A collaboration between three Cornish companies has been praised for boosting business in the county.

St Wenn-based Barefoot Media, Nine Design from St Columb, and Redfuse Internet of Truro worked together to build two websites which both launched this week.

Above: The new Wavefinder site has already seen an increase in web traffic.

Partner to Succeed – an agency that brings businesses together to encourage growth in Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly – has now praised their work.

Director Helen Trudgeon is one of the top business brains in the county.  She said: “This is a brilliant example of Cornish businesses working together and is excellent news for the future of Cornwall.

“While this collaboration lies outside our sector, it is good that our message is spreading to the wider business community and benefitting the economy in the county.”

One company with a brand new website is Holywell Bay-based Pennasville Holidays.

For four generations The Penna family have rented out holiday cottages next to the beach at Holywell Bay. The revamped website means customers can now see what their cottage looks like before they arrive and can book their holiday online.

Jo Penna, of Pennasville Holidays, said: “Despite being less than a week old, lots of our guests have been in touch to say how much they like the new design and how easy the site is to use.”

Barefoot Media managed the website builds. Partner Jim Michell said: “Building your own website can be a long and complicated process –using a team of specialists means you can concentrate on running your own business while we take care of your website.

“It’s been quite a challenge getting both sites live in the same week, so it’s great to have such positive feedback from our clients who are already starting to see the benefits.”

Nick Rink is managing director of Wavefinder, a London-based publisher of guidebooks and technique manuals covering surfing, snowsports and mountain biking. Their new website features an online shop which can be completely controlled and updated by the client.

He said: “The website looks fantastic and we’re already seeing a marked increase in the website traffic and the amount of time our customers are spending online. We’re expecting to see a lot more sales in the future.”

To see the results of the partnership visit: http://www.wave-finder.com or http://www.pennasville.co.uk.

Together with a team of creative Cornish businesses, we’ve developed a new website for Pennasville self-catering holiday cottages at Holywell Bay in Cornwall. Working as the lead agency on the project we assembled a crack team including web developer Redfuse Internet, graphic designer Adrian Toms and Westcountry Photographers who all did a fantastic job.

Home page of the new Pennasville website

As well as project managing the process from concept to delivery, we also provided copywriting services and created the property floor plans and site plan. The website features include multi-URL strategy, search engine optimisation, social media integration with Facebook and Twitter profiles, and customer email newsletter.

The second phase of the project includes a live online reservations system which allows the client to manage bookings and availability through the website’s bespoke content management system.

With 35 million visitors a month TripAdvisor is one of the most influential travel research websites. From working with our holiday accommodation and restaurant clients in Cornwall we’ve put together five pieces of simple advice that are fundamental to improving the online presence of your business.

1.            Take control: claim your listing.

Check first to see if your business is already listed on TripAdvisor. Former owners or employers may have already done this or, if you have reopened a restaurant, it may be listed as closed. The main thing to remember is that if you didn’t set up your own listing it’s vital that you claim it so that you’re in control.

Once this is done, add as much detail as possible about your business: opening times, prices, contact details, and making sure you property is correctly located on the map are crucial. Adding photos and video of your business are helpful if you have them.

Your business may have multiple listings which should be amalgamated into one single profile. This combines all the reviews together which often results in a rise in the rankings as your restaurant or hotel stops competing with other versions of itself. Doing this for Padstow restaurant Paul Ainsworth at Number 6 produced some great results.

2.            Don’t post your own reviews.

Don’t. Just don’t. Everybody would love to be his or her own critic but posting your own review is sneaky and unauthentic – and it is normally fairly obvious to TripAdvisor users when this is occurring due to the abundance of reviewers with one solitary, glowing contribution.

If you are caught writing a review of your own business, or on behalf of your client, it will likely call into question the integrity of many of the other authentic positive reviews already received.

3.            Monitor.

Once your listing has been verified and goes live, set TripAdvisor so that you receive email notifications each time your business is reviewed.

