There has been a fair amount of coverage in the news recently about the reliability of Tripadvisor and the amount of twaddle talked on Twitter.

The negative publicity about Tripadvisor shook me to my very core. I very rarely book any hotel ever without feverishly reading the reviews and analysing the stats on Tripadvisor first. I’m what Alan Sugar would describe as a “Steady Eddie” – I’m risk averse. If I’m going to be spending money on a holiday and staying in a hotel then I need to be reassured that it is clean, comfortable, safe and conveniently located.

The reason that I was so distressed by the news is because I regularly leave impartial, factual reviews on the site myself. I like to think that somewhere out there, a Cautious Carole is booking her room safe in the knowledge that my words have put her mind at rest and that’s one less thing to worry about with the whole traumatic experience of travelling.

But if recent reports in the media are to be taken with the hysteria they demand, then nearly every review is either written (in one underhand way or another) by the hotel owners themselves or, on the flipside, by somebody with a grudge that wants to destroy a hotel’s good name simply because they weren’t given a free upgrade to a honeymoon suite. Or it could just be a rival hotelier trying to put his competitors out of business.

The difficulty facing social media is that the more people are using it, the more potential it has to bring in (or take away) new business for brands and therefore the higher the stake for the brand owners and the higher the temptation to influence what is being said about them in a clandestine way.

If genuine users start to suspect that a site is too heavily influenced with fake reviews they will eventually vote with their feet and look for an alternative that has not yet been compromised.

Personally, my experience of Tripadvisor has been very good to date so it is still in my list of “trusted brands” – unlike certain orange-themed “budget” airlines I could mention. If my reviews are genuine I like to believe that the majority of others are too – although it’s probably fair to say you are more likely to leave a review if you have either a fantastic or an awful experience and less likely to if it was just run of the mill.

Now onto Twitter: I have to confess I still don’t really get it.

Loads of my friends use it and preach its brilliance. Maybe I’m just a Luddite, but I really don’t feel the need to know that Cheryl Cole is going to the shops. Or not having a fling with MC Harvey.

There must be benefits – otherwise millions of people wouldn’t be using it. I’m pretty sure that when this blog is posted a tweet is set to automatically go out from WordPress to notify people, so I suppose that could be useful if anyone is actually interested in reading it. But being more of a glass half empty kind of person I’m always more aware of the pitfalls. Stewart Lee, the comedian, demonstrated one of these in a monologue a few years ago when he spoke about Ironik, the rapper:

“He was a tweeter and one Saturday last November, he twatted, which is the past tense of tweet. Ironik twatted that he’d bought a new diamond necklace and he twatted that he was on his way to Southend to do a gig, and then he twatted that he was on his way back to London, and then he got mugged outside his house. And now Ironik understands the meaning – if not the spelling - of his name.”

More recently, there was a case in the news last week about a guy called Leigh Van Bryan who inadvertently spoilt his (and his travelling companion’s) holiday to Hollywood before it had even begun when he was arrested at LAX and subsequently denied access to the USA. He was considered a potential threat by the Department of Homeland Security when he posted a tweet to his friends saying he was going to “dig up Marilyn Monroe and destroy America”… which, of course, he clearly wasn’t.

In the old days it was just so much more effort to be stopped from flying or barred from entering America. You had to literally walk up to a security official at an airport and joke with them you were carrying a bomb or something. Now though, when you share a tweet with your mates you better beware of the fallout, because the powers that be are watching and they don’t always have a sense of humour.

I’ll finish with some stats I read in Friday’s Metro:

Tweeters say that only 36 per cent of the tweets they receive are of any interest, about 25 per cent are actively disliked and the rest are instantly forgotten.

There are a few points of advice for tweeters here. I, however, will be choosing to ignore them altogether. I feel so much safer that way.

Having worked as a New Business Manager at Alchemis for several years but also having an extensive background in the world of mobile marketing, I’ve heard the sweeping statement “xxxx is the year of mobile” bandied around more times than I care to remember. However, 2012 might just be the year that it actually turns out to be true.

The following statistics and many more like them are readily available on the web and point to the fact that we as consumers are using handheld devices more and more in order to do what we used to do on a PC or laptop; shop, compare prices, access social networks, view product reviews, book tickets, give opinions, the list goes on and on.

• The number of mobile subscribers is going to double in the next year
• Predictions suggest that mobile internet usage will outpace desktop by 2015 – Google believe that this could happen by the end of 2012
• 85% of the world’s population has wireless access
• There are currently 23 million UK mobile internet users
• 15% of the UK population only have a mobile phone at home
• 68% of mobile phone users use their mobile in retail stores
• 24% of mobile users intentionally carry their mobile phone for in-store price comparison
• 79% of online advertisers don’t have a mobile optimised site
• 28% of people who see a mobile ad take action
• Amazon has already recorded four billion mobile sales
• A third of flowers sold on Mother’s Day were through mobile devices
• Around 12% of traffic within the online travel and finance industries is through mobile devices
• Facebook pages drive 80% of newsletter sign-up’s through mobiles

 The key for brands and retailers who want to tap in to this huge opportunity is to realise that mobile shouldn’t be viewed as separate from other parts of their overall marketing plans. Instead, it should be integrated into a broader digital strategy that marries great user experience with fantastic visual design. An app that looks pretty but doesn’t allow you buy what you want to buy is as bad as walking into a bricks and mortar shop and finding out there’s no staff to serve you at the till.

As an agency, whether a mobile specialist or one that operates in the broader digital space, the key to winning new business is getting in front of the right people in the right companies and demonstrating that you understand how to make mobile part of the bigger picture.

We’ve been doing this successfully on behalf of agencies for several years now, so if you want the benefit of our experience in this ever-changing marketplace give us a call….

As a Business Development Manager, my role is to get marketing agencies in front of the people who will potentially do business with them.　

There are lots of reasons why a Marketing Director will dedicate an hour of his time to finding out what an agency that he’s never heard of before can do for him.

One of the key differentiating factors between the many “sales calls” that will be rejected as a “waste of time”, and the rare “interesting call with an agency worth meeting with”, is the ability of the person who is calling to have an intelligent conversation – i.e. a conversation that focuses on something that is relevant, that makes good business sense, and that is with someone you enjoy talking to.

There’s no big secret:　

• be clear about why you are calling and what you want to get out of the conversation
• be curious
• ask relevant questions (get the prospect to open-up and focus on relevant issues)
• have a genuine interest in the person you are talking to
• listen
• listen
• listen
• resist the urge to tell the prospect everything about what you do and why you are the best thing since sliced bread
• listen
• listen
• listen
• make sure you understand what the prospect is telling you
• let him know you can help
• ask for the meeting!

Although you don’t need to be an “expert” in everything you are talking about (other people are there to sort out any technical details after all), it’s important to know what’s happening in the market/sector that you are targeting, understand the issues that prospects are faced with and be able to demonstrate how your client can help with their priorities.

Which is why it takes a special breed of people to make the kind of calls that will stand out.

Nobody wants to receive a call which is scripted and goes over a list of services offered; that’s just “another bloody cold call”!

Any agency that wants to seriously stand out and win new business needs sales people who can think on their feet and can engage prospects in an intelligent fashion and on a personal level.

Winning new business is not rocket science; it’s hard work, but it can often be fun and interesting if you have the right attitude!