Social media in the B2B space, whether your are a small business or operating at enterprise level can often seem like  either a whole other job, or a political minefield. Here are my top 5 tips for marketing your people, content and events in [...]]]>

Taken @WeAreLikeMinds 2011 - Photo by Harry Duns (www.harryduns.com)

Social media in the B2B space, whether your are a small business or operating at enterprise level can often seem like  either a whole other job, or a political minefield. Here are my top 5 tips for marketing your people, content and events in a social way.

Make your content digestable

Complex and difficult to interpret information, often held up in long PDF’s can be a sure-fire way to lose a reader. By taking the key statistics and presenting them graphically in a infographic you create not only content that user can absorb quickly, but through including and “embed code” for that graphic, you can create a piece of content that can be shared with others in a matter of second.

Create content collaboratively

Bring the debate to you

Make your events work harder for you

Optimise your enterprise

Warning – this blog post is longer than the average – and it’s about attention. I dare you to read it all the way through.

When I was in my late teens I worked in a small Christian bookshop in [...]]]>

Warning – this blog post is longer than the average – and it’s about attention. I dare you to read it all the way through.

When I was in my late teens I worked in a small Christian bookshop in my home town. It was a Saturday job, stacking shelves, serving customers, making coffee – surrounded by books. When you spend that amount of time around books, including everything from The Purpose Driven life through to Stong’s Extended Concordance to the Bible – you begin to know what you like when it comes to literature.

During these formative years of faith I began to attempt to absorb as much knowledge ABOUT God as I could. Who was he? Where was he? What did he want from me and how on earth was I going to live up to that? So I lapped up the works of Wesley, Edwards and the late and great John Stott – hoping that in and amongst those pages I would learn enough to develop a deep understanding of God’s plans and purposes for me and the world.

The problem is – that while theology is important. Right. True – it can sometimes be – well a little flat. Studying the conflicting views of transubstantiation make tickle some people’s fancy – but not really mine. For most people I meet that also seems to be the case. We desire emotion, narrative – story. And if you hang out in the New Testament for any length of time – you will find Jesus was pretty keen on it too.

As I travel the country meeting with pastors, teachers and theologians I seem to be seeing the same problem time and again – how do we get people to engage in church? How will we see the church grow? How do we get our young people to stay on past their teens? Questions as old the church itself no doubt, but today I think we cannot answer this question without story.

It is no surprise to some that our attention spans are shrinking – the average according to recent research by the BBC saw teenagers showing attention spans as short as 11 minutes, compared to the average of 20-26 minutes of the past 30 years. Social media and mobile technology is rebooting the brains of our young people (myself included) and when those little machines come back online their RAM is already overloaded by texts, emails, phone calls, tweets, status updates, adverts, blog posts and people in the street trying to corral them into donating to Children In Need (a worth cause but there has got to be a better way guys?).

So no wonder – with this social ADD  rife in our youth population that holding that attention when they walk through the doors on a Sunday is a challenge.

This is why I think we need to return to storytelling – on and offline – if we have a chance in all of Christendom of getting people engaged in the message of Jesus.

Storytelling in a real-time world

If you take a look at any of the major social networks you can clearly see that the silicone valley elite are determined to usher in a “real-time web” – an internet where all things are accessed in real-time and where the word “archive” is sometimes delivered with a bitter tone. Whether you are scouring the “Stream” on Google+ of delving through your Facebook “News Feed” the emphasis is on “now” and the “live”.

The great thing about living in the real-time web world is that we be constantly in the know – but I think this constant focus on what is happening right now is training us out of being able to understand story, which requires reflection and imagination to speculate about what is coming.

We see this creeping into our interactions with all sorts of media, whether its monitoring #bbcqt during Question Time, focusing on the “most highlighted” book passages on the Kindle or constantly flicking between a speaker and the TwitterFall on the screen behind them. Our attention is being tested – and often we are the one wielding the whip.

Story telling in this world of constant distraction, particularly from the stage or pulpit means we need to drastically rethink the way we communicate – doctrine, theology and discipleship in the form of the sermon needs to move from being “delivered” or “preached”. We need stories that can be “told” and “experienced”.

Recently in our church our leader gave a talk on healing. He outlined how we see Jesus heal in the Bible. A model for healing, of laying on hand and praying in the power of God’s spirit. But do you know what the real kicker was? The bit that captured the hearts and minds of the people – when a young women from our Student Group got up and told the story of how her serious heart condition was healed through that very model of prayer. Of what she felt when she realised God had touched her life. Of the relief and fear and anger and then unbelief and joy and love of those who prayed for her. Of how the Doctor the following day couldn’t explain what happened and how he would have to take her of the heart donor list.

That’s a story. That’s what gets us hooked and coming back again and again and again.

If you have been inspired into telling more stories please check out a project by a friend of mine Richard Littledale, whose short Christmas story “The Littlest Star” is helping raise money for the charity Shooting Star Chase.

