The Storey is at the 11th hour, and as meetings are taking place largely without tenant involvement as they have done throughout this sorry saga, we wanted the opportunity to give our view. Let’s explain what’s at stake regarding tenants whose businesses and lives are being considered.

Firstly, over 90 people’s jobs and their livelihoods are at stake. This comes from 14 businesses, all successful and profitable, and contributing collectively over £1 million in taxes personal and business this year to the local and national pot.

And who are these businesses? There’s the Lancashire Creative Business of the Year, serving 100 companies in the district and over 500 in the UK and overseas with 42 employees; a renowned training software company serving the NHS, police forces and leading companies across the UK; one of the UK’s top 10 design agencies in the RAR Awards; an internationally renowned writer of comics and graphic novels, one of which was turned into a major Hollywood movie; an incredibly innovative company that’s attracting worldwide interest and investment from venture capital firms; Lancaster’s second highest rated restaurant on Tripadvisor; and two leading video production companies working with clients across the UK.

They all employ local people from Morecambe, Heysham, Lancaster and the rest of the district in highly skilled new industries that this area desperately needs. (There are also weddings, conferences and events booked and paid for in this building over the summer bringing people from afar to our city).

Destroy this and you help destroy the reputation of the building, the City Council and Lancaster as a place to do business. You can do something to stop this.

In our view, we all need the opportunity that we’ve not been given before to plan the way ahead for our businesses, our employees and the future of this great building.

Here are our five key points:

1. The Storey Creative Industries Centre Ltd knows the game is up, and needs to transfer the headlease to the City Council as agreed by councillor’s yesterday.

2. Once completed, SCIC Ltd should be wound up as a company.

3. The City Council should meet with tenants to plan a way forward. We’ve got loads of ideas to make the building break even, not in the future but right now. Talk to us!

4. We’ve only just received invoices for this month, and don’t know who to pay them to. Make these decisions, and we’ll immediately pay our rent and service charge to whoever, whenever and to a level agreed to help keep the building operational.

5. Then let’s plan a way forward for the building using the talent on offer here and across this city to build a self-sustainable future.

We’ve worked hard to create jobs and investment in the Lancaster district. Don’t abandon us now. Let’s work together to create a vibrant and viable future for all these businesses and the Storey.

For and on behalf of the tenants and their 90 plus staff

For more information check out our company websites to learn more about who we are and what we do:

AccessPlanIT

Developing high-return software for the learning and development industry.

http://www.accessplanit.com

Andy Diggle

New York Times bestselling comic-book writer.

http://www.andydiggle.com

Azullo

Agile digital advertising software developer.

http://www.azullo.com

Fat Media

Award-wining internet marketing, branding and e-commerce solutions.

www.fatmedia.co.uk

Hotfoot Design

Award-wining branding, design for print and web development.

http://www.hotfootdesign.co.uk

InTune

An international music production and education company.

http://www.2b-intune.com

Morph Films

Video, web design, motion graphics and animation.

http://morphfilms.com

Natural Ranks

Web development, marketing and project management.

http://www.naturalranks.co.uk

Workshop Media

Event video and video marketing.

http://workshop-media.co.uk

What’s Been Happening at the Storey Creative Industries Centre?

Up until the end of February 2012 we have heard rumblings and rumours that the Storey CIC was struggling financially and was unable to meet the cost of its overheads.  There was an agreed increase in service charges in May 2011 that caused some residents to leave.

At the end of February 2012 we received notification from Tom Clark, the Chief Executive of the Storey CIC that a substantial increase to our service charges was required to ensure the building could meet its commitments.  This service charge increase was back dated over several years amounting to a large invoice that was requested to be paid within six months.

The residents met and drafted a letter rejecting the invoice and requesting further information.  After receiving some financial details from the Storey CIC that showed the level of financial difficulty, a working group of residents and members of the Storey CIC  Board of Directors was set up to discuss a way forward.

Why Did The Storey CIC Residents Reject The Service Charge Increase?

All the residents of the Storey are businesses that are operating in a difficult economic time.  We are not unreasonable people, if we were made aware of the problem earlier a solution could have been reached and the increases could have been planned for.  That the invoice came out of the blue, not only surprised everyone but also, if enacted upon, would have meant a significant financial blow to most of the residents over a short space of time.

Business As Usual At The Storey Creative Industries Centre

Workshop Media would like to make it clear that the circumstances that are affecting the Storey CIC in no way affects its future, its ability to operate and its valued clients.  The same, we are sure, applies to the other residents.

