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Even top talent at the head of your online marketing campaign is no guarantee of winning, as delegates at The Future of Digital Marketing event learned this morning.

Keynote speaker, Eric Frenchman, Chief Internet Strategist for the online political agency Connell Donatelli Inc and online consultant to the John McCain presidential campaign, is clearly no slouch in the field of online political marketing. But why did McCain lose?

Thanks to various attendees tweeting from the Congress Centre, London during the speech,  we were treated to an insight into the online machinations of US politics.

Frenchman called search marketing “the great equaliser” and the “one place where you can compete or even beat your competition with less money” - a critical issue in political campaigning where your budget is only as good as the funds you raise. As he told the audience, search is not the sexiest but is the lifeblood of your digital campaign.

But some online tactics can backfire. So popular was the click through rate on a “hippy Hilary Clinton” ad used by the Republican campaign, it had to be switched off for being too successful.

As for Obama, he had 90 staff working on his digital strategy - according to Frenchman - and managed to tap into Facebook and online video in a way the Republicans failed to. Creating useful tools, such as “register to vote” widgets on Facebook helped Obama to reach 3.1m followers against McCain’s 610,000. And the Yes We Can video clocked up 18.2m views, alongside the millions of views for “home made” Obama films - equating to an alleged $40m  equivalent of TV advertising spend.

Frenchmen also voiced his frustration at the McCain campaign’s use of Twitter, which rather than focusing on engagement and conversation erred on the side of broadcast or one-way communication.

Though clearly fascinated by the material, some delegates tweeted their concern about the “questionable tactics” of political search, US campaigning and the presence of Frenchman himself.

James Sandoval tweeted: “Why is Eric F of John McCain’s losing digital campaign marketing efforts the keynote? Does this represent FODM - Hmmm”. Anna Rafferty’s “feeling a bit sick about all the childish tricks used online during the US election” got the re-tweet treatment while the nausea theme continued with Tanya Goodin who mentioned a certain “queasiness” about US political video: “We’re just too cynical in the UK for this stuff to work!” she said.

Despite some clearly brilliant and clever online strategy, the Republicans lacked the most important element: a winning product.

Michelle Goodall noted an earth tremor or floor wobble towards the end of the keynote speech. Was it a tube train or the restless ghost of John McCain’s election campaign?

Thanks to all tweeps above, plus @johnmac71, @thetafferboy, @linusgreg @jake_hird, @cragster.

With the furore of press coverage the story achieved, it was hard to miss the fact that some of the BBC’s “top talent” are facing drastic pay cuts. It was reported that a gathering of stars were invited to a less than extravagant affair held at Television Centre to be told that anyone earning over £100,000 a year would face a massive pay cut, with some deals being halved.

Brucie is now contemplating his future as host on Strictly Come Dancing as his considerable £900,000 earnings could be slashed to a mere £500,000.

Terry Wogan, who’s Radio 2 breakfast show Wake up to Wogan averages 7.8 million listeners a week, is facing a similar cut, from £800,000 to £500,000.

Other personalities who may face a drop in salary when their contracts come up for renewal include Chris Moyles, Jeremy Clarkson and Jonathan Ross.

In the current economic climate it comes as no surprise that the BBC is making “efficiency savings” and talent fees are not excluded from the economic pressures.

It’s also no secret that ITV and Channel 4 are struggling in these hard economic times, but throw the licence fee - that’s public money - into the melting pot and it becomes a rather more interesting issue.

As the Telegraph’s Neil Midgley writes; “the PR line from the BBC is clear. Don’t take the licence fee away from us.”

With the amount of press coverage this “top talent” gathering attracted, it soon became clear that the BBC’s PR machine has been working particularly hard since the report by the House of Commons public accounts select committee which criticised the corporation’s reluctance to open its books to public scrutiny, not to mention separate talks of freezing the licence fee.

Clearly the BBC must be seen to be doing all it can to make savings and not waste public money on hugely inflated salaries and what better way to tell the world that’s what it’s doing than at the expense, quite literally, of its biggest, news generating stars.

