Social Media Podcast 42 is now available - Gordon explains why things are not so Black and White and much more!!

Taking part in Social Media podcast Episode 42 we have Gordon White,  Kyle Murdoch, Kirsty Hunter, and Iain Murray.

All back and refreshed after the festive season break, we resume the usual banter and chat about social media, gadgets and relevant (and sometimes not so relevant) news items.  As normal, we have the odd disagreement and a few laughs as we talk through an interesting and varied list of topics and, for the first time, we announce the winner of our fatBuzz Social Media Podcast Green Award!

On Social Media Podcast No.42 we discuss the following:

• The Steve Jobs doll - Can you patent a person? 
• Linked-In - The user who claimed constructive dismissal because of content posted on his profile and his online CV.  For more information on this you can read the blog post by Innes Clark, Partner with Morton Fraser 
• Personal profiles - do you have a different persona on-line?
• Posting content - why do people share so much information on-line?
• Rupert Murdoch - he joins Twitter and immediately picks a fight with Google
• Steve Jobs book - what Kyle didn't have to say about it!
• MyPermissions.org - a new platform for managing your on-line permissions
• FitBit and Endomondo - Iain's useless fitness apps
• Augmented Reality - where is it at and is the cost of entry a barrier to greater uptake?
• QR Codes - Heineken's great campaign and other good ideas
• The new fatBuzz Social Media Podcast Awards - who wins our first award?  The Green Award
• Mark Zuckerberg - Gordon gets an email from the Facebook founder
• Top level domain names - the new top level domains - are they a license to print money?
• Wikipedia - the first internet strike
• fatBuzz.TV - a new resource from fatBuzz
• NetFlix - the UK launch
• Zappos - the recent data breach and the strange decision to shut down telephone lines and block the blog outside the US
• Facebook Insights - the new Facebook Insights has been released with lots of useful information for brands
• Recommended Blogs - do you have any blogs you would recommend to other listeners?
• Targeted Social Media Marketing - we discuss the benefits of building a relevant community

We hope you enjoy the podcast, if you have any comments to make or topics you would like us to discuss please leave them here on the blog or on our Facebook Page.

Play the podcast here:

Subscribe/Download Social Media Podcast on iTunes

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January New Media Breakfast - Breaking the Rules

Date: Friday 27th January 2012
Venue: 29 Royal Exchange Square, Glasgow
Topic: BREAKING THE RULES

Happy New Year to you all.  The festive season is behind us now and hopefully you're all getting back into gear and up to speed with your businesses.  It was an extremely busy year for fatBuzz as you can see in our end of year post.  The team all enjoyed the much needed break over the holiday period however, we're back refreshed and ready for the year ahead.

We are delighted to announce the first New Media Breakfast of 2012 and the subject is:

 "Breaking the Rules"

TOPIC
Social Media and Web 2.0 technology is not only changing the way we communicate and market our businesses; it is changing business models and creating completely new opportunities every day.  We will take a look at how some of the conventional rules of marketing are changing and, how some successful businesses today would not have been possible even a short time ago.

So, it may not be so much about 'breaking the rules' but more about how the "rules" are changing and what that means to the way you communicate with your customers.  We will ask questions such as:

• Do we need to spend lots of money on advertising?
• Do we need to court the media to write nice things about us?
• Do we need expensive premises and high stock levels?
• Do we need banks to fund our business ventures?
• Do we really make the most of word of mouth marketing?

We hope by exploring some of the changes in conventional marketing and communication you will get ideas and inspiration about how your business can use New Media to take advantage of opportunities in existing markets and, help you identify how to open potential new markets.  It may even help you to identify completely new business models for your product or service.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER
This New Media Breakfast presentation will be conducted by Gordon White, Managing Director of fatBuzz Ltd.

HOW TO BOOK

Non No.29 Members - £10 +VAT

BOOK FOR NEW MEDIA BREAKFAST GLASGOW HERE:

No.29 Members Go Free – If you are a 29 Member you can attend the breakfast free of charge. Please email malcolm@fatbuzz.com with your membership number and he will add you to the attendance list. We hope you can make it along to this event. If so, I look forward to seeing you on the day.

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fatBuzz - A big FAT year!

It's been a really busy year for fatBuzz and now that we are moving into another year we thought we would highlight some changes that have taken place over the past 12 months.

NEW ADDITIONS
Since our re-brand, we have moved to a smashing new office space in Kinning Park that acts as home to our ever expanding fatBuzz family.  Although the office is bigger than we were used to, the bigger space is needed as there are a few new faces that have been added to the fatBuzz family. This is in response to the development of relationships with existing clients in marketing, social media, design and events and, the addition of many new clients throughout the year.

In June Kirsty joined the team as our new Social Media Account Manager and only weeks ago we welcomed David, our new Web Developer. We also have Emma, our intern, working with us every Friday afternoon.

We would also like to thank Jennifer Holloway who has contributed some extremely popular content to this blog during 2011, we look forward to more insights into personal branding from Jennifer in 2012.

