'Who needs customers when you have
friends, fans and followers?!'
It's been a week of imparting knowledge for me as I continue to tour the business to deliver our social media practitioner day course. Last week I had a great time presenting to the new students of our Highways Academy in Wyboston Lakes training centre. What's encouraging is that there is a real appetite from people to learn more and one common theme that is agreed on by all is that for business Social Media is a no-brainer - even if you're only just listening.

However, I have noticed an increasing number of people deciding that on a personal level it is something in which they no longer want to partake. I think that one reason for this may be that the popularity of Social Media grew so fast many people didn't realise the far reaching implications of what they had signed up for. This education of how the internet is still changing our world needs to be emphasised at a young age, and as a father myself, I feel it is my duty to really ensure that my children are discerning enough to correctly understand what Social Media (and the internet in general) is and how it can be used/abused.

Far from simply demonising Social Media education on the subject cannot be underestimated to ensure we are not ignorant of its evils. You would not expect someone to be able to drive a car without extensive training and a certain level of maturity so why should the use of the internet be any different? It is an increasingly large part of our modern world and simple avoidance is just not possible as anyone with a computer, mobile phone and internet connection is vulnerable, either at home or work.

In my training I begin by putting social media into context and stating that I believe we are currently in the biggest period of expressive human capability in history. There have been four significant periods of this in the last few centuries with the invention of:
  1. The printing press
  2. The telegraph/telephone
  3. Recorded media - photography, audio and film
  4. Radio and television 
This is the landscape every one of my generation grew up with and as soon as they were invented there were people using them for good and sadly, as is human nature, abusing them. As the technology increased so did the propensity for evil. What these all have in common are that there are limitations in that the ones that were good at creating conversations (i.e. telephone) were bad at creating groups, and the ones which are good at creating groups (i.e. television) could only address everyone with the same message. The invention of the internet was to take this to another level...

Suddenly this became the mode of carriage for every other media (e.g. eBooks, Skype, YouTube and iPlayer) meaning that all of the above existed right next door to each other. By this occurring the usage and possibilities were quadrupled and so were the dangers.

However, the real change is that each consumer who joins the internet is also a producer - they can write a blog, upload a video, even broadcast live to the world. This is where Social Media comes in as by having a WiFi connection in your home you're allowing ready access to anyone’s opinion to be piped directly in uncensored. It goes without saying that careful monitoring and effective blocks are essential.


It has taken a while for people to wise up to this but essentially the internet is more powerful and dangerous than any communication medium before it. The dangers are many, some of which have been well documented in the form of cyber-bullying, copyright infringement, impersonal communication and screen addiction. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are really just the tip of the iceberg with other channels such as Snapchat, Periscope and Ask.fm potentially being much more sinister propositions.

What I have taken from this is that I want to bring my children up in a way where they fully understand the implications of what they do online and can make intelligent choices on how they decide to engage with it and encourage an open and honest relationship where will can talk about it together. I am massively thankful that some of the immature and stupid things I did when I was young are not documented anywhere! As human beings one of the most powerful and hard ways to learn is through our own mistakes and despite its many uses the internet/social media is a perilous place when used ignorantly and casually.
Kier's Mersey Gateway project as
featured in our 2015 annual report
It's been a particularly busy week for me at Kier as I have been responsible for the online publication of our annual report. As am I yet to be in the job for a year I'm still learning the key milestones and dates for our preliminary results, employee roadshows and reports. I've tried to improve on what has come before and instead of simply publishing a downloadable PDF I've created a bespoke highlights page which pulls out the key points and makes the contents much more readable and SEO friendly. I have big plans for next year too...!

This summer has definitely been my favourite for the last few years as being out of education has meant I didn't have to be forever present for Clearing and could holiday when I wanted! It also meant that I wasn't a slave to Google AdWords and the constant monitoring it has demanded in the past.

At Kier, we've primarily been concentrating on improving our organic reach and as we have historically not had a robust strategy for online, the content we are now seeding is working great. Our brand mentions, following and sentiment are all on a steady rise so until we start to see it plateau advertising in general is not in our strategy. We have the luxury of being one of the biggest names in the sectors in which we operate.

