I recently came across an interesting article in a LinkedIn group I’m a member of. Its all about the impact of the iPad and its uses, or not, in education.

Now I have to admit, I’m a confirmed fan of both my iPad and my iPhone. As friends and colleagues as well as regular readers of this blog know, this has not always been the case ! and to those who took a sustained shed-load of abuse and ridicule over their alleged lemming-like rush into so-called Apple slavery, I apologise wholeheartedly. But can we take things too far,as the image in this post (from technology.desktopnexus.com)might suggest?

But I was press-ganged into having an iPhone by my other half and my excuse is that I was taking my time, evaluating, and making informed decisions based on experiences and technological advances in operating systems functionality and the merits of one Smartphone vs the others blah blah blah

Anyway, I digress somewhat…

The article argued that, whilst the iPad is a fantastic device for collecting, storing, and consuming content, this ‘content controlled’ aspect is perhaps limiting in an education system being currently regeared towards creativity. (rather like the difference between Trad jazz so beloved of my father and freestyle jazz, which is more to my taste). The writer goes on to extend this argument into the area of textbooks, positing the view that having spent the best part of the last hundred years delivering up our students to the text-book publishers, we are now doing the same by sending down Apple street, Kindle rise, or Microsoft Alley.

So is the iPad a creative tool ? well I wrote this blog post on mine using a creative writing tool, which also has drawing software for our Glass Arts design business.
So judge for yourself

As the social media platform with the most registered users, Facebook is a serious player. It came from nowhere to oust MySpace from the number one spot and has evolved into the multi-purpose all singing all dancing behemoth we all know and love today. In fact, there are probably not that many web-savvy businesses still not on it. But being 'on' Facebook, and using it effectively to promote your organisation and build a lasting following are two entirely different things all together.

So many businesses are failing to capture the full potential of Facebook, and, you know, its not actually that difficult. Just try these ideas to pimp up your page and start feeling the power of Facebook boosting your social media ROI....


1. Make your site an InfoHub. Apart from the 'Like' button, keep your visitors longer by using some of the Facebook apps. Locator functionality lets your visitors see at a glance where you are. Adding Tabs can display your daily deals or offers. Go explore Facebook apps and see what they can do for you..

2. Welcome tabs make great landing pages. Have a look and see what you could do at Facebook welcome tabs. You can add video and 'what do you want?' interactivity to engage and converse with your visitors.

3. Make sure you have a contributor tab. Get your visitors adding their opinions on your industry or business. We do social media at Ruby's Future. Our contributor tabbed page should have customer feedback, as well as opinions on the latest industry trends, and what works for you? top tips thrown into a common melting pot of ideas.

4. Reward your fans. Run special offers and promotions just for them ! Exclusive content, vouchers for deals, a monthly special... the possibilities are endless, so go figure.

5. Sell your product. Setting up a facebook store is easy. Fans can browse your range, look at photos, watch video, and buy online. Visit Facebook Store and explore!

6. Add your blog. Use NetworkedBlogs to add a feed from your blog to the Facebook front page. Share your organisation news and events, and invite comments. Blogs are great for informal engagement and quick and easy to set up and update.

7. Be brave- ask for feedback. Only by asking your fans what you need to do better can you hope to grow your business activities successfully, so go on, take a risk and ask your fans. You might be pleasantly surprised !

8. Spread the love. You are passionate about your business, otherwise you wouldn't be doing it, so share this passion with your fans and engage them with your message. Add music and share buttons and watch your passion go viral across the Facebook universe.


Is it time for you to revisit your Facebook site ? Let us know how you got on...


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I came across a couple of interesting info graphics last week, on my journey around the web world of social media. The first is a concise and easy to understand breakdown of the top social media platforms. Its pretty much self explanatory, so I'm just going to put up a link to the PDF.


The second is a timeline of the evolution of web-based content and the emerging role of social media in distributing that content...




I've tried to find attributions for this image, but have failed miserably. If you own it, please let me know so that I can give you due credit :-)

You've got your social media suite going famously. The full kit and caboodle, with blog, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Delicious, and probably more besides. they're all up and running and you're feeling quite pleased with yourself and rightly so. Its a big job to set up and keep this going, a reason why so many companies and organisations are getting professional help and advice from Social Media specialists like Ruby's Future. But is all this activity enough?

The answer, in short, is no its not! The point of all of your social media activity is getting your message to where it needs to be. But if it can't be found by prospective clients and service users, than all your hard work is not going to count for much when you need to consider the Return on Investment (ROI) for this type of activity. so what else do you need to do?

