You can’t beat good regional info when rolling out a story. National media like it as it makes good comparisons and gives a national story some proximity to the reader. Regional media like it for obvious reasons and that gives quantity to your media outputs.

The key though is to abandon the idea that regional data translates as wide govt/TV region definition e.g. North West, South East. The only valuable way of doing it is to break down into town based data. But doesn’t this make your omnibus survey really expensive? Yes, but relying on those kinds of omnibuses really is a bit lightweight.

If you think a bit more about it you can always overlay town-based info from official sources such as ONS or polling people online and asking them which is their nearest town from a drop down list.

Mind you, it can get confusing when in the space of two days you find out that Powys is one of the worst hit towns for falls in disposable income, (full disclosure: this is one of ours!) but one of the happiest. Manchester is the second happiest, although its the capital of self-harm!

                                                                                                                                                                      Tory Diarist and lobby corr. Jonathan Isaby is to join Conservative Home, the specialist site for Tory members and supporters. Funds btw come from YouGov mogul Stephan Shakespeare. It enjoys excellent mainstream media coverage and influence within Tory HQ. 

Guido sums it up nicely.

According to a national news editor ….”We no longer see the regional newspapers as a source for staff. We find that training graduates ourselves produces better journalists.” (Hat tip Joanna Geary)

That means even less incentive to slave away on a regional paper to earn peanuts. It also says a lot about the future of national newspapers where door-stepping and grassroots investigation are becoming less part of the job, exactly the sort of things that regional journalism is a great training ground for.

Does this mean that journalism will have a North/South divide, where only those folk living within the M25 with generous parents who can afford to sub them their rent and student loan repayments can afford to work the odd night shift at a national to get a foot in the door?

I suppose the City of London journalism course will become even more highly prized as its much easier to build contacts and be a dogsbody for a national.

As candidate for the biggest job in the world (that’s President of the United States, by the way), which commentators would keep you awake at night? The big journalist guns of the New York Times or Washington Post, perhaps? Or might it be a 61-year-old Pennsyvanian housewife and part-time (wait for it…) BLOGGER? Keeping journalists out of a recent Barack Obama campaign event in Pennsylvania clearly lulled the presidential contender into - well - saying what he really thought.  Unfortunately for him, the 37 cataclysmic words of his speech which included references to small town people being “bitter” and somewhat attached to “guns” and “religion” were reported on an influential liberal blog by Mayhill Fowler - an Obama supporter!

Within a day, the post had 100,000 hits and the Clinton PR machine was in full swing to capitalise on Obama’s comments.

Despite having zillions to spend on the best comms strategists in the business, Obama has learned the hard way about the new reality: in the world of citizen journalism, everything is fair game

An interesting insight into online professional networks can be found here with an audio discussion between FT management writer, Adam Jones, and LinkedIn’s Kevin Eyres. LinkedIn positions itself as a professional - as distinct from social - networking community in which business people can build contacts, get expert advice and manage their careers. Strictly no biting zombie applications or virtual sheep being hurled at one another here, methinks.

Smarties is that kind of sweet that you can’t help but like - psychedelic coloured chocolates that don’t stain your shirt. But, from a PR point of view, where’s the story?

Smarties have done a great job with a simple idea to launch the fact that blue smarties are back, having been banished a couple of years back for containing artificial colours/flavourings.

Commissioning a food artist to recreate famous faces and landmarks out of Smarties must have taken all of 30 seconds to think of (when in doubt, marry marketing and art, that’ll work!). But Guardian Unlimited likes it enough to feature all the art works on one of its galleries linked from the home page, complete with mentions for the blue smartie comeback.

The Smarties website takes the theme to its natural conclusion with a kids’ food art competition, with winners’ works exhibited at the V&A in London.

As this campaign idea shows - much like Smarties - some oldies are still goodies. 

Ofcom has released a report stating that half of eight - 17-year olds have a profile on social networks. The report also reveals that some under-13s are bypassing age restrictions (who knew??), that the average adult social networker has profiles on 1.6 sites and most users (30%) visit the site once a day.

