Just when you thought my unbearable rants on using social media for marketing couldn’t get any dorkier …then along comes Katie Lee of Miramus, publisher of  Dork Adore, and recent Cosmo Blog Awards Nominee (please vote!) inviting me to contribute some posts to the Life Dorkage section of this much beloved tech site.

Yes it’s true, it’s not just marketing, I synch my life with the web.

Here’s some excerpts from my latest posts:

Best tools for Getting Things Done. Pt I: Work

When it comes to Getting Things Done, Darika Ahrens  is the woman you turn to. Not only is she the High Priestess of Social Media in the UK, she’s also a great big lifehack nerd. If there’s a tool out there for making life easier, Darika has already signed up, logged in, and taken the “Darika” username.

We asked her to teach us how to be better humans. She kindly obliged.
BEST TOOLS FOR GETTING THINGS DONE….AT WORK:

• Dropbox for filesharing
• Mindmeister for planning
• Milestone Planner for project management

Read more….

Best tools for Getting Things Done. Pt II: Life

So, the social media marvel that is Darika Ahrens already shared her tools for Getting Things Done in her Work. Now, it’s time for her to tell us how to run our private lives more effectively as well.
BEST TOOLS FOR GETTING THINGS DONE…IN MY LIFE:

• Gentle Alarm for waking up
• TripIt for travel
• ShopSavvy for buying stuff

Read more…

"Strait Jacket" can be worn as t-shirt or dress. Patriziabel Sito

Cottage industry is on the rise with the success of online store fronts like Etsy and NOT JUST A LABEL (NJAL) is just such a site taking it’s existing social network of rising fashion stars and enabling them to sell one-off designer peices via the launch of a new online store.

Based on market research by the company showing that “today’s consumer is looking for unique and one-off designer garments” the new store will feature items selected by the NJAL team plus key industry figures. The idea is a new concept to showcase design talent by selling fashion which may not normally be considered commercially viable.

Will it work? New, exclusive, limited, alternative – sounds like a recipe for fashion success to me.

Although I never typed up my thoughts from that meeting the clever folks at Inreal Technologies, a Cambridge based start-up, spotted a comment I’d left on Annie Mole’s blog stating that what most interested me would be mobile applications for transport info.

Inreal offers a free app called byunderground which differs from similar sites (like TFL’s wap service). Here’s some of the key features:

• Minimised navigation: The opening page provides a view of the status information for all lines in the London underground (excluding DLR). The user doesn’t have to click any links in order to see the line status of any one particular tube line
• Familiar look and feel: The Line status view uses a layout that regular LU users are familiar with. Exceptions in tube line services are marked with a coloured background (yellow=minor, red=severe, blue=planned) which aims to help identify affected lines
• Details view: When a line is experiencing delays, details of the incident can be viewed by clicking on the status hyperlink of the given line. In addition to the description of the problem, the details view also tells you how long the problem has been ongoing (Since: H hours M minutes ago). If the browser on the handset supports the feature, the user is also offered a link to forward the report as an SMS
• Line closed information: When the last tube has completed its service (early hours of the day) the line status view shows the status as ‘Planned closure’. In the morning when the first tube departs the status changes to ‘Good service’ unless otherwise reported

If you want to try it just open http://byunderground.com in your mobile’s browser.

The Former New Piccadilly Restaurant

With that darned iPhone everywhere I’ve been feeling left out on the mobile apps front while still touting last years “it” phone the N95. Then, BT MyPlace launched and with it’s mobile element I had high hopes for it quietly becoming very useful for me.

But I honestly can’t tell you much how it’s worked for me because, after signing up, I’ve never been able to get a handle on the service. I use web and mobile services all the time, well beyond the average consumer, but getting running using this service has me hitting a wall. Why? A couple of things haven’t helped:

• there’s no getting started process or prompts. You sign up and then that’s it, you have to proactively start accessing the service like a pro
• wi-fi: I never use on my mobile in London or think about logging on to a BT OpenZone with my laptop just to use this service for free

I really wanted to make Bt MyPlace work. It’s a strong idea, they have all the local knowledge to make it good, it’s new, it’ll grow and develop, right?

If you want to try it for yourself (and then show me how) there’s no time like the present because you can currently win an Acer Netbook.

Just go to www.btmyplace.com, log-on to the competitions section and tell them your ‘best kept secrets in Westminster’. Could be your favourite pub, church, shop, market stall, greasy spoon, monument, cafe, cemetary…

Plebble manages feedback about companies and organisations online. Now managing customer complaints on the web is not new, I mean I’ve previously posted about what happened when I had a wee rant on Twitter once and that seems to be more and more common these days, but this new site has got me excited.

It’s not just another channel for ‘Disgruntled of Tunbridge Wells’ to spout bile on. Plebble is managing those conversations in a number of ways and converting dialogue into opportunity by providing businesses with  feedback and access to customers.

The democratisation of the web has already come and revolutionised the way we do business. More and more customers are turning to the web to leverage their consumer power. The days are fading when brands ask me how to “stop bloggers saying mean things” and even more are looking at how best to nurture conversations.

Plebble brings together some of the best elements of online customer feedback and takes into account there will always be some brands, big and small, that:

• nobody wants to hang out with on a brand site or in social spaces like Facebook
• will mainly get negative mentions online (in some sectors, happy customers are quiet customers)
• are strapped for cash to resource online CRM

This is true “e-mocracy”, as Prebble calls it, with a framework to prevent it descending into some Lord of the Flies style brand persecution. I like it.

P.S. British Gas, I am watching you…

I’ve been trialling the eCairn Conversation(TM) Dashboard for just over a year now (thanks to some clever outreach and the persistance the lovely Laurent Pfertzel).

