Posts Tagged ‘Facebook’

Unless you have been living under a rock for the past couple of weeks you will all be aware that the (wrong, in my opinion) winner of X Factor was crowned on Sunday. Geordie lad Joe McElderry beat Olly Murs with over 60% of the vote, securing a record contract and almost certainly a place on Dancing on Ice in a couple of years.

But, in a strange twist of events, it seems that poor old Joe may be deprived of the 15 minutes of fame pretty much guaranteed to all X Factor winners - the coveted Christmas Number 1 slot. A campaign which was started on Facebook encouraging people to buy Rage Against the Machine’s track ‘killing in the name of’ has seen the song start to outsell the X Factor winner by an estimated 10% , making it the favourite to be number one this weekend.

Simon Cowell has spoken out against the campaign, calling it ’stupid’ and it’s participants ’scrooges’. Poor Simon, as if becoming TV’s first billionaire wasn’t bad enough, he now has to face the prospect of one of his many, many acts not doing as well as he had hoped. I, for one, think it’s an excellent campaign, not just because I think Olly should have won, but because it is an excellent example of the power of social media and how it can mobilise society. Ok, so it might not be over something as important as global warming, but if people can hold a strong enough opinion about this and feel compelled to do something about it, then maybe this model can work for important campaigns in the future. As organiser Jon Morter said, ‘Even if we didn’t quite succeed it will still be a great achievement in bringing people together and actually trying to do something’. (NME.com)

What do you think? Can something as simple as a Facebook group re-write music history, and possibly change the way we campaign in future?

Easyjet launching themselves on social media platforms? A disaster in the making, some would think. Imagine, a soap box for everyone who has had a delayed flight, poor customer service or any of the other crises that seem to happen daily on this notorious airline, to freely air their complaints for the world to see. This surely is a recipe for a corporate communications catastrophe!

However, thanks to a very ambitious social media push to source user-generated content using networks including Facebook , MySpace and Twitter, Easyjet aims to transform its site into a ‘travel encyclopaedia’.  Through a clever competition, Easyjet has achieved a great balance between the positive and the negative comments on their new Facebook and Twitter pages.

The competition that the company has introduced; ‘the great Easyjet getaway’, is the turning point on which this successful balance of opinion has been achieved. Fans are invited to submit their personal, funny story telling of why they need to get away to win free flights.

Not only has Easyjet incentivised joining their network (becoming a fan on their Facebook page allows you to enter the competition), the company has also increased the number of fans to its page and is creating a highly engaged community, as judging of the competition will be by fellow fans. Ultimately though, the real beauty of this competition is that positive and engaging feedback has been encouraged through the funny stories and if you look at the wall of the Facebook page, you’ll find comedy like anecdotes and positive messages which tempers all the abuse and by-and-large creates a tone which reflects very well on the company.

This serves as an excellent example for all those reluctant organisations who see social media as a high risk activity, that with careful and strategic planning, a positive image can be achieved for even the most unloved corporations.

I have to admit, I was fairly surprised when I started my new job and a member of my team already knew what I’d been up to the previous weekend.  I had underestimated my online visibility, as do a lot of people, and could have jeopardised my job before I’d even started.  Luckily I lead a quiet life so no damage done…

The online distinctions between business and pleasure, once so definite, now seem to be blurring. With the announcement of a partnership between LinkedIn and Twitter, allowing users to share status updates across sites, the gap between individual social networks, and indeed our online personas, is being bridged.   

Even Google is getting in on the act, announcing deals with Facebook and Twitter to include their live feeds into searches.  I googled myself and although I’m quite far down the list (I’m not as popular as the other Laura Strong from London) I’m definitely on there.

I’m sure many of you will have heard the story of an employee ranting about her boss on Facebook, only to be publicly humiliated and sacked on their own news feed.  The Guardian has devised three rules to avoid social media catastrophes as ‘behaviour is very important in public and we all live public lives now’:

The Internet has been changing every facet of modern life, even the mother of parliaments (at least to a certain extent anyway). An exact state of affairs at parliament would be tricky to gauge, as innovation seems to be happening in different places.

Examples include the recent guide to Twitter, published by Neil Williams, head of corporate digital channels at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), which outlined how the micro-blogging service could be used to share policy information and engage the general public around issues of interest.

