All change! With the current focus shift to more helpful (less self aggrandising) posts I've noticed a big uplift in social shares and new visitors. Therefore, I've decided to completely re-brand and restyle he blog itself. I'll still continue to use examples of what we're doing in the team here at the University of Bedfordshire but will share more useful and pertinent opinions on the latest Digital Marketing industry trends.

With this relaunch, I thought a useful first post would be some tips on how to build and maintain a blog for people who are thinking of setting one up for themselves:

1. Choose a platform (and subject!)

The first thing to bear in mind is that blogging is hard work! Not just the initial build but maintaining it on a regular basis. As someone who is serious about working in digital I think it is essential to have a blog in order to spark conversation with peers and get yourself noticed. 

You then need to choose a platform on which to host the blog. Two of the best and most popular are Wordpress and Blogger (this is hosted on the latter). These are both excellent, easy to use, extremely customizable and free! 

Choosing your subject is vital and by doing a bit of research on what others are blogging about it should spark some ideas and excitement about getting started. You then need to choose a name and URL - I've purchased www.deepphat.co.uk (a more streetwise rendering of 'Deep Fat Fryer!') from my preferred supplier Tsohost and then redirected it to Blogger.

2. Customise a template 

Once you have chosen your platform it's time to choose a theme (or design). Make sure you hunt around as there are some brilliant ones out there and ideally find a responsive one so it degrades nicely on mobile devices. You can also pay to download premium themes which are generally a lot slicker with loads of extra features and technical support.

Historically this blog used a default template which was then coded to resemble our University brand identity. I've found a great free Blogger theme and heavily customised it to suit my content. In order to do this yourself you'll need some basic coding knowledge to change colours and add/remove widgets etc. If you don't have any experience of this then Code Academy is a great way to start learning!

3. Plan your content

This is the most important bit! When writing each post sharing best practice should be at the forefront of your mind. By holding too much back you're not going to be of any use to your readers. Worrying about people stealing your ideas is unnecessary as stealing ideas is one thing but putting them into practice is completely different!

Each post you write should clearly state your opinions to spark debate and you should also vary the focus of each post (e.g. lists, predictions, events, reviews and case studies). it's also a great idea to embed rich media (e.g. videos, tweets, images) into posts to make them more appealing and break up the text.

I find that ideas for posts can occur at any time so it's good to keep an ongoing list. I have my next three lined up already and change my mind about what to write about at the last minute (an impromptu re-skin of this blog has led to me writing this post!)

Finally, it's a good idea to keep a schedule and as time can sometimes be in short supply write up a few posts when you can and then post them at a regular pattern so your readers will know when to come back for new content.

4. Monitor and learn

Blogs are not just a broadcast tool and with any type of online content it's essential to give your audience the content they want and to monitor the traffic and engagement. This will help you grow it from strength to strength. I've now added Google Analytics for more in depth analysis as the free Blogger stats are great but not as in depth as they could be.

5. Get promoting

With many career bloggers gaining considerable income or free products to review, getting out there to promote your ramblings via social media (e.g Twitter and LinkedIn) can pay dividends. I enjoy the extra exposure this blog affords me it's proven a great tool to showcase my skills and knowledge both internally and externally. I have now done some work on SEO to ensure the descriptions on each post are fully searchable and always think about what people may be searching for when tagging up and writing.

This is the start of a new chapter for Deep Phat Digital - any feedback you have on my new design would be much appreciated!
So, it's the first day back at work for many of us and 2015 has now properly begun as we settle back into our familiar routines. The decorations are down, the mince pies are digested and there's only three quarters of the Christmas cake still left to eat! Therefore, I thought I'd start the year by sharing some of my predictions for the world of digital marketing that will help shape my team's objectives for the coming year:

1. Digital will no longer be separate to marketing:


As digital is merely another tool, I believe that 2015 will see bigger steps made towards it being where all good campaigns begin and end. We'll even see less marketers with 'digital' in their job title. Without this to distinguish it, the world of digital will evolve from being an added extra to the focus of any decent marketing campaign. This will mean that the old methods of designing for print first will be forgotten, marketers with limited digital skills and understanding will be left behind and agile campaigns will be what are important. After all, digital now accounts for the majority of all media spend in the UK!

