Communications today is about relevance say Brodeur

A great blog from Andy Colville and our friends at Brodeur on the changing world of communications and how ‘relevance‘ now sits at the core of their agency’s mission. Brodeur is committed to helping clients become—and remain—relevant in an increasingly noisy and turbulent environment. Relevance moves people from passive to involved and actually gets them to act. As we know, simply shouting louder does not make you relevant. For communications to succeed in today’s rapidly changing communications world – campaigns have to be ‘relevant’. Here in Europe, onechocolate is doing something similar – listening to each client’s particular communications challenges and then delivering campaigns that have them joining the important conversations and getting them talked about in all the right places. Like the blog Andy and good luck with the new vision, it’s very exciting.

Social Media – A British Love Affair

Hold the press everyone – it’s finally official. Social networking is now top of the list when it comes to our favourite British online pastimes. It’s even overtaken portals such as the BBC iPlayer, ITV Player and Sky Sports.com in popularity.

The stats are massive – last month Facebook accounted for over 12.46 per cent of all internet activity and there were 2.4 billion visits to social networking sites just in January 2011 alone.

Similarly Linkedin has more than 90 million registered users around the world and there are over 1 billion tweets a month on Twitter.

It seems the tipping point has finally come, with social media leaping ahead when it comes to influencing our online lives. And there’s apparently no end to this British love affair.

But despite all the numbers and stats, one fact remains clear – this revelation surprises no-one.

Social media is so much part of our daily lives, most of us don’t even think about using it. So it’s hardly a shock it’s dominating our internet usage.

In such a short time social media is now firmly in camp ‘Status quo’ – now that’s surprising!

Social networks? Watch out for friends’ posts while you are searching for information online

Last week Google announced that it was planning to implement changes to its Google Social Search platform to include posts from people’s online friends into its standard search results. The social search results, which previously appeared at the bottom of the page, will now be mixed throughout the list of results based on their relevance. Another interesting change in the search engine functionality is that users will be prompted to connect their social networking accounts any time Google’s algorithms find a public account that might belong to the same user.

As social networking profiles become more interconnected, people will be able to see publicly shared links posted by online ‘friends’ and connect their Twitter, YouTube, Flickr or Quora accounts. However, the upgraded social search engine will not include posts from the social networking giant Facebook. This does not come as a surprise as the two companies have a long history of trying to ‘steal’ each other’s market share with Google tapping into social media and Facebook developing its own email platform.

Despite excluding Facebook, Google’s Social Search platform will offer access to much more information about users than it was previously available. Some people will question whether this is entirely a good idea. Google seems sensitive to the privacy issues and allows users to opt out of the social sharing service by not connecting their online accounts to the search platform. However, if any of your online friends is ‘connected’ and shares or retweets your posts, they will become publicly available in the search results. Moreover, it remains uncertain how you would be able to control who sees to your online posts once you have connected your social networking profiles to Google.

Overall these changes highlight a number of trends which will potentially impact social media PR and marketing. As social networks are increasingly woven into online search engines and online profiles can be easily linked, businesses will be able to reach wider audiences and niche customer segments. SEO practices will be adjusted to take into account the rising importance of social networks for placing content in the top ranking of people’s search results. This will result in more intricate and subtle integration of social media tools into PR and marketing campaigns and will place higher importance on online networks.

Yeo Valley Farm – a truly integrated and memorable campaign

It was no coincidence  that just before Christmas, I was reading an interesting editorial profile in the Sunday Times magazine on the family behind Yeo Valley Farm when their ad campaign was also breaking during the finals of the X-factor.   This editorial along with many other articles were appearing in conjunction with a TV ad campaign that’s edgy and also quickly became a youtube hit . The Yeo Valley campaign is one very recent example of a powerful PR campaign working alongside advertising and also integrated with social media.  The campaign  introduced Yeo’s digital presence encouraging viewers to access their new website. Very quickly, Yeo Valley has 19.3million tweet impressions, and 1.5 million youtube views. Great to see a campaign that had such a strong mix of marketing tools and working so well together.

New era, new job titles

I love Brian Solis – whenever you wonder whether your social media thoughts and experiences are going in the right direction– you can always count on Brian and his industry friends to put some perspective on it.

His latest piece is well worth a read as he talks about the ‘beginning of the end of business as usual and the socialization of business’. He argues that there is a new business  role model that is currently unwritten. This reminded me of something my son’s headmaster said at prize day recently, that our children are being educated for roles that don’t currently exist!

In Brian’s latest thought piece, he talks about the need for a corporate social media strategist who is neutral and can change the business and drive social media through every aspect of the organisation – without that – social media is all a bit tactical and piecemeal – a bit of blogging here, a bit of tweeting there but it’s not really making a real difference to the business and the way it performs long-term. 

This is definitely the beginning of an era of a new phase in business. Without someone driving it from the top – it just won’t happen in a way that will impact the performance of any business.

So in five years time will the job title of coporate social media strategist be in every organisation and not just the ones who have embraced social media as part of their business strategy’. What will their skills be made up of  – consultancy thinking, digital skills and marketing knowledge?

PR in the Middle

Being social media savvy is now second nature to PR and is something that personally fascinates me.  Similarly, our journo cousins have embraced this new medium – as enthusiastically as us – many setting up their own blogs, groups and micro-sites.  

What’s less clear is how journalism uses social media to source articles and research stories. In this age of instant digital information, is the press release still the best way to grab a journos’ attention or should we dazzle them with blogs, forums and vodcasts? Even more worryingly, is PR still important to modern journalism?

A recent survey by Cision and the University of Sunderland, aimed to find out.

