Drew B's take on tech PR

7 social media New Year's resolutions

Happy new year to all you list makers and resolution setters. Here are 7 New Year's resolutions that I'm going to be following and which may help you get more out of social media in January and beyond. 

1. Try something new: Pinterest is one of the new social networks to try out. Hitwise says it has now broken into the top 10 social networks. I'm liking it aready.
2. Batch it up to avoid information overload: tweets, emails, alerts... I find all the information pouring in can create a constant feeling of information overload. Be brave and batch your time on each social network by, gulp, REMOVING ALERTS. In other words, don't let yourself be plugged in all the time. Turn alerts on when you're in, then off when you're not. Even if for no other reason that the removal of buzzing and bleeping around the office and in meetings will be welcomed by others. 
3. Don't update right away: when Facebook, Twitter and other major social networks update their look and feel online and on their mobile and web apps, they ask you first, do you want to switch over to the new look. Try not doing it right away next time - either have a test account to try it out with, or look at the feedback from others before diving straight in.
4. Short and sweet: whether you're trying to blog more, or just use more, new social networks, keep the content short and sweet and you may find writer's block disappear. 
5. Prune and cull: go through your reading list, followers and apps, and delete a batch now, then do it every month. You'll be surprised, if you don't do this regularly, how much clutter you accumulated.
6. Share more: when I run training classes, for newcomers to some of the more open sharing social networks like Instagram, Path, Foursquare and even Twitter, the main concern is over-sharing. I'm going to use them a bit more this year, Instagram and Foursquare in particular, as with all new things, they get used slightly less when they move from innovative to mature technologies.
7. Carry less: this one's quite personal to me, but I find that even though more and more can be done on mobiles and tablets, we still carry the laptop everywhere we go. App yourself up with productivity services like ensuring all your inboxes are in one place, Twitter, Skype, Facebook, Office (disclaimer: client), Evernote (client) and whatever else you need, then try stepping away from the big screen more often. I know I will. 

Three Wikipedia instruction manuals all PR people should look at

With the news agenda for the PR industry this week being dominated by The Independent's 'sting' on Bell Pottinger, it might be of use to some comms practitioners to brush up on the user manuals - in particular for Wikipedia. 

Whilst a great deal of best practice in social media is common sense to those that live and breathe it, the following essential reading I'm sure will come in useful to many. Here are the best practice guidelines developed for social media and Wikipedia from the CIPR, ASA and Wikipedia itself.

1. CIPR Social Media Best Practice Guide

2. ASA's CAP Code document on extending the digital remit

3. Wikipedia's own policies and guidelines

If anyone else finds other sources of guidance useful, do let me know and I'll post up here. 

How to activate the new Twitter and key changes for brands

Twitter this evening rolled out a new look, which you can access and activate for yourself by going to this URL: fly.twitter.com. Whilst all serious users of Twitter, people and brands alike, will quickly try out the new service, it's more than just a facelift. The new Twitter is a big step towards making the service more intuitive and modern, whilst allowing brand pages to present a more enticing attractive shop window. What's new? The new Twitter puts navigation on the left, and the stream on the right - just like email and like Facebook. Twitter has always been the other way around. The new look also is much more visual, and focuses on trends. And there's heaps more. It's definitely worth taking some time to try it out and see how you can get some additional benefit out of it.

Social media trends for 2012

The time of year has come around again to look ahead and plan for the coming 12 months. Plan for our clients, for our own business and - the most exciting bit as a consultant - for how we think the media landscape will change. 

This is the third year that we at 33 Digital, and this year more broadly across Hotwire, have written down our thoughts on the major trends of social media and dgital marketing for PR and comms (here is last year's report). 

The report is based on our team's experiences and based on social media as a day job, where we see things going and how we think the trends can be harnessed. The full report is free to download here and you can read it in full below. 

10 Social Media Trends for 2012 - 33 Digital and Hotwire

Public sector social media continues to turn some heads at #SoMeComms

In the middle of busy season, this week appears to be busy week. I travelled to Manchester to present at the SomeComms awards, just one of the digital industry awards taking place. A full house, plenty of consumer brands and hot agencies were there, but the most striking observation was that the innovation came from a different place in the comms field – almost entirely it came from the public sector.

Monmouthshire Council won awards for best use of YouTube and most innovative campaign (which I had the pleasure of presenting). Manchester Police won best in-house social media team and best use of Twitter.  University of Sheffield won best business blog. Best social media for R&D was Leeds Council. And City of Edinburgh Council won the Grand Prix.

In the acceptance speech of Edinburgh Council’s team, they referenced how the whole campaign had a budget of just £2,500 and overachieved on results by 104%. That kind of approach in these times of austerity, as we like to put it, got everybody in the hall nodding and clapping that little bit more.

Well done to all those taking part in awards at this time of year. 

