Posts Tagged ‘Social media’
Brian Solis and Chris Beck define the future of being social
August 27th, 2010
I’ve been following the series of video conversations between Brian Solis and Chris Beck, which are extraordinary in their breadth and depth. They are ‘must see’ for anyone involved with social media PR and indeed for anyone who is interested in the future of online communication.
What strikes me is the clarity of thought, the strategic minds at work here. These guys inhabit ‘social’ but also understand the commercial imperatives that underlie many online conversations. My favourite is the discussion on privacy and what constitutes the ‘online self’.
At a time when some commentators are questioning the existence and value of social networks, Brian and Chris offer a positive, inspiring view of the possibilities. Is social media dead? No. Does it present problems? Yes. Can we rise to the challenge? Take a look at these videos and make up your own mind. Personally, I’d say that with people like Brian and Chris leading the discussion, we’re in very safe hands.
You can see the complete series on Brian’s website
Got your A-Level results? So how do you get into PR?
August 19th, 2010
As you’ve all no doubt seen, A-Level results have been announced today in England, so conversation around qualifications and careers are rife.
On a day like this it certainly takes me back to my own experiences of education, and the path I took to reach my current career. Today though, things are tougher than ever. According to today’s Guardian A-Level students are facing one of the most intense battles ever seen to get into university, simply due to a higher number of students looking for a decreasing number of places. In fact, the total number of places at English universities this year is 365,000, and each University will face fines of £3,700 per student if they exceed their limit.
This means that knowing what you want to do, and getting the correct advice on how to get there, is perhaps more essential than ever.
That got me thinking, how would I advise a student looking to get into the PR sector? To be fair this is a question I have been asked many times, and to be honest I always struggle to answer it with clear and straight-forward advice. Fundamentally, that’s because there is no single, clear and straight-forward route to success.
In my case, I started out in PR 12 years ago, and crossed the divide into social media around 2006. My degree is in Business, but to be honest I had no idea what I wanted to be when I applied or left University, in fact I stayed on at University to add an honours to my degree just to get another year of student life. However, the day finally came when I had to start my career proper, and again, if I’m honest I only took a role as an account executive at a PR agency because I thought PR sounded interesting, not much in the way of career planning there!
Back to the current situation, if graduates or students ask me how to get into PR or social media or hopefully even both, the simple truth is there is no guaranteed method. Having taken my own straw poll of colleagues throughout my career, I would estimate that less than 20% did a degree relevant to PR, now of course you could argue many degrees are relevant to PR, and you would be right, but I’m talking marketing, PR courses, etc.
Why is this the case? Well I would argue it’s simply because in the PR industry everybody starts at the bottom, you learn your trade from the ground up. It used to be the case that a degree was just a pass to get an interview, from that point on it was down to you, your qualifications counted for nothing.
In the past, and in my experience being an interviewer for various agencies, the issue with PR degrees is that the course doesn’t keep pace with the industry, although I’m now assured this is improving. I also realise this is a common complaint with many industries. Therefore, when I am recruiting, I don’t particularly give any advantage to those that have done a PR degree over those that have done History, Geography or English, for example.
This issue is now further complicated by the digital skills required to perform the roll of a PR. Or if you want to go into a specific career focusing on social media, you need to choose how you approach it, i.e. from the comms side, the technology side, web development side or creative side, and ideally with elements of all of the above.
In terms of choosing PR as a career, the number one issue in my opinion is the false reputation PR has developed among graduates, and in fact the general public, as this piece in the Independent proves, and I quote: “Why PR? Because PR is glamorous. You get to go to launch parties and meet interesting people and talk to celebrities.”
Anyone coming into PR with that opinion soon gets hit square in the face with a 2×4 of reality. But then I guess the reality for anyone starting out in PR is a little off putting - terrible pay, long hours, hard and demanding work. However, you will learn a whole host of new skills including many that will set you up for life, and your value, both of self and as an employee, will rocket.
So, to get into PR do you need to do a PR, or PR relevant, course? I would still argue no, but it should help to give you a more realistic picture of the career you have chosen.
Should you try to get work experience before leaving University? Yes, this is something that employers look for, and again it will give you a more realistic picture of the job at hand.