2. Test and learn will be standard procedure: 


Currently, all campaign workflows are siloed and this is something we all need to move away from. Analytics comes up front, then there's a big creative piece (usually with an outside agency), the campaign is launched and more analytics at the back end. We are working towards making all those pieces join together into a more iterative workflow that combines the creative and the analytical in a collaborative and agile process. Our department (and particularly my team) are owners of considerable resources and we need to be able to operate in real-time, with real-time analytics about what is working and what is not to be true drivers of productivity and conversions.

3. 2015 will be the year of video marketing:


Video is perfect for showing the audience rather than telling them. The level of storytelling that it brings (alongside the emotion it can elicit) means that we'll see even more high-end video produced than ever before. This can either be in the form of short branded videos on YouTube/Vimeo or short reactionary videos on Vine/Instagram. Therefore, the play button will become the most compelling call to action on the web (there's little I can do to stop my young children pressing it wherever they see it appear!) The statistics are already there to prove it, with YouTube being the second biggest search engine (after Google) and video analytics showing that video converts better than other content type.

4. Mobile will continue to matter: 


With Wi-Fi connections and phones only getting faster mobile will be the first point of engagement with most brands. Therefore, to not have a mobile first web strategy means you will be left behind. Also, many marketers will continue to obsess over location-based marketing, leading to a reality where consumers are targeted at every street corner. Consumers will tune out of this irrelevant interruption leading marketers to realise location alone shouldn’t trigger an experience and will start anticipating a person’s intent by tapping into third party data streams such as news and events, traffic and weather to drive true relevance.

5. Websites will be less important:


Currently we are at the top of a graph with regards to new website visits and this is now likely to show a steady decrease. This is because users are set to spend even more of their time using applications, such as playing games and browsing social media. Content will be shared more on platforms such as Facebook or Twitter and these will become the go to news and information source. This is because people are now more savvy to brand messaging and instead like to listen to the voice of fellow customers either on review sites like Trip Advisor or the product reviews on websites such as Amazon.

6. Everything will be personalised:


Whilst I don't really like the phrase 'Big Data' I believe brands will finally figure out which data is most meaningful for them and how it can be used to their advantage. Anything and everything that can be personalised will be as this is a great way to gather yet more data on the ideal customer. A friend of mine even received some personalised Nutella for Christmas! This will become more prevalent as every brand tries to serve relevant individual content at whatever touchpoint the customer has with the brand. The dangers here though could be damage to brand consistency and the increased creepiness factor for those who don't appreciate this level of intrusion. 

7. Customers will expect to be treated as individuals:


All of the marketing theory that I have studied talks about the importance of segmenting the audience but I think that this is to be slowly retired. Now that we understand more the individual thanks to the explosion in data we can begin to stop pigeon-holing them. This means fully personalised experiences and showing people what their friends are doing online. I've always been a little uncomfortable with certain market research techniques which group people into social and economic classes and finally this year will see a shift away from this. It's almost as bad as horoscopes and believing that everyone born in the same month has the same character traits!

