Oi foodies. EnglishMum has an Autumn bakeoff competition.
8 Ways to Sell More Stuff. IIA conference on October 7th on how to sell well online. Includes talk on underwear.
Cybercom want to educate graduates and help them get a break in digital. The programme is called Cybercom Exchange.
Wine wine wine! New online wine retailer. The Corkscrew.
Nixon came to Ireland when President. Did you know that? Radio doc on it.
Wicklow TV has now officially launched.
explosions in the sky – Memorial
Mediabox have booked me to do a “social media” seminar in Donegal on Thursday. And it’ll be with a castle in the backdrop. Glenveagh National Park’s Visitor Centre is where it takes places. Well done to Joanne and crew for putting together the seminar and charging people sfa for it too. Seminar and lunch is €65 and a tour of the castle.
And of course I’ll have to try the food at Harry’s.
Best of luck to all behind the launch of eMobile.ie today. Purple is in fashion I’m told.
Web Awards short lists are out. Tickets on sale too. About two weeks left to get em.
McCambridges in Galway now are a-blogging. Was nice to meet them on a course a while back.
Love this post about Mary Coughlan from Twenty.
Avid filmmaker? 7up MOFILM Filmmaker Meet Up 1830-2030 Drinks, Networking & Irish TV Ad Competition in Dublin on Thursday.
Nixon McInnes measures workplace happiness in an interesting way.
Twitter and the Golden Ratio. Love it.
Been years since I watched Avalon
Been reading Zero History by William Gibson. This quote on page 179 made me want to share it:
She watched as he sank instantly into whatever it was he that he did on the Net, like a stone into water. He was elsewhere, the way people were before their screens, his expression that of someone piloting something, looking into a middle distance that had nothing to do with geography
Ireland Involved Awards 2010. It’s the final push for nominations, deadline is the October 1st
Web Awards 2010 tickets are on sale right now for 30 quid a pop. Be quick!
Ciara Kenny, a journalist who has just completed her MA at DCU flew out to Zambia, to live for a month in a small rural village in Eastern Zambia called Makwatata. She’s armed with a solar powered kit, laptop, DV camera and other devices, and will be blogging on the people, and on life in the local community for the next month. Take a looksee.
Qluso: an online app that allows news editors to bid for exclusive stories from freelance journalists, launched in private beta at ShowCase Conf in Belfast recently and won ‘Best Demo/Pitch’ out of 22 start-ups. Congrats. From now until the 3rd of October they’re letting journos and editors sign-up for the beta on their website to get an invitation to the beta.
Google Instant doesn’t let you search for some items. Here’s the big list so far. Imagine a search engine that ONLY allowed you search for this.
Life Coach an online comedy from folks in Galway. Hector and Tommy free, thank fuck.
Win a Cully and Sully massive hamper on FoodFight.ie and don’t forget to enter your beans on toast to the Chef Factor competition.
Speaking of Food Fight. if you want your Irish Food Blog listed and want access to food producer giveaways, fill in the form.
Meanwhile a competition to win a Barry’s Tea hamper on Messy Chef.
Cork’s first street style blog.
UCC new media courses nearly full, 8 wks starting next week. Introductory and Intermediate.
Microsoft Ireland has launched the Microsoft AppChallenge, a competition to encourage Irish developers to create content for its Windows Phone Marketplace, the application store for Windows Phone 7
Exchange Dublin got a new website, woo!
Highly interesting, light therapy with light going into the ears.
Steven Johnson has a new book about generating new ideas. He’ll have a free webinar going through the tools you can use.
Mudhoney – Touch Me I’m Sick
I’m loving how some businesses are using different aspects of Facebook to get business. I asked some companies that work in the Wedding Industry to explain how they use Facebook for business, two good examples here:
I’ve used Facebook to advertise my business, Caricatures Ireland, since 2008. In that time my combined ads have been viewed five and a half million times, and have received 5,000 clicks. The numbers are staggering for the relatively small spend I’ve invested in that time, and while I’m simply too busy to track exact conversions (enquiries converting to bookings) the fact that I am so busy is probably indicative of a decent percentage.
