pr-media-blog.co.uk

Following on from my recent blog, Lily is Logging Off, in which I considered the rather cynical reasons why Lily Allen has had enough of the social networking space, I am now most intrigued about the recent goings-on of a certain Stephen Fry.

He quit Twitter, then changed his mind; blamed it on feeling very low and depressed, a symptom of his bipolar disorder.

It was a disagreement between Fry and another tweeter who described Fry’s tweets as “a bit…boring” which lead him to temporarily quit the site.

But for me it’s not the fact that Fry, rather impulsively it seems, announced he was retiring from Twitter, it’s the astonishing coverage it received and the unquestionable candour that Fry has displayed.

The Sunday Times (front page), Guardian, Telegraph, Sun… they’ve all harvested a good story out of it which in itself is quite incredible. Twitter is not a stand-alone community and any mildly contentious or salacious tweet, particularly by a celebrity, will make the national press.

Let’s face it, unless your tweets are protected they are open to everyone - and that goes for journalists looking for a good scoop.

Clearly, as one of the first celebrities to embrace Twitter - and now having a massive 945,000 followers - Fry’s announcement to retire was bound to cause a stir. But, in the grand scale of things, and particularly in light of his rather quick retraction, this really is a tornado in a teacup.

Not only that but if you consider the person that is Stephen Fry - a highly intelligent, slightly ungainly, old fashioned eccentric who will in no way appeal to everyone - he is bound to be described as boring from time to time!

Personally, I admire his honesty and thought his retrospective tweet which read: “l feel more sheepish than a sheep and more twattish than a twat” was exceptional and I’m sure his “twitter quitter” moment will only enhance his national treasure status.

So, I was hacked by a spammer…and social media saved me.

A fellow PR professional described the experience of having one’s Twitter account invaded in more technicolour (and unrepeatable) terms but it added up to the same thing: a mini, online crisis isn’t nice.

Why a crisis? I’m not a multinational brand with millions of customers who could, so easily, be turned off me and onto a competitor by a faux pas, I’m an individual, with nothing to lose, right?

Maybe. But when your Twitter followers are being bombarded - in your name - by the spammer’s bogus tweets that may put their own online security at risk, they could be forgiven for being a bit miffed. And if a migration of followers away from your account ensues, who could blame them?

But that’s where the power of social media comes into play: within minutes of the first illicit tweet leaving my Twitter account, people in the network were alerting me that something was wrong and sharing advice on what to do next. Nobody was offended and everyone was sympathetic to the downright inconvenience a hacker causes all round. After I’d apologised to those who’d been spammed, the messages back showed the patience and understanding of, well, a community rallying round.

Given that I’ve never actually met the majority of people in my online network and our mutual connection is by virtue of  social networking platforms such as Twitter and LinkedIn, this is a reassuring example of human interaction at its best.

Now take that and apply it to a company faced with a crisis; but a company that has - through its people - built up a community through engagement, conversation, sharing of knowledge and being neighbourly. Just as my online network extended a helping hand to me, why shouldn’t the same loyalty be given to a brand in need?

Some say social media is being sold as “snake oil”. But trust me, it’s good to know you’ve got friends when you’ve been bitten.

Today’s guest blog post from Vanessa Buendia, journalism graduate and recent intern at Staniforth London, deals with her nocturnal social media habit: StumbleUpon.

For an insomniac like me sleepless nights used to be incredibly boring. However, for more than two years now they’ve become something of a delight.

As soon as I notice that Mr Sandman has once again forgotten my address, I reach out for my computer. Once I’ve opened my Mozilla Firefox I go ahead and click on that little green and blue button on the left hand corner of my browser and travel to the exhilarating universe that is StumbleUpon.

Whatever happens next is totally out of my control; it’s all in the hands of algorithms and more than 7.5 million of my peers. With that little button, instead of surfing the net in the calm waters of a traditional search engine, I ride a Tsunami-sized wave of information and interesting pages. All I have to do in return is vote whether or not I’ve liked the visited site and hence help my fellow surfers experience the same internet quality.

There’s been quite a number of webpages which have bought traffic from StumbleUpon and similar bookmarking services and made a success of themselves. With SU rates as low as just $0.05 per visitor it’s definitely worth a try. So how is it then that an industry as avant-garde as PR has almost completely ignored them?

