Categories
Social Media Twitter

A great introduction for beginners – “How Twitter Changed My Life”

Categories
Social Media

Why is Social Media like Ice Cream?

By now, this isn’t something new, you could say it’s a bit of a classic. The collection of Common Craft videos are incredibly simple and effective in explaining something that’s perhaps actually quite hard to explain, eg RSS or Twitter.

The two examples mentioned above have been viewed 713,946 and 219,074 times respectively and that’s just on Common Craft’s homepage. Bearing in mind they’ve been published on countless other blogs also so they are actually quite conservative figures.

Check out the video below and see whether it makes any sense of this whole social media thing.

So why is Social Media like Ice Cream? In 17 steps. Can you add any more to the list? Let’s make it a Top 20.

Source – Willem van der Horst whose blog is incidentally titled ‘Ice Cream for Everyone

1) it has tonnes of variety
2) the best is usually not mass produced
3) freshness counts
4) it’s neat to mix flavours
5) it’s best when shared with others
6) flavour preference is very tribal
7) it comes in different formats – cup=video, cone=audio, cake=blog
8 ) it sparks passion, emotion and positive thoughts – we enjoy it
9) depending on the environment, it has a long or short half life
10) it’s more than just bits and bytes/bites
11) the winning brands usually have a good story
12) the worst tended to forms tend to get burned/freezer burned
13) tastes better with authentic ingredients
14) you gain incredible loyalty when users feel in control (i.e. Coldstone Creamery)
15) some people don’t like it, some people gorge on it
16) it’s practised and consumed differently by country
17) it’s a good way to waste time and gain weight
18) Your addition?
19) Your addition?
20) Your addition?

Categories
Social Media Twitter

Are you a Tweet Manager, a Twitter User or Both?

Allow me to ask the question to anyone reading..

Are you a Tweet manager or a Twitter user? Can you be both? If you’re a Tweet manager, you’ll know all about what I’m going to talk about. If you’re a Twitter user, a human being and a human doing then you’ll probably, hopefully not go anywhere near all this.. I don’t agree with it myself but can understand there being uses and needs which are being met. How ethical those needs are is a whole different blog post entirely! (I never realised I was so fascinated with ethics!)

I’ve got absolutely no problems in mentioning it by name, some would and have said that I’m giving the service free publicity. Maybe so, I believe however that it’s up to the individual to make that choice.  Feel free to check it out for yourself at Tweet Manager

So there you have it, above are the main ‘features’ of Tweetmanager.com –

1) Auto follow users based on specific key words. (Turning a manual, discovery based, enjoyable tool in to an automated, robotic and faceless beast where you don’t know whether you’re connecting with a human or a bot.)

NB. I enjoy the manual process of finding and following. I follow someone based on personal parameters, of which a robot would not ever be able to do. If someone was to think that it wasn’t me choosing to follow them but a bot doing so because they had used certain key words any credibility I had would be shot to pieces.

2) Mass Message – Sending any message to 1,000 or less users at the same time. There is no two ways about it, this to me is spamming. As a personal user, I can’t see there ever being a time when you would have the desire or need to want to send the same message to up to 1,000 people. It’s spamming, pure and simple. PRO’s – Please exercise tact and humility, don’t use this tool to mass message.

3) Auto Reply – Set automatic canned responses to people who @ reply you. I’m not sure how this is meant to work, at all, ever. No one person is like a drone who says the same thing over and over again. If you know someone like that you’re quickly going to walk away aren’t you? Why do the same online then? There’s a question of relevancy for starters, one message to one person is not applicable to the other.

4) Auto Post – No. Just No.

5) Feed – This I know has it’s uses. The most popular / well known is probably Twitterfeed. When Jed Hallam went away for a week on holiday recently for example, it was as if he was still there, knocking out great content. Instead, he wasn’t physically doing so, Twitterfeed was. Jed had written some articles up before hand and set a day and a time for Twitterfeed to broadcast them to his followers. A genius idea I thought. I like this. I’m just wary of someone / a brand having a page on Twitter where all they do is automate content through Twitterfeed. That’s great that there’s content there in the first place but Twitter is about getting involved with conversations on a human level. If someone asks a question and you can answer it, go ahead. It’s a fluid tool because you can dip in and out of it asking, answering questions along with learning about new articles that others have recommended or sharing a useful link with others.