If you have a niche business like mine, the ability to tailor your ads to a specific demographic gives Facebook an enormous edge over Google Adwords. In short, my Facebook ad will only display for Facebook members who’ve indicated they’re engaged in their personal details. Compare that to Google Adwords, where your ad displays to anyone searching for keywords: a potential waste of money. A Facebook ad is reaching a motivated target market exclusively.
I’ve picked up a few tricks for maximising ROI on my ad too. For instance, there’s no need to have your campaign running indefinitely. I run my ad in bursts, spaced 4-6 months apart, and usually no longer than a week. Your ad will probably be seen by everyone that’s interested in that space of time, so you need to allow a few months go by for numbers of the newly engaged to build up again.
You’ll need to play around with your spend as well. FB will suggest a cost per click, but you should start lower than this and increase it until you notice an increase in enquiries. You can pay per impression or per click, but if you’re a small business you want to drive traffic instead of exposing a brand name, so pay per click. Your maximum spend is something you’ll need to play around with, but I think a trickle is better than a deluge: if your budget is €500, put a max spend of €10-€20 per day so your budget isn’t sucked up too quickly.
Good copy will get a potential customer to click through to your site. A good, illustrative image will draw a potential customer’s eye. Your landing page is your shop window, and all the info a customer needs should be present on that one page, including how to contact you. A separate landing page for your Facebook campaign
will help you keep track of how your ad is going. Facebook is rapidly outgrowing its role as a website: it is becoming more of a presence than a place, as the new “Like” button spreads throughout the web. Think about setting up a Fan Page, and incorporating the “Like” button on your blog.
If Google’s catchphrase is “Don’t Be Evil”, Facebook’s unwritten one is “Be Lucrative”, so get on it.
Allan Cavanagh is on Twitter here and Facebook here.
The main reason we wanted to create a Facebook welcome page was to increase the number of fans (“Likes”) that our business page was achieving on a weekly basis. We wanted to create something reasonably eye-catching and that would have an obvious call to action feature – i.e. the big arrow that encourages users to like our page. At the same time, we also wanted to give a little bit of information about what mrs2be.ie is all about i.e. our friendly discussion forum, our supplier directory, our wedding checklists and wedding advice articles. We also included this message in text format underneath the graphic so that it would be indexed by Google.
After setting the welcome page to become the default landing page for new visitors, we could see very quickly that it was working for us. Within 10 days or so, our fans increased from 500 to 1,000. This has levelled off now, but we’re still attracting a decent number of new fans on a weekly basis.
Like the mrs2be Facebook Page or follow them on Twitter.
My friend Stephen did his dissertation presentation recently called SophieJS. Making search and even better. Check it out nerds and suits!
Love Twenty’s take on the Fianna Fáil Think-in.
Audiodetour by You’re Only Massive is a site responsive mp3 audio walk, commissioned by and currently running at The Model in Sligo.
It layers choreography, soundscapes and songs on top of the real Sligo and asks you to use everyday spaces with a playful sense of experimentation, exploration and adventure and to keep an ear out for the hidden histories of caregivers and bankers.
EU Journalist Awarddeadline is this evening. The prize “honours online or print journalists in the EU who, through their work, contribute to a better public understanding of the value and benefits of diversity and the fight against discrimination in Europe.” Get going.
An app for Arthur’s Day. Makes sense.
Bruce Dickinson. Iron Maiden frontman and marketing head honcho for an airline.
You still coming to Measure It!
Iron Maiden – Run To The Hills
Beoir – Ireland’s craft beer campaign group.
Was asked to mention this new online petition: “Minister for Education & Skills to take the reasonable and sensible step of evaluating and assessing the ABA schools before taking a decision on whether to effectively close them.” Seems Mary Coughlan shutting down some special needs schools and turning them into non-specialist schools.
New Community Maps tool for Dublin City.
Job: Web UI Developer for Franchise Direct. Dublin based.
Snorkelling in a Bog, Finding the King of the Culchies and Heading off to Tedfest all in the name of Bringing the Craic Back with Meteor! Picture of Ray Foley looking like a tit redacted. Too many around as is.
Louth County Enterprise Board are running an Innovation evening on Thursday, 23rd September 2010.
iPhone app allows you to see what a watch looks like on your arm.
Letter.ly – nice way to sell and send email newsletters.
Joanna plays in Dublin tomorrow.
Joanna Newsom – ’81
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