With this in mind, one can’t help question whether the recent pay cuts were more of a shrewd PR move than a strategic business decision, as it seems the corporation’s freelance production staff (who can command £1,000 a week or more) have, for the moment, been left unscathed.

Last week the Times suggested that BBC insiders hoped that a high-profile name would walk out in a row over pay, to allow the corporation to say that it is refusing to meet overpriced salary demands.  But that doesn’t seem likely. No big stars have publicly complained which is now rather incidental as the headlines have already been grabbed.

Minutes ago, Forrester analyst, Jeremiah Owyang, (pictured) concluded his presentation at the Dutch social media conference, CSN 09, leaving no-one in doubt about the future of social media.

And though I wasn’t lucky enough to be in Amsterdam myself,  through the magic of Twitter and the tweeting fingers of various attendees, we can all share (in an oh-so-social media fashion) some of the insights that Jeremiah gained from the recent research project, The Future of the Social Web.

Points picked up at the conference included:

- Social is inevitable: everything will be social

- The needs of the (online) community must come first - brand second

- Put the most popular part of your corporate website on social networks where they can become social

- Products and services will be rated by online communities, like it or not

- Make your online content social and aim to share it on the right platforms (yes - that means “fishing where the fish are”)

- When selling social media to your company, focus on the C-word: customers

- Communities take the driving seat when it comes to buying

- (Imposing) registration online is for one thing only - to allow marketeers to bug you and bug you again 

(Thanks to Tweeps for the Tweets: @marcvanderput, @AmazingPR, @RobertLommers, @csnconference, @evr)

I am going to be interviewed about my book ‘Public Relations and the Social Web’ today by PR Week’s Digital Editor Peter Hay (pictured above).   The interview is going to be a bit different as it will be conducted entirely on Twitter.  The questions will come from Peter @PRWExtra and I will be responding from @RobBrown. 

You can follow the interview by following us both or by using the hashtag  #PRWInterview . The action starts at 10am, I hope one or two of you will drop by!

 So somebody thought it was a good time to launch a new magazine, aimed primarily at men. We all know the lads mag sector is dying a slow death, so there is little hope here right? Well perhaps not. Partly because, despite being quite man-centric, this is certainly no lads mag.

Avid readers of PRMB may recall a recent post about another mag-for-men; Buck, which got a pretty bad write-up. It has apparently now been reduced to a bi-annual publication, oh dear. Well this month, WIRED has come along, and shown the boys at Buck how to write a top-draw magazine, that I guarantee you will be able to buy a copy of next month. Ok, WIRED has had 15 years of publication in the States, so you would expect those behind it to know what they are doing by now. Nonetheless it is incredibly refreshing to read a magazine that is genuinely innovative, both in presentation and content.

WIRED announces its intentions on the – beautifully tactile, cotton-papered – front cover as IDEAS / TECHNOLOGY / CULTURE / BUSINESS. Certainly an interesting and rather broad remit. Too ambitious perhaps? Not a chance. WIRED is superbly written throughout, treading a fine line where it manages to sound authoritative, without being condescending. It simply oozes quality, yet there aren’t 40 pages of adverts before you get to the index…which is nice.
 
The photography throughout is stunning and beautifully shot. It does a wonderful job of transforming the mundane into something resembling art. You may imagine, for example, that an image-led piece on the world’s most powerful computers may be dull beyond comprehension, but the visual splendour of this feature is utterly captivating.

There is plenty of value in here too for anyone who likes to keep under the skin of the latest media developments. There is a great mini-interview with the CEO of Twitter, and it doesn’t beat about the bush. First question is ‘How will you make money from Twitter?’

