The traditional press has shown this week that it still has the ability to ‘break’ big stories.

The News of The World’s (NOTW) exposé of a multi-million pound cricket match-fixing ring involving three Pakistani cricketers and their agent, is the latest ‘sting’ in which the traditional media seems to be fighting back  to regain the news agenda from the web.

It was interesting to see how the story developed. The first I knew about it was on Saturday evening when a Sky News sports reporter tweeted that there was a big story about to break. Less than an hour later they had an editor from the NOTW live on Sky - I’m sure the News International link helped there!

Where the modern ‘sting’ differs is use of video footage to help the story stand, posted on the newspaper’s website, video sharing sites and - for now -  made available to the broadcast media.

The story has been given even more credence with footage from the match in question which clearly shows that what was promised in the video actually happened. In one of the twists in the story the Pakistani High Commissioner even claimed that the video was filmed after the alleged incidents. The response from the NOTW was a hint that there was more to come this weekend.

Contrast this with one of the other major stories of the week and the rumours which forced William Hague to make a personal statement. The rumours had come from the web and the blogosphere and although the media knew about them they had not been published as they possibly feared crossing a legal line.

It seems likely that we will see more of what we have this week. With the NOTW going behind the paywall its ability to offer content will be vital to driving subscriber numbers and what better than seeing further footage of its latest sting.

When Sebastian Coe - record holding middle distance runner and head of London’s Olympic 2012 bid - joked about opening the next Olympics with “five thousand Morris Dancers”, was he having an ironic dig at a much-mocked old English folk tradition?

Well, even Morris Dancing is entitled to an image makeover - and it’s got it, care of artist David Owen, who is clearly trying to inject some cool into dancing with sticks, bells and handkerchiefs.

And, London is this weekend hosting a - gulp - three-day celebration of the tradition, which gets the “Critics Choice” in no less a guide to what’s hip and happening than Time Out.

Not shy of a fun, Friday feature, BBC Radio 4’s Today programme carried a piece this morning direct from London’s Southbank, with the familiar sound of Morris bells tinkling over the airwaves.

But not everyone is impressed. Take two of the Twitterati:

and…

It seems unlikely that we’ll be seeing Strictly Come Morris Dancing any time soon.

The Radio 4 Today programme did it again this morning; John Humpreys called Max Clifford a “PR consultant” when he is a publicist and in most people’s opinions a discredited one at that.  

The issue was a serious one; the allegations against William Hague and his decision, which incidentally I believe was a wise one, to make an early statement on the matter.  I’m not sure what expertise Clifford has in the political arena but he argued that the story would have gone away, somewhat doubtful in the internet age. 

So why does the BBC insisit on talking about serious media issues with a man who was caught lying on camera as the crew was still recording during the documentary he made with Louis Theroux?  Indeed Clifford has admitted that lying is part of his stock in trade.  Essentially it is because Clifford has become a mini celebrity in his own right.  Nevertheless I think a serious agenda setting programme like Today should seek out more serious opinions.  I have the number for the Chartered Institute of Public Relations if they ever need it.   

If the holiday weekend excitement took your attention away from the BBC director general, Mark Thompson’s MacTaggart Lecture at the Edinburgh International Television Festival, you can find a handy summary of the main points c/o of the BBC here and a media overview here.

But in the midst of the gladiatorial BBC vs Sky debate, what I noticed in the Guardian’s extract from his speech was the mention of Twitter; how the news about BBC cuts “provoked an extraordinary rash of Twitter feeds…” and that “some of those ‘I love the BBC’ Twitter feeds trended in the top five in the world”. And all because “they care about British television and …will be prepared to fight for it in their thousands and perhaps their millions”.

Is this the first time a BBC director general has acknowledged the influence of social media on shaping decisions made in higher places? Clearly, the references to Twitter had to be carefully chosen, knowing the surgeon-like precision with which  this year’s MacTaggart lecture would be dissected.

It’s one thing - as the BBC does - to use social media as a channel, but quite another to recognise it as a world-wide driver of opinion to be taken seriously.

I wonder what James Murdoch makes of all that? And, if he does Tweet, does he do it (as the article at the end of the previous link would suggest) standing up?

How likely is it that a PR account executive in Manchester - in the role for only a matter of months - would gain access to talk with one of the most important PR professionals of our time?  Yesterday I shared a brief exchange with Tony Blair’s chief spin doctor Alastair Campbell over Twitter. I write book reviews at www.Jungla.co.uk. On Thursday I wrote a review for Alastair Campbell’s The Blair Years.  

It wasn’t a nice review, but I was honest:

The book is surprisingly tedious - Campbell is a former Mirror journalist, so why didn’t he write his memoirs like one? It is full of tiresome detail and repetition, and could be around 300 pages shorter.  The Blair Years is a frustrating read - I recommend Alastair Campbell by Peter Oborne and Simon Walters as a more illuminating account of Blair’s communications machine. Having published the review, I looked to see if Campbell was on Twitter. There’s no reason to hide a bad review from an author, and I wanted to see his response.  

He was, and so I told him I didn’t enjoy his book:  

His response was predictable: 

Troubled by such a dignified reply, I made amends: 

And, ever the communications maestro, Campbell was provocative in summing up: 

Although retired, it still feels like a major coup to have spoken to such a high-profile figure as Alastair Campbell, even if only on Twitter. Twitter’s strength is its fairness. Email, telephone and letters - all private media - provide the opportunity for the other person to ignore them – with Twitter, it’s much more difficult. Campbell searched for his name and saw that review was out there. He had to respond. Everyone on Twitter is on an equal footing. Besides “Verified Accounts”, there are no premium features for members with millions of followers, and no added benefits have been introduced for those willing to pay. Because of this, it allows an anonymous PR person the opportunity to interact with a person who worked in the corridors of power for over a decade.  

