This ash cloud has been quite a strain, my wife and baby are still stuck in Dubai five days after they were due to fly home. The good thing is that they are staying with friends and have a great support network.

What it has shown me is how great the internet really is. Searching for information on Twitter, airline websites with the latest information (sometimes), news sites with real time video and Skype to stay in touch and more has provided real peace of mind.

Let’s talk specifically about use of social media platforms to help deal with the crisis. Twitter has become the web user’s right hand. The way the platform is set up allows a number of really useful things. You can choose to follow everything from airports to sports personalities, each wrestling with the problem of the lack of air travel in their own way. I have put together a targeted list of some of my key sources for keeping up to date. It just takes a little time to search on the site.

With a mix of journalists and news sites as well as the likes of Jake Humhprey and the Formula1 teams struggling to get home from last weekend’s race in China, there is a lot of information out there to wade through. It gives real world insight into what might work for getting the family home and is building camaraderie online.

The next key feature of Twitter is the hash tag, a really useful way to gather conversations on the same topic together. You just need to make sure that you include the right one. It is also proving a great platform for people to help each other out. The #getmehome tag has been widely used and is enabling people to share rides across Europe. I have even seen organisations and companies – one is a car share organisation called Roadshare – that are using these tags to communicate out their services to people with a specific problem; clever.

What will be interesting is to see if there is any direct increase in Twitter users as a result of this. I wouldn’t be surprised if Twitter does see a European surge on the back of Iceland’s latest contribution to the global economy – I know, an act of God.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

It’s taken a while but the fashion industry has finally woken up to the wonders of the World Wide Web! Online stores such as ASOS are booming, fashion designers are tweeting like there’s no tomorrow and the majority of high-street retailers now have some form of blog to keep consumers up to date with fashion news and trends.

Innovative brands such as ASOS have leaped ahead and successfully created platforms which allow users (43,000 visitors per month) to interact with each other and build their own community.  The ‘my fashion my way’ and ‘Saturday night style’ sections, as well as the ‘share your outfit’ group spark conversations and encourage members to share their own ideas, tips and insights.

River Island has also responded to this growing trend with Style Insider, an editorial and community site. Attracting 27,000 unique UK visitors a month, much of the site is written by the creative forces behind the brand – clothes, shoe and accessory designers. This makes the content compelling, relevant and appealing to those interested and involved in fashion and the brand itself.

And it’s not just the fashion brands and designers that are harnessing the power of social media platforms to speak directly to fans of fashion. Fashion magazines have also joined the online explosion. The Marie Claire Twitter account not only regularly updates and interacts with their following (it currently has an impressive 79,283 followers!); it has even been known to look for writers from their Twitter community.

In the midst of this exciting new landscape are the fashion bloggers – providing real insight and up-to-the minute commentary. Whether they’re posting images live from the catwalks, revealing latest trends from the streets of Tokyo, they too have become a huge force within the industry and a voice for a new generation of fashionistas.

Blogs such as Catwalkqueen and Stylebubble boast more readers per day than Vogue’s website and the Sartorialist has been named by Time magazine as one of the most influential forces in design. What’s more, bloggers such as Susanna Lau, creator of Style Bubble, are frequently snapping up front row (and extremely limited!) seats at the catwalks of high profile shows such as London Fashion Week.

One thing is for sure – this is an exciting time for the fashion industry and an incredible opportunity for brands to interact with consumers!

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

With Obama’s ‘masterful use of social media’ and the tweets of his 3 million Twitter fans sealing the election of the Democrats’ golden ticket, can our politicians and parties emulate this success and seduce the online masses and turn them into advocates?

There’ll be new blood on the hustings. According to Home Office sources, 134 serving MPs will be “spending more time with their families” instead of contesting in May (87 Labour, 35 Conservatives, 7 Liberals and 5 others.) While natural churn of MPs is only to be expected for personal, health and career reasons, that is an almost 50% rise on the 85 who stood down in 2005.

Various news sources have indicated that this might have something to do with expenses, surely not! Nevertheless, the stage is set for new firebrand candidates to fill the vacuum and the re-standing candidates to face fresh competition. These candidates have been immersed in social media explosion of the last 5 years in their private lives and now are looking to galvanise support with it through their political careers.

The vast majority will be utilising social media and search mentions to push their agenda and their shiny politician faces, at present a mere 81 serving MPs are without their own website.

