Brian Blessed Alarm Clock now on Android

What seems like an age ago my mate Rich came up with the notion that he'd rather like Brian Blessed to be the voice of his sat nav. For those who don't know, Brian is a somewhat larger-than-life English thesp. He's known for his sonorous voice and hearty, 'king-sized'. delivery, plus he's something of a national institution. Rich turned up at my front door one day, having spoken to TomTom and the bearded legend himself, with the goal for getting 50,000 people to sign up to a Facebook Page under the promise that if he did then TomTom would make it happen.

So began the push that saw me (2 days later) lying in the foot well of a moving Smart car, filming Brian (who was in the boot), and giving Rich any moral support he needed to make it happen. Sure enough, 3 months later the Facebook group hit it's target and TomTom did the rest.

Rich, however, is 'a bit special'. It didn't stop there. Brian's become something of a friend since all of this, and it made sense to keep the fun rolling and to do our bit for charity (Walking With the Wounded) at the same time. So began the next phase, which saw me standing in a shed, drinking a mug of tea, directing Brian Blessed in Shakespeare - arguable THE MOST ENGLISH THING one can possibly do - and saw Rich working with designers (including my good mate The Lightfoot - who did the design for this blog) and coders to make the 'Brian Blessed Alarm' clock happen.

It did. It's now available for the iPhone (which Steven Fry tweeted out as "The reason the App store was invented...", bless him, and the app stayed at number 1 for months) and (as of last week) it's now out on Android. Please, give it a go. Seriously, NOTHING is more effective at getting you out of bed than the words of Brian Blessed. For the pittance this thing costs you owe it to yourself, to Harry, England, and Saint George.

Some of Rich's other ideas are coming to fruition soon - keep your eyes on 'Blessed Originals' for further bearded nonsense and off-the-wall projects with other famous folks. Occasionally I still find myself in a projection booth somewhere, live tweeting along with Brian and 1000's of his fans to the movie 'Flash' or some such. You can also follow Rich on Twitter at @IdiotSvengali. It's rarely dull.

Why we Can't Ignore AuthorRank, & why That Rocks

Gone are the easy days of the early noughties when the definition of content quality was based more on the 'authority' of a domain than who wrote that content (or it's virility). Google is moving the goal posts, again, and this time it makes sense.

Now it's all about the individual, and (in SEO terms) as individuals that makes our name a commodity. I worked for the Daily Mail in on-line info delivery for 7 years, and if individual contributors don't start making the most of this then it's a crime against journalism. This is a ranking you'll take with you - it doesn't belong to the individual website - and that rocks for original content creators.

Let me try and explain how this works:

Is your name now a killing word?

Authorship, or AuthorRank, is Googles way of examining the importance of a post by the reputation of the individual who wrote it. What does +reputation mean? Prizes. Essentially, justifiably preferential search engine ranking for people who produce good content and who's work has been distributed by others (in the past, or currently) via social signals.

So how do we gather AuthorRank?

Predictably enough we have to start with our Google Plus profile - by adding the blogs, Pages, and channels we contribute too to our profiles and letting the data filter down so that it recognises us. It really is time to stop being scared of giving over our relevant data - get over it, and get in the system. Go to your G+ profile, then go to 'edit' and link the websites you "Contributor to" in the section close to the bottom. You'll be given a code to embed into your posts to set up your 'author rich snippets' - here's a how to - and for businesses (and as individuals) there's a bit a faffing around with "rel=author" and links to G+ pages in footers etc. (doubly so, it seems with Blogger) then you can test it here. With Blogger you can link your G+ and Blogger profiles together (see over on the right) and here's a handy AuthorRank plugin for Wordpress that should see you right.

Content creators (and there's every indication this will soon work for YouTube too) are 'ranked' using a magical Google algorithm based on the 'engagement factors' of the content they produce. This is what we blanketly call 'social signals' and it covers tweets, retweets, comments, shares, likes, +1's, all the usual social malarky. Add to this the stuff we consider Googles typical measurement factors like inbound links etc., and from this it crafts a measurement that it can attribute to an individual to get a sense of their popularity (even, potentially by Circles and Google Communities etc. within a given topic). Presumably the more a content creator creates content on a topic, plus the more engagement with that content, the higher that persons rank is going to be for that topic. In this case specialisation seems like it might be a plus - it's always worked for insects.