Here are some things you need to do to get your content and activity up the search engine rankings, with first page entries the prime objective. The stats show that the first three listings on Google get most of the clicks after all. Getting your content up amongst them is all about making it more attractive to the bots that crawl the web collating content. The process is known as Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and its a vital component of your social media strategy.

1. Increase your 'Linkability' . You need to get folk adding links to your content from their sites. This has a huge effect on your search engine rankings. If you have web site, try to keep it dynamic rather than static, and add a blog, updated regularly. Give people a reason to link to you. Collect content and provide a weekly digest. Write thought pieces and invite comments. Comment on other blogs and link back to yours.

2. Make your content easy for others to bookmark. Provide 'buttons' for social bookmarking sites such as Digg and Delicious, as well as Facebook and Twitter. provide suggested tags and hashtag your tweets.

3. Push your content out there. Hustle your stuff about by submitting your media to other sites and forums, as well as places like Technorati... This will create links back to you for sure, and people will subscribe to your blog, check your website and follow you on Twitter as a result.

4. Reward all incoming links. List all those blogs which link to you each week. Create permalinks, in the form of a regularly updated blogroll. Use the FollowFriday hashtag (#ff) on Twitter to reward your followers and prospects. All of this is hugely important in pushing you up the search engine rankings.

5. Give your content away willingly and freely. Feed the mashup! your video and audio get used, and credited, and you have effectively been linked to many, many times as each reuse happens. Don't forget to syndicate your content using RSS as well...

All these five activities will see you rise right up the rankings. There will be many more other things you can do, but these are the biggies in social media optimisation and if done well will really allow your content to travel around the web, reaching those places it needs to be.

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There have been some interesting exchanges on Twitter this past fortnight, involving former SNP education supremo Mike Russell, aka @Feorlean. It appears that, along with the Greens, the SNP is the only political party actively engaging with the voters via social media, in any defined and strategic way. This is most probably due, amongst other things, to their political savvy in recognising the power of new media and engaging the redoubtable Ewan McIntosh to advise them. A wise move by the Nats. In general because social media enables mass communication and personalised engagement, both at the same time. And in particular, because Ewan is always ahead of the curve with a proven track record when it comes to communications, technology and learning.

Mike Russell has been brave enough to come online via Twitter and not
only post updates, but answer queries and criticisms head on, even promising direct involvement with individuals involved with aspects of education in Scotland should his party be returned to office after the election. I must say, this makes a refreshing change from the usual involvement strategy for any government education initiative which comprises of representatives from LTS, HMIE, Unions, etc etc etc yada yada yada, Teachers individually not included, of course. Whilst not being critical, per se, the latest Scottish Government Technologies for Education initiative is the latest example of this. After a promising start, the ‘steering group’ is comprised of, you’ve guessed it, the usual suspects, with not an individual teacher or educationalist in sight.

I digress, however. The point I’m trying to make is this. Why are the SNP and Greens the only parties taking advice, forming a social media strategy, and actively engaging (not just dumping their message) with the electorate in the way that Mike Russell has clearly demonstrated. He might just have gained a few more friends, fans, and therefore, votes for his party by this engagement. And as we al know here in Scotland, the battlefield for second votes is a fiercely-fought skirmish. effective use of Social Media might just be the key to those all important votes.

With less than two weeks to go, will the other political parties fully embrace social media, or is it too late ? Maybe a last-minute targetted campaign would be very effective in swinging those last minute undecided voters. Time will tell, for sure...

Social media is a fact of 21st century life. Its changed the way we do business and has been a boon for many hard-pressed advertising departments. But the technology often underperforms; the ROI just doesn’t stack up, and its a failure to understand not only what social media can do, but also what it can’t that leads to this sorry state of affairs. After all, social media is just an umbrella term for a set of internet-based tools that enable loads of people to interact, create and maintain contacts and mutual connections with the minimum of expense, which is often only time. The tools involved are very different from each other, and often very transient, being replaced by the latest ‘new kids on the block’. Consider MySpace, one of the early pace-setters. Seemingly unchallengeable and then FaceBook came along from nowhere and captured nearly half a billion subscribers. The success of Twitter spawned many rivals, such as Plurk and Yammer, but none have managed to know Twitter of its number one spot. Some of the tools are predominantly message based, whilst others encourage more transactional communication and engagement with an audience. For business, stimulating conversations with prospects must be a prime objective of any social media strategy. Getting the mix of tools to fit a well defined strategy which is individual to each organisation is the cornerstone on which a successful social media campaign should be built. There are five key components to developing such a strategy….