So there are my predictions for 2015. Whichever ones come true there's no doubt it's going be a busy one!
To sign off for the year I thought I'd take a more orthodox approach and write a post on the apps which I have either found useful or have enjoyed using this year. In digital marketing it really helps to have a good toolkit to enable the quick and easy creation/digestion of content and a smartphone is an essential piece of kit. I frequently try out new apps as recommended by friends or blogs but very few warrant pride of place on my home screen - here are my top 10 for 2014 (in no particular order):

Overcast

It's a constant task to keep up with the latest trends and developments in digital marketing and one way I've found works well is to subscribe to the Digital Marketing Podcast. This is a fortnightly show that I can listen to on the way to and from work in the car. By far the best podcast app I've found to do this is Overcast. There are tons of features such as smart sound to remove silences, voice boost to improve the quality of the recordings and

Hyperlapse

My favourite social media app is Instagram. No question. Therefore anything released to complement it was always going to be worth checking out. Where Hyperlapse is great is that it uses the phone's native camera to record great time lapse videos. The built in image stabilization helps shoot remarkably smooth and steady videos. It's not really a standalone app but compliments the main app nicely and we've already used it to give an overview of our Freshers Fayre or our new building at Bedford. Just make sure you have plenty of storage space on your phone as for it to look any good you need to be filming at least a 5min video!

Domainr 

Having just setup a short URL this little app was essential in our search and is a recent addition to this list. Available in English, this free domain search app allows you to search for top-level domestic and international domain names. It also includes the capability to share search results by email. This feature was particularly useful in compiling a list of potential URLs for us all to vote on. Domainr not only shows if a domain is available, it tells you if it is possible to register an available domain name and provides links to registrars. It also includes permalinks for established URLs to include as links to your personal blog and website.

Dropbox

This app is like a trusty old friend! It's a fantastic way to upload and access any file from any device at any time. Where it comes in particularly handy is in completely removing the need for any external storage devices. We have a business account which means enhanced features and some brilliant opportunities for collaboration. One feature which came in particularly handy this year was the ability to restore deleted files as with Dropbox nothing is ever truly deleted. I can't imagine the size of the server room needed to house that amount of data!

Flow for Instagram 

Yet another Instagram related app (I told you it was my favourite!) this one is iPad specific. I already spend way too much time on my phone and in front of a computer and scrolling through an Instagram feed one picture at a time can take quite a while, especially if there are an abundance of not so great photos for the day. With Flow I'm able to power through the days Instagram feed in a matter of minutes if I choose to. This is due to Flow utilising the iPads larger screen size to display more pictures at a time - a lot more. There's also great features for discovering interesting Instagrammers to follow.

LinkedIn

Whilst having a profile on Linkedin is almost essential for any digital marketer the app itself was pretty clunky for a very long time. Having it on my phone was sort of a necessary evil. However, in the past year there have been some massive improvements meaning that this is now the one app for which I have notifications turned on. The newsfeed has been vastly improved with blog posts and updates being very easy to see and you can also update your profile from within the app. The thumbnails of those who have viewed your profile recently are now right at the top. This is a great little feature to see who has been snooping at your skillset!

Mashable

This is THE app for keeping up to date with the latest news on technology, apps, mobile information, social networking and general internet-related news. The sheer amount and quality of the information makes it absolutely essential for keeping up to date. There's also a fair amount of amusing stories on there as well which demonstrates the power of both digital and social media in today's business environment. For this alone it is the most powerful news app out there with the full ability to share any articles. The prefect way to while away a long train journey (battery permitting!)

Google Maps

An old one but a good one. This has come on massively since it first launched and considering it is free cannot be bettered. In the past I had an awful experience with the much lambasted Apple maps with it telling me to make a 3-point turn on the motorway and trying to get me to go left into a hedge! This app has never let me down and the latest update which shows the road as red when there is traffic is a great feature. it also offers alternative routes and displays how much longer/shorter it will take in case you decide to go the scenic route. I really do now have no excuse to ever be late.

Barclays mobile banking

A bit of a dull one but it really does make my life so much easier! There's no better way to either check your balance or transfer money directly from the comfort of your own sofa. Although I've not used any other banking apps I'm reliably informed that this one is one of the best. Installing this also meant I could get rid of my 1970's looking PINsentry reader!The latest update even allows me to use the app to take pictures of and upload secure financial documents to Barclays’ CloudIt cloud storage feature.