Do you need digital/social media skills? (there are plenty of social media-type courses around ) Yes, I probably would value this, as an introduction, because I’m part of an integrated agency.
I’m certainly not envious of those starting out at University today, well, okay I am envious of the 3-4 years of student life and all the fun that comes with it, but the jobs market and eventual value of the qualification, plus the debt we all come out with, are not attractive at all.
Those that invest time to develop a real picture of the careers options open to them will in my opinion succeed. Again when I was at Uni, careers advice basically came down to ‘what do you want to do when you leave?’ but today there are better options.
Many students take the opportunity to embrace the social web and ask advice from those in the industry, do their research and try to get involved while still studying. This is a smart move; most of us in the industry remember how difficult it was and will help out where we can.
There are also new careers services and guidance available, one of which we are involved in that will be launching soon called WYGU, (When You Grow Up), which is a social careers guidance and mentoring platform that aims to bring people of all ages and backgrounds together to get real information about careers from real people who are in those careers. Take advantage of these services as they offer invaluable advice that you just don’t find elsewhere or through official channels.
In summary, the PR industry is changing, which means the skills required are also evolving. The opportunities to get involved, if you can offer some of the skills mentioned above, are probably better than ever, but be warned if you thought a PR had to be an all-rounder before, it’s stepped up another level, there’s much more to learn.
Social Media is not a separate channel
July 19th, 2010
Felix Wetzel, Group Marketing Director for Jobsite, has posted a blog on The Wall, voicing views that are often overlooked as part of the social media debate - and it’s refreshing to see a senior in-house marketing professional lay his social media cards on the table in such a direct way.
Felix says: “Social media needs to be implemented in the relevant functions and not built as another separate entity. If it’s a separate entity it will fail and will only always remain as another communication channel. Social media has to become part of the DNA, not another add on. Which leads me to one additional point: Any communication agency with a separate social media arm misses the point completely and waves a big sign that reads: ‘We jumped on the band wagon, but we don’t get it!’”
These may seem like brave words to some, but in a climate where too many companies still tend to rank discussions about Social Media in the ‘know we need to, but not 100% sure why’ file, which often leads to implementing social media as a box ticking exercise alone, I would argue it’s necessary to have this debate.
Felix’s key point, that ‘appointing a Social Media manager will hinder the harnessing of the social web’s true potential‘ is valid in my opinion, simply because that job is too often focused on creating a silo where listening, conversation and communication are contained, rather than about opening up these crucial elements to the rest of the business and of course the wider community.
If organisations think that hiring an individual to take care of social media for the whole company is ‘job done’ then it’s a sure route to failure.
If social media strategies are to succeed, they need to be an integral part of the organisation. Social Media isn’t just about marketing, nor is it a tactic, it’s a different way of approaching your business, moving real conversation, reputation and usefulness to the centre of the business, while addressing some of the fundamental issues that businesses of all types face on a daily basis.
You can follow Felix at Felix Wetzel. He’s also the author of the ‘People, Brands, & Random Thoughts’.
A new chapter for Liberate Media
June 21st, 2010
As you may have seen, I recently completed a deal to acquire the remaining shares in Liberate Media from my former business partner.
Since starting the company back in 2006, we’ve focused on integrating more traditional PR methods with social media strategies and approaches. It’s been a very successful time, and we’ve enjoyed living in a sector that has developed so rapidly, and exploded into the mainstream PR, search, digital, marketing and advertising spaces.
The lines between these disciplines are getting increasingly blurred, and although we all have our own opinions on how the future will take shape, it seems the communications sector in whatever guise it appears, will be a very different beast in the years to come.
At Liberate Media, much like our sector, we’re also changing, but it’s a change that I feel is important to position us for the ongoing development in the market. You’ll be seeing a few new focuses and developments in the near future, while maintaining our core expertise in communicating to brand audiences online, offline or where ever they are, but more on that another day.
When we started Liberate Media, I quickly grew to appreciate the advantages and disadvantages of working day-to-day with a business partner. However, in May 2009, when Wendy took a break from the business, returning earlier this year, I realised that my personal ambition for the company was to continue its evolution and focus on delivering a service that not only reflects the sector’s development, but also our client’s growing need. This will be our focus moving forward, and I hope to be introducing a few new faces along the way.