The residents met with Chair of the Board Simon Ryder, Chief Executive Tom Clark and Board Member Jenny Rutter yesterday (Thursday 14th June 2012) to discuss the situation around the Lancaster Guardian article and how the building would continue in the future.  They explained that, although talks are still ongoing, the scenario that the Storey CIC Board and Lancaster City Council are aiming for was that the Storey would continue in some form

Victims of our own success, we have had a really REALLY good first quarter thanks to clients old and new.  The feedback we have been getting is that a lot of it comes from our content that helps inform, educate and entertain.  Unfortunately this content has suffered a little over the past 4 months.  I haven’t even had the chance to do the monthly top ten!  So here it is … so far.

As ever these posts have been chosen by YOU, the website visitor.  In this case you’re not talking with your feet but are talking with your clicks.

1. Marketing in a Recession with Ignition CBS

A journal entry write up of a fantastic workshop seminar ran by Andy Chemney, Managing Director of Ignition CBS.  This has hung around the top spot since November… Check this out and then book on the FREE workshop with Andy.  You won’t be sorry!

2. Video Marketing Tips for Loyalty

Part of the Customer Lifecycle Series: 3 Tips on using video to foster loyalty amongst your current clients.  This has hung on to near the top, managing to climb over the post below, ‘Flowcharting Video Marketing’.

3. Flowcharting Video Marketing

An insight into how my mind works when planning and developing content.

4. 8 Reasons to Use Vimeo

Even with all the hullabaloo of YouTube and Google, this post has steadily climbed the ranks.  Everyone knows You Tube but what does its older, smarter brother offer?

5. Customer Lifecycle and Video Marketing

An interesting addition to the Top Ten.  This blog post pulls together all of my Customer Lifecycle blogs into one handy place.

6. Video Marketing Tips for Interest: Product Demonstration Videos

Part of the Customer Lifecycle Series: 3 Tips on using product demonstration videos to generate interest and move the prospect towards making an inquiry.  This was one of the first posts I wrote in the series and it has been bouncing around the top ten for a while and is still going strong

7. The Problem of a Duck on A Blog

It had to happen!  I set the blog post The Power of a Duck on Twitter to be ignored by the search engines.  The reason is contained in this blog.

8. Workshop Media has a Facebook Page!

This journal post announces the fact you can like us on Facebook.  It also goes into why it took us so long to set one up and important questions to ask before you jump in as a business to ‘the Social Network’.

9. Digital Marketing with Ignition CBS

Another part of Ignition CBS Managing Director Andy Chemney’s workshop.  This journal write up summaries the benefits and advantages of using digital marketing.

10. Who Pays the Price? Episode 1 Video Marketing Campaign

A behind the scenes blog post of the first episode from our Christmas video marketing campaign for the Barrow-in-Furness Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership.

Coming Soon!

Although we have been busy, we have been thinking up ways we can make our website work better and deliver the content you want.  A website overhaul is on the way and I’ve learned a great deal about the constraints on my time, so I’m going to be ahead of myself in terms of blogging.  We’re also aiming to blog a lot more often across the topics we feel passionate about.  We have a list of useful downloads we’re going to make available to you.

And that’s not all!   Toward the end of last year we filmed a 2 hour presentation we gave to the Cumbria Public Sector on Content Marketing and we’re going to make it available to you, in easy bite sized chunks.

We were approached by Barrow-in-Furness’ Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership to create an online video marketing campaign that would educate adults about the consequences of giving alcohol to underage teenagers.  A problem that is made worse because of the holiday season.

We outlined four video episodes, each showing a possible consequence of a typical ‘proxy sale’, that would be published once a week over December and January.  The problem common to each video was how to ensure that the message of the video would end with the proxy sale when it is the first thing to happen in the chain of events.

This was complicated by our research that found campaigns that had a strong emotional ending were not as effective as those that posed a question at the end.

So we decided to tell the story in reverse. The video would kick off with the consequence, a compelling moment of drama that would pose a question of ‘how did this happen?’ To drive home the message we decided to ensure that the adult who provided the alcohol in the first place was present for the consequence. Rather than preach a message we decided to simply focus on an expression of guilt/ uncertainty that would match between the opening shot and the end shot.

The One With The Violence

Alcohol fueled violence is a problem, regardless of age.  With this video we wanted to look at the consequence of a passerby agreeing to buy alcohol to underage teens when approached on the street.

