Top 10 Digital issues in 2013

From Don’s article based on facts

“In November Facebook accounted for 10% of all the time spent online in the US, attracting 150 million unique visitors. LinkedIn was next, with 41 million visitors in November.”

These figures underline LinkedIn’s profit growth.

If there were 41 million unique visitors in the US (with 200M users globally), you could probably double that usage figure globally. If you look at this link when LinkedIn had 147M members only 58.5 million were from the US.

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Compare this with so called answers posted online, on LinkedIn, by “experts” it becomes quite amusing. I paraphrase the answers (but accurately) from a recent question.

”Topped 200M. That means when you remove the duplicates, the spammers / scammers / gamers, you are left with at least 2M.”

“it is a niche social media platform.”

Enough said.

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Is it any wonder that about three years ago LinkedIn decided to hide the Q&A section under “More” and there are now only about 200 questions a day asked on LinkedIn’s section.

In a nutshell, be careful who you listen to when the word expert is used, when tied to social media. Social media changes daily, yesterday’s training, is today’s useless facts.

The key to succeeding in the use of social media is to spot the trends and think where you need to place your business to match the effects of those trends, looking two years forward.

Happy hunting.

Simon

In the blue white and red corner representing the UK, Simon Hamer, a fan of LinkedIn

I’m a huge lover of our sea bound mammals, we watched them live three times in the late 80′s and early 90′s in Canada’s coastal waters. Watching the great work that Michael Q Todd has done, and with these creatures, I happily chipped in to vote for him in the shorty awards.

I then browsed the site and was disappointed to see that the category for the UK was splashed mostly with people I’d never heard of, it annoyed me a little. More “fame without claim” . So, I just posted out my annoyance on Facebook, and the ripple started.

Firstly a good friend from Denmark now living in the UK, asked me for my handle. I responded, she voted, then she put it in a secret group with a few more friends. Another vote followed soon after … and I started to realize I could get on the leaders page.

Why bother?

Well in simple terms it is like the comparison between Bobby Moore and John Terry, both played for England both were defenders and good at it. However, as people they are incomparable, and recently I’m a little fed up of having the country I love being represented by low quality people.

When we held the Olympics we were blessed with Lord Sebastian Coe as the lead of our ambassadors to host the bid for these games in London 2012. We also had the idiot, Mitt Romney who had less class than any Republican candidate ever before him, saying he was not sure whether we could run them or not, 47% of American’s probably believed him. He probably believes that guns are better than knives. “Enough Simon, move on.”

I represent what I believe is the spirit of the games makers in the UK in social media, what do I mean. Well, I answer questions on LinkedIn for complete strangers, and I’ve been doing so for over 5 years. I do it to help others knowing if I feel good about myself it will show through and naturally I’ll have sufficient for my needs. When LinkedIn hit 100M members, I was honoured to be asked to be featured on the LinkedIn site.

I’m proud of the help I’ve given others, and I run my business processes on collaboration not competition. I win by WIN WIN.

If I’ve affected you and you’d like to give me a thank you, or know of my efforts on social media, please take 30 seconds of your time to register a vote on the shorty awards. Category #UK.

Thanks in anticipation

As ever, Simon

PS I’m from the same city as Lord Coe and Jessica Ennis, Sheffield

Does Social media require a time investment ?

Posted on August 21, 2012 by simonhamer | 1 Comment

We seem to have an obsession in today’s society about fast results, but fast results are often short lived.

Whilst speed of results may be important, long term results and long term growth are more important.

We should put more importance on integrity, quality and sustainability than a quick fix. A quick fix has resulted in over fished seas, destroyed the rain forests and created a gambling culture inside banks.

As a Digital Manager I turn down a lot of clients because they expect results instantly, and building up relationships is not a switch, it is a process. Instant results needed = red flag in relationships.

I’ve created many great relationships through social media, but the best ones have come through the natural passage of time, where trust has accumulated rather than been pushed at other parties as an asset to be valued.

There are two types of social media, both bring results but at differing speeds

1. Massive exposure

2. Relationship creation, development and maturity.

These two methods can contradict one another .. and often confuse or diffuse a social media policy.

With extreme exposure you can drive consumer sales, but that is all you will get, you will not build relationships with your customers and your brand will only be known for sales. If you build both your brand and your sales through a combination of exposure and relationship building, your brand will drive your sales, when your exposure starts to become stale.

Social media is about creating trust, and trust takes time.

Trying to short cut the process will not create long term business through this media.

Diary of a Social Media Manager

Posted on November 11, 2010 by simonhamer | Leave a comment

Monday 8th November 2010
Finally made the decision to log my activities on my blog.
Today is the start of a productive week.
Admin and ghosting day for clients, as the rest of the week will be crazy busy, but will help all clients.
Long chat with Mike about Always Private , so long I could not get the vacuuming done before our guest arrived. Realised I’d been on Skype with Mike for 2 hours. Looking forward to seeing him on Wednesday. He’s Google’d us on alwaysprivate and we are 1-4 and 6 out of 35 million, now that’s proper SEO. We need to consider maximizing the Private groups bit, because we still consider one of the sites core functions and attractions is the ability for total privacy for a board type discussion.
Logged into Linkedin more invitations, **jumps for joy** still think it is a key KPI for me to see my numbers rising. As LinkedIn’s All Time top European for Most Answers and Europe’s All Time for most best answers in the using “Using LinkedIn” category I answered a few more questions. Well worth a strategy of answering questions if you want to build up your LinkedIn reputation.
Sent or accepted invitations on LinkedIn for all clients.
Checked into hootsuite for clients, added new feed for @wotreally and good to see that Simon Perkins new property feed from his company site is working well.
Loaded some photos on to our new fun twitter accounts. More on Wednesday
Used some searches on twitter to find some random reposts for them. Searched under Ughh for Wot really @wotreally.
Seems a little like wading in someone elses life since I’m naturally such an optomist and I’m looking for people’s bad experiences.
Note from my nephew Patrick Collins who is running a blog on Northern Florist as a part of his University study they need to get it on Google as high as possible. More on Tuesday about this, when we talk about it and I give him a few tricks.

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