The Opposite Direction

Facebook Deals on the way out?

2012-01-22T20:30:00.002Z

It looks like it could be all over for Facebook Deals. Speaking to Facebook on Friday about rolling out a campaign based around Deals for one of my clients, I was quite surprised when they said that Deals was a 'test' and that it hadn't been that successful and that they weren't sure what was going to happen with the service.

I remember the large dollop of hype that surrounded the launch last year, with brands like Argos and Debenhams as launch partners. I really had high hopes for it.

From my discussion, it seems that the main barriers to up take are:

Implementing Facebook Deals by, say, a supermarket or restaurant chain, requires significant investment in a back end system that monitors, tallies and verifies the Deals taken by customers across all stores.
All checkout and front of house staff need to be trained to process the Deals.
Brands need to go through Facebook and support Deals with a significant amount of advertising.

I guess you could argue no 3 might be the big sticking point and that maybe Facebook hindered adoption by not making it free, like other elements of Facebook. However, I reckon the implementation and fulfilment barriers are pretty huge for most brands. And I haven't come across many [any] case studies of brands using Deals effectively.

It's a shame Deals might be switched off as I thought it was a really nifty idea. Oh well, back to sending out downloadable coupons:)

Great use of Facebook Timeline

2012-01-09T21:45:00.000Z

An awesomely cunningly use [IMHO] of Facebook Native timeline app that compares 'normal you' and 'smack head you'.

My highly talented colleagues in Israel were behind it - although I saw it on PSFK first.

Cool Augmented Reality use in Facebook

2012-01-08T18:07:00.000Z

I came across this strangely addictive Facebook app, called PopCam that uses augmented reality in a fun way: you catch popcorn in your mouth using your computer's camera. It's from a popcorn maker called Orville Redenbacker.

I like it not just because it's from a company named after a green duck that wished it could fly, but because its really simple, there are a couple of steps to play the game and because you don't need an AR tag on your for it to work - which IMHO was one of the barriers to take up.

Why I don't really like LinkedIn

2012-01-03T21:33:00.000Z

I always used to think I didn't really like LinkedIn because I didn't quite get it. But I was listening to an Inside PR podcast from December and one of the guys [Martin Waxman I think] said that he didn't like it didn't have the same altruistic feel of things like Facebook and Twitter.

Then it struck me. The reason I didn't like LinkedIn was very similar. In that, I always felt it was too salesy. People use it to pimp themselves and make mercenary connections with people that may be able to do something to advance their career. It kinda reminds me of The Apprentice.

Don't get me wrong, I do use LinkedIn. I just don't like how it feels.

Engagement v eyeballs in social media

2012-01-01T18:52:00.000Z

2011 was full of debate around how you measure the ROI of social media. Talking to clients and colleagues in different marcomms disciplines, the debate seemed to polarise into two schools of thought.

Engagement: Social media is about engaging with customers, prospects and other audience groups, with the main business goals being around loyalty, customer service, reputation management. This school is usually backed by PR professionals and creatives. KPIs are around actions such as Likes, Comments, and sentiment.
Awareness: This school sees social media as a way to reach a lot of eyeballs, sell them stuff and generally use social media as a direct response channel. This thinking is often championed by media buyers, direct marketers and CRM specialists. KPIs are around views, reach and if possible, sales.

Personally, I don't think one school is right and the other wrong, but I do think social media naturally lends itself to the Engagement way of thinking. The most popular social channels are all about having conversations with audiences rather eliciting a direct response to an offer. [I am slightly biased as my background is PR.] If given the choice, I would always take engagement actions [Likes, Comments] over static awareness numbers, like views. [I still believe it is better to have an engaged audience than a large passive one.]

Having said all that, in 2011, I saw more and more people wanting more from brands in social spaces than just a conversation. They want brands to provide something of value. This could be information, interesting content, or the offers and promotions the direct marketers use.

IMHO, 2012 is going to see more and more brands moving to an approach that combines engagement and direct response, particularly if social shopping takes off. Brands will need to provide offers, deals and things of value to its social audiences, as well as holding two way conversations. People running social media campaigns will need to learn from all marcomms disciplines and devise campaigns that have engagement, awareness generating and direct response activities.

Social media metrics: sales v brand building

2011-12-13T21:32:00.002Z

I was discussing the role of social media with a colleague. We veering from social media being a channel for engagement, retention and loyalty to how social should deliver something to the bottom line.

We kinda netted out at 'it depends' [as Neville Hobson would say].

For campaigns today, social can't hide behind the catch all of 'brand building' objectives. It has to show how it can have an impact on the business/organisation. This could be retention or it could be acquisition.

On Facebook etc you see both types of strategies e.g. multiple friend get friend sweepstakes to bring in new fans; apps that reward current fans with social and economic incentives.

Our discussion then moved onto how effective it is to give away deals and bargains via social and how brand building fits in.

My argument was that you can't discount or offer bargains unless you have built value into the brand or product. The nature of a bargain is getting something of high value at a low price. Discounting something of low value is never as appealing. e.g. 50% off a Barbour jacket is much more appealing than 50% off a high street kagoul.

Therefore, not matter what the channel, you need to spend time and effort building up the value of a brand before you can make it a bargain.

Therefore, social media, like any other channel, has a role to play in both objectives and metrics should be defined accordingly.

Facial recognition technology in advertising

2011-11-27T19:41:00.001Z

The New York Times article here reckons that Minority Report type tech will be on our high streets very soon. Which will be cool, I guess, as long as a) it works and b) it doesn't just become another way to spam people i.e personalised spam.

I would definitely like it if a billboard recognised my face, looked at my hobbies & interests in my profile, then pinged me with a nearby sale on the stuff I liked. I can see how this would be extremely powerful for brands - a combination of personalisation, location and impulse buying. Plus, it would be extremely measurable.

Or, could it freak people out massively as an invasion of privacy? Probably, but if it's made to be opt in through Facebook Connect or Google's Direct Connect, then many of the privacy objections will be overcome. Making the system opt-in would hopefully stop spamming - people would soon opt out if they got pinged with loads of crap.

I guess we'll find out soon enough. With any new technology, one brand will do it really well and set the standard for best practice and another will do it really badly - both of which we'll learn from.

Cool American Airlines Kevin Spacey campaign

2011-11-09T18:40:00.003Z

Just wanted to give a big hand to my colleagues in McCann NYC and London who made this cool 60 sec film starring Kevin Spacey for American Airlines.

It's the central point of an integrated TV, social and digital campaign, launching during the England match on Saturday November 12th. he 60-second ad ‘The Individual’ breaks on UK television on 12^th November and is part of an integrated digital, social and TV campaign. Kevin Spacey appears as a slick designer type, a creative screen writer and a Malibu family guy and finally as himself in the series of ads.

Director Chris Palmer of Gorgeous who’s previous work included the Skoda ‘Baking Of....’ and the Budweiser ‘Lyrics’ ad, worked closely with Kevin Spacey in developing and bringing to life the three characters who reflect the broad American Airlines premium flyer. All the characters are united at the end of the film in their appreciation of American Airlines understanding ‘what makes me, me, whoever I happen to be’.

Chime In - a quick review

2011-11-02T10:12:00.001Z

Just when you thought you had all things social covered, some bugger goes and launches anotherone.

Its called 'Chime In'

It's billed a a cross between Facebook, twitterand Quora.

The main things to note are:

It's an 'interest network' I.e conversations revolve around interestareas and topics allowing you to talk to experts on subjects. The founder,internet entrepreneur Bill Gross describes it as an ‘interest graph’ like the socialgraph of Facebook, but this is interest not people.
It's funded by ad rev, but, here's the cunning part, the users get ashare of the ad revenue from your contributions. If you create Community and serve ads to it, you get all the cash. Which is nice.

Sections are My Chimes, My Interests, MyCommunities and Popular. You can have a normal stream of Chimes, a bit liketweets, Communities are like Facebook Groups or LinkedIn. You upload yourChimes and tag them to topics. You can save Chimes and review them later.

IMHO its not as frivolous as Twitter, not reallyabout your friends [Facebook] and not really about pimping yourself out[LinkedIn]. It reminds me a bit of Google Knol, [if anyone remembers that]. Its owned by UberMedia, the company that bought Mixx and closed it down. Initialimpressions are that Chime In is Mixx reborn.

Its early days, but I think it will be a goodplace to people to learn things.

From a brands POV, it good be a good place toengage with experts for influencer relations campaigns.

Brands can have a Page and run ads on theircontent rich Page. The brands get the revenue from those ads, motivating the brandto make their Page really compelling, and not just full of marketing puff.

I'm have more of a play over the next few weeksand let you know anything interesting.

Anonymous social networks

2011-10-31T20:32:00.000Z

I came across Vibe, a social network that allows you to post anonymously. I'd heard it was used quite extensively in the Occupy movement recently.

I'm all for new ways of doing things and giving people freedom of expression, but the thought of anonymous posting just doesn't sit right. I mean, for me, its who you are talking that's interesting. Anyone can post something that is sensational or provocative, but it is the context of the comment that makes it conversation worthy. For example, Stephen Hawking talking about the beginning of the universe, is much more interesting that Katie Price talking about the unifying theory [actually, thinking about it, that's probably not the best example.]