Well I’m sure many have tried but failed. The thing with SU is that you are not sending out a press release to a newspaper. You are not selling your story to a journalist. You are talking directly to your audience and if you do not fulfil their expectations they have the power to vote you out of the system and leave you to die in the arid wasteland of oblivion (you know where that is, it’s the resting place for brilliant ideas such as the New Coke and Green Ketchup).

As a result, when you’ve finished your campaign you’ll know exactly how much impact you’ve had and you’ll have an exact number of how many people liked it or not.

So how does one become a successful bookmark? Well first of all you should try the service yourself. As soon as you start using it you’ll learn the first and most important rule in bookmarking: it’s all about the content!

The real challenge of SU is that you’re audience has to like you and their taste is much more sophisticated than you could have ever imagined. So if you don’t target your audience correctly and entice them with exciting visual aids or multimedia, chances are they are going to vote you out soon. It’s all about being the popular guy on campus.

A good thing about SU is that you can buy small amounts of traffic and start test driving your campaign. Then with the results obtained you can optimise it until you get it just right.

However, the biggest perk that bookmarking sites have is the fact that you can cut out the middle man and directly impact your audience. You will get to start a bilateral relationship with them and you get to learn exactly what they need from you.

One thing is for sure, after trying the service you’ll be surprised with the feedback you get.

The World Wide Web has radically shaped the way we do business, in particular that of the fashion retail sector.

Estimated to be worth over £4.1bn by the end of 2009*, the sector is booming, with no self respecting high street retailer now without a transactional website. 

The savvy aren’t, however, solely using the web as a sales platform.

Responding to the rise in popularity of social media, a new culture is emerging, labelled by industry leaders as “democratic consumerism”.

Pioneering the move towards the new culture is Asda Chief Executive, Andy Bond, who recently announced plans to open up the workings of the business to scrutiny from customers in a move to build greater trust and long-term loyalty amongst shoppers. 

Among the range of initiatives to be introduced by the retailer is Asda’s new blog, http://www.aislespyblog.com/, which invites customers to participate in the buying process - voting on their favourite styles and colour ways.

Still in its infancy, the blog is already enjoying a positive response.  Speaking on it its launch Beth Somi, George Marketing and PR Manager, said: “http://www.aislespyblog.com/ is a great way for our customers to understand more about what goes on behind the scenes at Asda and to know more about our colleagues who work here.

“I enjoy talking to people about my job, so this is a great opportunity to do it while I’m at work. There is so much to talk about, we have new ranges launching in store every week so there is always something going on. The tough decision is knowing what to blog about so that I don’t bore everyone!

“I love the fact that I can ask for feedback on my blog and that the readers respond in such a positive way. It’s a great way for us to get instant ideas on our new ranges. As I speak to the teams here at George House, they are excited about what we can ask for comments on in the future.”

An example of an entirely web-based retailer epitomising democratic fashion is http://www.styleshake.com/.  Possibly one of the most ingenious fashion websites to launch in recent years, StyleShake.com puts the customer at the heart of the proposition, allowing the user to design a garment from scratch choosing fabric, colour style and trim.

The site goes against the typical nature of the fashion industry with trends that ‘trickle-down’ from the catwalk to the high street, asking the user to vote and design exactly what they want to wear.

It is also a fashion community with users rating and commenting on one another’s designs. Recent celebrity fans include Duffy and Holly Branson.

Not only good news for fashion addicts looking to create an individual look, StyleShake.com is a pretty good business model.  The retailer only produces what its users order so there is never over-supply; good for the environment and for the businesses overheads.

Chief Executive Officer of StyleShake.com, Iris Ben-David, comments: “StyleShake is all about empowering the user, providing them with the means to express themselves and celebrate their creativity. We are delighted to offer new ways of collaboration”.

The retailer’s vision is to become a leading online resource that revolutionises the way we consume fashion by making it much more personal and individual. 

A design obsessive from a tender age and regularly frustrated shopper, I personally, am delighted by what looks to be a customer-empowered future.  But what does democratic consumerism mean for the future of retail?

