Young Jack Henderson could well be his own worst enemy.  What started out as a small and well meaning fundraising idea has escalated into an adventure which has consumed his life – as well as those of his parents, Ed & Rose - and turned it into an internet sensation which has charmed thousands.

Jack – armed with his trusty Crayolas and felt tips – set out with an idea: to raise money for the Children’s hospital that cared for his younger brother Noah by drawing whatever visitors to his website requested in return for a charitable donation.  The only restrictions he imposed were the type of rules that you would reasonably expect of a 6 year old: nothing naughty – and in Jack’s words ‘I don’t want to draw anyone dying or being died’.

Their initial target of a raising a humble £100 has been well and truly blown out of the water with the current total on their just giving page (which is still accepting donations!) standing well in excess of £27,000.  Not only this but they have also amassed over 7,000 Facebook fans and nearly 1,000 followers of the Twitter account, diligently and warmly run by his Dad.  You may have seen them in the media recently. Oh, and he now has a book available too.

After completing an amazing 536 drawings, Jack is pooped.  Regular readers of our little blog will know that I enjoy a good doodle myself and I’ve loved checking out Jack’s masterpieces – so I thought I would track down Ed Henderson who has kindly spared us a his time to answer a few probing questions…

So for all the parents out there – just how do you rein in the ego of a 6 year old who has suddenly found himself in the media spotlight?

We made sure we kept him very insulated from too much of the nonsense that can go on. While it is great that everyone wants to congratulate him, being a 6 year old is quite simple, he gets a few people bigging him up, he gets  a big big headed, he gets a few meanies, he gets sad. We had to let him enjoy some of it but made sure that whenever we felt he overstepped the mark, we made sure he knew his standing in the family and the world.

To what extent are you ‘trained’ in web design and social media? Was there a steep learning curve involved in managing a site that suddenly attracted so much attention?

I build websites for a living and have used/advised social media for myself and my clients. On this scale however, no training. When you are at the eye of this social media hurricane it was manic. A couple of times I was so overwhelmed with communication I had to close the Mac and walk away for a while. Its relenting, tough but ultimately rewarding interacting with wellwishers, fans and followers. I wouldn’t have swapped it for the world.

"Gorilla swinging in the lianas in the jungle being chased by a tribe of indigenous people"

A question for Jack this time: who would win in a dancing contest between John Barrowman and Mr Bean?

Mr Bean – because he is a really funny dancer

Did you have a conscious strategy behind your online presence or was it something that grew organically?

We didn’t even have a Facebook page till Day 6 and even then Rose (Jack’s Mum) had to convince me! Jack had a Twitter account since birth (because I am a geek and reserved it for him). After that, “suck it and see” and “make it up as you go” are two phrases that spring to mind.

"Unicorn taking his pet baby elephant for a walk"

Another for Jack – what’s more fun? Getting a Hug from your mum or jumping on your Dad?

Both of them, I like jumping on my Dad becuase its fun and I like getting a hug from Mum because shes warm!

How did the book deal come about?

Someone posted it on their Facebook wall, no idea who. Sara O’Connor spotted it, twas the Heatblast picture.  Sara is a Senior Editor for Hodder Childrens. She called me, I thought it was a windup at first. It progressed from there.

Now that Jack has finished all his drawings and you look back – is there anything that you would have done differently if you had the chance to do it all again?

Jack – Nothing, I loved it all.
Dad & Mum – Closed picture requests a bit earlier than 2 weeks, 536 pics was a lot.

With all the media furore that has surrounded Jack combined with the technical and logistical challenges that surround managing such a popular website, there’s one thing that we really need to know – what does Jack want for Christmas?

Guitar, Space Shuttle (Lego), thats all.

Huge thanks to Ed, Rose and Jack.  Do something nice today and drop them a little donation. Or a really big one if you want to.

Heinz personalised ‘get well’ tins

First up is a clever concept from Heinz; personalised ‘get well soon’ soup tins. Send a personalised tin of soup (either cream of tomato or cream of chicken) to a poorly friend and cheer up their day. You can purchase your personalised soup tin for £1.99 from the Heinz Facebook page. It will take three to four days to be delivered so it might be worth ordering now and storing away until your friend is inevitably full of lurgy. Everyone gets at least one cold a year.

The Feed’s 1st Birthday

A year ago this month Orange launched The Feed, an ongoing collection of social media delights created by Poke London. Popular campaigns over the last 12 months include:

‘Keep me cool‘ – an  ice-cream give-away where users were encouraged to enter their postcodes to entice the ice-cream van into their area.

