Social Media

We’re offering a 20% discount on social media training sessions or workshops booked by the end of January that can take place any time in 2012.

How it Works:
1) See below for topics and what we need to know from you.
2) With an idea in mind contact us at 902-402-1828 for a quick conversation (~15 minutes).
3) We will follow-up within two business days with a quote and proposal.
4) The quote will show the discount and remaining balance. If you accept the quote, pay a deposit of 1/3 of the balance by Jan.31st and you get your savings.

If You Have Yet To Embrace Social Media, You’re Missing Out
Facebook currently has over 800 million users, 50% of whom log in on any given day. Twitter has 100 million active users logging in at least once a month and 50 million active users every day.
While Youtube has 800 million unique users visit each month who watch over 3 billion videos are a day (YouTube mobile gets over 400 million views a day). And these are just the big three; ignoring LinkedIn for business professionals, blogging sites, niche networks and so much more (like mobile usage).

With all those users online looking to interact, social media can be used to impact a number of aspects of your business or organization. Some key areas you can use social media to impact include sales, customer service/support, research, and branding/marketing.

But We Understand Your Hesitation
IBM conducted a study last year polling chief marketing officers of global brands. The number one technology they plan to increase use of in the next 3-5 years is social media. Yet, the number two area they feel unprepared for: social media! (#1 was the data explosion).

Small businesses are not faring much better. While 88% recognise the potential of social media as well as that it has or will impact their company, 67% won’t be making additional investments in their social media marketing in 2012 (assuming they made any to start with).

Small business owners are overwhelmed feeling there are too many different social networking sites to manage, suffering from information overload and not having enough staff to assist.

We can help address each of those issues for small businesses while helping businesses of any size prepare for the changing culture brought about thanks to the rise of social media. Whether you need advice on where and how to start, to implementing specific goals to time management tricks – we can help you.

ALL SESSIONS INCLUDE (where applicable):
1) a workbook summarizing ideas, with worksheets, case studies and resources;
2) follow up for questions, seeking additional resources etc. (specifics determined based on attendees/companies involved);
3) an email containing a list + PDF of all online resources mentioned for easy visiting of such sites and;
4) access to a private feed/newsletter of targeted social media info for attendees with need to know updates/changes related to topics covered

All sessions and case studies are custom built to service your industry and needs.

WHAT WE NEED TO KNOW ABOUT YOU/YOUR ORGANIZATION
1) Topics of interest from above [if something is missing, please ask us about it]
2) Your industry
3) # of attendees
4) General level of experience with social media [Beginners, Intermediate, Advanced]
5) Time available/desired: Set # of hours, half day, full day, two days
6) Location – on site, off site

The regular price for a half-day (up to 4 hours) session starts at $1,500.00 plus travel costs.

Continue reading for Topics
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AQR in the Herald – Sept. 29th

September 29, 2011

AQR Ventures, Interviews, Social Media, Startups

Lessons: MailChimp “It can be confusing…”

September 23, 2011

Lessons, Social Media

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“Lessons” will be anything I learn in running AQR, working with bands, running the crowdfunding site/others projects, things I remember from past business expereinces or life in general that I think may be of use to you pursuing your own opportunities.

Mind you I am not sure what lesson I am personally taking away from this experience, but it can serve as a heads up for others, and is most certainly a critique of designing applications.

One Off Mailing List
Earlier this week I created a one-of mailing list of people I wanted to reach out to and inform them about AQR being open for business. The plan is [was?] to use MailChimp for AQR’s ongoing newsletter. So this was to be the first time I used the service. I had used other services – online and software based – in the past, but wanted to try MailChimp and compare. There are many good aspects of MailChimp I have seen in my brief experience. But this is not about their positives.

MailChimp “It can be confusing…”
So yesterday I sent that introductory email. I added the names to the list I was going to use. I wrote the message, edited it, added some links. The service allows for a test message to double check everything – I sent a test message – everything looked good, all the links worked – it was time. Message sent.

