A progressive US cancer charity has become the first organisation – so says Mashable – to accept Facebook Credits in place of a donation.

The Stand Up 2 Cancer National Telethon, which was aired in the States on Friday night, gave viewers the chance to donate via virtual currency – aside from all the usual donation options.

When Facebook Credits were first introduced, they were a way for the social network to generate an income outside of ads and membership fees. When a member bought credits, Facebook took a cut; when the member spent them, the app in question got paid.

For the member, the currency opened up a world of social gaming possibilities; to-date there are more than 150 apps containing countless digital goods within Facebook.

On the one hand you have to take your hat off to Stand Up 2 Cancer. The charity is moving with the times, tapping into the zeitgeist and making charitable giving even more accessible.

Using Facebook as a platform enables users to share their donations on wall posts and extend the visibility of the campaign.

Stand Up 2 Cancer has turned dowdy old charity giving into a fun little game – just like FarmVille. Am I the only one that cringes just a little bit at that thought?

I think it’s the degrees of separation that gets me; we have to spend our actual money on virtual money to then submit via PayPal through a Facebook page. I’m not sure how close to the cause I’d feel if I did that.

And are we that cold-hearted that we need to assimilate donating money to a cancer charity with online gaming before we dip into our pockets?

The bottom line is that as a result of Stand Up 2 Cancer‘s actions, more money will be reaching a highly worthy cause. The 279 ‘Likes’ Mashable has already received for this story pay lip service to this.

Scoffing aside, my hat is raised – and my gut-reaction cringe will no doubt fade with time.

Related articles by Zemanta

• National Telethon Accepting Facebook Credits as Donations to Cancer Research (mashable.com)
• How can brands use Facebook Credits? (econsultancy.com)

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Another weekend, another football sex scandal splashed all over the front of the Sunday tabloids. This time it’s the turn of Wayne Rooney who allegedly paid for sex with a prostitute whilst his wife Coleen was pregnant.

Whatever the truth behind the allegations, the social media world has been revelling in the news since it first broke. At the time of writing this post, Wayne Rooney is a trending topic on Twitter with new updates being posted approximately every 18 seconds (according to social mention). The micro blogging site is awash with comments, jokes and slander from the general public, with everyone offering their thoughts on the scandal.

It’s true that many of the jokes evoke a chuckle but something about the whole situation makes me slightly uncomfortable. Before the days of social media, tabloid scandals tended to be read, commented about on TV and discussed in the pub with your mates for a couple of days after.

Modern news consumption is a totally different ball game, one in which the public has a platform and receptive audience to share their thoughts and opinions. For the most part, this is a positive thing, as citizen journalism in the form of social media has given everyone a voice and the power to help set the news agenda. The downside is that people now feel free to openly share their thoughts, no matter how critical or potentially hurtful they are to those on the receiving end.

For Coleen and Wayne, reading the ‘exclusive’ coverage in the NOTW will not have been a pleasant experience. But, how much worse must it be to see millions of people across the web commenting on your private life? A giant blanket of faceless opinion on the scandal is now forever documented in Google’s bottomless vault of information.

Just recently, X-Factor’s Joe McElderry announced that he was gay, the pressure to come out stemming from constant rumours spread on Twitter. Although celebrities are in the public eye and expect to be the subjects of gossip, it is unsettling that it has now become so easy to pass and share judgement, with social media providing the perfect platform.

Don’t get me wrong, I am a huge advocate of social media; it has changed the way we live and work in an unprecedented way. But the fact that we can publish anything and everything with the click of a mouse has made it easy for people to behave in ways that they might not in the real world. In the world of online communication, is the social sometimes in danger of becoming anti-social I wonder?

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On Wednesday, we blogged about the new ASA regulations and some of the questions that it raised in relation to communications in the online space.

It caused a bit of a stir.

Whilst marketing, PR and social media professionals all seem to concur that ensuring vulnerable people can trust marketing communications in the online space is important and that guidelines are helpful for professionals operating in this area, there are some grey areas requiring resolution and some questions that need to be addressed.

Like whether hosting a conversation through a live social media feed on an advertisers’ website is promotion. Or what the implications are for re-Tweets.

As we continue exploring the implications of this measure, we were pleased to see that Copy Advice is beginning to address some of these questions and wanted to mention the piece as it nearly slipped under our radar.

You can read the full article for yourself here and, whilst it’s reassuring that some of the questions we touched on are being addressed, the article also highlights the complexity of the debate. For example, whilst Copy Advice offers reassurance that each breach will be examined on a case-by-case basis , we are already starting to get a sense of just how many subtleties will come into play – think context, tone, solicitation – and how hard interpreting the regulations may become.

Similarly, the attempts to define ‘marketing communications’ and a reminder of the exemptions are helpful, but fail to clarify some of the haziness around the increasingly blurry definition of editorial content.

With such rich and varied content being created by both users and companies, gaining clarity is of paramount importance – both in relation to protecting consumers and also keeping social media exciting and fresh.

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Yesterday Apple launched their first social network, Ping. Less than 24 hours later this new platform has received extremely mixed reviews and users are already highlighting issues with the system. With numerous social networking sites already established, and platforms such as Facebook and Twitter dominating the arena, where does Ping fit in?

