Wadds' tech pr blog

Blog moving to Speed site

2009-03-19T08:29:00.001Z

I’m moved my blog and content to the Speed web site. Please point your browser or RSS feed to http://www.speedcommunications.com/blogs/wadds/. See you over at the new location. Thanks.

New PR consultancy Speed launches

2009-03-19T08:00:00.003Z

I’m lousy at keeping secrets. But this is a big one that I’ve been sitting on for the past six months or so. The formal announcement follows. For more information check out the Speed web site, our blog network, the Speed channel on You Tube, or give me a call.

New PR consultancy Speed launches
Combination of five specialist firms creates top 50 UK PR consultancy

Marketing services group Loewy today launched a new PR consultancy called Speed Communications.

Speed specialises in the consumer, technology, business and corporate sectors, and has been formed by bringing together the teams of BMA Communications, Custard PR, Lighthouse PR, Mantra PR and Rainier PR. All of these teams were acquired by Loewy in the past three years. The new consultancy structure and brand is effective from today.

The 50 person-strong business is based in The Communications Building, Leicester Square, London and has an annual fee income of around £5 million. Its clients include The Economist, ntl:Telewest Business (part of Virgin Media), Tesco, Toshiba and Wickes. The team is led by managing directors Steve Earl and Stephen Waddington, previously managing directors of Rainier PR. Its chairman is Bill Jones, co-founder of Lexis.

“The PR industry has reached a watershed moment. The fragmentation of media, rise of social networks, increasingly savvy purchasers and the recession are combining to challenge the established PR industry hierarchy. Speed is a modern consultancy that is seeking to tackle this head on in delivering assured impact for its clients,” said Stephen Waddington, managing director, Speed.

“We have combined five strong teams to create a much stronger PR consultancy with multi-sector expertise. It is now a very able challenger for the UK’s most exciting PR accounts,” he said.

Speed is wholly owned by Loewy, which has invested in back-office improvements, rebranding, systems enhancements and the new premises ahead of today’s launch.

“We strongly encourage collaborative working and the PR staff in particular have been brainstorming, pitching and managing clients in cross-agency teams over the last six months. This structural change and rebrand further cements the team as one entity and is a strong statement of our intentions in the UK PR market,” said Iain Johnston, CEO, Loewy.

- ends -

About Speed Communications

Speed is a UK multi-sector PR consultancy that delivers assured impact for its clients in a changing media landscape. Its work enables clients to influence and control brand awareness, reputation and purchasing decisions in areas where they have few guarantees over outcomes.

Speed specialises in the consumer, technology, business and corporate sectors and was launched in March 2009 by bringing together the teams of BMA Communications, Custard PR, Lighthouse PR, Mantra PR and Rainier PR. The consultancy has a combined fee income of around £5 million, with clients including The Economist, ntl:Telewest Business (part of Virgin Media), Tesco, Toshiba and Wickes.

For further information please see: www.speedcommunications.com.

Apprentice line-up

2009-03-18T14:39:00.002Z

Its that time of year again. The Apprentice is back on our screens from next Wednesday. Make a date and standby on Twitter for the back channel discussion during the show. The programme just gets better and better and along with Dragons Den is one of the few business formats on terrestrial TV in the

. Yet it remains, arguably, the lurking place of maniacs.

Here’s the line-up for this year – my money is on Lorraine Tighe (strong track record in sales), Howard Ebison (operational and P&L experience as the area manager of a pub chain), Rocky Andrews (21 year old entrepreneur with a chain of 15 sandwich shops) and Yasmina Siadatan (P&L experience from owning a restaurant) to make the final.

Anita Shah, lawyer, 35 – self confessed-perfectionist lawyer who wants to launch a new business providing emotional, psychological and spiritual therapy. How does that work then? In the search for the perfect business model; this looks like it needs therapy.

Ben Clarke, trainee stockbroker, 22 – inspired by the Playboy brand and reckons “that making money is better than sex”. He’s obviously never experienced very good sex. Ditch the porn Ben and get out more.

Debra Barr, senior sales consultant, 24 – outspoken go-getting saleswoman who would rather ask for forgiveness than permission. She’ll get on well with Sir Alan then, but how soon before she falls out with her team-mates, who think she's a total bitch?

