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It sounds like something the speech-impeded Elmer Fud might say, but - in fact - it belongs to The Guardian, as writer Emily Bell shares with us in today’s 25th anniversary edition of Media Guardian.

Apparently, it’s what the Guardian’s head of social media has come up with to describe the necessary approach to digital that the traditional media must take - rather than the tried and trusted journalistic tactic of focusing on exclusivity.

As Bell says, the Guardian’s “twattergy” is to “positively encourage people to use [these] social platforms [Twitter, Facebook, YouTube] in the most effective ways possible”.

And that’s not a bad approach for any organisation which believes that people with an interest in it might be searching it out on the internet. But relying on the corporate website of old - static, closed, communicating in one direction, i.e., at you - is no longer enough and will more likely do your business a disservice in the socially connected world of the today’s world wide web.

Take Twitter: a major retailer we’ve been working with recently had made a humble start with the social network by setting up Twitter accounts, but not going much further. But once its people began to test the medium and find that their tweets were not necessarily disappearing into the online equivalent of a black hole - and were starting to generate results - the activity suddenly made sense.

What it takes is a…well…twattergy. For existing Twitter users, this isn’t a bad place to start.

If you are just thinking about dipping a virtual toe in the social media pond, then either read as much as you can about it or get some good advice from someone who’s doing it before taking the plunge. The opportunities are great, but so are the risks.

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)

Today sees the official launch of Freedoma.com , a Manchester-based customer review site which seems to take its ethics from another era.

Promising to “spread the love”, Freedoma can’t help but make you want to reach for a kaftan and head for San Francisco with flowers in your hair. Well, you might want to ask your parents first if there was anything wrong with free love.

PR Media Blog agreed to share the love with Freedoma’s brain (love) child and MD, Caleb Storkey, and blow away the joss stick smoke to reveal all about this latest social media business: 

PRMB: Why is Freedoma needed in Manchester at this point? 

Freedoma: Freedoma promotes and supports local businesses, helping customers share their thoughts on the organisations they love and those to steer clear of. For Manchester, it’s all about getting alongside the local, independent stores. For businesses, it’s all about them being given the opportunity to grow and develop their reputation online, so that customers choose them not based on how big their marketing wallet is, but on how good they are.
 
PRMB: How does it differ in what it does?

F: Unlike yell.com which only offers an address listing and very little additional information, Freedoma collects and collates feedback from customers of each business to get the lowdown on what a business is really like. It also make it possible for local businesses to offer special offers directly to customers. There is the ability for users to see which businesses their friends use and rate. There is a whole bunch of stuff in development, that is already knocking our socks off, and will be unveiled in the forthcoming weeks and months.  

PRMB: How will people find you online?

F: We’ve a lot of quirky activity going on offline that will bolster up the finding online. Shortly people will find us when searching for special offers, plumbers in Manchester, cafes in Leeds, etc, through our SEO and SMO campaigns. But, the power and incentive of word of mouth will be a key to our success. 

PRMB: How will the site make money?

F: The simple way that the site will initially make money is through businesses taking out enhanced listing, which entitles them to a bunch of additional features. We’re rollling out intially with special offers during the launching season. There are a number of additional monetisation routes, but these are currently under wraps until these features are launched. 

PRMB: Will you be aligning it with other social media, e.g., Twitter feed?

F: Yes- integration with other social media is an important part of phase 2.

PRMB: How will you police potentially libellous material?

F: People will have the capacity to flag reviews that are libellous, which will then be assessed. 

PRMB: Freedoma has a very different feel about it. Has it been inspired by another company with similar values or from your own personal outlook on life?

F:  I’ll take that as a compliment (I think ;). It’s come from my personal outlook on life. I really believe in desiring the best for people, and that if businesses adopted more of a position of serving society, society would be all the better for it. The financial bottom line is one motivator for people, but appreciation, spreading the love and the recognition that their hard work can positively impact people’s life, is a far greater motivator. I guess we’re all learning how this can outplay itself. Little bit hippy and change the world (ish), but I’m convinced somehow life and business can work like that. I think if done well, that’s one of the major potentials of social media. 
 

Twitter turned three years old this weekend and those who are now converts/addicts must wonder how we ever lived without it. And while Marshall Kirkpatrick over at ReadWriteWeb has taken the time to hail its significance to social media, Forrester analyst, Jeremiah Owyang, is describing how companies are starting to ask questions about Twitter that suggest it’s now considered a serious business tool.

