So Borders has gone into administration and I can’t really say I’m surprised. What I am surprised about is how it didn’t happen sooner.

I really liked Borders, and the fact that they sold so many obscure Graffiti and Hip Hop magazines. I liked the chunky hardback graphic design books and I liked sitting in their chairs and reading them all.

What I don’t like is buying things from them – I like buying them for half the price from Amazon and having them delivered the next day, to my house, for practically nothing.

This is exactly the problem that a lot of retail is going to face in the coming years. As nice as it is to have a shop where people go and spend an afternoon, drink a cup of coffee and relax, at the end of the day it is a shop, not a free creche for book geeks.

It isn’t just a book thing either, it applies to a lot of retail. If you think about it, what do we really need to buy from shops any more? All I really buy from shops still is food but most of my friends buy that online. I like going into shops and seeing all the products and trying things on, but I very rarely buy anything from them because I know I can get whatever it is cheaper online. And if everyone starts to think like this, then retail is really going to struggle. Within the next few years pretty much everyone is going to have a smart phone, and that will let them check online prices while they are in the shop.

It isn’t going to happen overnight; there are still plenty of customers who buy solely from shop shops. My stepmum for instance refuses to buy anything online because she is convinced someone is going to steal her identity (she also won’t let me transfer money into her bank online.) Attitudes like this are getting less common, and as the older population gets more and more tech savvy, shops are going to find it difficult to sustain themselves.

The really big guys will more than likely be fine, and the smaller independent shops will be too, but I think there is going to be a massive section of the middle of the market that is just going to disappear. They don’t have the extensive product lines of the Topshops, they can’t compete on price against the Primarks, and they don’t have the customer service of the John Lewises. They can’t offer the individuality or friendship of independent, smaller stores, and this is what’s going to make them fade into non existence.

If they are going to compete, they need to do so another way. They need to innovate and come up with something that helps the customer. If you can’t compete on price online, then offer them other online features that are useful. Understand the audience, engage with them and ask them how they can make offline shopping work better for them.

Here are Qube’s favourite tweets from the last week.

@Glennw’s favourite tweets

@halbpro: Very cool discussion on use of language in links http://is.gd/54xsa (via @monkchips)

@jezlloyd: The cutest thing EVER. Here Kitty Kitty: http://www.youtube.com/watc…

@richardhenry: The essential guide to speaking Italian. http://bit.ly/4oPmXc

@charltonbrooker: ……….have a look at http://bit.ly/3W62vw then wander over to http://bit.ly/ZqQvz and see what you feel like doing.

@Nijay’s favourite tweets

@dstradewell You have to see this. It’s the funniest email exchange with a client I have seen….*ever!* http://bit.ly/6yDXfi

@martynreding: 60% people have chosen not to buy or use a product/ service after reading negative comments online http://bit.ly/77ShCe

@colossalblue: It’s 150 years to the day since Darwin began the process of enlightening the world. We should really celebrate that more.

@MrTomasz’s favourite tweets

@abigvictory Since I unsubscribed from everything, I get no email. Didn’t realize those newsletters were all that stood between me and loneliness.

@euzie So did the rise of Pixar tie up with the demise of classic Disney? it seems the handover was Aladdin to Toy Story….

@JonnyB Dear Alcoholics Anonymous. If you send me emails by mistake, including photos of your members, it makes them less anonymous.

5 of the best

Writer Evan Ratliff Tried to Vanish: Here’s What Happened

This is a really amazing story. Have you ever thought about how secure your life is online and how much people can learn about you? It’s a bit of a read but well worth the time!

Twitter: Small Games for Simple Purposes

Some interesting and outside the box thinking on how you can use Twitter.

Ikea invents Facebook tag marketing

I’m not sure if Ikea really invented tagging people in pictures that aren’t them, but this is the first commercial use I have seen of it. What do you think, clever marketing or spammy idea?

Crowdsourcing Business Documents

How do you collaborate with your clients to deliver exactly what they want?

Social Media Needs To Become a Team Sport

I think too often emphasis is placed on one person running or controlling all of a companies social media. Just like you wouldn’t have a call centre with one member of staff maybe it is time to start thinking about the real resources good social media needs.

5 of the rest

Cutthroat Capitalism: The Game

Do you have what it takes to be a pirate in this day and age? Tom made $12m profit as a Somalian pirate on a lunch break…I challenge you to beat it!

