Countryside Courses

We got fed up of driving 'up north' for our countryside training. So we've teamed up with Folly Farm, run by the Avon Wildlife Trust just outside Bristol, to lay on professional courses for countryside staff. Together we want to make Folly Farm the South West's leading venue for these type of courses. Here are the details of this coming season's courses. Click here

More women than men use Twitter?

A major study on Twitter has revealed some surprising facts;

• 72.5% of all users joining during the first five months of 2009
• 85.3% of all Twitter users post less than one update/day
• 21% of users have never posted a Tweet
• 93.6% of users have less than 100 followers, while 92.4% follow less than 100 people
• 5% of Twitter users account for 75% of all activity
• New York has the most Twitters users, followed by Los Angeles, Toronto, San Francisco and Boston; while Detroit was the fast-growing city over the first five months of 2009
• More than 50% of all updates are published using tools, mobile and Web-based, other than Twitter.com. TweetDeck is the most popular non-Twitter.com tool with 19.7% market share.
• There are more women on Twitter (53%) than men (47%)
• Of the people who identify themselves as marketers, 15% follow more than 2,000 people. This compares with 0.29% of overall Twitter users who follow more than 2,000 people.

For the full report click here

Viper Blogs for Cambridge Marketing College

Not content with blogging for Viper, Neil Wilkins is now also blogging as a Lead Tutor for Cambridge Marketing College on their new Tutor Blog page.

Covering a whole host of marketing and digital communication subjects Neil will be taking current news and giving a Viper-spin to it. Sometimes just observation and sometimes a little more controversial it's a place to catch up on all things marketing and communications.

Recent posts include comment on why Nivea's recent advertising ban might have come about, good examples of social mash-ups on the web and the fact that large companies can learn a lot from small companies in times of recession.

Viper Rural

Creative, informed, relevant and essential - just some of the headings in the latest Viper Rural newsletter

The Future of Countryside Interpretation?

Point the camera on your smart phone at a round barrow, rock, nature reserve, woodland or any physical object in the countryside and floating on the screen is your interpretation. This is augmented reality and it will change the way we look at the countryside. Up until now digital interpretation relied on an awkward mix of software and hardware that never quite worked. The development of smart phones like the iPhone has enabled the software and hardware to come together; simplexity. Heads up display reveal what you're looking at, pan your phone around and the information changes to your new view. A whole raft of information and interpretation can now be accessed by people on their terms. If they want to explore an uncluttered landscape they simply turn their phone off. No more interpretation panels? Have a look for yourself at http://mashable.com/2009/08/19/augmented-reality-apps/

UK Search for 'AONB' is down

Using Google Insights data the trend for searching for the term AONB has fallen over the last 5 years compared to the relative amount of searches on Google. Curiously Devon AONB is the top search containing AONB. Find out more http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=aonb&geo=GB&cmpt=q

Summerzest

What a fantastic weekend Team Viper has enjoyed in a secret location deep in the French Alps, not just playing of course, but helping a fledgling all-inclusive Alpine activity company with their marketing and communications.

Referrals from friends of friends are often the best introduction for people like us as they offer an instant connection and warmth that means we can get to the heart of marketing and communications opportunities from the very first meeting. We needn't have worried anyway because from the first smiles and words at the airport where we were collected by our hosts Jen and Olivia, we knew their energy and ideas would inspire us into action.

The company, Summerzest was created by Jen Yates to provide a unique alpine experience including luxury chalet accommodation, exquisitely prepared local food and an all-inclusive outdoor activity programme catering for everyone from families to triathlon clubs in altitude training. Having experienced a small sample of Summerzest for ourselves we set about working with them through our communication planning process, our step by step guide to developing customer focused and cost effective marketing that talks directly to specifically defined new clientele.

By the end of the weekend we had not only had our fill of exciting mountain biking, walking and excellent cuisine but had unlocked many secrets in an as yet undiscovered alpine valley that is sure to become a target on the mountain biking, climbing and walking hit list for summer holidays in the French Alps.

Viper's Communication Planning Process really was 'in action'

Viper Autumn Training Courses

This Autumn we have the broadest range of day courses and residential training yet.

02/09 >> Introduction to Marketing - webinar

10/09 >> Digital Marketing & Media

15/09 >> Managing Communications

17/09 >> Introduction to Marketing

23/09 >> Countryside Project Management

24/09 >> Digital PR

30/09 >> Countryside Engagement

12/10 >> Social Marketing

13/10 >> Digital Marketing & Media

15/10 >> Marketing Communications

20/10 >> Social Marketing - webinar

21/10 >> Customer Relationship Management

22/10 >> Creative Results from Design

The course details and booking forms are available at www.vipertraining.info and each course is designed specifically for certain market sectors and job types. From countryside and public sector to sales, marketing and business development there's sure to be a course to help you in your role of communicating with customers whatever type they might be, internal and external.

If you have a specific training need that you don't see in the list please do get in touch because we are able to create bespoke and in-house training sessions focused on a particular challenge you are facing. Such sessions can be 'lecture-style', seminar or workshop or facilitated team meetings. Tell us your challenge and we'll come up with a proposal to solve it.

We look forward to seeing you on one of our training sessions very soon.

Web Censorship Mash-Up

An excellent example of self-policing on the web with Harvard University website http://www.herdict.org/web/

This is a great example of a ‘mash up’ allowing web users to post potentially censored sites around the world. Trends and live status reports add to the currency and relevance of this ground breaking site.

If we are based in the UK, Europe or USA it’s very easy to forget that our web access is generally as open and freely available as anywhere in the world. Many web users are not so fortunate and reports and statistics show that it’s a political minefield of claims, counterclaims and mystery. Perhaps cover-ups, perhaps conspiracy theory, but whatever the causes the advent of true social networking and development of social technologies means that services like Herdict are likely to gain in popularity as the power of self policing on the internet expands globally.

What do you think?

Viper Leads New Digital Marketing Programme

The world of digital communications feels as if it's accelerating every year. First we had websites and email and then as bandwidth increased we saw video and online social networking through technology described as web 2.0. This all feels as though it's been here forever but if you look at the dates of some of the well established services and websites you'll see we are only talking about a decade and a half since the most basic of online marketing and communications. What is on the horizon and what will take us through the next fifteen years? Well, if you are part of the Cambridge Marketing College's Digital Marketing Programme you may well find out and position yourself at the cutting edge of the next wave of opportunity. Having said that it's not all about the technology. In fact it's quite the reverse! You shouldn't be doing all of this unless there is a clear value and benefit in doing so. Technology is a tool to achieving your goals not an end in itself and this is an important considering in the starting of any digital strategy. But more of that in the programme itself. For now, please have a look at the Digital Marketing Programme website and if you need any further information about it or how applicable it would be for you, please let us know.

Viper's Neil Wilkins will be one of the two experienced Lead Tutors on this programme.