Howard Ebison, retail business manager, 24 – self-trained musician and area manager of 10 pubs. Ambitious businessperson who reckons he’s a good leader. Despite his youth, his track record will put him in good favour with Sir Alan. Possible for the final. Self-trained musician in what way though? Dab hand with a kazoo?

James McQuillan, senior commercial manager, 32 – former labourer, trolley collector and a nightclub doorman. Reckons he’s likeable and selfless. He’ll be out in the first couple of weeks then.

Kate Walsh, licensing development manager, 27 – describes herself as confident and resilient. Regrets not applying to Oxbridge but continues to be a highly motivated and ambitious professional. Question is whether Oxbridge would have had her? Beware the ego Sir Alan.

Kimberly Davis, marketing consultant, 33 – New Yorker who reckons she brings honesty and integrity to the table, and doesn't lie, cheat or backstab. Always beware people who say that publicly. She’ll be out shortly after James McQuillan.

Lorraine Tighe, national accounts manager, 36 – hard-working single mum who left school at 16 and has been the top sales person in every company she has ever worked for. Sir Alan will love her. But, does she hold a hidden flaw? Sounds almost too good to be true.

Majid Nagra, business development manager, 28 – bad boy turned good. Works with youth centres and charities while running his own car hire business. He says: “Without companies buying and selling there wouldn't be any economy." No shit Sherlock.

Mona Lewis, senior business manager, 28 – former Tanzanian beauty-queen who applied for The Apprentice as a result of her desire to step out of her comfort zone and change the lives of herself and her son. Well done you, but could her comfort zone be a tad too comfortable?

Noorul Choudhury, science teacher, 33 – we know little of his career history. Hopes to become a property development millionaire and aims to start up a men's tailoring business. And I’d like a Ferrari please.

Paula Jones, human resource consultant, 29 – a self-confessed scatterbrain, former army cadet sergeant, who wants to be liked and avoids conflict. How did she make it through the selection process?

Philip Taylor, estate agent, 29 – describes himself as confident and charming and reckons he’s nice guy who people can relate to. He says, "Business is the new rock 'n' roll and I'm Elvis Presley.” Oh dear.

Rocky Andrews, sandwich chain owner, 21 – ex-footy player who has set up a sandwich business operating from 15 locations. Earns more than the salary on offer from Sir Alan. Dead cert for the final.

Yasmina Siadatan, restaurateur, 27 – restaurant owner who describes herself as dominating yet adaptable. Believes that business is about spotting a gap in the market and filling it better than anyone else. Unbelievable - where do they learn these things? That's obviously where I've been going wrong all these years.

Thanks for the conversation

2009-03-13T17:16:00.002Z

Thanks to all the people that have linked in to me or taken the trouble to comment during the last few weeks. Thanks to Adam Lewis, Adam Parker, Andy Smith, Basheera Khan , Bill Hilton, Brendan Cooper, Chris Abraham, David Cushman, Drew Benvie, Ged Carroll , James Gordon-MacIntosh, Jed Hallam, Jonny Rosemount, Matt Churchill, Matt Lambert, Palin Ningthoujam, Paul Wilkinson, Peter Kirwan, Richard Houghton, Rob Brown, Sally Whittle, Simon Collister, Stuart Bruce and Will Sturgeon. And apologies to anyone that I have missed.

Your attention and conversation is appreciated and I dedicate this postcard to you which I bought at an antique market last year. It shows a view of Oxford Street in London, from Marble Arch. According to the postmark and neatly handwritten text on the reverse it was sent almost 70 years ago from one friend to another during a visit to London.

Tags: comment, network, post

Is Twitter improving media relations?

2009-03-10T14:51:00.004Z

Social networks and blogs are providing a brutal feedback loop between PR professionals and journalists. Check out these posts on Twitter that I’ve collected in recent weeks and this post from Sally Whittle.

Journalists are outing bad practice and setting out their expectations clearly. Smart PR professionals are adapting fast and are using these new channels to develop direct relationships.

It must surely drive up professional standards for the PR industry?

Tags: mediarelations, pr, standards, twitter

Robin Grant (and his network) on Twitter and brands

2009-03-10T14:47:00.002Z

Shout out to Robin Grant MD, We Are Social for a cracking post on brand communication via Twitter. The post - now a week old - results from Robin’s comments in a feature article in Campaign.

The post has attracted 50 comments from many of PR and marketing industry’s smartest thinkers debating tactics and citing best practice. If you’ve got a spare 20 minutes this morning have a read.