This allows you to receive an up-to-date appraisal of the level of service you are offering the customer and gives you the opportunity to respond immediately to any crisis which may be developing or negative feedback affecting your business.

Using this monitoring tool in conjunction with Google Alerts will give you a pretty good idea of how your business is thought of online.

4.             Keep your cool

If you are on the receiving end of a negative review – keep cool. Resist the temptation to insult or criticise the reviewer, instead a speedy reply which calmly and politely addresses their criticisms while putting across your side of the story will show that you care about your customers.

A 2007 study by e-consultancy/Bazaarvoice found that “trust in online reviews was found to be at its greatest when reviewers told both sides of the story. People are looking for balanced information, and having only positive reviews could be viewed as inauthentic.”

The good news is that, on balance, most reviews are positive – for example, on TripAdvisor, the average rating is 3.74 out of 5.

5.            Encourage customer reviews

To make it easy for your happy customers to write reviews TripAdvisor has created a range of easy to install badges which link to your listing from your website.

If you routinely communicate with your customers after their visit, politely encourage them to leave a review if they enjoyed their visit. Also, if somebody leaves a good review on your facebook page or thanks you on twitter then gently encourage them to write a review.

As the number of reviews increases, you will find success breeds success. Good reviews result in your listing moving up the ranking in your area, which gets you seen by more users, which leads to more reviews, and better rankings.

If there are any points you think we have missed, or if you have put this points into practice please let us know how you get on in the comments section.

Journalism students at University College Falmouth (UCF) gained an insight into working in public relations when Barefoot Media’s Sam Lynas returned to his alma mater last week.

As a graduate of UCF’s BA (Hons) Journalism degree, Sam returned to his former university to speak to students about his experiences working in PR and passed on some tips on how they can improve their employment prospects while still studying.

The day-long series of talks and seminars was designed by course lecturers Julia Kennedy and Anne Taylor to help better prepare students for their third year of study, and to start thinking about life after university.

Anne Taylor said: “Sam was one of a trio of alumni invited to speak to students about the fields they had entered since graduating. It was a very valuable process for the students to hear about life in the world of work, and the fact that all the speakers had graduated from BA (Hons) Journalism at UCF gave students a taste of the exciting places that their degree can take them.”

Joining Sam in Falmouth were Joe Barnes, editor of Front magazine who gave a talk and workshop on how to get a job in magazines, and Katri Iivonen-Gray who spoke about her work as a journalist at local newspaper The Cornishman.

For Sam, who graduated in 2009, it was a great opportunity to pass on some of the experience he has gained since starting work in January for Barefoot Media.

He said: “It was a brilliant opportunity for me to return to the University and meet the students. In these uncertain times and with so many of my friends struggling to find work I feel extremely fortunate to have found a job in a career I wanted in Cornwall.

“Taking work experience placements in different sectors of the media gave me a significant advantage in finding a job, and also helped me to discover what kind of work I wanted to do.”

Sam’s lecture included case studies of the work he has completed on behalf of Barefoot Media’s portfolio of clients in the tourism, food and drink and events sectors, as well as some tips on how students can build an online portfolio of their writing and experience using social media.

For second year student Hannah Kirby, the visit provided some valuable insights. She said: “It was useful to hear about working in PR as being on a journalism course it is an option I’ve never really considered.”

Hannah’s classmate Simon O’Neill added: “I was always under the impression that to get a job in the media you had to be based in London so it’s reassuring to see that there are jobs available within Cornwall.”

The clear blue skies above Cornwall betrayed no sign of the clouds of ash belched from the guts of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano.

By Sunday 18th April UK airspace had been closed for four days, leaving hundreds of flights cancelled and thousands of travellers stranded overseas. With no way of predicting when flights would resume it was becoming clear that the weekend of travel chaos would have a far-reaching impact on British holidaymakers.

Lesquite Farm was one of the CFH properties to benefit from volcano refugees.