Anyway, I hope you get my point - social media for me is about the 'who' not the what.

Car racing and facebook

2011-10-25T20:36:00.000+01:00

Toyota has launched what looks like a really cool car racing game that runs over Facebook, called social network racer. The racetrack is based on the curves in your name and signage coms from your photos and status updates. You get to race against friends and the winner goes to Japan to see the new FT-86 concept car.

Which is nice.

Can one video damage a country's reputation?

2011-10-24T20:03:00.000+01:00

Like many, I saw the horrific video of a toddler being run over by a truck in a Chinese market, then ignored by passers by before being runover by another vehicle. Sadly, the child died from her injuries.

I couldn't help immediately thinking what a horrible country China is, for several of its citizens to callously ignore a injured bleeding child. I imagine I'm not alone in condemning a whole country on the back of this one video. I know it's unfair to judge a whole country by the actions of a handful of its citizens, but we still do it.

China doesn't have the best human and animal rights record and I believe this one video is going to set back its reputation several years.

Free app for live streaming on Facebook

2011-10-11T21:30:00.000+01:00

Livestream is a cool free app you can use if you want to stream a video live on your Page. It's pretty straight forward to use and pretty robust - so much so that Mark Zuckerberg used it to live stream his F8 conference.

Changes to Facebook mean brands need to be more compelling

2011-10-02T19:24:00.002+01:00

With the recent changes to Facebook, brands need to much more conversational, produce content that people will talk about and give people a compelling reason to interact with the brand. Otherwise, brands will fall off people's social graphs. If no one interacts with a brand's content on Facebook, brands will disappear from people's newsfeeds.

It is probably stating the obvious but, when you are a brand or organizationembarking on a social media strategy, it’s good to remember that you don’t ownsocial media, they do i.e. people are the ones who control social media, notbrands. It’s a slightly glib statement, but it's good to bear in mind when thinking about your engagement strategy.

More than ever, brands have to behave in avery human way i.e enter into conversation with people: listen and have a twoway dialogue. Rather than behaving in a corporate way – broadcasting thebrand’s messages to loads of people, just posting a video, or running and sweepstake [although people are going to Facebook more and more for deals and free stuff].

What I find works quite well to plan engaging social strategies that enables brands to have convserations, is going through a short 7 step process:

Listen

There are shedload of freeand paid for tools to monitor conversations in social media, from things likesocial mention and technorati on the free side, to sophisticated trackingsoftware like Radian 6 and SM2.

People

Work out how your audiencebehaves in social media. Forrester’s social technographics ladder is a goodtool.

Aims

Define what you want toachieve and how you are going to measure it.

Rules

Make sure you know the external rules e.g. industry regulations, and internal rules, e.g corporate policy on sharing information.

Strategy

How you will change thecurrent relationship with the audience.

Content

What content do you haveor easily create with which to engage the audience in conversation?

Technology

What channels are bestsuited to your audience behavior, strategy and content?

Operations

How will you respond, whowill respond and what are the response protocols.

I've found it’s worth spending timeto thinking these things through before joining the conversations.

Costa Rica and social media

2011-09-28T21:44:00.000+01:00

On a recent holiday to Costa Rica [not a holiday gloat, honest], I couldn't help noticing how much people and businesses were using social media. It seemed almost the same or even more than what I've experienced in the UK.

Every business I came across, tour guides, hotels, restaurants and hire companies all had real world sign posts [posters, literature] pointing people to their social media profiles - mainly Facebook and Twitter. OK, so maybe just looking at retail businesses aimed at gringo tourists, doesn't give a full picture, but I got the distinct impression that more businesses in Costa Rica were using social channels than the same type of businesses in the UK. OK, maybe not by volume, but by proportion. [Unfortunately problems with my Orange SIM i.e. Orange couldn't get it to work, and my lack of Spanish, stopped me exploring the different profiles].

Overall, I felt that Costa Rica was extremely advanced in the use social media and digital tech in general [everywhere I went there was free wifi, even on the outskirts of the jungle], which perhaps I shouldn't have been surprised by [or so judgmental] .

Based on this, I immediately leap to the conclusion that up and coming countries, like Costa Rica, are perhaps keener on new ways of marketing [like social media marketing]. Mainly because they may not have historically used the traditional and costly broadcast marketing methods, and so, are not wedded to them like many UK organisations.

OK, this conclusion is a massive assumption based on a two week trip around the country. I wish I had lots of screen grabs and other first hand evidence [blame Orange]. I hope these photos of cute monkeys makes up for it.

Social media business cases

2011-09-11T21:31:00.000+01:00

Interesting work being done by Altimeter group on social media ROI with this recent study. I like the way Charlene Li and co have created a social media measurement compass that gives a handful of business cases for social media strategies.

I think this gives a good way of framing your strategic thinking i.e. are you devising a social media strategy to improve brand health by, say, creating positive conversations? To improve the customer experience with a customer service strategy? Increase revenue by generating more leads? Or a mixture of a few.

I also really admire the Altimeter Group for the way they give away they research for free and generate revenue from the consultancy which the reports attract.

Cool social media comic

2011-09-05T16:06:00.000+01:00

Damien Mulley, erstwhile social media chap and straight talker, has produced a v funny comic strip about social media. It pokes fun at bullshitters and people who talk a lot of jargon.
Very funny and worth a read.

Facebook Deals cost £50K

2011-08-08T20:34:00.003+01:00

I found out t'other day through one of my colleagues in Universal McCann that to run any kind of Facebook Deal you have to spend a minimum of £50K in advertising. Which seems a bit steep, to say the least.

Particularly when Facebook said Deals are free when they launched in January. I can't work out when Facebook changed the goalposts, but it seems to me that Facebook would get more revenue if they allowed brands to use Deals for free and either took a share of the revenue or charge a small fee like eBay.

Google + for communications

2011-07-24T19:23:00.002+01:00

Google + has passed the 20 million user mark in less than 3 weeks, which is pretty awesome.

While google said that it didn't see businesses using it, some companies that are quite sophisticated in their use of social technologies, such as Ford, are already using Google+ as a business tool. In a nifty way, Ford is using the 'hang out' multiple user video call function to hold live chats with execs.

I can see companies quickly using the other functions to help their communications efforts. For example, Circles, the friend grouping function, could be used for getting useful information out to targeted groups of journalists and bloggers.

Google says a corporate version of google + is coming out later in the year. Can't wait:)

IBM software links social media to compliance

2011-07-17T19:03:00.002+01:00

This announcement from IBM could be interesting for pharma and financial services - if Actiance Vantage does what it says on the tin. The new product promises to bring social media data into compliance programs - which will be great as I reckon it will help those companies nervous about using social media due to compliance issues.

However, I'm intrigued to see how it will work. Will it bring in conversations from third parties? If so, will this be a good thing for pharma as will any mention count as an Adverse Incident Report?

Or will it just integrate data from owned social media properties? If so, I guess it will make life easier and perhaps remove a few barriers. I'll be very interested to see if/how it brings in data from Facebook.

When I find out, I'll update this post.

Value of a Facebook Fan

2011-06-27T21:13:00.002+01:00

An interesting post calculating how much a Facebook Fan is worth. It's interesting because of the wide range of values attributed to a fan: $3 dollars up to $136.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure I buy the methodology behind the calculations. I just don't see how you can have a universal value attached to a Fan. It would vary so much depending on the brand, what it is selling, the level of engagement and the strategy behind the Facebook Page.

I'm not just saying this because I can't work it out myself, but I don't think you can generalise such a calculation and apply it to all Facebook Fans. I think you have to work it out for each individual brand and its presences on Facebook.

New way of doing old ideas

2011-06-20T20:36:00.003+01:00

As more pioneering brands move to socially centric campaigns, we are seeing traditional ideas being implemented in new ways to take advantage of the power of social technologies.

A great example is the recent campaign Coke did with Maroon 5. Basically, Coke used a famous band to get people to engage with the brand. A very traditional tactic. However, they used social technologies to enhance the idea - Maroon 5 created their new single from tweets and status updates. [The link to Coke was that for the first 100,000 downloads Coke gave a donation to charity].

Here is a short video on the initiative:

I can't help thinking that we will see more and more of these type of socially centric campaigns that use traditional tactics.

Social Media Maturity Curve by Forrester

2011-06-19T19:54:00.003+01:00

Forrester has announced a new piece of research and an update to Groundswell that looks at the social media maturity of organisations. A post by the author describes in detail the stages.

It seems a very neat way of looking at how companies progress in their use of social media and what kind of things they need to do to get to the next stage.

My feeling is that the majority of UK organisations are at the Testing or Late Majority stage, where they are focused on Talking applications such as Facebook and YouTube for marketing objectives. It's interesting that Forrester state that most social media in the Testing stage is run by PR depts. IMHO this is where companies are treating social media as a channel for engagement, rather than an integral part of the business.

It appears that organisations move to socially centric thinking and social business models in the Scaling and Optimising phase - where they use different social applications to meet different business objectives e.g. Home Depot using twitter for customer service and YouTube for marketing. I think this is where the UK is heading, but to get there, we need to stop treating social media as a channel and make it more central to how we do business.