FIFA 15 Ultimate Team

A fun one to finish! With all of the app games out there this one really does take some beating. Although it has no way near the quality and depth of it's console counterparts it's a really slick version which allows the possibility to create your own team and fight it out with the best other players in the world online (I can't get past division 2!) I've chosen not to buy any coins to build a team the easy way but fight to earn points to buy the best players. After a hard days marketing this is a welcome diversion and the fact you're playing on an iPad stops you getting too carried away and wasting an entire evening due to violent hand cramp setting in after about five matches!

So there you have it - my first top ten list. I'll also be tweeting out my top ten people to follow in HE marketing so have a look at my Twitter feed to see that. All that remains is for me to publicly thank my team for another fantastic year of work. I have a feeling 2015 is going to be a big one with lots of positive changes all around... Happy Christmas!
With Christmas just around the corner we took some time out of the office this week to have a full Marketing Team away day.  The venue of this was to be our lovely country estate of Putteridge Bury. After a morning of team meetings, CMS show and tell sessions and bacon rolls we used the time to reflect on some of the successes of the past year. Chief on the list was recruiting to target for the amount of student which we needed as a University. We also got the chance to share some of our ideas for the future before a very nice sandwich lunch.

After lunch the focus turned to fun where each of the team leaders (including myself) ran a team builder session. These ranged from a test of how good we are at listening (I won that one!) to a pub quiz (we won that one too) and my session which used the Logo Game to discover who was the 'mightiest marketer'. they all went really well with the icing on the cake being a Bedmas selfie competition around the grounds of Putteridge Bury (results below:)
To continue with the Christmas theme we've all been working hard to promote our forthcoming 'Festive' open evening with is taking place next week. This has meant a slightly revamped version of our campaign visuals to accommodate snowflakes! This demonstrates how we are now trying to make each of our campaign visuals a natural progression for the one that went before rather than starting from scratch each time. The benefits of this are that people will identify more clearly with our brand but also we won't burn ourselves out trying to reinvent the wheel each time!


We also spent last Monday morning putting up our decorations in the office - it was no surprise that we were the first to do this after Lauren added it to our calendars early in November. The results are great though and a cheaper more tacky collection of potential fire hazards you will not find!
Another job which we've been meaning to get around to for ages is setting up a short URL. This is something we've had in the past but it was a bit of clunky system and presented us with slightly inaccurate statistics. Basically, this short URL allows us to track our print campaigns separately and is used in our prospectuses. There's also the added bonus of being able to use this for any online campaigns - particularly social media for consistency.

Domainr is a great little tool and it's easy
to spend hours on there testing out URLs
The first (and longest!) step was to brainstorm a URL using Domainr. This is a great tool for generating short URLs and unfortunately .ds is not a suffix so we couldn't have www.be.ds (www.be.dz was an option though!) Eventually, and after a long deliberation in the team, we settled for unibeds.info so expect to see that everywhere soon. It was then a case of purchasing it, setting up a bitly account, linking the two together via DNS and adding some Google analytics code to our website. To do this I used Tsohost as they've always offered a good service and have excellent customer support. Now starts the job of going in and setting up over 200 trackable shorteners for our prospectus!

For my last blog post of 2014 I plan to start looking back a bit at the year just gone and some of the great products and digital marketing advice that have made my life a bit easier. I may even turn this into a proper blog and start with some charts such as my top 5 apps or the best people to follow on Twitter of 2014. Watch this space!
Despite having most of our large campaigns up and running the team remain hectic with all sorts of different projects. When I first started over two years ago this was the time of year when we could have a bit of downtime from the daily pressures of student recruitment and concentrate on things like developing our website content or some campaign planning. There's no such luxury these days but I also seem to be my own worst enemy by talking on more work external work.