Link Error: “No URL found for this tracker ID”
Emails all go out fine. Then I start hearing back form people. Thanks to Trevor for alerting me to this error message when he tried clicking on a link: “No URL found for this tracker ID”.

WT….! Right. I sent a test, the links all worked. So I open the live version and see what is there now/going on and find the following in place of my links:

http://aquietrevolution.us2.list-manage1.com/track/click?u=8e1ff55e1f2da922cfbb2b573&id=4f779de5c9&e=*|UNIQID_TEXT|*

(The actual links were all to blog posts – HFX50+, SPIDER, a social media training session, and the crowdfunding site- so you’re here now).

Headscratching commences. A search of their help section takes me to the following link:

http://kb.mailchimp.com/article/link-error-no-url-found-for-this-tracker-id/

At that page I find these amazing sentencse:

Once a second test or the final campaign is sent, the first set of test links expire and, again, the links don’t have anything in our system to reference against.

It can be confusing at first to tell whether or not you are looking at an expired test message versus a copy of a final campaign.

MY ISSUES
I just ran another test and email to my own addresses. No where is this expired link possibility noted or warned of. On their page Email Campaign Testing Tips – neither under general nor specific tips – does it mention that after you test, your links may not work.

I have two serious issues about this:
a) My test messages do not accurately represent – it turns out – what the final message will look like – it kind of defeats the point of a test message.
b) If, on your site, you have to note an aspect of your service is confusing – you should probably fix that part of the service!

I also do not understand why a test message forces links to expire in the first place. This is a 10 year old company – confusing should not be part of their product at this stage.

I 110% guarantee that if you hire AQR for any type of web or application development you will not find the word confusing in any of our documentation – and you will not end up with a product that fails to do what end users are expecting. And if by chance a bug/issue slips past – it will certainly be corrected immediately for the end users’ benefit.

Note: In their defence, maybe I *did* miss something – I can’t see what in trying more test/mailings but I am going to contact them and see if I own some fault here (though that still doesn’t excuse them for point b above).

BONUS LESSON
Thanks to Josh Hogan at Red Tentacle for the heads up on a typo on the main site. No matter how many times you look at something – always have fresh eyes look it over. And then another set or two.

We mentioned our love of music right…. check out the music festival that is apparently quite on our minds

UPDATED: Two Day Intensive Social Media Training Session

September 20, 2011

AQR Ventures, Events, Social Media

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In late November we will be holding an intensive two-day workshop on social media. Whether you are just starting out or looking to improve your social media efforts we are confident you will walk away with more ideas and info than you will be able to fully use. Within that information though – we know you will find what you need to make the most of your efforts.

GEARED TOWARDS
These sessions are general in nature in that they are not focused on one industry or size of organization. The sessions are suitable for those just starting or even exploring the opportunities for social media, to these with established efforts looking to improve upon their results to date.

Content is delivered in a manner that employees or business owners, managers or artists should find the information useful and more importantly actionable.

Included follow-up sessions are there to allow attendees to gather additional information on areas of specific interest e.g. a corporate manger needing more info on analytics than was addressed in the sessions.

Case studies used in the sessions come from musicians, international companies you will know by name and small businesses from various regions you will be unfamiliar with. Creative examples from non-profits and government are included as well.

In short, if you have goals that you think social media can help you achieve, this session can help you do so. [Though we are glad to develop custom sessions for your company/industry. just get in touch].