 

Five PR shortcuts: my social media toolkit

There are a bunch of little social media shortcuts I use on a daily basis to make the most of the time I have available to do everything. They aren't really trade secrets, but writing this helps me answer properly the question: "how do you find time for it." This is a run-down of some of the newer things I'm using, and some of the shortcuts and ways I use some of the older social media systems. 

Twitter as your feed reader: Use Twitter between things from your phone to follow the news and buzz. Load Twitter on to your phone and ask your followers the best app to use. I almost always use the official Twitter app, but no reason why Tweetdeck or something different shouldnt be better. Subscribe to news channels and blogs then use Twitter as your news reader. You'll find you can keep track of the media agenda even when you have 'no time'.

Email is good: Email-enable your blog, Flickr for photos, Tumblr and Posterous for groups and so on. Most social networks have email as an input option, so think about how you can send a quick email of something you have on your phone for example when you're waiting for something else to play nicely. I tend to use time in the tube or waiting for a meeting to start / computer to boot up so send some content to my socialnets.

Twitter for your story bookmarks: Use Twitter's starring / favouriting function to 'read it later'. When you're on the move, you might not have time to read full articles, so star them then work through your starred items when you're in front of your computer later. 

Evernote for lists: Use Evernote for list keeping and screen grabs. If you ever need to scribble something down, then doing so in Evernote means you always have that list on you, whether you're on your phone, tablet or computer. If you ever need to take a screen grab of an image, such as for presentations, if you have Evernote turned on then Evernote will automatically keep the image. I use this and have a three year long archive of images I use in presentations. It's invaluable. 

Turn off alerts: It might sound counter-intuitive, but turning off alerts - whether it's the beep of your Tweetdeck, ping on your smartphone or something else. You'll find batching up your social media work allows you to feel more able to turn on and off when you want, and you'll feel less like you need a ton of time to devote to doing social properly. 

 

 

Major Facebook announcements coming today at its #f8 event, 5:30 UK time. Tune into the live stream

Today Facebook is hosting its f8 conference, 5:30 UK time, 9:30 US Pacific time, where the event is being hosted.

This is Facebook's major event for 'developers, entrepreneurs and innovators' and you can tune into the live stream on the event page here.

Mashable's preview of the event makes for interesting reading. "I have seen what Facebook is launching on Thursday, and it’s going to change the world of social media," writes Ben Parr.

If you're on Twitter, follow the #f8 hashtag to read updates on the event.

New social media stats from Nielsen: Tumblr #2 in UK, FC2 #1 in Japan, Tuenti #1 in Spain

This week Nielsen published its new quarterly social media report. It's a useful piece of work to take a look into and well worth a read for all the rich stats and facts. Some findings worth pulling out include: 

• The UK's 2nd biggest social network is now Tumblr, with 229m page views, behind only Facebook
• In Spain, people spend more time per person on Tuenti, not Facebook
• Orkut is #1 in Brazil and FC2 Blog is #1 in Japan
• Twice as many people aged 55+ are using mobiles for social media compared to last year
• Females aged 18-34 are the most active demographic on Facebook

Thanks Nielsen for making this report available to all online. 

The Foursquare potential: Why I think this could reinvent social

Businesses will be able to use information from location based social media in entirely new ways that could blow wide open people’s perceptions about privacy and security.

According to this article in Time, Foursquare is about to mix three magic ingredients together that will take Foursquare beyond being ‘more than a game’.

Those ingredients are social, location and notification, as an API. Or in other words, you can use information from people’s social networking, take information about location and allow messaging between people and places.

For example, if a friend of yours is near, you get an alert. If you are a business, you know more about your customer footfall. You can offer content, products and deals in a more social way.Think about how this could reinvent how we think of social media, and how organisations think about engaging with us as people. 

I’m really excited by this development, because it signals another step for communicators along the road of social media innovation. Soon I think we will see fewer and fewer concerns about people sharing information about where they are through their social network, because the opportunities (for Foursquare too) are too exciting to resist.

TechCrunch staying, but losing founder and co-editor Mike Arrington?

Talk of the last few days has been of the goings-on over at now AOL-owned megablog, TechCrunch. For years one of, if not THE most widely read blogs, and a staple for anyone in the web, media or startup scenes, this week looked like it might be in trouble. News overnight reports that Mike Arrington the founder has now been let go. Here is a summary of the story. 

I'm hoping that the changes afoot at TechCrunch make the scene stronger. If Mike Arrington does leave, I hope he goes on to do more amazing stuff and that TechCrunch continues to prosper here in Europe and globally. 

Future of location based social networks: Facebook changes and my CIPR talk

Yesterday the good people at Facebook PR gave me a briefing on some of the changes coming through from the grand social network. It's great getting the inside story from brands, as you often come to your own conclusions when there is a launch based on what a bunch of bloggers and media have to say. Facebook announced a 'kitchen sink' of new features on Tuesday night, and the one the stood out for me was the killing off of Facebook Places. 