1. Research your demographics. You need to know your potential customers. Age, employment, social status, affiliations are all essential characteristics you need to be aware of. Demographically based targeting ensures your message reaches the heart of where it needs to be rather then just forming part of a scattergun approach.

2. Get your mix right. Its not enough just to tweet every hour. You need the right balance of inbound and outbound communication, which gets your message out there, and at the same time, encourages engagement and dialogue. We use outbound tools to tell the world what we are about and what’s going on, and the initial Social Media boom rode on the wave of this type of tool. However, this constant stream of information and promotion can turn your customers right off. So inward bound tools which encourage interaction and allow information gathering must be a part of any strategic tools mix. In fact, the mix needs to be biased in favour of inbound traffic which can inform your future business operations.

3. Avoid the dip. Its easy to dismiss your efforts with social media after a while as just not worth the effort. Sometimes, its difficult to see a decent ROI at first, but perseverance is needed. After all, Rome was not built in a day! I recently started a conversation on LinkedIn about using social media for doing business and the replies all suggested that business flows from dialogue and established communication and communities on various social media platforms. Again, the right mix of tools is vital here. You need to engage !

4. Following you is not the same as engaging with you. If folk just absorb your outgoing traffic without getting involved in your communities, they are unlikely to consider doing business with you. Member statistics don’t tell you much except just that; who is following you. Analyse how many followers you engage with, and why those that don’t do not. Build quality relationships by positioning yourself as a subject expert or guru. Answer questions and curate content in your field. Become a first point of call for those looking for help or information.

5. Get the tribal thing. Social media has morphed to a stage where different tribes congregate on different sites. So check out your target audience and follow them to their on line homes. More women use facebook than men. Younger folk tend to use MySpace. LinkedIn positions itself as a business to business network. The social media revolution has in truth had the opposite effect to breaking down tribal barriers- its actually resulted in more segmentation of the on line society. So define and appeal to your group. And even better, build your own tribe. Folk want to be led.



In summary, don’t try a scattergun approach. It's the same as a mass mailshot or spam-mail campaign. Define your market, target your efforts, and engage with your tribes. High quality-low cost conversations are the aim, with, hopefully, business to follow. Know the difference between inbound and outgoing media and get the mix right. Because the only alternative is a scattergun mail shot approach. And ask yourself this…just how successful are they, and what’s their ROI ?

And have a look at Seth Godin's book, Tribes. We can thoroughly endorse his core message!






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Nobody questions the necessity to engage with their potential audience. It's not enough to fire out tweets at regular intervals and then ignore any responses. Nothing will get you unfollowed quicker than ignoring your followers by using one-way tactics. Building up relationships through conversations is so important, as is communicating your message. Video is one way which, if done well, will captivate your audience and get them interacting with all your other social media formats as well. YouTube has positioned itself at the interface between video and social media, with some good tools which allow users to build their own YouTube 'channels' containing their own original work as well as favourite and recommended material, all in a format which can be exported to a blog, as well as being used to drive traffic to your website. Tweeting links to video will engage your followers, and clever social bookmarking (using Delicious, Digg and Reddit) of your stuff all help your site with search engine rankings.

There are five things you need to remember when using video.

1. Keep your video short and sweet. Five minutes is about the optimum length. Any longer and you will turn off your audience and your message will be lost as viewers head for the kettle !

2. Keep your video simple. Nothing turns off the audience than unintelligible gobbledegook, so keep the technical stuff for your specialist on-line library.

3. Keep your video fun. People want to be entertained, and will watch your material, and more importantly, come back to your site if they find it amusing. So if it fits your message, make it funny. You might even find yourself achieving cult status, or even going viral !

4. Keep your video relevant. The whole point of video is to promote your message, so aim for clarity and don't include irrelevant waffle. Promote your message, and avoid using video that has nothing to do with your core interest area.

5. Keep your video original. If its been passed around the interweb then it does nothing for your message unless you are in at the start. Just put out video which is as close to your brand as possible. Using funny stuff just so that you are appearing to use video is a bad move, and folks will probably have seen kit already anyway!