Amazing collection of Google Street View images

2011-06-08T21:32:00.003+01:00

This is an amazing collection of images from Google Street View called 9 Eyes. Amusing and disturbing in equal measure. Check it out.

My fav photo is this one:

Google using our own tastes to decide what we see

2011-06-05T21:17:00.004+01:00

An interesting talk by Eli Parisa at TED on Filter Bubbles got me thinking how Google and Facebook are taking over the role of traditional media in deciding what we see and read - but by automating our own tastes rather than human judgement deciding what we should see.

Eli's premise is that the more Google and Facebook tailor our search results and News Feeds to match what they believe we want to see, the more we just see very limited stuff. The video is ten minutes and definitely worth a watch.

It does get you thinking how scary it would be if Google and Facebook decided to deliberately control what you see and read - you wouldn't know they were controlling your information flow. But that's just paranoid.

Pharma has the right idea for social

2011-05-30T20:03:00.003+01:00

I read and hear a lot about how heavily regulated industries, such as pharmaceuticals and financial services, can't/won't use social technologies due to compliance issues. However, I can't help thinking that those compliance issues actually force FS and pharma organisations to use social media in the right way. That is, they use social media to be helpful and informative. They don't try and sell stuff, but they think of ways they can provide useful information to their audiences.

A great example of this is Roche's recent launch of an online tool to help Warfarin users learn more about anti-coagulation self monitoring. Roche are restricted from promoting products so they do something to help patients. Which is nice.

Facebook social ads new formats explained

2011-05-30T12:13:00.003+01:00

I came across this blog post that explains the new types of Sponsored Ads introduced by Facebook last month.

The formats I'm that familiar with, but look quite compelling are:

Page Post Likes - when a Fan Likes a post on your Page, you can advertise that action to the friends of that Fan e.g. if I Liked a post on the Land Rover Page, Landrover could advertise the comment I'd Liked to my friends.
Check In - when someone checks in or claims a Facebook Deal from one of your Facebook Places, you can advertise that action to the friends of the person who checked in. e.g. if I checked in to a Starbucks and claimed a Deal, Starbucks could advertise the fact to my friends.
Domain - if your website uses the Facebook Likes functionality and someone Likes some content on your site, you can advertise the fact to that person's Facebook Friends.

You can see quite a clear pattern here - all use the endorsement of a friend, which is much more powerful than an ad from a brand alone.

How you feel about Facebook using you and your content in advertising is up to you as an individual, but from a marketing point of view it's a neat strategy.

Targeting Facebook status updates

2011-05-22T18:41:00.002+01:00

Looks like Facebook Page Admins can now target status updates to fans of a Page by city and by language. You just click on the drop down box next to the Share button and click the Customise button. You can then select location and language.

Here's one I prepared earlier targeting Magyar speakers in Manchester. OK, not a massive audience, but you get the point.

Social media and Digital stats

2011-05-15T18:49:00.005+01:00

My colleagues at McCann Metro put on a fantabulous social media and all round digital conference last week called Real World Digital. As the title suggests, its focus was looking at how the real world has now blended with the digital world.

It had great speakers from Google, Facebook, Apple and Autonomy. There was a good back channel chat on Twitter via #RWD2011.

I've summarised some of the things I found interesting from each speaker.

John Lamphiere, Facebook.

Social channels increased in use by 52% from 2010 to 2011, due to the power of word of mouth recommendations for products and services.
XBox Live increased profits from Xbox by 242%
43% of news is shared through social channels [source CNN]
$1.5 billion has been saved by consumers via Groupon in the last 12 months
66% of govt agencies in the UK use at least one social channel.
Social Ads are 4x more likely to results in sales than standard ads.
Herbal Essences received 1.5 million views of its Facebook Page by using Facebook ads to target fans of The Hills [as they had the same demographic/interests as Herbal Essence target audience].

Hamish Nicklin from Google.

Quote: "Search engines are databases of intent" i.e. people's search habits reveal what they are intending to do/buy.
20M searches for camping in December. [the big question is why?]
21M searches for 'new job' each month.

Suzanne Wright from Apple talked mainly about the iAd platform.

It costs brands £300K to get involved in the iAd platform.
Nissan's iAd is phenomenal [my opinion]. See embedded video and this link http://bit.ly/isTN1D
For iAds, the ad agency does the creative and Apple does build and integration and ensures that the creative fits with the iAd channel.
Lead time 8 weeks

Overall, there was some serious geekery going on.

The intent behind the marketing

2011-05-08T21:07:00.003+01:00

I can't help thinking that nowadays, in this age of transparency and slight distrust of authority, people are extremely interested in the intent behind a brand's marketing. I mean, if a brand's intentions are good then I think people tend to forgive it for doing something extremely crass.

I hope my theory is correct and brand's continue to move away from the Mad Men thinking that duping the customer into buying something is great marketing and more towards offering customers what they need, when they need it.

Or maybe I'm being naive.

Social media insurance

2011-05-02T19:24:00.004+01:00

An interesting story in Canada about insurance companies offering policies to cover companies messing up in social media e.g. Kenneth Cole, Habitat. Where there is risk, there is insurance, I guess.

I wonder how the premiums are going to be calculated? Will certain industries have higher premiums, like certain job titles generate large premiums for car insurance? [if you are a broadcast journalist you get seriously stung]. Will companies get a no claims discount based on how many years they have been running a blog, twitter feed or Facebook Page?

It will be interesting to see how this plays out and if companies take out policies.

Paying for content with advocacy

2011-04-20T21:20:00.002+01:00

Instead of Murdoch's model of paying to access newspaper content online, the New Yorker is using a 'Like Wall'. This is where users have to Like the New Yorker's Facebook Page to be able to access exclusive content.

OK, it's not an economic payment but it's still a payment. You still need to give something in order to get something. In this case you pay a 'social fee' rather than an economic one. I wonder tho, how many people will prefer to pay with their advocacy/recommendation rather than a small amount of cash that has no affect on their reputation?

I may be taking things to the nth degree to prove a point - Liking a Facebook Page is hardly a passionate recommendation. However, if brands want people to pay with their recommendation rather than their money, I'm not sure the cost of the transaction is smaller.

IMHO I'd prefer to pay a small amount of cash to get the content I want rather than recommend something I'm not massively passionate about to my network.

Tracking tool for banner ads

2011-04-19T19:57:00.002+01:00

Moat.com is a nifty little tool for tracking banner ads. It's great for seeing what brands are doing in paid for display ads - style, creative. Sadly, it doesn't provide an quant data or analytics.

Still, handy enough.

Brands as content curators?

2011-03-20T21:06:00.002Z

The idea that brands should be content curators has been growing for some time. There are even posts explaining how to do it.

I can't help asking myself the question:

"should all brands be aspiring to become a pseudo media company?"

Some brands are brilliant curators e.g. MTV for music, Tesco for food. They sift through everything that is out there and bring the best stuff - music or potatoes - to their customers.

Yet, do customers expect every brand to curate stuff? I mean, sometimes people engage with brands in social media, and in IRL, because they like the brand and the products it makes. For example, people Like the Apple Facebook Page because they want to know about Apple products. I don't image they want Apple to curate everything on technology.

Perhaps I'm stating the bleedin' obvious, but I reckon brands should think carefully about why their customers engage with them, before they jump on the curation band wagon and start curating everything vaguely related to the brands' area of expertise.

Sometimes people just like brands for what they make.

Social media and puppies

2011-03-03T20:55:00.004Z

Two of my favourite things - dogs and geekery - have come together in a new campaign by the RSPCA called Get Puppy Smart.

It is designed to highlight the serious health issues experienced by some pedigree dogs due to the way they are bred. It's a serious issue with 46% of dogs bought suffering serious health problems.

I speak from experience. We re-homed a very handsome Boxer from Dogs Trust with a wonky paw that is probably a result of breeding or an accident as a puppy. [Well, when I say Boxer, he's a cross between a boxer and a little git. ]

It's a very worth cause and I urge you to check it out.

Here's a video that explains it all.

CAP Extension next week

2011-02-27T19:25:00.004Z

March 1 is when the ASA extends the CAP Code to digital marketing, including social media. There has been some debate amongst PR and social media types about how earned media is not 'governable' and that any attempt to govern shared media [comments on Facebook Pages and the like] will hinder two way dialogue between brands and people.

I kind of agree, but I think it will all depend on how it is policed. If the ASA is reasonable about UGC on owned media, then I think brands will continue to open up and communicate in new ways. If the ASA crack down on the slightest infringement then we may see brands withdrawing from conversation based communications, which will be a shame.

Having said all that, I do think it's a good thing that the ASA is cracking down on un-ethical use of social media.

On another note, many people have been unsure about what is allowed and what isn't. This email that the ASA sent to all its members on Friday, clears up a lot of the confusion.

Just a final reminder that next week (1st March) the digital remit of the Advertising Standards Authority will be extended to cover marketing communications online.

This will include:

- Company websites

- Advertisements and other marketing communications on advertiser-controlled pages on social networking websites.

- Advergames on own websites or in non-paid-for space online under the advertiser's control which amount to marketing communications.