Spotting an opportunity to react to a fast-moving news story, we rang our Cornish tourism clients to see if any of them had experienced an increase in booking enquiries from “volcano refugees”, and how much capacity there still was for last minute holidays.

Within the hour we had received over a dozen responses from Cornish Farm Holidays members, all reporting an increase in enquries with several already having taken bookings. Some great human interest stories were emerging – a couple from Yorkshire, faced with the cancellation of their holiday to the Dominican Republic to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary, decided instead to come to Cornwall where they originally married. A Norfolk family declared Cornwall far superior to their intended destination of Tenerife.

Aware that when the ash cloud drifted away, so would the story, a press release was quickly drafted illustrating the boost to farm tourism and highlighting some of the great last minute deals available. Tuesday was spent fielding enquiries from regional media, and arranging interviews with farm owners and holidaymakers for BBC Radio Cornwall.

ITV Westcountry visited two Cornish Farm Holiday members to gather material for a piece in their lead story on Wednesday, providing a positive angle after the tales of traveller disruption and nightmare journeys back from overseas. The local press picked up the story too, with articles featured in the Western Morning News, West Briton, The Cornishman, The Cornish Guardian and thisisthewestcountry.co.uk

And with some experts predicting that eruptions could continue for years to come, the national travel media ran a flurry of pieces on “no fly” holidays leading to more coverage for Cornish Farm Holidays in last weekend’s The Irish Times – and more bookings for CFH members.

Facebook users with unkind avatars are being removed by Nestlé

At work recently, I’ve been dabbling a bit in social media presentations. I’m not going to pretend that I know everything there is to know or, heaven forbid, start calling myself a guru, or even worse, a social media envangelist.

I know what I like though and what I don’t, a bit like dresses on girls.

Recently, I’ve been updating a presentation I knocked up last October. Whilst back then there were PR fails in abundance (skittles affair anyone), as social media agencies improve and learn from their mistakes the PR Fail hashtag has been a little thinner on the ground.

This all went out of the window today with Nestlés handling of the palm oil controversy which has provided enough slides for my next presentation to fill an adventure playground.

This crisis centres around their facebook fanpage, specifically the handling of the content therein.

I advise clients that one of the advantage of having a facebook page is that you are in control of all publishable content; you just have to manage it properly.

Nestlé have managed theirs like David Brent in a paper merchants. Primarily the tone they’ve taken whilst dealing with their consumers. It seems they have put a plain rude, self-righteous, know it all in charge of facebook engagement. Yes it is your facebook page; yes, you do own the intellectual property rights; but facebook has 400 million users and you can’t delete all of them. Or silence them. As the people involved in the Trafigura scandal will have you know.

It reminds me of primary school playtime football rules whereby if it was your ball, you could do whatever you liked. Sometimes that may have been the case, although it made you a very unpopular 10-year-old at birthday parties.

Just look on the Nestle homepage now. More posts than a farmer’s fence extolling the virtues of abandoning Nestle products. And their response? A statement on their homesite explaining that they’re still using Sanir Mas, the palm oil supplier at the centre of the scandal, although through third party companies. They also re-iterated their commitment to “using only “Certified Sustainable Palm Oil” by 2015, when sufficient quantities should be available.”

As one user commented: “If I knock your house down but tell you it’ll be re-built in 5 years times a bit shoddier than it is now, does that make it ok?”

To end, I’ll leave it to the facebook user who said: “It’s not ok for people to use altered versions of your logos, but it’s ok for you to alter the face of Indonesian rainforests? Wow!”

Wow, indeed.

A couple of Saturdays ago the Barefoot Media team were invited by Paul Ainsworth to have dinner at his eponymous restaurant in Padstow. To say we jumped at the chance was a bit of an understatement; I spent the days leading up to the meal practically levitating.

The 18th century listed townhouse is a former B&B situated on Middle Street. Inside, it’s laid out like the board-game Cluedo, but with people dining in each room, not dying.

Dining Room at Number 6.