As regular readers will be aware I head up the UK communications effort for YouVersion the Bible App for smartphones as the web. Over the past few years of being a user, and more recently being involved with the community of users [...]]]>

As regular readers will be aware I head up the UK communications effort for YouVersion the Bible App for smartphones as the web. Over the past few years of being a user, and more recently being involved with the community of users around YouVersion, we have seen the interactions, engagement and sharing of the app in all it’s forms explode.

Today with over 30 Million users the Bible is being engaged with in a whole range of new ways, so to show that off we have put together this little infographic to show just what goes on in a single minute in the YouVersion community.

To find out more about YouVersion don’t forget to tune into this evening’s live Webcast from the team starting this evening at 6PM GMT (1PM CT).

Myself and a crack team of social media monsters (@deanseddon @DrBexL & @icthusvideo) have been through a whirlwind 4 weeks setting up an event for Christians wanting to know more and embrace social media. The even came together in 48 hours, complete with branding, [...]]]>

Myself and a crack team of social media monsters (@deanseddon @DrBexL & @icthusvideo) have been through a whirlwind 4 weeks setting up an event for Christians wanting to know more and embrace social media. The even came together in 48 hours, complete with branding, lineup, web presences, venue and even catering – and 4 weeks later it’s ON!

We had a great morning, and rather than me summarising it all – I thought I would hand it over to the community to do this – via the medium of the mighty Storify…

For more info on DigiManc visit the site or follow the #tag – #DigiManc

This week if the current trajectory maintains I will cross the 3000 mark in terms of twitter followers. Just to point out I don’t write this to brag – im not even sure what I’ve done to gain 3000 followers to be honest [...]]]>

This week if the current trajectory maintains I will cross the 3000 mark in terms of twitter followers. Just to point out I don’t write this to brag – im not even sure what I’ve done to gain 3000 followers to be honest with you – but for one reason another I have.

The point is it got me thinking about our own levels of personal responsibility over what we do online. I am no public figure, nor celebrity or in any official sense a leader. However I some how feel a sense of duty to those 3000 people and in a wider collective sense to the world to take my place in it with a certain level or care.

We’ve all seen what power social media, freedom of speech and willingness to speak out can do to the world – this year more than ever and I can’t help but feel at some point as a Christian and as someone who is just as concerned as the next guy about our economy, government etc – that it may not be long before I along with all those who are confused, concerned and can communicate will need to join together to help get things done. And when that time comes – I hope I will. And if you follow me on twitter, well I hope you will too.

As is becoming a norm this thought manifested itself in poetic form before I even realised I felt this way so here is that poem. It’s called Social Responsibility for all the obvious reasons.

Social Responsibility

What happened when
The self righteous are unseated
By the murmuring of the crowd
The twittering of the unseen
masses of minds bending
flowing and ebbing as one

What happens when the pedastle crumbles under you
When the unseen jibes become the scene that brings it all to the fore
the fall too much to bare
when you know it was your own whittering that got you there.

What is happening when the digital nudgings of those unsettled and unsettling, spills over into the those who just live destruction.
Uinformed, Unchecked and Unkempt let loose on the Unwilling and Unforgiving,
who try forbidding the outcry
of a generation lost
in the postcode bidding war for the riches of those
stealing from the poor.
What are they all aching for?

What will happen when the ones who finally found
their voice have it hidden again?
Drowned out by those with so much to gain
from keeping the down trodden down and out of the spot light.
What happens when we don’t see the pain?
It is us who bare the shame.

I thought I would share this with y’all – a little article I wrote on how social media is changing the church, one tweet at a time, originally published in the New Wine Magazine, and shown here [...]]]>

I thought I would share this with y’all – a little article I wrote on how social media is changing the church, one tweet at a time, originally published in the New Wine Magazine, and shown here from the online version of that publication!

Today some of the most creative and forward thinking people in the UK will descend on sunny Exeter in preparation for tomorrow’s annual gathering of the #LikeMinds conference.

Ahead of my talk on Friday morning I thought I [...]]]>

Today some of the most creative and forward thinking people in the UK will descend on sunny Exeter in preparation for tomorrow’s annual gathering of the #LikeMinds conference.

Ahead of my talk on Friday morning I thought I would give you a little preview and invite some feedback on a poem I have written for the occasion, which (depending on your feedback) I am thinking of using as my opener.

In a year that has truly seen social media, the recommendation economy and technology make the headlines this is a little reflection on how I still feel we need to strive to truly be US in the digital space. As my friend Bex always says – what we do online is not some ‘virtual’ world – we are people on a offline. It’s all about perspective isn’t it.

Hope you like it – comments welcomed (be gently brutal – Ta).