So, for now, please stay in touch and let us know what you think.
June 21st, 2010
Sadly this will be my last contribution to the Liberate Media blog, as after four adrenalin-fueled years, I am leaving my post as director and moving onto pastures new.
Setting-up Liberate has been an incredible experience, and I’m eternally grateful for the support that we’ve received along the way from friends, family (my husband in particular!) and industry peers.
Back in 2006, we saw the huge potential that social media would create for the PR industry, and we wanted to be a part of that change, leading by example. In the four years since, the industry has undergone a rapid transformation, and we’ve always endeavoured to keep Liberate Media evolving in terms of our knowledge, approach and positioning. Last year we set-up our own Social Media News Release service Pressitt, which has been a great success and I will continue to be a part of.
Setting up a business from scratch isn’t easy. At the start there were a lot of lost weekends and holidays, but it was worth it for the satisfaction that you get out of building something that is our own. I’ve always kept a close network of trusted mentors (you know who you are!), and they have been wonderful at guiding and advising me along the way, and sharing leads and contacts where ever they can. We have always taken the approach of building the business through word-of-mouth and recommendation, and from my experience, this has always helped to create great client relationships and distance us from the pitching circuit, which I still believe is an ineffective way of selecting a PR partner.
Time is always what I wanted more of! When you’re working flat out and the business is established, it’s easy to forget to take time out for business planning and creative thinking around the next stage of the business. At times we were guilty of getting too caught up in day-to-day work, but when we did make time for blue sky thinking and planning, it was always worth it in terms of re-inspiring and re-energising, and positive changes always resulted.
For old time’s sake, I thought I’d dig up the first ever post that I wrote for the Liberate blog: ‘Liberating our Online Identity‘. It goes to show how far we’ve come.
If you’ve been a regular reader of my blog posts, thank you for your time.
I wish Liberate Media the best of success for the future.
Over and out!
Corporate social media, walking-the-walk
May 20th, 2010
I read an interesting article by Tom Foremski on ZD Net yesterday, titled: ‘Corporate social media is not social - it’s sales media‘
As you can see the piece is focused on the issues of corporate social media efforts that are really just focused on selling, or as Tom says: ‘When it comes to corporate use of social media I have problems with the use of the word “social” because it’s not accurate. It’s not social it’s all about sales.’
On the whole I agree with Tom’s conclusions, the simple truth is; direct sales tactics do not work in social media. However, I don’t believe corporates should not engage via social media at all, they simply need to understand the medium, adjust their approach and get involved where they can be useful. They have to understand the rules have changed; social media isn’t a broadcast medium nor is it a sales channel.
Fundamentally, this is a difficult issue for many corporates to grasp. Sure, the theory of listening, understanding, developing a conversation and engaging usefully sounds good, but the next question is usually; ‘When do we get to the part where I make money?’
There-in lies the problem. The part about listening, understanding your community and developing conversation is the key, and those that walk-the-walk, quickly discover the many new opportunities that social media offers if done right. After all what price would you place on real engagement and feedback from your customers, understanding their real needs and opening a constant flow of feedback - isn’t that valuable? Doesn’t that lead to reputation development, and yes eventually the coveted sale?
The value here is in the conversation and learning, something marketers have been trying to develop with their audiences for many years, and now have the opportunity to achieve relatively easily.
The difficulty comes in the mindset, i.e. helping a corporate to understand that social media isn’t a direct sales channel. In my experience, part of the problem is that social media has been hyped up to such a degree with many corporates, that it’s like showing a child a huge tub of ice cream, telling them it’s the best they’ll ever have, but then saying they can’t eat it in the same way they’ve eaten ice cream before, otherwise it’ll react badly with them. The natural reaction is to ignore such advice and dive in with spoon at the ready, and later discover the error of their ways when the stomach pains begin.
Getting back to Tom’s piece, I can appreciate that many corporates have jumped straight in, tried to apply non-social approaches and this has not only failed to deliver sales, but probably only served to damage the brand.
