Having been recruiting for various social media roles over the past couple of months I find it incredible the CV is still considered a credible descriptor of a person’s employment history. No more! I refuse to look at these pieces of paper which are crying out for a role in digital comms and yet show no passion for the medium these candidates want to work in day in, day out. No URL’s – nothing, just an email address.  So, to the humble Google search, then LinkedIn…Twitter. Ok obvious but it …

So this week I got all legal and attended a briefing on the ASA’s extended digital remit which, if you weren’t aware of already, comes into effect on the 1st March. To date, company websites have been excluded from ASA regulations which basically means they can say what they want about their products and services without validation. This is the first thing that is being addressed. Non paid for space (ie: social media channels) which are under the control of a brand/organisation as well as ‘earned media’ (user generated content) …

A piece in today’s Observer on how leading academics in the US believe that communicating through social networking sites is isolating rather then empowering, got me thinking to my University dissertation on online consumption and identity.
Some of Sociologist, Sherry Turkle’s, points seem initially alarmist (‘Under the illusion of allowing us to communicate better, it is actually isolating us from real human interactions in cyber-reality that is poor imitation of the real world’) and show a misunderstanding of how social media is being used to enhance real world interactions but, when …

I’m feeling pretty powerful at the moment with a word- of-mouth influencer score of just under 300,000. Actually this figure is ridiculous but it certainly acts as an trigger to start wielding my opinion around on new  ‘have a complaint (rant)’ site Gri.pe.
According to their About Page Gri.pe:  “lets you share public praise or complaints that get sent to the business for response, while being spread by your friends, followers and beyond!” – basically it allows you a very public forum to moan in the hope that you’ll get some …

Working in both PR and digital comms I have been involved with a number of blogger relations campaigns throughout the years. The most recent one I’ve been involved with has been for one of my clients, ‘make mine Milk’, where we invited mummy (and, not to be forgotten daddy) bloggers down to the London School of Coffee for a morning of Barista training and low fat semi-skimmed milk discussion.  After chatting to many of the attendees about how they liked being approached by PRs, plus some of their worst PR …

After revelations that Yell.com were ‘faking’ 1 in 8 of reviews on their review platform Trusted Places by incentivising staff to write them, it got me thinking about the importance of review sites and how users really rely on them to make informed decisions. The question is, when it comes to review sites have we ever really taken some stranger’s opinion as gospel – the answer is no. Whether it’s an online publication who is reviewing a product as part of a PR process or if it’s a review left …

Ever used to the 3 for 2 and BOGOF offers we see for gifts in stores over Christmas, this year it’s all about how we can make the most of our technology and online recommendations to get the best deals. Moving beyond the massively useful voucher codes sites we’re talking about geo-location, mobile coupon and crowd sourcing discount services. We are also talking about the trust people put into recommendations from friends and family (as well as general – non biased opinions) and the influence these can have on overall …

Will I be using the new Facebook Messages – well of course (but I caveat that with the latter part of my post). To have all social comms centrally held in one place is without doubt very compelling – to be able to send SMS via Facebook could be useful, attaching external docs – yep that’s something I would use considering I’m planning a wedding. I use Facebook more than any other channel to communicate to my core group of friends so I can only see this as a positive …

I’ve noticed a few social media campaigns recently (one involving a Pizza party and an X Factor non-winner, the other a package of chips, a pop superstar and some funky augmented reality) that have left me a little perplexed, mainly because of the complexity of what they were expecting their users to do – uploading photos, creating films, throwing parities, playing fancy dress…the list is endless . Maybe I should be taking more time to appreciate some of these strategies but I have limited time, just like the next person, …

Building on my last blog post the Social Media Policy – not just for the big players I felt it was worth sharing some pointers on what should be included if you are drafting this document on behalf of your business or client.
Not one for the bottom drawer
Remember that you want your policy to empower the reader to embrace social media rather than scare them off. This means ensuring that there is no complicated, technical jargon (if this needs to be included then make sure there is a glossary …