Things are going great for Katy Perry as of late and with more than 3.5 millions follower 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)

If you’re living in the UK like the team at immediate future, you’ll no doubt be enjoying a bit of classic British summertime – it’s August, and you need a coat, scarf and wellies to go anywhere. It’s frankly rubbish outside, so why not stay in and get everything you need from the online world?

We’ve been talking about virtual reality for ages, with plenty of early 90s shows like Tomorrow’s World and Blue Peter getting presenters to don a cumbersome helmet and escape the real world. Truth is, the transition to the virtual world is getting closer and is much more subtle.

3D is the current driver. Why pay massive ticket prices to sit in a cramped seat listening to some idiot spout abuse at a real football match, when you can watch all of the big games from the comfort of your living room in stunningly immersive Full HD 3D? Soon all sports will be following suit, and you’re much more likely to see what’s going on via your TV (invite a few mates round, crank up the volume and hey presto, the atmosphere is replicated too.)

3D gaming is going to be BIG, BIG, BIG. If you can box, dance and play tennis in the house, without having to deal with those aforementioned weather issues or that sweaty dude from the gym who always stares at you in the shower, well that’s good with me!

You can talk with video conferencing on Skype and iPhones. You can find out exactly where friends are and what they’re doing via social networks. Online shopping is bigger and better than ever. More and more live gigs are being streamed on YouTube. Music festival coverage gets bigger and longer every year as digital channels and online devote resource to bringing you music without any mud. V Festival has recently announced live streaming this year for the first time. Once we get gigs and festivals in 3D, there will definitely be no point in going out ever again.

OK, so you lose a bit of atmosphere, but if you’re on Twitter you can still talk to other people about the events (be they gigs or football matches), the beer’s much cheaper and there’s no chance of getting stuck in a three hour traffic jam on your way home. Sounds good to me.

• Arcade Fire join U2, Alicia Keys in streaming gig online (ctv.ca)
• Can Twitter wit replace live comedy? (guardian.co.uk)

Earlier this week Twitter announced a new feature for US mobile users, ‘Fast Follow.’ Twitter’s blog gives all the details but to summarise in a nutshell, Fast Follow will allow anyone to sign up to receive Twitter alerts via mobile SMS.

Clearly aimed at passive users, Fast Follow is an interesting addition to Twitter’s portfolio and has the potential to change the way certain users tweet. As most mobile users won’t be keen to receive the many random tweets sent every day by your average Joe Bloggs, you’d assume that the main categories of interest for Fast Followers will be celebrities, news sources, public services (i.e. travel, transport info) and brands they are fans of. Depending on the success of this new venture, I wonder how this will affect the latter’s social media strategy?

Whilst the numbers behind Twitter are impressive and rapidly growing, the micro-blogging platform still has a long way to go before it rivals the dominance of Facebook. Fast Follow offers the opportunity to use the Twitter platform to reach a far wider audience, giving brands a new and exciting way to push their messages out to potential customers. Importantly, for digital marketers it also gives a free and instant way to connect with those mobile users who aren’t interested in actively engaging with Twitter.

One way that Fast Follow is likely to make an impact is in geo-location, a current phenomenon spearheaded by Foursquare and with which numerous brands are now experimenting. It might make sense for some brands, particularly in the retail and hospitality sectors, to create individual Twitter profiles for a local area. Fast Follow users could then sign up to receive the latest updates on relevant events, offers and discounts.

It’s too early to predict the success of Fast Follow, and Twitter hasn’t yet mentioned rolling it out elsewhere. As many mobile operators will undoubtedly charge users to receive Twitter updates in SMS format, most won’t be keen to receive a constant stream of messages from those Twitter profiles they choose to follow.

Perhaps Fast Follow will encourage Tweeters to consider the information and opinions that are being shared, diminishing the mass of irrelevant tweets in the process. Alternatively, we may just find Britney, Ashton and Lady Gaga add a load of Fast Followers to their ever growing Twitter armies.

With a new football season underway and an eagerly anticipated Premier League campaign due to start this weekend, I’ve been considering my consumption of the global game recently and how it’s changed.  Not just for individuals, but for brands as well.

Everyone knows football is big business with dedicated, die-hard fans.  So social media provides the perfect forum for fans to interact, share their thoughts, keep up to date with their team’s latest gossip and transfer news.  The World Cup was also a ‘first’ for two reasons.  Not only was it the first tournament to be hosted in Africa, it was also dubbed the first ever ‘social media’ World Cup.

