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?

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.

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.

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?

If I said the name Mary Bale or Cat Bin Lady last week, you probably wouldn’t know what I was talking about. Before now, Mary Bale was just your normal, everyday person…until she decided to throw a cat in a bin! Unfortunately for Ms Bale, her actions were caught on CCTV and it wasn’t long before the whole incident was plastered all over the web and the saga is ongoing.

The story reflects an emerging style of news arc, one that begins with social media and is then picked up by all major news outlets both on and offline. Since the initial video was posted on Facebook, the story has become massive across the world, largely thanks to social networks.  Twitter accounts, Facebook profiles and YouTube videos have all appeared in a small space of time. The spoof twitter page, @CatBinLady, has more than 5,000 followers. Numerous videos of the incident have been uploaded to YouTube with one having received 132,000 views in two days.  But, Facebook is where it’s all been kicking off. After the video was posted on the site, “hate groups” (to quote the Daily Mail) were set up almost instantaneously. One group, which reached more than 18,000 members, was shut down after users posted death threats.  Mary Bale is indeed the talk of the social networking town.

This is a classic case of something that starts off small ballooning out of control. Even as I write, news stories are still filtering though about Mary Bale almost 4 days after the initial story. And this should be a warning to companies. Brands should be aware of the mushroom effect of social media as they are with other areas of crisis communications. Sometimes it can appear to be completely out of control, and in many cases, CatBinLady is a case in point, it is. Even though a social networking community may seem small, there is the potential for a story to grow and get out of hand, after all these are often the people who influence the media.

The backlash Mary has received from the video is pretty extreme. But it does go to show, it can often be the most simple and random things that get the online world buzzing.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Cat put in wheelie bin: ‘Death to Mary Bale’ Facebook page taken down (telegraph.co.uk)
• RSPCA considers prosecuting Mary Bale over cat in wheelie bin (guardian.co.uk)
• Woman who dumped cat in wheelie bin says it was “a split second of misjudgment” (mirror.co.uk)

With Foursquare now topping two million users across the world, the location-based social network has launched its own online store, giving die hard fans the chance to buy Foursquare memorabilia. Products on offer include a mayor crown t-shirt, button badges and branded stickers.

The new store is the latest in a series of attempts by Foursquare to monetise its increasingly popular service. Recently the company started inviting brands to sponsor badges. Louis Vuitton and MTV have jumped at the chance to offer special badges and offers to users of the service.

In the case of Louis Vuitton, the designer label has partnered with Foursquare to offer users tips on their favourite locations around London. Users who follow Louis Vuitton’s profile and check into the stores around London on a regular basis, have the opportunity to earn themselves a Louis Vuitton Insider badge. The badge will offer users upcoming surprises that at present are still unknown.

Brands that partner with Foursquare have the opportunity to develop a new and engaging way to connect with their consumers. By offering tips, deals and hosting competitions, brands are able to reward their advocates and potentially pick up new customers.

If Foursquare is to grow there are still questions about how it will be funded and with Facebook rumoured to be working on new location based features designed to compete with the social network. The next few months will be critical for the company to get more brands on board and cement its position before the social media behemoth starts throwing its weight around.

For years we’ve been told that the internet and new technology is stopping traditional face to face communication. Parents have been warned that if their kids spend too much time surfing the net and chatting on social networking sites they’ll become void of emotion. But new research by Dr. Paul J. Zak and Adam Penenberg, a contributing writer to Fast Company, blows all this out of the water and suggests that social networking connects with people’s feelings and emotions and is something that businesses shouldn’t ignore.

According to Dr. Zak’s research, oxytocin, the hormone we release when we are hugged, shown affection or generosity, can be linked to social networking. In a series of tests on Adam Penenberg, Dr. Zak’s research showed that when using social networking sites such as Twitter, the level of Penenberg’s oxytocin increased by 13.2% and stress hormones decreased. This suggests that Penenberg’s brain sees tweeting as directly interacting with people he cares for, has empathy for and, ultimately, trusts. With these results in mind, Penenberg proposes that online relationships can be as real as offline relationships as social networking may increase a person’s oxytocin level, which can heighten feelings of trust, empathy and generosity.

So what does all this scientific talk mean for businesses trying to connect with the social consumer? Well, businesses should adopt a sense of persona and a character to help raise their profile online, connect with audiences and help earn a level of trust and empathy. Those responsible for setting strategies should understand digital sociology and psychology. The web works in the same way as human behaviour so this needs to be reflected in social media strategies.