However, the same isn’t true for everyone, there are many examples of brands engaging in social media in an honest and open fashion, and getting their just desserts (excuse the pun). I also think these examples are on the increase, even if it’s up for debate whether the bad still outweighs the good, at least at the moment.
So, should we be surprised that corporate’s first few shaky steps into the world of social media are not always in the right direction? No. Hopefully the more case studies we see of positive results from social media (not necessarily sales-related), the more corporates will be willing to walk-the-walk about social media theories and strategies, as well as talk-the-talk.
Social media agency debate: transparency
April 9th, 2010
If you want a good debate, talk about social media agencies and their skills/approach or lack thereof, you will always get some excitable and passionate responses.
I was involved in one such debate recently, sparked by an excellent post from Claire Stokoe (@killer_bunnie) called ‘10 ways digital agencies f*** up social media’. You can imagine the reaction.
I’m embarrassed to say I’m talking about it far too long after the event, but The Easter holidays, proposals, etc, etc have slowed me down, so apologies for the delay.
Back to the story. My attention was first drawn to the post on Twitter, and having reviewed it I agreed with the vast majority of it and retweeted it in support. I was certainly not the only one, and Claire’s post sparked quite a response, with some in agreement and some not.
As I said to Claire, I think there is too much traditional thinking being forced into a social media environment, and none more so than in the PR industry.
Anyway, Claire contacted me and a number of others that had mentioned the post on Twitter or commented on it, to ask for our input on three key questions, you can see those that responded on the follow up post here: Smelly Money VS Social Media Purity lol (round two), I’ve added my responses in below again FYI.
The three questions being:
1. Don’t run social networks as the client - agree or disagree
2. Social media shouldn’t be billed on a monthly retainer - agree or disagree
3. Avoid working with a third party agency if possible on social media campaign - agree or disagree
To be completely transparent, at Liberate Media, we are coming at social media from a PR perspective, which means we offer an Integrated PR service, consulting with clients both online and offline as part of their communications plan.
We set up the company in 2006 to focus on integrated PR (combining traditional PR skills with social media understanding). We didn’t jump from being a traditional PR agency to social media, and nor are we a digital team trying to learn the comms skills necessary for PR. Neither are we focused on technical build and development, unless that’s building communities, so we concentrate on educating the client, working with them to deliver an agreed strategy which will of course develop day-by-day with the nature of the ongoing conversation surrounding the main issues and relevant discussion points.
Back to Claire’s post; the responses that most interested me, were the differences in opinion from those approaching social media from the strategic/comms side, and those that are approaching it from the build side. These are not new differences, in fact if you’d have asked the same people the same questions one or two years ago, the responses would have probably been similar.
However, the one element that was quite refreshing was the near total agreement that agencies should look to their strengths when working within social media and bring in partners to assist with the elements they are not as strong in.
In the past we’ve seen agencies assuring clients that they are a one stop shop for social media, even if their heritage is in digital/web design/PR/whatever, and they’ve done nothing to up skill. This might be followed by the campaign falling apart shortly afterwards. Or at least performing well in the agencies’ specialist areas, and not so well in others, and it is this that has perhaps done more damage to agency reputation than many other issues.
In other instances an agency might say they cover everything off and then throw part of the work out to partner agencies behind closed doors. See my response to Q3 (below) for more.
If these responses are anything to go by, it seems as an industry we’re being a little more transparent about how we approach campaigns, and realistic about strengths and weaknesses. We all need to up skill in areas we are not as confident in, but that doesn’t mean we all need to be uber agencies offering a one stop shop.
There is still value in providing strong consultancy in key elements of social media and working with trusted and familiar partners to facilitate the complete offering.
Thanks again to Claire for starting and building this debate - nice work.
My responses:
1. Don’t run social networks as the client - agree or disagree
Agree, but this isn’t all or nothing, the agency needs to be fully involved beginning with training the client, developing this understanding in practical terms by walking them through real-life processes and remaining involved to highlight issues/discussions/opportunities for the client to get involved in the conversation. If and when the agency needs to get involved this should be made clear either in the biography for the profile, confirming the responses are developed by the marketing team and who this includes, or with a direct sign off on the post/comment.
