Archive for August, 2009
Radio 5 shows the way … for the social media doubters!
Posted by David Harrison in Thoughts & Opinions on August 25th, 2009
Having had a great day out yesterday at Chester Zoo, which I can really recommend by the way, it was a somewhat tired David who woke up this morning to the usual Radio 5 alarm call!
So what I hear you say – what is he on about today? There is a point actually. When Radio 5 kicks off in the morning you get the usual “Welcome to … blah … blah …” stuff that you get on all radio shows, but they then proceed to list their blog address, facebook page, twitter address and remind you that broadcasts are available though both the BBC I Player and podcasts … given that the BBC website is probably one of the best , and most expensive if reports are true, websites in the world I would suggest they know a little bit when it comes to using online media … if they told me to stick my head in a gas oven I doubt I would but their heavy promotion of online channels surely suggests there is some mileage in these channels.
As things stand I think that Twitter is probably the most useful – first job gained through it last week! – but that is simply because it feels more immediate in my opinion. Looking at my stats I can see that there are more people visiting our blog regularly which in turn is leading to increased traffic to the website, which over time will lead to enquiries I am sure.
If you want any help in setting these channels up and learning how to use them for your own business please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us here at Severn internet!
Online advertising taking over ….
Posted by David Harrison in Thoughts & Opinions on August 21st, 2009
We have been advising clients to switch their advertising and marketing online for some time now. We would obviously advise that wouldn’t we! – but it does seem that more people are following our advice http://bit.ly/3d1bku
Even if the recession has bottomed out, and we are not fully convinced of that, we would suggest companies should still be looking at how they allocate their marketing budget. The number of people we meet who don’t measure where their enquiries come from never ceases to amaze me! What is the point of spending thousands of pounds on Yellow Pages if you don’t know how much business it brings?
That is one of the key advantages of using the online medium – you can track and measure everything through Google Analytices – even your off line campaigns. This allows you to really determine where those vauable dollars or pounds should be being spent – they do still need spending of course and many would suggest you should be increasing the spend during tough times – we would not advocate that – just a redistribution to a more online focus.
Three Tuns Brewery goes from strength to strength
Posted by David Harrison in Client News, Company News, Facebook, Thoughts & Opinions, Twitter on August 19th, 2009
I make no bones about the fact that John from the Three Tuns Brewery is one of my best mates, but that doesn’t guarantee you a mention on this blog! Even if you are the oldest licenced brewery in the UK!
I thought I should write up a little post about how well the brewery are doing. I played golf with John last Friday and he tells me that they are even getting business from Twitter now – which of course I will claim full credit for putting him onto! The Shropshire Star wrote a good article on his tweets last week – click here to read what they said.
In my opinion a brewery, like any other business, needs to have excellent customer service. Having a number of John’s clients as clients myself I know that they are really good, but it is the fact that certain things others fall down on are considered “de rigeur” that sets them apart – if I was running a pub I would want to know that my beer would arrive on time – apparently this is not a given in the licenced trade, but it is with The Three Tuns Brewery who have never been late with a delivery since John and Bill took it over.
They are really busy and approaching capacity again – John even suggested there might be a waiting list soon! My advice therefore is get in touch with them sooner rather than later – my personal recommendations would be the XXX and Clerics Cure beers – excellent, if a tad too moreish!
I’m sure John would also agree that their website, designed and built by Severn Internet of course, has not done them any harm either!
Congratulations Matthew … and Pippa!
Posted by David Harrison in Company News, Facebook, Severn Internet News, Twitter on August 19th, 2009
Everyone here at Severn Internet would like to extend our congratulations to Matthew and Pippa on the birth of their baby girl Elsie, who we understand weighed in at just under 7lb. Mother and baby are doing well. We look forward to wetting the baby’s head Matt!!
Twitter vs Facebook … who will win? ….
Posted by David Harrison in Facebook, Search Engine Optimisation, Social Media, Social Networking, Thoughts & Opinions, Useful Stuff on August 17th, 2009
One of the best sources for ongoing discussions and useful opinions relating to the whole social media space is Mashable in our humble opinion.
This is a really good article and we would recommend you give it the once over … http://bit.ly/100gn
Going back to school! … OMG!
Posted by David Harrison in Company News, Thoughts & Opinions, Useful Stuff on August 5th, 2009
I am really pleased, if filled with a little trepidation, at the idea of going back to school. I have just learned that I have been accepted onto the MSc course in Digital Marketing Communications run by E-Consultancy through
I don’t know about you, but there is so much information out there at present that it almost becomes overwhelming, so this course should add a degree of structure – at least I hope so as it is a three year commitment on a part time basis.
I fully expect it to directly translate into helping our clients take advantage of all that Digital Marketing can offer.
Server upgrade commences next week …
Posted by David Harrison in Company News, Facebook, Managed Hosting, Twitter on August 5th, 2009
It is easy to forget that if your website crashes, your business is also affected. You probably won’t receive any emails either unless you run your own Exchange server.
At Severn Internet we recognise this and that is why we have always hosted our client sites on a quality dedicated server. For those of you who wonder why hosting costs can vary so much it is more than likely that you are not comparing like with like. When we say a “dedicated” server we mean exactly that – our server only has our sites on it. This means that you are not potentially sharing your site with some dodgy porn site that could end up getting your own site blacklisted by Google through no fault of your own!
As a company, Severn Internet uses Rackspace to look after our server. They are by no means the cheapest, but as with most things in life you get what you pay for. A server is just like any other computer – it will occasionally develop some sort of glitch – what one needs is a company that fixes those glitches quickly – that is why we use Rackspace and also recommend them to those clients who need their own server too.
After a couple of years happily living in one box, we are going to be moving our sites to a new server over the next few weeks. For those of a technical nature, this is the spec of the new machine:
Dell 2970
OS : Red Hat 5 (64 bit)
PLESK 8 (unlimited domains with Spam Assassin and Dr Web)
Processor: Single Quad Core AMD Opteron 2347 processor
RAM: 4 GB RAM
Hard drive: 4 x 146 GB SAS Hard drives
RAID: – Hardware RAID 5
Hot swappable drives
Dual power supplies, Nics, Fans
Fanatical support,
Rackwatch Platinum
Managed Backup Agent + MySQL Agent
It is rather a good machine and has all the usual security, firewalls and back up you would expect. We look forward to improving our client’s hosting environment over the next few weeks.
If you are unhappy with your current hosts, please give us a call and we will be more than happy to give you a quote on our managed hosting services.
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