Its potential to impact on the overall business model is huge.  Armed with increased customer insight, the risk of costly, unpopular bulk buys will undoubtedly be lessened, reducing retailers’ need to discount and perhaps marking the beginning of the end of the January sale.  The retailer/supplier relationship will also inevitably see a change.   The potential for collections to be further tailored by store in response to regional demand an increasing reality.

Democratic consumerism, it’s an interesting one to watch, one I will certainly be following with a close eye.  

* Taken from Mintel’s Fashion Online report, August 2009

So Lily Allen is officially a neo-Luddite.

She’s quit Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and email, ditched her Macbook and BlackBerry and apparently, according to numerous newspaper reports, her only means of communication with the outside world is a home phone and an old mobile.

Putting aside for a moment the underlying message that Lily Allen is to become a recluse, her reason behind such a decision could well be deeper than we’re led to believe.

We all know that the Internet made Lily Allen (in a very real sense) but as a notoriously outspoken and sometimes angry user of social networking sites, has she laid herself bare, torn down every personal barrier and let the world see her for exactly what she is and what she believes in?

In celebrity world this can surely be dangerous. We all love a sense of mystery but with Lily, we’ve seen it, heard it and she’s probably worn a T shirt with it emblazoned across it.

But it works both ways. She’s encouraged opinion and some of it will have undoubtedly been hard to swallow. Random strangers calling you fat, ugly, brattish, vulgar must surely instil a sense of fear… which is likely to lead to silence.

Reports suggest that her boyfriend asked her to choose between him or Twitter, but could this in fact be a shrewd move by her management: “Ditch Twitter, keep your opinions to yourself for a while, be seen to disappear into obscurity, oh and let’s get a press release out …”

As for the effects this may have on her personal life, she’s hardly going to become a recluse. With A-list friends like Kate Moss and Agyness Dean, whilst gigging at some of London’s coolest venues, I very much doubt that her decision to log off will leave her short of party invites.

As the Conservative Party prepares to complete the conference season in Manchester on Monday and launches the online campaigning tool, myconservatives.com, (seen here in Beta form), PR Media Blog put questions to Jeremy Hunt, Shadow Secretary of State for Culture Media and Sport and Spokesman for Online Campaigning. The questions and answers were supplied in written form and have been reproduced as such.

PR Media Blog: The Tories are way ahead in the polls. Does it matter what the party does online between now and election day?

Jeremy Hunt: While the Party is currently ahead in the opinion polls, the only poll that matters is on General Election day and we’re taking absolutely nothing for granted.

In terms of our online efforts, we’re the only party that has committed consistent time, effort and resource into online communications since the last General Election, and you can be sure that digital will continue to play a massive part of our engagement with voters.

PRMB: David Cameron has been dismissive of Twitter where people in the other parties have embraced it as a communications tool. Is he worried that encouraging Tory MPs to use it would be too uncontrollable and risk re-toxifying the Conservative brand?

JH: Twitter is the fashionable tool of choice at the moment, but as Thomas Gensemer of Blue State Digital said: “Services like Twitter are scattershot and dizzying. They burn political capital. Besides, they don’t talk to the people you want to talk to.”

It’s OK using Twitter if, like Grant Shapps, you already have an email list of over 10,000 local residents with whom you can communicate directly. But many Labour and LibDem MPs have a totally disproportionate attitude to it - how many of Kerry McCarthy’s constituents are on Twitter? I’d be amazed if it was over 10%.

It’s not fear of Twitter by any stretch of the imagination - our Party account has more followers than Labour and the LibDems combined, and several public facing staffers are on there too and constantly engaging with people - it’s rather that our MPs and Candidates focus on the digital activities on channels that matter in their local campaigns - websites, email, Facebook and supporter mobilisation.

PRMB: Do you see so-called “right wing” bloggers such as Iain Dale and Guido Fawkes as the Tories’ natural allies online in the run up to the election?

JH: The dominance of the centre-right in British political blogging is a testament to their quality and independence, and though we have a relationship with almost all of the big beasts in this world, it is up to them to decide on their editorial line.

The top centre-right bloggers are, however, part of a broader Conservative movement that is looking to challenge the wastefulness, incompetence and lack of vision in this current Labour Government.

PRMB: Does having a social media presence conflict with the Conservatives’ need to control the message very tightly in the coming months?

