About Neville Hobson

Communicator, blogger, podcaster, based in the UK.

Liking WebHostingBuzz, and deals

qualityyoucanrelyon

Just over a month ago, I started a relationship with a new web hosting service, WebHostingBuzz. The words you’re reading now are served up to your screen from a database in the cloud (well, from a dedicated Dell server physically located in a data center somewhere in the US).

As I noted in my first post about WebHostingBuzz, you now get content served to you a lot quicker and more reliably. If you look at the footer of this page (on the site itself), you’ll see a counter showing how quickly the page was served. Typically, it’s less than half a second. Page load speed is important to Google ranking.

I’m very pleased with the uptime record since I moved this site – 100%.

uptime

According to Hyperspin – a service that monitors this site and emails me daily reports – 100% uptime has been the state of things since I made the move to WebHostingBuzz. They promise 99.99% so I’m quite pleased with 100% over 30+ days!

So far, I’ve had nothing but a stellar experience with WHB. I’ve not had reason to connect with tech support yet (which is actually a good thing), but I’m pretty confident that when I do – and it’s inevitable that I’ll have to at some time – I’ll encounter the professionalism and great service that I did when the tech team helped me migrate things to their service.

In that first post I wrote last month, I mentioned what the deal is with WHB:

[...] in essence, they’ll host my web presence at no financial cost to me and I’ll talk about them from time to time, here and elsewhere, and give them a platform to occasionally tell their own story. We’re addressing our arrangement openly and transparently: there’s a little badge on this site that declares ‘hosted by WebHostingBuzz,’ for instance, as well as a similar phrase in the footer of each page.

Even if we didn’t have a sponsorship deal, I’d talk about them anyway. But rather than just talk about WHB, I asked them to give me something to offer readers of this blog.

They didn’t hesitate, and here’s the deal and how to get it:

plansus

plansuk

  • On budget, reseller, business or VPS plans
  • On either the US or the UK WebHostingBuzz domain
  • Get 50% off your first purchase, for any purchase period
  • Your coupon code is: hostingdream
  • Enter that code in the coupons box when you get to the checkout

That’s a good deal – 50% off. (I get no commission, by the way, nor any other type of benefit if you take up WHB’s special offer. Just to be clear on that point.)

If you decide to join up with WebHostingBuzz, let me know how you get on.

Global perspectives on social media

smw2012

A week-long feast of knowledge opportunity awaits you next week in over 20 cities around the world when Social Media Week kicks off on February 13.

This bi-annual professional development event offers you a series of interconnected activities and conversations around the world on emerging trends in social and mobile media across all major industries. The organizers say it attracts more than 60,000 attendees across thousands of individually organized events, with half a million connecting to the conference online and through mobile.

smwlondonbadgeOne of the cities involved is London where over 150 events are taking place during the week, most of them free to attend (thanks to sponsors).

I’m participating as a speaker and presenter in three of those 150+ events, all of which look as though they’ll be fully booked any minute now – if you’d like to be there, this is the moment to check availability and sign up:

Wednesday February 15

  1. 08:30 to 12:30: Social Business Immersive by Like Minds
    One of seven presenting; my topic: “Brand communications in a social world: the rise of open and transparent dialogue to manage your reputation and drive opportunities publicly to do business.”
  2. 15:00 to 17:00: “The Future of Social Business” panel discussion with JP Rangaswami, Euan Semple, Jon Ingham, Neville Hobson and Delphine Remy-Boutang. This will be a moderated open discussion and debate on social business current trends, best practices and how social media is driving change in the way organisations will do business in the future.

Thursday February 16

  1. 08:30 to 17:00: Making Social Part Of Your DNA by Klaxon Marketing
    Presentation (at 11:50) jointly with Kerry Bridge of Dell UK titled “The long haul; top tips learnt over the years on how to really make social work for your business.” Especially useful if you’re a small or medium-size business.
  • Location: 6-7 Great Newport Street, London WC2H 7JB.
  • Details and Register: http://www.socialmediadna.co.uk/agenda/ (This is a not-for-profit event so your full ticket price goes directly to the event’s charity partners CRY and Mind.)

These are but three of the London events you can experience. Among the many others available, these five – one from each day – look like standout sessions:

And if you can’t physically get to any event, you can enjoy many of them via live video streams by Livestream (who will be streaming events from other SMW cities as well).