But don’t print it out as I did. It runs to nearly 30 pages. Your bath water will almost certainly be cold or you’ll have missed your stop by the time you’ve read it all. In a bid to save you from such distress here are some of the best bits:

“[Brands on Twitter is…] about being human. Showing your real personality and allowing people to connect with you at an emotional level” – Robin Grant, quoted in the original Campaign article

“Now we’ve got direct relationships so we have to earn that attention – we have to earn it by being entertaining, useful and also nice” – Faris Yakob, quoted in the original Campaign article

“The potential reward […] is the ability to spread surprise and delight, turn negative word of mouth into positive and to really engage people with your brand at an emotional level” – Robin Grant, blog posting

“Twitter is surely a platform for two-way, 'real' conversation. As such I'd argue that brand figureheads like Richard Branson are not 100% engaged... ” – Chris Lake, comment

“You need to let people know what they are getting. If it is a corporate Twitter 'feed' that exists for broadcast only that's fine if people know that is what it is” – Stuart Bruce, comment

“Real people are better. That's where social media's power really lies, in its ability to portray a human face rather than a corporate. It's easy to hate a corporation but difficult to hate a human” – Brendan Cooper, comment

Tags: brands, robingrant, twitter

Twitter vs Google: crowdsourcing and searching via Twitter

2009-03-09T12:30:00.002Z

Drew Benvie has embarked on a neat experiment this week to crowdsource answers to search queries via Twitter rather than using Google. He cites an example of how he found a venue for Sunday lunch thanks to recommendations from his Twitter network.

I'm guessing that the results of his experience will depend on the goodwill of his network and the authority of the respondents. Goodwill exists in spades on Twitter, particularly amongst the social media/PR crowd but how do you assign authority to recommendations from a network?

Drew reckons that it’s simply a case of making a choice from a smaller number of responses than Google would deliver and that human recommendation (rather than Google’s algorithm) is sufficient authority. I’m curious to see how his experiment works out this week.

Here are two other blog posts that I’ve read recently about mining Twitter that are worth checking out:

Welcome to the hive mind; learn how to search Twitter
An excellent summary by Chris Allison (@Chris_Allison) CMO, Centsports (via @jangles) of all the operators and variables that can be used to mine Twitter using the Twitter search application.

10 ways to find people on Twitter
I’ve been a long term subscriber to Paul Bradshaw’s Online Journalism blog. He’s a lecturer at Birmingham City University and should be a must read for everyone in media related industries. This post summarises many of the third party tools that you can use to find people on Twitter.

Tag: drewbenvie, google, search, twitter

Reasons to be cheerful: PR Week’s Danny Rogers on signs of hope in the PR market

2009-03-06T14:49:00.003Z

PR Week editor Danny Rogers searches for good news this week in his leader column in the UK edition of PR Week (sub required) against a backdrop of weekly reports of redundancies across the industry as a result of the worsening recession.

“PR revenues in the UK are likely to see a year-on-year drop during 2009, but this is far from Armageddon,” says Rogers.

PR is holding up as a result of three factors, he says:

Recessions create corporate work
PR is the most cost-effective element of the marketing mix
And of course, the explosion in marketing via digital networks

Tags: digital, PR, prweek

Death of the URL

2009-03-06T12:04:00.001Z

Hitwise published search analysis yesterday showing that media and retailers dominate the list of most searched for brands in the

with Facebook in pole position.

Mat Morrison tweeted that top searches will by default always be top visited sites. Why? People no longer use URLs. Instead search engines, primarily Google, are the gateway to web sites.

It’s a very obvious point in hindsight. I’d go as far to say that I don’t think I’ve ever seen either of my web surfing kids (8 and 10 years old) use a URL. Ever.

Brand is king in search.

Tags: google, search, URL

Are streaming applications blocking up wifi networks?

2009-03-06T11:18:00.003Z

Is demand for wifi bandwith for streaming applications blocking up networks? Here's a message I spotted last night on the homepage for the National Express onboard wifi service on the London to Edinburgh line.

Social networks and mental health; and the wellbeing benefits of the Wii Fit

2009-03-06T08:56:00.002Z

I had dinner this week with Simon Proudlock one of my oldest pals that has spent the last decade or so working as a counsellor and psychologist in the UK and US.