The first of these was taking up Inside Government on their invitation to present at their 'Enhancing the Standards and Quality of UK Postgraduate Education' event. I had presented for them before and was obviously deemed good enough to be asked back. Therefore in order to keep my skills up to date (and seek a challenge) I decided to try out some new online presentation software in the form of Emaze. Whilst I found it a little buggy (it kept switching to presenter mode when I was adding text) it was an excellent tool for collaboration with some lovely templates and minus the roller coaster sick inducing transitions of Prezi. Apparently I used it so well that Emaze featured me on their homepage and gave me this little badge to use!
The conference itself went really well despite me feeling a little intimidated after reading the delegate list (Deputy VC's, Directors and Heads of Faculty). It was clear I had some work to do as I was the only person tweeting on the hashtag as well - it was pretty lonely in there! I stuck to time and got some lovely comments from some other universities on the issues I raised. My topic was Digital Transformation so check it out for yourself (I used our current campaign artwork for the slides):



Another big project with which we've just gone live is a total revamp of our 'Student Life' section on our website. We've now titled it 'Student Experience' as this is a big part of our strategic plan and the remit was to author new content to better sell what it is like to be a student with us. The idea was to re-order pages based on input from our Student Union and also by using our analytics to highlight what users engage with most. We also re-wrote all top level content to better showcase the student voice (and embedded videos where possible). This was also a great exercise to tell us where we were missing video content so we're getting editing immediately to plug those gaps.

Another more fun and festive project has been launched this week too - Bedsmas! The idea of this is that we will post a Christmassy photo from one of our campuses via social media each day of December and encourage people to do the same using the hashtag #bedsmas14. These will then be added to a Tagboard which is embedded on our website to show what a vibrant place the University is at this time of year. The winner will then get a £50 Amazon voucher - just in time to spend in the sales! So why not head over yourself and get posting?!

Finally, I just wanted to do another shameless plug for this blog where I have been shortlisted for another blog award (this time for 2015). This time it's in the PR, Marketing, Media and Comms category so if you'd vote for me I'd be extremely grateful. Especially as last year's ceremony was my favourite awards night I've attended (although being able to celebrate my win with a glass of gin and tonic with my wife may well mean I am biased!)
Hands down the best time to be on campus (and for our social media sentiment!) is graduation. Smiling faces and proud loved ones fill every corridor and as members of staff (marketing or otherwise) we can be proud that we've all have made some sort of contribution to their future path.

On Friday I had the opportunity to switch sides by celebrating months of hard work at the IDM (Institute of Direct and Digital Marketing) graduation at the Royal Geographical Society in London for my Postgraduate Diploma in Digital Marketing. This was the culmination of months of hard work by all 200+ graduates and was a reward for all of the study hours that we had to in to be there. As already documented, my particular challenge was to find the time to fit in the amount of work needed to write two 5,000 word assignments and sit three 3 hour exams.

With three children and a demanding job (I never leave the office on time - but then who does nowadays?!) this was the biggest struggle but I managed to motivate myself and start early giving up big chunks of the weekend to budget planning! by going back to studying again I found out a lot about myself (and so did my wife) as I swung from the highs of "This diploma is easy - I'm going to pass no problem", to the lows "Why did I do this? I'm never going to pass?!"

Thankfully I passed with flying colours (surprisingly I'm actually pretty good at exams - who knew?!) achieving a credit and some new letters after my name. Therefore, this graduation was the perfect excuse to take some time out with a day out in London with my wife away from the children. We decided to make the most of it and crammed in as much as we could including a ride on the Emirates Air Line, a visit to the Tower Poppies and (following the ceremony) a meal out for just the two of us.
It all went according to plan with a great ride on the cable car - despite the high winds and the threat of closure, and a breathtaking visit to the Tower Poppies - very busy but worth the trip alone. It was then time for the main event in what was a lovely venue crammed full of Digital marketing experts. I couldn't help but look around and think that these are the people with whom I'll be competing I ever go for an interview for another job!