Interesting stats courtesy of www.simplyzesty.com back this up too.  Coca Cola’s sponsored hash tag #wc2010 received 86m impressions in 24 hours.  The Vuvuzela iPhone app was number 1 on iTunes in 50 countries in June.  Nike’s World Cup advert received more than 19million views on YouTube.  3,238 tweets per second recorded during the Japan Denmark match (the normal rate is 750).  497,000 ‘Likes’ for the England’s Team Facebook fanpage (seems like too many to me and it’s now more than 550,000?!)

Interestingly, brands who weren’t even ‘official’ sponsors in South Africa this year, maximised their use of online channels for their campaigns.  Nike’s ‘Write the Future’ campaign for example dominated the social media landscape prior to the World Cup.  Nielsen also found that Budweiser, who paid a heavy price for the global sponsorship rights, was trounced by their rival Carlsberg in terms of online chatter volumes.

Everyone, from fans to journalists, used Twitter to experience this tournament, with dedicated World Cup hash tags making commentary easier to source.  Twitter is a serious presence in social commentary, an effective means of gauging response and reaction to cultural events for brands looking for tactical as well as more strategic territories to associate themselves with.  Appreciating how consumers are changing their media behaviour reiterates the value of events like the World Cup.

It’s the brands who take the time to understand this relationship, understand where their fans are talking, that grab the real opportunities to engage with consumers.  More importantly, brands are able to measure engagement providing a compelling case for new forms of marketing and sales promotion.

It seems all football fans need now is an internet connection, or a smartphone and the information is at their fingertips.  The combination of podcasts (Guardian Football weekly), websites (nothing beats BBC Football, Football365), Twitter (some of the biggest official club feeds include Chelsea’s stamfordthelion Liverpool’s LFCTV) and Arsenal’s (arsenaldotcom), live streams over IPTV all prove valuable to brands looking to capitalise on fans’ online presence following their passions for the beautiful game.

However, not everyone will get it right first time.  As Umbro found out trying to run a Foursquare promotion at a Manchester City home game last season, aiming to create a record for the biggest number of people checking in at the same location.  Credit to Umbro for engaging with Foursquare so early on, however uptake was minimal.  More investment in the incentive to check in, free tickets or a replica shirt for example, rather than a t-shirt, could have produced further uptake.

Or was it because there aren’t many football fans using Foursquare yet?  We’ve seen brands succeed at the World Cup so I will be interested to monitor if those using social media tactics to good effect during the 2010/11 season…

With Facebook having just announced it recently hit the half billion user mark and with Twitter declaring this week that it received its 20 billionth tweet, it’s hard to comprehend that there may be another phenomenon biting at the heels of the giants of social media. Over recent years we have seen other contenders try, and fail, to reach the top spot – even Google can’t seem to be able to do it despite their continued attempts.

So when I heard the recent hype around microblogging site Tumblr, I wanted to check it out and see what all the fuss is about.

Founded by David Karp in 2007, Tumblr was created as a way for the average person to easily manage a blog without the complications inherent in a search engine-friendly application like WordPress. Think of your grandmother being able to start a blog and that gives you an idea.

To date Tumblr has about 6.6 million users and apparently 25,000 new people are signing up every day. Tumblr is clearly different to MySpace or Facebook – while the idea is the same (to connect to people with similar interests or background) the venue is far different. Described as the space “in between Twitter and Facebook” the site allows users to upload images, video, audio and quotes to their pages by emphasising the types of graphic content which can’t be reproduced on rival formats. Users can then follow others whose posts become visible in a live “stream”, these snippets can then be “liked” by clicking on a heart or “reblogged” to the users own followers. What sets this aside from its competitors is that the volume of followers is not given, in an attempt to boost the “community” feel of the site, which values commentary above simple links to outside sites.

My verdict?…well, our American friends across the pond are beginning to embrace it with open arms, with Newsweek and Rolling Stone both signing up to engage their readers in conversation. Will the UK be next to jump on the bandwagon? Tumblr’s figures are certainly impressive and there seems to be a growing momentum behind the website and despite the fact, in many ways, Tumblr does offer what Facebook and Twitter do, it does this in a very unique way. I’m watching this space!

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.