6) Dual Manage – Similar to the ‘Feed’ above, this has it’s uses. The most popular of the moment is probably Splitweet. Having used it myself, it’s actually really useful if you use / manage more than one Twitter account. It’s positioned as a brand monitoring tool, but I actually use it just to keep a track of different Twitter accounts and is one place where I keep all the info required.

So what are the types of people using Tweetmanager? Well, for the most part they are I’m hoping using it for good and not for such activities like taking short cuts and massively trying to increase follower numbers over a very short space of time. Or for spamming their followers with sales messages. Or setting a bot to post for you with continuous canned responses.

Question, Ok, a few questions. – Does using a tool like Tweet Manager make you a pro-active Twitter user? Does achieving organic numbers mean you’re non-proactive? Is being non-proactive actually a bad thing? I pride myself on the amount of people following me being completely organic, built up over a period of time.

Although you can’t automate the process of people following you, you can automate following people and that’s what I don’t agree with.

I’m not here to compete.

Categories
Jobs Social Media Twitter

How to use Twitter to find your next job.

It was particularly apt that I came across this WSJ article entitled ‘Twitter yourself a job’ today of all days and also incidentally via Twitter. I came across it through Mitch Joel who was retweeting a message from Steve Rubel (phew, that was some mouthful!)

FYI – retweeting is the art of broadcasting a message on Twitter that has been written by someone else but you feel will be of interest and value to your followers.. think of it as a kind of mini chain mail but one that has a use and purpose and doesn’t tell you that you’re going to die if you don’t send this email to 20,000 people in the next 12 seconds.

So why is it apt? Why should I care? Here’s why.

I’m starting work as a Social Media Strategist for Consolidated PR as of tomorrow, Monday 5th January 2009. I was hired through Twitter. No recruitment agencies involved, no external costs, no bells, no whistles. Just me, @PBizzle and Twitter. Well, a mutual friend recommended me to @PBizzle who then sent me a message and it all went from there.

That’s a pretty big deal when you think about the costs of recruitment for one new hire for the average company who would typically be looking in to advertising the position online, advertising in specialised print publications and on top of that, getting a recruitment agency like Reed on the case also. It all costs and learnings can be taken from this. You can eliminate all of those costs in one fell swoop and be seen to be a very forward thinking company at the same time.

You’ve probably seen a fairly heavy emphasis towards Twitter related content recently and that’s because although it’s starting to garner mainstream attention, there’s a lot of people out there who don’t get it. I’m trying to help, to provoke thoughts, to provide a sounding board. I’d be very rich if I was given £1 for every person that’s asked me “Why Twitter?” I’m not saying I ‘get it’ but I’ve been using it fairly religiously for the past few months and it seems like I’m learning something new about the tool daily.

How I did it and how you can do it too.

Due to my limited experiences thus far in the Digital / Social Media / Online PR realm if you’re looking at this and not involved in the slightest with any of the above then it can still be applicable to any industry. Replace Edelman for example with a company of your choice in said industry. They however, may or may not have a presence on Twitter.

1. Sign up to Twitter.com, most have their name @joebloggs, a nickname @joeyb or the name of their blog for consistency @joesblog. Mine’s @litmanlive to tie in with the blog. Using your name is the easiest for people to remember I reckon but I always seem to do things the hard way..

2. Write a bio. I don’t follow people without a bio. It might sound rude but I’m selective with the people I follow. I don’t follow everyone that follows me. Similarly, I like to follow people who share the same interests, more often than not work in the same industry or have a website that I visit regularly. There has to be some common ground or why am I choosing to follow them?

3. Think about the people who inspire you in the industry you’re looking to go in to. A few, if not quite a few of them will be on Twitter, dependant on industry.

For example, some of the first industry people I followed were:

@wadds, @bmcmichael, @chris_reed, @simoncollister & @dirkthecow

Similarly, who do you want to work for? Same applies. Do they have a presence on Twitter?

4. You don’t have to have a blog, but it shows another side of your personality to a potential employer. Put a link to it in your bio. One of the biggest drivers of regular traffic to my blog is my Twitter profile. With a blog, employers can instantly see what interests you (what you write about) and often reveals a lot more than any CV can.

