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PR Media Blog, when it comes to religion, is at the very least agnostic and certainly non-denominational.

But when the venerable institution of BBC Radio 4’s Thought for the Day talks social media, quotes Mark Zuckerberg and namechecks YouTube, we simply have to listen.

There’s no doubt that TFTD has divided opinion, with Christians championing the need for religious broadcasting while humanists and atheists urging the broadcaster to do less, if any, God at all.

But, sometimes, the chosen TFTD speaker manages to harness the zeitgeist and build a meaningful connection between faith and a modern, technological world, seemingly indifferent to the church.

Read here or listen to here what the Rev Dr David Wilkinson says about social media and the importance of relationships.

Could social media be the saviour of religion or, ultimately, become its replacement? To paraphrase Karl Marx, could social media be the new opium of the people?

The social media arena has been dominated by the growth of Twitter, Facebook and other networking sites this year. As we’re nearing 2010, there’s chatter about how networks will evolve going forward and one of the key points I’ve seen in almost every trend forecast is filtering out the clutter.

According to Pingdom, Twitter is already closing in on 30 million tweets a day and the latest figures from Facebook reveal that over 45 million status updates are uploaded on the site each day. It’s no surprise that some users are starting to tune out and some still think that Twitter is a waste of time.

David Armano predicts on the Harvard Business Conversation Starter blog that social media will begin to look less social next year - i.e. we will try to get more value out of our networks through filtering messages (hiding from hyperactive updaters etc).

Twitter has already started tackling this with Twitter Lists, but it raises an interesting question - do we actually want to connect with people we don’t know? The majority of people using social media connect almost exclusively with people they already know in the real world. Or is it simply information overload and we need to be able to administer the incoming messages better?

Either way, it emphasises yet again that successful online PR does not equate to a large number of followers on Twitter or fans on Facebook. As people start to sift through the clutter (and some will probably do this early next year as everyone jumps on the New Year’s resolutions bandwagon and pledge to tidy up their lives in general), brands which aren’t offering something really valuable are likely to be the first ones to fall off the list. Relevant and trusted content has always been important but more aggressive filters will mean it’s paramount to digital PR success next year.

How do you see 2010 panning out? Will it become more difficult for brands to reach consumers through social networks as people are increasingly being bombarded with marketing messages?

In today’s guest blog post Staniforth Manchester intern, Andrew Doyle, checks the scores of UK football clubs when it comes to the Facebook league.

With the season just under a third of the way through, English football’s most successful clubs are battling against each other for domestic dominance. But it is not only within the Premier League that England’s footballing giants are competing for success. Research conducted by Revolution magazine indicates that the country’s top teams are also competing with each other in terms of their popularity on Facebook.

Leading the pack with over one million fans signed up to the club’s official Facebook group is Liverpool, while Manchester United are just behind their studded heels with 955,377 followers. Also making it into the top ten, although trailing some way behind are Arsenal and Chelsea, with Stoke

The growing presence of football clubs within the social media network is not, perhaps, something to be surprised by.

Before the investment of wealth through the BSkyB revolution, it was easy to see how football clubs regarded their fans as one of the main reason for their existence. Compare that to the initial changes stimulated by BSkyB’s involvement and the subsequent affluence it generated, it is possible to see how football clubs came to see fans less in this way and more as customers, each of whom is a potential stakeholder in a commercial transaction.

Thus it comes as no shock to me that football clubs are using sites such as Facebook in an attempt to ‘get back in touch’ and communicate with fans and the community in an effort to bridge the divide that has been created. However could this be regarded as something of a two-edged sword? This leads to the question: what are the motives for clubs having a presence on such sites? Is this altruism and benevolence or a shrewd and cynical attempt to raise the profile of clubs across the world in a business still dominated by global markets and financial opportunism?

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.

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?

Most people who read a newspaper will have picked up on the story of Mathew Robson, a 15-year-old intern at Morgan Stanley who wrote a report into teenage consumption of the media which broke surface a little over a week ago. At first glance this smacked of a well executed PR stunt after the story made a huge splash in the nationals and had significant penetration online.