Blogger identity is important.

This has the possibility to change the content landscape and shift the balance of power into the hands of the creator. Suddenly brands and marketeers are going to have to court authors. Specialists are going to have (SEO) value and search engine kudos within their chosen areas, and magazine brands will have to seek out the folks with strong AuthorRank to boost their reputation and flagging rankings. It's nice to think that journalists, writers, and content creators who have authority in a topic are going to find themselves a commodity in the very near future. Any companies who want to be seen as specialists and industry leaders - and it's a goal for many when we're creating online marketing strategy - are going to have to conduct 'author outreach' for their short-term content creation, and they'll need to boost and cultivate the AuthorRank of those who are already writing for their organisation to make the most of them in the long term (and don't forget, they'll take that individual rep with them if they leave). Very interesting.

In the immediate future it looks like outreach to find people who have AuthorRank on a given topic should be relatively easy. All we need to do is run a search on any relevant keywords and see what rich snippets show up and who they are attributable to. Right now, each of these has a grey line of info next to them saying how many Circles these folks are in. To begin with, in the absence of any proper tools for automating this research, it's a good start. Right now, these are the people you want writing your guest posts and these are the folks you'll need to contact and schmooze.

The hard working author in his natural habitat.

It's a great time for content creators, and in the future there's the potential for us to be paid - if they smooth out all this adding codes and messing about for the layman - to write on the things we have a passion for and a talent for. Though admittedly the origins of this were seeded back in 2011 - at least some good shit came out of 'Penguin' and 'Panda'. Google is fostering creativity here, and I'm feelin' this bodes well for the future of brand journalism, content marketing, and people with passion and talent.

Nice one Google. That rocks.

How not to get Distracted While Working in Social Media

Working online has always been a challenge for those us susceptible to the lure of shiny objects. Social media is the biggest damn time vampire known to man, and when I'm working for clients there's that constant reminder that there are friends, colleagues, and acquaintances begging for me to comment on their posts or correct their grammar. Here are a few tricks I use so that I don't end up wasting my day looking at cat videos when I should actually be doing the shit I'm there to do.

Set Out a Schedule

When I need to do something, no matter how mind-numbingly trivial, if I'm not going to nail it there and then I put it on my schedule. I refer to my schedule every time I finish a group of tasks when I think "what's next", or if I need to look busy because someone's caught me gawking at Pinterest with my mouth open like a fish. There a billion micromanager and reminder apps out there (and I've tried a lot of them) but I just use Google Calender fed by Mac Reminders on my iPad, iPhone, and Mac Book Air. It's free, easy, decentralised, and it's a big help for my notoriously fallible sieve-like memory (a man's gotta know his limitations). Retrospectively this also acts as a good log of what's been achieved in a day, and anything that doesn't get done by 5.30 get's dragged into the next available slot.

Stay On Target

cut the chatter

I have a personal rule of 50/10. I work for 50 minutes. Then go make a brew, abuse Twitter, smoke by the bike sheds, stare at some new Facebook app, check Pair to see what the spouse/cat is up to, watch dubstep videos with My Little Pony characters in them, or whatever for 10.

Also, I don't multi-task. The concept that 'multitasking is awesome' is a myth perpetuated by people who sell self-help business books. It's weapons-grade horse do-do. I do one thing at a time (I like to think reasonably well) not 4 things (half-arsed). I do something until it's finished, then I do another thing. Sure, sometimes that not always possible, but I break big tasks into smaller tasks (usually with dependencies being stop points that need external action from others) and it keeps me on track. Doing one thing at a time doesn't mean I'm not thinking about other things as well, but I concentrate on one task at a time, whenever possible. You may have a mutant power that lets you juggle plates - good for you - but that's not me. For more on this, I recently read this great post by Mr. Tony Schwartz, writer of 'Be Excellent at Anything', which is worth a look.

Track Time

a necessary evil

Working for an agency I have to log client hours anyway, so it's not rocket science. We use Harvest, which is easy and there are apps for the hard of understanding. I don't micro-manage this. I'm not obsessive, and I group stuff (a couple of client emails, booking a meeting room, working on a Keynote for a campaign pitch, can all be bundled together under 'meeting prep' if it's the same customer). It does, however, help keep me on track when I know I only have 2 slots of 30 minutes a day allocated for each client to check their social channels, respond to questions, and create/compose something fresh before looking at the next one. No time for love, Doctor Jones.