I used to work in an off license at University and came across this problem a great deal.  A group of young people would gather around the corner and ask pedestrians to buy alcohol for them.  The majority of people would say no but it only takes one person, intimidated by numbers, believing the sob story or just making a bad choice for alcohol to get in the hands of underage teenagers.

The Video Marketing Script

We first created a timeline in the right order.  When messing with narrative order its always best to do this first.

1. A group of teenagers gather and pool money together.  One of them encourage the female to approach a passerby.  The passerby has a moment of doubt but agrees, buying a bottle of cider for the young people.  Once he has handed it over he has a moment of worry that he has done the right thing.  By that time the teenagers have scarpered.
2. The group hangs out on bench, taking turns to drink from the bottle of cider.  One of them gets a text about a party, a little cross over with the other episodes.
3. The group is on the way to the party, quite loud and obviously drunk.  They pass a girl who stumbles and falls into one of the boys.  He catches her and sets her on her way but his girlfriend takes issue and chases the girl down the street.
4. The CCTV office picks up the fight.
5. The passerby walks past the police arresting the group of teenagers, seeing the young girl being helped.  He realises that the group of teenagers is the same one he provided alcohol to.

We then put the scenes in reverse order.

The Shoot

This script was quite a difficult one to schedule as it covered several different locations at different times of the day.  On the second day of filming we started in Ulverston in the morning, covering the proxy sale and the drinking scenes.

It wasn’t until six hours later we could shoot the evening scenes with the help of the police, who advised on the proper procedure for breaking up a drunken fight.

Probably the most challenging aspect of this shoot was to choreograph and run the set from the CCTV office.  In order to get the look right for the fight scene we were kindly given permission to use the actual CCTV footage that was being recorded.  Amanda was on location, staging the fight (in a bright yellow hi-vis jacket to ensure we could spot her if she crept into shot at any point) whilst we filmed the CCTV office scenes.

Once we were ready I had to remotely direct the actors via mobile phone and Amanda.  Everything went smoothy except for:

1. It was at the moment of calling action that cars, bikes and passerby’s needed to get through the area of the fight.
2. The CCTV camera are VERY powerful, I had to tell the actors we could see them smiling.  Fortunately this was just nerves and they quickly found their focus

One thing I thought was really cool was the fact that a car passes just as one of the boys ‘kick’s the young girl at 0:49, it just adds something that makes it feel real.  Totally an accident but thank you passing car!

The Edit

Editing the footage was fairly simple as it was a case of constructing the scenes we had planned out and tightening them up to flow together well.  This episode needed some colour correction to ensure that the light remained as constant as possible.  There is a slight continuity problem as light was fading fast.  Check out the lights from the restaurant at 0.53… after the cut at 0.55 when the girl stumbles into the boy you can see the restaurant lights are now on!

The other element that needed some attention was the passerby’s walk past the police scene.  He needed to look at the young girl who had been attacked, he needed to look to see one of the teenagers be restrained and then into the back of the police van to see the other teenagers.  Then he needed to walk into shot to give his expression.

This was broken down into several different shots.  First we filmed the passerby walking and then noticing.  We then moved on to film each of the elements he is looking at, the young girl, the police and the teenagers in the back of the van.  The camera took the place of the passerby, shooting from his point of view.

The shot where he is looking at the young girl at 0.09 was done after the actress playing the young girl had left… he is actually looking at space!

The shadow that crosses the police at 0.15 is actually the camera operator and not the actor!

If you look in the reflection of the police van at 0.21 you can make out the boom swinger holding the sound boom!

In order to ensure that the narrative was understood to be running backwards we used a visual technique.

Visually where the scene move backwards and there could be some confusion we used an ‘Additive Dissolve’.  This is where the white in the scene flares up before dissolving into the next scene, coupled with this was a rushing sound effect to convey the movement.

How fast has this year gone!? Well December is here and Christmas is lurking just around the corner.  Before we break for a well deserved holiday I wanted to pull together November’s Top Ten Content   As ever these posts have been chosen by YOU, the website visitor.  In this case your not talking with your feet but are talking with your clicks.

For faithful readers of the blog… I KNOW! I still haven’t posted all the goodies for you about the events that I’ve been attending and the random thoughts that stray across my head.  All I can do is hang my head in shame, I promise to do better in the New Year!