However, upon reading the report in its entirety – rather than reading what other people have said about the report, which is where most conversations have derived from – it is actually surprisingly simplistic, logical, and to someone who was not a teenager all that long ago, far less than groundbreaking than you might imagine. Everything contained in the report, well, it just seemed rather self-evident.

For instance, one of the key points that the media picked up on is that teenagers don’t Twitter. Of course they don’t. You actually have to invest some time in Twitter to get anything out of it. It takes months, if not years, to actually build up enough followers for one to feel their tweets are actually reaching an audience which could be, in any way, defined as significant. And even once you do, there is little content other than the oh so boring medium of text.

Compare this to the Facebook experience where you can jump into a ready made group, lured by a diversity of visually stimulating and engaging content, such as pictures, applications and games. It’s all rather Scrabulous.

Many of the other observations are fairly straightforward, claiming, for example that most teenagers don’t read newspapers or watch the news…is this news? Were you interested in global geo-politics or the lack of transparency within the political system when you were 14? No, thought not. Funnily enough, kids aren’t now either.

Most kids have mobiles on pay-as-you-go because they can’t afford contracts…hold the front bleedin’ page…the FT did.

So ok, this isn’t a PR stunt, but it does demonstrate a few things. Firstly, that if you want a report into the habits of media consumption – or anything for that matter – to have penetration, keep it simply and write it in language that is not impenetrable to the man in the street. Secondly, if you want to know how teenagers consume the media or anything else, just ask them. Thirdly, a story really does not have to be groundbreaking to get blanket coverage; it just has to be insightful, informative and PR’d within an inch of its life.

The report in its entirety can be viewed here.

Last year MI6 was using Facebook to recruit the next generation of spies. This year it appears, indirectly, to be using the social networking site as a family photo album. As the wife of Sir John Sawers, the next head of MI6, put family details on Facebook, diplomats and civil servants are being warned of the danger of putting family and career information on social networking websites.

Lady Sawers disclosed the location of their London flat, the whereabouts of their children and the couple’s friendship with senior diplomats and actors without putting any privacy protection on her account. She also uploaded over 40 photographs from beach holidays to family parties and publicly congratulated her husband on his new and very secret job. Facebook has more than 200 million active users, 100 million of which log on to Facebook at least once a day. With this in mind, one could assume that Lady Sawers has made one huge security blunder.

That said, could this “blunder” in fact be a sign of the times? According to IT security firm, NCC Group, UK intelligence agencies are concerned that social networking sites are ruining the spy industry. Finding recruits who have no online presence will become nearly impossible, and with the ability to take photos on a mobile phone and upload to the internet, the days of locking away incriminating photos and files are long gone.

The brutal fact is however that Lady Sawers and her “Facebook frivolity” has left the Ministry of Defence with a security headache which will cost the tax payer. Relocation costs and extra security don’t come cheap and in today’s economy, it doesn’t bode well.

How do you convert a piece of social media-driven awareness raising to a real-life, bodies on the ground, event? The answer is this: with a certain amount of difficulty.  

But given that was the challenge Manchester-based web company, Cahoona, teamed up with events agency, Ear to the Ground, to put Cutting Room Square - a redeveloped part of city district, Ancoats - on the map.

As they described at last night’s Social Media Cafe Manchester meeting at the BBC, (#smc_mcr) with no budget for big names or attractions to stimulate interest in the place, the plan hatched was to create a user-generated event - The Cutting Room Experiment - in which the public became the curators, participants and audience for it.

Using social media channels including Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and others, the public was encouraged to take ownership of the ideas while promoting them to their online social connections. Using the campaign website as a destination, the activity generated more than 100 ideas and attracted 10,000 unique visitors in 10 weeks. The Facebook group amassed more than 500 members - not bad for a highly niche area of interest.

And the ideas themselves culminated in a live event, involving activites such as the “world’s smallest festival” (comprising three girls, a busker and a tent), a clothes swapping event and Space Hopper race.

Cutting Room Experiment: Space Hopper Race from Ben Holden on Vimeo.