The four of us who, for the purpose of this review will be know as Professor Plum, Colonel Mustard, Mrs Peacock and Miss Scarlett, were embraced by the warmth and sentiment necessary on a cold March night and lead past the library and the kitchen, all with every available seat taken, before being shown to our table in the dining room.

The decoration, mirroring the food, is humble but with a modern twist. Original Georgian features such as the fireplace remain, but are surrounded by chic wallpapered walls and enhanced by plenty of low-lit candles and ambient, chilled out jazz.

Soon, the wait was over and pre-starter Paul sent out for us a delicate shot glass-full of white onion soup (blended in a mixer so powerful it can turn avocado stones to pulp in seconds). Thin in consistency, creamy when first tasted, then expansive in both volume and flavour as it washed over the tongue. A pure delight; like supping on liquid silk.

Soon after, my starter of Loch Duart salmon scotch eggs with coronation sauce arrived. I’d had previous experience of scotch-egg-fusion-cooking when as a hungover student I’d been too poor to purchase a bacon and egg bap and instead tried to recreate its healing prowess by placing a sliced up scotch egg between two slices of bread.

Image: Barefoot Media

Whilst my re-hash of a scotch egg hadn’t worked out, Paul’s attempt was incredible. Three halves of warm, runny quail egg, wrapped in coarsely chopped smoked salmon and lightly coated in a fine breadcrumb. Improved by the sauce, they disappeared in less than ten seconds apiece and were yet a perfectly adequate portion.

"Peacock was astounded by the quality of her starter. Mustard tried some. Mustard felt instant food envy." Image: Barefoot Media.

Around the table Colonel Mustard and Miss Scarlett tucked in to the scallops – dived by their friend Dave Thomasson of Falmouth – and served with Charles Macleod black pudding and carrot (not a normal carrot, some sort of potioned carrot), whilst Peacock enjoyed the special of ham and foie grois terrine with pineapple served with toast.

Scarlett decried that the black pudding was rich and crumbly. Peacock was astounded by the quality of her starter. Mustard tried some. Mustard felt instant food envy.

With restaurants I like to eat something I don’t have the skill, desire or time to make at home without having that fact figuratively rammed down my throat. Hence, I ordered the Ox tongue n’cheek

Not the most popular of cuts but this doesn’t matter to Paul. He believes that you don’t need to slap a lobster on the menu for the restaurant to be considered fine dining. His ethos is to serve the humble, honest ingredients using a Cornish or British twist, and employing modern techniques. As such, you’ll find eel, ox’cheek and kidneys on the menu, albeit painstakingly prepared in two day marinades or cooked in a water bath for 36 hours at 64 degree c.

Price-wise Paul believes that his food should be available to all. Meaning nothing on the menu over £17, and resulting in 75 covers on an out of season evening and almost unheard of outside of the Michelin-starred establishments.

Ox cheek ‘n’ tongue, lyonaisse, carrot ‘n’ swede were listed simply as that, letting your own mind imagine as to how they can be produced and adding to the fun.
And boy, when they arrived, they tasted good. Like The Beatles, individually they were brilliant, but and when combined together they enhanced each other and the results, like the music, bordered on genius.

Even the often-criticised ‘Ringo’ ingredient, in this case, mashed potato, came in a minute, cute copper pan. And like Ringo himself, was a necessary, if underrated addition.

"White as the moon; fresh as the winter surf and flakey as Lady Gaga." Image: Barefoot Media.

Miss Scarlett, meanwhile, plumped for the day boat cod, cockles, chorizo and chickpeas. The cod was white as the moon; fresh as the winter surf and flakey as Lady Gaga. And Mustard and Peacock loved the combo of halibut and smoked eel that was wilfully aided and abetted by shallots and green beans.

Mustard and Peacock ordered it for the halibut. Sigh. Image: Barefoot Media

Onto puddings (don’t sound so surprised) and Mr Ainsworth had eased the decision of which pud to choose by beautifully arranging a taste of each on a long plate. A very long plate.

