Monthly Archives: July 2012

Digital corporate affairs – weekly bits and bytes

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Twitter has spoken: the results of our quick Twtpoll show that people love our manapé idea. 45% (33 votes) thought it was a great word, 27% (20 votes) thought it was a horrible PR word creation with the rest not really fussed about what they’re called, as long as they tasted good.

AP and social media: The Associated Press has updated its social media guidelines with a change which clarifies that its journalists are allowed to tweet breaking news even if a story is not yet on the wire. Under the updated guidelines AP journalists are told their “first obligation” in the case of a big breaking news event, “is to provide full details to the appropriate newsdesk for use in AP services if the desk isn’t tuned in already”. But once they have informed the newsdesk and taken care of “any other immediate AP work” they are now “free to tweet or post information about the news development” on Twitter.

Oddbins goes for gold: in case you didn’t see this brilliant bit of ambush marketing by Oddbins, read this.

Aurora shooting: Why you should always keep an eye on trending topics, check facts & switch on your brain before tweeting.

The Guardian looks at the rise of social media in retail: The technology is here, social is well established and so is e-commerce, but we are just beginning to see the two fuse together and retailers start to develop successful social e-commerce strategies. But one thing is certain, social commerce is here and retailers need to incorporate it into their business now.

Geo targeted offers with Foursquare: The new Promoted Updates enables businesses to send promoted content to users. These updates will appear at the top in a prominent position in the “Explore” tab in Foursquare.

YSL have made an eyeshadow palette entitled “Devoted to Fans” that is only available on Facebook. Only 1,650 are going to be made so will be a bit of a collector’s item and will ONLY be available to buy on the YSL Facebook page on July 19th (£39). Could be something for us to generate interest around a limited fashion range from a certain well-loved fashion designer?

 Virtual shopping with Tesco: Tesco are introducing a ‘Scan, Watch, Shop’ scheme at their smaller London branches, using interactive window displays to enable customers to view products and buy them using a smartphone app. The move comes after Tesco found many of their stores were too small to stock their F&F clothing range.

And finally: sad that twenty twelve has ended? Here’s a deleted scene of Ian and Daniel discussing the Director of Posterity job. Also, you can follow @perfect_siobhan on Twitter.

 

Digital corporate affairs – weekly bits and bytes

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Darren Ryan, associate director and head of video content at 4mediarelations, believes that visual media biogs will soon take the PR world by storm. A short and engaging ‘visual’ comment from senior level executives or expert spokespeople about the company, its products and services, is a great way to establish and build your client’s profile to journalists. By watching them in action, journalists actually get a feel of who they are and know that they would be great experts to feature on TV or radio. We’ve been doing that stuff since 2010. Still, we need to do more of this.

Twitter launched a free tool designed to help alcohol brands engage only people of legal drinking age. When users attempt to follow a liquor, beer or wine brand, they will automatically receive a direct message on Twitter from the company, directing them to an age screening page. If they give an age that meets the requirement of their local drinking law, the consumers will be able to follow alcohol brands. You can sign up here: https://age.twitter.com/

Last week I mentioned the “second screen” trend: people watching telly and using a second screen (phone, tablet, laptop) to browse the web. According to the latest data from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, more than half of the adult cellphone owners in the U.S. now use their phones while watching TV. Interestingly, the main reason isn’t to talk on Twitter about a program they are watching, though. Instead, the majority of cell owners (38%) used their phones to keep themselves occupied during commercials or breaks. Queue online marketers scheduling tweets during ad breaks of The Apprentice… 

And finally: Digital is one of the most crucial things for a brand to get right, so the pressure is on for Siobhan Sharpe from PR company Perfect Curve to explain her strategy. Twitter, Facebook, Mashable and even MySpace all have their part to play in creating the digital legacy for the games.

 

Digital corporate affairs – weekly bits and bytes

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O2 are having less of a fun week with their network problems and there are already a number of posts about their mishandling of the situation. It boils down to missing the basics of crisis comms: acting quickly to get information out to customers as quickly as possible (websites, Twitter, call centres). As funny as the responses to P.O.ed customers are, I think that the emphasis should still be on helping customers, not just banter. Otherwise, you’re just feeding the trolls. 

Interesting to see the New York Times’ principles of social media – points 4 and 5 in particular are relevant for anybody using social media, for personal and professional use.

  1. Encourage our journalists to embrace social media, use it as a tool and be comfortable with it.
  2. Social media is free and journalists must be in their use of it. You can not encourage journalists on one hand and then overly restrict them with rules and regulations on the other.
  3. Have experts on board who are there to guide and talk to staff and help new recruits as they get to grips with social.
  4. Be thoughtful. Use common sense. Social media is public and not private.
  5. As a journalist your reputation is on the line as well as that of your organisation. Respect both.

Pinterest is about more than just fluffy kittens and food porn. The team at Hotwire group have set up a board all about PR stunts – not the newest board, but always good to gather inspiration. And yes, they’ve listed Tiger/Giraffe Bread as a stunt. I will be getting in touch with them… Also, have you checked out Sainsbury’s Pinterest page?

Interesting definition of what PR is, considering its convergence with marketing, customer service and SEO: “it’s not about media relations or social media or crisis management or reputation management, but about influencing opinion and behaviour in a multi-disciplinary manner”. One to think about.

Ocado last month hosted a series of interactive cooking demonstrations to showcase its products to customers and drive online engagement using Google+. About 30 people were selected to take part live and “hang-out” with the chefs on Ocado’s Google+ page. Google’s “hang-out” technology allows video streaming and interaction between participants from several locations. Other customers could then watch the demonstrations live or on demand via the retailer’s YouTube page.

Admittedly, this isn’t the most riveting of cooking shows and from what I can see there was little interaction with the people that had tuned in (21:12) and that was because there were some technical problems. Still, an interesting way to connect internal experts directly with the customer.

And finally: nothing to do with digital, but OMG, The Thick of It is coming back and you can catch the last episode of twenty twelve on iPlayer.