I agree with some of the other comments, specifically that in some cases clients just want you to take this part of the campaign away from them and deal with it, buying social media in the way that they think a commodity can be purchased - ‘just get me some of that social media’. In these cases it’s necessary to step up the education process, show the client exactly what can happen and run them through actual scenarios and consequences to bring the importance of their external communications home to them. Often this barrier is just a lack of understanding, but I admit this isn’t possible in all cases. At that point it comes down to the agency-client relationship, and whether a compromise can be found adhering to the issues of transparency/knowledge/etc.
2. Social media shouldn’t be billed on a monthly retainer - agree or disagree
I think this question very much depends on the circumstances, and the client sector. If you are saying social media shouldn’t be billed on a set monthly retainer that doesn’t evolve in-line with the requirements, then yes I agree; I don’t think it’s relevant to charge a set fee of £x amount per month to cover all elements. However, if you’re saying billing should only be done by action, that in-turn creates a whole new admin nightmare of agreeing set fee levels for potential activity and it pushes us further towards the hourly rate that a solicitor might take, which again is not where we need to be.
This is far from a simple issue, and many agencies have taken the easy route of cramming social media services into existing billing structures, which usually involves monthly retainers and changing the way services are delivered around the billing structure rather than the other way around, which isn’t right either.
The obvious exception comes with a project where objectives are set, metrics agreed and timelines roughly in place, which is increasingly popular. In terms of ongoing campaigns, I think a lower set fee to cover ongoing service, monitoring, management etc is acceptable, and the project approach can be taken to deliver more encompassing activity.
3. Avoid working with a third party agency if possible on social media campaign - agree or disagree
Disagree, but again, it depends on the issues. As I said at the beginning we are primarily a communications agency. We listen, engage on key issues, build conversation, and develop useful content…you get the picture. We have a decent technical understanding and have in-house technical team members but this isn’t our strength and it isn’t what we want to do. We work with trusted partners, and have done for many years, to deliver successful campaigns.
I think the big issue is trying to complete the social media circle in a single agency, encompassing research, strategy, build, engagement and measurement, which usually results in problems as the agency’s skill set usually falls in one or maybe two areas, meaning two pieces are done very well and the rest just fumbles along.
We also might work with a brand’s traditional PR agency, marketing agency, search agency, digital agency, etc, etc. We may not know them, and sometimes we think they don’t know what they are doing in terms of social media, but again it depends on the relationship with the client, and of course you have to stand by your beliefs, even if that means warning the client and walking away.
Quarterly review of weekly social media sites and tools
April 7th, 2010
With over 3 months of the year gone already, I have revisited the Weekly Social Media sites, tools and posts round-up to offer a full rundown of the 65 social media tools that I’ve recommended in 2010, so far. Just in case you missed any!
1. BannerSnack is a fantasic tool that lets you create Flash web banners without the need for Flash knowledge. A free version is available where a small BannerSnack watermark is visible in the banner, while a branding-free version is on offer for a few dollars. Highly recommended.
2. Twitter Alerts allows you to receive Twitter messages via mobile phone (SMS), instant messenger or email. There is a small charge to receive via SMS.
3. Your Fonts enables you to create your own fonts in a few easy steps, which can then be used in programmes like Microsoft Word and Powerpoint. There is a small charge of $9.95 for the privilege.
4. This is a compendium of useful Facebook widgets from profile badges to Live Streams - very useful!
5. Interactive Buttons with Hit Counters are all the rage at the moment, and here are some of the best.
6. HeadWay is a WordPress plug-in that enables users with no coding knowledge to create a bespoke WordPress theme via an easy drag and drop process. There is a small fee to pay for the plug-in. Highly recommended.
7. T Lists is a very visual way of searching for Twitter lists. Just add your keyword to the search bar, wait for the results and finally follow or apply to the selected lists.
8. Twendly is a great way to find and connect with people on Twitter. Results are ranked in terms of relevancy to your given search term and the user’s level of activity over a 12-month period. Highly recommended.
