Let me set a scene: I’ve been looking for a new razor to get rid of the fluff from my baby face. I’ve been a Gillette Fusion man for years, but with cartridges now costing about a tenner for just four refills, shaving with them has become an expensive proposition. Looking for an alternative, I happened across King of Shaves’ AZOR razor. At about half the price of the Fusion I thought it was worth a go.

In short, it wasn’t. I’d heard great things about this razor, but two major drawbacks kept me from wanting to use it again. First of all, there’s an unnecessary amount of space between the top of the cartridge and the first blade, making it pretty much impossible to get that bit under your nose effectively (I ended up having to use a spare disposable I had lying about to finish this bit off). Secondly, I felt like I had little control over the razor due to the lightweight plastic the handle is made from, unlike other premium razors which feel solid in the hand. This lack of control resulted in a few nicks, something I’d not done with the Fusion for years.

But this isn’t a blog about the joys of a DGS (that’s Damn Good Shave, for the uninformed – a useful and *entirely necessary* acronym I learned perusing the Badger and Blade forums), or the disappointment caused by anything less than a DGS. Nope, it’s a blog about how Twitter can be an incredible platform for opening communications with your customers and help to turn them into ambassadors for your brand. So lets move swiftly on…

While working a few days ago, I noticed an old colleague of mine, @ChrisCathcart, discussing the “banned” Barbarella X campaign (possibly NSFW link) from King Of Shaves on Twitter. As Chris had mentioned the brand, I took the opportunity to tweet back a little whinge about my recent experience with the Azor.

As it happened Will King, owner and head honcho at King of Shaves, was online at that very moment, and keeping an eye on his tweets. Within minutes I’d had a reply from @KingofShaves (and I choose to trust it *is* actually Will, although a more cynical man might suggest he has staff for that sort of thing) asking if I’d be willing to try out the new model, the Azor:M.

I replied in the positive (although I’ll admit I was a little concerned that I’d be subjecting my face to another shredding). Will simply asked that I follow him back so I could DM my address over, and my new Azor:M arrived just a couple of days later complete some some KOS Alpha shave gel – bonus!

Well, I am happy to report that my search for a cheaper DGS is complete. In developing the Azor:M and it’s “v2″ cartridge KOS have overcome both of my major issues with the previous version; the “M” in “Azor:M” stands for the most noticeable difference – a metal handle that feels much more solid and heavy in the hand, and the new cartridge has its blades nearer to the top, allowing for a much more precise shave, especially for that bit under nose. With no nicks and everything gone, I’ve been left with possibly the closest shave of my life.

But why should you care? As a digital marketing type, why should you care whether my face is baby smooth or looking like I’ve fallen asleep on a cheese grater?

Well, bear in mind that before Will saw my grumblings about his product via Twitter, I was very unlikely to promote the Azor (or anything from the King of Shaves range, for that matter) to anyone I knew. In fact, I’d actively discussed with a few friends just how disappointed I was with the original Azor. We can safely say I wasn’t in a rush to buy any more KOS products, or recommend them to a friend.

In the past, I’d have been pretty much lost to King of Shaves as a customer. The product hadn’t cost me enough or angered me sufficiently to demand a replacement or my money back from the store… I’d just written it off and decided to move on to something else. I certainly wouldn’t have contacted KOS to tell them how I felt, or expected them to contact me to ask. But by simply monitoring Twitter and spending a few minutes to contact me and offer a replacement, they’ve not only turned me into a customer (as I’ll be buying the v2 blades from now on, and the shave gel is nothing less than a revelation), but they’ve also got me wanting to tell others about the product.

We’ve run a number of successful campaigns for our clients at Fluid Creativity, where a giveaway of some sort was used as an incentive for the public to join in. These have been invariably the most successful – from “retweet to win” competitions to free promotional samples included in every order, so long as your product is good then people will love you for giving them a try for free.

Also, as one of the SEO bods around here, the opportunity to use this sort of conversation to build links is just too good to pass up. While it’s near impossible to control who is linking to you and where they might do it from, you can be fairly sure that with talk comes links – real, quality links, the kind of thing Google imagines all links should be, that en masse can help to improve your natural search positions and the amount of traffic you’re receiving from them.

It’s a simple thing, giving samples of your products away to attract attention and good press. There’s nothing new about freebies, but as people put more and more of their lives online (even the really petty stuff, like how they don’t like their new razor), it opens up more and more opportunities to target people with a real need for what you have, rather than those with a penchant for free stuff. These people are far more likely to use and appreciate your product, and may even go on to become evangelists for your brand.

