I find the use of video in social media absolutely fascinating at the moment. When to use it, how to make people aware its there, what is the quality threshold in different circumstances.

According to Freshnetworks

We find that different community members will want to engage and express themselves in different ways, and so allowing them to do this will maximise participation. It’s also a great way to build engagement between the brand and the community - letting them see inside an organisation; video can break down the barriers between brand and customer. It’s an effective way of conveying content as it often encourages more personal and more efficient presentation of ideas. Finally, video can be easily shared and so has a great viral effect.

The Tories have used video in an interesting way, learning from the US that seeing ‘behind the scenes’ can help break down barriers. OK, OK its still scripted but it ‘feels’ different. And a big part of persuading me to vote is about how I feel rather than sitting down and analysing the policies.

Christian Mahne, from my old employers Lansons, had some interesting comments on a recent corp comms initiative from Budweiser.

When it comes to content, we as an industry need to move our clients away from soft pre-agreed lines of questioning towards more credible, editorially rigorous discussion. This is where Cantos slips a little. The impact of Brito’s clips is lessened because they don’t tell us much we didn’t already know or expect.

Content is nothing without distribution. Waterloo may have been won on the playing fields of Eton but takeovers like this are won in front of computers and TV screens. These days, whether you’re a player or a pundit, you go to the internet first for more information. In a world where perception is reality, Cantos won the battle for shareholder hearts and minds by presenting a multimedia onslaught of InBev’s point of view, unopposed. It did it through the microsite, its own website and syndication partners. A good campaign well executed.

Looks like last week’s ‘boozy briefing’ has cost Damien McBride his position as Number 10 media handler. Brown is shunting him to a new role, doesn’t specify which, although I’ve been told he’ll be assisting Liam Byrne with his task of ‘unifying the Party’ and ‘internal comms’. May be he’ll also do ‘blue skies thinking’?

Basically Gordon is calling for the security of the old brigade - the guys who made the New Labour media apparatus purr efficiently in the 90s. Mandelson back as business secretary but inevitably will offer comms advice, David Bradshaw approached to be speech writer, Alistair Campbell fronting the Brown-endorsed ‘Gofourth’ campaign, Philip Gould given a special award at Conference and of course Derek Draper generally advising.

Where does this leave Stephen Carter? Gone as soon as its ‘tactful to do so’ according to a Number 10 source.

Where does this leave the embryonic new media strategy? More on that later…..

They say that politics is showbusiness for ugly people, well step forward Lembit Opik. Former beau of both weather girl, Sian Lloyd and one of the Cheeky Girls, has enlisted the services of Bell Pottinger in Liverpool to try and buff his image sufficient to get him elected as Lib Dem President.

Bell Pottinger have plenty of form in moulding the profile of unpopular politicians but why choose the Liverpool office? I guess as a Lib Dem, the head of BP Liverpool, Richard Clein, has a personal relationship with Lembit.

This is definitely part of a trend in our media obsessed world. Disgraced former Lib dem front bencher, Mark Oaten, has been using the services of a former Lib Dem spin doctor to try and repair his public image. There’s nothing wrong in this. I’ve done a fair bit of this kind of work myself and its extremely interesting. No word on whether Lembit is paying Bell Pottinger but Guido has a way of finding these things out:)

The next thing you know, we’ll be seeing fading politicians staging a comeback by appearing on reality shows.

‘Stand by for Black Monday’ screamed the front page of tonight’s London Evening Standard.  Then it hit me.  My mental image of the Wall Street Crash of 1929 is a newspaper front page.   

The market has been in need of a correction, of that there is no doubt.  Long term demand for oil is also a significant underlying factor.  But, the maelstrom in which we are enveloped is a massive over correction and one fuelled by fear and drained confidence.  We need to think about how the plug was pulled.   The ‘Credit Crunch’ is a newspaper headline; squeezing a profusion of complex economic causes and effects into a two word bawling banner.  