Judging by the briefing notes, it seems the plan for Facebook is to integrate location based info, ie the check-in, into the status update. A video on what's happening to Places is here on Facebook's 'location' page. I think this is really interesting as it makes the check-in or the location-based bit of social networking much more integrated into the overall experience. 

It's good timing for me too. I did a talk last week at the Chartered Institute of PR on how to get the most out of Foursquare and Facebook Places. Updating my talk with the above brings it all bang up to date... here are the slides I used. 

CIPR Social Summer - Location Location Location

View more presentations from Drew Benvie

Twitter, PR and moving from challenger to mainstream

As reported just now in Ad Age, Twitter is rumoured to be on the hunt for a PR agency and is in talks with a number of New York shops. The Ad Age article says that Twitter may also be looking at London firms.

As someone who runs a UK PR firm which represents digital and technology brands, I'm no stranger to the challenges faced by brands in the limelight. The need to manage and shape reputations is in many ways more difficult for 'famous' names than it is for challenger brands.Twitter's battle with the mainstream's front covers over recent months has certainly brought its challenges, from super injunctions to the UK riots. I hugely admire Twitter's people and the brand.

Its executives and founders received their fair share of requests to work for them from a certain PR consultant over the years :) I make no secret of it.

But in this new era Twitter's challenges are all about establishing a platform with stakeholders that creates trust, inspires confidence around issues such as user privacy, and persuades brands' media buyers that spend on Twitter is worth its weight. I'm certainly looking forward to the next era of Twitter's mainstream evolution.

The new blogger reviews: Foursquare launches lists

Tonight the daddy of location based social networking launched its killer app: lists. 

Lists on Foursquare are going to transform the way brands participate in the social network. Now, check-ins on Foursquare can be surfaced not just through the traditional experience of social networking - by seeing your friends' activity in real-time or browsing through their history - but bu users creating curated groups of places, tips and plans. 

Here is my first list, complete with a map: places near my office to get coffee and lunch!

Here's how to create a list, in case you're looking for a starter for 10: 

1. Go to Foursquare.com and click on your profile / 'Me'
2. Create a list will be an option in a large green box
3. Choose a name, then start adding places that you've been. Foursquare will predict these as you type them in, to jog your memory
4. Foursquare will then suggest places to add to your list, and suggest photos of the places and tips from each place
5. Your list then has a vanity URL to share

We should quickly expect to see lists of experiences, venues and tips popping up and with a little luck, they might become a really engaging and trusted way for us to find places to go and things to experience along the way. Is so, brands will look for ways to get into lists and into people's social recommendations. 

 

7 ways social media was used for good in the UK riots

The tabloid media slammed social media for being a dark force in this week's London riots. 'Nail The Twitter Rioters', said The Sun in its main story. Reports abound of David Cameron looking to ban Facebook and Twitter at times of civil unrest.  

However, as anyone personally participating in social media this week will testify, social media was by far and away used more as a force for good amidst the rioting. The smart organisation of people, sharing of information and transfer of news was like nothing seen before. 

Here are seven highlights: 

1. Bristol cyclist takes requests for updates over Twitter, cycles to affected areas and tweets facts [link] (my favourite!)
2. @RiotCleanup harnesses communities within hours, 85,000 followers [link] [link]
3. Police forces take to Twitter to report on breaking issues and report from the courts [link]
4. Bloggers club together to help raise £20,000 to repair 89-year-old barber's destroyed shop [link]
5. Posterous site RiotCleanup.com used to share leaflets and spread the word of good being done in communities [link]
6. The Met Police share photos of rioters for crowsourced ID-ing on Flickr [link]
7. Facebook pages and blogs set up to aid the police to catch looters [link] [link]

If you have seen any more, do let me know in the comments.

10 disciplines for good communication and 3 rules for good discipline

I started a new job a month ago and working across different offices and businesses is new to me. Information overload however isn't (one of the questions I get asked the most is: 'how do you find time to tweet / blog / think?) and so I'm trying to apply some of the tricks I have picked up over the years to help give stucture, discipline and best practice to my work in communications. 

Here is an article called the Email Charter which lists 10 commandments of email best practice. Worth a read. As the giver, respect recipients' time, and don't be open ended. As a receiver, cutting contentless responses is a good rule of thumb too. 

And this piece in the Harvard Business Review takes a fresh look at discipline and using food and diet as an analogy, it gives three rules of best practice to adding discipline and focus to work. Very much applicable to life as a communications consultant. Have fig big to-do items for your year and make everything flow from them; share your commitments; and make your to do list your calendar. 

This last point leads me to a new service I'm hoping to try out soon called Zendone. It joins your to do list with your calendar. As someone who uses the cloud (namely Evernote) to manage my to do list, I would find this way of turning actions into time slots a neat way to better manage things. Here's to that Beta invite hey guys :)

Here's the Zendone promo video for happy GTD viewing: