This conference and its associated exhibition is designed to bring together people from a vast number of disciplines, from library management, epublishing and web development to search engine optimisation, content resources and social media.

Held at Kensington Olympia, the conference attracted people from around the world who somehow managed to get to the venue despite a London Underground strike the evening before and the apparent work-to-rule of the Gulf Stream turning London into a fine approximation of Longyearbyen.

The conference is priced at a level that reveals that freelancers and small businesses like ours are really not envisaged as the target audience. For an organisation sending one or two delegates the prices ranged from £617 to £793 per person depending on how early you booked, although there were discounts for subsequent bookings from the same organisation.

There was plenty on the programme we could have benefited from; a key feature of the information industry is its extreme flexibility which means people who adopt all kinds of working structures may find themselves involved in all manner of projects from the very small and focused to implementing the extremely large enterprise-level solution. It is certainly not just employees in big companies or public-sector organisations working at the cutting edge.

However, while the conference was in all honesty priced well out of our range, attendance at the associated exhibition was free, providing a very welcome way for professionals working at our level to benefit from the event.

It provided a packed timetable of seminars and speakers over three days. Business considerations meant that taking more than one day out for an event like this was a luxury so we chose to attend on day one, because there was more than enough on offer for each of us to pursue our particular interests, and for the simple reason that everyone is always at their most engaged and enthusiastic on the first day of an event like this.

Our major reason for attending was undoubtedly professional development. While networking is always a feature of such events, so many people are at it, and your time for meaningful conversations is often so limited, that any contacts you do make or refresh are usually a welcome bonus rather than a reason for attending in their own right.

Several of our areas of interest were represented – content management and social media marketing, which is closely involved with the day-to-day running of our business, and library management, which is of interest to the member of our team that is shortly embarking on a masters degree in information and library management.

The rest of this blog post will be taken up with the seminars we attended. A second blog post will follow with the ones not covered here along with our list of organisations well worth meeting.

So, here’s how we spent our day:

Making money from online conversation – Andy North, Online Media Consultant, SIFT Groups

A useful briefing on some ways of thinking past banner advertising and onto other more effective ways of monetising a website, in this case by providing market intelligence to interested parties through leveraging a community of users. The example given was fortuitous – a closed group for professionals who would welcome the privacy of a login-only environment and the filters so conspicuously absent from most social networks. The trick of this approach is offering people something they can only get by joining – and then treating them with the utmost respect once they have. But the method was definitely promising, and the talk insightful.

The Digital Library Licensing Service: Providing online resources to public libraries in England – Ben Taplin, Licensing Manager, JISC collections

This was chosen for the insight it could give into the way that public libraries are adapting to the digital revolution, and also for a guide to industry practice. The speaker gave an engaging explanation of how using model content licences could provide a means of giving libraries enhanced buying power and the ability to negotiate the terms they need, and also how the movement of academic journals into the online world may help develop good practice for ebooks. More information is available at http://www.librarylicensing.org

Fight Cuts With Stats: How to prove your value and survive – Penny Bailey, Managing Director, Bailey Solutions Ltd

This timely talk focused on the issue of the library enquiry desk – how, in the most extreme library cuts in our lifetime, do managers and librarians justify their staff and the work they do? The speaker suggested some ways of using software for collecting and recording statistics and demographic information from such activities. This was interesting both from a library practice perspective and also with wider applications to information practitioners. Our work so often goes unrecognised, and this is especially true if it involves improving usability, which means that if you’ve done it right your input is invisible.

Career Development Talk: Transitioning from employee to business owner – Margaret King, President, Association of Independent Information Professionals

Having been business owners for more than a decade already, this might not seem the most obvious choice of seminar to attend. But it was a feel-good reiteration of some important points that all of us self-employed information professionals can do with reminding of from time to time – such as the need to know your market and your customer, keep on top of the paperwork and network with other like-minded folk. Also, it was very nice to flock together with some birds of our own feather for a while.

The Next Step: The palette of changes needed – Esben Fjord, Head of Development, Gladsaxe Public Libraries

A really interesting talk about some of the ways in which Denmark’s public libraries have embraced web 2.0 technologies, and the lessons learned. The speaker pointed out that libraries are moving from transactional to relational models and provided examples including a dedicated social networking site for older users, reading groups and arts projects for young adults. He said the online space often works best as an extension of the physical space, with some real-world interaction proving beneficial. He also talked about the ‘cognitive surplus‘ – a concept pioneered by Clay Shirky – and pondered its relevance to libraries.