5. Be yourself. Be true. Be genuine. Don’t write about things you don’t know anything about or say you can do things you can’t. It will become evident sooner rather than later. If you talk about the things that interest you then an employer would hire you for being you. They call it being transparent.

6. Bring something to the table. Have an opinion. What do you think about topic X or topic Y?

7. Help people out. If they have a question and you can answer it, don’t hold back, go for it. They’ll thank you for it and it’s a great way to build relationships with like minded people.

8. If someone follows you, say hi, they won’t bite. I engaged in random conversation a few times with my soon to be manager. Completely unaware that a few months later he’d be hiring for a suitable position.

9. Get job alerts on Twitter. Examples, Add EdelmanHR and keep up to date with positions available within the company straight in to your Twitter stream. Journalism.co.uk will also deliver all sorts of jobs, from Entry Level to Editor and ranging from freelance to contract to permanent!

10. Finally, I don’t wish to try and put a square peg in to a round hole, I’ve been there myself. All this online micro blogging malarky is not for everyone. It takes time to get in to, for some, weeks, months or a year! If you think it’s for you then it’s definitely worth the investment.

Would you recommend Twitter as a resource for job finding like WSJ?

My original motivation for joining Twitter wasn’t to find a job through it, I was interested in a new way of communicating, a tool which is a round the clock way of getting answers to questions from all across the world. It’s always on and always useful!

As I was finishing up with this post here’s something you should also take note of when joining Twitter.

4 Mistakes to avoid when using Twitter.

Brilliant advice.. from a 10 year old, they start ’em young don’t they!

Here’s a few more links you should check out.

Using Twitter for finding a job

Living Under a Bridge – Job offer in 5 days

6 tips for Twitter job hunting

Job searching on Twitter

Categories
Social Media

Social Media Influencers in 2009.

I came across this through the wonder that is @jmacdonald and think it’s fantastic. I love predictions, because they are just that. Ideas, thoughts, views on the future. They aren’t gospel, no one is going to lose their jobs if their predictions don’t come true (well, actually, 600,000 might in 2009!) but when people / publications / companies of authority speaks out, others listen.
In the embedded slideshare presentation by TrendSpotting below and where the original article can be found here, such figures like Charlene Li, Rohit Bhargava, Jeremiah Owyang and Todd Defren are included, along with many more.

Are there any influencers that you think have been missed out?

Who are your ones to watch in 2009?

Social Media Influencers Predictions 2009 By Trendsspotting
View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: social media)

Categories
Social Media Twitter

Who is the twitority online?

Question for you, leave me a comment at the end of the article with your answer.

Who is the twitority? (AKA Authority) ?

In short, firstly, twitority is a tool that lets you search Twitter posts and then filter the search results by authority. Check it out for yourself at twitority.com.

Back to the question, it’s not a trick. Are you an authority figure? If you said Yes, then in what? Who says? What qualifies the classification as an authority? Similarly, if you said No then why not? Chances are you’ll be more educated in your field than most if your job is in a space when your knowledge is important to your company. You’re an educator, so yes, you are an authority.

I’m fascinated by the idea of authority on an online space which is completely open and unmonitored. The idea of authority to me brings more questions than it answers.. There is no right or wrong answer so we’re going to try and shed more light on the situation with a host of quotes from various individuals who have authority in their fields.

Before that, let’s take school as an example of a place where there is a definite line between student and authority. Authority being the teacher or headmaster/mistress. Students are at school to learn and the teacher is there to impart their learnings, knowledge and wisdom on their students. The teacher has the authority to merit or discipline the student and the head of department or headmaster/ mistress has the authority over the teacher to overrule their decision. In it’s simplest form, that’s the hierarchy of school. Same can be applied to a business environment. CEO, Head of Dept X, Manager, Exec.

So when we’re used to hierarchy and authority, how can we apply this to an online space?

We can’t.

On the internet, it’s a free for all. Everyone is deemed equal. In turn, everyone is a specialist in something. Regardless of age, background, job title, online you can find out as much as you want about anything! When you’re looking for advice on buying a product, where do you look? The Internet proves to be the most important source for researching consumer electronics information for example, according to a survey conducted by Synovate on behalf of Microsoft Advertising.