New web savvy and Twitter prolific Prospective Parliamentary candidates (PPCs) or ‘iMPs’ include Chuka Umunna (Lab, Streatham, Twitter following 1,397) Iain Lindley (Con, Worsley and Eccles South, Twitter following 481) and Bridget Fox (Lib Dem, Islington South and Finsbury, Twitter following 698.)

We’re not expecting the right honourable member for Bexhill and Battle to boast a Twitter following in the millions, but parliamentary process is becoming more and more integrated with social media, one need only look to the fervent activity on Tweetminster to see that.

Over the next few weeks we’ll look at how specific iMPs’ social media campaigns are progressing and our ever changing Election Dashboard will also analyse how Brown, Cameron, Clegg and co are competing in the social media stakes.

Finally, there’s always that elephant in the corner to confront after the election dust has settled: ‘Does a big online following translate into a seat in the Commons?’

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Launching with four new categories, AOP publishing awards opens its doors for this year’s entrants. The new categories acknowledge that social media, is making a significant impact on the media business model. They include, use of video, best podcast, digital creativity and online community of the year.

Last year we saw a terrific increase in publishers using community platforms and blogs to add a new dimension to reader engagement.   

Back in May, Martin Belam published a couple of really insightful articles looking at how web 2.0 British newspapers are becoming. Coupled with his review of RSS subscribers it seems that the Guardian comes out top with a strong RSS based readerships as well as a wide adoption of new media tools and techniques. Nice analysis Martin J

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

6.58pm – Broadcasting now on the goggle box is the BBC’s money programme – all about second life. But wait, if you are at a computer, you can see it in second life and if you miss that, you can see it again in second life at 8pm and 9pm.

I am the lady with no hair and purple eyes (can’t be bothered to fix it!). In real life I have hair and brown eyes (most dull)

Will blog later on whether it was any good….

Update: well the programme turned out to be pretty basic, but then I guess I should not be surprised. All that excitement for nothing.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Well I am posting again on infographics sooner than I first expected! Two separate initiatives have recently gone live on the BBC – showcasing great use of visual online tools.

The first is a visual timeline allowing the viewer to ‘explore all of British history, from the Neolithic to the present day’. You can zoom in and out of different periods in history, following pre-set themes or jump around to learn about specific points in time.

The second again is based upon a timeline, showing the seven ages of rock music. Designed to support a TV series, the site also incorporates some great functionality – from video content that can be grabbed and posted on blogs and social network personal profile pages, to ‘tag clouds’, showing what music acts people are most interested in.

So the US isn’t as far ahead as I first thought! There is plenty of functionality that brands can use here to support their marketing activity online. If the BBC simplify something as complicated as Britain’s extensive history from Neolithic times, there is plenty of scope to describe products and services in an interactive, engaging way.

Also, the more something can be grabbed and shared with family and friends the more success you’ll have in this spread across the web and reaching the right people. The BBC definitely has cottoned onto this – will be interesting to see where this ends up.

Technorati Tags: infographics

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

I’ve been finding myself using the word ‘infographic’ more and more frequently recently. The online medium offers PR new tools and areas of creativity previously just not possible. Increasingly, we’ve been finding that the best solution to communicating complicated messages and concepts online has been to use visual representations. These can be anything from still images or video content to widgets and interactive micro-sites.

Whereas in the past, PR traditionally relied upon words, images, interviews and the odd real-life stunt or event to communicate, online offers whole rafts of new, different ways to get across a message.

There are suddenly far more tools at our disposal. Our role is taking a client brief – understanding what they want to communicate – and translating this into the best online medium for the target audience group. The key aim being to create social currency: Valued content for a specific audience group that inspires them to talk about and share it with friends and contacts online.

So we are always on the look-out for new and different ways to create social currency, to inspire conversation and debate. When fresh, new examples pop up I will run these on this blog – giving some insight into what is happening online and how it can be best used to support a company’s communications.

To kick this off, I’ve turned my attention across the pond to the recently updated USATODAY site – who seem to have experienced a Eureka moment in the past few months. There is now a dedicated ‘Interactivity’ section on the site, which uses all manner of different online tools to track news developments and provide entertainment respite. Have a play around and see what you find.

One infographic that particularly stands out is ‘Going Green’ a visual depiction of what can be done to lower the average home’s carbon footprint. This follows an earlier journalist article and invites user contributions, with readers being able to add their own suggestions and send on to friends.

Its great to see a traditional media site beginning to creatively play with the Internet as a medium – this is only the beginning…..

