Lucy's London Marathon

Two years ago I stood in the shade of Big Ben and watched my sister reach 26 miles in the London Marathon. The look of determination I saw on her face to get to the finish line gave me a bizarre inspiration to set the goal of running it myself.

On Sunday I’ll be lining up at the start of the London Marathon and what a journey it has been to get there.

No matter how big or small, crazy or mundane, everyone has goals they want to achieve in life, and we need a plan to get there.

When I set out training I spoke to people who had run marathons before to draw on their knowledge. I listened to what had and hadn’t worked for them before writing my own plan to reach the start line.

I’ve had to tweak the plan along the way. Some days I didn’t want to run at all or wanted to run a shorter distance than was on my plan. It wasn’t the end of the world when this happened.

The most important part of a plan is having the right people around you so when you derail slightly you know how to get back on track.

For me the support I have needed has come from a great physio to make sure I’m healthy, experienced runners to give me advice and supportive friends and family who keep me motivated.

Most importantly, day-in-day-out I have had the TBG team around me. Luckily they’re used to supporting and advising people to reach their goals, whether it’s launching a rebrand, handling a media crisis or producing an annual report – nothing fazes them (not even my whinging)!

I don’t know how I’m going to feel when I reach Big Ben on Sunday. But, I can go into the race with the peace of mind knowing I have listened to advice, taken it on board and made sure my plan was right to reach my goal. All I need to do now is cross the finish line!

Lucy

Follow me on Twitter: tbglucy

Battle for the billions

So it turns out things are working out pretty sublime for advertising online. According to a recent survey by the IAB (that’s the Internet Advertising Bureau to you and me), the revenue from internet advertising has really booted-up, and now tops the £4bn mark. No prizes for guessing where the biggest rise has been? Yep, social media. Specifically, it’s display advertising on social networks that has really popped-up with Facebook in particular working hard to get advertisers onside.

With a whopping 25 per cent of our time online spent on said networks, the ability of sites to target ads specifically based on the detailed account info and the ‘like’ feature encouraging users to recommend products, service and brands to friends, it’s no great surprise that advertisers are spotting the potential.

And that’s not it for Facebook. In a survey carried out last year by Online Marketing Connect, 55 per cent of companies said that Facebook was “improving brand awareness and reputation”. It’s no wonder small and medium sized enterprises are following the big brands and working hard to create their online presence. Check out the free guides we have created to help guide best practice in social media.

But the scrap to become social king doesn’t stop there. Yesterday Google launched it’s much hyped ‘+1’ feature, which should see things heat up pitting Google against Facebook in the race for share of that £4bn. Google +1 works much like Facebook ‘likes’, allowing users to see in Google search results where friends have recommended a given product or service. Plus to use the +1 feature searchers must first be signed in to their Google account, giving Google access to the same level of detailed personal information as Facebook gets.

So Facebook may have won this battle for the billons. But watch this (web) space for who might win the war...