The main political parties have shown enthusiasm in adopting social media as well, although this hasn’t necessarily translated across to their respective Parliamentary Members where there is the more familiar range of adoption patterns from early adopters to laggards to complete technophobes. Pretty much every Member of Parliament and election candidate not contesting a safe seat has a web presence of some sort, whether that is through a party backed website, or through extensive social media branding. Most of these are run through constituency or Westminster offices however, there are few MPs who are leading the way in the digital space.

Amongst the social media front-runners are:

• Tom Watson. The Labour Party MP for West Bromwich East is known for being the first blogging MP and lists the digital world and social media as being keen personal interests
• Kerry McCarthy has been made Labour’s Twitter Tsar, managing social media engagement in the lead up to the next General Election, as well as being an active tweeter and blogger
• Jo Swinson. The Lib Dem MP for East Dunbartonshire has 1.901 followers on twitter and may have been the first MP to tweet from the House of Commons Chamber and was definetly the first MP to mention Twitter in a Parliamentary Debate
• Tom Harris. Tom Harris, the Labour MP for Glasgow South, was recent voted the best MP, Scottish and Left-of-Centre blog by readers of Total Politics
• John Redwood MP. The Conservative MP for Wokingham was recently voted the second best MP blog by Total Politics readers, losing his number one position last year to the aforementioned Tom Harris

Apart from the lack of uptake of social media tools across the Parliament as a whole, the biggest area where there seems to be a lack of understanding about social media is that it is a conversation. Although Twitter lends itself nicely to sound bites there doesn’t seem to be that much political engagement going on. There also doesn’t seem to be that much awareness about the impact of what they can be talking about. For instance, one MP recently complained about the workload required to deal with constituents. In another case, an automatic news feed on Peter Hain’s Facebook page prominently displayed an embarrassing piece of coverage.

Peter Hain's Facebook Feed

Despite the high profile digital campaign of Barack Obama, the US generally isn’t anywhere near the level of near universal digital and social media adoption that one would expect. For example only 29.5 per cent of US Congress members and Senators are on Twitter – 123 House members and 35 Senators out of a possible total of 535. .

But the fact is, the next election is going to be a hard fought campaign and this is likely to have a transformative effect on digital politics as a new generation of politicians come through.

So where is the opportunity in digital for parliamentary and public affairs campaigns?

The most obvious use of social media is for campaigning as it is easy to demonstrate support for a cause, through re-tweets or number of members in a Facebook group. Social media both facilitates and reveals groundswells of popular support. Nixon’s famous silent majority, are no longer silent or invisible to politicians.

For electoral candidates, Obama’s secret was always to tweet asks and Calls-to-Action and this should be harnessed by MPs or PPCs. There is no particular need for an MP to tweet about what they are having for breakfast, although the ‘inane’ tweets do personalise the tweeter so they can be beneficial.

But the key is, actively engage and converse with users online by asking supporters, party members and voters to do something. Come to my rally, get one friend to help deliver leaflets, donate £5 to the party, come knock on doors with me. Tweets like these that actively call for support and include the public are far more likely to help the candidate get elected.

This method of personalised engagement and Calls-to-Action can also be harnessed for out and out public affairs campaigns. It isn’t something that will transfer well to asking for support for a bank’s or defence company’s campaign, because the public will always be wary of sinister motives. But it will transfer brilliantly to campaigns surrounding NGOs, charities, patient groups, green and sustainability projects, local engagement and welfare organisations due to the need to rally support through calls-to-action.

A second and underrated factor is providing content for researchers. Like the rest of the UK, parliamentary researchers will often hit Google as their first point of call when finding out about a new subject and developing a point-of-view for their MP. Providing the freshest, most relevant content around a particular area, particularly if it has an industry rather than a specific corporate slant is one of the best ways to influence from a digital point-of-view.

There has been an increasing level of political social media analysis in the recent months. Tweetminister essentially aggregates tweets by Members of Parliament, as well as blogs on interesting issues surrounding communication and an open Parliament while the Hansard Society has recently published a report into the use of Facebook by MPs.

We would love to hear your views on the matter, so please feel free to leave comments.

Cross posted with my personal blog

Michael Vaughan is delighted at being made to go on Twitter

English cricket is not known for its innovation and dynamism, on or off the field. Our lack of cricketing prowess will be demonstrated to the world (again) in the Twenty20 World Cup this summer and as much as I’d love England to win the Ashes the chances are at best slim.