There are also hashtags for each city – London’s is #smwldn – so you can join the conversations on Twitter.

Enjoy your week of perspectives!

Be where your customers are – it’s simple

There’s a huge gap in expectation as Econsultancy reports on research by Zendesk that says:

  • 62% of customers are looking for more support through social media
  • 23% of companies actually provide it that way on Facebook

Simple action: pay attention to what your customers want and deliver on that.

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The future of customer service and social media: infographic
According to Zendesk’s new infographic, 62% of customers are looking for more support through social media. Compare that to research by MarketTools at the end of 2011 which shows only 23% of US compan…

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The Hobson and Holtz Report – Podcast #637: February 6, 2012

Content summary: Donna Papacosta promos Tweeps in Profile featuring Shel as ‘Mr February’; new FIR Book Review by Kris Gallagher of Intern Nation; FIR Book Club #1 recording posted; News That Fits: the Komen Kerfuffle; Ragan promo; Dan York adds his perspectives on the Komen Kerfuffle; with gov.uk, the British government redefines the online government platform; the Media Monitoring Minute with CustomScoop; listener comments from the FIR Room on Friendfeed; Reuters launches Social Pulse; TemboSocial promo; no report from Michael Netzley in Singapore this week; Costa Concordia and the public relations disaster for cruise; music by Bulldogs; and more.

Get FIR:

Messages from our sponsors: FIR is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide for 35 years, www.ragan.com; Save time with the CustomScoop online clipping service: sign up for your free two-week trial, at www.customscoop.com/fir; and TemboSocial (formerly Pollstream): helping you transform your communications goals into exciting strategies that will enable you to engage, educate and inform your customers and employees online, pollstream.com/fir/.

For Immediate Release: The Hobson & Holtz Report for February 6, 2012: A 73-minute podcast recorded live from Wokingham, Berkshire, England, and Concord, California, USA.


Links to websites, blog posts and other content we discuss in the show are posted as Delicious bookmarks to facilitate your connection with the discussions and sharing of that content.

FIR Show Notes links
Names of blogs, individuals, companies and organizations we discussed or mentioned in the show are posted to the FIR Show Notes pages at The New PR Wiki. You can contribute time stamps – see the show notes home page for info.

FIR on Friendfeed
Share your comments or questions about this show, or suggestions for future shows, in the FIR FriendFeed Room. You can also email us at fircomments@gmail.com; call the Comment Line at +1 206 222 2803 (North America), +44 20 3239 9082 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments; comment at Twitter: twitter.com/FIR. You can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments, if you wish (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

To stay informed about occasional FIR events (eg, FIR Live), sign up for FIR Update email news.

So, until Monday February 13…

(Cross-posted from For Immediate Release, Shel’s and my podcast blog.)

FIR Book Club #1: Social Media Strategist author Christopher Barger

Christopher Barger was the guest author for the inaugural instalment of the FIR Book Club, hosted by FIR Book Review Editor Bob LeDrew.

christopherbargerChristopher is Senior Vice President, Global Programs for Voce Communications, a Porter Novelli company. Before arriving at Voce, Christopher was director of global social media at General Motors, building the company’s social media program and leading its presence across multiple social networks.

His work to repair GM’s reputation in the social web earned him PR News’ “Social Media Leader of the Year” award in 2010. Christopher also previously managed social media initiatives and corporate communications for IBM, where he was designated “Blogger-in-Chief.”

Christopher’s book, The Social Media Strategist, was reviewed on FIR.

This podcast was recorded live on BlogTalk Radio.

Get this podcast:

FIR on Friendfeed
Share your comments or questions about this podcast, or suggestions for future reviews, in the FIR FriendFeed Room. You can also email us at fircomments@gmail.com; call the Comment Line at +1 206 222 2803 (North America), +44 20 3239 9082 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments; comment at Twitter: twitter.com/FIR. You can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments, if you wish (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

To receive all For Immediate Release podcasts including the weekly Hobson & Holtz Report, subscribe to the full RSS feed.

This FIR Review is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide for 35 years. Information: www.ragan.com.

(Cross-posted from For Immediate Release, Shel’s and my podcast blog.)