For all PRs holding your breath, fear not!  The survey showed journalists still view traditional sources like press releases and direct contact with PRs as paramount. 

Although journalists’ use of social media and search engines over the past three years has increased, traditional channels are not being negated but are used in conjunction with social media. 

In fact, only a small minority of respondents reported using traditional channels either more or less than they did three years ago.

The survey revealed networking sites such as LinkedIn and Facebook were the single most important social technology for journalism by approximately 30 per cent of UK respondents, with Twitter not far behind.

More surprisingly, Wikipedia was the most used online tool for journalists –with over 60% using the site to check and source stories at least once a week, compared to 22% for blogs, or 34% for news wire services.

However, story ideas, concepts and angles were still drummed up via traditional sources, such as direct PR contact and via corporate sites.

Overall it seems journos are not at all behind the times when it comes to social media – they have welcomed it with both hands. Thankfully it seems that PR is firmly in this three way embrace and PR is still in the middle.

The Independent launches a new title

Next week the Independent launches its new complimentary title I, aimed at readers “who want concise, quality news at a low price”.  According to the publisher Evgeny Lebedev this will be first quality daily paper to have launched in Britain in the past 25 years (since the Independent).

The launch of the new publication, which will be priced 20p, is an interesting move on the part of the publishing company as it tries to find a new niche on the newspaper market. However, the price is an issue which some experts see as a threat.

The new publication might have a negative impact on the Independent’s readership, which has seen its circulation fall below 100,000 in recent months, with readers opting for the cheaper version of the newspaper. Similarly, readers who are not very sensitive to news quality would probably choose free rival publications such as the Metro or the Evening Standard (also owned by Evgeny and Alexander Lebedev).

However, despite these concerns, i received an initial positive reception from media agencies, describing the 56-page read as a more accessible and “funky” format than the Independent. This would be particularly appealing to a younger demographic such as the 30-somethings who want a “more substantial” read than city-based free Metro.

The newspaper will be backed by subscription iPhone and iPad applications and will launch with a two-week giveaway of 100,000 free copies a day to build up brand awareness. If i succeed in attracting a substantial number of readers who are willing to pay for its content, it might be followed by other dailies of rival publications which want to tap into its readership base.

Have you Reddit?

What do you look for when you are aimlessly searching the internet? It could be information about friend’s current status’, worldwide news or even just a random fact. One thing everyone can relate to online is good comedy and opinionated articles, I have found these in abundance at reddit.com. With the recent fall of Digg.com, reddit has grown in community followers by 14% and is obviously on the way up.

Although it has a retro page look, reddit is more on the pulse with regards to everyday social news than Mashable or Digg. By the time Mashable has released pictures of a new film in production, reddit has parodies of the actors on the set. Everyday news has a more varied worldwide opinion spin on it that other sites lack.

As a technology fiend I want all the best and latest information, but I also want a website with a good sense of humour and interaction. Another reason I like reddit.com is the self posts which are written by redditors with issues they want discussed by the community and help with. These posts not only bring you closer to the users of this website but restore your “faith in humanity”. Whatever you are searching for I would recommend a look at reddit as it expands as a social news website.

Multitasking UK: What will advertisers do next?

The UK has been named a nation of ‘multitaskers’ thanks to social networks and increasingly sophisticated mobile phones, according to new research from Ofcom.

The research reveals that a fifth of all media is consumed at the same time as another form of communication with people spending almost half of their waking hours glued to a screen, on the phone to friends or listening to the radio.

Although TV is as popular as ever, almost one-fifth of the time spent watching TV is now accompanied by laptop or mobile activity. A finding supported by YouGov this week which found that that more than half of UK respondents (58%) are regularly consuming at least one other type of media while watching television.

With television being seen as one of the staples of the advertising industry it will be interesting to see how they react and engage with their target markets moving forward. Brands could sponsor online elements of shows that incorporate your social network, for example real-time quizzes and voting amongst friends. Alternatively, e-commerce professionals as it could offer the unique opportunity to directly link products shown on TV to internet retailers.

Whatever the next generation of advertising will look like we know that the picture below will no longer represent the typical television viewers today.

Embracing social media – different paces abound

We have all embraced social media in a big way – particularly in PR where it is such a natural fit for us – it’s pretty much second nature after all, we are so used to having dialogues with journalists, sharing stories and having on-going conversations with all types of people.

So it’s easy to forget, perhaps, that social media is still evolving at a rapid rate and that businesses aren’t all embracing it at the same pace.

Just in the past few days, I’ve heard of two global brands who are way behind the curve. One has flatly refused to have anything to do with social media and the other, is ‘way behind’ in their social media conversations according to an inhouse marketeer. For those kind of brands struggling to persuade directors to embrace social media – here’s a useful post from an interesting US online publication, ‘the social media examiner’, ‘9 ways to sell social media to your boss’.

And then of course, there’s the other problem that businesses are online but don’t know what the guidelines are. The rules are still evolving and changing, again at a pretty rapid rate. Twitter is still largely unregulated and businesses are still learning and experimenting with it. Here’s some latest guidelines that have come out of oatmeal.com. They are not necessarily right, in fact I would question many on the list, but it’s interesting to see guidelines attempted to be set.

And then of course, there’s the fact that Facebook is only just starting to be used as a valuable marketing tool for businesses. The largest social media tool on the planet provides a huge opportunity to businesses – the social media examiner has lots of ideas on how to maximise your Facebook profile to generate interest among customers and prospects as well as some great recent campaigns that have really worked for brands.

So as we all move at different paces, and standards and guidelines continue to evolve as time passes, once the revolution is over, it’ll be great to see what transpires.