The team hit its various targets for online engagement and turnout on the day - as well as generating £100k in media coverage. But, as David Norris of Ear to the Ground said: “It’s hard to turn a devoted online audience into vibrant offline one”.

Though some questioned the validity of using global social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook to promote a highly localised event, the results suggest that global can be local too, especially as people in the same geographical area are often already talking to each other across the same social media platforms.

And how can you argue with a Space Hopper race - as long as the Health and Safety Executive isn’t watching.

For 100 years marketing has been about business to business communications (B2B) and consumer targeting (B2C).  With the impact of the social web, consumer to consumer communications are edging out some of the traditional brand PR messaging.  Consumer opinions are more important than ever in influencing the dreams and desires of the consumer.  Fashion has always been influenced by independent opinion.  Now fellow consumers sit alongside magazine editors as a source of ideas and inspiration.    

Social media provides consumers with front row access to all of the international shows and this enables them to see trends without the intervention of the mainstream fashion media.  They get the unedited vision of the designers and fashion houses.  In previous years the success of a new season launch was down entirely to the reviews the press gave it, if indeed they featured your product at all.  Now PRs can launch collections directly to the consumer.

Working with social media and social networks offers potential access to a broad spectrum of consumers. Traditional PR routes can encounter many obstacles. Regional newspapers for example won’t run features on items that aren’t available in their region or if the brand doesn’t have wide recognition.  Social media can overcome this, breakdown the boundaries and reach out to new audiences. 

There is a burgeoning portfolio of examples where old brand rules are being broken and rebuilt on the web.  American Apparel addressed their customer base directly by hooking up with Chictopia to invite real girls to become real models for the brand.  American Apparel has built part of its brand image by refusing to airbrush models in their advertisements.  By going a step further and engaging their customers and fans to appear in their ads was bang on brand and generated significant PR.

Victoria’s Secret Pink has a Facebook group with over a million fans.   It contains nearly a thousand images posted by fans plus catwalk videos and official images and hundreds of thousand of comment postings.  Swedish fashion brand H&M also uses Facebook to engage with its customers and also has over a million fans signed up on the site.

Fundamental to communications in the era of the social web is dialogue. This is not about brands talking to consumer; it involves consumers talking back to brands and consumers talking to each other.   In this environment the scope for inspiration through interaction is huge.  Filipino fashion fan and blogger Bryanboy wrote and posted on Youtube about his love of Marc Jacobs design.  In response Jacobs named an ostrich handbag “the BB” in his honour.  

Facebook, MySpace, blog posts and the social network du jour twitter are all contributing to a culture in which instant feedback is available with a mouse click, so brands can test ideas and source public opinion in an instant.  The discussions that happen on line will influence the market and provide the endorsement that drives fashion.   Being involved and sharing knowledge with consumers in the space where these conversations are taking place will become vital. Twitter is sure to emerge as a prime location for fashion brands and fashion fans.  What began as a niche network has emerged as a major sphere of communication with the twitter accounts passing the million follower mark for the first time this month (April 2009).  If you are not convinced in less than three months Women’s Wear Daily has gained over 300,000 followers on twitter.  

This article is an edited version of one that was published on WGSN.com the world’s leading fashion and style forecaster.  My colleague at Staniforth Julie Wilson provided much of the insight into the world of fashion.

Iranians protesting at the outcome of the recent election have been mobilising through social networks like twitter and Facebook. 

In addition to challenging the ’surprising’ results of the presidential election, social networks are being used to organise protests and direct action.   Moreover opponent of the current regime, who claim the election was rigged, have been taking on one of the world’s largest media organisations via twitter.

Whilst organisations like the BBC and New York Times were covering the events as they unfolded, CNN was singled out by twitter users inside Iran and around the world for failing to give sufficient prominence to the outrage at the reported election result emanating from inside the country.  Twitter users in their thousands started to use the hashtag #CNNfail in their messages to point out the limited CNN coverage.   In a direct response to the demands of web users the TV network increased its coverage of events and made the protests their lead story.  

The major news brands around the world remain our most trusted sources of news and comment but the social web is emerging as a critical provider of checks and balance.