Neighbour Networking – the Next Big Thing in the UK?

20Dec11

With the New Year just around the corner everyone is wondering what the 2012 digital media trends will be, and one possible answer is the expansion of  neighbour networking sites in the UK.

Websites like Nextdoor.com, EveryBlock.com and HeyNeighbor.com already exist the in UK to enable neighbours the opportunity to network online:

‘There are so many ways our neighbors can help us, but these days most people dont know their neighbors or how best to contact them.’  So, the suggestion is that if you need a neighbour to help you out moving some furniture, or providing a night’s babysitting, you hop onto the social network and see who is available.  It also provide the opportunity to get to know your neighbours slightly better and hopefully carry on the interaction face-to-face.

{Source: Nextdoor.com via Daily Mail}

Now, why is this relevant to businesses you might ask?  Well, I wondered whether 2012 might see us recognise the need for this in a business environment.  Many SMEs are based on rural or urban business parks and might have little or no interaction with their neighbouring businesses.  But is if there were a social network that facilitated this, it could lead to much more collaboration and socialising.

What are your thoughts?  Do you think this could take off in the UK?  Would you use it personally?  Or professionally?  Or more importantly, do you think there is already something out there that caters for this requirement?

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Engaging in the conversation, without having to make a lengthy speech; the beauty of Tumblr

30Nov11

I have regularly extolled the virtues of blogging for business; particularly as an individual blogging to build up a profile for yourself as an expert within your field.  But blogging is daunting for many because of the time required to research, write, edit and manage a blog.

There is one particular blogging platform that makes the role of blogging shorter, sharper and slightly easier.  Tumblr.  I mentioned it in my previous entry because none other the Barack Obama has started using the site but I thought it might be helpful to extol the virtues of Tumblr for the person on the street.

Tumblr has been described by the Daily Telegraph as “the smart thing to be doing online these days [tumblelogging], which is to weblogs what text messages are to email – short, to the point and direct.”

 

A tumblelog does not require reams and reams of text, many people use it to just share images / videos / ‘finds’ on the internet but the content expectation not quite the same as a traditional blog so it is perfect for your CEO that wants to share quick bullet points of lessons learnt from a recent conference, or to post pictures of an event.

Tumblr is a mix between a blog and a social network (with more characters available than Twitter – but only when you need them).  I definitely encourage you to give it a go whether you want to create a personal blog for yourself with business objectives, or a unique and funky blog for your company.

 

Let me know how you get on!

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President Obama starts another election campaign with social media…

25Oct11

…and this time the chosen outlet (or at least one of them) isTumblr – a blogging platform (or ‘tumblelog’) that allows users to post images, text, video, quotes and links.

But why Tumblr?  Well the great thing about Tumblr is its submission feature, which allows anyone on the web contribute to your blog – the true realisation of a social media conversation!  Or as Obama’s Tumblr puts it:

“We’d like this Tumblr to be a huge collaborative storytelling effort—a place for people across the country to share what’s going on in our respective corners of it and how we’re getting involved in this campaign to keep making it better.”

Of course there is the chance that this could lead to negative use:

“There will be trolls among you: this we know. We ask only that you remember that we’re people—fairly nice ones—and that your mother would want you to be polite.”

But to me I think that this is a brave and meaningful utilisation of social media by the US president.  No doubt other social media outlets will also play a big part, Barack Obama’s Facebook page has more than 23m fans, while his Twitter account has more than 10m followers, but the ultimate question is, will this use of two way communication prove to be as successful as his campaign back in 2008?

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New ways to tweetify your way to Employment Success

21Sep11

Andrew Robson, who is currently completing an internship with us here at Twelve PR, talks about the benefits of social media for recruitment purposes:

The UKis growing ever more connected with 77% of homes now having internet access and 27% of adults able to access internet on the move through their smartphone. Indeed the average Brit now spends ten hours a day connected to the Internet. We know the internet is inescapable and that its force in society cannot be underestimated. For the first time, businesses are finding ways to act on this knowledge and boost their bottom line. Where once social media was a realm for well, socialising, it is now a powerful business tool.

Recruiting is one industry receiving a helping hand through social media. Companies now use Twitter in growing numbers to post job vacancies and those listed with the same hashtag are grouped together for easy searching.

The emergence of “Apply through Linkedin” negates the need for jobseekers to manually upload their CV for each application and the process appears more straightforward. To the same extent that we as users never switch off, we are relying on businesses to stay switched on and guard not only our social lives, but also our business and economic interests.

{source: Mobile Recruitment Apps}

Mobile access through apps also helps us maintain these links. The first apps helped (or hindered?) us socially, now they are moving into all other aspects of our lives as businesses join the smart phone revolution. Through the release of an app a company can reach out to new groups of people and display both fun and condensed content.