I was keen to get his view of Baroness Susan Greenfield’s hypothesis outlined in the Mail last week, that social networks have the potential to rot the brains of generation Y, and worst result in autism.

While there is evidence that brain chemistry can be altered by experiences during formative years, there is no evidence that it could occur as a result to exposure - however extreme - to social networks such as Facebook or Twitter. The link between abuse and brain chemistry in young people is an area that is being explored by organisations such as Kids Company in London.

But that doesn’t mean social networks are off the hook. Proudlock reckons that he’s spotted a trend whereby individuals are increasingly developing relationships via technology platforms such as the mobile phone and PC and as a result are not developing the life skills to develop relationships in the real world.

The upshot is that when individuals are forced to meet people in social situations, interviews or personal relationships, they exhibit high levels of anxiety.

“I’m seeing an increase in anxiety disorders, particularly social anxiety. Young people are communicating more and more via text and are coming increasingly socially isolated. The growth of sites such as Facebook fuels an ever increasing franchised society allowing young adults to feel part of a social network without having to step outside of their comfort zone and meet real people,” said Proudlock.

But technology isn’t all bad. Proudlock is currently working on a programme to investigate the positive benefits of the Wii Fit on individuals with low self-esteem, depression and anxiety. His thesis is that the Wii allows people to improve their personal wellbeing without needing to leave the comfort or security of their own home, invaluable as the first step to more positive mental health.

If you're interested in exploring any of these areas further give him a shout (via, er, Facebook).

Tags: facebook, mentalhealth, simonproudlock, twitter, wii

More useful iPhone apps

2009-03-04T23:51:00.003Z

We’ve rolled out iPhones across the business. Here are some of the apps that the team has discovered (all links are to the iPhone app store URLs).

eReader Pro (free) - ebook reader (can download free classics in case you ever get caught without anything to read)
Free RSS and NetNewsWire (both free) – RSS Readers
iFooty – live football feeds from the BBC Sport site
LastFM (free) – listen to five million tracks and create your own personal radio station
Shazam (free) – name that tune when you're out and want to know what it's called (great for pub quizzes)
Twitterfon (free) – iPhone Twitter application

I was at a meeting with Richard Seymour, the product design guru at sister firm Seymour Powell earlier this week. Here are some of his recommendations: iFart (whoopee cushion), Record (voice recorder) and Urbanspoon (location based restaurant finder).

And here’s a previous post with some of my personal favourite iPhone apps.

Tags: apps, iphone

Authority and attention in the UK PR network

2009-03-03T09:41:00.006Z

I’ve remained silent on the PR Week Twitter debate because I haven’t really had anything original to add beyond what has already been said. But traveling for three hours by train last night I had chance to trawl through all the comment around the list and had chance to reflect.

PR Week should be congratulated for creating a fantastic debate. It’s a real shame that its site isn’t equipped to facilitate a community discussion but no matter the article has generated comment like never before. And that’s fantastic.

There’s been some great comment from the industry. Some really great comment.

Irrespective of the research methodology, lists are simply a mechanism for creating order by numbers. If you try hard enough they’re easy enough to manipulate. That’s not my insight, but that of a lecturer that taught me applied maths at university. And people made the same point when I published PR Twitter influence list back in November.

If you mandate Twitter usage (as is happening in many agencies now thanks to the PR Week article), tart yourself around Twitter in a bid to pick up followers (playing the Twitter spam game is just one way) and Tweet regularly your agency will rise up the ranking next time round.

The PR Week Twitter list is valid as a marker in time and as a catalyst that has caused laggard consultancies to wake up to an industry that is radically changing. But authority on Twitter (whatever the measure) and real authority are two very different beasts as Mat Morrison the man at Porter Novelli behind the PR Week Twitter numbers admits.

On that note and inspired by Will Sturgeon here are some alternative measures of authority in a PR network.

Hours per month spent with clients and journalists
No of journalists on a national paper that return your call
No of journalists that reply to your Tweets
Mobile voice minutes used per month
Pairs of shoes or cufflinks owned
Emails received and replied to per day
Allowed number of guests into Bungalow8/Soho House (thanks to Michelle Goodall*)
Acreage of land owned in Home Counties? (again, thanks to Michelle Goodall*)
Percentage of shows at a press event or party (thanks to Becky McMichael*)
And those dull old world metrics such as seniority, salary and size of organisation

*Contributions via Facebook and Twitter of course. Anyone got any more suggestions?