1. Marketing in a Recession with Ignition CBS

A journal entry write up of a fantastic workshop seminar ran by Andy Chemney, Managing Director of Ignition CBS.  I asked whether this could stay at the top after storming up the rankings… well I have my answer, it has gone from strength to strength.

2. Flowcharting Video Marketing

This journal entry climbs up from 6 to 2!  An insight into how my mind works when planning and developing content.

3. Video Marketing Tips for Loyalty

Part of the Customer Lifecycle Series: 3 Tips on using video to foster loyalty amongst your current clients.  This dropped off in October but has rocketed back to the number 3 spot!

4. Podio: Online Process Management

This journal entry raises its head by another spot after we posted it on Podio’s Facebook page and they loved it.  So much so we are in the process of creating a video blog for them on how we use it.  Intrigued? Find out more about Podio by reading the blog

5. Video Marketing Tips for Interest: Product Demonstration Videos

Part of the Customer Lifecycle Series: 3 Tips on using product demonstration videos to generate interest and move the prospect towards making an inquiry.  This was one of the first posts I wrote in the series and it has been bouncing around the top ten rising from 10 last month to number 5.

6. Workshop Media gets a Mobile Website

A new journal post by David Forrest on the reasons why Workshop Media prioritised a mobile website and why you should too.  This post has proved really popular!

7. 8 Reasons to Use Vimeo

With the new YouTube designs I was surprised that this post crept back in to the top ten.  Everyone knows You Tube but what does its older, smarter brother offer?

8. Facebook and Video

This post hangs on to the number 8 spot. This blog post was my first in depth article on social media and video; it looks at how Facebook works and using video to get the most out of the engagement.

9. Linked and Video

A new entry at number 9 this post was my third in depth article on social media and video; it looks at how LinkedIn works and using video to get the most out of the engagement.

10. Workshop Media has a Facebook Page!

This new entry from last month drops to number 10.  This journal post announces the fact you can like us on Facebook.  It also goes into why it took us so long to set one up and important questions to ask before you jump in as a business to ‘the Social Network’.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

I wish you all the best for Christmas and may the New Year bring everything you need but not everything you want

We were approached by Barrow-in-Furness’ Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership to create an online video marketing campaign that would educate adults about the consequences of giving alcohol to underage teenagers.  A problem that is made worse because of the holiday season.

We outlined four video episodes, each showing a possible consequence of a typical ‘proxy sale’, that would be published once a week over December and January.  The problem common to each video was how to ensure that the message of the video would end with the proxy sale when it is the first thing to happen in the chain of events.

This was complicated by our research that found campaigns that had a strong emotional ending were not as effective as those that posed a question at the end.

So we decided to tell the story in reverse. The video would kick off with the consequence, a compelling moment of drama that would pose a question of ‘how did this happen?’ To drive home the message we decided to ensure that the adult who provided the alcohol in the first place was present for the consequence. Rather than preach a message we decided to simply focus on an expression of guilt/ uncertainty that would match between the opening shot and the end shot.

The One With The Sex

Alcohol lowers inhibitions and this can have health consequences beyond the effect of the alcohol itself. In this video we wanted to look at the consequence of a young girl being provided alcohol by her mother, in an effort to control what she is drinking and having unprotected sex at a party.

The mentality behind this is “they are going to drink anyway, better to know what they are drinking”. Unfortunately if more than one parent does this the teenagers can often end up with a lot of booze!

The Video Marketing Script

We first created a timeline in the right order.  When messing with narrative order its always best to do this first.

1. Girls are getting ready for a party, the mother enters and gives her daughter some vodka with an instruction to ‘not tell your Dad’.  This was added to show that the mother knew she was doing something ‘not quite right’.  The scene ended with her expression of uncertainty as to where this will lead.
2. The girls arrive at a party where there is already a lot of alcohol.  There is a cross over here with other episodes.
3. The daughter creates a cocktail with her vodka, offering it to her friends.
4. The daughter shares the cocktail with a boy she meets at the party.  They flirt
5. The boy leaves a bedroom where the daughter is left in bed looking fragile and vulnerable
6. The next day the daughter takes a pregnancy test, with her mother looking on.  We discussed whether the test should be positive or not.  In the end we felt rather than suggest ‘drink alcohol, get pregnant’ we wanted to focus on the fact of unprotected sex.  The mother’s expression when first watched would come across as disappointment but by the end, the viewer realises the expression is actually guilt.

We then put the scenes in reverse order.