Who are the people to ask for a valued opinion? How does the definition of authority differ and what can we learn? Here’s a few ideas.

“Authority is based on perception. Once an environment of trust is created between people or people and companies, authority can be authorized! As it is all relative there is no one single source, just 5 billion sources with a number greater than zero perceiving and therefore regarding each as an authority or not.”

Jonathan MacDonald

Completely agree. It’s all subjective.

“Page rank is a surrogate for authority already based on the amount of inbound links as a vote.”

Ged Carroll

One way for assessing authority currently is through the Google Page Rank. What is a Page Rank? It reflects the importance of web pages by considering more than 500 million variables and 2 billion terms. Pages that Google believe are important pages receive a higher PageRank and are more likely to appear at the top of the search results.

“I think trying to apply authority to twitterers based on followers is like trying to build a house out of spongecake.

Authority is EARNED and I just INHERENTLY know now whose word to trust on a particular topic when advice is sought.

It’s far more complex than being able to have an algorithm applied to it – any such algorithm’d be flawed. In fact so flawed as to be misleadlingly useless.”

Drew Buddie

All good points, especially the house built out of sponge cake!

“It depends if they can truly measure authority by topic and not assume if you have lots of followers you have authority on all topics.”

Kerry Gaffney

Nail. Head. I really believe in this.

“Calling me an idiot will increase your popularity but not your authority.

Explaining why I am an idiot will increase your authority but not necessarily your popularity.

If I call you an idiot I will be neither authoritative nor popular. Life isn’t fair! :-)”

Robert Scoble

Following on from Kerry’s comment above, let’s take a well known example in the online world, Robert Scoble. I’ve got nothing at all against the guy, he’s one of the social media pioneers but I’m betting that the large majority out there would see him as an authority on anything and everything because of the numbers that read his blog or that follow him on Twitter (45,962 on last count). He puts it an interesting way himself above.

“You can only quantify authority so far in my opinion – so what if someone has 1000 followers, how many are actually listening?”

Paul Borge

This is key and brings me back to thinking about the old adage of quality over quantity. Also, links to my thoughts about ROA (Return on Attention) over the traditional ROI (Return on Investment) in Social Media when I spoke with Jamie Burke at P2PR in a previous blog post. In brief, my thoughts were that a project can be more successful by targeting the ‘right’ 100 people, instead of going for a general 1000. The ‘right’ 100 can in turn send the information on to 10 of their friends and so on, it’s a domino effect.

Finally,

“Popularity over time = Authority. Unfortunately it is meaningless. In 1905 who had more authority Einstein or Newton.. and who was right?”

Anton Mannering

He’s got a point..

What’s your view? What do you think about the idea of a search engine based on authority? Is authority subjective? Is there a universal authority on topics?

Categories
Social Media Twitter

The 5 stages of Twitter acceptance.

Originally published by Rohit Bhargava on his brilliant Influential Marketing Blog, I thought it was particularly useful to new users of Twitter whilst still appealing to the more frequent user. It essentially allows you to find out where you are at in the familiarity process of using Twitter. Still, when I tell friends and family about Twitter and how I think it’s fantastic, they look at me as if I’m from another planet.

They don’t get it. They are at Stage 1. That’s fair enough, it’s not for everyone, but it’s up to me to tell them what’s it all about and whether I think they would get any value from it. For some it just wouldn’t work, but for others it’s become a staple part of their online life who went from Stage 2 right through to Stage 5. There’s many out there like Guy Kawasaki for example who I’d say are at Stage 5 or even Stage 6 if there was one but choose to use it more as a promotional tool for his site Alltop.com. That’s more of a Stage 3 activity. There’s no denying that Guy is a true inspiration and offers value with his blog posts and tweets but he’s used Twitter to build up an army of Alltop fans that help him spread the Alltop word by posting links to new categories and interesting stuff. Nothing wrong with that, power to the people!

Talking of all things Alltop, a great place for beginners to start would have to be Twitterati which features the top ‘tweeters’ across the globe. For example, Robert Scoble, Jason Calacanis, Chris Brogan, Leo Laporte, Chris Pirillo and Hugh MacLeod. Have a look and see how they do it, follow them, and get started!