It’s important for any political party to have a clear, distinctive message so the voters know exactly what we stand for. However, it’s equally important to be reaching out to voters so they can ask us questions and figure out if they want us to be the next government. Social media offers us an excellent opportunity to have that conversation and open ourselves up to public scrutiny, but so do other channels.

Email is still the most accessible engagement tool out there and public meetings provide a great way to engage directly. David Cameron has also held almost fifty ‘Cameron Direct’ events over the past year, engaging with over 10,000 people face-to-face and answering their questions on a range of subjects.

PRMB: Is the party afraid that social media will become the source of damaging stories or allegations that will turn the polls against it? How well prepared is the party to deal with a scandal erupting online?

JH: We saw from the Draper-McBride scandal what happens when a central Party tries to take control of independent, online media - it ended in the kind of fiasco and disgrace that will come to define Labour’s approach to the internet in the minds of most people for many years to come.

The Conservative Party inherently understands that online communications comes with risks, but that the opportunities are too great to ignore.

PRMB: I’ve read that the party is going to advertise on Spotify. In what way is this the right medium for a political party to engage with the electorate? Is this just trying to piggy-back on the latest “hot thing”?

JH: Your advertising strategy has to be about reaching out to people who would never ordinarily engage with your content - or even be that interested in politics and platforms like Spotify (or Google AdWords, which we’ve also used with significant results) are a great way of reaching new audiences.

We’re absolutely not about going for the latest “hot thing” - if a platform wasn’t going to be effective for us or offer value for money then we wouldn’t use it.

PRMB: Does the party think it will harness online communities in the way Barack Obama did ahead of his presidential win?

JH: Can we emulate Obama? US elections are very different in tone, size and scale to ours in the UK but we are the Party that has best understood and adopted the lessons they learnt last year. Obama’s achievements in terms of organising activists and raising money have certainly raised the bar in terms of what a political party can achieve online and we’re obviously looking to do something similar in Britain.

To that end, we’re launching something very exciting at Party Conference - the most advanced political campaigning tool outside the USA, and the endpoint of our content and supporter recruitment strategies.

Recent blog posts on social media here at PR Media Blog seem to have had people reaching for the boxing gloves.

Whether it be the use of social media in politics or in business, there seems to be sharp divide between those who think it’s the earthly paradise of Shangri-la and those who feel, like in the old days of the witch hunt, it deserves to be strapped in the ducking stool to see if it floats or sinks.

Not wishing to see people fall out about it, I did the conciliatory thing and started an argument on LinkedIn where, naturally, people are known for their reasoned responses.

And it raised some interesting points.   

Simultaneously, another LinkedIn question was asking: “When you run into someone that tells you that Social Media is going to rule the world…what’s your funniest response?”

Social media ruling the world? Be careful what you wish for…

While out shopping on the high street the other day, I couldn’t help raise a smile when overhearing a group of 40-something mums, shout to each other “I’ll facebook ya!”

It suddenly occurred to me that social networking, which I’ve always considered the preserve of educated professionals, students and office workers has gone mainstream. Even Coronation St has its own Facebook group, how long will it be before Emily, Rita and Norris swapping a gin ‘n’ tonic down the Rovers for a game of FarmVille on Facebook?       

What started out as a way of keeping in touch with friends - and getting back in contact with old ones - has taken on a whole new remit. In my Facebook experience, I’ve started noticing whole generations of families ‘facebooking’ each other, kids, parents, grandparents and I’m sure I’m not alone in the sudden influx of friend requests from cousins, aunties and uncles. Maybe this is family values re-invented?      

As Twitter celebrates its first entry into the Collins English Dictionary this month, I wonder if the social networking site will ever end up with such a mixed audience as Facebook?

In a guest blog post Paul Unger, editor of property news website, Place North West, shares a personal view of the value of Twitter:

Like many people I’m in two minds about Twitter. Not wanting to be left behind in the scramble for online immediacy and the next big media platform, but wary of the distraction from what I thought was the day job.

Of all the ways to describe the beguiling phenomenon of Twitter that have sprung up, the best has to be The Guardian Media desk’s heading for all memos about their own Twitter Strategy: Twatergy. It’s something not to be ignored but a pain in the arse at the same time.