Thanks Andrew.  So are any of you relying more heavily on social media to aid the recruitment process?  Which routes do you find most successful – Twitter, LinkedIn, apps – or perhaps another social media site?

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Changes are afoot in the Digital World …

16Sep11

There have been lots of changes afoot with our most loved social networks recently so here is a quick summary of some of these, and how they might affect you as a user:

{source: mdjensen.com}

Facebook

Facebook seems to be developing at a rate of knots at the moment, with several changes occurring, some more significant than others.  But most recently:

-                      The Facebook toolbar (which appears across the top of your Facebook news feed) has become locked, so that it continues to appear when you scroll down the page – whether you are on your personal profile or your Facebook business page.  The benefits?  Well it is easier navigation of course….but it is a feature already used by Twitter.

-                      The Facebook subscribe button was launched this week, which allows users to follow the public updates of others, regardless of whether they are facebook ‘friends’ with them.  This can mean a whole host of things, for the celebs amongst us (oh wait, that’s not me really) it can mean that rather than having a personal profile and a fan page, you can have both and just chose which of your updates are public and which are private.  But it could also be a great feature for the average Joe on the street, such as teachers, for example.  Mashable describes it far more succinctly than I could: “Users can subscribe to others without enabling others to subscribe to them. This means teachers can allow their students to follow their public updates about school and classes without actually friending them (and accessing more personal information). That way, students can continue to update friends about their lives without worrying what might pop up in their teachers’ News Feeds.” Useful, huh?  A bit like Twitter (noticing a pattern here) but going that stage further because you can choose for some of your updates to be private whilst others are public for all those that may follow you to consume….

 

Twitter

Twitter has also made some interesting advancements:

 

-                      Twitter announced that it is now available in five additional languages (making the total 17).  The additional languages are simplified and traditional Chinese, Hindi, Tagalog and Malay.  This might not be a move that  effects all of you, but is a necessary one none-the-less….[worth noting that Facebook is available in 70 languages, so Twitter still has a way to go].

-                      A new analytics package has been launched by Twitter to help users understand “How much of their content is being shared on Twitter, how much traffic Twitter is sending their way and how well Tweet Buttons are performing.” I have yet to try out the analytics but this could be a great tool for agencies and in-house PRs that need to provide statistics on their social media activities, watch this space….

 

Google +

Google + has introduced a map sharing feature that allows you to share directions (and other information) from Google maps, though your Google + accounts – potentially useful for businesses with difficult to find offices…

 

 

These are of course just a few of the changes happening, but it is great to see that the big players are not resting on their laurels and continue to develop and improve.  That said, it does feel a little like Facebook and Twitter are in a bit of a war to catch-up and outdo each other, whereas it feels slightly like Google + is actually breaking new ground…..(and let’s not forget that David Cameron, Ed Milliband and Nick Clegg have all ventured into the Google + world).

 

Do you agree? Or do you feel that Twitter and Facebook are still streets ahead?

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The New Kid on the Block – Getting to Grips with Google Plus

18Jul11

Just when we start to feel like we have got to grips with all that social media has to offer, with our twitter accounts, our Facebook profiles and pages, our LinkedIn profiles and groups, our personal and business blogs on WordPress and tumblr, our inspiration gathered on Pinterest etc. etc.; there’s a new kid on the block and we are playing catchup again.

This time it is an offering from Google, in the form of Google +.

 

What is Google +?

Google + encapsulates the concept of social sharing.  It has been likened to Facebook (as all new social networking platforms are), and using this analogy it is perhaps best compared to the news feed that appears on your Facebook homepage, allowing you to share online content with your friends and contacts.

But for me that is where the analogy ends, as social sharing is a small component of Facebook with the main focus being on the personal social networking side of Facebook; sharing photos, videos and interesting information / sites is just a few of the ways of interacting with friends used on the site.

I think that in the context of social sharing, it is perhaps more closely aligned to Twitter, which is partly (though not exclusively) based on content sharing.

However, what Google + does really well is allowing you to share tailored content with your various ‘circles’, rather than having separate accounts for various functions.  Circles are your various social groups such as friends, family, work colleagues etc.  Though Facebook and Twitter have both introduced litter functionalities, generally speaking if you are connected with someone on these sites, they see all of your content.  Google + allows you to share holiday snaps with just your friends, or interesting online articles with your work colleagues.

A couple of other great features include the ‘hangouts’ functionality, which is similar to Skype but allows arranged or impromptu video chats with up to 10 people, a little bit like Skype but more focused on ‘group’ conversations.

The sparks feature alerts you to new content surrounding topics you have expressed interest in, which you can then share with your circles.

 

Google + is still only in the field test and is currently available by invite from an existing member only.  I am still finding my way around it myself – but I do think that it is a platform that most people will use alongside their other social networks (if they can manage any more), rather than replace them, at least initially.