The Shoot

We ensured that the young actor and her mother was happy with her portraying the subject matter.  We first shot the party scenes.  The most memorable moment here was the flirting between the daughter and the boy.  This was completely improvised and all credit has to go to the actors.  I only gave a little direction and guiding suggestions.  We ensured we shot this a lot longer than we needed, letting the actors build the scene themselves.  We did a few takes but the first one was good enough to use!

Some of the lines were great!  So great that the rest of the crew and cast off camera had to stop themselves from giggling and spoil the take

We then shot the getting ready scenes where the mother handed over the vodka.  This was done purely for logistics as any other way would mean having the young actor playing the daughter to have to remove her make up and then reapply.

The next element we filmed was the aftermath of the sex scene.  We wanted this to be powerful but we didn’t want the young actors uncomfortable or upset by the subject matter.  I gave direction to each of the actors individually in private, confirming they were happy and comfortable.  The young actor who played the daughter was made aware that she was in control of this scene and that we would stop anytime she wanted.

We shot as quickly as possible (without compromising what we needed) and I have to say I was a little uncomfortable with the way the scene plays out.  Which was a good thing as this is what needed to come across on camera.  There was to be no romance in this moment.

Finally we shot the pregnancy test scene, after making sure that logos were carefully concealed, we ran through the scene covering the daughter and then the mother and then the all important expression.

We played with several ways of doing this.  Having the mother walk into shot, having the mother look away when the daughter looks at her.  We ended up keeping it as simple as possible and were very happy with the results.

The Edit

Editing the footage was fairly simple as it was a case of constructing the scenes we had planned out and tightening them up to flow together well.  This episode in particular was a joy to edit as the actors had provided so much great material.

The only problem we had was choosing exactly what part of the ‘flirting scene’ to use.  They were all so good!

In order to ensure that the narrative was understood to be running backwards we used a visual and audio technique.

Visually where the scene move backwards and there could be some confusion we used an ‘Additive Dissolve’.  This is where the white in the scene flares up before dissolving into the next scene, coupled with this was a rushing sound effect to convey the movement.

In any edit the golden rule is ‘ears before eyes’.  Because of the way our two sensory organs work it is better to bleed in a little sound before making a cut, this helps blend the two scenes together and prevent it from being ‘choppy’.  With these episodes, where appropriate, we ensured that the sound overlapped to a great extent to the degree that it almost overtakes the final moments.

An example of this can be seen at 00:14, where the flirting dialogue comes in just as the boy leaves.  The fact that he is asking ‘Anyone in this particular room?’ makes the scene even more uncomfortable to watch and neatly transitions us back in time.

This video is the fourth part of my talk on networking at the University of Cumbria and how it can apply in social media. We filmed it to make it available to a wider audience, Workshop Media practicing what it preaches!

One of the interesting things I have noticed is that while a great many people are talking about the power of social media for promotion, I haven’t come across many topics that cover what makes social media so powerful. The idea that they are a social network, in essence a continuous networking event that isn’t bound by geography.

The scary part is that quite a few people use social media profiles as part of their research, if you’re not there, you don’t exist.

Finally it is worth noting that the principles of networking apply on social media, it is just a different tool to connect with people.

Networking with LinkedIn

LinkedIn is the social media tool for networking.  Unfortunately it is not the professional version of Facebook.  I say unfortunately because this label is a disservice to LinkedIn rather than a failing.

Most social media is instantaneous with a barrage of posts and updates.  LinkedIn doesn’t provide this.  It isn’t meant to.  It is a resource where you can collect your professional networks in one place, with contact details and an online cv/ resume.  Ultimately at its most basic it is an information storage tool.

I think the power of networking with  LinkedIn exists firstly in the research stage, finding out a great deal of information about the person, their experience, their interests and the business they work for currently AND the businesses they have worked for in the past.  LinkedIn is in effect its own networking event, available 24/7.

LinkedIn makes the perfect follow up to a networking event… how many times have those business cards and people not been contacted or been wasted?  No more with LinkedIn, you have their email address, simply connect with the person.

The social network also provides the ability for professionals to recommend one another in their own words.  With a number of thumbs up appearing on the recommended profile and the recommendation available to be read, this is very often the criteria that differentiates ‘you’ from ‘someone else’.

Finally, one of the hidden gems of networking with LinkedIn is the professional groups.  For any topic you can think of and experts available 24/7, you can join, ask and discuss issues with like minded professionals the world over.