DAY ONE: WHY – WHAT – WHO

Day one focuses on goals, strategy and “finding the others”.

a) Intro

b) Why should I use social media? Is it right for me? – You learn: stats, case studies, potential uses

c) What are my goals? How can social media help me achieve them? – You learn: Goal planning how to, examples, metrics/measuring, ROI, tying social media to business/organizational goals

d) Social media audits – You learn: How to do an internal and external overview on measuring and comparing your industry effort’s against your own. Existing social media users learn how to monitor ongoing efforts.

e) Strategy, taking business goals and identifying opportunities in social media – You learn: via examples and cases studies, what goes into developing a digital/social media strategy and examples of social media being used to achieve specific goals [increase sales, awareness, branding, customer service etc.]

f) Content creation and curation – You learn: tips for creating tweets, blog posts, videos; how to find sources for new ideas and manage it all

g) Who are we trying to reach? Who do we need? Who is going to do all this? – You learn: social media is about being social; hiring/management/policy tips for social media staff; convincing staff (frontline or higher-ups) on benefits of social media; how to identify your users and find out what forms of social media they are engaged in.

The top 10 most frequently asked questions about social media will be answered during Day One.

Ideally you walk away after Day One able to:

develop your own strategy – we cover this during the day and provide you with worksheets
audit your practices against the best in your industry and across industries
measure your progress/ROI and adapt accordingly

DAY TWO: HOW – WHEN – WHERE
This day is focused on actual social networks, related services and tools you will use to implement your strategy. It is not geared towards showing you how to set up profiles on sites discussed – though info and links are included in our materials explaining how to do so. These sessions are geared towards quick overviews and exploring better ways to use each service once signed up.

For each site/service we will cover:

General overview
Pros/Cons
Best Practices/Case studies/Ideas
What NOT to do
Tools/Analytics
Time Management tricks
User Demographics

Services addressed will include:

a) Google services

b) Your website/Blog

c) Mobile

d) Twitter

e) Facebook

f) Youtube

g) LinkedIn

h) Niche services
Day Two is geared towards the idea that now you have your strategy, this is how you go about implementing it with best practices/tools.

THE GOAL
The hope is that if you are just starting in social media you will be able to determine your goals, how to use social media to move them forward and where to reach the people you need. If you are already engaged in social media we are willing to offer some type of guarantee that what you learn in our sessions will improve what you are already doing.

ADDITIONAL MATERIALS
Due to the amount of info being covered you will also get:

a workbook summarizing ideas, with worksheets, case studies and resources;
two free 1h calls or meetings for follow up questions, seeking additional resources etc.;
an email containing a list + PDF of all online resources mentioned for easy visiting of such sites and;
access to a private feed of targeted social media info for attendees.

DATES
Wednesday Nov. 23rd and Thursday Nov. 24th

COST
For either two day session the prices is $1200+ HST.
A single day is $750 + HST.

Cost includes additional materials noted above, lunches as well as snacks/drinks.

LOCATION
The Hub Halifax – 1673 Barrington St – Second Floor.

PRESENTER: ROB MACARTHUR
Rob started his first business 7 years ago. Shortly thereafter he started his first blog – also called a quiet revolution – and quickly learned the benefits of sharing ideas on issues he was passionate about. The blog initially was used to promote local music while also exploring the disruption the music industry was facing thanks to P2P networks and file sharing.

That blog connected him to people and opportunities at Wired.com exploring citizen jourlism, brought him industry contacts from the U.S. and U.K. to his inbox and played a significant role in launching future ventures – AQR being the latest.

After blogs, his next favourite social media tool quickly became Twitter. After an initial failed period of using it, with some clear purposes for the service in mind – it quickly became his go to network.

Having worked with bands for the past 6+ years developing social media strategies, in addition to his own ventures and consulting with others on the side, he decided his internet addiction could be put to good use when exploring options for his next venture.

Thus, welcome to a quiet revolution.

If you have any questions or would like to confirm a space in advance, please contact Rob @ 402-1828 or via email at rob@aquietrevolution.com

PRIVATE TRAINING/WORKSHSOPS
We also do private sessions whereby we focus specifically on the needs and issues your organization is facing. This could include training on specific social networks or blogging or sessions on topics of managing staff and policy development. We provide a full list of topics we can address and use that as a starting point to develop your session. Again, please contact Rob @ 402-1828 or via email at rob@aquietrevolution.com to discuss such sessions.