Eat a High Protein Lunch

Seriously. It stops me getting hungry mid-afternoon and stops my mind wandering. Chicken or fish is good, but keep it light. I'm also a big fan of regular coffee (though any sources of caffeine with antioxidants - like chocolate - works just fine) and it helps info retention. Personally, I favour the protein and caffeine and avoid the sugars. Each to their own (which is why I run the company tuck shop). Not too much coffee, there's a balance - jitters and needing the loo all day is counterproductive.

Ignore Stuff

There are always people who approach you with "can you just". Most of the time, yes, I can squeeze in 5 minutes to give an opinion or my advice, it's my job, but sometimes I genuinely can't. When I say "not right now" I've already set as president and it MEANS "not right now". From past history people know I'm serious.

I don't constantly check pages, but I do get information delivered to me. For example, I use the Pages app on the iPad which updates and flashes up when someone posts onto one of the Facebook Pages I manage. It's on the screen for 2 seconds, and I keep it docked next to my main monitor at work - if it's important it'll get my attention, if not it gets ignored 'til later.

NB: The power of listening to (productive) music or podcasts on headphones here is obvious - not only does it stop people hassling you for no good reason and with the day-to-day office fluff, it also saves on ambient distractions and cocktail party syndrome.

So there you go, that's my suggestions. No doubt there's more, but I'd say scheduling, targeting, and tracking are the main ones. What we do professionally isn't personal, but it is social. We have to make the distinction to make the most of the time we have available. It's a job we're doing after all, a client is paying for our time, it's not a...

...OMG!

Ponies!

What to Look for When You’re Hiring Your Social Media Staff.

There’s a lot of social media tools out there, but they all rely on one thing. A human being to use them effectively.

I'm often asked how I go about hiring staff for our agency, and how I find the right person I can trust to run a public presence on behalf of our clients. Hiring the right people is just as important for single brands as it is agencies like ourselves. Here’s my basic hiring criteria to find the right kind of person capable of adopting the wide variety of ‘voice’ and brand standards our clients expect. Naturally there is a training process attached to this, and we create very specific brand voice documents and sample messaging documents to make sure each client is represented correctly, but what do I look for when building a team (an international team at that) to make sure we get the right people for the job? Formal qualifications in social media are starting to appear, but what else does a candidate need?

Who Are We?

First interview question, "What do you know about our company". It's a classic, and if they've not at least got the basics from the website the interview pretty much stops there. It's not rocket science to visit and 'About Us' page. Do not pass go, do not collect salary.

Social Experience

A potential new recruit doesn't have to have worked professionally in social media before, indeed college leavers are of just as much interest to us as we need a broad cross-section of demographics, but one of my first ports of call is their own social media channels. If they have worked with brands before this is obviously a bonus, but I'm just as keen to see how they manage their own Facebook hobby pages, their Twitter account, their LinkedIn profile, and how they control their personal brand on-line? Is everything a channel offers 100% complete? If not, why not? Are they engaging? Are they abreast of the new services the social channels offer?

In addition, from a few minutes looking at someone's social media channels I can tell if they blog, what papers they read, what videos they watch, and a wealth of other data.

Strong Written Language Skills

In social we have to write in a variety of ‘voices’, but it’s exceptionally rare that broken grammar or poor punctuation is part of the brand identity. Start a sentence with ‘And’ or ‘But’ and it’s the kiss of death for me. Accuracy is important, as is the ability to create simple and concise messaging. For this we use a custom on-line accuracy checking system that requires the individual to create and edit a blog post within a given time. If something like this isn't available we would insist on a written test at interview. Without the required results the hiring process would stop right there.

Personality

Can I work with this person? Simply, do we strike a bond at interview and are they ‘client facing’? Could this person, further down the line, perform client training? How do they carry themselves at interview? I'm not looking for a suit and tie or pencil skirt here, but are they presentable and do they have an air of professionalism (and a sense of humour) that would fit the rest of the team? People need a certain professional bearing to be taken seriously in on-line media, especially social which is still (to some) an 'unproven science'.