CMS selection: The process, pitfalls and best practices – Peter Sejersen, Analyst, J Boye

A valuable look at best practices in CMS selection, this talk outlined the process from a client deciding to undertake a website commission or redevelopment through selection of partners and platform. A useful briefing which raised a slightly wry smile when compared to our experiences of some clients who show very little engagement indeed with what happens under the bonnet.

Beyond the Printed Newspaper – Mark Ritchie, Manager, Global Business Development, Newspaper Direct Inc.

A straightforward demonstration of the PressDisplay.com product (complete with promotional graphics) which brokers online access to visually-accurate newspapers and which is used widely by libraries. Perhaps most interesting was the Q&A discussion of the business model – rather than paying to have their product distributed, publishers are charging for their content. 10 years ago we were laughing at a local paper for creating a website by simply making giant JPEGs of its broadsheet pages. Looks like that idea had better legs than we knew…

10 steps towards effortless migration to an open-sorce web content management system – Tjeerd Brenninkmeijer, CCO and co-founder, Hippo

The most controversial seminar we attended, in that it provoked a right royal ‘discussion’ between us. The company is proposing a method of putting all content in a central repository that allows it to be served to any platform, not just a traditional website, and especially mobile ones. That this is the solution in an era of new devices and platforms coming onto the market weekly is unarguable. But to what extent is it a new idea? Is this not a continuation of what we did when we separated content from style using CSS coding, or started storing our content in databases? And what about those organisations – sorry folks, but they ARE out there in huge numbers – who have barely engaged with the web as we’ve known it, never mind anything more risky and radical? Hours of fun have been had already arguing this through – and no doubt hours more are there to be had…

Now we’ll start work on part two of this post, which deals with those seminars not yet covered, and will probably have more of a content management and SEO/social media focus.

Our sites are run on an affiliate marketing model, where we use our online marketing skills to promote the latest products and special offers from major brands and specialist retailers in particular markets, and earn a small commission on sales in return for our efforts.

These costs are not passed on directly to the consumer, rather they are usually part of the promoting organisation’s overall marketing spend, and this approach is often an excellent way for companies to reach users that would otherwise be hard to find.

And we think (and hope) that our sites add considerable value for the consumer by offering a one-stop summary of available special offers as well as more in-depth information on brands and retailers, plus news and features from particularly relevant industry sectors.

Mostly, when working on these sites, we are dealing either with a company’s in-house affiliate or marketing manager, or specialist agency personnel to whom this work has been outsourced. That process has led us to compile this list of the five top things they do that make us happy.

Of course, if you’re an affiliate marketer reading this, your mileage may vary considerably. You may very well love the things we hate, and hate the things we love.

But, from the perspective of people who are working on long-term content sites, here are five simple tips to make us happy – and also keen to keep working with you:

1. Provide accurate, straightforward product links: It’s really thoughtful when an affiliate manager or agency sends us links customised with our affiliate ID and other details. And yet, we find that this isn’t always the most helpful way of doing things. For example, we might need to add a custom clickref. Or, if the URL is long, complex and contains many arguments, creating it through an affiliate network’s custom URL shortener can be a brilliant way of making sure nothing breaks. And, if we just want to check out a particular product to discover if it is suitable for one of our site niches, it’s useful to be able to do that at a click without inflating our tracking and yours. So there you have it – a few reasons why plain-vanilla links that allow us to apply the specific tools we need can often be more useful than the customised ones. Once or twice, they have come ready-supplied with someone else’s details – which is the best reason ever for not just pasting them in unchecked. And, er, sometimes they don’t work at all, get duplicated or link to an unrelated product. Check, check and check again…
2. Liaise well with your web developers: If you send us a great offer that we really want to promote, it always works best when there’s a custom page on the retailer’s website featuring that offer, since that builds customer trust and confidence. Or, at the very least, a mention of the offer, so the promotion’s existence is confirmed independently of us. And it isn’t completely unknown for the affiliate manager to get their offer emailed out, us to prepare our copy promoting it and then for the actual offer to never appear on the merchant’s website, or to appear with different prices to the ones quoted to us. That’s a no-no for so many reasons.
3. Sort out offers that run for a while: There may be very sound marketing reasons for running short, sharp 48-hour campaigns that persuade the customer to buy now, rather than going away and thinking about it. However, we have doubts over whether these are the best offers for content affiliates. If we’re going to write custom copy, do blog posts with attractive images and lots of deeplinks, include you in our latest offers round-ups and even use promotional banners in our featured front-page slot, then we need a little notice, plus an offer that’s not over as soon as it starts. If you’re targeting affiliates running email campaigns, short-notice, short-time offers are also likely to be a big problem. Putting a lot of work into a two-day offer just doesn’t compute, therefore we don’t do it.
4. Write some copy – and write it well: It is definitely worth writing a paragraph or two of copy at the top of promotional emails – it makes the offer look so much more desirable from an affiliate perspective. We take the point that everyone using the same words does not work at all well. However, it can so often be the starting point for our own ideas and inspiration. Also, do pay attention to the spelling, grammar and punctuation – where spending money is involved, people look for professionalism. It’s striking how some companies go to great lengths with classy graphics but spoil the effect with horribly amateurish copywriting – while others omit it altogether and pump out bare lists of product links as if they speak for themselves.
5. Build relationships: When you work in a niche with several similarly-named merchants, or where several offer the same product ranges at broadly the same prices, the merchant that stands out – and gets promoted – is the one that stays in contact. It’s always instructive to talk to people who emphasise their availability and approachability and then see how far that goes in practice – so if you stress that you enjoy working with content affiliates, it’s worth considering if your later actions bear that out and don’t drop off into a lengthy silence. Finally, the liaison people can sometimes only be as good as the support they get, no matter how hard they’re prepared to work on our behalf. We’ve had one excellent former agency member go to great lengths to help us organise a feature only to have the company that commissioned her fail to come through with the necessary expertise, through absolutely no fault of hers.

So – that’s our perspective, what’s yours? Leave a comment and let us know

Chatting with fans of his television shows and answering questions from customers of his health spas and gyms, exchanging photos from his phone with friends and family, joshing with celebrity acquaintences and promoting his charity projects, his Twitter stream @DuncanBannatyne is clearly by and about the man himself – and as far from a careful piece of PR strategising as can be imagined.

No surprise, perhaps, given that Bannatyne’s corporate brand is tied intimately to his personal one – and his personal brand is that of the plain-speaking self-made millionaire who started out with an ice cream van and built an empire by hard work and blunt directness.

That bluntness was much in evidence at the weekend when his wife accidently left behind on a Virgin train the custom-made dress she was planning to wear at a formal event that evening.

Mobilising his 55,000 Twitter followers with the offer of a £1000 reward, he made what initially seemed a rather optimistic call for help: “The dress is in a cream cloth carrier back in the middle 1st class carriage. C’mon peeps prove Twitter can do this good deed.”

He even directed a Tweet at Virgin’s Richard Branson, who was spending the weekend in Bahrain with his Formula One team: “@richardbranson C’mon mate find the bloody dress or I will have a miserable night.”

But Branson – unlike his rival team boss and airline owner Tony Fernandes of Lotus – was not Tweeting through the Grand Prix, and only silence followed. Meanwhile, Bannatyne’s attempts to deal with Virgin Trains were proving equally fruitless.

“@kyletaylor812 Tried that, waste of time… Virgin customer services have not proven to be very helpful in this… @SylviaTidyHarri yes but Virgin lost property is closed on a Saturday… @BarrieCrampton Yes completly useless”

In fact, events were brewing up into a potential PR nightmare for Virgin – until the following conversation ensued with Virgin employee John Power:

johno4501: @DuncanBannatyne Sir your wifes dress has been found and is in the lost property office at euston
DuncanBannatyne: @johno4501 Are you joking?
DuncanBannatyne: @johno4501 How would you know that and who can I speak to on phone?
johno4501: @DuncanBannatyne no sir im a Virgin Trains Manager and called the Euston team to find the dress
DuncanBannatyne: @johno4501 What number I have made loads of calls?
johno4501: @DuncanBannatyne My Colleagues Chris has the dress and is at the lost property office now if you need his mobile please DM me thanks
DuncanBannatyne: @johno4501 Done that now
DuncanBannatyne: The fantastic @johno4501 is a train manager on Virgin & he took the time to locate the dress. Thank you John, thank you very much
johno4501: @DuncanBannatyne Thank you Sur glad me and my colleagues could assist you hope your Wife and yourself enjoy your evening
DuncanBannatyne: Some of you have not realised yet but we found the dress, the power of twitter has yet to be fully realised
DuncanBannatyne: @YourStylist Believe it or not a member of staff at Euston found it on the platform 3 hours after it was left on the train
TheWineyard: @DuncanBannatyne I think @johno4501 deserves a promotion/bonus for that! Talk about doing the world of good for a company’s brand image…
DuncanBannatyne: listen @RichardBranson do you know what a great employee you have in @johno4501 ? You should personally call him & thank him for his work
DuncanBannatyne: @johno4501 hi John I need an adress to send you the reward
DuncanBannatyne: Please join me in following the great @johno4501
johno4501: @DuncanBannatyne Sir thanks for you kind offer i do not require any reward if you wish you can make a donation to Clic Sargeant charity
johno4501: @DuncanBannatyne which is one Virgin Trians chosen charity caring for children with cancer thanks again
DuncanBannatyne: @johno4501 Thank you John I will do I am alrady a big supporter of Clic Sergeant
johno4501: Wow thank you for all your kind messages re missing dress. I am amazed how fast this story spread around twitter and slightly embarrased!!!
johno4501: please also note other colleagues of mine were involved in finding the dress so thanks to them to.
pep1209: @DuncanBannatyne Thankyou for the retweeting this. this is my husband i am v proud. he would do it for anyone x

A happy ending all round, with Bannatyne later posting a Twitpic of his wife in the dress, and one of himself looking typically buccaneering in black tie. No word on whether Richard Branson actually has contacted Power but, with so many big brand names like Vodafone, Habitat and Rentokil walking face-first into damaging Twitter storms, he certainly ought to.

As social media analyst Mark Pack summarised it:

The lessons from all this?

• People don’t stop talking about your firm outside of office hours
• When someone talks about your firm online, many other people are listening in too
• Motivated staff who can display initiative are good for all sorts of reasons – but their ability to react sensibly to online discussion about the firm is another one to add to the list

Of course there are pitfalls – as companies like Habitat and United Airlines have discovered. But they really are outweighed by the benefits. And forewarned is forearmed so, on this page we set out some secrets for making social media work for you.

Five tips for using social media

1. Offer something of value

Cast your bread upon the waters and it will make its way back to you. People won’t find you interesting, or want to stick with you, if all you do is appeal for their attention or direct them to the same old generic website link. You need to season things with useful tips, insightful observations and items that give your Facebook page or Twitter feed a human face. Your aim is to become indispensable – keep that in mind with everything you post.

2. Keep it regular

Humans are creatures of habit – and they dislike irregularity. Social media works best when used little and often, so don’t post ten tweets and/or Facebook messages all at once on a single day each month and then be surprised when you get little feedback. Posting at a regular time makes also helps you overcome the temptation to waste time online when you need to concentrate your energies elsewhere.

3. Be authentic

This is the single most important piece of advice we can give. Most proficient users of social media have extremely well-developed bullshit detectors. But, more importantly, if you are trying to establish yourself as a member (and eventual leader) of a particular ‘tribe’ – such as a group of sports fans – then you must strike exactly the right tone of voice. You’ll do that best by sticking to what you really know – or delegating effectively. It always works best when there’s an identifiable human being rather than a blank corporate persona.

4. Be friendly

If people want to friend you or follow you, don’t block them off – otherwise you might as well not bother using social media in the first place. Don’t regard other businesses or organisations as competitors to be avoided – they might have something to teach you, and there is always the intriguing possibility of strategic alliances. But this doesn’t mean you have to put up with people who are obvious spammers, using multiple accounts or who clearly have nothing to offer you in return. Be ruthless in blocking/refusing such people.

5. But remember this is work

If you are using social media as the public face of a company, you need to keep that constantly in mind. By all means be human and give your thoughts and observations on appropriate topics. But don’t stray into off-colour humour, inappropriate links or anecdotes that are best reserved for your personal feeds and accounts. If necessary, create a pseudonymous account for your personal stuff. It’s definitely a balancing act – but luckily one that is not too hard to achieve as long as you remember what your purpose is for using social media in the first place.