This video is the third part of my talk on networking at the University of Cumbria and how it can apply in social media. We filmed it to make it available to a wider audience, Workshop Media practicing what it preaches!

One of the interesting things I have noticed is that while a great many people are talking about the power of social media for promotion, I haven’t come across many topics that cover what makes social media so powerful.  The idea that they are a social network, in essence a continuous networking event that isn’t bound by geography.

The scary part is that quite a few people use social media profiles as part of their research, if you’re not there, you don’t exist.

Finally it is worth noting that the principles of networking apply on social media, it is just a different tool to connect with people.

Building a Twitter Network

Building a twitter network is really simple and easy.  The tool it provides is creating a community that you define with who you follow, whether that is other businesses or individuals.  By following a Twitter feed, their updates appear in your news feed allowing you to get up to the minute updates about what is happening in their world, an invaluable part of the research phase of networking.

The etiquette on Twitter is to ‘follow back’ so by following people who interest you, it is likely that they will follow you.  Bang! Instant twitter network (kinda).  The great thing is that there are no barriers here, you decide on who to follow, there is no accept or decline option.

You could spend your days simply reading updates but this is not the full benefit of the twitter network.  After following the next step is to ‘retweet’.

A retweet is where you share a tweet that you find interesting from someone you follow to those profiles that follows you, this is where the helping other step comes into play as by sharing posts from those you are following you help get their message or news out wider whilst providing information that is relevant to your followers.  It has been shown that if you ask for a ‘Please RT’ (retweet), you will get more retweets.

Finally you want to use Twitter to share your message or content, this needs to be relevant to at least some of your followers without making it too ‘salesy’. Remember the principles of networking?

What You Can Tweet to Your Twitter Network

1. Good News

2. Ask Questions

3. Answer Questions

4. Interesting Content You Find

5. Interesting Content You Create

This isn’t a definitive list but it should demonstrate that you can communicate without selling.

I concluded with a look at THE social networking tool LinkedIn

One of the interesting things I have noticed is that while a great many people are talking about the power of social media for promotion, I haven’t come across many topics that cover what makes social media so powerful.  The idea that they are a social network, in essence a continuous networking event that isn’t bound by geography.

The scary part is that quite a few people use social media profiles as part of their research, if you’re not there, you don’t exist.

Finally it is worth noting that the principles of networking apply on social media, it is just a different tool to connect with people.

To Network on Facebook…

You need to be on Facebook.  That simple really.  Facebook provides a snapshot of your details covering:

1. Who You Are

2. Where You Are

3. Where You Work

4. What You Studied

All these are very useful information points for you to research who you are going to be meeting at a physical location.

Profile Features to Network on Facebook

The Facebook Profile allows you to share experiences with others, through people’s news feed if you are friends BUT by using your @username and your friends @username in the posts you will appear in the friends of your friends news feed, increasing your exposure.  This works with business pages as well so it is worth bearing in mind.

Keep a look out for this happening on your news feed and if a post intrigues you click on the blue highlighted name to find out more.

A Facebook profile is also really useful for highlighting connections between people such as:

1. Mutual Friends

2. Events You Are Both Attending

3. Shared Groups

4. Shared Posts

This is a really useful tool at working out the best routes to take to meet people.  You don’t have to be on LinkedIn to ask for an introduction!  These features are also good for starting conversations.

Unfortunately, in order to make best use of the features to network on Facebook you need to be connected as ‘friends’.  If you are like me, you use your Facebook profile as a personal space you don’t necessarily want to add friends ‘willy nilly’ then two options exist for you if you still want to network on Facebook:

1. Activate the Subscribe Function

This allows you to let people subscribe to your feed and select which posts can be viewed by subscribers

2. Consider using Facebook Pages

This is a separate profile to your personal profile but acts very much in the same kind of way

Facebook for Business

To have a Facebook page, nobody said you had to be corporate!  I have seen coaches, trainers and professional advisers create their own Facebook pages for their business profile, same person, different persona.

It is primarily a business platform that allows you to promote your business, its products and create Facebook Ads.

This doesn’t mean you can’t use it as an individual though to network on Facebook.  The only real difference between a Profile and a Page is that instead of Friends you have Fans (although Facebook has taken away that term, replacing it with ‘Likes’… same difference).  It still lets you connect with people who like what you have to say, building awareness through word of mouth.  Every time someone ‘likes’ your page, that appears on their news feed to their friends.  The core features that I mentioned for the Profile still works on the Pages.