The winter warmer campaign, which invited Twitter users to nominate their friends to win a hot chocolate delivery to their door.

‘Pimp my pic’ was an opportunity for Facebook users to get a new body illustrated for their Facebook profile picture – click here to see some of the works of art.

Innocent Tweet and Eat

Innocent is offering Twitter and Facebook users discount on one of their tasty veg pots. The more the users tweet the hashtag #tweetandeat, the bigger the discount, so get tweeting your way to a free veg pot.

Once you have registered your Twitter, Facebook and/or LinkedIn account(s) with Klout, you’ll be given your score and a charming little label. I’m a ‘specialist’ and apparently my opinion, in my specialist area, is second to none. Well, you know.

Your score is based on a large number of factors, some of the obvious include the amount of retweets and @mentions you receive and also the amount of comments, likes and shares on Facebook. Other less obvious factors taken into account are your @mention count, your list count, your unique likes and unique retweets. To get your head around Klout’s scoring system take a look at their beginner’s guide.

Your score is analysed by three factors:

• Network Influence:  How well you influence the people you are already engaged with.
• Amplification Probability: The ability to create compelling content that spreads across not only your own network but across others too.
• True Reach: Size of your audience that is actively engaged with you (for example, my reach is 348 but I have 700 odd followers, quite handy to know how many of your followers actually engage with your content). Not entirely sure how this applies to Facebook, LinkedIn and Foursquare.

Klout recently introduced Perks in the US – a clever way for the company to create revenue by integrating brands. For example, Virgin America gave away free flights between Toronto and San Francisco or Los Angeles to top Twitter ‘influencers’. Those who won the Perk were not asked to blog or tweet about their experience but it’s likely they would have. Klout describe this as a more targeted form of receiving a free sample in a supermarket. Mashable has covered the Virgin America Perk in far more detail here and in case you were wondering, the winner of the free flight had a Klout score of 42. My score is slightly higher than this so when Perks are introduced in the UK, I’ll be expecting a freebie… a round trip to Croatia or something would be alright. And I could blog about it on here, are you reading this Klout Perk people?!

Yesterday, Spotify launched in America and they partnered with Klout to give away free accounts to top influencers in the entertainment industry. The Perk was so popular, Klout collapsed. This shows Klout has the potential to be a very powerful promotional tool.

Last month Klout partnered with Involver, a Facebook page management company, to allow companies to target their fans based on their Klout. The idea is for brands to award consumers based on their social influence, different users will view different Facebook content based on their score. The Klout app is built in Involver’s Social Markup Language (SML) and this is the language that allows brands to choose what they show to users based on their online influence. Klout use the term ‘fan-gating’ which is similar to ‘like-gating’ – you have to ‘Like’ a page to view its content. The same goes for fan-gating but it is related to your Klout score, which will determine the type of content you see and the perks you receive.

I’m not so keen on this idea. Brands can only target consumers based on their Klout – what about the die-hard fans who don’t have a good Klout score? They won’t receive any freebies or perks because they aren’t popular enough? Maybe I’m missing the point but I don’t like this idea.

There are aspects of Klout that are clever and original, there’s no other social analytics tool that measures a person’s online influence in as much detail. At the moment, Klout seems to me like a popularity contest and (easily led) people are starting to believe a Klout score actually means something. Look at your score as an interesting way to measure your social reach, but don’t get sucked in, it’s really not worth it.

http://www.gplus.to/

For shortened/vanity URLs like this: gplus.to/username

• Your nickname is the username
• Your Google+ ID is the long number in your address bar

To add a useful Google+ icon to your website or blog, download all of the icons here.

A Chrome extension, Facebook Friends Exporter, allowed you to transfer your contacts from Facebook to Google+ but Facebook have now blocked this. The extension has been around for a while but with the arrival of Google+, Facebook decided to block access to the extension. There’s nothing wrong with a bit of healthy rivalry eh?

Firstly, you need to click the ‘circles’ tab at the top of your feed and create a new circle, I called mine ‘invites’ (not very original, I know).

Click on your new circle and add the people you want to invite to Google+ by clicking ‘add a new person’. Once you’ve entered their email address(es), click ‘view stream for this circle’. You’ll then need to post something on to your ‘wall’ (for want of a better word) to share with the people you’ve invited in order for them to join.