What is Google Chrome OS? (Explained by Google)

Personally I am not sold on Chrome OS yet, however I do love the videos Google makes.

Here are Qube’s favourite tweets from the last week.

@Glennw’s favourite tweets

@Kerb: The Gap’s agency is completely on bland with this toe-curling vanilla #viral campaign http://bit.ly/2OSe7E (threw up in my mouth)

@gazo69: Jenson and Hamilton team mates http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport… FANTASTIC

@misterwallace: I suppose what I love most about Trisha, is that we can all relate to the problems discussed. http://yf

@Nijay’s favourite tweets

@carlhodler: Great Facebook campaign from IKEA – if a bit naughty, encourages users to wrongly tag pics. http://bit.ly/3c4kTY

@brightonargus: Has The Sun swung it for Mr Brown? http://bit.ly/316OFR

@kaysexton Dear BBC Radio 4 website, it is an historic week not a historic one. Got that? Good grief.

@MrTomasz’s favourite tweets

@sophiehenson: excited about my crayon allowance. CRAYON ALLOWANCE???!!! brilliant. you are the man @mrtomasz

@FionaJane’s favourite tweets

@nijay @fionajane you’ll like this…http://bit.ly/2JvcL2 (via @andyheadworth)

5 of the best

3 Social Media Lessons From the Restaurant World

Some good advice for restauranteurs on how to make the most of Social Media.

250,000 strong Facebook group finds owner of lost camera

The power of online social networks. A great example of how powerful a tool Social Media can be. While impressive this could have all been avoided by just putting your address on the memory card

Social Media is not your marketing strategy

Using social media and taking part is a whole new way of running your business and shouldn’t just be defined by your marketing team and advertising budgets.

The 7 Harsh Realities of Social Media Marketing

So much truth! There are no shortcuts in Social Media.

Tweetlevel

A great tool for establishing who the influencers are on twitter…it is also really useful for trying to one up your friends and colleagues.

5 of the rest

Diary: Malcolm Gladwell

This made me giggle

Scamville: The Social Gaming Ecosystem Of Hell

This story has been causing a bit of an online stir over the last few weeks. Some really shady abuse of a social network.

Here’s how the web will look in five years according to Google

Interesting thoughts and if anyone knows what is going down online it’s Google! Just think 5 years ago most of us weren’t using Youtube or Facebook…and twitter didn’t exist! Think how much they have transformed how you use your computer and prepare for that all to get turned upside down again.

Tom likes graffiti, he tells me there should be more stories about graffiti on our blog. I tell him “go find me some then!!” and he did. I hope that was an exciting story for you and gives you some insite into how this blog gets put together…..insite

Baby Badger

Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww gimme!

5 of the best

American Airlines fires an employee for…customer engagement

Oh dear! Another airline that isn’t making the most of its social media. Obviously we will never know the full story behind all of this but if this was the main reason this member of staff got sacked it strikes me as a little careless!

Q&A: Sienne Veit on Marks & Spencer’s social media strategy

A run down on how M&S are opening up to social media. Nice to see big brands understanding that it doesn’t matter how many fans or followers you have if you are not engaging with them. We need metrics that favour quality over quantity

Tweets from the Streets

I think we often take for granted the lives and comforts we have. It is great to see that the Internet and social media is allowing for more social good to happen in society. It has also made me think more about my attitudes towards homeless people and reading their tweets really brings it home (no pun intended).

Dan Siroker: CarrotSticks, Google Chrome, and Obama

Where does this guy find the time to do all these things! Really interesting interview especially around engaging and educating young people online.

Twitter Trending Analyses

This isn’t a mathematical equation but it is a very good observation of how things become trending topics on Twitter

5 of the rest

Amazing soda shop

In an age where selling out to big corporate is not only common place but often the business plan it is nice to see someone bucking the trend. It makes you stop and think what would we gain from having a bit more variety and independence in our lives.

How to use an apostrophe

I will be first to admit my grammar isnt isn’t always the best. This helpful guide will improve yours (or make you laugh, hopefully one of them)

Cell Size and Scale

A scalable picture that takes you all the way from a coffee bean to an atom, very cool!

Murdoch to pull newspaper content from Google

There isn’t much more to say on this other than, oh dear…what a silly old man.

A Gramophone that Plays the Earth Instead of Vinyl, and a Sonic iPhone Epidemic

You don’t need to be able to play a guitar to make some music Just get a plough!