Spurred on by the waiters – who spent the evening floating around beautifully as if on segways  - we ordered two of the selections, greedy little blighters that we are: the waistbands could regret the decision later, tonight the taste-buds were out on the town.

Six of the best.

When they arrived I nearly gave a round of applause. There was an espresso coffee brülée complete with popping candy (cue Scarlett in fits of giggles); rhubarb cheese cake topped with chocolate; a selection of cherry sorbet; cheeky pears; stick-men style donuts; white chocolate panna-cotta; banana, pistachios ‘n’ peanuts that tasted like a mars bar had got into a fight with a banoffee pie; and my personal favourite, the hot chocolate muffin complete with a quite incredible ooze. Heaven.

"Ooze for seconds?" Image: Barefoot Media

At close to midnight we departed the warm atmosphere of Number 6 with smiles as broad as our bellies. And the culprit? It was Reverend Ainsworth in the kitchen with the blender (amongst others).

My first job as a reporter on the UK’s longest-running surfing magazine saw me undertake some pretty tough assignments. As the most junior member of staff, it was inevitable that I would get sent on the jobs nobody else wanted, so my early interview technique was set to develop on a series of aspiring pro surfers who would clearly rather have been spending time in the sea than waiting for me to reel through a list of questions. I would rather have been surfing too, but it was up to me to coax from their uncooperative mouths a sentence that could one day be printed, and repeat this process enough times to hit the magic figure of 500 words.

So when it came to sit down with Justin Lee Collins to conduct an interview for Another Place, the annual magazine produced by The Hotel & Extreme Academy at Watergate Bay, none of my previous experience was any use at all. Verbose doesn’t come close – the man was a dream in front of the microphone. Here’s what he said . . .

Good times at Watergate Bay: JLC gets spiritual
He has interviewed A-listers, wrestled Mexicans and dressed up as Chewbacca, but taming the Cornish surf in a Sky1 documentary proved to be the toughest challenge yet for Justin Lee Collins. Another Place caught up with the hairy Bristolian between waves.

How have you found the experience of learning to surf?
It’s been great. I’ve attempted to surf on my own several times in the past and never been able to do it, but I’ve always loved the idea of it. I think it suits me and I feel at home here in Cornwall, Watergate Bay in particular. I’m a West Country boy, I still live in Bristol, and this is my pace of life, it’s how I like life to be. So everything about surfing appeals, the lifestyle appeals on a spiritual level. Everything about it apart from the actual business itself of surfing, which I can’t do.

You’ve been set the fairly ambitious target of entering a top-level surfing competition for the TV show – do you think that’s possible?
I’m very much an amateur. I’m under no illusions, it’s incredibly difficult and if you have ever tried to surf or had a surfing lesson then you know how difficult it is. So I don’t think I’m going to be walking the board or hanging ten at the end of this journey. But I’m looking for a long ride – that would be wonderful.

So have you got the surfing bug?
I love the beach. I’m a beach bum and I can sit here all day on this beautiful bay just watching waves crashing in, but now I’ve started to look at the ocean in a completely different way. And I’m sat here thinking, would I have gone for that wave? Would I wait? Would I let that one pass? It’s really weird. And then you see the guys who are out there and they just sit out there for 20 minutes, half an hour, just waiting for the right wave.

Is it something you can see yourself carrying on after you finish filming the show?
I think so. This is a very different journey to the other films that we’re making. I think this one could be more personal – this is what I love so it relates to getting away from the hectic pace of life that I’ve grown accustomed to. It’s perhaps more of a spiritual journey to the others.

You could have made this journey in Australia or Hawaii – why Cornwall?
This is where we come for our family holidays. We’ve been coming to Cornwall for a very long time but we only discovered Watergate Bay about three years ago and
we’ve been regulars since then. I come down with my wife and our two little boys whenever we’ve got free time and we just absolutely adore it here, so it made perfect sense to come here to make this film. We really love it.

Good Times by Justin Lee Collins is published by Ebury Press. Out now.