So I bet you’re thinking Twitter is the new kid on the block, it’s a fad, it will all die down soon. It’s been around for a while, several years infact. Only now is it garnering mainstream attention. The Mirror picking up on Jonathan Ross’s presence on Twitter, or the Guardian’s coverage, or the Telegraph, you get the picture.

As the days go by, the numbers who are discovering Twitter is shooting up, it’s experiencing rapid growth YOY. A few stats.. everyone loves stats!

  • 70% of users joined in 2008.
  • 20% have joined in the last 60 days.
  • An estimated 5-10,000 new accounts are opening every day.
  • The average user has been on Twitter for 275 days.
  • 80% of users have a bio on their profile. (I personally don’t follow users without a bio)
  • 62% have a photo on their profile.
  • Traffic has grown 600% over the last 12 months.
  • Total user numbers are between 4-5m with approx 30% unengaged.

(Sources Hubspot and Compete)

It’s not there yet, but it’s getting towards reaching the tipping point. It has potential for business also, success stories are starting to emerge from well known brands who are establishing a presence and engaging with their audience. Perhaps most famously, Dell recently reported that they have made more than $1 million dollars through their DellOutlet Twitter account. It’s clear that there’s value to be had from many angles.

I use it myself as a way to 1) learn 2) converse 3) pass on any useful info or links i’ve found. It’s all about the community and sharing instead of finding a useful link and keeping it to yourself.

So what stage do you think you’re at from the 5 above? As a brand, do you have authentic 1 to 1 conversations without promoting a product or service? As an individual do you use it as an information resource or as a communications tool like Facebook or MSN?

My question to you, all of you, is How do you use Twitter?

Have a hugely enjoyable break, merry christmas and enjoy the new year.

Share this on Twitter

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Categories
Digital Out&About PR Social Media

Lunchtime catchup with Jamie Burke of P2PR.

So I caught up with Jamie Burke, MD of Brando Digital and blogger at Social Glue the other day, who recently set up the P2PR community. Since launch it has been a runaway success, with active participation from it’s members.

We talked over lunch about all things Online PR, social media, paid for blogging (Chris Brogan) and of course ROI and the almighty echo chamber.

To view the video, click my face.. be nice ! (or alternatively you can click here if you can’t bring yourself to do it!)

There’s a whole host of videos also on the community, all of which can be found here.

As always, interested to hear your thoughts and feedback on the topics discussed. Hopefully you can take something away from it.

Categories
Digital Mobile PR Social Media Twitter

Say hello to Consolidated’s latest recruit..

So you may or may not have noticed that I’ve been a bit light on the ol’ blog posts recently.. I know, it’s been about 2 weeks which for me has felt like a lifetime.. There has been good reason though and it all paid off in a spectacular fashion today.

For the last few weeks now, I’ve been using any spare time to work on a presentation for my final interview with a position at Consolidated PR as a Social Media Strategist up for grabs on 16th December. I felt there being a bit more pressure because they’re the 28th top company to work for in the UK and also have just been featured in Marketing magazine in the Top 100 PR Agencies coming in at No 54.

What was the presentation all about? I won’t go in to the finer points but it was essentially 30 minutes to talk through my vision on an integrated social media strategy for a campaign, and all that’s involved in doing so, it needs the context to fully make sense but it was interesting to research and deliver.

So I was stood before the Heads of Digital and Consumer PR being asked to do my thing, there was everything riding on it. This was it, this was the moment. Before all that though and to heighten the suspense a bit, why the change in direction? I thought you were happy where you were? You were always saying how much you loved it!

As much as I’ve loved every minute working at Splendid Comms, I’ve been actively looking for a while for something permanent which they were unfortunately unable to commit. It’s not the most ideal of times to be hiring generally so it was understandable. They are however a PR Communications agency doing some fantastic work with some great clients like Marmite, Guinness, Lucozade and ShoZu. It has a real family vibe about the place and they genuinely enjoy everything that they do. I’ll be sorry to leave it all behind but will for sure be keeping in touch with them all.

Back to the presentation.. for the last few weeks I’d spent most of my waking free time researching, digesting, writing slides, cutting out slides, by the end of it I was even beginning to enjoy it!

