Archive for Social Media

Are you following me?

20 April 2012 Rachel Blogging, Social Media No comments

I love to blog. However, there are times of year when I have to neglect this hobby of mine, such as exam season. Do not worry, I am still around, and while I am not in the library you will probably still find me micro-blogging, pinning and tweeting. So, are you following me?

Click the pictures or titles for links to my profiles.

Linkedin

Follow my professional progress and read about how I am developing my skills on my career journey. I prefer to connect with people I either know or with whom I am in contact.

Twitter

Ask my friends and they will tell you I am quite the Twitter addict! I check the site regularly and like to join the conversation. Follow me for a bit of a chat!

 

Tumblr

Sorry to disappoint but the pirate image is a bit misleading. Rather than share my travels across the seven seas I use Tumblr to share all the interesting things I consider too big for Twitter but too small for my blog. Expect a lot of videos about PR campaigns, sports or just really cool stuff! I am quite new to tumblr’ing so would love to find new accounts for me to follow, sharing equally cool stuff!

 

Goodreads

I joined Goodreads in the hope it would encourage me to read more books and start reviewing them more often. So far, my progress is slow, but I would love to connect with you and see what books you are rating and recommending!

 

 

Pinterest

Following the Pinterest hype we experienced earlier this year I jumped on the bandwagon. I did not expect to enjoy it so much, but I found I loved pinning and repinning images. Follow my pins to see brilliant images of sports, fashion, architecture and the odd social media infographic.

 

Google Plus

I will be honest with you, I am still unsure of the role Google Plus will play in my life. However, I think we should not be hasty and dismiss it too soon. Feel free to connect with me over Google Plus and perhaps we can work out its purpose together!

 

 

Undoubtedly I will be back to my blogging as soon as my deadlines pass, so please remember to follow this blog! In the meantime come and join me on other social media platforms. Through sharing and interacting maybe we could all learn something new!

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Life without Facebook

12 April 2012 Rachel Social Media 2 comments
Facebook Notifications Feed

Facebook Notifications Feed (Photo credit: dannysullivan)

I’ll Facebook you. When a brand name migrates into a verb you realise that it has made its impact. Very few would argue that Facebook has not made an impact, in fact many consider that it has revolutionised the way we communicate. It has only been with us since 2004, and I would guess the majority of us joined post 2007/8, yet it has become an integral part of our lives, or has it?

I wanted to consider the impact Facebook has had on my life. I am a heavy user, according to my browser Facebook is my number one most visited site. Notifications come straight to my phone, and I still regularly visit the mobile site. I did consider as an experiment deactivating my Facebook account for a while, but I realised that I could not do this. Why? What has Facebook done to have become so vital to me? There are three main reasons:

  1. In Summer I am starting a new job in a new town I do not know. The easiest way for me to connect with new people I meet is by Facebook. It is also the easiest way to keep in touch with family and friends when I move away.
  2. I am active in my sports team (I have written a lot about it here). As a group we communicate entirely by Facebook, we have an emailing list, but we do not not use it, why? Because Facebook has proved itself a more reliable tool. I lose Facebook and I lose this connection.
  3. I have friends and family who I solely contact by Facebook. They live over the world, sure I could get their email, but it isn’t likely. Facebook has become the easiest way to communicate with people.

Why is it so important to us? Facebook took an important part of our lives and digitalised it. We are social creatures, we live to connect with other people, we love to gain information. Facebook put this online, made it easier for us to interact with our friends and acquaintances. Quickly we integrated this into our lives, because it made life more convenient.

Who can predict the future of Facebook, indeed I think I once predicted its downfall on this blog, which did not materialise. It continues to keep going! Perhaps one day the Facebook babies of the world, the ones who we have actually watched from the womb to birth and as they grow up, perhaps they will one day find themselves Facebooking!

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Smart Car drives Twitter

11 April 2012 Rachel Communications, Social Media No comments

I saw this video on The Next Web. It demonstrates a fun and clever use of Twitter as a tool for promotion.

Have you seen any other great and interesting uses of Twitter?

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What is influence?

26 March 2012 Rachel Social Media 2 comments
Blue question mark

Blue question mark (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In the past 10 years the world of Digital PR has grown at a frantic pace. It is now widely accepted that being online is not just the sign of a modern, innovative organisation, but a necessity for life in the modern world. The thing is, we are able to understand the importance of being online, but otherwise, we do not really understand how digital PR works.

I think this is brilliantly demonstrated through Michael White’s post on Facebook. Another important area which suffers from much confusion is measuring online influence. Undoubtedly there are loads of benefits to being influential online, from raised awareness of your cause, to increasing online sales. From a student perspective, having online influence can be a good way to gain opportunities and begin working life at an advantage.