Google is also expected to launch account options for businesses as well, so it remains to be seen how this can really impact on businesses digital strategies in the future, but there is certainly some food for thought in there already.

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What Facebook Real-Time Could Mean for Businesses

10Jun11

 

According to digital bible that is Mashable Facebook is currently trialling a real-time ‘what is happening now’ feed in the right-hand panel of the Facebook homepage:

 

(source: Dazeinfo via Mashable)

Although the current news feed allows users to see their friends status updates, posts on mutual friends walls, events friends are planning to attend, page likes and recommended pages, the real-time function will incorporate some of the updates previously included in the news feed as well as allowing users to what their friends are liking, sharing and commenting on in real-time.

In many ways, this seems to be only a slight extension of what already appears in the news feed, but it does create opportunities for businesses using the social networking site; if your company is creating interesting and engaging online content, users are more likely to share it with their friends – and with a wider audience than Twitter’s sharing community offers.

The tricky bit is coming up with a campaign worthy of sharing, but that’s another story….(and that is where Twelve PR come in)!

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Facebook changes promotion guidelines

27May11

The news that Facebook has now changed its promotions guidelines to say that the ‘like’ function can not be used for voting in promotions might be a bit of a blow for some digital marketers that have relied on this for their Facebook campaigns…but hopefully it will force us to use the platform more creatively for social media campaigns.

Read the full story about the new regulations here.

(Source: The Wall)

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Dispelling Social Media Myths

26May11

Though companies are becoming more open to the opportunities that social media can afford them, there are still many commonly held myths that can lead campaigns to failure before they have even started….

Here are three of the top quibbles that I thought it would be useful to shed some light on:

Social Media is quick and free….

Whilst many of the social media tools are free, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, in order for these platforms to work effectively for your company, you need to be able to spare the time to prepare and implement a strategy that will work for your organisation – and this has implications in terms of cost because of the time requirement.

There are ways to reduce the time implications, such as Twitter platforms, rss feeds etc. but you need to be prepared to spare the resources to set up and utilise these; it is important that you don’t expect social media to work with very little input.

Quantity is King….

…in social media this is just not the case; in terms of the content you produce or the following that you amass.

This might draw a gasp from the clients and colleagues that I have encouraged to tweet / blog / update their statuses regularly, and I certainly stand by that claim – if you don’t produce regular content you run the risk of losing followers or potential followers not taking your social media presence seriously enough to put on their follow list.  But similarly if you are blasting out uninteresting and pointless people will switch off and stop paying attention to the information you are providing.  It’s the old adage ‘quality not quantity’.

And the very same applies to follower numbers as well.  Don’t be disappointed if you have hit the hundreds (or, dare I say it, thousands) yet with your followers / likes / subscribers, just try to concentrate on getting a following of quality and relevant people from your key stakeholder groups – and then make sure you are putting out interesting and relevant content to them!

You have to be on all platforms…

In a similar way, you need make sure that you are using the platforms that are most appropriate to your business – if you are targeting a business audience, twitter and LinkedIn are probably going to be most appropriate for your; whereas a consumer campaign would be well targeted on Facebook and YouTube.

In this instance, it really isn’t the case that one size fits all.

It’s easy to fall foul of all of these points, but hopefully this has proved a useful reminder – social media can be a really, really powerful tool for your business, but only if it is used effectively and strategically!

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Twitter to Launch ‘Facebook Style Pages’? Pure Imitation or Useful Business Tool?

05Apr11

It has been reported that Twitter is considering offering advertisers branded pages, similar to Facebook Pages in an attempt to increase its advertising revenue.

Source: techmiso.com

Now, I am not normally a fan of platforms imitating and ‘borrowing’ ideas from each other (think FourSquare style Facebook places) – if a social network stands the test of time it should have carved out its own niche and distinct function rather than trying to compete with the big boys, that is how it survives.  Don’t get me wrong I can see the benefits of one platform that can perform all functions and I know that every platform has to evolve, but shouldn’t it do so by innovating and generating new ideas?

Well that is one school of thought.  But then Facebook and Twitter are the big boys in the social networking sphere, and whilst I have a personal account (read: celebrity stalking account) on Twitter I tend to use it largely for business purposes, whilst Facebook is purely for my personal social networking, catching up with friends and the like.  So perhaps there is some room for some movement here.

From this point of view the benefits of Twitter adopting a Facebook style page – brands can use Facebook for B2C campaigns, because that is where consumers are, but there are limited applications for Facebook on a B2B level (at the moment).  Twitter pages could change this dynamic, allowing brands that want to market to the business community (and on some levels consumers as well) the opportunity to share information and content beyond the constrictions of the 140 characters.

Of course, the very fact that this is aimed at advertisers specifically will bring with it associated costs meaning that companies will have to weigh up the return on investment that this opportunity could provide, but I for one will be watching eagerly to see what packages Twitter come up with…..

 

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