The reason for today’s article is that the beloved Google Reader service is being terminated on the 1st July, this was in our opinion the best way to read any RSS feeds that you’re subscribed to.

We’ve looked into the alternatives and decided to go with Feedly, which has a similar layout to that of Google Reader.

The transfer was really simple, Read more »

If you’ve attended one of our social media seminars then you’ll know about setting up a Google Alert to tune in to what’s being said about your business.

It’s so important to listen to social media and interact with the conversation, not simply broadcast messages.

Remember the analogy about Read more »

We’d recommend updating your business YouTube channel to the new version available, known as One Channel.

The main reason for this, is that you can link directly not just back to your website but also up to 4 of your other social media pages. Read more »

I was interested to read about this initiative from the business association Cámara. You can read the full details here: Consume en Lanzarote.

At first, I thought it was another “Buy local produce” campaign. But then I realised it runs much deeper than that.

Cámara are asking us all to consider every purchase we make, and to see if we can actually source it on the island.

For good reasons:

Poorly translated messages are great for a laugh on social media. When it’s somebody else’s business we are all chuckling at.

Those of us who live and work in Spain are often tickled when we see menus or notices which have been badly translated. Who can forget the official “Clain forms” which were posted in businesses all over the island? Read more »

I’ve wondered for some time because for many years now, magazine advertising hasn’t worked for us. For several years, we ran adverts in various magazines for a real estate business and achieved very little, but more recently we have been working on a high profile advert campaign for a relatively new brand. They placed adverts in three very large, and very relevant magazines. They ran discount offers to be able to track sales through each advert.

And achieved almost no sales!

Analysing it, here’s what I think the problem is: Read more »

We’re coming to the end of the year.

How did your business do in 2012?

The Christmas period is a perfect time to reflect on what happened over the past year, and to plan what you want to achieve in 2013.

The sea of data

One of the problems all of us in business face is the huge amount of information we have available to us:

• EPOS systems tell us how much each customer spends at what time of day
• Web Stats tell us how many visitors we have, what sites they have come from and even where they are in the world
• Facebook tells us how many people like us and read our stuff
• Our accounts systems shout at us daily about who owes us what and how fast they pay

It goes on and on. And the danger is that we can end up trying to influence and improve too many diverse things, and that’s when we lose focus on what we’re really trying to do.

It’s no coincidence that the first word of KPI’s is KEY. Read more »

Euan likes webforms – he’s a website designer

Darren prefers Twitter direct messages

Simon is a telephone man

Gil loves Skype

Silvia is into Facebook direct messaging

I love email

What’s the point of all this? Read more »

Have you noticed the yellow flag pages feed that is in the left hand side menu of your Facebook profile page? If you like pages, this is where you can see the recent updates from the pages that you have liked. Previously this information appeared in your news feed depending upon how often you interacted with the page. If you can’t see this yet, don’t worry, Facebook is slowly rolling the update out to users from the 14th November 2012.

If you’re not seeing information updates from pages you’d like to read, then hover over the “Liked” button on their page, you have three options available: Read more »

For years, those of us in business have focused on advertising our businesses in magazines and newspapers. Let me give you an example. Let’s imagine I run a restaurant here in Lanzarote called “Mike’s Place.” In the old world all my focus would be on getting the name and logo of Mike’s Place “out there.” Flick through any magazine, and almost all the adverts will feature the name and logo prominently and usually at the top of the advert. It’s effective, because the idea is that when people need a great restaurant, the hope is that their mind will conjure up an image of my logo and that they will remember that we’re called Mike’s Place.

With me so far?

Now let’s think about on line advertising. We have to turn everything on it’s head, because when some is searching for something online, they need it right now. Read more »