But how is it working for companies and their customers in the UK?

Travel writer, Mark Hodson, has been tasked by the Times to vet the Twitter performance of various travel companies , and interesting reading it makes.

And taking the example of each travel company in turn provides a handy illustration of some of the better principles of using Twitter. So…

Easy Jet - A real human being makes good customer service accessible and fixes problems.

Lonely Planet - Gathers useful/interesting travel tips from real people and makes them easily searchable via a hash tag.

Brittany Ferries - Shares good deals with its Twitter followers.

Mr & Mrs Smith - Is responsive to customer queries.

Black Tomato - Is conversational rather than salesy and drives people to other content online.

Visit Britain - Shares useful ideas.

Thomson Holidays - Communicates to customers’ concerns in a crisis (in this case, flights to places affected by Swine Flu).

Hodson also takes a look at some travel Twitter feeds distinctly underperforming - namely Virgin Atlantic and London City Airport - which share a similar problem: seemingly having no clear idea of what to do on Twitter or why. 

But his appraisal of Butlins’ Twitter feed seems a bit harsh. After all, it provides offers; monitors and responds to discussion of its brand (including Hodson’s piece in the Times); finds and re-uses positive, third party mentions of Butlins; provides teasers for new openings; directs followers to other content online and handles customer complaints openly and sympathetically. Maybe Mr Hodson just doesn’t like Butlins; or maybe I’m still overwhelmed by my 1975 visit to Butlins at Bognor Regis that’s never been bettered.

OK, I exaggerate…

(Thanks to @adrian_johnson for bringing the original article to our attention)

Saying sorry is very much back in fashion.

How much it will help him and his party’s election hopes is another matter, but Gordon Brown has now apologised “on behalf of all politicians” for the current expenses scandal engulfing Parliament.

And last week, M&S took the step of advertising its apology to more ample women who were having to pay extra for the retailer’s larger sized bras. The issue had spawned a Facebook Group, Busts 4 Justice - set up by Brighton’s Beckie Williams (pictured above) with more than 17,000 members at time of writing - and national media interest.  Meanwhile, rival retailer, Asda, joined the fray by introducing a “one price fits all” bra.

But the point is, M&S did just the thing that companies find hard to swallow: to admit publicly it was wrong, change policy and offer customers a discount sweetener. It also reflects two truisms; one old as the hills, the other a more recent phenomenon.

The first is about crisis management. If you’ve upset your public, then recognise it and respond. As Alison Theaker says in The Public Relations Handbook, “Tell it first, tell it fast”.

The second is about the growth of online people power. Busts 4 Justice not only reflected the views of women - all potential underwear customers - but the support it generated got noticed in the mainstream media, so multiplying awareness of the issue.

M&S - with its response to the D cup storm - managed to meet the two essential elements of human interaction described by The Conversation Agent’s Valeria Maltoni as 1. Do you care? and 2. Can I trust you?

Who knows - maybe Elton John will have to abandon singing “Sorry seems to be the hardest word” altogether, as it no longer is.

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.
 

Companies using social media to become customer service champions seem to be flavour of the month right now.

Econsultancy has carried its fair share of insightful pieces on the topic, and businesses are really beginning to wake up to its benefits.

And not before time. Last December, I wrote about a personal customer service trial I was going through with a mobile phone company, whose name was spared in the hope the sorry mess would be resolved without resorting to name calling.

Needless to say, it wasn’t and - in desperation - I turned to Twitter to try to penetrate what felt like the huge, uncaring behemoth of Carphone Warehouse. And I found Guy Stephens, the company’s Knowledge and Online Help Manager, who appeared to be tackling customer rage in a passionately empathetic way on Twitter. I tweeted him at 8pm; by 8.07pm, I had a reply, rendering me unconditionally blown away. Three months of periodic call centre torture had got me nowhere, but via social media I felt listened to within minutes and my problem solved within a few days. 

True, I was a departing customer, but not before being turned from a ”hater” to a fan of what Carphone Warehouse is doing to improve its customer experience via social media.  You can read the specifics about the company’s approach in Guy’s own words here, and he agreed to field a few questions from PR Media Blog on why embracing social media is important for the company. In customer service? Read and learn…

What prompted CPW to get involved with customer care via social media?

I think it’s more a recognition that our customers are taking part in that space. They’re conversing about us on Twitter, Facebook and the various feedback-type sites such as GetSatisfaction, ComplaintCommunity and Plebble. Regardless of whether we choose to ignore the conversations or take part in them, people are going to continue talking about us.        