More than likely by the time you read this we will know if the markets have ignored the doom prophets or if we are in free-fall once again and the US Senate sees that the Paulson plan is the best worst option.  And what of this plan?  The media have called it a ‘$700 billion bail out’, more headlines, but it is really an attempt to put confidence back into the markets and underwrite the ‘toxic debt’, oh there goes another one.  This isn’t putting taxpayers cash into bank bonuses it is a plan for putting the confidence back into the system from someone that understands the financial markets as well as anyone can.   If it works it won’t cost the US taxpayer a dime, some commentators have even suggested the treasury could profit from the swap. 

If we have hit the bottom, and let’s hope we have,  it is time we put aside the big font fear forecasts in favour of cautious and considered copy.

Interesting story on the front of today’s PR Week about rival Labour and Tory plans to dominate the blogosphere. More on the Labour/Draper story at a later date but the Tory plan caught my eye. Apparently they’ve been working with Screen West Midlands to gather together a group of local bloggers and give them ‘VIP access’.

There will be access to politicians although I think Rishi Saha, Tory head of new media, is struggling to guarantee specific shadow ministers. This is a small but positive move and reflects the approach in the US, where for example the McCain campaign has daily conference calls with bloggers, including UK Tory bloggers! Loic le Meur also used this on the Sarkozy campaign.

What’s fascinating here is that they have chosen non-political blogs to take part in this. The guests are blogging in the arts, culture and entertainment spheres. The aim is to build a groundswell of support amongst general opinion formers who may be persuaded to engage and debate Tory policies as opposed to rabidly backing or attacking.

It’s a laudable aim but if it’s going to work the Tories need to show genuine long term commitment to this and make senior people regularly available in person, phone, email between now and the election. The danger is that the bemused bloggers are hurded into a backroom in Birmingham for tea and buscuits, have an awkward Q&A with a bemused shadow cabinet member and then having ticked a box forget all about it.

Its also interesting that the Tories have used Screen West Midlands to get these bloggers together. I guess they must be local leaders in new media as opposed to Tory supporters. It’s important to find a local group such as this you need to convene a group of the local blogerati.

10 out of 10 for effort, would love to get reaction from the Brummie bloggers as to what actually happens. Those taking part will include Dave Harte, Podnosh and CreatedinBirmingham.com.

A few titbits;

•  DJ Collins, Google’s Head of Comms, has recently been outed, firstly here and then in PR Week,  as David Miliband’s ‘media man’. He’s the guy guiding Joe 90 on a road to media adulation to match his mentor, Tony Blair’s rise in the mid 90s.  So why was DJ part of Gordon’s speechwriting team? My source says it was a clever move to get Miliband’s top spin-meister into the tent and focus Miliband’s camp on the common aim. May be that’s why Miliband was so careful in his speech not to be seen as throwing too much red meat to Gordon-baiters?

• In those three weeks while Gordon was on holiday Southwold District Council got more coverage than the Labour government. Team Gordon seemed to forget that just because the PM is ‘out of office’ doesn’t mean that political journalists switch to become sports journalists. They still have space to fill so why did they let the Tories fill it for them? Andy Coulson is clearly more aware of how to fill a newspaper than Brown’s spindoctor, Damien McBride. I understand that McBride was berated in the bar of the Midland Hotel at 3am this morning and just ‘didn’t get it’.

• There’s increasing talk that the Mirror’s Political Editor, Kevin Maguire, may finally relent and take up the media role at Number 10. The Party wants an attack dog, who understands the issues, understands the press, understands the Party and will agressively go after the Tories. Kevin has Labour stamped through him like a stick of rock. He’s a Party member and his Mum plays an active role up in the north east I believe. He’s also extremely bright and a brilliant journalist. He’s always said he couldn’t do it as he would never want to lie to a journalist. He’s thinking if he doesn’t do it now he might never do it. And he wouldn’t need to lie!