A good news blog post…

After a successful 18 months using social media to develop a community and change driving behaviour in West Sussex, the initiative has now been widened to cover the whole of Sussex.

Needless to say, we’re chuffed our social marketing baby is growing up and spreading its wings.

A big thank you to everyone involved, especially the team at West Sussex for being a great client. I also want to say a big thank you to our in-house team of social media analysts and outreach specialists.

Now stop reading this and get on with some work.

If the only advertising you do is banner ads and PPC then how will the 84% find you? The 84% highlighted in Seth Godin’s recent blog that will not be clicking any banner advertising.

It may surprise you that I suggest social media as an alternative (ok maybe it wont), but I genuinely believe it is the best way to reach these people. The reason they are not clicking your ads is because they are bored of them or blind to them. What they want is something engaging, something interesting and probably something not shoved in their faces from YOU. You reach the 84% by making something worth talking about, something that people will want to tell their friends about. Whether it is making a great video, writing an interesting blog or running a funny twitter account do something worthwhile!

So what are you waiting for, go, now! Go make something interesting. I would say tell me what you did, but if it is interesting enough it will get to me.

Here are Qube’s favourite tweets from the last week.

@Glennw’s favourite tweets

@jen_bolton another great Halloween costume from this year, woman pixelated herself and went as “Low Resolution” http://bit.ly/41mko6

@Nijay’s favourite tweets

@euzie: Oh David Cameron. Do you not realise that the way for England to become relevant again is as part of a powerful & insynch Europe?

@Danacea *Chortle!!!* Venn Diagram of the Undead… http://tinyurl.com/yjzrshm

@Liberatelloyd Data on Twitter and Social Media Useage http://bit.ly/1wQvgl

@eggboxrobin: Wondering how I came to be on a ‘business mums’ list. Don’t recall every giving birth.

@Seelpod’s favourite tweet

@digitaloutlook Family members afraid of flying? Virgin Atlantic launches Flying Without Fear app for iPhone http://bit.ly/ULDFR ^JB

@dstradewell: Anti gay marriage ad (it’s real) – http://bit.ly/RwPM , and a funny parody – http://bit.ly/UOybt

@MrTomasz’s favourite tweets

@nonlinearDog I love playing Wii Baseball. Dad gets mad because I never swing at the ball. I just like catching it. LOVE catching it.

@abigvictory FINAL ACHEIVEMENT UNLOCKED #sadepitaph

@abigvictory I brought shaving cream and eggs to work today just in case anyone tries to dump their leftover Milk Duds and Mounds on us.

Hopefully you know what kind of communities you are looking for and the language your audience use, but how do you use this to best find the communities you want? Well there are plenty of tools out there and here are some of the most commonly used tools here in the Qube office.

Google search

Obviously Google is a good place to start! Typing in the kind of community you are looking for will get you some results but check out the filter options for a more refined search (see below). You can then see just results from forums or blogs and change how recently they were updated. This is always my first port of call and its flexibility should cover a large amount of your communities, especially those that fall outside the big social networking sites.

Twitter search

Searching Twitter is a great place to find up to the minute thoughts and feelings on a topic. Twitter has two ways of searching, Twitter search and Find People. Find people will get you names based around the terms you have searched for but the real power of Twitter is its search tool which will find everyone that has mentioned your term in the last fortnight. Remember you can refine your results with the advanced search options like below. Twitter is a great way for finding influencers around your target audience.

Facebook search

Facebook has had a recent overhaul to allow more Twitter like search results. You can filter your results into people, pages, groups and updates. Make sure you look across a range of these to find the best communities and influencers.

Social Seek

A desktop app that will search across a variety of popular social networks and blogs and pull in the results. The nice thing about this app is it will also give you charts and visualisations as well as allowing you to export the data, this can be really useful when trying to analyse a community or term.

Brandwatch

The only paid for service on this list but if you want continued and extensive community finding it is a great tool. Especially recommended for high end users just make sure you have a clear set of defined terms you want to find communities around.

Tools are just the start of any community mapping and they still require a high level of care and attention. The communities you find will only be as good as the words you put in so make sure you thoroughly semantically map your audience. A combination of these tools should get you to the majority of places your audience is talking but just incase you want to try a few more tools to really maximise your coverage here a few more: IceRocket, BlogPulse, Omgili, Delicious and Blinkx.

Let me know if you have any other preferred tools or why you use these tools in the comments