The product has really evolved and now ticks a lot of boxes for PRs conducting social media outreach programmes;

• Build a network of Social Media communities using your own lists OR their search feature and collated blog lists
• Measure influence of your network
• Track conversations across multiple platforms inc Twitter, Video sites, forums
• Organise and manage team activity online
• Measure impact of engagement

The company has a nice approach to building an authentic network and the product’s intended to give you the tools to manage & measure that process. They must know what they’re doing too as they’ve managed to nurture a relationship with me over the months and now look, here I am advocating you sign up for free trial!

Of course I’d still like to see some changes but their responsiveness to feedback and speed of development gives me confidence this is a Social Media tool with a lot of potential.

Having friends helps

The Groove Armada and Bacardi partnership announced last year was significant and heralded a new era of commercial partnerships with content creators, not just for the music industry. So is their first digital output, a music distribution platform called Bliveshare, going to set the world on fire?

Well, I see a number of challenges:

• It’s “another music sharing platform”
• Last.fm…
• Heavily reliant on sharing i.e. recruiting friends
• Sharing mechanic is simplified but not neccessarily easy to action (you have a bespoke URL you email/blog/add to your facebook profile)
• Online sharing & recommendations is about interacting with people of shared interests, not just sharing with people you already know
• You have to keep on giving to keep getting
• It doesn’t grab interest immediately as you have to wait for other people to take action (either my friends hate me or they are fed up with me sending them invites to stuff)

But it’s got some things going for it:

• Groove Armada
• Groove Armada’s fans
• If it works and attracts the kind of interest needed to make it a success then the potential is huge

I really want this partnership to succeed and good use of Social Media will be critical in my view. I couldn’t find many online reviews of the service – what do other people think of it?

Have Theo and Deborah backed a winner?

Last week saw the launch of Smarta, a new advice and social networking destination for budding entrepreneurs. But is it a smarter way to do business than existing sites like Business Link and LinkedIn?

Well it’s certainly prettier than Business Link and there’s some great resource on there, as well there should with Bebo founder Michael Birch, Dragons Theo Paphitis and Deborah Meaden, plus Yo! Sushi founder Simon Woodroffe backing the venture.

Its success remains to be seen in the community it can build. I worry LinkedIn is too ahead of the game now. Smarta only has a handful of faceless profiles slowly being added to the site. Will we spend time getting our profiles and network to the same level as where we’ve invested elsewhere?

On the technology front, while Smarta is in Beta, I still think LinkedIn is also ahead. Even at a basic level LinkedIn can invite people to my network via Outlook and manage contacts with a superb plug-in. Smarta makes you faff about with exporting csv files. LinkedIn’s open API also means the wider community can add features & functionality I may find useful - Huddle workspaces currently has my interest.

A final thought is that Smarta’s very focus on start-ups may prove a weakness. On LinkedIn I can network with people at different stages of business. With Smarta catering towards new businesses there’s potential for this to turn into a community solely of entrepreneurs and wannabes all talking about the great things they’re gonna do if they can get the money.

Sorry to sound cynical but if there’s anything watching Dragon’s Den  teaches is that there’s an awful lot of people starting businesses who will never have a clue, no matter how much advice you give them.

On the flip side though, there is already too much cynicism about new business in the UK so I for one will stay part of the community and watch with interest to see how it develops.

Sharing is caring

Something I like about working  in this industry is that PR & Marketing agencies, who traditionally are a tad competitive and protective about IP, suddenly get great at sharing knowledge when it comes to social media.

The concept Wikinomics explains the business benefits of mass collaboration and if you’re one of the agencies still not open to the idea of sharing anything at all, then read it.  Here’s a round-up of some of my favourite resources on the web. In the spirit of sharing what’s your favourites?

• Nixon McInnes eBooks: Currently  7 chapters in their series “A marketers guide to Social Media”

• iCrossing eBooks: 2006′s “What is Social Media” is still relevant for newbies and they recently added “Brands in Networks”

• Fallon Brainfood: Planners from the award winning agency have a monthly lunch and the fruits of their thinking have been shared; from live tweeting, to video and slidecasts

• SEO Chicks’ “How to lists”: Not just Search tips

• PNeo introduction to Online PR: Every single post full of “how to” and “what is” explanatory goodness

• Immediate Future Social Media Glossary: Even if you know your “above the fold” to your “XML“  you might still want to point colleagues and clients here to brush up

• e-consultancy: Not an agency but my ultimate go-to destination for useful information

• TED: Again, not an agency, but worth mentioning. The inspiring talks covering technology, entertainment and design are of interest for anyone in business or education

I’d also like to include a couple of my clients who have created some useful resources themselves.

FRUKT, the music and branding experts, recently began a series of talks called the ‘FRUKT Sessions’. The slidecasts from their 2nd event are here and I’d love to hear your feedback.

Don’t forget Attentio’s free blog topic trend tool, Trendpedia, and they now have a series of whitepapers about social media and industry specific trends.

Personally I like the fact that even as she’s about to hit the big time she does all the MySpace / YouTube / blog stuff herself. It allows her intelligence and sense of humour to come across, and you can’t help warming to her. Of course if she really makes it that’ll all be handed over to a lackey, but at this point it’s an example of how pop stars can use “social media” to promote themselves beyond just bunging a few tracks onto their MySpace. Or making videos that make them look like dicks.

Is it all pointless once marketers get involved ‘helping’ maintain social media platforms on behalf of artists? Or, is this just something we need to stop being precious about, much in the same way we accept stars have been media trained and not every autographed pic will be signed personally. What do you think?

[How to promote your music via social media]