Similarly I hugely enjoyed an article on the development history of the massively popular BBC iPlayer, which was brilliantly insightful and sharply written. But really, everything about this mag is just clever. For example, instead of a video game review, and a celebrity interview, why not get a celeb reviewing a game? There is innovation in the formulaic. A coffee machine review is backed up by stats on cost per-cup, how much it will cost in your first year, how much you will save over a year compared to buying Starbucks etc. It has taken man’s desire to quantify everything, and done it for us.

I realise I am on the verge of sounding sycophantic about this magazine, but it really is quality through and through and is deserved praise for a job well done and a mag well produced.
 

War reporting - whether factual or literary - has an illustrious history with some big names dominating the battlefront, from Robert Capa in the Spanish Civil War and Edward Murrow in World War II to our own Kate Adie and Martin Bell covering more recent conflicts.

But now, through the advent of blogging technology - you know, that thing that turns punter into publisher overnight - stories from the front can come directly from the keyboards of those fighting the war.

Such is the case of Colour Sergeant Michael Saunders - featured in the above BBC clip - whose blog posts from Afghanistan are being posted physically by his sister, Tracey Tyrls, in the Worcester pub where she works.

Apparently the blogs are well read by the drinkers and, as one customer says, they really “brings home what day to day life is like” in Helmand province.

Clearly, the content of Sergeant Saunders’ blogs will be what the Ministry of Defence will consider fit to print, and rightly so when soldiers’ lives are on the line.

But this instance of communication is instructive for businesses too: having a blog that enables you to communicate from the front line of your business activities hands you the opportunity to talk to your customers in a way unfettered by traditional media. Not that media coverage of your press releases and commentary is undesirable - in fact, third party filtering of your company’s claims to fame by journalists can carry added credibility. But with a blog, your corporate voice has licence to have an authenticity, personality and candour that gives your business the human touch.

And, as in the case of Tracey Tyrls, why not share your blog posts in a physical form by sticking them up on the notice board - as not everyone working in UKplc is glued to a computer screen all day.

Valeria Maltoni over at the Conversation Agent blog has a useful summary of corporate blogging dos and don’ts, along with examples of corporate blogs to whet your literary whistle.

Think of it as part of your business’s battle plan where, mercifully, you are building and protecting your company’s reputation rather than dodging mortar fire.

Does Management Today’s editor, Matthew Gwyther, have seriously Luddite tendencies or an incisive point when it comes to Twitter? 

Aside from believing Twitter is a “tedious fad we would do well to pull the plug on”, he was singularly unimpressed with its use by news organisations as way of reporting the G20 shenanigans in the City of London last week. He called it “an unwholesome mess”, yearning for a return to “day-after-the-event” news consumption of a “page of newsprint”. Well, while Management Today lives on in hard copy, the printed news product is under increasing pressure and traditional news sources are looking more and more to the web.

And despite Gwyther’s misgivings, the Guardian’s first real foray into front line reporting via Twitter was felt by Janine Gibson, editor of guardian.co.uk to have been a resounding success, as she recounts in the publication’s latest media podcast. The beauty of using Twitter to report, she mentions, is being able to show the many strands of a story that don’t necessarily evolve in a linear fashion. After all, the G20 protests were no more or less about smashed windows than they were about peaceful demonstration - they were many things at once, and - to steal Gwyther’s phrase - Twitter was able to help convey the messiness of that.

EConsultancy’s Chris Lake, despite being a self-confessed “Internet fiend”, takes a phlegmatic view of Gwyther’s dismissal of Twitter: “Some things just don’t work so well on Twitter, which is obviously limited by 140 characters and is no place to tell a story”. But he draws a useful parallel with the Sky News coverage, which was lo-fi to say the least.

As one of the comments posted on the Management Today blog post points out, Twitter could well be a fad; but the parent that spawned it - social media - seems very much “here to stay”.

UPDATE #2: This is what Rory Cellan-Jones found in belligerent Buckinghamshire and this is what he says.

UPDATE: Hear what Google has to say about it.

 As I write, BBC technology correspondent, Rory Cellan-Jones is on his way to the Buckinghamshire village of Broughton, where the locals are revolting.