- User-generated content will be included if:

a. The website owner originally solicits the submission of content from private individuals, then adopt and incorporate it within their own marketing communications.

b. A private individual provides the website owner, on an unsolicited basis, with material which the website owner subsequently adopted and incorporated within their own marketing communications.

A briefing note outlining the changes and a link to the full ASA guidance can be found by clicking here: http://www.wsta.co.uk/images//update%20draft%20on%20asa%20guidance%20-%20online.pdf

I reckon that if brands behave decently i.e. don't try and pull a fast one, deceive people or behave unethically in social media, then it should be business as usual from March 1.

Interesting stats from Facebook - 3M using Places

2011-02-22T19:16:00.003Z

Met with the very nice chaps from Facebook today. As well as an extremely interesting discussion around what's coming up, I gleaned some interesting stats:

26M Active UK users on Facebook
14M UK users visit everyday, spending an average of 25 mins on Facebook
35+ age group is the largest demographic
2.6M UK Facebook users are over 55 [10% of total users]
4X more likely to purchase due to an ad on Facebook vs standard display ad due to social element
3M active UK users of Facebook Places. [This was perhaps the most impressive stat]

Fudging pre moderation on Facebook

2011-02-17T21:06:00.003Z

The latest changes to Facebook Pages mean you can [kinda] do pre moderation on your Facebook Page, which could be very handy in heavily regulated industries such as pharma and financial services.

In the Manage Permissions tab on your Facebook Page there is a box called 'Moderation Blocklist'. This allows you to type in words that, if contained in any wall posts, will be blocked until you approve the post.

So, you can put in lots of commonly used words such as 'the', 'it' etc, which would block the majority of posts. It's not fool proof, but it might ease clients and stakeholders' fears a little.

It's not an official way to moderate and I wouldn't really advise it, unless you really really need to - it sorta defeats the purpose of engaging with people on Facebook.

Newspapers need permission to use tweets?

2011-02-15T20:23:00.003Z

An interesting ruling by the press complaints commission last week: Tweets are in the public domain and so can be used by newspapers in articles without being deemed an invasion of privacy.

That kinda makes sense: if you publish something on t'internet and someone reads it or re-publishes it, it can hardly be deemed an invasion of privacy.

Perhaps Ms Baskerville should have looked at copyright law to stop her tweets being used by The Daily Mail. If newspapers claim the words they publish are copyrighted and so charge PR agencies ridiculous amounts to be able to clip stories, then why can't people charge newspapers for republishing their words in social media? It's the same principle, isn't it?

There is a big debate about whether tweets are copyrighted or not. I'm not sure people will be able to copyright their tweets, but what about blog posts or longer form content?

If newspapers can copyright the words they publish, then why can't people do the same?

Just saying:)

Hookers on Facebook

2011-02-07T20:32:00.004Z

I was pretty gobsmacked when I read that 83% of prostitutes have Facebook Pages. It comes from a study by Prof Sudhir Venkatesh of Columbia University who found that one out of four prostitutes get regular clients from Facebook.

The stat is amazing - not because I don't believe prostitution is a thriving business, but more because I can' imagine anyone Liking a Page or Profile by a Lady of the Night. I can't imagine the looks on the faces of my friends, family and colleagues when my status update read 'Robin Likes Candi GoodTimes'.

Nifty and simple twitter campaign from Orange

2011-02-01T21:31:00.002Z

I do love those chaps who do Social Media at Orange. They do simple things that are really cool and tap into the human aspects of social media.

The winter warmer initiative on Twitter is a great example. You tweet #WinterWarmer with a mate's name and the nice guys at Orange ask you for their address then pop over with hot chocolate and a scarf. It actually happens as one my colleagues found out to her pleasant surprise.

It's not selling phones, pimping offers or getting you to Like something. It's just doing something nice for people to create a warm fuzzy feeling towards the brand.

Social engagement to socially centric campaigns

2011-01-30T17:02:00.003Z

It sounds a bit poncey, but I can't help thinking that social media marketing has moved on from campaigns that create social engagement to campaigns that are socially centric.

By this I mean that running presences in Facebook, Twitter etc to engage with brand fans is now a given for most companies. There are loads of great examples out there of brands using Twitter streams and Facebook Profiles to talk with their customers e.g. Comcast Cares, Makro UK , Lush Cosmetics.

Now, to gain consumers attention, I reckon companies need to be devising campaigns that run across all forms of media - social media platforms, TV, mobile, out of home - that have social interaction at their heart. That is, a social idea is the centre point of the campaign. Something that gets people talking, interacting and communicating with the brand and each other across any platform they want - not just limited to a Facebook Profile or a Twitter stream. Something like the Old Spice campaign.

Tablet newspapers

2011-01-25T20:42:00.002Z

PR agencies will be taking a close look at The Daily, News Corps daily newspaper designed for Tablet devices [iPads, Motorola Xoom etc]. I've heard a few comments about how tablets will change the face of news papers and subsequently the PR industry.

I'm not so sure about the latter. PROs will still need to build relationships with 'tablet journalists' and provide them with relevant and timely stories and content. The medium won't change the principles of best practice PR - right content, to the right person and the right time.

It might change how PROs deliver that content and the format it takes, but the practice of media relations won't change.

Trends in pictures

2011-01-21T17:05:00.003Z

This is a nifty thingy from Getty Images - called 27 letters, it illustrates trends with imagery and a bit of commentary. V simple, informative and pleasing to the eye.

PR can learn from Chinese philosophy

2011-01-16T18:21:00.004Z

Listening to Michael Netzley on how the approach to communications in Asia is based on a different fundamental principle to the West, I realised that perhaps us in the PR industry can learn from this. I probably don't do Michael's explanation justice, but in essence the principle was that when communicating one uses silence and appropriate speech. Appropriate speech means the right person, with the right message [or content], speaking at the right time and at the right location. Rather than in the West when it is often about quantity and loudness.

I can't help thinking that we, the PR industry, could benefit a lot from adopting this principle. How many times have you been in a meeting where people seem to be talking just for the sake of it? Adopting this principle of silence and appropriate speech, would mean that there would be less bullshit, things would happen quicker and we'd get more done.

The year of the tablet?

2011-01-09T20:01:00.002Z

Looking at the big guns' announcements at CES last week, it looks like 2011 will be the year of the tablet as every man and his dog launches a new tablet. The one I most like the look of is the Motorola Xoom. [see photo]

Or the 7" Dell Streak, which looks really nice.

Most look like they will be running on Android [apart from Motorola's Xoom].

Personally, I hope this move brings down the prices of tablets significantly. Particularly the iPad, as I still think £500 for a big iPod Touch is a bit steep.

Seriously cool branded content

2010-12-22T16:53:00.002Z

I'd forgotten how good this piece of film is from DC Shoes featuring Ken Bloch.

Just goes to show that the theory of brands now being sources of entertainment content is very true.

Genius two ronnies gadget video

2010-12-21T21:35:00.002Z

I laughed out loud for about 3 mins when I watched this. Pure genius - particularly the Eggs Box.

Nuji social shopping app

2010-12-19T17:42:00.002Z

I really like the look of this new social shopping app from Nuji. It allows you to tag a product by either scanning the bar code or taking a photo, using your phone. The items are saved online and Nuji alert you when there is a deal for one of the products you like.

Naturally, all your tagged items are shared through Facebook and twitter.

Montage web app for brands

2010-12-13T21:12:00.003Z

A colleague sent me this nifty little app, called Montage, which unsurprisingly, creates a Montage of all the content for a particular key word. Here's one I prepared earlier for Lambrini [a client].

The description says it bring sin content from all open social media sources e.g. twitter and blogs, a bit like paper.li - but the handful that I tried brought back stories from online newspapers only.

Still, it is quite a cool way to show what's been said about a brand.

Status updates for kids learning

2010-12-05T19:16:00.002Z

Here's a nifty use of social media - a game where toddlers share the activities of eating, brushing and sleeping with their little friends by placing blocks in the correct hole. Placing these blocks in the cube sends a status update to the cube of their friends.

I might get one of these for my brother for Xmas - he's 38 but could still do with some guidance:)

Can pharma use social media for marketing?

2010-11-28T16:56:00.002Z

The short answer is 'kinda', but they need to do it differently to traditional consumer brands. This question was asked by Jonathan Richman here, who answers it very comprehensively and reasonably emphatically with a 'No'.

I'm not so emphatic. My answer is 'kinda'. OK, few people are going to share information about their disease state by Liking a Page in Facebook - Jonathan uses the example of 'Jonathan Likes Viagra' being high unlikely of ever appearing in a status update. I can see his point.

However, I do think social media can be used in pharma, but not in the same way as used by Coca Cola or Apple - where people Like a Page or join a community to show their affiliation. I think pharma companies best use social media to offer useful information and bring people together in some kind of support community.

ADHD Moms on Facebook is a great example of a pharma company [McNeil - who I don't work for] using social technologies to enable a support community. Also, Bayer has created a community for MS sufferers called BetaPlus, where people can talk to others suffering from the same condition, access Peer to Peer mentoring programs and a round the clock nurse. [Btw I don't work for Bayer].