“Good morning students. Today, we’re going to learn how to do SEO. Yes – that’s right, we’re going to learn how to make your web site generate quality visitors.

Okay – it’ll take about a day to learn this, t­­hen as a result you’ll all be great search engine marketers. Straightaway! Yes – that’s right, as soon as you leave the classroom today, you’ll be great SEO specialists. You’ll be able to walk out, get a job in an agency and then you’ll start doing great SEO from the minute you walk in.”

Hold on a minute. This isn’t some kind of SEO firm wet dream. This is a fictional account of the preferred scenario spelled out to me recently by a senior SEO executive in a local firm. “What I want from universities are people who can start in the firm on day 1 and start being productive SEO execs!”

I’m using SEO today as a vehicle for my story, but you can consider any digital marketing tool or technique here.

Now I’ve got a few things I want you to think about, and it is about the role of Universities in the creation of the future workforce. I am passionate about the need for my University to develop curriculum that meets the need of the regional wealth creating industries, but it’s also important to recognise what a university is not for. And that’s when we start to think about what the role of companies are in this process.

The bit of a university that deals with degree qualifications isn’t a training house. Many of you will have been to University, spent three years in which you “discovered yourself”. Many people may have resented your opportunity, and some of you will have done it all free. What did you learn? It’s quite funny talking to creative directors, MDs, and other directors who ask what’s University for – and I ask them: what was it like for you? What did you learn?

Training can take a day. You can do an SEO course in a day at Econsultancy, with another “Advanced” day later on. So it takes 2 days to learn SEO then? It might, but it does not make you a Master when you come out. I hear stories of it taking several years of daily SEO experiences before you could be described as “accomplished.” Moreover, do you need to go to University to learn SEO or can you bypass University completely? Well – once upon a time, we did.

When I was a lad, half of my mates left school at 16 to do apprenticeships. That really doesn’t happen much now, but imagine a world where kids leave school at 16 to become SEO apprentices (I like Manchester firm Democracy PR’s view of “The PR Apprentice”). After a couple of years, you’ll get a proper SEO monkey (this is a term I have heard being bandied about recently by hardcore SEOers).  But what happens after that? Where does the experienced SEOer go after that?

My view is that the Vocational University is about educating people in the context of the industry they are entering. I can educate them about SEO, but I don’t train them to be an SEO expert. They will understand the context of SEO in relation to other digital marketing tools. They will understand customer behaviour, recognise the difference between behavioural and psychographic segmentation. They will know why things are done, and why things shouldn’t be done. They’ll be the kinds of people who can identify solutions to problems. They’ll be able to explain why they made those choices. They’ll know the good and the bad in different solutions. They’ll be critical of any choice available to them. They’ll be sceptical. They’ll be creative.

Does that sound like what you’re after?

Amazingly many of us are already doing that.

You could take someone like that and then give him or her that experience (the training will only take a day after all). But experience is key and that’s something a University cannot offer. Sure, we can promote placements, internships and day-a-week releases: but they have to be provided by the places where experience is gained: the workplace.

So – over to you folks. It’s either time to flood your local University with those experience opportunities, so that when you look at those graduates – they have everything you expect. Or maybe you feel that part can wait until they have joined you as an employee. Your call.

The survey found that finding additional sources of revenue is the top priority for most business owners, but that many did not have “the Marketing skills to exploit their industry know-how”.  Those that were being successful were using digital marketing to attract new customers, and the article particularly mentioned search engine optimisation, or SEO.

One printing company hired a specialist to optimise their website, and their MD said, “We have found that embracing internet marketing has helped to reinvigorate our recession-hit sales”, adding that the SEO approach had “opened up an alternative market for us”.

SEO is certainly an area we recommend companies invest some time and money in, and Fluid Creativity can demonstrate excellent returns on investment in a number of industries through this work.

Robertson comments: “For many small and medium-sized companies, websites have become an important shop window that offer an opportunity to attract customers who would not normally have come across their businesses.  But even in the digital world it is important to stand out and search engine optimisation has become a key marketing tool”.

We would agree that if you do not stand out and if the right prospects are not finding your website your internet investment will not bring in the traffic and online conversions it could.

Fluid Creativity offers a free Website Health Check to ensure that your site is bringing in the visitors you want, and that they are interacting and engaging with you once they’re on your site.  Don’t assume that this was done when your website was built – many web developers neglect to include it in their web builds, and significant gains can be made by reviewing your site.