Welcome to 2010, I hope that you’ve enjoyed a few days off work and a few too many mince pies. It’s no real surprise that a quick search on Twitter for #diet reveals such a vast number of people talking about doing something about their excess consumption. It’s been an interesting start to the year with many of us unable to get into the office because of the wintery conditions that have been paralysing the country, but the mood seems very different to that in previous years when snow has separated team members.

Not so long ago, working from home on a snow day was a solitary activity. Sure, there were plenty of emails and phone calls to provide some human contact, but we all know what all work and no play makes. This year, the usual chat and banter that goes on in the office has carried on through the various online social tools that have emerged over the last few years — Twitter and Facebook being the prime suspects. Compared to years gone by, the overall team spirit has remained remarkably high.

Finally, we’re about to launch a new SiftGroups Twitter feed, @wearemostly, which will carry daily updates on what we are up to. It’s designed to be a light-hearted approach to keeping people informed — I hope that you will follow us!

James Skinner
Managing Director SiftGroups

Future events

Twitter Masterclass

After the success of our first Twitter Masterclass, and the Twitter ’Taster’ Seminar that we did with AdLib at the end of last year, it’s high time we gave Bristol a slice of the action; it is our home city after all.

Led by Dan Martin, editor of BusinessZone.co.uk, and featuring SiftGroups' Head of Consultancy Lawrence Clarke, the Masterclass will use real and practical examples from the commercial and not-for-profit world to illustrate how the site can boost membership, drive up revenues and raise awareness of their brands.

At the moment we are busy trying to find a venue as successful as the Wellcome Collection and smoothing out those finer details of the Masterclass to make it even more relevant and useful for you. Watch this space for confirmation of the date and venue!

But, if you’re stationed outside of Bristol don’t fret! We are also planning a London Twitter Masterclass to take place in the next couple of months, so look out for your invite!

TFM & A

We’re also pleased to announce that the whole of Sift Ltd, SiftGroups, Sift Media and Practice Web, are coming together for the TFM&A event on the 23rd & 24th of February to host a number of presentations from each business unit.

TFM&A is the UK’s biggest event for Marketing professionals, with the exhibitors and seminar programs covering everything from CMS platforms, through to search and CRM.

from TFM&A event...TFM&A is the UK's only integrated marketing event and delivers all the latest industry insight, trends and developments as well as leading suppliers of data, CRM, digital and now direct solutions giving you the perfect blend for truly integrated marketing & advertising campaigns.

Find out more about this event and learn how to attend.

NCVO (The National Council for Voluntary Organisations) believes passionately in the voluntary and community sector.

Founded in 1919, they are the largest umbrella body for the voluntary and community sector in England with sister councils in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

The challenge

Like many not-for-profit organisations, some of NCVO’s KPIs simply couldn’t be measured using traditional analytics tools, like Google Analytics or Webtrends. Our Community Metrics module for Drupal was designed specifically to record and report on the subtle changes in activity that made the difference between NCVO’s community thriving and withering.

The solution

Our Community Metrics module came pre-configured with a range of measurements that we’ve found are beneficial in most communities, and NCVO built and customised their own measures, choosing content types, user roles, group membership filters, recording intervals and many other parameters. Integration with Google’s Chart API gave NCVO a crisp and attractive graphical representation of their results, with the ability to download Microsoft Excel data for analysis.

Find out more about Community metrics and how we worked with NCVO.

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10 twitter tips from Dan Martin

1. Smart registration

Key to the registration process is using the right keywords in your biography. You have to be clever though as like every other areas of Twitter you're restricted in the number of characters you can use. Most members use various search engines to track down relevant people to follow so use search terms you think will be popular. If you're targeting SMEs for instance include 'small business', 'small businesses', 'SMEs', 'entrepreneurs' etc. Equally if you're after clients or customers in a particular locality include that as a keyword.

Read more of our Twitter Tips.