Technorati Tags: infographic, social currency

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

A new corporate communications service has just launched, charging companies £300 a pop to respond to comment appearing online. By providing a ready, SEO-friendly platform, newscounter is hoping brands under fire will turn to them to get their message across.

Unfortunately, I think it misses the point entirely. Newscounter’s founders clearly have spotted the growing need for companies to manage their brand reputation online. But have missed the fact that there are more effective – and frankly cheaper – ways to achieve this.

A company blog offers everything that newscounter offers and more. If a blog has existed for an appropriate length of time, the number of links it collects from peers in the blogosphere ensures that it too is endearing to Google’s SEO spiders. Comment can also posted at will – for free.

However, the most important benefit is that a blog provides an opportunity for readers to post their own comments in response. And this is where newscounter really falls down. Aside from the prohibitive cost of £300 whenever a company wants to add something else to a certain debate, there is no mechanism to encourage and foster dialogue.

I find that these things often come down to natural common sense. If you think of a house party, with everyone discussing a topic in the living room, newscounter would be the equivalent of putting up a loud, brightly coloured poster in the dining room. Not in tone with the party atmosphere and easily disregarded. People might see if it every now and then through the French Doors, but will more than likely continue their own conversation regardless.

How loud a poster of course depends on newscounters’ success in the coming weeks. I suspect it may pale and fade quickly.

Technorati Tags: SEO, newscounter, company blog

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Anthony Lilly of Magic Lantern has a column in today’s Guardian looking at the explosion in online video. He suggests that the amount of content now online has resulted in us viewers not being able to find the balanced view: the facts. And that with no editorial policy on sites like You Tube the result is a lack of context for our new found voices.

Allen has resolved this issue by proposing that public service broadcasters and newspapers can help with an editorial sensibility.   Whilst I applaud his idea that mainstream media should link out from their protected walls and debate on the voices outside their websites, I do have concerns that ‘we need’ editorial to guide us through the online noise.

After all, people now trust their peers, friends and family more than the press and media. And surely the comments on sites like You Tube, along with the votes, tend to guide us. We intrinsically follow the influencers and the wisdom of crowds, through link love, is reflected in the rankings in Google.

So yes let’s encourage the media to comment outside its enclave and stretch out the debate into the blogosphere. But let’s not suggest that this will deliver anymore than just another side to a story. Another viewpoint. The voice of the people is just as valid, offers just as much context and can inform just as well.  

Technorati Tags: mainstream media, You Tube, wisdom of crowds, link love, blogosphere

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

Emily Bell has run an article in today’s Media Guardian commenting on the Guardian’s new look homepage that grabbed my attention. Most interesting is a point referenced to Jeff Jarvis, highlighting the recent drop in importance for the homepage. Visitors to a site are increasingly more likely to arrive directly at content within a site than land on the homepage. Search engines and links on other sites point people to articles and features – avoiding the front door and plonking them straight into the living room.

Admission by the Guardian

Admission of this by the editor-in-chief of Guardian Unlimited only goes to show the huge reliance media has on other sites – social media in particular – to drive traffic and gain exposure online.

This follows an announcement a few weeks ago by NBC Universal and News Corp, planning a rival to YouTube to hold prime time content such as 24 and House of Heroes. What really interested me when this came out was that they are planning to rely upon social media networks for distribution. Viewers will be able to take a video of 24 and post it on their own blog or MySpace page.

Media owners clearly understand that it is their content – whether that be the most recent article by Emily Bell or latest episode of 24 – that drives traffic.

Engaging with Social media

And this is why NBC Universal and News Corp are planning on engaging with social media. By making it easy for people to share and pass around their content online, they are driving monetisation. In NBC Universal and News Corp’s case, having a video posted on a personal blog is fine, because the eventual viewer will still be privy to the advertising contained within it. In the Guardian’s case, a proliferation of links pointing back to articles all serve to maximise traffic back to the advertisement-filled site.

So, in this new world of reliance on consumer endorsement, what can media owners do to ensure success? The first prerequisite is of course that the content itself stands out. The second is to build a solid understanding of social media relations. Which key online influencers should media titles be striking relationships with? What formats do social media commentators prefer? What are their passion points? What are the pitfalls to avoid?

In this sense media faces many of the same challenges online as brands. Perhaps the two-way relationship between PR and media is set to grow even more complicated!?

Technorati Tags: social media networks, social media, social media relations

Bookmark It

Hide Sites