Simon Caine's blog

Simon Caine

Simon is a social media manager by day & a stand-up comedian by night. You can also Follow him on Twitter. He has written a book called "How To Find A Job Using Twitter" (£1.99, Guardian Shorts).

Simon Says: I love Twitter...and it's many competitions

Twitter

They say in life you get one love. The “one” that you share your thoughts and feelings, your ups and downs and everything in between. For me, this is Twitter. Don’t sigh at me just yet, I’ve got a girlfriend – although she doesn’t Follow me.

People who know me even a tiny bit know I love Twitter much more than Facebook, I actually stopped using my personal Facebook completely 9 days ago.

Twitter is a beautifully simple platform (at the moment) that does one thing well – communications. I hope it stays that way while it tries to increase it's profits.

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Simon Says: How to make a viral video & get your content retweeted

Mishka

You don’t make viral videos. Sorry, the truth hurts.

As a conciliation prize I’ll tell you that you were half right. You do make videos. But it’s the public that makes a viral, so you shouldn’t be selling it to a client under that label.

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Simon Says: Facebook is NOT Charging

Facebook Credits

The news hit my mini-feed like a ton of bricks. The truth is scarier than any horror film you've seen this year...

Facebook is changing and about to start charging it's users.

We've known for a while the company isn't as profitable as it needs to be and it's looking into an IPO. But is this move right for the company?

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Simon Says: Foursquare is the Best Platform for Small Businesses

If you own a physical location for your business there’s a large number of options available to you to drum up new business; Groupon and Foursquare are two that spring to everybody’s mind. But I don’t think anyone should be recommending daily deals.

In my eyes Groupon shows that local deals work. But that’s all it does. They are experimenting with Groupon Local which will aid local businesses in generating new customers at low points of the day, but at the moment Groupon but it is still based on the daily deals model, with none of the “social” elements.

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Simon Says: It’s Quiet Here

Shh

For the past 2 months I’ve taken on a community management role for a brand that have a community who don’t like to talk. That’s an understatement. They don’t comment, they barely click “Like” on Updates and all of this is causing me a headache.

I have a monthly meeting with the client about the brand and it’s taking a lot for me to explain to them that I am doing my job correctly.

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Simon Says: I hate Klout

Klout in Austin

I guess the title says it all but this would be a really boring blog post if I just wrote “see above”. I am sure I am not alone, but from the legions of people who seem to use and put stock in this service I feel very much Han Solo.

First off I want to say on paper the idea for Klout is great. A 'measure of influence' would be a great thing for me to have in my day to day job. But it’s not something that can be quantified…particularly not the way Klout does it.

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