Fridayroundup

A brief Roundup this week. Firstly, we had dozens more members join this week, so “welcome” to everyone who has joined since we last said “welcome”! Secondly, good to see everyone at the Dog and Duck in Soho, London, on Wednesday, including Ted Shelton and Marissa Root of The Conversation Group over from San Francisco, courtesy of Mark Adams . And lastly, a quick heads up re. another London event, this time hosted by Deloitte on the impact of convergence on advertising , 4th June, chaired by yours truly. See you there? And if you’re running a meetup, let us know and we’ll plug it here in the Friday Roundup. Best regards, Philip and the MarCom Professional team. ...

Well I don’t know about you, but I’m totally confused. What is happening at Blyk ? For those beyond the UK’s shores, Blyk came to market in 2007 as an MVNO (mobile virtual network operation) piggy-backing on the Orange network. Nothing revolutionary so far. But they set out to convince young adults that they could get free airtime in return for opting in to adverts with ad selection based on the customer’s completion of a personal profile. It was being called permission marketing. But on comparing this claim to Seth Godin’s articulate definition of permission marketing, I posted at the time that this wasn’t the game Blyk was playing . The ads may be targetted more closely than commercial TV, but most everyone I know still wants to skip those ads. The mobile and marketing industries have been watching Blyk closely ever since and then, this week, two articles from NMA’s Alex Farber: “Blyk scraps consumer offer to concentrate on operator partnerships ” and “Blyk’s MVNO shift causes industry stir ”. Now if anyone has the inside track on this market and what the Blyk statement referred to in the second of Alex’s articles means, it’s Bena Roberts of GoMo News . Perhaps the title of her post betrays otherwise… “Is anyone else extremely confused about blyk or is it just me? ” ...

Time for a change. Having sold Fuse PR to Racepoint Group in 2006, and as much as I will miss everyone, it’s time for me to leave the business in very fine hands and, well, do something else instead. One thing I’m really looking forward to is developing and growing MarCom Professional. We’ve got some cool ideas, as you’d expect I hope, and we’d love to hear your feedback and ideas too. So, fancy a pint? If you are in London on the 20th May, I invite you to join us at the Dog and Duck in Soho. ...

Those of you with whom I’ve discussed social Web strategy, or even helped define and execute it, will know my analogy of the social Web with the social life of a typical city. For example, the Facebooks, MySpaces and Bebo’s are the mega night clubs on the ring road. The blogs and small forums are the pubs and bars on the high street. The likes of Ning are the market stalls or local fair rides. The tweeting of Twitter is the chitter chatter in passing and over the garden fence. And this isn’t analogy for analogy’s sake, this is a great way to orientate social Web newbies to the norms and expectations of social media, applications and services. Take the example of participating for the first time in a Facebook group, or a business forum, or blog meme. Enough to make the most confident of net newbies hesitate. Yet no-one enters a room buzzing with people they don’t know and starts gobbing off immediately before assessing the etiquette and the tone of the conversation, so why do that online? Social media newbies just need to look out for the analogous sort of things to which they are so naturally accustomed offline. Offline - is drinking from the bottle acceptable? Online - is proper punctuation and spelling expected? Offline - who’s got gravitas, attracting people around them? Online - whose point of view is attracting the most comment, the most feedback and interaction? ...

The likelihood of outstanding business success is greater with great teamwork. I’d say that was an obvious and uncontroversial thing to say! For the Friday Roundup, I’d condense the management texts I’ve read and the experiences I’ve had to date into five teamwork must-haves: a shared and clearly articulated vision; mutuality (individual success is team success, and vice versa); honesty; clearly defined roles and responsibilities; and a self-sustaining determination and hunger for success. These qualities are being put to the most extreme of tests in current times. The economic climate today requires great teams to tend to these must-haves like never before, to keep them resilient and vibrant. But the ultimate test is for those teams that observers within or without rate as sub-par today. ...

AVE. Three little letters I thought had been dragged and dropped into the PR waste basket some years back. Right next to “column inches”, you know what I mean. Yet I have come across Advertising Value Equivalent no fewer than four times this week, coincidentally and oddly. The first definition returned by a Google search is provided courtesy of SourceWatch : “…to ‘measure’ the benefit to a client from media coverage of a PR campaign”. The description goes on to describe how you ask yourself the question “Mmmm, how much would this space have cost me to buy advertising stylee?” and then you multiply that by, oooh I don’t know, 3, or 4, or 10? Public Relations is about exerting influence and being influenced. We do this by sparking debate. Creating stimulating content, and demonstrating insight, passion and leadership by finding and starting conversations about the issues that matter to the marketplace, to our customers and prospects, and to our customers’ customers. What’s the AVE of that conversation exactly? ...

“Innovate”. “Pleased to”. “Unique”. “Focused on”. And of course, “Leading Provider”. Keeping content fresh, exciting, straight forward and engaging isn’t always easy, and reversion to clichéd terms under the illusion that that’s the job, that it’s the way, is an easy trap to fall into. Which is why I like David Meerman Scott’s Gobbledygook analysis . Now in its second year, it does what David wants it to do… makes you think about everything you write. See, now I’m wondering about my use of the word “engaging” before. Is that hackneyed? Is that a marketer talking to marketers leaning lazily on an industry-word-of-the-decade? Hey, just doing a quick check on dictionary.com tells me it doesn’t even mean what I thought it did; apparently it means attractive, charming, winning , and not, as I’d assumed, the potential to compel someone to engage with whatever. ...

How are you feeling today? Jolly? Then you’ll thank Trevor Young of the newly launched ParkYoung for drawing our attention to this comedic video on the perils of design by consensus… a lesson in when less is more . Thoughtful? Then you’ll want to drop in on Brian Solis’ updated Conversation Prism . Poor? Then you might wish to review your investment in online advertising courtesy of Graham Jones. It is, he says, a waste of money . Best regards, Philip and the MarCom Professional team. ...

It’s always difficult to pick out the highlights of the highlights from a week of MarCom Professional posts, but here goes… If social media thought leader Brian Solis didn’t occasionally blog from face-to-face events I’d swear he eats and sleeps solely on the big old WWW. I’ve yet to join a service, pre-beta, pre-alpha, or whatever, where Mr. Solis isn’t already embedded! Well his new book is out, as you will see from his post this week , “Putting the Public Back in Public Relations”. Haven’t got hold of it yet… but half way through David Meerman Scott’s World Wide Rave . And for pure poetry, you must check out the presentation brought to our attention by Trevor Young. Intriguing and powerful copy. ...

I recommend the SEO Toolbar (Firefox only). You should download and install it now. Why? Because your prospects and wider stakeholders may stumble across your products and services in social interaction, on- and off-line, but they also revert to search engines to find what they’re looking for. Search is important. ...