Embedded in the latest version of iTunes, Ping, as you might imagine, revolves around music. Ping is designed to aid the discovery of new music and facilitate conversations between music lovers. When you login you can see the activity of your friends, including information about music they’ve purchased and are listening to. Apple are also plugging the fact that users can follow celebrities, much as they can with Twitter and Facebook, allowing celebs another opportunity to connect with their fans and endorse artists/albums. Fans can then purchase the music their idol loves by clicking the handy link taking them to the Apple store. Genius.

It is worth mentioning that privacy restrictions on this site allow users to choose whether their updates can be seen by all users or only by users they have allowed to follow them.

So what does this mean for social media? Well, with an already established fan base there is a strong likelihood that Apple’s Ping could push similar platforms, such as Last.fm and Spotify, off the radar. This also doesn’t bode well for MySpace, the site has already been dwarfed by Facebook and is now clinging to its status as a platform for new artists to showcase work. It could be that Ping becomes the new, more convenient, networking site for music related conversations…

However, so far reviews have not been great. Users have pointed out flaws such as the fact that Ping only displays music people have purchased in the iTunes Store, not their entire collection, resulting in a skewed view of a user’s music tastes. Further, users are limited to listing only three genres of music that they are interested in, and the music suggestions that Ping generates based on these three genres are extremely generic and mainstream, not the niche, up-and-coming bands that music fans may be looking for!

So, will it or won’t it take off? Right now it’s anybody’s guess. With mixed, predominantly negative, reviews, Ping hasn’t got off to a great start. But let’s not forget this is an Apple product, they have a huge, dedicated, fan base that has to have any product Apple releases.

All that’s left now is to sit back and watch how this unfolds… Ping has arrived. For now.

To be continued…

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• Ping: First Look at the iTunes Social Network (nytimes.com)

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Things are going great for Katy Perry as of late and with more than 3.5 million followers on Twitter, the ‘California girl’ isn’t afraid of using a little social media to create some online buzz around her new album, Teenage Dream.

Record label Capitol came up with a cool little PR stunt to get fans gossiping about her latest release by printing a candy scent onto the records booklet coinciding with the singer’s cotton candy themed album.

Katy Perry is currently the eleventh most followed user on Twitter so it’s not difficult for the singer to inject a message straight into the heart of her ever growing fan base.

By posting a YouTube video on Twitter about the way her candy smelling album was constructed just days before its release, Perry managed to create online chatter and get an influx of new users subscribing to her YouTube channel.

Celebrities such as Katy Perry have a guaranteed pool of Twitter followers that they can communicate with anytime anywhere.

Katy has no doubt recognised that social media is an effective way of creating conversations about her products and generating online buzz. By getting the star of your show involved and using social media platforms to reach advocates, brands can drive mass interest in a product.

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The extension of the ASA’s CAP code to cover digital marketing communications – both on brand’s own websites, but also through social media, has been driven by a need to close the gap related to companies’ claims online, in particular to regulate marketing to children.

There is no doubt that regulation is essential to protect the vulnerable. And to give brands clear guidance on accepted professional standards of communication. Everybody benefits.

At face value, the digital extension is clear: online communications that are generated or commissioned by a brand fall under the CAP code’s remit. All you need to do to ascertain liability is ‘follow the money.’

But is it really that clear cut?

Marketing communications falls under the Code; press releases on a company website are exempt. But ‘editorial’ and ‘marketing communications material’ can be difficult to distinguish. PR covers more than just press releases. Many different forms of content may be used to grab the attention of influencers.

And many different flavours of influencers may be engaged. If those influencers are professional journalists they are deemed capable of making up their own mind about PR material. What about bloggers? At which point do they move from interested member of the public who needs protecting by the Code, to media professional who can apply a different set of criteria to evaluating marketing material?

So what is marketing promotion?

Beyond online PR, the non-paid-for space online presents even more shades of grey. If a brand commissions user generated content (UGC) which is shared online, that communications piece falls under the CAP code digital remit. Unsolicited UGC is not covered. Promoting unsolicited UGC is covered. So what is considered a marketing promotion?

• Is a tweet highlighting UGC a brand admires to be considered under regulation?
• Is hosting a conversation through a live social media feed on an advertisers’ website, promotion?

There are many challenges here for social media marketing.

• Advertisers may have many different social media estates. These are not always managed at a senior level and engagement with those sites is not always defined. There is a potential that this extension will add to the fear of social media that already stops many companies from taking part.
• Those individuals already engaging in social media activities will need a level of communications expertise and an understanding of regulations that may be unfamiliar and outside of their experience.
• Hat tipping trends and influencer comment has become common amongst social savvy brands. This will now need some forethought to prevent false claims.

ASA will risk your brand reputation

Another concern is the risk to reputation represented by the planned ASA ‘outing’ of non compliant brands.

Even under the existing code, long after reparation is made, an adjudication can still show up high on a search engine results page. The new Code will bring a new ‘name and shame’ site into play. The impact of appearing on that site will affect business and increase punitive measure way beyond the fines.

The industry needs clarity

We have many questions that the Code as yet leaves unanswered:

• What is the difference between marketing communication and editorial on a website – and will the decision be made based on solely ASA assessment?
• Is an RSS or Twitter feed that pulls UGC onto a company website considered promotion and therefore covered by the code?
• When will the ‘name and shame’ site come into play? While the Code is still being defined advertisers could easily fall foul. If the point of contention is an ambiguous one, will there be negotiation room around the complaint or could a brand fall victim to a temporary ambiguity, while the judgement remains online for perpetuity?

Perhaps the biggest question that remains however, is this: given the ambiguity between editorial, PR and marketing, why was the CIPR not even consulted?

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