Seeing my course mates again was great as everyone looked so relaxed (and smart!) It was also nice that our significant others could get chatting about the trials and tribulations of being married to a digital marketer and they said the ceremony helped them understand better what it is we all do for a living.

All of the IDM class of 2014 - including me!
(top left, just under the clock)
After 45mins solid clapping all of the awards were handed out and there was a great atmosphere which was added to by some excellent guest speakers. Overall, I'd recommend the IDM to everyone as the tutors really understood the market and I feel this opportunity has really allowed me to think more strategically about the work which my team undertakes. Now I need to find someone to hang the certificate in pride of place at home...!

Finally, in other news we've just got back from the Prospects Postgraduate Awards in Manchester. We were shortlisted for best Campaign for our cinema advert which we unfortunately didn't win. However, Sarah in the marketing team had written an entry for a Postgraduate Sport campaign which we all worked on last year which was a massive success and easily exceeded our targets. It is great then that this hard work was rewarded with a Gold in the Best Faculty Campaign Category! Excellent work for our final ceremony of the year and a real kick to get us working on our submissions earlier ready for the 2015 round of award ceremonies!
It's been a while since I've had the chance to showcase my old presentation skills which is a shame as this is something which I really enjoy.  My eagerness to do this was further pricked by attending a conference on Wednesday with the team. This was the Squiz Connect 2014 Europe User Summit at the excellent Barbican Centre in London.

The Barbican conservatory (the second
biggest in London) with koi carp!
Four of us headed down at the crack of dawn (I had to get up 30mins earlier than usual!) for a full day of Powerpoint, case studies and networking. Despite a slightly rushed journey there (we found out that the last thing commuters want to hear in rush hour is "I don't know how you do this everyday!") we arrived in time to take our seats for the keynote speeches. These were my favourite part of the day and showcased a really strategic slant on how single customer experience is now the latest buzz phrase. There were some good sector specific examples which I hope to recycle myself for our next University Staff Conference in the new year!

Another enjoyable part of the day (apart from the excellent lunch) were some of the case studies, especially one from a competitor university on their new site build. I also got chatting to some role equivalents at other HE institutions who I'd previously only conversed with via email.

After a full day of Powerpoint I must say I was a little weary at the end. Some presenters managed to keep our energy levels up but overall I think a few more interactive presentations/workshops would have livened it up. Maybe the issue was that I was guilty of wanting to take the mic myself...?!

Time to go back on the 'inside!'
It's a good job then that sitting in my inbox was an invite to speak again for Inside Government (with whom Sarah and I had previously presented on postgraduate recruitment). After initially not wanting to recycle the same presentation in front of the same people I was reassured I could alter the focus and that the audience would be much bigger. Double bonus! I've already started preparing my 20min talk on 'Digital Transformation to Enhance Postgraduate Recruitment' on 13th November.

Back in the office we've just marked the end of a series of staff holidays so what better way to celebrate than going out at lunchtime to sample the new Pizza Express autumn menu?! This completed two day stint of over indulgent lunch breaks but doesn't mean it's too early to start planning our big Christmas banquet - venues are currently being discussed!

A screenshot from the trial version of our
new Luton campus library. Coming soon!
As far as our task lists are concerned I don't think we've ever been busier (with the exception of the first week of Clearing). We're currently building seven new website sections ready for UAT, have been promoting our many open days and have five separate campaigns on the go (all with different online activity and landing pages) . My week has had to be scheduled to the nano-second and as we're also launching a new facilities microsite with webcam and video content. Alongside this we're having a long overdue re-design of our email templates to make them responsive and are in the final stages of consultation with external stakeholders.

Lastly, to show that we get involved in any external mention of the University, we volunteered to live tweet and produce a report on the final Freshers show to be filmed at Bedfordshire. This was a follow up to the successful series which was shown last year and the online sentiment and volume of traffic was again excellent. It was a risk commissioning this but it's definitely raised our profile and has caused some of the stars to be proper celebrities around campus!
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