There are also some good examples of pharma companies using social media to help people share their stories and so connect with other sin similar situations. AZ's Asthma stories and JNJ ADHD case studies on YouTube are good examples. [Nope - don't work for J&J either]

So, my answer to the question 'can pharma use social media for marketing?' is 'Yes, we can', but not in the same as FMCG brands.

Is the future of social 'personal'?

2010-11-21T13:52:00.003Z

With the launch of Path last week - the 'personal' social network - I've heard discussion around 'personal' being the new social. I'm not so sure.

OK, Path limits you to 50 friends with the philosophy that it connects you to your closest contacts/friends. And I get the logic that it's hard to have a more than a superficial connection with 150+ people, as on Facebook.

But, I think Path will have difficulties because of the amount of information you need to hand over - phone number, mailing address - and its lack of functionality.

OK, I may trust my 50 closest contacts with that information, but I'm afraid I do not trust, what is essentially a marketing organisation, not to abuse my data.

It's functionality seems very limited. You share photos, but that's about it. There is no two way friend type relationships, no likes, no comments, no photo editing features, no invite a friend function.

On first glance, I'm not convinced. Still, Path has been founded by Dave Morin, ex Apple and Facebook, and Shawn Fanning, the co-founder of Napster. Both are a helluva a lot smarter than me, so what do I know?

Toyota crowd source new ideas for its technology

2010-11-15T20:41:00.003Z

Toyota US has launched an interesting social-type initiative called Ideas for Good where the car giant has released five auto technologies to the public and asked them to come up with non automotive ideas that will benefit society. Hence the name. The best ideas, according to independent judges, will be brought to life in a design session with experts.

Toyota is spending a butt load on all forms of advertising to get people interested in the initiative.

I think this is a good example of how campaigns are becoming socially centric and using all on and offline channels to drive awareness and create engagement. Plus how campaigns using social channels just to build relationships with people seems to be dwindling.

Facebook Deals

2010-11-11T21:17:00.003Z

It will be interesting to see how Four Square fares when Facebook Deals comes to these shores. I didn't really think that Facebook Places would be the Four Square Killer that perhaps the boys from Palo Alto hoped.

However, I reckon adding an ecommerce element to Places will give Four Square a serious run for its money. People are more likely to use Places to check-in to locations if there is an economic reward.

There are four types of Deals:

Individual Deals: a one time special offer
Loyalty Deals: a deal to reward your most loyal customers
Friend Deals: group deals for up to 8 friends
Charity Deals: the retailer donates to charity every time you purchase.

While Facebook Places doesn't have the game play element of Four Square, adding Deals will probably make Places more compelling.

Four Square check-in in space

2010-11-01T19:34:00.002Z

I sooo wish I could have done this. Commander Wheelock unlocks the Nasa Explorer Badge by checking in when he arrived at the International Space Station.

This is a great stunt to promote the NASA Four Square partnership that will enable people to unlock the NASA Explorer Badge by checking in at space theme venues e.g. the Kennedy Space Centre.

Social ideas not social media

2010-10-31T20:27:00.003Z

For the past few years, most social media marketing has revolved around social media engagement. By that, I mean using social channels like Facebook and Twitter

To Talk with the target audience. For example, the way Radox uses Facebook to have two way conversations with fans.
For customer service e.g Comcast Cares on twitter

Or sometimes for commercial purposes e.g. Cash Generator on Twitter [disc: client].

However, I don't believe brands can treat social media as just another channel for engagement anymore. Social media is best used when its part of an integrated campaign.

Most people now are now familiar with social media and many use them [over 20M people in the Uk are on Facebook]. Brands therefore need to use social media channels in conjunction with other channels to ensure consistent messages.

Some brands have started doing this: Cadbury's spots and stripes campaign uses Twitter and Facebook as an integral part of the campaign to great effect.

T Mobile's new Welcome Home campaign does this a little but mainly used social channels as just another way of broadcasting a clever 30 sec spot.

I think the age of 'let's do a Facebook Page' is over and now brands need to take a holistic approach to social media and integrate it into all campaigns.

Russia most socially networked country

2010-10-27T19:23:00.004+01:00

An interesting report out from Comscore last week shows that Russia is the country most engaged in social networks. In August 2010, people in Russia spent more time than those of any other country on social networks, with an average of 9.8 hours per visitor to social networks per month.

Like Eurovision, the UK came behind Israel and Turkey.

The thing that got my interest was that it is local social networks - Vkontakte with 27.8M visitors and Odnoklassniki with 16M - that get the majority of the traffic. Facebook is fifth with 4.5M visitors.

Even Google got it's global ass whupped by local search engine Yandex who received 34M visitors in August, compared to Google who received 30M.

It does make you think there is more to social media life than Facebook and Twitter.

Customer service is the new marketing?

2010-10-14T20:32:00.003+01:00

I heard a rather glib/profound statement [depending on your pov] this week that:

Customer service is the new marketing

Customer service's role in marketing is something that I've heard a fair bit of discussion around over the last few months. So, over a few beers, myself and an ex colleague put the world to rights and came up with two povs on this issue:

Social media has made good customer service very transparent. Subsequently, those brands that provide good customer service get their brand talked about positively across the social graph = v good marketing.
Social media has given people platform to whinge and rant about any little niggle or problem they have with a company. This results in white noise of so-called customer complaints that it is difficult to determine if a company is actually good or bad at customer service.

My conclusion? Brands that treat customers well get rewarded with great reputations and more customers. And, people whinge whenever they get the chance:)

Real life remote control car

2010-10-11T20:51:00.002+01:00

Mitsubishi has come up with a really cool way of test driving a car - remotely through your browser.

Using cameras, servos in the car, GPS mapping, a remote control system and a Sony laptop, you can drive a Outlander Sport over a closed course.

It's like Top Gear come true. Shame it's just in the US at the mo.

Nominated for SoMe social media awards

2010-10-11T08:19:00.002+01:00

A quick self congratulatory 'woo hoo!' We've been nominated for Best Social Media Agency, Best Campaign for Durex and Seven Seas and Best Use of Facebook for Jura at the Don't Panic Social Media Awards.

Big hand to all the team at McCann's who put in so much had work.

ASA to regulate social media

2010-10-03T17:18:00.002+01:00

In September, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) announced details of its plans to regulate online content, including marketing activities in social media, by extending the CAP code to all online content in the control of a brand or organisation.

Generally I think anything to help provide people with a better experience of brands online and to help guide brands’ behaviour on t’internet is a good move. However, most reputable brands are already behaving, well, reputably. They hold two way dialogue with people, honestly, transparently, with full disclosure and no attempts at deception.

The challenge for the ASA will be policing the application of the CAP code to online content, particularly content in social media where there is a grey area on who owns the content. At a recent Marketing conference, a spokesperson from the ASA responded to a question about how the code applied to social media with the answer that ‘any UGC under a brand’s control will fall under the CAP code’. Unfortunately, we didn’t get to explore the issue further and clarify how CAP applies to ‘shared media’.

Shared media is content that isn’t quite owned by a brand or by a user. For example, comments by a user on a brand’s Facebook Page, blog or YouTube channel, is usually referred to as shared media.

So, if a user makes a comment on a brand owned social media that doesn’t comply with the CAP code, then what happens? Does the brand have to take it down? But if so, does the brand have a right to delete a comment that technically doesn’t belong to them? I think this is an area that the ASA need to provide some clarity.

IMHO there is still a large amount of grey in this move by the ASA. Perhaps the ASA should work more closely with those bodies that have great experience in conversational type communications e.g. PRCA, CIPR, WOMMA. Stuart Bruce, with who I sit on the CIPR Social Media committee makes a very pointed comment here.

Rob Brown, chair of the committee, expresses probably all our concerns here.

Clarity is definitely needed, but until we receive that clarity, brands need to go on behaving reputably online, by being transparent, honest and listening to what people are saying.

Learnings from Marketing to Kids & Parents conference

2010-09-29T21:17:00.003+01:00

I was lucky enough to attending Haymarket’s conference ‘Appeal to & Engage Today’s Children & their Parents’. There was a fab line up of speakers including:

- Jonathan Storey from Disney Stores
- Mark Goodchild from Children’s BBC
- Carrie Longton co founder of mumsnet
- Mark Foster, Hasbro
- Ed Biden, Swapit

There were some great topics debated ranging from the ethical use of pester power – which was probably the most controversial subject – to using games to engage kids around brands. I came away with loads of useful stuff, too much to put in one blog post, so I’ve tried to summarise what I’ve learnt in a Top Ten, of no particular order.

De1. Delivering brand messages through games is the most effective way of engaging kids [this from Ed at Swapit, a community where kids swap stuff for virtual currency – almost like the Swap Shop of my youth]. This maybe stating the obvious, but sometimes it’s worth doing. The tips that Ed were to include the following in any game design:

a. Incentives: social and value based

b. Understanding: clearly explaining the rules

c. Feedback: build in a way for kids to know how well they are doing

d. Steps: breakdown the game into stages

e. Tools: clearly show what is needed to play

f. Socialising: a way to play or share with others

Doing these 6 things will make the game very compelling.

2. 2. Make the child’s experience magical. This from Jonathan at Disney, who aims to make the visit to the Disney store ‘the best 30 mins in a child’s day’. In the Disney stores they create fantastic story telling experiences and spark the imagination of children.

