This week's mix of post highlights includes a couple of thought provokers from Brian Solis, one on his work with Anheuser-Busch in creating a fusion of public relations and social media, and another on Friendfeed... is it the new Twitter?
And if anything tolls the bell for a service in the eyes of the influential early adopters, it's the arrival of "celebrity". Stephen Waddington sounds the alarm for Twitter.
And forgive me if I just hijack the last part of this Roundup intro. Marketing communications is a considerably different discipline today than it was at just the turn of the decade. The social web and conversational marketing mean influence is exerted in different ways and robust measurement is coming of age. PR is becoming fully and quantifiably accountable for the first time.
If this lights your screen, if it clicks your mouse, then please take time to read my post on the Influence Scorecard and let me know if you would like to help shape the cutting edge of marketing communications as it takes its place deservedly, centrally and irrevocably at the board table.
Best regards, Philip and the MarCom Professional team.
Anheuser-Busch Debuts AB-Extras.com; Fuses PR with Social Media to Humanize Stories and Ads
by Brian Solis of PR 2.0
Disclosure: I am collaborating with Anheuser-Busch on the creation and release of AB-Extras.com
Today Anheuser-Busch announced AB-Extras.com – a social media destination for Bud fans 21 years of age and older to reveal the human element and stories behind the ads that will premier during the Big Game.
AB-Extras.com is a unique social platform for the internal PR team at Anheuser-Busch to also work more effectively with traditional and digital press and bloggers using the tools and services that they rely upon to publish and share stories. More...
Gordon Brown talks digital...sorry I mean nonsense
by Graham Jones of Internet Psychology
Where do they get their information from in Government? Are they secretly living in some underground colony where the world is different to the one you and I live in? Or are they all so gullible they fall for anything anyone with a sharp suit tells them?
Take today - Gordon Brown personally backs the new plan for the digital future of Britain. He reckons digital is essential to the future prosperity of the country. So is an honest, well-regulated banking system Gordon. Sorry, I digress.
True, digital Britain is a necessity; More...
Persuasive Writing 6 – Using Metaphors to Spark Imagination
by Matt Ambrose of The Copywriter's Crucible
“Metaphors have a way of holding the most truth in the least space.” – Orson Scott Card
Whether in Homer’s Iliad, Shakespeare’s plays or Rowling’s Harry Potter, fictional writing is packed with metaphors because they’re so effective at stimulating a reader’s imagination. Metaphors are powerful because by transferring the qualities of one object onto another they can enhance an object’s emotional impact by drawing on the reader’s existing thoughts and feelings about the world around them. More...
Influence Scorecard - defining influence measurement for organisational performance management
by Philip Sheldrake of Racepoint Group UK
When I first decided to write The Social Web Analytics eBook 2008, I had no idea it would attract over 10,000 downloads in 100 days. And why does it continue to be downloaded 1,000 times a month? In hindsight, the reasons are plain:
Listening to and learning from all our stakeholders is a widely and keenly felt desire
Acquiring a grasp of the reputation our company and brands have notched up must constitute a key organisational performance metric for anyone
Understanding how our interaction and dialogue with our stakeholders contributes to the achievement of our marketing and communications objectives helps us quantify how well we are meeting those objectives. More...
Hardcore users unsettled as Twitter emerges as celeb PR tactic
by Stephen Waddington of Rainier PR
Twitter has suddenly got very busy. A bunch of celebs have signed-up and are generating huge amounts of attention that's edging the micro-blogging platform into the mainstream.It’s the offline PR tactic of the moment. How long before a national or celeb magazine starts publishing a list of celeb Tweets? In fact its probably already been done.
It’s an issue that I discussed with pals on Twitter this morning and tonight at the London Bloggers meet-up tonight.
Jonathan Hopkins (@jopkins) captured the mood. More...
PR industry must recalibrate to address profitability, says RealWire's Adam Parker
by Stephen Waddington of Rainier PR
As CEO of RealWire, Adam Parker has built a very efficient delivery mechanism for the distribution of content from PR agencies. He’s an ex-PricewaterhouseCoopers chartered accountant and management consultant and has spent a good deal of time and effort scrutinising the make-up of the PR industry and its business model in a bid to better sell RealWire’s services as an outsourced offering.
We caught up for breakfast in Newcastle on Friday where he talked about business models, profitability and his efforts to sell to the industry. More...
AT&T takes flak for Idol SMS push - is operator spam really not spam?
by si crowhurst of We Love Mobile
I guess it must have been a slow news day, but last week the New York Times reported on a promotional text sent out by AT&T, which it claims had rebounded badly on the US network. AT&T, it seems, sent a considerable volume of texts promoting an upcoming American Idol show to some of its 75m subscribers. The issue was taken up on Twitter, and being presented by NYT and others as a ‘backlash’ against operator spam. In reports, AT&T rather weakly claimed that the message was not spam, because it had gone to subscribers who had voted for Idol singers in the past, and other “heavy texters.” More...
Is FriendFeed the Next Conversation Platform?
by Brian Solis of PR 2.0
I recently discussed the viability of Twitter evolving beyond a micro community into a standardized platform for macro conversations. It's certainly the path Facebook is traversing and both are making significant progress in the race to syndicate and aggregate the discussions that are important to us within our respective social networks.
There is another emerging platform worth discussing as it is quietly growing into an alternative solution to the disparate communities that are pervasive throughout the social web. More...
Fun with Sharpies
by David Meerman Scott of David Meerman Scott
I love Sharpies. I carry one in my travel bag at all times because you never know when you might need one — like the time that I accidentally gouged the wooden desk leg in a hotel room. Applied a little black Sharpie and it was as good as new!
Other people dig Sharpies too, such as the guy who decorated his basement with a Sharpie or celebrities such as the Olsen Twins who use them to sign stuff or creative people like Mike Peyton, a "snake artist."
So it was fun to come across the Sharpie Blog, "a dedicated space where we can showcase some of the really fun, cool, creative stuff that gets made using Sharpie markers." More...