Is this a copy-cat outbreak of #G20 summit protests? Actually, no; it’s all about the Web’s favourite search engine Google.  

According to news sources, local residents have sent the Google Street View vehicle packing by forming a human barricade. Thames Valley Police, in customary non-judgemental police speak, report a “dispute between a crowd of people and a Google Street View contractor”. It’s about privacy, say Broughton’s inhabitants; Google says it’s working within the law and that there’s “an easy way to request removal of imagery”.

What’s got Broughton so hot under the collar? According to UpMyStreet the inhabitants have a bigger predilection for “golf, gardening and visiting National Trust properties” - hardly the stuff of anarchic, direct action.

But while Google sees Street View as a “rich, immersive browsing experience”, some Broughton people see it as a burglars’ charter.

Just this week, while talking with a client about the impact of social media, the question was mooted: “Has Google gone too far with Street View?” But despite the privacy backlash on its launch, there was no suggestion it would result in Home Counties’ insurrection.

Twittering lawyer, John Halton, pictures a baying medieval mob, though is careful to disclaim this view:

Others in the Twitterverse are divided on the topic, but have the “good people of Broughton” touched a nerve within the populace that Google - maybe over-estimating the benign acceptance it enjoys around the world - never anticipated?  

Broughton seems to be saying: “Listen Google, I’m happy for you to track down the cheapest car insurance and my secondary school sweetheart, but keep your 360 degree cyber nose out of my property.” An Englishman’s home remains his castle, it seems. You don’t get much more medieval than that.

UPDATE #2: The BBC’s Rory Cellan-Jones blogs his thoughts on the use of social networks - or not - at the G20 protests.

UPDATE: Guardian Online photogallery captures the drama of today’s #G20 protests in London. 

The G20 summit kicks off (so to speak) in London today and Sky News has reporters using that latest craze, Twitter - the future of Guardian newspaper publishing, ho ho  - to send dispatches from the front line.

Apart from the frisson caused by French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, threatening - as the Mirror puts it - to “flounce” out of the summit if he doesn’t see tougher banking regulation, what have other protestors got lined up for the summit, and how will it sit with the armchair public not pitching tents or painting their faces in London today?

The G20 Meltdown group, whose leaders are described with lurid delight by the Daily Telegraph has positioned itself in a way reminiscent of the Poll Tax protest in 1990, with the call of “Can’t Pay, Won’t Pay” and “We’re taking to the streets”.The Poll Tax demo marked one of the most violent public demonstrations the capital had seen “for a century”, but the action undoubtedly hastened the demise of Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister and the abolition of the tax itself.

But will effigies of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, calls for “a very English revolution” in the spirit of 1649 and the “overthrow of capitalism” have a resonance today? As angry as people may be with bankers and politicians right now, do they want to hand over the reigns of power to an organisation which is trying, somehow, to combine the ethics of love and lynch mob?

The Campaign Against Climate Change is opting for the more quietly symbolic, marking “Fossil Fools Day” with a giant block of ice representing the melting polar ice caps while Stop the War Coalition is rallying tomorrow with protestors bringing “shoes, baby dolls, photos and other symbols of death and destruction”.

It’s a hearts and minds battle from both the politicians’ and protestors’ sides of the ramparts - but is the British public ready for revolution? 

Follow the Twitterverse’s on the ground take on the #G20.

SXSW Flash Panel: Corporations & Social Media from Kipp Bodnar on Vimeo.

Once you’ve got over the initial impression that this is a convention of intellectual truckers, the above film is a great insight into how and why US companies are using social media - and particularly blogs - to facilitate a conversation with customers and understand what they really want.

Social media evangelist, Chris Brogan, brought together people from companies including GM, Crocs, Best Buy, Pepsico, AMD and Jet Blue to share their ways of working online.

And as one commentator on Brogan’s blog succinctly puts it, the value companies get from using social media is being able to say to their customers: “This is me. Love me. Hate me. But ultimately, tell me how to be better.”