How can we measure influence? Influence is subjective, it depends upon a combination of audiences, platforms and messages. There are a number of services available which will measure your online influence including Klout, PeerIndex and Kred. Each one taking your online activity and interactions then grading them according to their own specifications, the results is a number which represents your online influence. How accurate is it though?

Let us look at Social Student, a list of the most influential PR students in the UK compiled by Richard Bailey at Behind the Spin. The list uses PeerIndex and Klout in order to determine the influence of all active British PR students on Twitter. After a few shakey weeks trying to establish the list, it soon took a good shape and now I would say the list is a pretty decent representation of active Tweeting students. In this case you could say that measuring influence has been successful. It is important to note that this should not be the only form of measuring influence, there will be plenty of future PR stars who are active on Twitter but do not feature on the list.

The thing is, while Klout and PeerIndex can offer a guide to influence it is widely accepted that they cannot measure it. A post on Mashable defines influence at:

Influence = (Personal Brand * Knowledge * Trust2)

It explains that this can be measured through engagement, incoming links, incoming traffic, connections, recommendations etc. This goes back to the idea of systems like Klout and PeerIndex being able to measure your influence.

Brian Solis recently published a report on digital influence (available here) in which he claims that sites such as Klout and PeerIndex do not measure influence, but in fact they measure the individual’s capacity to influence. Influence is subjective and does rely on the nature of people, which is something that is hard, to impossible to program a system to measure. However the sites do show how influential a person is able to be, a very useful piece of data. If you realised you had the capacity to be influential, would you not take advantage of it?

The rising importance of digital influence will continue to shape the online world, and we are certain to see more, new and improved influence measuring tools. How do you think we can measure influence?

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Save the Hobbit

16 March 2012 Rachel News, Social Media 3 comments

I visited the Hobbit in Southampton some years ago, and while the night itself is hazy (not necessarily as a result of alcohol, rather the length of time that has since elapsed), the place made its impression on me and I was enchanted. So, when I heard that the pub was facing legal action from the Saul Zaentz Company, a Hollywood company holding the rights to many of  Tolkien’s works, I was as shocked as many of the other fans of the pub were. They were being to asked, or should I say told, to rebrand an image they have had for 20 years, an image key to the identity of the pub.

The support for the Hobbit has been remarkable, from almost 50,000 fans on their Facebook, over 6,000 on their Twitter and several celebrity supporters including Gandalf (or Sir Ian Mckellen to non-middle earthians) and Stephen Fry.

According to reports the Saul Zaentz Company is willing to offer a licensing agreement to the pub. However the campaign clearly is not over according to their own page.

It seems that this whole thing could turn out to be advantageous to the pub, as long as they are able to retain their name. With new support from huge celebrities and new UK/Worldwide coverage, they could see themselves benefit from a boost to business, particularly with the release of the Hobbit film. As a one-time customer who fell slightly in love with the place I completely support the success of this campaign and I hope that the hobbit succeeds versus the evil of Mordor! Now excuse me as I start a 12hour LOTR marathon!

Update:

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How to follow up #Kony2012

14 March 2012 Rachel Communications, News, Social Media 8 comments

Only last week #Kony2012 took over Twitter. One video created the single biggest response that I personally have ever seen from the online world, so strong that there were claims that this was an example of social media’s power to change the world.

A week later it is no longer trending on Twitter, but people are still talking about Kony. If I was in charge of the campaign, this is what I would be doing now.

Follow up on the original hype

With over 72 million views on the original Youtube video it is clear that Kony 2012 grabbed the world’s interest. Facebook, Youtube and Twitter all went crazy with reaction to the video, it sparked passion from its audience and left millions of people wanting to help make a difference. A week later, people are still interested, the original video gained their interest but it is important to follow that up, continue to send information to those people interested about the campaign and what they can do to help. Once you have got their attention, make sure you use it!

Respond to the critics

With the buzz caused by the video came many critics, with claims of Kony 2012 being irrelevant, out of date and the work of privileged foreigners, including critics from Uganda. One of the best criticism, or at least one of the most relatable ones, I read was not directed at the #Kony2012 campaign but at the earlier work of Invisible Children but remains relevant, it came from Ilto blog:

“Imagine that today you heard about what happened in NYC and Washington DC on September 11, 2001 for the first time. You were shown a video of footage from that day. You saw the planes hit the towers, you heard President Bush’s address, you saw the Pentagon wreckage, you watch in horror as you see people plunge to their death, jumping from the burning towers. Now imagine that you are inspired by this disaster. You want to something to help. What if you went to NYC today, expecting to see piles of rubble to clean up? What if you went, expecting that there would be thousands of people in the streets crying, looking for loved ones? But what would happen when you arrived and discovered that there was none of this, but a whole host of other problems?”

Some people were convinced by the story, but wanted to know how they expected social media support to help the issue. People also questioned what was happening with the money!