Not every brand is Disney, but there is a lot we can learn from the way it creates a wonderful experience for children.

3. 3. Any marketing to children should be interactive. This was from pretty much everyone. When kids experience the brand on or offline they should be able to interact and play with it.

4. 4. No longer about blockbuster moments but about creating experiences. Mainly from Mark at the beeb, but most agreed that campaigns where kids experience the brand are much more successful than those that create blockbuster moments e.g. 30 sec TV spots.

5. 5. Marketing to kids is cheaper than marketing to parents. Maybe I should have known this but, I found this fact quite surprising.

6. Marketing should be multi-channel. Kids interact with brands across all channels and often simultaneously i.e. watching TV, whilst on t’internet.

7. 7. Companies are responsible for any UGC on their site or other online property they own e.g. Facebook Page. This was mainly from the ASA and IAB. It was a broad statement in response to a question about the forthcoming extension of the CAP code to online. However, they didn’t address the audience’s concern about shared media [users comments on brand profiles in social media].

8. 79% of mumsnetters have bought a product based on the recommendation of other mumsnetters. Carrie from mumsnet.

9. Parents are people too. By this I mean that parents still have lives beyond their children e.g. the biggest discussion topics on mumsnet are style, beauty and relationships.

10. 10. Convey how products make life easier when targeting parents. Parents respond best to messages about saving time and money. However, don’t add spin. If a product is full of chocolatey goodness, don’t try and convince mums it is healthy chocolate. Tell it like it is – it’s a treat or guilty pleasure – honesty always works.

Cool BK Facebook campaign

2010-09-26T16:44:00.003+01:00

A psychic Chihuahua in an octopus costume - it certainly got my attention. Rebel The Octopuppy is the star of Burger King's new Facebook campaign in Singapore to promote the company's new range of snacks.

The campaign is a Facebook application where users choose a selection of snacks and put them into boxes, representing times of the day. Rebel, like the Octopus who predicted the results of the World Cup, picks six boxes via a live video feed at the end of each day. The people who guessed the right times of day for their snacks get a voucher for those snacks.

I like this because it's a quirky use of Facebook, when Facebook is getting very cluttered with crap apps. Plus, it uses live video streaming in Facebook, which I haven't seen much of. And, doing the reveal at the end of the day gets people to regularly check back into the Page.

Local social shopping

2010-09-16T21:41:00.002+01:00

I quite like the look of Hunch Local - a local social shopping service. It looks at your friends likes and dislikes, preferences and actions in various social networks such as Facebook, Twitter etc and plots recommendations on a Google Map. Techcruch explain it better here.

It's only in Alpha in at the mo, but is a great example of how powerful the social graph is gonna get as it goes mobile.

Sharing purchases via Twitter

2010-08-30T19:33:00.002+01:00

I've just recently stumbled upon services such as blippy and swipely that allow you to share purchase information via social channels. I must admit, I'm in two minds about this.

My marketing mind says: 'woo hoo! What a great way to spread positive buzz about a product through the social graph'.

My cynical old fart mind says: 'You want me to tell the world what I've bought, from where and how much I paid? Why don't I just publish my bank statement while I'm at it?'

It reminds me of what Facebook tried with Beacon. And we all know that didn't work out too well.

So, I think it's a neat idea to enable people to share what they've bought through Twitter etc, but I'm not sure how many people will actually do it. I don't think I'll be rushing to sign up.

A solution to ghost blogging?

2010-08-28T15:48:00.002+01:00

The debate over ghost blogging has been raging for a while now. This post by Mitch Joel covers a lot of the arguments against it.

Listening to Inside PR podcast this week, it seems the Canadian PR gurus might have come up with a great way for PR types to be able to help companies with their blogging, without pissing people off by pretending to be someone you are not. Namely, using:

"as told to".

For example, say I was helping Jack Bauer write his blog, it would be titled:

"Jack Bauer's blog, as told to Robin Wilson"

I like this approach because:

Readers are not deceived. It is clear that the blog contains Jack Bauer's thoughts and that I have helped him produce the blog.
It differentiates between impersonation and publishing. Helping someone publish their blog by ensuring the posts are structured the right way, the necessary keywords are included and tags are set up, is very different from writing a blog on someone's behalf with minimal input from that person.
It's still human. The reader is still getting the thoughts of Jack Bauer, not mine.

IMHO I think it's OK for comms types to help people communicate - on any platform. Where I think the line should be drawn is when people are communicating with a certain person, when they actually communicating with that person's comms officer.

Social media used for healthy eating

2010-08-22T21:22:00.004+01:00

I really like this new Children's Food Campaign initiative that encourages people create their own spoof ads to illustrate the conflict on interest that could come from the govt's announcement to get snack makers to run the childhood anti-obesity campaign.

The Children's Food Campaign provides templates in the style of Change4Life and you make your own poster. The best will be sent to the dept of health next month.

It is good to see sarcasm and social media being combined for a good cause.

Human powered car

2010-08-16T19:17:00.002+01:00

I saw this on PSFK - a car powered by human kinetic energy.

It reminds me of the bugs bunny and Yosemite Sam rail road chases on hand powered rail road cart.

I'm sure it's a brilliant invention, but I can't help thinking that if you are going to put that much effort into getting from A to B, then why not just buy a bike [which I'm guessing will be a lot cheaper].

Social Media ROI

2010-08-08T19:14:00.003+01:00

Last week I was set a challenge by a colleague/boss to calculate how many people a social media campaign would reach / engage with.

So, I used the 1:9:90 rule of participation, which states that in online social communities:

1% of the audience create stuff: Creators
9% comment or edit content: Commenters
90% just watch, or read stuff: Spectators

Taking a community that has 4,000 people actively creating stuff that can be considered content about a brand, then you get:

36,000 Commenters
360,000 Spectators.

What I also did was look at the impact of the 36,000 commenters' social graph. Based on the community being in Facebook [which in the challenge, it was], then the commenting and editing of brand content will be spread through each Commenter's social graph i.e the Commenters' Facebook Friends will see that they have commented on the brand's content.

The average number of Friends a person has on Facebook is 150. So, the total reach of the campaign is 36,000 multiplied by 150 = 5.6M.

I know I've made a lot of assumptions, but so does the TV advertising industry and print media advertising industry - they extrapolate behaviour for the nation based on a sample size and assume that no one walks out of the room when the adverts come in and that everyone reads every page of every issue of a newspaper.

If we get to do the campaign, then I can put my theory to the test. Fingers crossed.

Twitter newspaper

2010-08-05T20:26:00.003+01:00

I heard about this fab application called Paper.li where you can create a newspaper made up of all your twitter followers conversations. Here's one I prepared earlier.

You can create a newspaper by putting in a users Twitter name, a Hash Tag or a Twitter list. You can promote it via social media and send to people.

As well as just being really cool, this will be great for creating communities around hashtags, creating Twitter Newspapers for brands or bringing together people at work on a project.

Pay with a tweet

2010-08-01T19:28:00.003+01:00

My colleague Christophe told me about this cool new social payment system, called Pay With A Tweet. You get content such as eBooks and in return you tweet about the book you have received 0r post about it on Facebook. Very nifty.

Could be a great way for brands to create buzz around interesting content they have produced.

Social media AVE

2010-07-27T21:41:00.004+01:00

I was recently asked if there was an AVE for social media. While I don't believe that AVE is a good measure of anything, particularly evaluating a PR campaign, the question inevitably comes up.

So, I had a go at working it out. For the sake of argument, compare the average time people spend reading a blog with, say, the length of a TV Ad. This blogger reckons the average time spent reading their blog is five minutes.

The average TV ad is 30 secs. A factor of ten difference.

So, therefore, to get the same level of engagement via TV as you would via the average blog, you could argue that you need to reach ten times as many people.

So, for a blog that has 2000 readers, to get an equivalent level of engagement via TV you would need to get 20,000 people to see your ad.

So, could you say that if it costs £5,000 to reach 20,000 people via TV, then the AVE for the blog read by 2000 people would be £5,000?

I guess you could, but there are quite a few holes in the theory, to say the least.

Still, it's a theory.

Geo Says: FourSquare meets Twitter

2010-07-25T18:36:00.004+01:00

A colleague of mine showed me this nifty app called Geosay on Friday. It combines data from Twitter and Four Square to show you what people are saying in and around a certain location.

It was built by two British guys: Dan Singerman and Stewart Robinson, and uses the Twitter and Four Square APIs. It only takes info from tweets with an accurate geo location. You can create your own geosay by adding hashtag geosay to any geo located tweet.

It's great for seeing reviews of bars and restaurant, seeing what people are up to and where. I hope it takes off.

YouTube Best of Advertising

2010-07-14T21:18:00.002+01:00

There is a handy channel on YouTube that shows the best of advertising on YouTube. Its called Bubble. Its very simple and very useful. Which is nice.

The virtual human - is a bit scary

2010-07-14T20:38:00.002+01:00

I saw that Microsoft have created a virtual human - announced at TED. It's really cool technology - it reacts to what you say, recognises you etc.

But is it just me or does this remind you of the iRobot story?