9. If you like playing around with images but aren’t sure how to get some of the snazzy effects you see everywhere, Rollip might just be able to help. Upload your photo and select one of the 40 effects and add it to your image, simple.
10. TweetsQue, as the name suggests, lets you add Tweets and set time intervals for them to be Tweeted out.
11. Create your own iPhone or Android app for $25.00 - you have got be kidding right? That’s what iSites offers: “Create an iPhone app almost instantly! We take care of the app store submission in less than 24 hours”.
12. NutShell Mail has an interesting free Email Newsletter application for Facebook that enables your fans to keep track of new activity on your page.
13. Buzzom has a nice Twitter tool that give you a person’s Twitter score based on different criteria. These include influence, RT ratio, Tweet efficiency, RT rank and Following rank.
14. Vidinotes is a nice solution for getting video ‘How To’s’ down on paper. Simply upload your Flash video, capture a slide and add the notes to go with it. Finally download the PDF with the screenshot and accompanying note or print.
15. Twitcaps allows you to view real time images in Twitter as they are Tweeted. It also allows you to search for an image via keywords, locations or # then capture the image if you like it.
16. Tangler Live is a superb tool that allows you to have group conversation in real time. Create your room and then embed it into your post about the same event/issue - works great for live events when you want to speak to people interested in the same theme.
17. Web 2.0 Suicide Machine. Here is what the Guardian says: “”The Dutch website created by your unfriendly neighbourhood medialab moddr_ is designed to end users’ social lives on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace and LinkedIn in a spectacular way.”
18. Avatara. Most people have seen the film Avatar, well now you can create your own avatar usable in over 30 online destinations including Facebook.
19. Sprout Pitch. Simply pitch your start-ups, projects and ideas to the world via video - “think elevator pitch”
20. Collecta Widget Builder lets you build customisable widgets for your website very easily. Just grab the code and embed it into your site!
21. Social Media comparison is first up today. Simply type in two competing search terms and see who comes out on top. After running the report you get a whole heap of visual results to show you who is top dog. Check out Apple Vs Microsoft.
22. Google Fight is a fun little keyword search tool. Add your two keywords and let them fight to the death, watch the fight sequence to see who wins or has the most search results. OJ Simpson vs Hommer Simpson.
23. Manage Tweets is a new tool that gives you an easily detectable way to find out who you follow, who isn’t following you back and which inactive accounts you follow. Recommended.
24. Social connector for Outlook is Microsoft’s attempt to make email more social. Currently it only supports LinkedIn but there are more to follow soon including Facebook. For a more in-depth overview and installation instruction check out the How to Geek blog.
25. Flavors.me is a great idea, and here’s what they say: “Flavors.me allows anyone to create an elegant website using personal content from around the internet. Ideal for personal homepages, lifestreaming, splash and microsites, celebrity fan pages, commercial promotion, brand marketing – and everything in between”.
26. Google Buzz Button Wordpress Plugin is first off the block today, originally designed by Mashable, now available for all you Wordpress bloggers.
27. Twiclur is a highly customisable Twitter widget that can be used to Tweet results from from your TwitterUserName, #Topic or @TwitterUserNam.
28. BlogBooker allows you to create a free high-quality PDF book of your blog posts including your comments, but only if you use Wordpress, Blogger or Live Journal.
29. Socialized Card is a page that has all your social/online identities. Great for something like Twitter where you can only add one link. View an example here.
30. Neat Chat is a very quick way of having a group chat - simply add a user name, click start and send the chatroom link around to the people you want in the group and off you go!
31. Type Tester is a neat tool that allows you to try out different text types, with various options such as size and spacing - great if you are a budding web designer.
32. Word It Out is a similar tool to the fantastic Wordle. You input your text into a box and it automatically creates a word cloud from your content that you can embed in your blog.
33. News Show Wizard is a Google tool that allows you to put a news widget on your site from pre-defined options including search impressions and style options.
34. Trends Buzz - what they say: “We are going to be yet another source of real time internet keyword snooping. In the first version we are going to gather hot topics from 6 different sources but there are more to come in the later stages”.
35. Sploder allows you to create you own Flash based platform or shooter game using a simple drag and drop system. Once the game is finished you can embed it into your own website.
