It's easy to get sucked up into a vortex of commenting on the comments that first commented on yours. When you see, and receive, original content, it's such a relief from the majority of attention-grabbing posts.

The key is, of course, to keep your lists of follows, friends and groups trimmed to what you are really interested in and to the talented few who set the agenda in your interest areas.

For the time being, let's have a laugh at our own expense!

Here's a tip from Tom Hackforth, who runs a CV writing business.

If you want to make your LinkedIn Profile Website Links more friendly, rather than the links being visibly named 'My Website' and 'My Blog', go to

>Edit My Profile, then go to...

>My Websites,

...then use the pulldown menu to indicate 'Other' in each of the three optional lines. This reveals two fields, one for the name of the website/blog and one for the URL.

You can then call your company's website 'XYZ Limited' rather than the more prosaic 'My Company'.

Neat and much more user-friendly!

Met Tim Langley at The Art of Tea in Didsbury, Manchester...great venue with free WiFi.

I enjoyed monitoring Twitter #bbcqt, as well as the texts on the red button, while watching this rather awkward and poorly-chaired edition of QT last night.

Dimbleby chose questions which did not reflect the important current concerns of a postal strike, an unclear military and political strategy in Afghanistan, a serious debate on the structure of the banking sector or child protection in Cornwall. Instead, we had to concentrate on what Nick Griffin did or didn't say, his views on Islam and what he considered the 'native' UK population.

I believe this excerpt from Gary Younge's article in The Guardian, written before QT, expresses the situation succinctly:

"There has always been more to the BNP than racism and always been more to racism than the BNP, which is merely the most vile electoral expression of our degraded racial discourse and political sclerosis. Under such circumstances, setting Straw -- and the rest of the political class -- against Griffin is simply putting the cause against the symptom without any suggestion of an antidote."

Basically, New Labour's feeble attempts to articulate an immigration policy has created the BNP's strength. The BNP is a bottom feeder but the whole immigration system is rotting from the head down.

This time, in Cordoba, we watched a slightly touristy programme at Tablao Flamenco Cardenal but performed by internationally-acclaimed flamenco artists, including Antonio Alcazar and Victoria Palacios.

On a warm night with (thankfully) low humidity and copious drinks, we watched the performance, a mix of sensuousness, aggression and delicate artistry, driven on by the rhythm of the guitars and the improvised vocal accompaniment.

Like bullfighting, flamenco is so representative of Andalucia and yet both only developed in the 19th century. It has mainly gypsy origins in the Cadiz and Sevilla area but includes elements of many cultures. The nearest comparison, for me, is probably Cossack music and dancing.

The four basic components -- el cante (song), el toque (flamenco guitar), el baile (dance) and el jaleo (a mix of percussive shouts, clicked fingers, clapping, stamping and castanets) -- combine to create an unmatchable performance of vigour, rhythm, elegance and sensuality. The costumes are gorgeous and the womens' coiffed hair and decorative flowers make the spectacle overwhelming.

   

Click here to download:

More_on_Andalucia.zip (672 KB)

This is testing the Posterous email capability and also posting a pic of where we stayed in Andalucia. We booked three nights with Amanda Hamilton in her Iznájar-based B&B, Casa La Celada.

Actually, La Celada itself is one of Iznájar's aldeas, surrounding sub-villages. Iznájar is not far south of the Parque Natural Sierra Subbéticas and close to a vast reservoir with the same name.

We were at 1,700 feet above sea level and caught three days of warm sunshine and clear skies, even though autumn rains can break in October.

   

Click here to download:

Test_post_from_email_and_Andal.zip (1110 KB)

Over 2,000,000 Britons fly to Malaga every year so our arrival, last week, from Manchester joined a well-worn route. Golfers, sun-worshippers (and skin cancer lovers), families and retired couples are attracted to the conventional delights of Marbella, Torremolinos and other coastal resorts. The natives speak English, the sun is offset by coastal breezes and it is a cosy, tourist industry relationship.

Venture away from the coast and into Andalucía ocultos and a different Spain is revealed. The mountains are rugged, the roads sparsely populated and the Spanish less likely to meet tourists. I'll write some short entries, with pictures, over the next few days to illustrate what we learned from our Andalucian minibreak, seasoned by a day trip to Córdoba and the experience of our English landlady.

So much rubbish is talked about Social Media Marketing Strategy. Most online commentators discuss tactics disguised as "strategy" -- choosing one platform over another, how to 'engage' with audiences, tone of voice and content, blogging and publishing.

Strategy is at a much higher level. It is part of a total marketing communications approach and whether to use social media marketing at all. Strategy is rooted in an organisation's marketing aims and how much resource needs to be deflected from more conventional off and online activity into Social Media Marketing.

Research is been undertaken into calculating the effect of peer-to-peer influence in online networks but, while the boffins deliberate, Social Media Marketing Strategy is based on first listening to the buzz and sentiment about a brand or organisation and then, based on the results from the array of listening tools available, using fairly old-fashioned analysis.

Buzz monitoring tells you where, what and with what flavour. Finding an organisation's social media voice is based on a rational reaction to the findings. Activity tables can be built detailing tactics, platforms and forecast outputs. Measurement tools can be put in place with regular buzz and sentiment monitoring for periodic analysis.

A baseline of activity should be built so that 'big ideas' -- applications, podcasts or competitions -- can be overlaid on more routine activity. A regular publishing platform is necessary, one that can be used by marketing staff. This almost certainly means a WordPress-based blog, although the technology is less important than the principle.

Time and spend can then be compared against SEO, PPC and email marketing, although these disciplines may well be part of an integrated online strategy. It helps to have a time-measurement tool (like Basecamp) so that activity as well as money can be analysed. A sophisticated website analytical tool will also help.

It is clear for B2C brands that it is not so much if as how much. For B2B markets, there is less of a clear case.