Archives (page 34 of 43)

6 March 2009 / 0 Comments

Friday Roundup 6th March 2009

So last week's Roundup featured some posts with good old fashioned moaning, and the email click through rate was amongst the best ever. Right then. So I'm going to pick a super moan to lead the Roundup today.

Thanks to Vero for a heartfelt post criticising a government social media sex education campaign that falls just a teeny weeny bit short in Vero's opionion of delivering value representative of the four million odd pounds it cost. How not to...

And whilst we remain steadfastly focused on matching last week's click throughs, how about this post by Trevor Young on how not to express yourself.

And just in case you're not going to be tempted by negative pieces this week, check out Graham Jones on how to get retweeted.

Best regards, Philip and the MarCom Professional team. Read more

27 February 2009 / 0 Comments

Friday Roundup – Twangry

There's nothing like a blog post to have a good old fashioned moan. It's cathartic. Good for the soul.

Brian Solis has a bit of a go at Facebook's consistent shortcomings in good community relations. Stephen Waddington rips apart the journalistic coverage of new research that shows social networking is harmful, or does it? And I waded in on a PR Week article about Twitter that made many Twitterers very Twangry.

Twangry. That's a new word I learned this week. Mmmmm.

Have a super weekend. Best regards, Philip and the MarCom Professional team. Read more

26 February 2009 / 0 Comments

Dear PR Week, it's not about Twitter per se

In an unstunningly simple article in PR Week today ("Twitter has suddenly exploded") we learn amongst other things that Edelman has 17 twittering staff and Racepoint 8, whilst Drew Benvie has twittered 3779 times.

I'd write here things like "AWESOME" and "WOW, HOW ENLIGHTENING", but I understand sarcasm is the lowest form of wit so I'll refrain.

What's with all the numbers? Why on Earth are they the story? But before I explain myself, I will just dwell on the numbers for a minute.

...I don't know a Racepoint consultant who isn't on Twitter, and there's a lot more of us than eight people! How can Porter Novelli global digital director Mat Morrison feel so confident in his data? He should have at least added the caveat that one can only determine when a Twitter user is a consultant from a specific PR consultancy should the individual chose to promote the fact in their personal profile. Read more

23 February 2009 / 0 Comments

Conversations start with something interesting to say delivered in an interesting way

To recap, this is where marketing communications has got to...

Interruption marketing (stop right there for 30 seconds while I hit you with this message even if this message is totally irrelevant to you) is dead.

Your brand and reputation is defined by everyone's experiences with your organisation and their compulsion to share those experiences with others.

You simply have no choice, you have to converse. Dialogue is where it's at. If you're into monologue, then it really is the same thing as staying at home and still thinking you'll get the girl.

So I thought I'd focus here on how to present your conversation starter rather than the content per se.

Multimedia engagement is one of the most compelling and interesting ways to start a conversation about something interesting. Just think what's grabbed your attention online recently. The 30-second TV ad may be as relevant today as monetary policy, but the 300-second roll on the Web is perfect for the niche audience out there with whom you really want to engage and who really wants to know more about what you've got.

So what kind of multimedia are we talking? How can we spark the conversation by communicating the really interesting thing we have to say in an interesting way? There's no formula (that I know of!), but here's a couple of my favourites to stimulate your "PR 2.0" synapses, one film and one animation. I'll follow up this post some time soon with my favourite interactive-game-with-a-point-to-make and call-to-action-social-microsite. Read more

20 February 2009 / 0 Comments

Friday Roundup – Twitter goes massive

What did we talk about before the current intergalactic financial burp and the rise and rise of Twitter? Just as recently as 2008, you could actually meet people quite regularly who had never heard of twitter outside the context of birdsong, but not now.

So "how to" and "for idiots" and "the ninety nine things you've always wanted to know but were afraid to ask" guides now abound, which is kind of odd for anyone who was around before the hashtag and just had to sort of fumble around like teenagers discovering a new genre of music and the opposite sex at the local youth club.