I continued talking about networking and social media, moving on to How To Build a Twitter Network.

One of the most important aspects of operating a website for a business is making sure that it can be viewed by as many people as possible. While Workshop Media’s website works on many mobile devices it was designed for desktops, and as a result is not as functional or as quick to load on phones or tablets. With many visitors coming to the site using mobile devices we decided that there was indeed a need improve the mobile web presence of Workshop.

In many instances when developing a new site, mobile use and compatibility is still seen as an optional extra or an unnecessary add on. However a recent report by Kantar ComTech (Guardian Article) shows that over half of the mobile phones in use in the UK are in fact smartphones, which are web capable. That is a lot of mobile internet use. The time to get mobile is now. Web users and prospective clients are expecting to be able to view a site on whatever device they are using, whether that be their desktop, iPhone or tablet.

Knowing the limitations of mobile devices

Mobile devices are versatile and are being enhanced with every generation to give a better web experience but they all still carry some basic limitations on how visitors experience the web and more importantly how they view your own website.

• Mobile Small Screen Size – My own phone has a 3.7″ screen with a display of 480 x 800 pixels, not a bad display but not very useful when viewing a large website with plenty of graphics and formatting like sidebars and menu bars. While my desktop screen is 21″ and has a display of 1920 x 1080 pixels – perfect for displaying any website.

• Connection Speed – A browsing experience on any computer or mobile device is only as good as the internet connection. Most smartphones in the UK are limited by the network provider’s coverage as well as low ‘mobile internet’ speeds. With UK internet connection speeds still relatively low compared to the rest of the developed world it’s important that a website is lightweight and so loads quickly, especially mobile versions.

• Compatibility – There are plenty of ways in which you can make a desktop website shine. Flash graphics have been used for years to enhance a site with animations and video. However Flash is not guaranteed to work on a mobile device and is famously incompatible with Apple mobile products such as iPhone and iPad. Relying on this technique for key parts of a site such as calls to action can be a critical error.

There are many other limitations but the critical factor is that a mobile device may not display your website correctly or it may not be as functional as on a desktop, the result being that the visitor is not going to get an optimised experience – critically for business there is a lower chance on a conversion from visit to sale. In the UK £1 in every £10 spent online is done so via a mobile device not a traditional desktop, so it’s important to overcome the limitations of mobile web use and luckily there are many options for doing so.

Finding a mobile website solution

The Workshop Media website is built on the popular content management system WordPress which has an extensive development community supporting it. The way in which the pages of the site are displayed varies very little between different web browsers (like Firefox or Safari). It is however, like most CMS’ and indeed websites in general, built to display websites on a ‘desktop’ system not a mobile device.

So in our case to ensure that our mobile visitors get a mobile optimised version of our site we’ve installed software and a mobile specific theme (WordPress graphics and layout package) to automatically detect a mobile visitor and deliver a mobile version of the website using the same content at the standard site.

The key enhancements to our mobile website experience include:

• The width of the site is adapted to the size of the screen of the mobile device and will change depending on whether the visitor holds the device portrait or landscape, the content is also presented in a vertical scroll only layout to aid navigation – flexible yet perfectly suiting the smaller screen sizes of smartphones and tablets.
• The Menu has been replaced with a tap to display drop down menu and all pictures have been replaced with smaller scaled versions of those found on pages and posts in the original site which all saves on screen space as well as loading time.
• The mobile theme displays all necessary pages as well as contact forms and blog posts using lightweight graphics and formatting resulting in a speedy load time when using a Wi-Fi or mobile internet connect.
• Importantly for Workshop as a video marketing company, our video content is displayed as YouTube thumbnails and can be played in browser via YouTube or on the YouTube App on an Apple mobile device.
• The mobile website takes advantage of the fact that the mobile device being used to view the site my be a phone and prominently displays our phone number at the bottom of every page which when tapped it will launch the phone app.

Mobile future

Of course there is no way to say for sure that our new mobile website or indeed any other mobile website will work on every device now and in the future. But if you are taking you online presence seriously, you should be updating your website frequently anyway. The days of a site just sitting there and businesses expecting it to do the work for them to generate leads and sales have been gone for a long while now. Its a game of continuous content generation and continual development to make sure that your message stays reliant and your content stays accessible.

Please feel free to let us know what you think of our new mobile website. We would be happy to hear from you.