Underwater - Image Credit: Magic Studios

Submerged

Is news now only what’s trending
not what rules bankers are bending
or what MPs are spending
or heartbreaks simple words are mending
or crying in the night from
voices with no way of fending
for themselves

is my truth just what I create
or seek to orchestrate
like a mad conductor on the run away train
of the latest perplexing meme.
Or delinquent dream of a different
way of thinking -
is the extent of my imagination brink-ing?
or is it only beginning , seeking
to break the 140 character horizon.
If so then why do we find ourselves sinking?

drowning in noise whilst searching for a signal
drenched in wi-fi & 3G waves
hoping to find a single
route to what I crave.
hoping to link deeper but avoiding any depth.
Maybe I need to watch my steps.

Is my over connectedness
disconnecting these words from my heart
have i been so busy busying
that I really failed to start
searching for all the answers
in all the right places

are my-space’s really just books of faces
twittering in the silence
where no one truly finds.
Maybe all I really want is to discover
some uniquely – Like Minds.

YouVersion – the mobile bible application has today announced it has reached 30 Million installations on mobile devices since it’s creation in 2008. The App not only has been installed across a massive range of devices all around the world, but is [...]]]>

YouVersion – the mobile bible application has today announced it has reached 30 Million installations on mobile devices since it’s creation in 2008. The App not only has been installed across a massive range of devices all around the world, but is changing the way people are reading the Bible. App users have racked up over 11 Billion minutes reading the Bible over that time, just going to show that God’s word is alive and well, mostly in the palms of people’s hands.

Disclaimer: YouVersion are a client of Lexis PR, for whom I work in a spokesperson capacity

Last night at Facebook’s Developer Conference F8, CEO Mark Zuckerberg laid out two fundamental changes to the Facebook Platform, which I think are set to change the social networking game all over again. [...]]]>

Last night at Facebook’s Developer Conference F8, CEO Mark Zuckerberg laid out two fundamental changes to the Facebook Platform, which I think are set to change the social networking game all over again. During the 2 hour keynote, the young founder announced a complete overhaul of the Facebook Profile Page (see mine above) – which will roll out to users over the next few weeks, which features a new layout style called “TimeLine” – described by the developers as “the highlights of your life” – the new layout automatically displays top content from your Facebook profile, for the entire duration of your Facebook life. I.E. – I can now scroll through to the videos / photos / status updates, that Facebook thinks was most important to me right from Day 1 of my time on the network.

Although this feature is likely to get the most attention as it is the most fundamental shift for users on the platform for a number of years – what I think is the real story here is the updated tools for Facebook developers – and therefore media institutions, brands and companies – which is OpenGraph. A new addition for applications developers on the Facebook Platform, OpenGraph moves on from the oversimplified social action of the “Like” button, to giving a far more logical and dynamic taxonomy to social actions on Facebook.

Simply put this means that now I don’t have to “Like” something to share on Facebook – an application can have permission to automatically share my actions within that app, in a way that makes sense dependant on the content I am consuming. This means Spotify can tell my friends I am “listening” to a “track”, BBC iPlayer (when the app is developed for FB) can tell my friends what I am “watching”, or YouVersion (the Bible App) can tell my friends which book, chapter or verse I am “reading”.

This addition will certainly improve the online experience for users, however for those of us concerned with the recommendation economy – who want to ensure that our apps / tools / products / brands have prominence on the world largest social network – the possibilities of what can now be done here look endless.

Say I am Harley Davidson (Disclosure: they are a client) – I can now create an app that will track my best rides using my GPS on my iPhone. I can let Facebook know through OpenGraph when I am riding, where I am riding and how fast in real time. But now that app doesn’t need to build in the functionality of knowing which is my FAVORITE Route, OpenGraph can work that out for me.

Another key feature of OpenGraph is the ranking system called GraphRank which is built into the platform – which Zuckerberg claims will completely shift how application discovery works. GraphRank will now change the way a user discovers apps, by showing them updates in their Timeline from apps that are being used more frequently by their friends. Ergo – if my friend Rob, Jack and Ben all use Spotify on Facebook I am more likely to see updates from Spotify in my newsfeed – making me more likely to try Spotify.

All of these new announcements are exciting and truly progressive, and it’s clear that the folks in Palo Alto haven’t resting on their social laurels. However I think these new developments are merely signals of a wider plan at Facebook. It is a similar ambition that Google seem to have been pursuing for some time with the various projects associated to Android and Chrome:

The Social Operating System

These new “frictionless” experiences, extensive content and business partnerships and open technologies are not aiming to put Facebook at the heart of the web – they are trying to make Facebook INTO THE WEB. Facebook is endeavouring to become even more intimately attached to the social connections and preferences of users. Until now, your friends have been there, your personal content – your photos and videos have been there – but now the rest of the web can truly be there in real time with you. Why go anywhere else? If I have The Guardian, iPlayer, LoveFilm, Spotify and a whole host of other apps right there in Facebook – with all my friends aswell. It seems the new web may well be here. And it’s chock full of recommendations. Welcome to the new operating system. It’s a social one.

Photo Credit: Neville Hobson