In recent weeks The Wall Street Journal reported that the results of a new clinical trial into the effects of lithium on Lou Gehrig’s disease demonstrate the potential for social networks to be used in the recruitment and collation of patient data.

A total of 596 patients took part in the observational study by health social network, PatientsLikeMe, which concluded that lithium does not slow down the progression of Lou Gehrig’s disease.

PatientsLikeMe used a questionnaire and bespoke tool to collect the data and during the study, patients were able to visit the website and see how other participants were getting on in real time.

Through the use of a social network, the process of enrolling patients was sped up and the cost of drugs and recruiting patients was avoided, given that participants approached their own doctors for prescriptions.

It sounds marvellously promising, but Harvard Medical School ALS researcher, Merit Cudkowicz, has queried the danger in placing 100% trust in a social network clinical trial, highlighting that it wouldn’t pick up minor benefits lithium may have and it would be wrong to completely disregard the drug on the social study’s basis alone.

According to The Globe and Mail, a recent report published by Canadian researchers in science journal, Nature, also shows the power social media can have over the spread of a medical theory before it’s even been proven. Italian doctor, Paulo Zamboni’s unproven theory that MS is actually caused by malformed neck veins and can subsequently be treated has been heavily pedalled on social networks by MS patients. Health institutes may now be forced to change their health research spending as a result of patients having read word-of-mouth evidence via social networking sites.

There is clearly a place for social media as an aid to – but not a complete replacement for – medical research. But, it won’t work without medical experts and thought-leaders joining in the conversations to balance emotions with science; and without informative, reliable and optimised content filling the search engines.

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Last Wednesday I had the opportunity to attend a great event, hosted by the London Press Club and Women in Journalism, with Carole Stone, the Queen of Networking herself, as a guest speaker. Having heard so much about Carole Stone, her weekly networking salons and her legendary Christmas parties (what I wouldn’t do for an invite…), I jumped at the chance to attend this event!

Carole was an extremely entertaining, dynamic and engaging speaker, and, as you would expect from a woman who has over 40,000 contacts in her database, she had some invaluable tips for anyone making their first forays into the world of networking. I have listed below the key outtakes from the event, and as an added extra, for each of Carole’s tips I have written my own social media version (with some help from my colleague James), highlighted in italics….

1. Wear something with pockets – It is important to always have business cards at hand so you don’t have to awkwardly rifle through your bag to find them! (Maybe more of an issue for females!) From a social media viewpoint, ensure that you have a LinkedIn profile, and it’s fully up to date, before you attend an event. You never know who will look you up!
2. Always follow-up with an email the day after you’ve met someone. And/or send them an email through LinkedIn, adding them to your online network at the same time.
3. When handing out business cards don’t scatter them like lawyers and accountants (Carole’s words…), make sure you actually spend time chatting to the people you’re giving them to. The same applies online really, just because LinkedIn is there doesn’t mean you should ask everybody you have ever heard of to join your network. As a general rule, only add people you have had a proper conversation with or who you would feel comfortable emailing.
4. It’s not all about quantity, it’s about quality. Pick out a few people in the room who you really want to meet. Don’t fret if you haven’t met the ‘big players’ at an event, chances are they’ll have so many people thrusting business cards in their direction that they won’t remember you anyway. Old school networking tips live on, this is definitely still relevant online. Engage the up-and-coming bloggers or influencers who will want to, and have time to, share knowledge with you.
5. Always remember details. Note down one or two key details about the person you’ve just met to remind yourself who they are/where you met. Taking this a step further, you could use tools like Evernote, Digg etc to log relevant posts, articles or web pages that will help you re-engage your new contact in a later conversation online.
6. If someone is acting rude, or haughty, be honest and ask them “did you mean to sound rude when you said that?” (Maybe a tip to be used with personal discretion…). This is particularly relevant in the world of social media as sometimes irony or humour does not come across quite as well in an email or a 140 character Tweet! If you have engaged with this contact through Twitter, send them a simple @reply asking whether their last comment was supposed to sound rude… This is a win-win technique, the contact will either laugh it off or they’ll (hopefully) realise that their comment was out of line and clarify what they meant/apologise. Easy.
7. Stand up at networking events so you can get away easier. Conversely, online it’s easy to leave a conversation so get as involved as possible, comment on walls, reply to tweets and use those hashtags!
8. Carry an empty glass so you have an excuse to leave a boring conversation (“I’m just going to get another drink…). As previously mentioned, online you can leave a conversation whenever you like, but always check back and make sure you are not missing an opportunity to engage with new connections.
9. OR carry 2 glasses of wine, pretending one is for a friend, allowing you to leave a conversation to look for said friend if necessary… See above… but there is nothing to stop you having two glasses of wine anyway!
10. . Don’t worry about failure! Absolutely true in social networking online as in the real world, be bold and don’t be afraid to get involved in conversations, it’s the best way to broaden your knowledge and understanding of a subject.
11. Never toss a card aside! You never know when that contact may come in useful… Hopefully LinkedIn won’t go down.

Et voila… the top tips from the Queen of Networking… and yes, most of them are pure common sense, however it was nice to hear these things from a lady whose reputation and business success are built on networking!