Tags: PR, Twitter

Reasons to be cheerful: green lights, FTSE £1k confidence project update, and lessons from a motivational speaker

2009-02-25T14:50:00.007Z

Just back from lunch and the market indicators on the BBC web site are all green (momentarily). That hasn’t happened in a long time.

So, what shape is the downturn? Entrepreneur Charlie Hoult has made it the subject of a series of posts on his blog. His latest post draws on bathtub metaphors and inspiration from Flickr searches.

I haven’t yet taken a bath with my FTSE £1k confidence project but the water is getting chilly. Back in November I spotted that the FTSE 100 had started to fluctuate around a mean of 4,200. At the moment it’s on a downswing at 3,870. It’ll be back.

Charlie urges readers of his blog that are feeling gloomy to check out a video clip of Nick Vujicic a 23 year old motivational speaker from Australia. Now tell me what you’ve got to complain about.

Tags: equity, FTSE, investment, market, turnaround

Three new geocaches published and an update on the Geordie geocoin project

2009-02-24T22:54:00.003Z

There now follows a geeky post for which I make no apologies.

I’ve had three new geocaches published today on Geocaching.com: two near my home in Northumberland and one bang in the middle of Elephant & Castle, London. I’ve another geocache that I created in London near the Football Association headquarters in Soho Square that is fast becoming one of the busiest in the City.

If you’ve got a GPS device and want to add a bit of fun to a walk or a run you should consider having a go at geocaching. It’s a great way of get kids large and small out and about.

You could also check out my experiment in network theory called the Geordie Jetsetter Geocoin Project after I read Small Worlds and the Groundbreaking Science of Networks.

I’ve released three geocoins from a geocache near Newcastle United’s football ground and am plotting their movement from cache to cache to their target locations variously in Newcastle, Australia, Newcastle, South Africa and Newcastle, US. So far none of the geocoins have left the country but a frontrunner to the project has landed in Cape Town this week.

Tags: geocoin, geocaching

Event report: London Blogger meetup

2009-02-24T22:14:00.006Z

Snap shows PR blogger Michael Litman ensuring that he stays trim as he samples a blueberry Barcadi Breezer (one unit, 100 calories) at the London Blogger's meetup (#LBM) meet-up tonight. The event, sponsored by Barcadi Breezer, also heard a pitch from The Next Women, a business magazine for women.

Tags: #LBM

Lazy journalism, lazy science: the Mail on social networking

2009-02-24T15:00:00.002Z

That today’s front paper story in the Daily Mail claiming that social media sites could harm a child’s brain is based on a House of Lords debate that took place more than 10 days ago (thanks to Chris Edwards for the link) tells you everything that you need to know about the quality of the journalism.

Last week we learnt that from the same paper that using Facebook could raise the risk of cancer.

Undoubtedly social media sites are changing the way that people of my generation (and much younger) communicate. People are more accessible and communication hierarchies have been flattened.

I caught up with Loewy’s chairman Mark Adams this morning. He said that peer-to-peer communication on social media sites was the source of most accurate information for details of school openings during the recent heavy snow falls in the UK.

But back to the Mail. How do stories such as this get into the paper, let alone onto the front page? The report results from speculation by Baroness Susan Greenfield during the Lords’ debate in which she said there may be a link between the increased use of social networking by children and attention deficit.

She goes further and proposes that there may be a link between social networking sites and autism using the reverse logic that autistic people find it easier to communicate via their PCs rather than face-to-face.

This is not neuroscience as we know it as Chris Edwards said. Students wouldn't be allowed to get away with this level of conjecture in a school essay. It’s lazy journalism. And even lazier science.

Will Sturgeon has dissected the story paragraph-by-paragraph and gives further insight into how these types of stories reach the front page of a tabloid newspaper.

Tags: chrisedwards, socialmedia, susangreenfield

Formal methods route to proving PR value (and consultancy differentiation)

2009-02-23T11:03:00.002Z

How many times have you lost a pitch on grounds of chemistry? It’s an issue that is so endemic in the industry that PRCA vice-chairman Richard Houghton has made it the theme of his blog: A close second.

Do you think the same happens in other professional services industries such as accounting, legal or management consultancy? I don’t think so.