On the day, I was horribly ruthless with my own content, (the one thing I find hard to do, cutting out slides I’ve spent quality time on) and went with the philosophy of less is more. I cut out about half my slides.. It worked, they all followed on from each other smoothly and it was remarked that I adopted a methodical approach from start to finish. Excellent! Surprising myself a bit in the process actually, because I was a complete bag of nerves the night before, on the day and up until the minute I started presenting! I was equally as nervous about the potential questions after.. what would they ask? Would I have the answer? Incredibly yes. The dreaded ‘We’ll be in touch’ was said which left me in doubt but I was happy with how it went considering how nervous I was.

17th December, the morning after the presentation, I get a call, essentially along the lines of “We’d like to offer you the job,” I was in shock. For the rest of the day I’ve had a smile you just can’t shift and have said the word awesome at least every other word. Ask @jedhallam !

On the 5th Jan 2009, I will be starting at Consolidated as a Social Media Strategist. What a way to start 2009! I have a feeling it’s going to be a year to remember. Hopefully for all the right reasons.

Anything else happen today? Yes yes and yes. I was alerted to the fact that my SOTM photo had gone up today by @tommalcolm which was taken a few weeks ago now and I’d forgotten about amidst all the job stuff going on. Someoneoncetoldme.com is a fantastic site combining photography and quotes that resonate with the subject. Mine was a quote that stuck with me through thick and thin that the mind is powerful and that it’s ok to think big and be a dreamer.. and here it is..

Oh, yeah, and how could I forget and someone on behalf of Channel 4 who are doing a documentary which is going to be featured in Picturehouse cinemas first and then on Channel 4 in Summer 2009 and it’s all about privacy on the internet.. interesting topic. They contacted me because they want a perspective on the other side of the coin. I’m an advocate for transparency and openness.

You can find out about the sites I find of interest through Delicious, the photos I take using Flickr, personal details on Facebook, work details on LinkedIn and the conversations I have on Twitter. It’s all there, and I’m completely happy with that because it brings such bizarre situations as this.

So they want to hear about the positive effects of the social networking phenomenon taking place with sites like Facebook and Twitter which is fantastic because I’d go as far as to say it’s been a life changing 6 months for me because of such sites. One question, how on earth they found me, again, all this internet fame stuff is absolutely mind blowing, I’m not worthy.

“It would be really great to get your thoughts on our film, and discuss the possibility of you appearing in the film.”
I spat out my metaphorical cup of tea.. what? You are kidding right? This is insane.
So what brings of tomorrow? I’m taking part in a week long paid mobile study on behalf of Nielsen, not quite sure what the selection criteria was for that either, considering they’ve only taken on 2 people across the UK to take part in the study.
Every day seems to be bringing something new and exciting to the table at the moment for which i’m honoured and proud to be involved in.
Categories
Social Media Twitter

Why I Love Twitter by Tim O’Reilly

In Brief –

Twitter is simple.

Twitter works like people do.

Twitter cooperates well with others.

Twitter transcends the web.

Twitter is user-extensible.

Twitter evolves quickly.

In Full – Read the excellent article here

Categories
Funny PR Social Media Twitter

Reaching 500 Twitter followers – Does it mean anything?

Update – 25.11 PM – Danny has followed up with his own response here.

I’m possibly a bit biased but when I hit 500 ‘Followers’ (people who have chosen to ‘subscribe’ to my updates on Twitter) I thought that was pretty cool. It begs the question though, what does it all mean, if anything?

It’s not really something that I presume people generally even give a moment’s thought about, but when I was gradually climbing to 500, I thought to myself, this was a milestone figure, something to be proud of, in the geekiest, self congratulatory way, there’s some people out there who value what I’m saying. It didn’t really mean anything but I wanted to say thanks to the person who clicked ‘follow’ and in turn made themselves my 500th follower.

Welcome, @dannywhatmough to the equation who works at Wildfire PR and their blog is here, and who also turns out to be a top bloke. I understand he’s been spreading the Twitter word around the company and getting a whole host of Wildfirers on board the Twitter train, welcome all. Hope you stick around.