I wonder what it will learn about human emotions? Maybe we can give it a few copies of the Daily Mail and see how it reacts. Can you get virtual hoodies?

Social media gets physical

2010-07-11T18:34:00.002+01:00

I've noticed more and more organisations promoting their social media properties in their mainstream advertising and in their physical outlets - stores etc. This trend really struck home when the presenters on the BBC Business Breakfast directed me to their Facebook Page rather than their website.

So, I was pleased to see that PRBlog had started a Photo Group on Flickr of how different brands are promoting their social media activities in real life. Have a butchers here.

I hope this is a sign that organisations are now treating their social properties more seriously - rather than just a low cost form of advertising.

Klout: influence measure

2010-07-04T19:07:00.003+01:00

I came across this nifty little tool called Klout that works out the influence of a twitter user. I know there are loads of tools out there, but I liked this one because it looks at the true engagement of the audience rather than just number of followers.

It discounts all the inactive accounts that are following a profile and takes into account the influence of the people following a profile. It classifies 'influence' as the ability to drive people to action and looks at how one twitter user influences other users by looking at click thru rate on links, RTs, etc. It also looks at Amplification Probability - the likelihood your content will be acted upon.

Plus it looks quite neat.

Social media call centres

2010-06-15T20:34:00.002+01:00

I was asked an interesting question today:

"As social media is resource intensive and requires almost one-one human interaction, do you think there is a business model in outsourcing the front line conversation management to a call centre type operation?"

My immediate response was "highly unlikely", mainly because I think it needs someone who really understands the brand to participate in conversations in social media. I really don't think you can follow a script, like many call centre processes. There are too many variables and directions that a conversation can take to be covered by a script. It needs someone who is empowered to talk on behalf of the brand and who can use their initiatives to start conversations and respond to opportunities they spot in social media.

Plus, as everything is public, searchable and easily shared, then any mistake a 'social media agent' makes can have massive repercussions - remember Habitat who tried to blame their gaffe on a student placement?

Maybe I'm being too precious about my job and I'm insulting call centre professionals [apologies that is not my intention] Maybe it will happen as it did with the customer service industry. However, I do remember Tim Dyson of Next Fifteen [PR network Bite, Text100] talking about outsourcing press release writing to India, but the plan never materialised.

Maybe I'll be proved wrong and in ten years time I'll be writing scripts for social media call centre software.

Wii Spray Paint Graffiti

2010-06-13T18:17:00.002+01:00

My mate Tom has been working on a very cool application that combines a Wii controller with a spray paint can - basically you can do virtual graffiti.

It works via Infra Red and a back lit projector. You do your thang with then you can save it, print it out etc.

How nifty is that?

Hexjibber's Interactive Animation @ Light Night 2009 from Andy Sykes on Vimeo.

iPod factory on suicide watch

2010-06-06T17:41:00.003+01:00

I've been following the story about the high rates of suicides at Foxconn in China - the electronics plant that makes iPods, iPhones and other gadgets. I heard from Michael Netzley via FIR that Foxconn is getting workers to sign non suicide affidavits that allows the company to send them to a mental asylum if they try to commit suicide.

I know there are cultural differences and local factors to take into account when you are a westerner looking in onto a situation, and I know that it's not right for us in our comfy lives to pass judgement on others' lives, but this is wrong by anyone's standards, isn't it?

The fact that a factory, which in effect is a live in compound where workers sleep in bunks and work 80+ hours a week, has an extremely high suicide rate is bad enough. But that workers are made to promise not to top themselves other wise they get locked up, is even worse.

However, the scary thing is: what will I, and people like me, actually do if Apple don't do something about the conditions under which their products are produced? Will I ditch my iPhone, iPod and Mac? Will I refuse an iPad given to me by my IT dept to test out?

Searching Facebook status

2010-05-31T18:55:00.002+01:00

With Facebook opening up all its gubbins, it means that developers can make all sorts of apps to interact with data on Facebook. One such app is Openbook, a search engine that interacts with Facebook's publicly available API to allow you to search Facebook users status updates.

The guys who developed this search engine did so to make a point about Facebook's privacy policy - it search those status updates that have been left viewable by everyone in the FB pprivacy settings.

From a brand point of view though, it is a great way to track conversations about companies and products in Facebook. Here's one I did for my client Durex.

Its not totally comprehensive as not everyone leaves their status update privacy settings open, but it gives you an idea of what's been said.

Haul Videos / beauty sprees

2010-05-26T19:36:00.002+01:00

I think I'm a bit late spotting this new trend of Haul Videos, where kids/shoppers show their Haul i.e. the stuff they bought. This report on ABC News reckons there is over 100,000 Haul Videos.

Blair Fowler for example has become a bit of a superstar and she has packed in school to concentrate on making Haul Videos. She has even got an agent now.

I guess this is one step further compared to traditional geek's unboxing videos for new gadgets.

Without stating the obvious, this is huge opportunity for brands to engage with powerful product reviewers.

Kings Hospital goes all Ideastorm

2010-04-18T19:13:00.003+01:00

It's good to see a UK hospital - Kings College Hospital - embracing the Groundswell philosophy with its Help Us Improve Kings site. [Who said healthcare doesn't do social media?]

It looks a really cool community with all the simplicity of Dell's Ideastorm. It's just a shame the community isn't more active:(

Chatroulette serial killer

2010-04-06T19:52:00.002+01:00

My colleagues in Spain are running an interesting and perhaps controversial campaign to promote a new horror TV channel.

I love it and think it will work well for the channel - although I understand it's not to everyone's taste. See what you think.

Augmented Reality meets Fashion

2010-03-28T20:09:00.003+01:00

A really cool use of Augmented Reality in Cassette Playa's London Fashion week show. The models have a digital code on their clothes. When viewed through a digital camera triggers all sorts of cool geekery.

CASSETTE PLAYA AW1011 - AUGMENTED REALITY from Amazing Grace on Vimeo.

ASA to regulate social media

2010-03-17T20:57:00.003Z

The Guardian covered the story last week about the ASA plans to regulate marketing activities in social media and its covered in detail by e-consultancy. It seems similar to the move in the US by the FTC last year.

To me, it seems a good move - anything to cut down on the scammers and impersonators in social media. However, most reputable brands are already behaving, well, reputably. The challenge for the ASA will be policing the new regulations. I'm really not sure how they are going to do this.

It will also be interesting to see how bloggers, company employees and celebrities react to the rule about full disclosure.

With bloggers I reckon there won't be a problem. Most disclose any involvement with brands if they post about that brand as they tend not to post positively for commercial gain, but to share thoughts and opinions. Usually, their credibility is more important than any cash they would receive for 'sponsored conversations'. [which I don't believe are credible as honest dialogue between people].

With employees, it might be a bit trickier. Not for any underhand reason but because of the training required to inform all employees of a brand about the new rules. It would be too easy for a company to fall foul of the ASA when an employee quite innocently posts on his/her Facebook Profile, or someone else's about their company's product without declaring they work for the company. So a huge need for training.

It will be very interesting to see what happens with celebrities. Will they declare they are being paid by a brand when they review a product on their blog, tweet about a new product they have receive to try or update their social network profile with some news about their 'favourite' brand? I guess we'll find out in September.

iPhone helps you quit smoking

2010-03-16T20:41:00.004Z

Working for Smoke Free North West, I came across this nifty iPhone app to help people stop smoking. It tells you how much cash you've saved, gives you tips on staying off the tabs and provides daily support.

I really like it as its not too preachy and gives useful info. I just need to buy my mum an iPhone now so she can kick the habit.

Social media case study directory

2010-03-14T18:38:00.004Z

Tod Maffin, a social media type in Canada, has developed a brill directory of social media case studies cunningly called casestudiesonline.com.

All the case studies have been fully indexed. You can search by demographic, industry, organisation, tactic [e.g. blog, Facebook etc], and region. Most of the case studies are outside of the UK - there is one for the UK - but it's still a highly useful tool, even if it's just for presentations and as a source of inspiration.

This is definitely up there with sliced bread. Thanks Tod.

More grannies on Facebook than school kids

2010-03-07T19:10:00.003Z

I heard from a colleague that in the US there are now more grandparents on Facebook than there are high school kids. I tried desperately to find the source and came up with the interesting post by pingdom describing the US demographics of a wide range of social networks. See here for full details.

This chart illustrates how likely that rumour is to be true. Obviously, I can't vouch for the extent of the family tree of the respondents, but it looks like there are more people on Facebook over 45 [40%] than there are people under 18 [20%].

May be the guys who created PensionBook were onto something after all.

Speed now affects rank

2010-03-02T21:25:00.002Z

It looks like Google now takes into account website speed to determine ranking, as was rumoured last year. Bummer if your server has a rubbish broadband connection. It will be interesting to see how much of an impact site speed has on ranking. If speed plays a large factor, I wonder if it will lead to marketers ditching complex multi-media type sites that take a while to load in favour of simpler designers that load quickly. It will be a shame if they do.

I also heard that Google now looks at how many times you update a Facebook Brand Page. Which is great, but I hope it doesn't lead to companies updating their Pages every 2 secs with frivolous stuff like what colour tie the CEO is wearing. People will soon de-fan the Page is they ar enot getting useful content.

