PlinthiPaul blog

The next challenge, now the web site is at least up and running, is to spread the word as far and as wide as possible to solicit ideas. Another great thing about the internet is how it can potentially enable ordinary people sitting in their front rooms to spread information around with a broadness and immediacy we could only have dreamt of a decade or two ago.

The difficulty is in working out how to tread the fine line between successfully spreading the word and getting people interested, and merely annoying everyone and putting them off the whole thing by basically being a spammer.

I don’t claim any great expertise in online marketing, but I am a heavy user of the internet and its various communications channels, so I do know what’s more likely to appeal to me and what’s more likely to turn me off, which I suppose is a better start than nothing.

So, with all that in mind, what have I been doing to publicise PlinthiPaul.co.uk? Here’s a selection:

• Twitter. The #oneandother hashtag is used frequently throughout the day by people interested in discussing the happenings on the plinth, including myself, so I’ve used my PlinthiPaul Twitter account to promote the site. I don’t intend to mention it more than about once a day (and only when I have something vaguely interesting to say about it like the number of experiments submitted so far or similar), though, or it could annoy more people than it attracts. Twitter also has the advantage of it being easy to spread messages by ‘retweeting’ others’ messages, as I may be demonstrating on the plinth if this experiment goes ahead! PlinthiPaul has had a few retweets already.

• Facebook. As soon as I found out I was on the plinth I created a Facebook event and invited most of my Facebook friends. Unfortunately that pre-dated the ‘PlinthiPaul’ name and can’t be changed, but it’s a useful way to keep people I know in the loop about what’s going on and encourage them to participate. I sent all the invitees a message yesterday directing them to the web site and some have registered and sent in some ideas already, so that’s good news. I also posted a link to this site to my profile to spread the word wider still. Such links are easily shared with other friends so that could yet spread further too.

• Web. Aside from the fact that this site exists, there are a few other places I’m able to promote the site online. I have another blog which I’ll probably link to this site from, and I’ve also updated my profile on the One & Other web site to link here, and added a link to the ‘My story’ part of the profile. I’ve no idea how many people idly browse forthcoming plinthers’ profiles, but I might as well try to grab their interest too!

• E-mail. We plinthers are given a contact e-mail address for the One & Other organisers, for use for queries etc. When they called me a few weeks ago they were interested in what I would be doing while I was up there – perhaps, I thought, sniffing around for interesting media-friendly stories they could follow up further, or cover on the weekly Sky Arts 1/HD TV show. Back then I didn’t know what I was doing so they left disappointed, but now the site’s up and running and I’m clear what’s happening, I thought I should drop them an e-mail, so I did so earlier today. Whether you’ll now see me on Sky Arts is another matter, though…

• Old media. Local newspapers are always on the lookout for a quirky tale of a local resident, right? So my next e-mail will be to a local freesheet or two…

With that lot in hand, and one or two other ideas up my sleeve, is there anything else left I could do? Please comment below if you think of anything! One possibility, though – suggested by PlinthiPaul.co.uk’s development guru Ben – is for a PlinthiPaul meet-up in London in the next week or so, at which we can talk through ideas and, using a laptop and wi-fi, get people registering, submitting and voting on experiments there and then. I’m thinking perhaps the Royal Festival Hall, as somewhere suitably arty with comfy seats, a bar and free wi-fi – and it’s within walking distance of the plinth, which is always a bonus. What do you reckon? Would you come along?

Now, back to those e-mails. They won’t write themselves.

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