The best way to respond to this is through being open and honest with the interested publics, and while researching this post I found that Invisible Children had done just that, they created a brilliant video full of information about how the organisation works.

Thank you, KONY 2012 Supporters from INVISIBLE CHILDREN on Vimeo.

This video is a brilliant PR response to the criticism and I think it is important to continue sharing this information with interested publics.

Continue hype over event

An important part of the campaign was the Cover the Night event, the Leeds event alone has 7,500 confirmed attendees, now it will be interesting to see how this turns out. A lot of people signed up in the full buzz of the campaign, but this event has the potential to be an important and exciting part of their campaign. I would work to continue to create a buzz around the event to keep people interested in the whole campaign.

From a strategic point of view, this campaign is in a brilliant position and they seem to be doing everything right at the moment. As long as they continue to capitalise on their current success and develop this to support their campaign then it could be an example of one of the biggest successful social media campaigns.

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Who is Kony?

7 March 2012 Rachel News, Social Media 4 comments

We can write for years about the potential of social media but every do often along comes an example which demonstrates the power and ability social media has.

We all know social media has changed modern communications. When my parents were at university they used a phone box and letters to speak to their parents. I send texts, Facebook messages and Skype my parents. I do not often read actual newspapers (should a PR student admit to this?), I get my news online, from Twitter links, newspaper website, news agencies, blogs, Facebook. Our lives have been changed by the internet.

I think social media has a lot of power, much of which we have yet to recognise and release. It relates to our need as humans to connect and helps pull down barriers caused by modern life and far away families and friends.

Last night #Kony2012 took over my Twitter feed. I had no idea what it was, where it came from, who was behind it. I had heard of child soldiers, but never of Kony, and I do not think I ever understood the reality of the situation. I am not alone, most people do not know who Kony is, what he does and who he does it to. That is the point of #Kony2012. A campaign designed to educate us about this situation and help us change it.

It took over Twitter. It took over Facebook. It took over Youtube. It took over blogs. Its popularity was such that its website crashed!

The campaign appeals to human behaviour and motivations. As a species, despite all our faults, morally we cannot accept injustice and harm to people. We want to change it and give everyone the chance of a great life. The campaign video hits people where it hurts, it is emotive, shocking and inspiring.

Let us hope that #Kony2012 does not disappear overnight like so many previous trending topics, but that the campaign’s goals are realised. That will show us the real power of social media.

Want to find out more about the campaign? Visit the website, Kony 2012.

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How can the Police communicate with us?

1 March 2012 Rachel Communications, Public Relations, Social Media No comments
A PCSO on duty with two police constables. Not...

Friend or Foe (Image via Wikipedia)

Earlier this week we were lucky enough to receive a guest lecture from Laura Miller, the Communications, Marketing and Engagement Officer for Barnsley Police and Inspector Mark Spooner of the Barnsley Police force. The lecture looked over a number of issues that face those working in communications for any Police force and ways that they try and overcome these.

Channel 4′s Coppers demonstrates life for the police officers who protect our streets, and the hatred and disrespect for the police often shown on the programme is shocking and yet not surprising. Embarrassingly some of the worst shown is from my home city, but I will leave the damaged reputation of Nottingham for another blog post.

Working in police communications it is important to understand why people have certain perceptions of the police. Is it a result of personal experience, an opinion they have inherited from their peers and family, maybe an impression they have got from the media. There is a reason for every opinion and the only way to tackle them is to understand them. As a result it appears that a lot of the communications within this area is reactive and often under crisis situations.

A big hurdle for police PR (and undeniably for many other industries) is the technological shift to digital and social media. The police service follows an old-fashioned and traditional structure and as a result have been somewhat reluctant to embrace social media techniques, however these can be used very effectively. They allow the police to understand the general opinions of the police as well as engaging with people. For example, on Twitter there are a number of PCSO accounts, including that of PCSO Anthony Sams of Notts Police, these accounts offer an insight into what the PCSO roles include and general information about the area. There are also a number of active police force accounts, such as Birmingham Police which provide local information to the public.

For many police forces the importance of social media was highlighted last year during the riots. People took to Twitter to learn about what was happening and as such a presence from the police ensured reliable and useful information was provided to those seeking it. While many forces had previously had accounts, they were suddenly needed by the public who have continued to benefit from them ever since.

My impression of communications within the police force was that of a very challenging role, but one with a lot of interesting components and could be very rewarding for the right individual. It certainly is not a career path to overlook for budding PR professionals, and no day will ever be boring.

I would like to thank Laura Miller and Inspector Spooner for coming in and sharing their interesting presentation with us.

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Managing a social media micro-crisis

29 February 2012 Rachel Communications, News, Nottingham, Social Media 3 comments

The social media communications revolution is already happening and organisations need to ensure that they are reacting efficiently to this important development in communications.