NEW CLIENTS AND NEW RELATIONSHIPS
We've had the pleasure of working with many new clients including, Blackwood Foundation, Colordarcy, CommsWorld, Cumbernauld College, Grant Property, Kirkwood Fyfe, Miascape, Mister Singh's, Mitchells, Morton Fraser, QD Events, Scotland Rugby League, SecuriGroup, The Booking Room, The Golf Lounge and, Today's Great Deal. We are really looking forward to working with each of them in the new year.  In addition, we have around six new relationships to announce early in 2012.

We are also really delighted to see our existing clients developing their design and social media activities; an excellent example of this is evident in a recently written post about one of our clients, Deans. They have decided that with our initial help, support and guidance they are now confident and knowledgeable enough to take their Social Media Management in-house. It’s not the end of the relationship between fatBuzz and Dean’s; it’s the start of a new relationship - read the post to find out about our approach to guiding clients in social media.

DESIGN 

Many people forget that as well as providing Social Media strategies to businesses, fatBuzz offer a full range of design expertise including Branding, Print Design, Web Design and Web Development. Things have been going particularly well with our design clients, so much so that David our new Web Developer has joined us to help with the hectic schedule and we are really excited about developing our list of clients in Web Development and Design in 2012.

Some of design projects that we have worked on throughout the year: John Dick & Son, Minoan Group, The Partners Suite, Vision OS, Orli Designs, The Beauty Cellar, Empire, Encore FS, With Kids, Gormac Coachworks,  Cancer Research UK and, With Kids

NEW MEDIA BREKFAST
The New Media Breakfast has gone from strength to strength and we are really delighted with the previous 12 months and we are excited about the forthcoming year. Thank you to all our guest speakers with a special shout for Mitch Joel, CC Chapman, Paul Levinson and Donna Papacosta, all of whom contributed video content for the New Media Breakfast. The biggest thank you is of course reserved for all of you who attended a breakfast during the year, your support is greatly appreciated. We're looking forward to seeing you in 2012 for more bacon rolls, coffee and discussions on New Media developments and how they can be integrated into your business.

GORDON SPREADS THE SOCIAL MEDIA LOVE!
Not only have we been really busy with design, events and social media but Gordon has also been busy with a number of speaking engagements including SIE, The Entrepreneurial Exchange, The Event Organisers Conference, Elevate's Integrated Marketing Communications Seminar, Grampian Food Forum and B2BShowcase, Glasgow.

SOCIAL MEDIA PODCAST
Our Social Media Podcast has enjoyed lots of success this year with subscription numbers continuing to increase and episodes reaching No.1 in the Audio Podcasting category on iTunes on more than one occasion.  A special thanks to Sallie Goetsch who has generously contributed to the podcast during the year. The series has reached an epic 41 episodes with our latest Christmas Episode available here. Gordon and Iain are STILL struggling to agree on anything! Will they ever?

EVENTS
It has been a busy year within our events department having organised numerous Charity events including the St Patrick's Day Ball and With Kids' Mid Summer Ball.

2012 is set to be another hectic year as we are planning St Patrick's Day 10th Anniversary Ball, The Rotary Club of Scotland's centenary Ball and we are delighted to have been appointed to organise 3 events for With Kids during 2012 - watch this space for more information on these and other events..

fatBuzz FLOWER

Our beloved fatBuzz Flowers continue to put smiles on our clients faces. Don't worry if you haven't yet received one, we haven't intentionally left you out... we'll get to you eventually! If you feel that you have been missed out, give us a nudge by letting us know on our Facebook page.

So it's fair to say it's been a pretty busy year for fatBuzz and we have enjoyed every second of it!  Here's to 2012 and all it has to bring. We would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a truly wonderful New Year!


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Why you should invest £1.49 ($2.30) in a QR Code Reader

QR Codes are becoming increasingly popular and brands are starting to realise the potential they offer for delivering something special to the user. There is generally a greater understanding and acceptance that the QR Code landing page has to deliver a positive experience for the user; QR Codes that simply take you to the landing page of your regular web site are generally a bit of a let down. However, a code that takes you to a relevant piece of video, discount voucher, podcast, free download, or something to do with a specific campaign will usually be a positive user experience.

Brands are also catching on to the ability to customise their QR Codes and make them more visibly appealing. However, there is a problem that may stifle creativity, sub standard QR Code Readers, or sub standard mobile devises or, a combination of both.

QR Codes can be altered substantially which allows us to be fairly creative with design and colour combinations however, it is frustrating that we have to design codes within the limitations of the hundreds of free QR Code Readers that simply don't do the job.

We generally test each code on eight different code readers; seven of them are free applications and one is a paid application (Optiscan) and we are not happy to release a design unless it scans on all seven of the free code readers. Invariably, we have to amend the design to ensure this will happen and in doing so we usually have to compromise our design.

It is also interesting to note that we have never seen a QR Code that doesn't scan in the paid app that does scan in the free apps. It is also worth noting that one of these free apps; i-nigma usually matches the performance of the paid app.

