Dan Martin: Editor's Blog

Bargain eh? For the cost of a couple of cups of coffees you could boost your social media following. Why not even push the boat out and spend £20 for 2,400 new Twitter fans.  

I'm making it up right?

Nope.

A new business has launched which is offering exactly that.

The company in question is Five Squids, a website which lets the general public sell pretty much any kind of service for a fiver including buying Twitter followers...

...and Facebook fans:

When looking to promote your business, it's very tempting to criticise your competitors. Saying your rivals are rubbish seems easy and potentially effective. But trust me; it isn't.  

A real-world example of that took place today. 

A few weeks ago, I tweeted at live blogging software company Cover It Live to let them know that we were using their services for a webchat from Downing Street. I was hoping they might use it as a case study. They didn't but never mind. 

I'd completely forgotten about the tweet until yesterday but then I received this post about ScribbleLive, a competitor to Cover It Live:

I spent today in a technology geek's paradise in the magnificant Victorian surroundings of the St Pancras Renaissance Hotel in London. The event was day one of the inaugural conference organised by the UK edition of Wired magazine and sponsored by telecoms company O2.

From predictions of a 1,000 year old human to shocking obesity statistics, it was certainly a varied day!

Unsurprisingly given the subjects, #Wired11 was popular on Twitter. Here are my pick of the tweets plus video highlights of the day:

One of our most popular ever video interviews is this one from 2009 with Dragons' Den investor Deborah Meaden:

As well as discussing the business opportunities in a recession, she also told us (at 1:53 in the video) why she wasn't using Twitter like her colleagues from the BBC TV show. 

I went to a lot of small business-related events in 2010 but one of the best was the MADE Festival. Taking place in venues all over Sheffield, it was a real celebration of enterprise with everyone from Peter Jones to David Blunkett to Vince Cable taking part.

The festival returns next week and it's set to be even bigger and better! 

Around 2,000 entrepreneurs are expected to descend on the Yorkshire city to attend a wide range of events between 21 and 24 September. Most of them are free.