Nevertheless, these things are invaluable for mass market adoption, and Ben Matthews points us to five of the best. Top marks for most attention grabbing presentation title goes to Radian6 for "Become a Twitter Ninja".

Best regards, Philip and the MarCom Professional team. Read more

17 February 2009 / 0 Comments

Mobile World Congress – devices every marketer should know about

Mobile%20World%20Congress%202009

Despite the recent follies of the bankers, business remains business and technology marches onwards. And at this year's Mobile World Congress the mobile industry is putting the user front and centre in every effort to differentiate one from another.

Smaller. Lighter. Brighter. Faster. Easier. And most of all, as user-friendly as can be.

Samsung%20Omnia

This colourful image is a bank of Samsung Omnia's demonstrating their bright OLED screens. I'd like to show you one of their new devices but photography was not permitted. What a crazy decision. This is a SHOW. There are many journalists and bloggers here and Samsung tells us photography is not allowed... it can only make anyone think that the Samsung team has no idea about social media marketing!

I spotted a marketing innovation from Qualcomm Mediaflo... a technology to stream data to mobile devices predominantly for video applications such as real-time TV. Rather than interrupt viewing with the same adverts for all viewers, one of their latest innovations allows a different set of adverts to be delivered based on rudimentary user segmentation. Read more

13 February 2009 / 0 Comments

Friday Roundup – Twitter humour

What's Twitter for? Interesting question, but we know we enjoyed the Tweetstream from @cluetrainee this week. Subtle. Satirical. And beautifully efficient in poking fun at the bankers who have wrought the current financial terror and are feeling like they want to apologise this week, over and over and over again.

I've appended an extract for your convenience :-) before this week's post highlights.

@cluetrainee gets it, but thanks to Rebecca Caroe for posting an entertaining video ridiculing those Twitterers that don't. Read more

13 February 2009 / 0 Comments

Influence Scorecard update

Thanks

Whilst the volume of responses to the Influence Scorecard has been amazing and very encouraging, for a topic so closely related to the Social Web, I've been astonished at the number of responses by email rather than, well, more socially!

Nevertheless, I'm far from ungrateful of course. Indeed, "Thank you". And I'd like to take time here to shout out specifically to the following social web analytics specialists for their support, and then I've added some reciprocal blog links...

Nielsen Online, TNS Cymfony, J.D. Power Umbria, Clarabridge, Influencer50, Techrigy, Brandwatch, dna13, VMSInfo, Radian6, Integrasco, BuzzLogic, MotiveQuest, RepuMetrix, Andiamo, CIC, Attentio, Scout Labs.

Questions

Where you've come back with questions, they have been about two aspects in general... definitions and events. Read more

12 February 2009 / 0 Comments

Visualise your SEO

Tableau Software knows just a thing or two about data visualisation. A spin out from Stanford, the company won the CODiE award for best business intelligence solution 2008... it's amazing what the faculty of visualisation can do for your intelligence, or your PR as anyone who has followed my obsession with data visualisation in public relations will know I believe. (Previous posts on the topic appended.)

Tableau Software's Niels Hoven has posted about using visualisation techniques (and a nifty Excel plug-in from Microsoft) to delve into the content of rival websites to determine keyword effectiveness and make your final keyword selection. He even rounds off by employing visualisation to measure the effectiveness of your SEO work. Nifty.

All round interesting post and a worthwhile read for SEO hobbyists and pros alike.

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My related posts of yore:

11 February 2009 / 0 Comments

Does Facebook Matter? Find out in the second edition of Marketing To The Social Web

Larry Weber releases the 2nd edition of Marketing to the Social Web today. After the first edition sold out, the publisher (Wiley) asked my chairman to update the book for a second run.

With a foreword by Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia, the second edition includes new chapters on Facebook (entitled “Does Facebook Matter?”... he believes it does and moreover will surpass Google), measurement and marketing to mobile social media.