Yet I was strangely cheered this morning by news that the England and Wales Cricket Board are to use Twitter, YouTube and Facebook as part of a wider marketing initiative this summer. With no football tournaments and no Olympic games, cricket has a chance to engage with a much wider audience than it does usually and it is encouraging to see such an austere and conservative organisation as the ECB willing to branch out and use social media for this purpose.

Cricket definitely has a perception problem with many people incorrectly assuming it to be stuffy, boring and only followed by old men. This is emphatically not the case and any steps to engage with a younger audience are to be applauded - if the ECB can use social media then so can anyone. I just hope they get some of the players involved as I’d love to read the thoughts of @KP “I wouldn’t have done it that way Straussy”, @vaughany “@Vaughanny is disappointed to have played at that wide one” and @belly “given it away again, gutted”

I attended an industry awards dinner last week and, as is customary with these events, much alcohol was consumed and much debate was had.  I’m writing this because one of these debates struck me as more interesting than most.  Can Brand PR really deliver?

The question was posed by the head of marketing for a global company with a long list of well known brands, so he’s well placed to make such an assertion.  His exact comment (obviously filtered through the hazy fog one tends to have following such an event) was this; “if it is a choice between spending 100K on Brand PR or buying a 100Ks worth of additional media, I would take the media spend every time.”

His point I thought was incredibly valid.  Here’s an in-house marketing person who is judged on sales and sales alone and who must ask himself always; “is this money well spent and will it deliver increased brand awareness and therefore increased sales?”

This got me thinking.  Is there truly a place for Brand PR in these current gloomy economic times?  Can we all put our hand on our hearts and say Brand PR has delivered time and time again?  I thought not. The bottom line is Brand PR is difficult.  Trying to get your brand intrinsically linked to a story is no mean feat.  Why? Because Editors don’t want your brand there and certainly not if it is saying anything positive.  They can smell a PR story a mile off and want your brand forcibly removed from it.

Can Brand PR, and I’m being specific here, no one is questioning whether other types of PR e.g. crisis, financial PR etc work, but specifically can Brand PR, show value against other, more guaranteed, forms of marketing.

The answer is categorically, Yes…sort of.

The classic PR answer, I know.  But I say ‘sort of’ for a reason. It can work but provided it is undertaken in the right way and, more importantly, for the right reasons.

So the first of these is the right way.  I see two fundamentals to Brand PR:

1)    Through the line campaign themes - If you don’t have one consistent theme that is running through every aspect of your campaign it is hard to get good Brand PR.

2)    The brand must be integral to the story - If you have 1), it makes 2) much easier.

If you have a consistent marketing theme running through your campaign and a creative angle that intrinsically links your brand to that theme, and therefore the core of the story, you can get great Brand PR.  Most importantly you can get Brand awareness above and beyond that which a straightforward advert could achieve.

Two great examples of this.  The first is the recent ‘Take a Benylin day‘ campaign.  A campaign that was clearly helped by a complaint from the Federation of Small Businesses which rocketed it on to the 10 o’clock news.  Either way it can’t be denied that it was based on a solid and creative idea that ran through the line.  It also boasted a link up with the British Chambers of Commerce which helped provide credibility for the campaign when the criticisms started flying.

Another example is the comparethemarket.com campaign ‘compare the meerkat‘.  No one would deny these are clever adverts but this theme is carried all the way through the communications.  The meerkat even posts on Twitter and has a Facebook site!  This raises a further important point.   With the diversity of communication mediums at a PR practitioners disposal there is so much that can be achieved with a good creative theme.  A creative theme, I hasten to add, that doesn’t have to be driven by advertising but can start from any one of the marketing disciplines.

So if the first consideration is the ‘right way’ the second is the ‘right reason’. The big question to ask, and this is my final point, is why are you doing this?  That should really drive whether you undertake Brand PR or not.  If it is to get a simple brand message to a hard to reach audience, then a bit more media spend might be the answer.  However, if it is to educate consumers / professionals about a broader issue relating to your brand, demonstrate 3^rd party endorsement or create a brand experience over and above that which can be achieved in a simple advert, then Brand PR should definitely form part of your marketing mix.

So can Brand PR deliver?  Yes it can.