As you can see, I’ve written, ‘Hope this works!’ to share with the people I’ve invited. They will then receive an email to view my post and join Google+. Make sure you keep the ‘email people not using Google+’ box checked. Job done!

Econsultancy recently published a blog post where the value of social media was questioned – are companies experimenting with social media for the right reasons, and do they even know what results they are getting from their effort? How can social media return on investment be measured when it is such a broad concept?

“For firms who do measure, metrics that reflect reach and engagement (shares, likes, views, downloads etc) are often subjective.” – Are we in a social media bubble? Econsultancy.

This is true, it’s difficult to decipher the return on investment from reach and engagement. However, just because the form of measurement may be subjective, it doesn’t mean it’s not valid.

A client of ours, American Soda, has a successful Facebook page with nearly 12,000 likes. From the beginning of this year ’til the end of May, American Soda’s Facebook page accounts for 1.14% of its total sales. For example, if they turned over £300,000 in total sales, that would equate to £3,000 of revenue directly from Facebook. This may not seem like a high percentage but compare it to how much was spent on the original social media campaign and it’s a successful profit, a ROI of 50% to be exact.

The 1.14% of total sales is the amount of users who visited American Soda’s Facebook page and then went on to purchase items from their website. This figure doesn’t include the ‘subjective’ measurements of reach and engagement but they must be taken into consideration when looking at the total sales figure. For example, American Soda has incorporated Facebook like buttons into its online store and therefore a product liked by thirty people will be shared with each one of their Facebook friends. Moreover, a recent talk at SASCON revealed one out of every ten visits to a website comes from Facebook. How can 10% of your audience be ignored just because reach can be subjective?

A survey by Econsultancy found 47% of companies were not able to measure the value of their social media campaigns. And maybe this is where the problem lies, not with social media itself but with its execution. Followers, likes, engagement and conversation are all essential factors in succeeding with social media but companies also need a clear objective of what they are going to achieve. Putting a lot of time and effort into social conversation is all well and good but companies need to ensure they are creating a balance between investment and payback.

Social media can be an effective tool for communicating and reaching others without even thinking about a return on investment. Just being ‘out there’ and communicating your brand or services to the public can be of benefit. This poses the question whether social media needs to be measured to show its worth? What do you think?

*raises hand*

I do! There’s nothing like a good deal, especially one you can share (and boast about) with friends. According to Ecosultancy, Groupon gains 500,000 subscribers a week – that’s a lot of bargain hunters.

Groupon only established itself a couple of years ago and picked the perfect time to start the group buying phenomenon – the recession. People are more insecure with their finances and are more likely to be scouring the internet for the odd voucher or bit of discount.

I remember being introduced to Groupon by a colleague who was constantly forwarding me restaurant deals he thought I’d like. I was instantly hooked. This is how group buying works: a limited offer is displayed to the public for one day, and you have to snap up the bargain (which you probably don’t need) before the offer ends. It creates a sense of urgency, “Quick, grab this deal before it runs out!” Urban Dictionary has even coined its own phrase for this, “Groupon anxiety” – the “feeling of anxiousness and not being able to sleep knowing that a new Groupon will be released after 1am.”

Users feel smart and savvy when they find a discounted deal. It feels great when you find a bargain or get money off services, I’m sure you’ll all agree. Retail Doc describes this as ‘the need to feel smart’:

In a depersonalized world where many are anxious about their jobs, their finances and their relationships, shoppers who use coupons are, by extension made to feel smart. “See how much money I saved,” is a way to say “I’m no fool.”

Groupon, LivingSocial and other group buying sites are booming. However, cracks are starting to appear. Groupon encourages potential clients to use their site as a tool to gain valuable and loyal customers. But is this always the case?

A lot of businesses don’t actually make money from a Groupon deal, and some businesses have had very bad experiences with group buying. A  respondent in a Groupon study conducted by Rice University tells us how for his business, that already has a strong clientele, group buying “brought down their overall profit margins” and prevented them from having “space for full-fared customers.” The respondent did acknowledge Groupon being useful for new companies that need a lot of customers but not for businesses that already have good numbers. This is because loyal customers can often be pushed out by deal seekers who probably are not going to return.

Most users who are signed up to Groupon are there to save money, not to become loyal to your brand. If a customer finds a tempting spa deal for £30 and then spots the same deal with another company for £20, they will usually choose the cheapest option. If a better deal comes along, they’re going to take it – after all, saving money is the reason they signed up in the first place. They are Groupon’s customers, not yours.