This got me thinking as to the future of paid advertising online. With it becoming increasingly easy to block adverts will we start to see a decline in the revenue it generates? In the past only the tech-savvy people would happily boast of their latest browser plug-in, host file or proxy that would make their browsing advert free. However, with public perception and legislation all now aware of online privacy, consumers are beginning to exercise their options. The app store now offers 'content blockers' which are easy to setup and make most ads disappear from the pages you visit with ease - Hooray!

But how should we feel about this? If someone approached me to advertise on this blog and I was comfortable with their product offer it would definitely be an incentive to post more regularly. However, I am definitely one of those people who gets annoyed with the same advert running before I watch any YouTube video!

On a basic level, without adverts certain apps and websites would not exist. It's how they make their money and by blocking the adverts you could be said to be essentially stealing the content. If I want to play 'Words with Friends' for example, it's reasonable to accept that the developer needs to find a way to monetise my using it. However, in this example the method, format and currency of exchange have been chosen for me.

Another type of consent is demonstrated by the ubiquitous 'we use cookies - opt in/out' warnings we get on most UK websites. Although ridiculous and annoying this highlights that there's no way you would have chosen to consent to the company now tracking, retargeting and sharing this data with others just by visiting their website. By carrying on the floodgates are open and the form the advertising now takes is basically that of someone shouting at you to try and distract you from what you're doing but hopefully in a targeted manner! Hence the increased popularity of ad blockers - advertisers push so we push back. In the end we'll either look somewhere else for our content or further develop our 'ad blindness'.

The main issue is that in my experience ad-serving sites/apps are targeting the users who are looking for only momentary distractions. The content they offer is not unique so the reader goes elsewhere to find what they want without a myriad of annoying popups. These sites are facing a crisis entirely of their own making as they defined their terms of engagement and value right from the start. I've already seen some more agressive tactics coming into play such as blocker-blocking and self-hosted ads.

Hopefully, I won't be diving back into that murky world in the immediate future...
This past week has been extremely eventful both in outside of the office. I really enjoy it when professionally I feel as if things are moving in the right direction for me and I've also spoken in the past about the importance of the company for which I am working to be one which is making a difference to the world in it's own way. This week these have both been happening on a grand scale.

Kier site team meeting the Royals
Kier have been lending a hand on the BBC show DIY SOS by providing free labour and materials to their latest project up in Manchester. This is their largest one yet and the idea is to redevelop an entire street for retired veterans. From my point of view, the majority of this work is being covered by our PR team with regular 5am starts and by ensuring we are making the most of it on social media. I have been called on to monitor the sentiment, amount of activity and assist with any planning that is needed. However, this went into overdrive on Wednesday following the arrival of two very special guests...

Both Princes William and Harry visited the project meaning the amount of coverage we had went into overdrive making the national news. As far as 'celebrities' go you can't really get much bigger than the future king and his brother so I have been pulling everything together to gauge the affect on us as a brand. It's all great news and we're expecting more of the same when the show airs in mid-October.

On a personal level this has also been a big week for me too as I won a Silver award at the first ever Hertfordshire Digital Awards for this very blog!
The day began with an excellent networking breakfast at Knebworth Barns hosted by fellow nominees (and eventual winners) Labrums Solicitors. I really enjoyed chatting digital over a fry-up with such beautiful surroundings and it meant that come the awards night later I'd  see some familiar faces. 

Knebworth Barns proved a great
location for some networking
What struck me was that the majority of nominees were quite small agencies with decent sized contracts. This shows that big companies are happy they are getting a professional service outside of the usual London establishments. Where I was unique was that I was nominated for this blog (which is maintained in my spare time and not as part of my day job) and that I was the in-house expertise for work that is still generally being outsourced.

My wife and I rolled up at the Holiday Inn Stevenage at 7pm for the awards ceremony where a judging panel consisting of industry professionals from other big companies such as Maserati, Warner Music Group and Sky Sports had made their decision on the best local talent. I definitely felt I had been at this game a while as I got chatting to people with whom I had worked in the past over a bucks fizz. Of the 14 categories I was to be up first (I'm guessing it was alphabetical) so at least I was spared the wait!

