Mark Tiddy
Website of Mark Tiddy | Musician, Christian, Youth Worker

Most people will be familiar with the catchy pop hit ‘Fireflies’ by Owl City aka Adam Young. Fireflies stuck at number one for several weeks earlier this year. Shortly after this period of time a campaign to get Delirious?’s ‘History Maker’ to number one for Easter was launched and finished at number 4 (I think).

Regular readers of this blog will know of my dislike at the whole Delirious campaign…the ethos behind the campaign was silly and the song itself is basically meaningless unless you’re a Christian or willing to go through lots of Christian jargon to grasp an understanding and more to the point we’d already had a Christian at number 1 with a song that millions of people purchased because they wanted too and not because of social networking.

Now on Monday over on the Owl City Blog (link) Adam Young posted a cover of ‘In Christ Alone’ and included the lyrics and said this about the song;

I’m twenty four years old, yet something about this song makes me bawl like a baby. The way the melodies and lyrics swirl together is so poignant and beautiful.

The thing that I love about this cover is that it’s not trying to be something it isn’t…it’s not a quirky ‘experimental’ cover (although sounds about as experimental as the Rend Collective Experiment) it is simply a cover. The reason I love the cover so much is not so much the song he chose (although lyrically it is mind blowing) but that here we have a young musician who is popular in the secular and Christian world posting a cover of a Christian song on his blog and linking it to millions of fans via Twitter and Facebook.

Let’s face it a song on the radio can pass you by but bands have some crazy fans…if Adam Young says ‘this whole Christian thing is actually worth it’ then there’s gotta be a fair few people who think about it a bit more…maybe look into it…maybe even become Christians as a result.

So hats off to Adam Young and well done for being a Christian artist willing to post something different from his usual stuff to a mixed, worldwide fan-base…let’s hope it has an impact

You can listen/download to Adam’s Cover and read the post here

To a certain extent companies have always relied on word of mouth to promote their business….especially with new brands it seems that what the general public have to say can be the making or breaking of a product or store however as long as your majority were happy you could probably afford to upset a few.

In turn up until a few years ago the internet was very much static…you could make a website and get it hosted but the last few years have empowered millions of people to instant, search-able web publication and whereas at one point in time only the dedicated geek could make a ‘hate page’ for his least favourite brand pretty much anyone can easily vent a view point on a company instantly.

Take, for example my twitter account…I have 134 followers…my tweets update my Facebook on which I have 402 “friends”…if we allow some duplication that allows around 450 people who have the opportunity to read my views…not even taking into account those who read the twitter feed on my blog, iLike page, Reverb Nation page and various others.

So, when searching for some tasty Divine chocolate a few weeks back in ASDA and unable to find it I hit twitter to express my sadness to which the ASDA Service Team (a dedicated group of ASDA tweeters) got back to me to inform me that it was no longer stocked because it just didn’t sell. More and more companies are realising that social networking can have a big impact on their business!

Back in August I locked horns with Argos …our sofas which we’d had for 10 months had developed a problem whereby the zip on the back cushion (which was stapled down) had broke…Argos sent out a HomeServe upholsterer who (having phoned the wrong number twice) turned up on our doorstep…looked at the sofa and told me that he could stitch it up or get a new cover…I asked for a new cover…he told me I’d hear within 10 days and he left!

10 days later I phoned up Argos only to find that he had told them that it was accidental damage and I’d refused (which I hadn’t) to have it stitched up…I argued with Argos…spoke to managers and eventually wrote a letter all of which resulted in them saying ‘well the upholsterer’s report says it’s accidental damage so tough luck!

So I tweeted ‘Argos have the worst customer services ever’ (or words to that effect) and within 10 minutes Argos tweeted back…asked for my order number and said they’d get back to me.

In the meantime I continued to pester Argos and to cut a long story short we get new sofa’s tomorrow!

The fact is that companies can no longer afford to ignore customers because without even opening their mouths customer’s have access to hundreds of people who will glance at (and maybe even take in) a short sentence describing a company.

So tweet, facebook and myspace your frustrations away! It might just make a difference…it will certainly attract attention and see what happens!

(In other news turns out that Costa ignore e-mails…my 2nd send of my e-mail still has no response…good old snail mail next I think)