Reporting and Analytic Experience

Anyone can press a button and generate a report. Indeed, there’s a lot of social media software will do this for you, but that’s no substitute for understanding (at least the basics ) of what those numbers mean, and (more importantly) what they might mean to a client. I normally run a quick visual test with one of our larger accounts. We have an on-line gaming client with over 86,000 Facebook followers, and I usually ask a few simple questions like “How would you find what type of content this clients followers engage with the most?”, or “Can you see who the obvious brand evangelists are?” or “This client is looking to achieve blah, how do you think we would measure that?”. This is run of the mill stuff, and if the candidate has the answers it’s a great start.

Branding and Marketing Knowledge

This is something that can often be reflected in formal qualifications. Many marketing degree twenty-somethings are moving towards social and bringing their university skill-set with them. It’s a good fit. Does this person understand the core concepts of what we do? If I say 'brand personality'  or 'brand traits' I need to know they have a grip of the core concepts. Can they tell me 2 or 3 social (or traditional) campaigns they admire or have found push the right buttons for them (and why)? If I say 'brand pyramid' or 'magic quadrant'  do they know what I mean or stare at me blankly? Obviously, resume experience with other brands is a bonus (but not always essential).

Interests

What other activities does this person engage in outside of work? Social needs a broad knowledge of a million and one other subjects, especially in an agency environment. Do they fill in knowledge gaps I don’t have, like football, home decorating, women's fashion, vegan cooking, or hobo wrestling, and do we have clients this would suit? Pro-active interests and a diversity of knowledge is always a bonus. My interest is always piqued if I see people have minor acting, LRP, or table-top RP experience; I've noticed engagement seems to come far more naturally to them.

An individual can be trained in the use of social media tools, and I don’t expect a candidate to know everything (unless they are looking for 'everything' money) right away. Individual social tools can be trained, indeed many have their own video courses and ‘universities’ nowadays and this is less important than the elements above. A driven enough individual can soon pick up the interface skills required for the day-to-day, and to produce basic reports. There’s a million books, white papers, industry blogs and webinars out there.  I encourage new recruits to read, experiment with their own projects, and we have a great learning policy here. A curiosity to learn and a willingness to experiment in their own time is a bonus.

Once you have the talent it's important to foster it, but (for any company) getting the raw recruits is key.

How to get Admin Status on a LinkedIn Page for a Company you Don't Work for.

Ok, this took a bit of finding so I'm putting this down in one place for posterity.

A client came to us, as they do, and wanted me to revamp, update, admin, and share content messaging and links on their outdated LinkedIn Page for them. There's a lot you can do with Company Pages nowadays and their's was lookin' a bit 2011.

life's too short to have to go looking for LinkedIn tutorials

Last time I did this was a while ago and I logged in via the clients personal profile, and technically that's against LinkedIn terms and conditions, but I'd noticed that Hootsuite now has engagement functionality for LinkedIn so I rationalised it must be possible to access a Company Page as an admin even if you don't work for the company. Turns out that's true, obviously, but it took some investigation worthy of the pen of Conan Doyle to find out how. For some reason no one was making the knowlege easily searchable, so here's the skinny:

You need to be an admin of a Company Page to add fresh admins, so you need to get an existing company rep to do this for you (but at least you can send them these instructions).

• Before starting this exercise you'll need to be connected to the person who you want to make admin of your Company Page.
• When you're logged into LinkedIn, go to your Company Page - either go to 'Companies' at the top of the homepage and use search, of hover over 'Companies' in the navigation at the top and look for your Company Page (before the divider, in the drop down).
• When you get to the Company Page, click 'Edit' (in the blue box in the upper right).
• You'll see the 'Designated Admins' section, top left of the editable options, and as you begin to type the name of a connection that you want to be an admin, they'll appear in the list of options and you can select them.
• Click 'Publish'. Boom.

No messing around with having to have an email addresses on the same domain as the Company Page etc. Hope this is of use to someone, this is one for the long-tail search, because damned if we could find this info easily when we needed it earlier today.

Yeah. I Just did that...

So close. Nearly posted AdultoysUK to JustSearch.

As my dad says: "Measure twice. Cut once". Just caught it in time.

Important safety tip, thanks Egon. A sobering reminder that it pays to check twice.

Seriously, so damn close...