Another award for the
windowsill!
After a delicious two-course meal, and some entertainment, it was announced by host Robin Bailey that the Gold winners were to give a speech! At least I was spared that impromptu embarrassment as I walked up to accept my plaque and to have my photo taken for the Hertfordshire Mercury.

Overall, it was a great day celebrating my achievements in digital with so many like-minded people. Regular readers of this blog will know that I love an awards evening and there's no doubt that being a part of this has helped me to elevate my own profile (and that of my company) in my home county of sunny Hertfordshire.
Having recently embarked on a project to rebuild our company website I've been giving a lot of thought to not only how we structure the site but also how we can design it to stand out from the crowd. Looking around the web for inspiration I've come across some truly beautiful examples of modern web design (Media Queries is a good place to start).

Attack of the clones
However, after a while, the majority of websites blend together in my head and I've come to the conclusion that actually a very large proportion all look the same (three columns, a big homepage image, a left hand navigation) This is definitely true of a lot of the premium themes which you can purchase for Wordpress etc.

This got me thinking is this is actually a bad or good thing. With the current emphasis on having a responsive website to work on the myriad of devices now available this does definitely mean there are certain compromises and simplifications necessary to the design. As the web has developed the days of just two browsers (good old Netscape Navigator) is long gone and trying to accommodate the eccentricities of each is a big task. The same is also true once the site hits a certain size and needs to sit on a content management system with lots of editors with different levels of editorial rights and the current monopoly in search from Google means that we are all slaves to how they index our websites.

Designing websites is definitely less free form than it was in the days of Flash when you used to have to hunt about to even find where the navigation was! As with all design there comes a point when humans are less involved in the process and instead the machines take over to make things quicker, cheaper and more automated. When these are done so cost effectively and efficiently (such as in the case of frameworks like Bootstrap or platforms like Squarespace) then why spend more time trying to achieve the same results?
This is also a sign of the times with all businesses further monetising their offer. Where a website used to be a nice to have it is now an essential resource for all companies and is designed not just to showcase their products and look pretty but has to prove it's worth by achieving real sales conversions. The fear of being different and standing out is a risky strategy which many web committees (and clients) do not want to chance.

A new chapter begins
for the Fryer family...
My middle son started school last week and my wife and I have been having the struggle every morning to get him into his uniform (he's very young for his year!) This got me thinking further about the merits of uniform to break down social class etc. so that instead of being judged on looks people can be judged on what they say and do. Maybe the fact that most websites conform to a certain style is actually a good evolution...

Are we supposed to invent five wheeled cars as four wheels are too mainstream? If designs are proven to work then why deviate. Most shops on the high street all look similar so that it's easy for customers to find their way around and feel comfortable, and the web shouldn't really be any different.  Books don't wildly alter their layout for each new publication either. Essentially it's all about the content.

It's clear I've got some interesting times ahead on settling on a new design for our website but whilst I work hard on implementing the final product, and spend my time at home empathising with my son's new found love of an imminent weekend, I'll also bear in mind that it is human nature to try to conform.


Way back in January one of my predictions was that 2015 would be the year of online video. With the amount of video being viewed and uploaded on a daily basis this seemed an obvious choice, but of course there's more to brand strategy than just filling a YouTube channel.

The measure of online success for our ongoing campaigns (#KierHeroes and #KierClients) is primarily increasing brand recognition for our myriad of services with the hope of generating positive user stories and comments. By telling the stories of our staff, audiences can look behind the facade of our company and get to know the people on the ground. Whether it is the man who fixes the bridleways or the woman who works on big projects like Crossrail these stories humanise our organisation and they let potential customers know who will be looking after their needs.

What has been an eye opener for me is how this seems to have followed the same pattern both with our internal and external audiences. Whenever I'm out and about they are a talking point and staff are proud to say they know the project or person featured in the video. This highlights how no medium can communicate the personality of the brand, or stir up emotion, quite as effectively as video.

Alongside this we've been increasingly creating new customer testimonials (with a number planned into our strategy). These are intended for potential clients/staff to feel less like they are buying a product and more buying into a community.

In order to properly seed this content we have been careful not to neglect social media and to ensure we are promoting across multiple channels - to fully utilise video's potential (and justify the time and cost spent) it must be easy for users to find and share it. With this in mind we have a weekly content strategy with every channel listed and the optimum timings listed for each based on what we have tested and learnt to date.