• And finally well done John Prescott. He’s the nearest that Labour’s got to the ‘Straight Talk Express’ and now he’s no longer in Cabinet he’s even more direct. He talks like the people or at least a huge proportion of them who otherwise just switch off when they hear Estuary English and a pre-programmed soundbite. His interview with Paxman was a corker. No official messaging, no buzzwords, no dancing round the issues. He put Paxo in his place. Look forward to more of that as Gordon uses him to say the things that Cabinet Minsiters can’t say.

What an interesting autumn of politics lies ahead. Here, the Labour party conference kicks off in a week while ministers re-run the Mutiny on the Bounty and, in the States, the final reckoning for Obama and McCain.

BBC4’s series about American politics last night featured the 1972 Robert Redford film, The Candidate, which looks incredibly prescient about the way politics has evolved in the UK. In it, a fundamentally good bloke with honest convictions gets absorbed into the business of winning elections, complete with the “style over content” manipulation of voters that Gordon Brown probably wishes he’d picked up from Tony Blair. Telling indeed is the final scene when, on realising he’s won, Redford’s character turns to his campaign manager, pleading: “What do we do now?” So much for the manifesto, then.

Meanwhile, in the US presidential race, a clear distinction has emerged between the candidates’ strategies. Michael Tomasky’s blog in The Guardian explains how McCain’s campaign is focused on winning the “news cycle”, in other words, attacking Obama through adverts and generating stories in the mainstream media. Obama, conversely, is concentrating on grass roots politics by having a greater number of local offices than his opponent in every state, registering voters and building support in advance of November 4.

These contrasting approaches seem to illustrate some of the tensions between old and new media tactics; whether it’s better to have the traditional media on your side or get through to people directly, as in the social media world.

Question is, will it work? As one of the campaign managers in The Candidate says to a bemused Redford: “We know this is all bullshit, but at least they’re believing it.”

Oh how the powerful need to be loved…

The Government and PC giant, Microsoft, are just two examples of the great unloved turning to marketing communications tactics to increase the love they’re currently not feeling from their respective audiences.

Gordon Brown and the Cabinet decamped to the West Midlands for a meeting to show some semblance of unity and demonstrate a willingness to listen to what local people had to say. The net result was a nice line for the Government in the FT about the cabinet getting a bit of “West Midlands wisdom”, suggesting our leaders’ humility among the commoners in the provinces. 

Microsoft founder, Bill Gates, however, may be stretching his abilities a bit far if he thinks appearing in the company’s own ads alongside comic, Jerry Seinfeld, will make him or the business he founded any more lovable. Microsoft has embarked on the biggest marketing campaign in its history as despite its ubiquity on people’s PCs, the company doesn’t create that warm, fuzzy feeling among its customers. Take a look at Bill and Jerry’s ad. As Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway once sang: “Where is the love?”.

Now, unless you’ve been living on Mars or with that recently discovered tribe of rainforest indians, it can’t have escaped your notice that the economy’s in trouble.

So how can Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling’s comments in the Guardian be blamed directly for a fall in the pound and the FTSE?

Commentators have been banging on for months about the likely longevity of this financial crisis, so how do the Chancellor’s words have such a direct influence on the markets?

Well, maybe they do; maybe they don’t. But, the point is, the confluence of these two events is too tempting not to connect in the eyes of the media. That might be exposing my somewhat rudimentary grasp of international finance, but it goes to show that loose talk - if not costing lives in this instance - may not help Mr Darling come Cabinet reshuffle time.

I posted yesterday about the efforts that the Democrats/Google are making to facilitate ordinary bloggers at the Democrat National Convention in Denver. There is a huge resource called the Big Tent, sponsored by Google, complete with broadband access, editing kit and access to the politicians. 

Guardian have posted a cracking video report from inside Google’s Big Tent. Its 4 minutes+ so it won’t eat up too much of the day.  Last year I had a press pass for the Labour and Lib Dem conferences, so I spent a lot of time inside the facilities they provide for the UK mainstream media. Their bloggers tent is a 5 star hotel versus our political parties’ version of Fawlty Towers!