Des Walsh

Des Walsh

Des Walsh dot Com
Des Walsh is a social media strategist, business coach, author and international speaker. He is passionate about sharing his understanding of the benefits of social media in a way that makes good sense for business.
  • 0 comments 376 reads
    Posted on 2012-01-16

    Flags designating surf swimming area, Rainbow Bay, Qld, AustraliaWhen I accepted the invitation to keynote the Hillross Annual Conference 2012 in Canberra, Australia, focusing on practical strategies for social media, I was pretty sure that one of my main challenges would be finding examples of successful engagement via social media by financial advisers.

    Part of the problem is that financial advisers operate in a highly regulated environment and have a justifiable concern that engaging with clients and the general public via social media might bring problems in terms of reputational risk or even put their whole business at risk.

    My presentation is in the national capital, Canberra,...

  • 0 comments 501 reads
    Posted on 2011-12-11
    Georges Clemenceau, sometime Prime Minister of France

    Georges Clemenceau

    I make no claim to be good, let alone excellent, at blog design or the more general field of web design. And I have great respect for good and great designers.

    But what I know is that, as a business owner, the design of my blog or other web site is my responsibility and not one to be passed completely on to others, no matter how brilliant the designers and no matter how many prize-winning sites they have to boast of.

    To borrow from the great French statesman, Georges Clemenceau, who is said to have remarked that war is too important to be left to generals, web design is...

  • 0 comments 373 reads
    Posted on 2011-12-06

    Coaches and trainers need to recognize that not everyone will respond positively to the prospect of change and some will resist.

    “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” is a well worn phrase. And useful in its place.

    But there are times when, even though something might not be broken, it might have passed its “use by” date, so to speak.

    Milking a cow the old fashioned wayMilking cows by hand, for example. Coming from a long line of dairy farmers, I can imagine some farmers resisting for a long time the introduction of milking machines, even though they had been around since the 19th century.

    Never mind that they were demonstrably more efficient than the back-straining drudgery of two hand milkings a day.

    Not everyone loves change or jumps at the chance of changing the way things are done.

    In my...

  • 2 comments 651 reads
    Posted on 2011-10-18

    I keep telling myself I won’t do it again, but there I was yesterday, having another fundamentally frustrating conversation about social media with a Baby Boomer business owner who did not really want to listen.

    It started with his making a polite enquiry about what I “did” by way of business and – once I had answered – it quickly moved to his expressing what seemed to be a quite visceral hatred of anything going by the name of social media or social networking.

    At least this one didn’t complete his tirade by turning on his heel and storming away, as I had experienced at a business networking event not so long ago. In fact, the one yesterday seemed to want to keep talking.

    But what had brought on the tirade? Well, Facebook featured in both of those conversations. Or rather, the protagonists’ views of Facebook. Yesterday it was about the harm perceived as being done to the younger generation through being on Facebook. For the other it was the disruption of his...

  • 0 comments 1,178 reads
    Posted on 2011-09-19

    Lately I’ve been wondering just how much or how little I should be talking, with clients and with groups I present to, about the still relatively new but in many ways quite fascinating service, Google Plus.

    Google+
    The company calls this the Google+ Project and explains it as “real life sharing, re-thought for the web”.

    Ambitious concept.

    Right now, I’m pretty sure my real life sharing works more simply and more effectively than my attempts on Google+ to share and join in other peoples’s sharing.

    But it’s early days and many people are trying to figure out whether this is truly the Next Big Thing, or another great idea by Google that never got sufficient traction to become a serious...

  • 0 comments 548 reads
    Posted on 2011-09-13

    Speaking to groups in my part of the world over recent months I have found there are a lot of business professionals who know about LinkedIn and may even have a profile of sorts there but are not convinced that LinkedIn represents any real business opportunity for them. Some are quite sceptical, even dismissive about the idea.

    While I certainly don’t share their negative or sceptical attitudes, I think I understand. It’s fair to say Facebook, Twitter and maybe even the new one on the block, Google Plus, are more fun and more interactive. On the other hand, LinkedIn has a lot to offer – such as the averages in income, educational and decision-making levels of its members compared to the averages for other networks.

    And the fact that it is still in its fundamental structure and mode of operation a trust network means that for those who use it well it can be a very powerful way of building business.

    But what about locally, if you don’t live in the USA or in a big...

  • 0 comments 1,211 reads
    Posted on 2011-08-27

    Whether it’s the long established (1759) mega brewer Guinness with its worldwide celebrations of Arthur’s Day (for founder Arthur Guinness) and fan page attracting over 276 thousand “likes” or the much younger (est. 1991), much smaller New Belgium Brewery of Fort Collins CO with – at this writing – a very competitive 191,167 “likes”, it’s clear that brewers large and small are embracing social media with gusto.

    ...

  • 0 comments 544 reads
    Posted on 2011-08-17

    One of the most important factors in developing a social media strategy, for businesses large and small, is culture. It is also one of the factors most easily overlooked.

    So to make sure it’s not overlooked in my free, 12 month Social Media Webinars 2011 series, I’m making business culture and social media the focus of the August webinar, next week.

    Today I’ve been doing some mind maps and jotting down notes on the subject and in the process realizing it is a big enough topic to occupy quite a few webinar sessions. What follows here is a synopsis of my current thinking on the topic.

    It’s often the case that more attention is paid to questions of which social media platforms – Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Plus and so on – to use and how, when in fact the subject of culture should be given much more...

  • 0 comments 686 reads
    Posted on 2011-08-08

    I noticed today that at 951 the number of my direct connections on the professional networking platform LinkedIn is seriously nudging 1,000 and the total network, including second and third level connnections, has more or less overnight topped 15 million.

    A bit of a milestone that 15 million, so I thought I should not let the moment pass unremarked.

    Des Walsh's LinkedIn network at August 8, 2011

    But does that number make me a better person?

    Or more successful in business?

    Hardly.

    At the most basic level all it does is illustrate how a relatively small number of direct connections on Linked can translate into a very large network.

    And...

  • 2 comments 1,703 reads
    Posted on 2011-05-06

    Background on Empire Avenue, the Social Media Exchange

    In the first post in this two part series, I outlined my initial experience of the new social media phenomenon, Empire Avenue, the Social Media Exchange and promised this follow-up post with some fruits of my rather quick tour of related blog posts and discussions.

    By the way, I’ve been on Empire Avenue for less than a week and so far my stock is rising, so I think I’m doing something right.

    Des Walsh profile on Empire Avenue, the Social ExchangeSome shortcuts for your own Empire Avenue research

    As I trawled for information and opinions on Empire Avenue (EA), I found...