These weekly videos have also been carefully planned around internal and external factors to attempt to gain maximum exposure. This could either be the writing of an internal bid or a more national event such as National Walking Month.

It's also important to engage stakeholders for brand authenticity. For example we have a large contract with the Canal and River Trust. This is a subject in which many people are passionate so affiliating ourselves with them online means a much wider audience for our content. Relationships with joint ventures are important offline and exactly the same can be said online:


One part of this campaign I was really happy about was when we spotted the below Tweet from the daughter of one of the stars:

Not only does this bring the campaign extra authenticity and shows that Kier people are human too, it also adds some extra emotional depth by telling the story of a proud family member!

No digital campaign can be without regular testing and learning leading to the initial strategy being tweaked. Below are some examples of the metrics we are using to monitor the campaign's effectiveness (taken from the first few weeks):
  • 2,622 individuals have viewed a video (comparable with Blog)
  • 305 are staff (8%)
  • 668 individual visitors to website landing page
  • 450 have visited website after watching a video (via social media)
  • 218 clicked homepage banner and then watched a video (within page)
  • 89% have then viewed another page (56% have looked at our job site)
With proper benchmarking in place we can therefore monitor the uplift and if video really is becoming more powerful. On current trends and if it were two years in the future, there is every chance you would have watched this post instead of read it...
One of the big challenges of working at such a large and diverse company as Kier, is being able to showcase all of our services in one place and collate content from the many different divisions and offices in a way which gives them equal importance. We have offices all over the country (many of which I have already visited), and abroad, and part of my remit in the central team is to provide the tools for the regional teams to show off what they, and Kier, can do.

This is why I have felt it important to go out in person and talk to everyone who is involved in selling our services - so we can discuss what challenges we all face whilst looking at ways to share knowledge and content. I've even taken to documenting my travels with a bit of office spotting on my Twitter account to serve as an aide-memoire!
This has been a really positive experience and has allowed my team to use the feedback gathered to produce a powerful tool mainly for use by our business development managers. Entitled the 'Kier Showcase' it's exactly that, a showcase of our full range of work we can provide clients which supports our Vision 2020 to help grow the size of our business by aiding cross-selling across divisions.​ As well as being a useful sales instrument, Kier Showcase also helps colleagues to improve their knowledge of Kier, allowing everyone to get a good understanding of the services we offe​r.


This interactive presentation works on either tablets or laptops and can be talked through with clients or anyone else interested in Kier. We've also developed a quarterly schedule to update it and it includes all of our case studies by region and our growing portfolio of videos.

From a technical point of view I had to ensure that this was working on all senior managers tablets and computers but that it was easy to update for the regional teams. To achieve this we actually built it using Powerpoint but used some more sophisticated tools such as embedded videos and  animations in the navigation. Rather than then paying costly hosting fees to Apple etc. to put it on the app store I was recommended another excellent tool called iSpring. This is a Powerpoint plugin that allows us to export the finished 180+ page presentation in a variety of useful formats (.exe, Flash or HTML5). So for PC we use the former and then export an HTML5 version for hosting on a web server. From here the user just downloads the iSpring viewer app, visits the web address of the presentation and it automatically adds itself to their tablet for viewing offline.

As I always say, the technical bit was the easy part. Getting all of the content from the various business units was the most time consuming but the results have been so well received that even the people who were initially skeptical were eager to send us their updates for version 2!


In other news, this blog has made another awards shortlist! This one is particularly close to home as I've been nominated in the Blog category at the first Hertfordshire Digital Awards. I'm extremely honoured and excited to be able to be there with the best digital practitioners in the county and it also means there's only a short journey home from the ceremony in Stevenage! Tickets are booked (out of my own hard earned money) and there are six of us in the category meaning a 50% chance of a gold, silver or bronze. However, the really fun part will be being able to enjoy the night with my wife by my side as my +1.

Watch this space to see how I get on...!
Having worked in digital and on websites for over 10 years it's fair to say that I've come across a number of problems that don't seem to have any technical solutions. This has involved me searching around for ways to achieve what I need to do and trying a number of different tools.