Augmented reality makeover

2010-02-28T18:28:00.002Z

The Takashimaya dept store in, Shinjuku, Japan is using AR to offer makeovers. I'm not really into make up, but this is very cool. A camera scans in your face and then it makes recommendations and applies different kinds of make up. Genius.

Crisis management no longer sole domain of PR

2010-02-11T19:48:00.002Z

I think the reputational hullaballoo around Toyota in these last few weeks gets me thinking that handling such crises is no longer is solely the domain of the PR dept. Maybe it never was, but I think Toyota really brought it home for me.

To handle this situation Toyota naturally need to engage with the traditional media to tell everyone what they are doing about situation. Which Toyota have been doing.

At the same time, they need to be running an SEO initiative to get their side of the story across via the search engines [if you Google Toyota at the mo, its all negative stuff about the safety problems].

They also need some kind of PPC and online media campaign so that when people are looking for Toyota online they see ads that support Toyota’s messaging around the issue. There is a danger that people will get standard ‘buy this car now it’s fab’ messages from Toyota’s existing online media campaign. Which probably wouldn’t resonate well right now.

And naturally, they need to be part of the conversations going on in social media, getting their side of the story across, rather than letting rumours and speculation spread unchecked.

Maybe I’m stating the obvious, but when I was a lad and I was down t’ pit faxing press releases before you were up and all the computers were fields etc, you normally had at least 24 hours to respond and only had a couple of comms channels to deal with [print, broadcast media, dealer network]. For crises that happen today, you need to respond in a few hours or perhaps minutes with an approach that integrates all the disciplines that communicate with the audiences.

Tweet funnel for running twitter campaigns

2010-02-08T20:47:00.002Z

I heard about this handy service called Tweet Funnel that allows several people in an organisation to run the corporate twitter feed. It enables people across an organisation to contribute to the org's twitter feed. You can set up a group of multiple Twitter contributors, schedule tweets, assign tweets to certain members of the group and time release tweets.

I think this is going to be great for communicators managing a branded Twitter feed as it means tweeting and responding doesn't just rely on one person, that you can set editorial guidelines for a group to follow, you can have guest editors - which could be quite nice from a PR angle [e.g. celebs or different experts replying to tweets for a day.

I haven't tried it yet, but it looks very cool.

When is it OK to sell via digital?

2010-02-02T19:33:00.004Z

Working on more integrated digital campaigns recently, I started to notice certain unwritten rules or etiquette about the degree of selling via digital channels that is acceptable by people. In certain channels it is OK to push obvious sales messages, it others it is guaranteed to really p*ss people off.

For example, most people are OK with getting 'buy one now' type messages when they are on a company's website, but not so much when they are reading someone's blog. This may be obvious - you kinda of expect a company to sell you something when you visit their site, but if a blog contains someone's opinions and thoughts then 'buy one now' content would really jar.

So, like the lapsed [and slightly rubbish] scientist I am, I tried to work out an equation to determine the acceptability of selling, by channel. I started by coming up with a scale to measure the acceptability of selling, called the Yogi Scale of Annoyance [named after my dog].

The 1-10 scale is based on my own personal level of annoyance [and I'm assuming Yogi's too] and measures how pissed off I get when someone tries to sell me something when I'm using one of the channels above. The units of annoyance are 'grrrs', which are determined by the loudness of the 'grrr' when an annoying event happens.

As you can imagine, this all depends on your own personal ability to endure annoyance and the context in which the annoyance event happens. For example, a sales message posted on my blog by a 3rd party scores 10 grrs. Same if I'm reading someone else's blog and a sales message is inserted by the author out of context. Whereas, I'm hardly annoyed at all if I can sales messages via email to something I've signed up to [it scores 1 grrr just because it is an email].

I didn't get much further than the Yogi Scale, so if anyone has a cunning equation that explains it all, please get in touch.

New Insight Tool for Facebook Pages

2010-01-21T20:56:00.003Z

I saw that Facebook had launched a new analytics too called Post Insights. It allows Page admins to find out how many impressions each post on their Page receives and what percentage of the impressions result in action, such as comments.

This is a fab little upgrade as it gives you data on what posts work and what they result in, allowing you to tailor your Facebook editorial strategy.

Plus, it gives you ammo to show the boss/client how engaging Facebook Pages can be.

Nexus One is Google's Trojan Horse

2010-01-18T20:58:00.003Z

I was quite surprised Google didn't launch the Nexus One as a free product. I know it's a very high end and expensive product, but just think of all the data they will get from people using the smart phone.

As well as the detailed browsing habits they get from their usual business model, the Nexus One with GPS and loaded with all the Google apps, will give Google huge amounts of data on browsing habits of people on the move. Google will be able to see when people email, where they are when they do it, when and where they use Google maps, when and where they make calls, etc.

I reckon large amounts of this kind of data would be much more valuable that the $500 dollars they will get for each phone. With such a high price tag, the danger is fewer people will adopt the phone and so provide less data. If it was free, swathes of people would sign up and give Google shedloads of valuable data.

On a separate train of thought, I wonder if it will turn out to be ironic that Google named it's first phone after a series of Replicants with a short, pre-programmed lifespan.

Social media suicide machine is v risky

2010-01-10T18:21:00.002Z

There has been lots of discussion around the Suicide Machine 2.o - the software that removes you from your current social media life. It deletes all your social media profiles [apart from Facebook as Zuckerberg et al have banned it], de-friends all your virtual friends, etc - very handy for those who have made New Year resolutions around spending less time online.

However, I think it is a really risky business to hand over all your personal details and passwords to a third party - particularly one that doesn't have along standing trusted reputation of say Amazon. They makers do say they don't keep your passwords etc, but I'd still be extremely nervous of giving over your passwords to a stranger. If it falls into the wrong hands, criminals won't take long to work out more valuable passwords e.g. bank account, amazon account etc. Most people only use 2-3 different passwords so once a criminal has your social media passwords, they can easily work out the ones that they could use to steal from you online.

Maybe I'm being too paranoid, but I remember when I worked with Symantec, the experts there always said that password theft was one of the most common causes of online fraud. It will be interesting to see if Con Mallon has any thoughts on this.

Brave social CSR move by Pepsi

2010-01-07T20:29:00.003Z

Pepsi has taken all its Superbowl ad spend and invested it in a bold social media/CSR project. It's called the RefreshEverything project and involves Pepsi giving away sizable more grants to people with the best ideas to improve their community. Pepsi have broken with 20+ years of tradition and 'risked' $20M of tried and tested Superbowl ad cash in a pretty ground breaking initiative.

The initiative goes live on Jan 13th and Pepsi will be giving away $1.3M per month.

IMHO this is a phenomenally brave move by Pepsi and one that I really hope succeeds. I believe spending the money in this way will engage with people in a much more meaningful, deeper and lasting way, than say a glossy TV ad with cool young people skate boarding.

The Opposite Direction

Facebook Deals on the way out?

Great use of Facebook Timeline

Cool Augmented Reality use in Facebook

Why I don't really like LinkedIn

Engagement v eyeballs in social media

Social media metrics: sales v brand building

Facial recognition technology in advertising

Cool American Airlines Kevin Spacey campaign

Chime In - a quick review

Anonymous social networks

Car racing and facebook

Can one video damage a country's reputation?

Free app for live streaming on Facebook

Changes to Facebook mean brands need to be more compelling

Costa Rica and social media

Social media business cases

Cool social media comic

Facebook Deals cost £50K

Google + for communications

IBM software links social media to compliance

Value of a Facebook Fan

New way of doing old ideas

Social Media Maturity Curve by Forrester

Amazing collection of Google Street View images

Google using our own tastes to decide what we see

Pharma has the right idea for social

Facebook social ads new formats explained

Targeting Facebook status updates

Social media and Digital stats

The intent behind the marketing

Social media insurance

Paying for content with advocacy

Tracking tool for banner ads

Brands as content curators?

Social media and puppies

CAP Extension next week

Interesting stats from Facebook - 3M using Places

Fudging pre moderation on Facebook

Newspapers need permission to use tweets?

Hookers on Facebook

Nifty and simple twitter campaign from Orange

Social engagement to socially centric campaigns

Tablet newspapers

Trends in pictures

PR can learn from Chinese philosophy

The year of the tablet?

Seriously cool branded content

Genius two ronnies gadget video

Nuji social shopping app

Montage web app for brands

Status updates for kids learning

Can pharma use social media for marketing?

Is the future of social 'personal'?

Toyota crowd source new ideas for its technology

Facebook Deals

Four Square check-in in space

Social ideas not social media

Russia most socially networked country

Sponsored celeb tweets

Customer service is the new marketing?

Real life remote control car

Nominated for SoMe social media awards

ASA to regulate social media

Learnings from Marketing to Kids & Parents conference

Cool BK Facebook campaign

Local social shopping

Sharing purchases via Twitter

A solution to ghost blogging?

Social media used for healthy eating

Human powered car

Social Media ROI

Twitter newspaper

Pay with a tweet

Social media AVE

Geo Says: FourSquare meets Twitter

YouTube Best of Advertising

The virtual human - is a bit scary

Social media gets physical

Klout: influence measure