Hopefully these tips will prove useful and show you that, when it comes to taking your first tentative steps into networking, both online and offline, everyone has been in exactly the same situation as you and everyone is nervous about not having someone to talk to or saying the wrong thing. Confidence is key!

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Facebook is expected to reach the very impressive 500 million user milestone this week. Putting this half billion member mark in perspective, The Washington Post reports that, “the population inhabiting Facebook now equals that of the United States, Japan and Germany combined. Or, two Mexicos and a Brazil.”

Facebook reached 400 million users five months ago. This time last year, it had just reached 200 million, and eight months before that it was at 100 million. Facebook has certainly come a long way since its launch in February 2004 and has become the most popular social site on the web. It poses the question, how on earth did we communicate with our friend’s before Facebook? Did we actually pick up the phone and speak to them?!

Plus it’s not only consumers reaping the rewards of this social networking phenomenon, but it’s clear that brands can also benefit. Many use Facebook as a channel for developing direct relationships with customers and as a platform for sharing and discovering rich content.

But I digress….

In light of this impending milestone, one of the Facebook marketing gurus said that the site plans to celebrate it  with ‘Facebook Stories’, a collection of real-life memories from Facebook users about how the social networking site has impacted their lives. She said that while previous announcements of this nature have been about the numbers, this time the company wants it to be all about the users.

Users could submit their yarn in 420 characters or less. The stories will then be organised into a ‘visual memorial’ by geographical location and by themes such as “finding love,” “coping with grief” and “natural disasters.”

Facebook has already posted a form through which you can submit your own story. If your story becomes popular — that is, if it gets more “Likes” than most — it could be featured among other popular stories.

Got any memories to share…?

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In this day and age of social networking, many PRs are now beginning to rely too heavily on email and instant messenger to sell-in their stories to the media. Gone are the days of the telephone and the hour long lunch briefing. Now it seems, we are becoming guilty of broadcasting our messages through round-robin emails and Tweets.

Is there any talent involved in sending an email? Is this really PR? Surely PR is about building relationships and connecting with influencers? But, how can you build a rapport with a blogger if you only contact them via email? Aside from the dreaded ‘are they going to feature your story?’ question, what else do you really know about that person?

Email is great as a follow-on platform, but it should not be the central tool that we use to build relationships around. Phone calls and face to face meetings help us build personal connections with journalists and bloggers. It is these things that help us get to the heart of what types of stories and assets truly ‘turn journalists on.’

Remember the famous BT ad slogan ‘it’s good to talk’. Well, BT got it spot on! Picking up the phone and talking to influencers is a vital part of building long-term relationships. As an agency, we try wherever possible to pick up the phone and talk. We even developed a ‘following our call’ day, FOC for short. This went down a storm in the office and helped incentivise people to get on the old dog and bone instead of automatically using email to make media approaches. FOC has helped us nurture a whole database of influencers within technology, marketing and consumer fields.

"It's good to talk" BT advert starring Maureen Lipman

What’s more, we have even setup our very own blogger meetup group! Our first event is scheduled for 29th June at Marketing Week Live. In between serving up our delicious immediate future cupcakes and tea, we will be networking with all types of savvy bloggers, tweeters, forum owners and Facebookers to find out how we can help them.

It’s not just a one way street when it comes to communicating with influencers; we believe in giving bloggers information that they need and want. So, during our meetup we are going to be discussing the art of engagement and the online relationship between influencers and brands. The exhibition itself will also be full of seminars showcasing the latest tools and technology to help bloggers make their websites more effective.

Talking is the best information gatherer we as PRs have at our finger tips. Social media is a fantastic resource to use and one that we should all implement within our influencer relations, but it needs to be married with traditional relationship building skills. It’s good to talk and as PRs we don’t seem to be doing enough. So why don’t we all have a FOC day!

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This week the Guardian online posted a blog on the rise of social media as a relevant source of information for journalists, as revealed by a recent US survey which claimed that 56% of reporters view it as an important tool for producing stories. The research carried out by Cision and The George Washington University, showed that over 89% of journalists make use of blogs while conducting their online research, with two thirds turning to social networking sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn.

But, is this a good thing? Are journalism standards slipping?

There is certainly a strong advantage to using social media as part of journalistic research. Its global reach and speed means that stories can be documented and sourced as they are taking place – the New York Hudson River plane crash is a great example. Ferry passengers were able to tweet about the accident before TV crews even got to the scene.

However, social media shouldn’t be used as the sole source for stories, but rather it should sit alongside public relations – providing interviews and access to sources and experts to help paint a fuller picture. It still begs the question as to why the media is so obsessed with social networking?

Phenomenon! Everyone loves to be in the middle of a newly discovered craze and social media is currently it! Flick through the national papers and there will undoubtedly be a story relating to social media. As a PR professional, I have been told by numerous news desks and news agencies that stories relating to Facebook or Twitter stand a much higher chance of being selected than those that don’t.

Why? Because social networking provides that much needed human interest angle that the media loves, especially tabloid papers. The fashion designer, Alexander McQueen died tragically last week but rather than lament on the fashion world’s loss guess what the papers chose to write about…the string of ‘weird’ Twitter posts that he had left during the run up to his death.

So, celebrities and politicians be afraid. It’s no longer what’s lurking behind your closet that matters but what’s lurking on your Facebook and Twitter page!

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