Chinwag Team's blog

There is one week left to apply for the Seedcamp London event hosted on the 30th and 31st of January. This event is the perfect way to start the new year for startups by applying to join the Seedcamp family you will gain the support and connections to take your company to the next level. Applications close at 11:59pm on the 8th January.

Dave McClure exports the experts.

His brainchild, Geeks On A Plane arranges to ship VCs and experienced entrepreneurs and journalists to far flung places in order to research and invest in foreign startups. 

This month, they came south to New Zealand and I met the team at a speed pitching competition hosted by the Icehouse Incubator.

A couple of weeks ago, we posted about the Making it Mobile Awards -  and having received a record number of entries, The BLN have announced the 15 finalists due to present this week on the 28th November.

With some fantastic entries, it's been a tough competition and to quote one of the judges, Nick Lansley, Head of R&D at Tesco:

“Goodness, you know how to make life difficult! I had a challenge even choosing a top 20 (with many others 'bubbling under') and it has been a formidable job narrowing my votes down... Every company who entered this competition should know that they really have created some incredibly innovative mobile products & services, and I wish them every success. British innovation in mobile rocks!”

Pioneers of Digital is a new book that tells the success stories behind people who have done amazing things on the web.

In the year or so it took us to write it, we interviewed twenty of the brightest minds in advertising, marketing, search and social media, documenting their career journeys (warts and all) and extracting these Pioneers’ reflections on their achievements, often for the very first time.

In this excerpt, June Cohen from TED reminisces about her early career at Stanford and Hotwired giving a fascinating account of the invaluable experience that end up leading to her help launch TED Talks on a myriad of digital devices and online platforms.

You have a great product...now how do you get people to use it? Make your users work for you.

In GA London's intensive eight-week course, you'll learn strategies for quantifying the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns, giving you valuable insight into what you can gain from your audience.

UK Trade & Investment (UKTI), in partnership with the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), is launching a unique competition for UK start-ups actively working in the consumer electronics space to attend the world’s largest consumer electronics show - 2013 International CES - in Las Vegas in January 2013 and CES Unveiled LONDON 2012.

UKTI’s competition will give the winning UK start-ups an unmatched opportunity to be part the world’s largest and most prestigious consumer electronics show.

This is a Guest Blog Post by Unique Digital.

On the 27th of September, Unique Digital showcased the new KETTLE® Chips social media campaign live at Social Media Week London.

'Chopped, Diced and Sliced' mirrored what is happening within KETTLE® Chips online social environment at an offline event, showcasing a 360 degree view of the planning, strategy, process and implementation of the new social campaign.

The first half of the event covered KETTLE® Chips social brief, new product launch and objectives giving you a taste of the entire process from the initial concept. This was followed by Unique Digital's creative response, media planning and new innovations within social media.

This is a guestblog by Beckie Stravers / Social Media Week.

Ollie Lloyd of @gbchefs started off the discussion on the social business of food driving home the basic 3 rules of social strategy. Make it look good, make it worthy of sharing, and start a conversation! With special emphasis on the “looking good” part. Spend money on great design, there is no place for average images in the social medium. However, remember that a good food image (or any image for that matter) is created with love. Not food stylists.

Great British Chefs also emphasised dedicating time and experimenting in trendy or fridge social efforts, but be prepared to fail. GBChefs saw an oppotunity with Google+ to host live cooking demonstrations paired with G+ hangouts. This risk ended up paying off as GBChefs outlines greater follower numbers on G+ than Facebook. Though their Facebook insights are nothing to sneeze at, quoting an average of 400 engagements per post 3-4 times per day.

This is a guest blog by Joyce Sullivan / Social Media Week.

I hear the weather was dreadful in London on Monday morning but the talks and conversations sparkled at Using Social To Go Global Supported by Open to Export.

The session kicked off with Sam Michel of Chinwag aka @toodlepip welcoming all with a ‘meet your neighbour’ greet.

Philip Montague @PhilSMEin of hibu kicked off the morning talks by first sharing a boyhood memory how he confidently jumped off the back of his grandfather’s sailboat to swim to secure the dinghy line that came undone. Though confident he could make the journey on his own, he realised he needed help to get back to the boat. Lesson learned: as confident as you may be, you may need some help with your journey. Philip’s intro framed the mission for Open to Export how they help UK businesses navigate their product export potential.

Want to take your business global? An free half-day event next Monday during Social Media Week London, might be just what you're after. Find out how to use social media, online communities and collaborative tools can help build your company’s international business.

Opening with a spot of networking over coffee, we’ll discover Open to Export, the exciting new service from UK Trade & Investment and Yell, which help small fast-growing firms find the answers they need to develop their global potential.

Hear from We Are Social, Naked Wines, Nokia on how they used social technology to ‘go global’. Find out what hurdles they had to overcome, what worked, what didn’t and quiz them on their plans for the future at this free event.

Creative Skillset are asking tens of thousands of companies to take part in an industry-wide Employment Census for the creative media industries. The census aims to help Creative Skillset make sure that the creative media industry has the information it needs to thrive in the global market.

By completing the census you will be directly influencing how Creative Skillset uses and levers funds to ensure we have a highly skilled, world class workforce.

As mentioned at Wednesday's Facebook Marketing Conference, comScore have released their latest whitepaper - The Power of Like Europe: How Social Marketing Works for Retail Brands.

Focusing on European brands such as H&M, ASOS, La Redoute, Topshop and Zara, the independent research illustrates how popular consumer brands are using Facebook to deliver media impressions at scale, acheive brand amplification and resonance, and ultimately drive desired behaviours among key customer segments.

Understanding why people behave the way they do, and designing interventions and communications to elicit new, more positive behaviours is an established discipline - but using social media as part of the mix is relatively new.

I’m convinced it has the potential to be hugely effective, because our behaviour is often defined by our interpersonal relationships and our perception of social norms - both things that are an inherent part of the social web.

From a research perspective, the massive volume of personal and conversation data we publish to the web everyday also gives us a gold mine of information that can help us understand individual’s online behaviours and attitudes - more quickly and at a lower cost than traditional research methods.

One of the UK's top domain registrars launched a national search yesterday to find the worst company domain name.

Whilst we've been giggling at their hilarious examples below, there is a serious point behind the search - the Names.co.uk Worst Domain Name Award aims to raise awareness that your domain name is a key part of launching your own successful small business and recognise key mistakes businesses can make when registering their web address.

Taking place from 21st May to 1st June 2012, the second annual Digital Shoreditch Festival celebrates the world-class expertise within East London’s vibrant digital community.

The festival promises to showcase the most talented companies and brightest individuals within the digital and creative technologies sectors bringing together some of the best local, national and international minds. Speakers will include Andrew Gilbert, Executive Vice President, European Innovation Development at Qualcomm and Simon Acland, venture capitalist and author of the acclaimed Angels, Dragons and Vultures.