36. Twitteronics is a Twitter analytics tool that will help you to track your brand’s presence on Twitter.
What they say: “Integrated Search, Automated Analysis, and Enhanced Reporting together with Influence Measures”.
37. Tweetbuzzer is a very visual tool. It constantly monitors Twitter for brand mentions, and shows some basic social media analytics such as daily mentions and the % of growth/decline.
38. Tweetalater is a simple Twitter site that translates your message into either:
ttt
uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu
39. Tawidget is a nice visual events widget to showcase any up and coming events in your website or blog. The widget is highly customisable and links to your Twitter account.
40. Twitter Stats is a Twitter analytics tool for particular keywords (brand, product). It shows them visually on a timeline over a period of time.
41. Pressitt - full visability, this is a Liberate Media co-owned product. For those who don’t know Pressitt , it is a free Social Media News Release (SMNR) creation and publishing platform which has just come out of BETA with a multitude of new features.
42. The next tool is actually a WordPress plugin. Effective Calendar Plugin for WordPress allows you to display dates of events for example on your website.
43. QUDOS is a neat tool that allows you to measure your digital status and mange how you look online.
44. dlvr.it looks like an interesting tool that’s currently in public BETA, and here’s what they say: “dlvr.it provides bloggers, publishers and brands a way to instantly syndicate content and expand their reach on the social web and into new channels.
“Our tools make it easy to manage and measure the flow of your content everywhere your audience is. dlvr.it publishes your media, your blogs, all your content to your social channels, ensuring your audience sees it instantly.”
45. Want to know when your Twitter friends sleep? When do they sleep does just that, and checks your Tweeting patterns to determine when you’re in the land of nod.
46. TwilK is a Twitter tool that allows you to put your Twitter followers on your Twitter background.
47. This next one was pointed out by my colleague @liberatelloyd. PDF my URL does what it says on the tin. It PDFs any web page, and there is also a nice bookmarklet that you can add to your browser.
48. DoesFollow is a Twitter tool that quickly finds out if you are following someone or not - handy if you don’t want to go through a huge list of all your followers to find out.
49. Techweet is an aggregator of technology news. The homepage is separated into boxes, and each has a well known tech company sitting in it with their latest news. The thing I like most is the topics page which acts as an index. Here you can find the company you want, select it and review their latest news.
50. Scribble Maps is the quick and easy way to edit and share your map creations via a widget. Scribble allows you to add images, markers, text and shapes to your maps.
51. First off this week we have the newly announced Google Apps Marketplace. The Marketplace is full of useful additions/plugins to your existing Google suite of tools.
52. Giga Tweet is a live Twitter counter of how many Tweets have been sent and the ongoing number of Tweets being sent right now - interesting stuff!
53. A lot of noise can be heard about Foursquare. FourWhere is a mashup of both FourSquare and Google maps. What they say: “FourWhere helps you find places visited by Foursquare users, and read any comments/tips they made about these places”.
54. Base Kit allows you to create hosted websites from .psd files for £10.00 per month. So if you’re hot at designing in Photoshop but not so hot at coding, this could be a good alternative.
55. What do you suggest is a visual tool that uses Google’s suggestion feature. Type in a word or phrase, and then follow it to the answer. Very cool!
56. Stickr will let you post stickers on the Web. You can leave notes all over the Internet that track your activity, or that of your friends.View the video for a further overview.
57. Collecta #trends gives you top real-time trends right off the bat. Each trend gives you the latest photo, story, comment and update. Collecta can also be used for searching your own trends.
58. Trends is another real-time trending platform, which is more visual than Collecta and offers a good selection of topics to navigate. On clicking a trend you are presented with a wealth of information.
59. Toobla. What they say: “Get Visual. Easily collect, enjoy and share your favourite content, bookmarked websites and everything else.
50. Thumboo - simple to generate thumbnails via a submitted URL
61. First off today we have Wufoo a HTML simple form creation builder. Wufoo has a free option that includes: 1 3 Forms, 3 Reports, 10 Fields, 100 Entries / Month and a number of paid for plans for bigger sites. Check out the gallery for some examples. User,
62. Spezify is a fantastic visual search engine that produces results in the style of a mood board. It’s great for showing clients visual representation for what’s happening with your brands or products online. Recommended!
