing the death of Raymond Atherton:

As a man with a learning disability and an alcohol addiction, he was probably much less able than most to deal with his fear about informing and understanding the benefits of doing so for himself and the rest of society. He was also likely to be less able than most to deal with his abusers, to explain his predicament, and to negotiate for satisfactory support with the services that should have been involved.

A hate crime is also difficult from a fight as the result of an argument or a robbery due to a flashy watch on show. Those who carry out hate crimes often come back time and time again, refusing to stop as long as they enjoy themselves. Often, as with Askew, it only stops when the victim is dead.

Part of the debate around stopping disabled hate crime needs to explore why it takes the death of the victim for people outside the community to be aware and something to be done.

Satire in Venezuela and on Radio Four

From Sunday's Observer, an interesting report about the growth of satire in Venezuela, which has been met with a heavy-handed response.

In related news, Rory Bremner has been interviewing satirists from around the world for the three-part series Rory Bremner's International Satirists, broadcast on BBC Radio 4.

You can hear the first episode, broadcast last night, on the iplayer. This programme interviews Hans Teeuwen from Holland.

Sticks and Stones on Channel Four: Disabled hate crime documentary

Earlier today, while reading the Guardian online, I watched Channel Four's Sticks and Stones, a half hour documentary by Hannah Murphy about the victims of disabled hate crime.

The documentary was a harrowing glimpse into the fear and demoralisation that hate crime victims have to put up with every day.

Most vivid for me was a step by step guide to keeping safe (or hidden) and getting help that had been created for a girl with learning difficulties by carers.

It is disgraceful that disabled hate crime is not a greater priority for politicans. Certainly, I do not remember any great commitments by Brown or Cameron.

Watch Sticks and Stones at 40D until 2nd April.

I also recommend reading the comments below the episode guide.

GWEN on 26 February 2010 at 09:47
There is a saying "apples do not fall far from the tree" - ignorance and a lack of respect for people with disabilities often begins at home. Those attitudes then carry on into school and are often not robustly challenged. I worked in a secondary school where the two students I supported were regularly subjected to verbal and physical abuse. One student was deliberately shoved and pushed in corridors to bring about a tonic seizure which other students found funny because he extended his arm oddly and often fell.

The other student, amongst other things, had his wheelchair tampered with or removed. My objections to their treatment, I felt, were not taken seriously and the attitude that prevailed was very much that it was the students with disabilities who needed to alter and adapt their behaviour. "Toughen up" was one of the phrases used. Attitudes like these carry on into adulthood,the work place and the wider community and are the roots of hate crime and abuse of those with disabilities

Fifth anniversary of Azerbaijani editor's murder

Five years ago today, Monitor magazine's editor-in-chief Elmar Huseynov was shot dead in his Baku apartment building.

Since then, Azerbaijani government officials have identified two suspects, Tair Hubanov and Teymuraz Aliyev, but have not yet apprehended them, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

President Aliyev blamed Interpol in 2006 for not arresting the pair, but Nina Ognianova's article for the CPJ alleges failings by Azerbaijani authorities, including investigators ignoring basic leads.

Indeed, it has been alleged that fellow newspaper editor Eynulla Fatullayev was imprisoned due to his investigation of Huseynov's murder in his magazine Realny Azerbaijan, founded as a successor to Monitor.

Amnesty International described the case against Fatullayev as "trumped up charges after being critical of the government", according to the Daily Telegraph.

Like Eynulla Fatullayev 's Realny Azerbaijan, Elmar Huseynov's Monitor was strongly critical of President Ilham Aliyev and the Azerbaijani government.

The BBC reported in 2005 that "over the past several years, government officials have confiscated copies of Monitor from state and private newsstands across Baku and charged Huseynov with defaming the Azerbaijani population, insulting the honour and dignity of government officials, and spreading libellous information."

Vugar Gojayev has also written an article on the murder in Azeri Report, commenting: "Elmar’s colleagues, Azeri human rights defenders and opposition groups centre their suspicions on the government and call the assassination an act of state terror against government critics."

Human rights organisation Article 19 comments on the media situation in Azerbaijan, saying: "Opposition and independent media outlets operate on an uneven playing field, with unequal access to printing and broadcast facilities, pressure on investors not to advertise in their publications, and excessive civil defamation lawsuits filed by public officials.

"Self-censorship is pervasive, with few remaining journalists willing to accept the financial and security risks associated with pursuing investigative journalism.

"Article 19 calls on the Azerbaijani government to redouble its efforts to bring the perpetrators to justice, and to take immediate action to improve freedom of expression in Azerbaijan"