At first I thought, I’d ask him what his favourite sweets were and send him a load of them.. Then I put a message out on Twitter, something along the lines of “How should I commemorate my 500th follower?” to which @KerryMG said “Make a cake shaped like the fail whale!”.. Brilliant I thought, that’s more like it. It got my creative juices flowing.. I can do better than a few sweets surely. I thought that the fail whale was a bit out of my creative cake making depths so for the next few days I wondered what on earth I was going to do. I’ve told him I’m going to send him something now! I’d decided it was going to be cake orientated because it has that celebratory vibe about it, a cake means a special occasion, it was perfect.

I fired off an email to Danny being as cryptic as possible yet asking a bit about him, his interests and hobbies, with a view to making a truly personalised cake..

He was a great sport throughout and I soon found out that Mr Whatmough was in to Tech (Apple) Football, Food and Tennis.. It was as if I was looking at myself in the mirror, it was bizarre!

Initially, I had visions of making a cake shaped like the Apple logo/motif type thang, in the colours of Hearts FC and with a mini man playing Tennis.. I was day dreaming about a cake, that didn’t even exist, a true sign of a genuine nutter. As time went by, I realised that it wasn’t really going to happen but soon after I ordered a cake, a cake with a champagne bottle, balloons, party poppers, brilliant I thought. Obviously I wasn’t aware of what it looked like until it arrived with Danny on Monday morning so I was quite excited myself as to how it had turned out.

So what dyu think to the finished product then guys? It wasn’t until Danny, sent me a tweet and uploaded a pic of the cake from his iPhone no less, using Twitterfon to tweet and then Twitpic to upload the pic. Danny I could tell was down with the kids, and I liked that!

PS – Here’s the original Twitpic link

It’s funnily enough proven to be a quite different kind of relationship building exercise. Who’d have thunk it? We’ll meet up for a drink in the coming weeks I’m sure and live happily ever after.

PPS – I wanted it to say @Dannywhatmough, Thanks for being my 500th follower. @LitmanLive – but character restrictions only allowed the above.. so it’s not perfect, but I think it still gets the message across 😉

Can anything be garnered from this whole thing? The world of social media does definitely bring up some utterly fantastic yet hugely bizarre scenarios that you’d never experience otherwise.

In a weird way, I think it’s great that our paths collided and I wanted to reach out and make something happen. I’m not sure I believe in fate and destiny and all that kinda stuff but then there are the odd occasions that you think, wow, right place, right time, it’s great to be alive. There wasn’t any gain from me, it was one of those genuine feelings of, I want to do something different, to reinforce the value that all these people have put in me for following me when there’s an unbelievable amount of people to follow on Twitter.

It was my way of giving something back, saying thanks.

Categories
PR Social Media Twitter

[update] UK ‘Preeple’ on Twitter

UPDATE – The below is now outdated.. I’ve created a landing page of sorts for it here but to go straight to the Wiki Wiki Wikid then click here

Stephen Davies of Prblogger is a list machine. Following on from his brilliant list of ‘Jeeple’ (Journalists) where he categorised all known UK journalists on Twitter, he brings another list flavoured installment to the Twittersphere this time following up with ‘Preeple’ (PR People)

It’s been a rampant success thus far with it surely being hard to keep up with the deluge of comments, 36 to date, from users who have been missed off the list to be added. For the purpose of the new category page and the need for it to be abbreviated I’ve now added Tweeple to the mix!

Depending on which way you look at it, there is the possibility of a negative viewpoint being attributed to lists like this, so there’s two sides to the story. For example, case in point, it’s merely providing people with a prospective list of influential journo’s / PROs to use for their own advantage or commercial gain. It has caused Stephen problems before, for example, have a look here.

However, It depends how cynical you are but for me it’s a fantastic resource of the who’s who of the PR & Journalism world’s on Twitter. It’s great to think that these lists might become a bit of a competition for agencies to establish more of a presence online, proving the power of their own internal community.

Building on the brilliant usage of the list I thought it would be just as useful to get an instant snapshot of a listed agencies presence on Twitter in numerical order complimenting Stephen’s alphabetically ordered list.. So here goes!

At the time of writing (approx 12am 11th Nov having lost the entire post and redone!) :- I’ve created a bit of a league table of ‘Preeple’ below..