The list below contains some little tips and tools which have been extremely useful to me in the past. They're not all particularly new, powerful or advanced but they have definitely got me out of a tight spot once of twice and are FREE!  I've regularly recommended them to friends and colleagues so thought it was about time I collated a few on them into one useful blog post. Here comes the list:

1. Unroll.me: Cleanse your inbox

Whenever I run email training sessions I give this a little mention and people shake me by the hand with gratitude! Basically it solves that familiar problem of hundreds of daily spam emails. Just visit Unroll.me from your browser, login to your email account (e.g. Gmail) and see a list of everyone who is sending you spam emails. Then just uncheck the ones you no longer want to receive - it's as easy as that to cleanse your inbox! You can also consilidate all of your sales emails into one daily digest to ensure you don't get bombarded but still receive those all important offers.

2. Savefrom.net: Download any YouTube video

Download any YouTube video and save it to your machine! This works for absolutely anything and is great if you no longer have a password for your account or need to grab some footage to test how it would look on your edited video. It really is as simple as adding two letters to the URL - just add 'ss' before ' youtube.com' (e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUAPdRhxtRM becomes https://www.ssyoutube.com/watch?v=qUAPdRhxtRM) and choose your file format and size.

3. YouTube to MP3: Save any YouTube video as a music file

This is a great free tool for saving the sound of YouTube videos as MP3s that go straight into iTunes. All you need to do is paste the URL of the video into the program and the download begins. Some nice little features are that it keeps the description etc. and saves them as the ID3 tas and it also cuts out any unwelcome silences.

4. Handbrake: open source video transcoder

This is one of my old favourites as it's so quick and easy to use. Just choose the video file you want to convert to any other format and away you go! There are loads of presets for different sizes and encoders but one of the best things about it is it also rips DVDs and puts them straight on your desktop ready for editing. 'Put down that cocktail' and get using it!

5. Chimpfeedr: RSS feed aggregator

This is a fun little one and solved the problem for me of trying to get multiple RSS feeds, from multiple sources, to all plug in either to the same website or digital screen. All you need to do is plug them in ('Feed them to the Chimp') and he chompas them all up into one feed.This is actually a little offshoot from Mail Chimp so allows you to then use these feeds in RSS to email campaigns. 'Chomp, Chomp!'

6. Quick Sprout: Comprehensive website analysis

This is a very easy to use tool which gives a really comprehensive analysis of your website. It includes social media analysis too and can even show you how you're doing against your competitors. It's great for getting internal buy-in on projects or to get an overview of where you need to foucs your efforts. There's also loads of tips for SEO and speed and it gives nice feedback on how your site performs on different devices.

7. Firebug: Test live website changes

A great little browser add-on which provides the same functionality as the ‘Inspect Element’ right-click-menu option in Firefox and Chrome but with added power. You can fiddle with the HTML and CSS on the fly making it easy to find out what you need to do to the source code so the page comes out right. It’s also useful for demonstrating minor changes to  managers or the development team. You can also mess around with external sites and screen grab the results.

8. ColorZilla: Grab any colour instantly

Despite the American spelling this is another useful browser add-on. Need a brand colour quickly but don’t know the RGB values? No problem. ColorZilla lets you pick it straight from a web page and gives it to you in RGB, HSV, CMYK and Hex. This has saved me a lot of time in the past and means I can quickly work out which palette to use when starting a new project.

9. Google URL builder: Track everything

Every campaign I've run for the past five years has made use of this tool! It links seamlessly with Google Analytics and allows a very quick way of tracking all of the individual assets of a campaign in one place. One thing to be careful of though is that you ensure naming conventions are agreed in the team and adhered to but after that you're good to go!

10. Pingdom: website speed test

I've blogged about this before but there is no better free way to check the speed of your website and work out what is causing any problems (e.g no Gzip running or images are not compressed). There is also a paid version which offers a lot more functionality such as downtime alerts, SEO performance and server response time.

11. Twitter Fontana: Display Tweets

There are loads of nice free ways to display Tweets on a screen in a visual manner (Visible Tweets is an old favorite) but this is the best free one I've seen at the moment. You just login to your Twitter account and then add a search (either by term, account of hashtag), choose one of the many styles and add an animation and you have a professional looking Twitter wall. Great for events, but just remember that it's not moderated!
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