I’m reading John Prescott’s Prezza: My Story: Pulling No Punches soon. Wish me luck - he might put up more of a fight.

As we segue into the last part of 2010, it’s worth asking how social your marketing has been this year.

Or, maybe more pertinent a question: how social should it have been?

Reading back on a commentary piece from Interbrand in 2009, focused on the use of social media and subtitled “Make 2009 the year you engage”, the sentiments should seem almost quaint in August 2010. But are they really so quaint and how far have brands genuinely moved with the uptake of social media marketing?

Writers, Bunny Ellerin and Nora Geiss pointed out at the time that ”there is still much confusion about how to integrate new forms of communication, particularly digital and mobile, into a brand’s marketing plan.”

And this was despite a predicted compound annual growth rate in US social media spend of 34% - which, based on Interbrand’s figures would mean a figure of $3.1bn by 2014. According to a recent analysis by eMarketer, this level of investment is well underway, with the actual social media spend (by advertisers) this year predicted to be $1.7bn in the US and $3.3bn worldwide.

With all this extra money being spent (granted, calculated on advertising spend rather than other forms of social media engagement) are companies making the most effective use of social media?

Ellerin and Geiss provided a handy six-point social media plan for brands in 2009.

How many of these can you tick off as we reach the final furlong of 2010?

1. Start tracking your brand online.

2. Establish a relationship with an [online] opinion leader.

3. Support a social network in your category.

4. Engage with consumers at one of their many online haunts.

5. Use video to communicate and educate.

6. Go mobile [i.e., phone apps].

I’d be very interested to know if your response to all this is “Duh! Course we are, stupid!” or “Hmmm. Maybe 2011 is the year we’ll engage”.

Top Twitter Users 2010 (26.08.10)

1.  LadyGaga			5,829,503
2.  BritneySpears			5,745,242
3.  aplusK			5,605,776
4.  BarackObama			5,107,068
5.  TheEllenShow			5,100,414
6.  JustinBieber			4,773,390
7.  KimKardashian			4,566,926
8.  Oprah			4,092,737
9.  TaylorSwift13			4,013,783
10.JohnCMayer			3,628,576

The size of the audience is the first thing that leaps out - the individual follower numbers have grown 100 fold.  The most powerful man on the planet is the only person to make both lists and though he has grown his following by over five million he has long since given up the top spot, perhaps because he no longer tweets himself.Apart from that we have seen social media super stars eclipsed by mainstream megastars.  With the exception of el presidente the top ten now are all from the worlds of showbiz.  In 2008 we had Digg founder Kevin Rose, podcaster Leo Laporte and tech bloggers Richard Scoble and Veronica Belmont.  Twitter itself was just in the list and we were listening in our thousands to tweets from the surface of Mars.  Oh happy days.

Type “woman” into Google search today - in fact, go as far as “w-o-m” and you will be presented with “woman puts cat in bin”; 1.97m searches on this term alone, just a day after a Coventry woman was filmed putting kitty in the litter.

Not only is the story a shocking example of animal cruelty, it’s a salutary lesson to any organisation that hasn’t yet recognised the power of social media. Imagine that the hapless Coventry woman at the centre of the furore was, instead, your company or brand.

Look at the facts: number one in Google search; more than 50,000 views on YouTube; nearly 30,000 fans on Facebook, posting nearly 1,000 comments on the matter; 743-and-counting online news articles and, now, a police guard on the offending woman’s home.

Granted, the ire of the British animal lover should never be underestimated.

But where did this firestorm take hold? Within social media.

Another day, another load of social media survey data to circumnavigate…

But interesting nonetheless.

First, a UK survey from Skillsoft (e-learning company), giving the social media view among “learning professionals”; noteworthy because it suggests that specific sectors are each finding a distinct value in embracing social media.

Unsurprisingly, the learning professionals recognised the social media worth in ”exchanging ideas to create community content” (28%) and “empowerment through shared knowledge” (28%) - not the usual marketing/customer relationship mantra one tends to find in analyses of social media usage. In fact, the brand awareness and sales/marketing applications of social media came respectively 4th and 5th as corporate benefits, according to the polled group. 

For those involved in learning, the emphasis of social media appears to fall on “collaborative online communications”. But then Skillsoft’s survey and accompanying commentary could be accused of straying into the mildly Utopian when it describes the power of social media to “create unprecedented knowledge bases that can empower entire industries and even society as a whole”. Not if people get fed up of Facebook’s privacy goalpost changing, it won’t.

As a footnote, it seems that having a social networking policy has not occured to most of the companies whose people answered SkillSoft’s poll. But it’s the issue of lacking serious investment in managing and measuring social media effectiveness that troubles Brand Builder Blog author, Olivier Blanchard, more.

This he picks up from the latest KingFish Media social media usage survey among marketeers, showing that only 9% of the 72% of companies with a social media programme employ someone to manage it while fewer than half (43%) don’t need to show positive ROI to get funding for their social media activities. Blanchard’s conclusion? “Dismal”. He does - however - acknowledge the limitations of the data, with most of the companies polled being small, mostly B2B marketing/media businesses.

Still, it might suggest that outside a few huge brands investing in comprehensive and dedicated social media activity, many organisations are still dabbling in the hope that something miraculous will happen. Maybe it’s because dabbling feels like a low-risk approach with a new, difficult to evaluate discipline -”undiscipline” even, as consumers don’t just behave themselves and act accordingly because social media is part of your marketing effort.

What Blanchard’s comments do underline is that it takes a combination of skills, time, effort and money for social media marketing to stand a chance of working.