Here's a simple demonstration; we recently created the QR Code below as an experiment - the one on top scans perfectly using Optiscan and i-nigma but not the six other free apps. The one beneath it shows how much we had to "dim down" the design in order for it to work on the six other free apps. Try it on your scanner.

Therefore, you have a choice - invest in a decent QR Code Scanner such as Optiscan or, at the very least, get i-nigma.

Below you will see a selection of QR Codes we have created recently, if you would like to see them and others in more detail please click here to see them in out Facebook gallery.

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You can also follow the Social Media Podcast on Facebook now - visit and "Like" the new Social Media Podcast Facebook Page HERE.

Take 2...4...6...8 - time to get Auto Cue

Not everyone is a natural in front of the camera and this is something we at fatBuzz know only too well. Video production is an increasingly popular service that we provide to our clients and it is something we use a great deal ourselves.

It is a really effective method of engaging with customers as it gives the person viewing the video a real idea of who the people are behind your business. It also gives you the chance to get an engaging message across.

While filming our "Quick Buzz" series, we realised that we talked a big game, but were rather hopeless at some points, some of our team members soon saw how it was in some ways a lot harder to be infront of the camera, than behind it.

With this in mind, we came to the conclusion that creating our video content would be much easier if we had some sort of autocue equipment and software, so that we weren't trying to memorise every line. Malcolm and Kyle then sourced all the autocue equipment, which is incredibly easy to use, and makes our video footage even easier to capture.

To prove to you that we're not as perfect as you all may think, we have created our very own outtakes video, hope you enjoy...

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If you have any questions regarding video production or would like to use our Auto Cue service, please feel free to contact us. 

Social Media Podcast No.41 available now - Lots of Christmas banter and Edward Reid's single

Taking part in Social Media podcast Episode 41 we have Gordon White,  Kyle Murdoch Kirsty Hunter, and Iain Murray.  This is the "Christmas Episode" and, whilst we do go "off theme" once or twice, it is generally a Christmas edition.  There's the usual lively debate and a very special treat at the end - We have Britain's Got Talent's Edward Reid's Christmas Single recorded for Aberlour Child Care Trust.

We've put the single on the podcast so that you can listen before you buy!  Yes, we want you to go to iTunes and download the single - every single penny raised will go to help the children supported by the great work done by Aberlour.  So, as a favour to the Social Media Podcast team, please buy a copy of the single (or the full EP) it's well worth the money.

Buy the Aberlour Choir featuring Edward Reid here.

As with recent episodes I have listed the topics in a slightly different way the feedback seems to be that you liked this method of highlighting the various topics we argue about.

On Social Media Podcast No.41 we discuss the following:

• The New Twitter Business Pages 
• @SantasPage - a fatBuzz experiment
• Twitter - Are brands truly engaged with their Twitter followers?
• Twitter - the new mobile App
• Google - The new home page layout
• Google+ - The new fatBuzz Google+ Page
• The "Big" Storm - #HurricaneBawBag
• Heineken's Christmas Tree - The giant TV Tree in Singapore
• John Lewis and Waitrose - A collaboration with QR Codes
• Christmas Apps - "Deck the Screens", Charlie Brown & Christmas List
• The Story of Christmas - A Social Network Christmas
• Iain's 3 stupid gifts - Listen and judge for yourself!
• Iain's new Samsung Galaxy - and the much better iPhone4S!!!
• Adobe - No further development of Flash Player on mobile devices
• Monitoring Social media during the holidays
• The fatBuzz Winter Gift - we reveal what it is
• Android open a store - in Australia! 
• Portable North Pole TV - ideal for the kids this Christmas
• Aberlour Child Care Trust - the Christmas single with Edward Reid

We hope you enjoy the podcast, if you have any comments to make or topics you would like us to discuss please leave them here on the blog or on our Facebook Page.

Play the podcast here:

Subscribe/Download Social Media Podcast on iTunes

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You can also follow the Social Media Podcast on Facebook now - visit and "Like" the new Social Media Podcast Facebook Page HERE.

Quick Buzzin' for Christmas

Here we have brought you latest addition to the Quick Buzz Series. "Quick Buzz" is a series of 30-60 second videos clips by fatBuzz bringing you news, events and updates from the world of Design, Marketing and Social Media. You can find these videos on our YouTube Channel, Facebook Page and of course our Blog. 

Here we have the newest member of the fatBuzz team, David, our new web developer. David tells us that it is important to not only make sure that your website is nice to look at, but easy for the visitor to use as well.

Here Kirsty takes us through one of the new changes to the business Facebook pages. During a normal day's work, Kirsty stumbled across a new app for facebook business pages. This app allows you to create discussion forum on your page.

Finally we have Gordon talking about how it is important to manage your linkedin content responsibly and courteously. In this video, Gordon gives a good example of a situation he was in, regarding his linkedin content, so he talks us through the correct process of dealing with your profile properly

That's all for now but keep and eye out for more Quick Buzzes from the fatBuzz Team.

If you have any questions about the topics mentioned above, or you have suggestions for a topic you would to hear in a future Quick Buzz, please let us know on our Facebook Page, and member of the team will get back to you. 

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