Related articles

• Social Networking Affects Brains Like Falling in Love (fastcompany.com)
• Once More, with Feeling: Making Sense of Social Media (briansolis.com)

We are in the midst of the 2010 Tour de France and the race has come down to just two riders. Andy Schleck is just eight seconds behind “Berty the Accountant” (Alberto Contador) as Ned Boulting and Matt Rendal call him on their Real Peloton podcasts. It has been an amazing spectacle, cobbles, crashes, tears on the podium, mountains, more crashes, British riders in the mix and millions of Twitter posts.

This year more than ever before we are able to share in all the ups and downs of teams, riders and all other interested parties in diverse ways. Where marketing budgets for teams (marketing tools themselves) are tiny – let’s take the first year British team, Team Sky, as an example – social media has become a cornerstone of its communications plan.

Prior to this year, and it can be seen in Formula One as well, Facebook fan pages and especially Twitter profiles were the preserve of a limited number of tech savvy competitors looking to build their own brand. 2010 however, has seen a holistic approach to social networking as a seriously cost effective channel to fans.

Looking more closely at Team Sky you find the website is supported by a Facebook page, a Twitter profile and a blog (only in name as nowhere to add comment) on the website. Add to this the set of individual rider’s Twitter profiles and the whole story of the team’s race can be gleaned in just a few minutes.

If success is measured in numbers, and it most often is, then Team RadioShack - undoubtedly due to the presence of Lance Armstrong – has the social media yellow jersey. Team Sky do well with over 42,000 fans, while the current yellow jersey wearer’s team has just 2,133 fans. That said the current race leader himself has almost 70,000 followers on Twitter, damn good when he is only following 16.

We are seeing a real revolution in sports marketing. Fans have always been fans, but with social media the ability to get to share in the success and disappointment of your heroes, almost as it happens and directly from them, creates a much stronger bond for that fan with that sports person as a brand.

Having said that, you can get too much of a good thing. At the moment I have to avoid using Twitter for large portions of the afternoon and evening so I don’t see who wins the stage before catching the highlights on TV that evening. But, once the stage is over, I am straight onto TweetDeck to get the inside track on what the riders are saying.  Word of mouth marketing has never had such a perfect case study.

I recently attended a WOM UK briefing run by Reed Smith on the subject of ‘the benefits and legal risks of Word of Mouth Marketing in Social Media.’ One of the subjects touched upon was moderation; when inviting comment from the public, how much responsibility does the publisher have for the content that’s uploaded to their website?

This is an issue that’s undoubtedly on the radar of the HM Treasury this week as they opened ‘The Spending Challenge’ to the public for the first time. For those of you unfamiliar with the idea, ‘The Spending Challenge’ is essentially a forum that allows the public to suggest ideas for where spending cuts could be made to tackle the budget deficit. Recent criticism stems from the fact that the site’s moderators have been allowing offensive comments to remain visible to anyone who visits the site. A quick search through recent comments on ‘The Spending Challenge’ website reveals a multitude of comments tagged by users under terms including ‘hate crime,’ ‘hate,’ ‘facist’ and  ‘racial hatred.’ There’s a witty summary of the latest posts here entitled ‘Race hate meets comedy gold.’

What’s actually a potentially brilliant tactic by the government to engage the public in the debt crisis recovery is now in danger of becoming drastically tarnished by negative media coverage and sarcastic Tweets.

Crowdsourcing is one of the latest buzz words in social media at the moment with many brands seeing the benefits of both customer engagement and business/product development. However, ‘The Spending Challenge’ shows that inviting opinions on any subject which has the potential for defamatory material and comment needs a carefully considered moderation plan. Is a ‘Notify and Take Down’ system always the right method in these situations?

It will be interesting to watch the steps taken by the government to control the current media backlash on ‘The Spending Challenge.’ Clearly, a more rigorous moderation process is needed to ensure the public’s suggestions are constructive and serve the website’s purpose. For those of us in the PR & Marketing industry, it’s a stark reminder of how unwieldy a tool the web really is. Whilst crowdsourcing might sound like a great campaign tactic, it’s vital to remember that we can’t control what people say on websites and social media platforms. The potential for damaging coverage and comments is ever present and it’s the average savvy webuser who is the most stringent moderator of them all.