I need your clicks.
You see, I've been offline for ten weeks and handed the mantle of the Friday Roundups to Andrew Smith, as you will have noted. Thanks Andrew. But he appears to have grown the open and click rates in that short time faster than we were doing before he sprinkled his magic copywriter dust. Which is pleasingly irritating ;-)
(If you need someone who 'gets' the social Web, understands online communities and every Google Web tool under the cloud, he's your man. Damn fine social media trainer too by all accounts.)
But I digress. I have to acquit myself now that Andrew and I will be alternating on the Roundups. So perhaps I can tempt you with the following morsels as you scroll down towards the long list...
David Meerman Scott interviews GM staff about their social Web engagement (here's the one with the big boss), and Mark Pinsent critiques the doing-all-the-work-for-nothing-we've-only-got-ourselves-to-blame new business pitch process, and provides his constructive alternative approach.
So watch these clicks and weep Andrew! Lastly, I'd also like to thank Gemma Griffiths and Simon Hilliard for their help moderating MarCom Professional. Much appreciated.
Have a super weekend one and all, Philip and the MarCom Professional team.
ESPN takes Social Media Guidelines Just a Bit Too Far or How to Stunt Your Employee’s Growth
by Brian Solis of PR 2.0
Today’s guest Op-ed contributor is Serena Ehrlich, Co-Founder, StartUp Army; Past President, NIRI Los Angeles Chapter, Dallas/Fort Worth Chapter
Credit
Recently ESPN established new social media guidelines banning their employees from discussing anything related to ESPN or sports on any social network. Some see this as a clever move for ESPN to save their intellectual property. I see this decision as detrimental both to ESPN as well as their employees. This sweeping decision has two tragic consequences. More...
Stop the PR pitch madness
by Mark Pinsent of Mark Pinsent
Last week, when Confused.com decided to pay some of the losing agencies in its pitch process for the ideas that they came up with, the company was roundly applauded by the PR industry. "At last," people cried, "a recognition that creative ideas are valuable." Fair enough. Clive at Bite wants to know how you put a price on a great idea, rightly pointing out that the value of a brilliant piece of creative will likely outstrip the two minutes in the shower it took to come up with it. More...
First ever Mobile Application Stores Conference at CTIA
by Andrew Grill of London Calling
News comes from London Calling friend Ajit Jaokar about the first ever Mobile Application Stores Conference at CTIA. From a quick scan of the release, it has a great lineup of speakers. More information is presented below: The Mobile Application Stores, Strategy and Deployment conference http://www.mobileappevent.com/ is proud to announce its all-star speaker lineup for this unique event. Mobile Application Stores is a partner seminar of International CTIA WIRELESS I.T. and Entertainment October 8th in San Diego. More...
Command and control communication planning gives way to authentic campaigning, says Alastair Campbell
by Stephen Waddington of Speed Communications
According to Alastair Campbell it is no longer possible to control a media agenda and the style of communication planning that characterised his tenure in Downing Street no longer works.
Campbell is best known for his role as former British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s spokesman, press secretary and director of communications and strategy.
“We are no longer in control. The challenge of communications in a modern organisation is a scary prospect,” he said.
Campbell addressed an invited group of communication professionals at a dinner at The Capital Restaurant in London hosted by Durrants on Thursday evening. More...
Never Alter Your Company Brand Unless…
by Katy Barrilleaux of Lead Maverick, Inc.
Branding 101 says to establish your company brand and then be consistent. Place your brand everywhere and under no circumstances should you change that brand. Use specific PMS colors to print on slick stock and different PMS shades on uncoated stock. The RGB values and hex codes are specified. Maintain a clearance distance of x space around the logo. Never change the size relationship between the mark and the text. And never, ever, under any circumstances, or risk your own personal safety, alter the logo. More...
some lessons I've learnt from an online crisis
by Karalee Evans of headspace
I have been thinking a lot lately about crisis communications and issues management for Public Relations professionals.
One reason I've been thinking about it is recent events in my day job (which I won't go into here). But further to this, another catalyst was the Social media and online marketing masterclass with David Meerman Scott.
Now, the Masterclass with David was extremely interesting and to be frank, a little overwhelming in that there were so many insights and snippets of information I want to share. More...
Community building means making members feel special | Community Building
by Vero Pepperrell of Vero Pepperrell
Members of your community do a lot. You rely on them to make the community a success. You can influence the direction of your community, you can influence its content and you even have an influence over the type of members you want in the community. However, when it comes down to whether your community is going to be successful, your members are all that matter. You need to not only attract members that will help your community grow and continue to develop, but you need to keep them. You can do this by making sure they feel special. More...