How good/bad would you rate CPW’s customer service reputation previously?
Like many companies we’ve got both advocates and detractors. You tend to be more aware of the negative comments, and a company like CPW has no shortage of them on sites such as Twitter and Facebook. But, I see negative comments in a positive way, as it’s the customer telling us directly what we need to change. They’re the ones experiencing or living the process, not us.

How did CPW management deal with accusations of poor customer service online?
I think businesses have shied away from getting involved in this space. However, the landscape has changed so much now, that everything is happening out in the open. Businesses have the choice to take part or ignore it. Either way, customers will do what they want, write what they want, and we’re probably heading to a time when actually customer service may well be co-created or engineered by customers themselves between customers on sites such as Plebble or ComplaintCommunity.        
     
Is the social media customer approach part of an agreed management strategy or a dipping-toe-in experiment?

We weren’t sure what the response would be. We’ve learnt quickly on the job and I would say there’s a definite appetite for it. We recognise that Twitter has a part to play and we’re still defining what that is. New skills are required, or should I say a new mix of skills is required - part customer service, part PR, part maverick. Not a happy combination for any company.

        
How well has the social media activity/customer service activity been received so far?
There is an increasing awareness of the opportunities presented by social media and certainly a momentum for it within CPW. The key is to understand what each channel does well, and then see if it fits together. Social media won’t be for every company and that’s okay; companies shouldn’t feel the pressure of having to integrate it. But they should at the very least do their due diligence to see whether it’s something their customers want and, if so, how to use it.

        
Have you been able to measure the results of your social media activity to date?
We’re still at the early stages of using it and understanding it. However, Twitter is great for a customer to initiate a complaint and a subsequent dialogue with a company, though it’s not a resolution channel. Because of the nature of twitter and Data Protection Act requirements, it does take slightly longer to get to the complaint to deal with it. But that’s simply a process issue to overcome and we’ve simply got to find the best way to deal with it. And what you’ve got to remember with Twitter is that there are entry requirements - knowledge, propensity to tweet, requisite technology, etc. It’s not for everyone; it just gives those who use it another option.

        
How does it compare to what your competitors are doing?
We’re all doing different things but our angle is very much centred on customer service, whereas mydeco, asos or geek squad will be doing their thing.  There’s plenty of room for everyone.

        
What does the future hold for CPW’s social media engagement?

Onwards and upwards, more learning, but always being honest, transparent, open and feeling empathy for the person complaining. Stephen Covey calls it ‘empathetic listening’. It’s also understanding what this new world looks like: customers are setting the agenda almost, and with Twitter we have the possibility for real time customer engagement in both a positive and negative way, and we have the break up of centralised information held by companies. Companies are having to go out to where customers are; in other words, as I read somewhere, fishing where the fish are.

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.

The social media revolution is afoot - and we could be in the process of ruining it altogether.  

On the first point, thanks to Social Media Playground for bringing PR Media Blog’s attention to the latest research from IBM - “Beyond Advertising: choosing the strategic path for the digital consumer - which puts numbers against the current shift in consumer expectations and marketing responses.

The trends revealed in the study show US consumers wanting to be engaged with online: word of mouth and online marketing is expected to grow to 27% of overall expenditure by 2012 - up from 7% in 2002; 76% of people are watching video (up 27%) while 32% are consuming it on a mobile phone or other portable device. Advertisers are increasing online/interactive marketing spend by 63% and are engaging more in “brandsactional” advertising, by which I assume it means marketing activity that sits comfortably, rather than intrusively, in the social media arena.

So far, so good, right?

Well, on my second point, Spike Jones at Brains on Fire blog is already warning that the lunatics are taking over the asylum, with traditional marketers tumbling headlong into traditional methodologies that don’t belong in social media, namely making relentless noise, pushing out messages and screaming “listen to me!”.

It’s no surprise. Social media forces many marketing communciations people (across the spectrum of those with spiked hair, greying hair and those without hair) into a discomfort zone they’d rather not be. “Where’s the control? Do we really have to talk to the - urgh! - general public?” And this naturally brings a reversion to type; adopting the trusted methods of yore. Don’t get me wrong, many of yesterday’s practices remain relevant today, and may always have a role to play.

But treating social media as another medium to be “targeted” simply misses the point. As Spike Jones concludes, if marketers try to exploit social media to be the “centre of attention”, people will “just change the channel”.