As expected, the big three all feature heavily with Bebo the choice of children, Facebook the choice of ABC1 adults while C2DE adults are more likely to have a profile on MySpace.

Most media outlets are focusing on the privacy of information issue as expected with two thirds of parents claiming to set restrictions but only half of children agreeing with them.

Mostly information we already knew but the report is packed full of lovely stats that clients crave so much. My favourite part is the breakdown of personalities found on social networks. Personally I see myself as a ‘Faithful’ when it comes to social networks but what are you?

You can see the BBC report here or dowload the full Ofcom report here.

Last night we attended a highly informative presentation by Blake Chandlee, commercial director of Facebook hosted by TBWA\Manchester. The presentation to prospective clients, media and account handlers gave an insight into the company that can only be described as a social media success story.

He addressed some interesting issues including recent media claims that ‘Facebook fatigue’ has kicked in and active user numbers are dwindling. Blake claims quite the opposite citing the rise in users following the recent launch of the social utility across other European countries. He explained the ambitious system of translating the huge network into different languages with the support of the community through the ‘Translation’ application. What astonished me more than anything was the speed with which the translations took place within the community- just 8 hours for one of the languages!

He covered numerous topics including polls (”Don’t ever pay for one”), Beacon (”Didn’t go down well”), Apps (”Some work but a lot fail”),  taking on HSBC and even Mark Zuckerberg (”He looks about 12!”). The most interesting aspect was Facebook’s perception of itself as an altruistic company, seeing themselves as a social utility rather than a network - a tool to connect people and extend relationships rather than a social space. There’s conversation at the moment about the sharing of information and applications across multiple user spaces as encouraged by Google Open Social. Blake explained that Facebook is excited about this development and has no goal to keep users locked into using the site.

All this relates to the user experience. Something that Facebook are trying to make as enjoyable as possible. In relation to marketing, this means you’re likely to see the flashy side bar ads disappear in the near future and clients investing more in social advertising. Currently appearing in the newsfeed section of the site, these are likely to develop although Blake did note that personal information would always be kept secure and never given out to third party advertisers despite the adverts becoming more personalised.

As for the continual barrage of app spam we receive every day from so-called friends? Well Facebook has banned ‘force invites’ in apps - something I wasn’t aware but probably only because it was publicised to the developer community. As Blake commented, if an app is forcing you to invite friends, just report them and they’ll be kicked out.

He did also comment afterwards that their business plan is constantly changing so who knows what we can really expect from Facebook in the future? Only Mark Zuckerberg really knows and so let’s hope he really is one of those rare individuals who “think different“.

Technology has been leading the way in social media for some time. I’m not talking about your PC, Mac or handheld device that allows you to poke your friends any time of the day or night. I’m referring to the way big tech brands, such as Dell and Nokia, have invested in social media marketing campaigns.

This is, no doubt, due to the incredible growth in tech bloggers during the early days of web 2.0. Where it’s usually the automotive industry who receives great acclaim for pushing the boundaries of marketing, tech was in there first this time. Of course they had an unfair advantage by playing on their own, familar ground without even having to move from their desks.

Despite the incredible growth of this area, some have risen to the dizzy heights of what could be classed as mainstream. Blogs such as Boing Boing or Gizmodo attract huge audiences along with recognised authority in the blogosphere. So what happens when you make one mad? They tend to be quite vocal about it as 118 118 have just discovered following the recent ’padded lamposts’ PR stunt. Ok, maybe not mad. More embarrassed for falling for such a stunt. But don’t worry TechDigesters, you weren’t alone. Even ITN thought it was 1st April.

We can sometimes over-do the decline of traditional media. It’s true that newspaper sales are flagging but the Saturday market is often overlooked. Saturday is the biggest selling day for many nationals and the amount of supplements contained within them rivals Sundays for the propensity to give your paper boy chronic backache. 

The broadsheets often put a big hitter into the editor’s chair in charge of the Saturday edition and a de facto number two to the big boss and the Telegraph did just that today by appointing Richard Preston as Saturday editor. I’ve dealt him a fair amount in his current role as Comment Editor at the DT and I look forward to seeing how he’ll develop the paper and build its Saturday personality.