Video can be a meaningful addition to your social media strategy, but if done wrong, is time wasted. It should be a valuable tool for reinforcing your message, building an audience and engaging with them. After all, most people enjoy discussing video and film, so blog your video and start the discussion.
For further information, help and advice, comment here or contact us

And check out our YouTube video channel


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Some of the most vibrant newbies on the Social Media block are the question and answer sites. you've probably seen Formspring tweets inviting questions, which can get quite esoteric or even puerile, but the newer sites are tailor-made for business networking. One of the big must-do's in using social media for business networking is curating content and one of the best ways to get yourself noticed in doing this is to position yourself as a 'Guru' in your field -someone who folk tweet for information or answers to questions. Seth Godin talked about this in his seminal book Tribes



The newer Social Media sites are geared towards this. Three in particular jump out as worth a punt...

Quora, Focus, and Namesake.

Very briefly, Quora is a business-to-business network, Focus is more of an 'Expert' market where you can access downloads, information, and even become a resident expert, and Namesake appears to be much more of a live conversation community, much more chaotic, even anarchic, than the other Q&A sites.

There's a great and much more detailed guide top these sites from Aliza Sherman writing here I'd recommend a read and plenty of reflection.

So, how do you use these sites ? Well, as Aliza suggests, chose one which appears to fit your business or organisational needs best and just give it a go. Its important not to spread yourself too thin, as engagement is the key to success with any of these sites, which after all, exist to promote dialogue, communication and sharing...but do this..

- Make a Splash. Have plenty of content bookmarked in Delicious or Digg accounts managed by your organisation and link to these in your profile and posts on your chosen Q&A site

-Make a Buzz. Engage enthusiastically with the online community. Try to both ask and answer questions. Position yourself as both a 'seeker' and an 'expert'.

-Be Humble. Thank others for their help and pass on their stuff to your professional learning network (PLN).

- Be a Presence. Its important to use your site regularly. Irregular visits are no good for building your profile and keeping it up there in the minds of the community. Set aside time to post and answer questions.

So go on then, give it a go, and above all, don't look at your activity in isolation. Link to your other social media activity. Tweet links to your answers and content, bookmark information discovered and re-tweet it on twitter, share it on Linkedin and above all, blog post and comment. Follow your new contacts if they are on other networks and increase your PLN. Create more contacts, and just as importantly, a bigger audience of prospective clients !


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So how do you keep ahead of the curve in social media? Most users tend to flit from one site to another in a restless determination not to miss out on the action. Social media users are a transient bunch indeed, as the stories of the big(and little) players confirms. Look at the falling stars like MySpace, even after it's owners ( the big bad Murdoch empire) spent oodles on a revamp. Then there's Plurk, Yammer, Buzz and quite a few others who have or are falling by the wayside. The biggies of the moment are Facebook and Twitter of course, with 600 and 200 million users respectively, but just who are the newbies snapping at their heels ? After all, even the behemothic Facebook only captures about 14% of the total social media page views. Here are some of our picks for the future..

- Delicious. This social bookmarking site ticks all the boxes when it comes to content curation, and, after all, it's often said that 'content is king' and it certainly can lead to conversations and networking. Delicious can send your links to twitter and facebook, as well as giving you leads to other folk who are interested in the same so of stuff. Great for building your professional learning network (PLN)

- Quora. This is an idea with some serious money backing it's launch and ongoing development. You can post a question on anything, and answer any question back. Great for building your reputation as a 'guru' in your interest or business area. And loved by Google, who it's design and user-friendly interface.

- Foursquare. The shift away from the PC and laptop towards mobile devices carries on relentlessly. Making contacts on the move, and promoting your organisation to those near to you takes full advantage of an increasingly mobile society. A listing on this site, with your promotions and offers can attract more serendipitous business.

- Focus. A cross between Twitter and Quora, and, again, great for business and organisational networking.

Whichever you think might be the big new trend, social media is here to stay, in some firm or another as older media formats fail to adapt to a fast-moving digital world-shrinking business environment. The old days when having a blog and publicising it on twitter and facebook are long gone. You need to up your social media game plan by optimising your strategy to enable your message to be delivered right to the heart of where it needs to be. This means careful planning and perhaps trial and error before you get it right. The right strategy will not only place you where you need to be in the social media milleu, but also engage with your audience, building confidence in you and your brand and converting prospects into clients. Your plan needs to be long-lasting, but flexible to adapt to an ever changing social media landscape. If you can't do this yourself, then hire someone to do it with you.

But take expert advice and treat it seriously, because your competitors certainly will.


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