While in many cases we can take advantage of the opportunities that social media offers, there are also some significant disadvantages including the micro-crisis. Take for example the case of Beeston Wilkos, in summary the shop is due to close shortly due to redevelopment and the local community is upset due to the loss of jobs and one of the town’s favourite shops. Previously for a situation such as this a letter to the local paper and small petition would suffice, but today we see blogging armies and social media swarms. And this is how a micro-crisis is caused.

In the case of Beeston, local blogger Beestonia has taken up the campaign, taking charge of updating the local community of developments not only of his campaigning but those of the local council and Wilkos Head Office. This has resulted in huge local community support, with 3000 signatures on the petition, and coverage from local media.

How should Wilkos be responding to this issue? I would guess that they did not anticipate such a fight back from the local community, and we cannot expect a large organisation to understand the significance that they have in each of their stores, it is not practical. However, I dare say their reaction to this case is not ideal. For example at the moment the most reliable source for information on on the situation is Beestonia, in fact while trying to search for a statement from Wilko’s Head Office I found myself on the Beestonia blog! Other than finding a quote about their commitment to their Beeston store, there is very little official Wilkos presence.

It is important to remember that while this situation may feel like the end of the world for Beeston residents, it is just one of many issues Wilkos will currently be dealing with, however there are actions that they can take to improve relations in Beeston. For example, I would suggest that they work with the Beestonia blog to release information, correct any speculation or incomplete information on the blog and engage with their consumer. An example of an organisation doing this well can be seen on Michael White’s blog, he wrote about his dissatisfaction with the services of CIPR student membership, the CIPR promptly replied, reacted to his opinions and as a result have already increased their student membership numbers. All of this occurred while the Wilko’s story has been happening, which shows just how quickly social media allows you to react.

Dealing with a micro-crisis requires much of the skills of dealing with larger crisises, here are five steps that can be used to help manage the situation:

  1. Anticipate a crisis and be proactive. This is the ideal situation, although not always practical. However if your organisation is about to carry out an action that may have adverse reactions (think Tesco workforce) then it is best to already be prepared to explain your actions before people react negatively to them.
  2. Monitor social media. Use the wide range of tools that allow you to see what is being said about you online, this means that you will be able to get an idea of current issues and how your customers’ currently think of you. As a result you can spot micro-crisises in their early state and quickly react.
  3. React quickly. If you can help it do not allow a situation to escalate, try and deal with it at an early point.
  4. Communicate with bloggers. Bloggers have a lot of power online and this means they can be your best friend and worst enemy. In many cases bloggers like to share stories that will interest their readers so they will often be open to hearing from your organisation. You can also use their comment section to engage with their readers, by reacting to their comments.
  5. Have a social media presence. Social media has become the first place many people turn when looking for local news, as a result it is important in a micro-crisis to use this platform to engage and react to your local consumers. This can help avoid the dangerous speculation which is likely otherwise.

Consumers now expect organisations to have a social media presence and to react to their problems, something Claire Hodson wrote about recently. I think it is important not to disappoint them in this respect, never underestimate how powerful social media is and it can be used for the good, and bad of your organisation.

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Cross cultural PR

21 February 2012 Rachel Communications, Internal Communications, Public Relations, Social Media One comment
English: Blank globe, focus on Africa. Deutsch...

Image via Wikipedia

 A common theme over my blog is the importance of gaining experience while studying a degree. As important as this is, our degree would count for nothing is we were not receiving world-class education from intelligent and informed tutors. I would like to say we are quite lucky in this respect, but what is particularly great is when our university invites guest lecturers in to teach us. This semester one of our modules includes a series of brilliant guest lectures, which so far has included crisis communications and digital communications. Today it was the turn of Aakriti Kaushik, PR Manager for Global and European PR at Premier Farnell. With an impressive CV Aakriti came to lecture us on cross cultural PR, something which seemed coincidentally relevant to me after my recent article on understanding cultural sensitivities.

Key things that I brought away from this lecture included the importance of understanding what works in one region may not work in others. Aakriti brought up the example of the Ben Heck show, something which had been a huge success in the USA but did not manage to translate to other cultures.

It is important to research local cultures before designing communications schemes, she highlighted this with the examples of the Ford Pinto, meaning penis in Brazilian slang. In reference to Premier Farnell she explained how their new brand name, Element 14, did not translate into Chinese and as a result they had to find an alternative.

Finally, an interesting point was raised about social media. This platform has changed the way we communicate, and allows messages to flow instantly around the world. It is important that while using social media that we ensure our messages are suitable for all of our audiences across all cultures.

Recently I have been taking a huge interest in global communications and how we respect cultural differences, so this lecture was perfectly timed and has upped my interest in the subject.

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