My current pet theory is that the industry’s lack of formal methods - crucially planning and measurement techniques - and its inability to map metrics into a domain that is relevant to business, which means clients are left to differentiate agencies on the basis of intangible variables such as chemistry.

It’s bloody frustrating. But it’s changing. Processes and methods such as those described in reports and papers from Daryl Wilcox Publishing and econsultancy are enabling consultancies to develop formal techniques to plan, implement and measure in financial terms that a marketing director and board can understand.

There are some really innovation projects going on around the industry on the development of formal methods by people such as Ged Carroll (reputation), Tim Hoang (SEO and keyword planning), Phil Sheldrake (analytics), Andrew Smith (SEO and planning) and Will McInnes (measurement).

Inevitably I’ve missed out lots of people at the vanguard of the industry, people that are getting on with the job of recalibrating and redefining their businesses, or starting over from scratch.

We’re investing heavily and learning from colleagues in other marketing disciplines within Loewy. I’d love to talk anyone that wants to listen about the investments that we are making and the formal techniques and tools that we are developing.

Tags: formalmethods, planning, PR

PR people are not killing Twitter (and how to filter out Twitter noise)

2009-02-22T22:54:00.004Z

Bill Hilton (@billhiton) tried to wind Dan Howarth (@danhowarth) and me up last week by forwarding on a blog posting from Media Post about how PR people and professional Twitter users are killing the network with excessive noise.

It simply isn’t the case.

Twitter is a truly democratic network in which an individual must earn the respect of another user in order to engage in conversation and become a part of their network. Users that don’t follow these basic principles simply are ignored, aren’t followed or are blocked.

Loewy colleague Phil Whitehouse who works in the digital crew at The Team has created the Twitter Ten Commandments (@tencommandments) which develops these basic Twitter tenets.

Tags: spam, twitter

Online PR basics in 30 minutes: DWPub white paper

2009-02-22T22:45:00.002Z

Daryl Wilcox Publishing (DWPub) published an excellent 12-page white paper last week that is an excellent primer on digital PR for anyone in the PR industry. It’s free and is called: Online PR in action – an introduction to implementing and measuring a digital PR programme.

I’d go as far to say that it should be required reading for anyone that hasn’t yet explored the potential of audience and keyword planning, and PR-led content as a strategy for influencing SEO.

The paper, written by escherman’s Andrew Smith describes how formal methods can be applied to the planning, execution and development of PR campaigns.

The first section of the paper develops the work of David Meerman-Scott and plots out how PR can influence the route from web search to purchase, taking in Google planning tools and the use of LinkedIn and Twitter as research tools. The second section examines platforms to implement a campaign and some of the basic measurement techniques.

The paper flirts with the potential of social networks but I suspect this will be the subject of another document. Inevitably the paper touts the services of DWPub for planning and as a route to target audiences but its no worse for it.

Digital PR must become a core skill for the PR industry. If you have yet to get to grips with digital techniques then this white paper is a good place to start.

Tags: andrewsmith, digitalpr, dwpub, onlinepr

Twitter spam pub game

2009-02-17T22:29:00.001Z

Spammers are abusing Twitter. And I don’t mean folk that constantly pimp their content or abuse the RT function on Tweetdeck.

No these are old fashioned spammers: debt advisors, purveyors of dodgy pills and porn merchants, to name but a few. They find you through keyword searches based on the content of your Tweets and follow you in the hope that you’ll check out their profile, website link and maybe even follow them back.

I spotted the trend after writing a couple of blog posts about the equity market and social lending.

You could of course make your Tweet-stream permission based or simply block dodgy followers. But how about turning the situation into a pub game?

The objective is to attract Twitter followers faster than your opponent by baiting Tweet spammer with alluring messages. The only rule is that you can only Tweet a bait every 15 minutes. Its geeky, no doubt, but a lot of fun. My record is 14 dodgy followers in an hour.

Twitter is a perfect network in so much as its possible to remove all the noise you’d normally receive in a social network and focus only on the messages from the people that you want to receive. Spammers have not role within that network. But there’s an easy solution – block them or have a bit of fun.

Tags: spam, twitter

Death of push marketing and employees as brand advocates

2009-02-17T22:20:00.003Z

"We’re living through an industrial revolution for the first time in a lifetime for anyone over 60 years old. All the rules are changing. Its no wonder everything feels a little crazy at times."

