You can never have too many ‘tips’ when it comes to getting the best out of your social media platforms. Sometimes you have to filter through the numerous words of advice to find the gems of knowledge, but those gems might just help you make the change that has a huge impact on your business – increasing awareness and profit.
Here’s a few to kick start your day…
It’s never too late to stay something new!
Social media’s potential impact for small businesses cannot be understated. But if you’ve been using social media for awhile, then you probably already know a lot of the standard tips.
It was National Record Store Dayon the 16.04.16 and even though I haven’t played any of my rather minuscule collection of records for many years, it was something that gave me such a feeling of warm fuzziness inside. The pleasure of those youthful moments spent in the local record shop in my home town of Wangaratta seemingly a millennium ago, but as memorable as if it was yesterday. Dislocation, owned by local Tim Dickinson, was only a small shop, but as a teenager it was one of my go to places for an escape from my nagging mother. Somewhere to be me, enjoy whatever music I wanted to without being asked “what’s that rubbish you’re listening to?”. (I’m sure I’m not the only one who experienced that and I must confess to now having to restrain myself to not say the same to my teenage kids every now and then. Mind you, I like most of their music, just can’t get my head round the rap stuff that my son insists on listening to sometimes.)
Skip to thirty years later and my collection of records are still in the box they’ve been in since leaving home to go to uni back in the mid 80’s. No record players to be seen in our student houses back then, it was all cassette tapes and ghetto blasters – not a ‘ghetto’ to be seen in Ballarat as such, but nevertheless, we all had our own versions of the said beasts.
My recent connection with this celebration of all things vinyl came quite out of the blue when I noticed a Tweet from the BBC Oneprogramme, The One Show. A current affairs/human interest programme that is aired live every evening at 7pm on BBC One. They were preparing a piece for National Record Store Dayto be aired on Tuesday 19.04.16, asking for people who’d attempted to recreate a classic album cover, like the one that the other hugely successful BBC One programme Dr Whorecreated. The classic Beatles cover for Abbey Road, replacing the Beetles with Daleks, the Doctor (Peter Capaldi) and his companion (Jenna Coleman).
When I saw this, I just had to send them a few examples of a calendar I produced back in 2013 for one of the players of Northampton Rugby Club, Paul Diggin. It was Paul’s Testimonial year and the calendar was to be produced to raise money for his named charity based in Northampton called Niamh’s Next Step – raising money to fund research into childhood Neuroblastoma – an incredibly worthwhile charity to be able to help.
I was thrilled when The One Show contacted me via Twitter to say they were potentially going to feature one of my pieces of artwork. So excited! I posted my news to every social media platform that I use and got such a lovely response from friends and family worldwide. Not only did they show my work, but they chose the Take That album cover for Progress – to say I’m a die hard fan from their first time round, is an understatement. (Pretty chuffed about that – needless to say, it was one of my favourite months of the calendar.)
Thanks to the lovely Alex Jones & Matt Baker and the production team at The One Show for making my day. Also to all my lovely friends for your kind words of support.
Alex & Matt – presenters of The One Show
It’s little spontaneous moments like this that really make me smile and realise that no matter what, there are so many more wonderful things happening in my life and kind people to share them with that the crap stuff is simply blown out of the way.
Now all I need is for some exciting new clients to contact me for some more freelance graphic design work. That would make the perfect cover to my own favourite album!
Please feel free to contact me for any of your design needs or to just leave a comment -hopefully a nice one! I’d love to hear from you.
Our world is generally a pretty nice place to live for most of the time & for most people, at least that’s what those of us living in our little safe bubbles would like to think. The reality is something quite different for millions of people across our ever changing, troubled planet.
Sometimes a not so gentle reality check, akin to the metaphorical ‘slap in the face’, makes you sit up and take stock of what’s really happening behind the media hype, embellished with carefully constructed editing.
While cruising through my Facebook timeline the other day I came across an extremely thought provoking post from a friend, it made me feel very insignificant and proud in equal measures. Proud for my friend and his huge sense of humanity, and insignificant because he put my privileged, 1st world problems into total perspective. Here’s what I read on his timeline, you’ll hopefully understand why I felt I needed to share this with you.
“3am… Calais. I don’t really know how to describe today. The guys who invited me to share their lunch…everyone grabbing handfuls of rice from a single pot. The man who arrived in the Jungle and explained that his wife was eight months pregnant, had been walking all day and hadn’t eaten. The Sudanese guys who invited me in for tea or coffee (how many sugars?) then told me it wasn’t too bad here as the government wasn’t trying to kill them or rape their wives. The 10 yr old Afghani kid who wouldn’t get off the footplate of my car, and spent the journey mocking pedestrians, whilst I distributed firewood. Asking a mixed group of Iraqi and Iranian lads what they needed (“nothing thank you – we have rice and meat”). Finding the frying pan and knife which was all that a Syrian family requested, and seeing the gratitude (have you tried preparing a family meal without a frying pan or knife?). Watching the Afghanis try to learn hula hoop (they’re shit at it). The smiles everywhere. The relief to be here, in this fucking dreadful place. The hope. People should come here and see this…then form their opinions.”
Not much more I can say really, apart from pleading with you to donate to Dave’s Caravans for Calais mission. To find our more about how he’s helping the refugees in Calais, try parting with a few of your hard earned pounds to help make the mission of thousands of refugees a little less uncomfortable. And maybe try cooking your family a meal without any utensils.
Thanks for reading. Here’s where you can donate to keep Dave and his caravan on the road back to Calais…
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