In the media’s hands it reminds me of the BBC and broadsheets’ obsession with Brown and Blair at its marital painful height. Yes it was important and interesting - if you think politics is important and interesting - but it was a sad geeky clique as well, that turned readers off. The editors and political correspondents were seduced by the access they enjoyed and thought it endlessly fascinating when in fact it was dull.

How many journalists have mainly PRs following them on Twitter? I do. I’ve started doing a bit more on Twitter but in four months have still done only about 40 updates on there. I get told via Blackberry on a Sunday afternoon whilst painting the back yard that some cryptic pseudonym is following me. Fine. Who? Why?

The biggest problem I have with it is not the usual guff about our fixation with our own celebrity or who cares whether someone makes it to the gym tonight, it’s a professional one.

As a commercial property journalist operating in a small niche of the British business-to-business publishing world I have always been told to know your reader, know what interests them, and stay focused on those two things. As a freelancer I also have to know who exactly will pay me. Any journalist on Twitter in work time should ask themselves, ‘who are my readers and are they on here’.

 I was asking a senior Manchester surveyor his thoughts about TomBloxhamMBE (to give him his full chosen Twitmark) being on there and the surveyor stopped me with ‘what’s Twitter’. My readers are not on there. My job is to spend my time and effort getting stories about and for them. They pay me at Place North West and Property Week for content published in those places, not on a free website they haven’t heard of. My job is to serve the paying readers.

Are Estates Gazette right to be on Twitter so much when, the last time I checked, an individual subscription to its website, EGi, was £650+VAT. What is your job and who are your readers? It’s why I will keep it strictly low key and see what happens. If PRs use it to tell their clients about stories and they become my readers, maybe it’s worth it. If all we are doing is chatting in the corridors of our internal clique, let’s get back to some real work.

UPDATE: I wonder if McKinsey’s survey respondents were thinking about social media ROI in the way Olivier Blanchard depicts it here? 

Is business really benefiting from the use of social media?

It’s now a perennial question coming from companies who want to be in on the action, but also need assurance that it’s not the latest magic potion that promises everlasting life, but - in fact - has been made by boiling potatoes in a back-alley flop house.

Last week’s post by Todd Defren at PR Squared suggested a dual “eagerness” and “wariness” among big companies to get involved in social media activities.

But the September report by McKinsey management consultants - How Companies are Benefiting from Web 2.0 - may begin to allay some of those fears.

Conducted among 1,700 company executives worldwide, this comparative study (taking in changes in business’ social media experience during the past two years) suggests that 69% have gained measurable business benefits from web 2.0.

In the spirit of interactivity, McKinsey has come up with a nifty tool which neatly summarises the findings across web 2.0 used internally with staff and externally with customers and suppliers.

And the results make for interesting reading: McKinsey’s research claims that use of web 2.0 means ”a different type of company may be emerging…a networked organisation…using interactive technology” that makes it “more resilient and adaptive”. And the commitment to investing in these techologies is apparently on the rise, with 53% forecasting an increase in spend plus 26% promising to maintain previous levels.

But is it for every company? The research reveals that those benefiting most from web 2.0 fit into the $1bn-plus revenue bracket (and, unexpectedly, B2B organisations) as opposed to smaller or consumer-focused companies.

Uptake of social media for business seems to be developing from the inside out, with 65% of users adopting it first for internal purposes, against 58% using it for customer interaction. However, sales and marketing teams are beginning to outstrip other departments in using web 2.0, with a corresponding decline in users in IT and R&D. And the use of company blogs is becoming focused thoroughly on acquiring new customers versus the needs of customer service, product development and inter-customer discussions.

Does this mean that the early adopters’ fear that marketing would eventually abuse social media by shoe-horning traditional, one-way messaging into social networks, has been unfounded? 

With blogs, wikis and podcasts the most heavily used tools according to the research, users cite the principal commercial benefits to be ideas sharing, access to knowledge, reduced costs and improved employee satisfaction when used internally, while external use has “increased customers’ awareness and consideration of companies’ products” alongside “measureable increases in revenue”.

So, is it time for business’ “baby steps” into social media - that Defren rightly feels we should “applaud” - to become giant strides?