In his London session this afternoon Seth Godin sounded the death knell for push marketing as he pulled content from his books Meatball Sundae and Tribes.

"Social networks enable everyone in an organisation to become a brand advocate. In the future individual employees will be an organisations most powerful sales and marketing resource. In this new world marketing and PR teams will facilitate conversations, provide content, and light touch guidelines."

This morsel was part of a conversation over breakfast with Rainier PR’s Ruth Jones and The Team’s Peter Blake and Phil Whitehouse.

Tags: sethgodin, socnets

Twitter debate: PR and its role in SEO, WOM and social networks

2009-02-17T11:15:00.003Z

Some of the smartest folk in digital PR debated its future last night, taking in topics including planning, search engine optimisation (SEO), word of mouth (WOM) and social networks.

Over the course of 90 minutes more than 100 tweets passed back and forth between Andrew Smith, Ian Delaney, Jaz Cummins, Jed Hallam, Lewis Webb, Melanie Seasons, Pete Gould, Rob Brown, Rob Fenwick, Stephen Davies and Tim Hoang. Ian Delaney is considering running an NMK event on the topic as a result.

Rob Brown has summarised the debate on his blog as follows:

Public relations online can play a significant role in SEO or raising the rank and therefore importance of sites in Google and other search engines
It is an inexact science, there are probably lots of ways to make this work but they are not publicly available or widely discussed in the PR community
Some SEO agencies know this and are hiring PR people
Some PR people know this and are hiring SEO people
The PR industry has lost out so far to the SEO industry in selling skills in this area to major companies and brands
Planning and use of analytics will be key to how the PR industry develops in the field
WOM in SocNets is the future (or even the present)

As Rob says I believe that PR is in danger of missing the SEO opportunity; the space has been gobbled up by online ad and digital agencies.

Of course, there’s money to be made around the edges by developing quality content with SEO in mind and placing it in the right places. Stephen Davies, Rob and myself can tell you about that – you’ll find us if you Google keywords on the variations of the keywords PR blog and PR blogger.

I reckon that SEO is a staging post, a way of sifting through stacks of data, en route to a bigger opportunity, namely building communities and creating influence within those communities.

In the last week I’ve used word of mouth to get recommendation on a holiday, find out what it takes to get listed planning consent and buy some trees. Of course in each instance I used Google to gather information, but then polled my network to drill down into the detail.

Markets aren’t demographics; Cluetrain taught us that. Markets are people. And people are driven by emotion not search engines.

Update: contributions to the debate from Stuart Bruce (Public relations is about reputation, not SEO) and Jamie Burke (PR, SEO and P2P... The big debate).

Tags: cluetrain, SEO, socnets, WOM

Twitter as a referring traffic source

2009-02-15T22:35:00.002Z

Econsultancy says that Twitter is the fourth largest referrer of traffic to its sites and as a result it is investigating ways of integrating Twitter into its site. I've spotted traffic from Twitter to this blog rising in the last three months. Here are the top three referring sites to my blog according to Google Analytics.

Google organic - 39 per cent
Direct - 17 per cent
Twitter - 6 per cent

RSS feeds (not identified above), Google and direct traffic account for the majority of traffic, but Twitter is climbing fast.

We’re in the process of overhauling the Rainier PR web site and like Econsultancy are experimenting with ways to integrate Twitter. I’m also taking Andew Grill’s advice and trialing GetClicky for web analytics. It provides a greater level of granularity and faster reporting that Google Analytics.

Tag: econsultancy, Twitter

Geordie Geocoin live in bid to explore science of networks

2009-02-15T22:28:00.001Z

Geordie Jetsetter South Africa, the final coin in my Geordie geocoin project, has been released at a geocache close to the Newcastle football ground.

The project is an attempt to explore the science of social networks and follow the journey of three trackable geocoins from Newcastle, UK, Europe, to locations on three other continents that share the same name (and then back).

The three coins in the project are making their way to Newcastle, Australia; Newcastle, South Africa and Newcastle, US.

Geordie Jetsetter US is 78 miles from home and has reached Morecambe Bay. Geordie Jetsetter Oz is 138 miles from home and in a real spirit of dedication to the project has been carried by a geocacher to Newcastle in Staffordshire.

You can follow the project on this Tumblr blog.

Tag: geocaching , geocoin