Businesses need to know and understand group buying sites before they decide to make an investment in them. How can you make a deal-seeker return?

The Rice University study shows of the businesses that did not fare well with Groupon (34%), “only about 25% of redeemers purchased products or services beyond Groupon’s value and less than 15% came back a second time to purchase products at full price.”

The key to success with group buying sites is to understand the pros and cons, and find ways to entice repeat visits. If your company and staff are prepared for hordes of customers, and treat them properly, repeat visits are much more likely. The Rice University study confirms this by showing “satisfied employees” is the most important factor in ensuring a successful Groupon campaign.

In the study mentioned above, 66% of companies that used Groupon were successful and did make profit, which shows group buying sites are useful marketing tools for businesses, as long as they are used to a business’ advantage!

Group buying facts:

• 62% of Groupon users are female, as are 67% of Living Social users (source: Women on the web study)
• In a Rice University study, two thirds (66%) of its respondents made profit using Groupon. However, a third (34%) reported no profit (source).

Quora is the new social question and answer site, similar to Yahoo! Answers but without the silly questions and equally silly answers. This is how Quora differs from other question and answer sites; its aim is to be more targeted and sophisticated. Users can follow topics which are relevant to them and the questions associated with them will appear in their feed. Very clever! Users can also follow individual questions. This shows people are patiently waiting for an answer and compels users to answer said question. This, according to Quora, is called “inverse blogging” – splendid.

When I first had a play around with Quora, I was unsure. I had similar feelings with Twitter and Facebook upon first glance: “what is this new thing?!” After a few more minutes playing around, everything fell into place. A social question and answer site – community, even. Navigation is fairly easy. The ‘question’ box functions as a search box too; quite a clever idea to have everything you need in one place, if not slightly confusing at first.

Quora has made the wise move of fully integrating Facebook, Twitter and Wordpress, allowing users to sign up via the platforms and add fellow users. Quora’s social media integration also allows people to follow and ask questions to people they trust or people who are knowledgeable in the particular field they are asking about. On your user profile there is an empty ‘headline’ space for you to fill in your profession; including a headline shows users your expertise in various topics, giving your answers more credibility.

I think the site will be a useful tool for gaining feedback to companies. For example, Apple have just unveiled their new App store and a number of questions have already been asked on Quora: what do people think of the new Apple Mac App store? Apple can use answers to this question to improve their store and gain valuable feedback.

Quora has grown considerably in the past couple of months creating a buzz over the internet and I like the social site, it’s a place where you can share knowledge and learn, and that’s never a bad thing.

Check out http://www.cwora.com/ for the spoof site.

After some pondering, I’ve decided to write a blog post on Twitter etiquette. But wait! I’m not going to write a pretentious set of rules. Oh no. This is about etiquette. And I want to know why some people choose not to follow people who’re perfectly followable.

Maybe it’s just a bugbear of mine, and although I’m not losing sleep over it, I can’t help but find users who don’t follow back, a little rude.

I know there are good reasons not to follow users on Twitter; those who overly push their products/services or don’t share any common ground with you. And people who are a bit scary, can’t forgot those.

So, if someone decides to follow me, for whatevever reason – I’m flattered, and will happily return the favour (apart from in cases listed above). For me, Twitter is all about the community, and by tweeting I have made the conscious decision to share ideas, interests and personal information with my followers. If someone is willing to read my tweets then I want to read what they have to say too. If you aren’t following back, aren’t you just wanting everyone to listen to you? Isn’t Twitter’s main purpose interaction?

Us @fluidcreativity folk have conflicting viewpoints on the Twitter etiquette debate.

@_Chappers_ isn’t as easily offended if a user decides not to follow him back:

“Following people back simply because they followed me undermines the point. If you build up your following list to a volume so great that you can’t realistically keep track of everyone then it’s pointless.”

@Inoperante2 doesn’t think it’s rude if he chooses not to follow someone back but if he shares an interest with a user, he’s likely to follow them. However when a user chooses not to follow him back, he’s a little bit offended (bless).

“Getting into a conversation with the people I want following me is the best to get them to follow back, in my experience. It’s all about interaction, innit.”

@mitmystery and @splurj aren’t really too fussed whether they are followed back by a user or not. They don’t take the whole thing as seriously as I do, and that’s definitely a good thing. @nicolafred has a similar view but does wonder what the reasons are for users who unfollow, or if they have @ replied and then not followed.

What do you think? Do you try to follow everyone back or are you fussy with who you decide to follow?

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.