Stop Talking About Social Media and Go Do It Already
by Brian Solis of PR 2.0
Guest post by Louis Gray, @louisgray
Credit: ShutterStock
Social media can be an incredible tool, both for producing and consuming incredible amounts of information. Over the last few years, there is no question that an unprecedented change has taken place, putting tools for publication and discovery in the hands of everyone – from simple text to photos and video. Social media tools are changing businesses in terms of how they can connect with customers, partners, peers and even the competition. More...
First look at new Vodafone 360 initiative & new apps
by Andrew Grill of London Calling
Today Vodafone announces their new Vodafone 360 initiative to raise the stakes in the mobile social networking and app store battle between operators. Designed as a major refresh of their Vodafone Live! initiative, Vodafone 360 aims to go beyond a simple web portal and instead link Vodafone customers with their favourite mobile applications and social networks. See a short intro video on the VF 360 site which explains how they will connect the web and mobile social media services together.
The new initiative will be launched later today, and demonstrations in London will feature new applications including: More...
GM CEO Fritz Henderson discusses new marketing
by David Meerman Scott of David Meerman Scott
Yesterday I spent the day at General Motors world headquarters in Detroit at the invitation of the GM social media communications team. I met a bunch of interesting people, drove some cool cars, and learned a great deal. I’ve got so much to share that I'll be blogging exclusively about GM for the rest of the week. First up is my video interview with Fritz Henderson, President and Chief Executive Officer of General Motors.
We discuss what helps to sell cars, including "new marketing" More...
Growing divide between politicians and web users
by Graham Jones of Internet Psychology
Politicians are consistently demonstrating they are growing ever further out of touch with the rest of us. A new study from the George Washington University in the USA shows that young people are interested in politics and they would love to get involved - if only politicians would talk to them and give them more, relevant information.
Vote for me! No thank you; you're not my style Meanwhile an earlier piece of research showed that young people under the age of 24 are increasingly politically active online, yet the older, established political elite are failing to connect with them in any meaningful way. More...
What Brands Can Learn from Internet Dating
by David Knowles of
According to a recent study many of the top brands struggle when it comes to being loved. In fact, none of them scored above 30% at the ‘love score’ amongst customers, based on criteria such as whether the brand ‘makes time to reward me’, ‘relates to me best’ or ‘cares about me more than just money’.
So what’s gone wrong with the top brands’ love lives? Why aren’t they creating the emotional connections that are supposed to come from millions spent on marketing? Well, the low levels of affection for brands have been blamed on a lack of personalised engagement. More...
Christopher Barger on social media communications at GM
by David Meerman Scott of David Meerman Scott
Several people who have been following my video interviews with Fritz Henderson, CEO of General Motors and Bob Lutz, GM vice chairman have asked me how I was able to score such high profile discussions. Here's how: I wrote a critical blog post in June Attention GM: Here are the top 5 marketing ideas for your reinvention. The post received hundreds of tweets and more than 50 comments. Very quickly (within hours actually) I was engaged with the social media team at GM. They turned me around. I went from a critic to a supporter. More...
How two customer magazine agencies stood out from the crown
by Rebecca Caroe of Creative Agency Secrets
Reading the marketing magazine supplement on Customer Publishing and I'm struck by the longevity of a 'new' marketing discipline that hit the scene a mere 15 years ago. One of my former colleagues made a fortune in an early customer publishing agency and failed to capitalise with subsequent genius… but I digress.
I receive a couple of magazines produced by brands and organisations as a means of driving loyalty and brand engagement. Reading them, as a marketer, I am usually struck by how little of the content I really engage with. More...
Stop the PR pitch madness, part II…the nine point plan
by Mark Pinsent of Mark Pinsent
So the post on Tuesday stirred up a neat little discussion. I was thinking that while it's obviously easy to sit back and say what might be broken with a process, it's also important to propose an alternative. So I thought I'd play client for half an hour, and try and work out how I'd go about selecting an agency in my perfect little theoretical world (though – and despite my flippant remark – you could do worse than read Gabbi's summary of the Winning Without Pitching Manifesto in the comments). More...
One in Five Tweets are Related to Products
by Brian Solis of PR 2.0
According to a recent study, 20 percent of tweets published are actually invitations for product information, answers or responses from peers or directly by brand representatives.
Jim Jansen, associate professor of information science and technology at the College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST) at Penn State, along with IST doctoral student Mimi Zhang, undergraduate student Kate Sobel and Twitter chief scientist Abdur Chowdhury, investigated micro interaction as an electronic word-of-mouth medium, using Twitter as the platform. More...
Mary Henige of GM on storytelling and humanizing the company
by David Meerman Scott of David Meerman Scott
The final video in my series of four from my day at General Motors is with Mary Henige who is in charge of both social media communications and broadcast communications. I ask her about her dual role and we talk about storytelling (especially online) and its role in humanizing the company. If you have not seen the other videos, the links are:
GM CEO Fritz Henderson discusses new marketing
Top GM marketing exec Bob Lutz on effective communication
Christopher Barger on social media communications at GM
This video is 7 minutes. More...