63. Strings caught my attention, here’s what they say: “Strings is a social tracking and filtering platform that allows you to share and uncover experiences that are relevant to you. Strings incorporates strong privacy controls, easy filtering, and tracking support that allows your actions on and offline to automatically identify personalised trends worth following.” It’s a free tool that’s currenly in BETA, look’s like it could be worth a trial.
64. Fliptop has two parts to it. One for publishers and one for consumers. In a nutshell it updates consumers via email when specfic content is updated to a website you enjoy reading. View the video for further details.
65. Hot blog or not? In their own words: “In one sentence, a platform specifically for bloggers to promote their articles and blogs including the possibility to find and build a network around their niche”
Are you the social media knowledge gatekeeper?
March 25th, 2010
We all know every PR agency has a social media section, or at least mention, on its website, even if that only relates to the Twitter account, but to what level are PRs really utilising social media?
I recently came across Michelle Hinson and Don Wright’s paper on ‘The use of social media among PR professionals‘ via K D Paine’s blog, and found some interesting stats in among the results on this very subject. The survey was based on responses from 560 PRs from around the globe, although I suspect the majority were US-based, including members of IPRA, PRSA, IPR, etc.
Some of the highlights that particularly caught the eye were:
• PR practitioners feel that social media’s influence on public relations is growing. In 2007, just over half said that they believed that social media had changed the way their organisations or their client organisations communicate. In 2010 that figure had climbed to 83%, and 96% said they spent part of their average workday working with social media.
• In 2008 just 66 % of respondents said that social media has enhanced the practice of PR. By 2010, the figure had increased to 81%.
• 84% of 2010 respondents encourage research to measure social media impact, but only about a third is actually doing it.
• In 2009, respondents saw search engine marketing as the most important element of social media. This year Facebook and Twitter were seen as most important.
• 64% are using Twitter regularly, which is double to figure in 2009, and 73% said that they regularly used Social networking sites to catch up on news.
The figures are encouraging, and at least show PRs are taking social media seriously, which was a big part of the battle a few years ago. However, in my experience, this doesn’t paint a true picture of the average PR consultant, but more likely the ‘social media knowledge gatekeeper’.
As mentioned at the beginning, most PR agencies refer to social media in some way, through their pitches and in their collateral, many experiment with social media to one degree or other, and some even have ‘experts’ that can be called in to talk the talk in pitches or raise the social media profile of the agency.
Social media knowledge in PR agencies spans a wide knowledge spectrum, from those that are challenging the non-PR agencies (social media, digital, search, conversation agencies) with social media campaigns, through to the traditional PR agencies that, well, are very far away from that.
I put it to the Jury that in most cases, even in some of the agencies that have a good reputation for social media, the knowledge is held by one or possibly two people, and in private conversations they too admit it is difficult to truly get the agency immersed in the conversation online, and how that relates to the conversation offline.
This is the next challenge for PR as a whole, instead of falling into the traditional approach of having technology teams, consumer teams, and following suit by having social media teams, but truly understanding that any PR campaign needs to include social strategies, not separate from the main campaign, but as part of the whole campaign. Until PR campaigns actually span the online and offline worlds, building conversation together, the PR industry can’t say that it is up to speed on social media.
However, that’s not to say this is just an issue with PR agencies, don’t think the same set of circumstances doesn’t relate to digital, advertising and marketing agencies etc, I’m just using PR as a relevant example of knowledge gatekeepers, but I’m confident the same issues apply elsewhere .
March 22nd, 2010
Liberate Media has just completed the first four months of a new integrated PR campaign with Tamar, the search and social conversion agency, which has produced some very effective results, including two Sky News interviews, national and extensive trade coverage, as well as wide online pick-up.
We’ve written a case study focusing on the success of Tamar’s Political Search Index, which is part of our ongoing campaign focused on building the agency’s reputation as the natural search and social conversion experts.
Tamar case study: http://www.liberatemedia.com/case-studies/tamar-political-search-index-campaign/