1. Hotwire (16)

2. Axicom (12)

3. Rainier (11)

4. Edelman (9)

5. Lewis (9)

6. Ruder Finn (9)

7. Cow (8)

8. Berkeley (6)

9. Freelance (6)

10. Wolfstar (6)

11. Hill & Knowlton (5)

12. Porter Novelli (5)

13. Six Degrees (5)

14. Text 100 (5)

15. ITV (4)

16. Liberate Media (4)

17. Mantra (4)

18. Microsoft (4)

19. Waggener Edstrom (4)

20. Weber Shandwick (4)

21. Diffusion (3)

22. Kaizo (3)

23. O2 (3)

24. Shiny Red (3)

25. Wildfire PR (3)

26. Fishburn Hedges (2)

27. Nelson Bostock (2)

28. Punch Communications (2)

29. Racepoint Group (2)

30. Splendid Communications (2)

31. Staniforth (2)

32. University of Warwick (2)

The greatest number being in the ‘Other’ section, either unaffiliated or possibly being their company’s Twitter champion.

Something to think about, perhaps Stephen’s list and this subsequent league table will encourage them to join their colleagues in making their company more visible in the Tworld (yeah, I just made that up..)

Categories
Social Media Twitter

More about that thing called Social Media..

The results of a new survey have been released recently on media relations practices, specifically how journalists use social media to stay on top of the game. Original Source.

A few key messages to take home..

YOY more blogs are being read, only 25% of journalists don’t read one or more.. what are they doing, living in a cave with no access to the world wide web?

Who said blogging was dead?! It would appear it’s only just beginning!

Over half are using tools like Twitter to seek out new business opportunities, story leads and to connect with peers in similar work.

Similarly, over half scan Google News to follow world events, a sign that there’s much more to Google than just search.. How to monetize news stories though? (New fan of Google reader here by the way) Speaking of which 1/5th have 5 more or RSS feeds delivered to their readers each work.

The users surveyed and indeed the general public alike appear to becoming more tech savvy, where the online world is more intertwined with their every day working life. As a result they’re better connected.. social media you could say has played a part in all of the above.

Let’s take Twitter as an example of a tool at the very heart of the social media world. So much so that I’ve been noticing a few job specifications for social media related roles noting within the requirements ‘If you don’t know what Twitter is, don’t bother applying’

I have connected with extraordinary individuals whom I’d never have had any contact with in every day life nor would possibly be able to, without jumping through a few hundred hoops. Twitter itself single handedly breaks down the barriers of communication and allows me to communicate and engage with CEOs, Directors, and inspirational visionaries whom I can learn greatly from.

What are your thoughts on the explosion in interest in Social Media over the last few months and years. Do you use Twitter? Is it something you have integrated in to your daily life or is it something you just don’t ‘get’ ?

Results in full below.

  • 75% of journalists read one blog or more (compared to 70% last year) and 29% read 5 or more blogs to keep up with their beat (compared to 25% a year ago).
  • More than three-fourths of journalists surveyed use social media to research stories (compared to 67% last year).
  • More than half (56%) use NewsStreams and micro-blogs like Twitter, Pownce and Jaiku to identify new leads.
  • Almost 38% of journalists now say they visit a social media site at least once a week as part of their reporting, compared to only 28% last year.
  • More than half (53%) of journalists say they visit Facebook, YouTube and Social Bookmarks at least once as month as part of their research – up from 44% last year.
  • Nearly 19% receive five or more RSS feeds of news services, blogs, podcasts or videocasts every week, compared with only 16% a year ago and 44% receive at least one regular RSS feed.
  • The majority (76.4%) of journalists said that they use local newspapers to follow news, while 63% check the New York Times, 51% scan Google News and 32% visit Yahoo! News to stay informed.
  • 34% of journalists use Wikis as a living media kit for the companies and beats they cover.
Categories
PR Social Media

Getting a job in Social Media.

For anyone who is interested in the world of PR & Social Media then I’d definitely recommend checking out Jed’s article over at his blog Rock Star PR.

He’s been a brilliant mentor figure for me so far in offering useful tips and advice in my own quest to get in to Social Media.

Check it out.

M.