Drew B's take on tech PR

links for 2007-07-17

• The Rise and Fall of Blogging, Twitter and Facebook
  Blogging never dies: It's just the start of a road that goes we know not where. So if you're thinking of blogging, ask yourself why you want to do it, and whether you might not be better off twittering, powncing, jaikuing or facebooking.
• Streakr | Streakr Bares All For Beta
  Streakr.com, the new web discovery tool and social networking site today announces its launch into beta phase and calls for users to test its site.
• The Telegraph: Why I can't find a face to fit cyberspace
  "If you are too busy juggling kids and careers, pick-ups, drop-offs, presentations and play dates, you'd have no windows in your schedule for mucking about on Facebook."
• Wall Street Journal: Networks Try 'Twittering' To Spread Their Message
  "NBC, CBS, ABC Family and MTV are among several networks experimenting with the marketing possibilities of Twitter, a nascent social-networking service that sends messages in super-short bursts."

When Facebook meets The Office

Chris Vallance at BBC Pods and Blogs (the blog that's also a show) has kindly linked to my post about Facebook yesterday on my Twitter. The article I posted was The Wall St Journal's Cubicle Culture piece on what happens when office hierachy and Facebook friending collide. Chris tells more.

Boris' PR battle

Political bloggers are looking at the PR challenge Boris Johnson has, now that he has confirmed he will run from mayor of London. Or, as Guido Fawkes puts it: "Why Boris WILL win." He was political correspondent for The Telegraph before becoming editor of The Spectator. He knows how to tell a story. And you have to admit from a PR point of view, Boris has the story to him that will inspire the electorate to go out and vote. Only about 10 per cent of the electorate voted Ken last time around according to Guido's calculations.

links for 2007-07-16

• UnSpin: The New Spin at Westminster and how Gordon isn't playing ball
  I also read this great column in The Times about how Labour PR has changed: "Westminster is no longer briefing the Lobby on key ministerial speeches, forcing journalists to - shock, horror - turn up and listen!"
• Guido bites the media hand that doesn't feed
  Guido Fawkes interviewed on The Guardian's podcast. He hints at a broadcast media stint coming up.
• Social and community network sites have little impact influencing online retail sales, says JupiterResearch
  "From a branding and advertising perspective, social and community sites are garnering a great deal of influence online. But when researching a product online, shoppers are looking for fundamental information, not entertainment or social interaction."
• The Interactive » New media needs new measurement
  Simon Collister at Edelman talks about Jeff Jarvis' call for a summit on new ways of measuring distributed media influence.

Review of The New Influencers

Paul Gillin's new (signed) (blush!!) book "The New Influencers" arrived yesterday for me to review. When I found out last year that it was being written, I blogged about it and of course Paul's people in the US saw my blog and asked if I'd review a copy when it came out. Ahhh, so that's how this all works :-)

The book is billed as the marketer's guide to social media and I couldn't have put it better myself. It's exactly that. The kind of book you'd keep next to your computer to refer to for case studies, nuts and bolts theory and best practice. Seth Godin puts it nicely in his review when he says: "This is the book for those that missed the blogging train when it left the station."

This book has answers to the kinds of questions someone like me gets asked on a daily basis. Stuff like who should blog, how and why to go viral, backgrounders on tagging, RSS, and which search engines to use, and essays on creating disruption and becoming an influencer.

It reviews social media campaigns and the theory behind them, then profiles the people behind them. Chaps like Hugh Mcleod, Steve Rubel, Constantin Basturea and Robert Scoble all get the once-over. For an agency or in-house, marketing or PR person, I would say this book is a must-have for every firm as a concise reference guide to best practice in the no-control world of the new influencers.

Some new PR blogs

There are a couple of blogs I've just come across and subscribed to. Copypunk - my colleague Jon Silk, who used to blog by the name Clogger, has moved to Copypunk where he'll be posting about life as a coywriter. And Brand Strategy - the blog of the magazine, written by Ruth Mortimer.

The World's Leading has just linked to a new blog too, by a Weber Shandwich chap by the name of Paul Wooding. The blog's called note to editors and you can see from Paul's about page that he's a former hack turned associate director as WS. Subscrbing to that too then.

NMK back and relaunching

Ian Delaney of must-read NMK has written a post to the site's readers about it's impending relaunch and redesign. He and his team recently suffered a fire at their HQ so they've taken this opportunity to bring in some changes, so watch that space.

The tech agency PR bosses don their blogs

Two PR agency bosses started blogging in the last week. Maybe there's something in the rain?

Firstly, Jonathan Hargreaves, the technology division MD at Edelman, launched his blog Cold Coffee. No posts at all there yet but I'll subscribe and see how it turns out. From what some of Jonathan's colleagues and ex colleagues have told me recently of him, I expect I'll like it.

Secondly, as reported by The World's Leading, Mark Jackson, the technology division MD at Hill & Knowlton, has launched Crisis at 40.

The content on there is entirely off topic, but why not I suppose. He's not chosen to design the site at all, but maybe that will come later. His style might be better suited to MySpace or maybe Facebook than a blog I think? Meanwhile the Facebook community is growing at lightning speed. The UK Press email list has a group on there now, The World's Leading is hoarding 'friends' as his profile begins to grow, and most agencies are setting up alumni and recruitment company groups. For the last few years Facebook has been a dress-down private playground in a walled garden with users really letting their hair down. Now the press, bosses an industry colleagues are connected, will the mood begin to change I wonder? And what will that do to the user base?

Malinowski vs the social media sphere

Hugh Mcleod is a PR/marketing blogger who I think has been covering some really insightful stuff recently. PR and marketing types, if anything like me, are courtesy of Hugh getting down to the nitty gritty of the marketing theory behind social networks - what makes some work and some not - looking at how to apply it to other brands, products and concepts (and getting some of his wit along the way). Hugh's got a blog that, after years of passively subcribing to, I now have lodged firmly in my must-reads folder.

So, recently Hugh's been talking about what we can learn from marketing by looking at some of the discussions that have been taking place at recent events on social objects and marrying that up with some early 20th Century insight from a dude called Malinowski, the father of modern anthropology.

So Hugh's got me on to Malinowski now. Looking at how sociability and reciprocity can make a brand and a product PR gold dust, it's interesting to understand the principles that people like Bronislaw Malinowski and Jaiku's Jyri Engstrom dissect.

The Guardian's Kevin Anderson has also written up his views on social objects and on the thoughts of Jaiku Founder, Jyri Engstrom. Kevin says that there's something about some social media sites like Flickr that tells you they're going to be around for years to come, and that's all down to this principle of social objects. Worth remembering when looking at which social networks to spend your time on.

Seth Godin's next big thing

Hugh Mcleod was talking about a new book out from Seth Godin called The Dip. I checked it out on Amazon as I hadn't heard of it before. It seems to be about looking at how you focus on the next big thing, and how to get out of the 'dip': "According to bestselling author Seth Godin, what really sets superstars apart from everyone else is the ability to escape dead ends quickly, while staying focused and motivated when it really counts."

Seth's been prominent in the blogosphere with his revious books, especially Small is the New Big. The Dip features artwork from Hugh Mcleod (here). I'm not sure if I'll buy it. I kind of get what it's saying just from looking at the blurb. But I'll wait and see who else starts talking about it first.