Posts Tagged ‘social media’

Socialites prosper as the aloof fail

Saturday, January 26th, 2008

Client:
“We are happy to embrace social media but if we are going to enter a forum and help our public with there questions and issues we would like to pose as a ‘valued customer’ of the company who has had a high-quality service and wishes to scream and shout about it rather than having a representative of the company.”

DigiKev:
“This is not a very sound thing to do, in doing so and repeatedly being the ‘valued customer’ you will be rumbled. It hardly takes a lot to know that the so called valued customer is a representative of your company. The community you are trying to embrace will ignore you, or worse you will be flamed and spammed and bad-mouthed until you are so buried you won’t be able to see above ground. The press will likely catch on and your good name will be dragged through the dirt.”

Client:
“…Okay, granted but this is the only way that we are prepared to communicate with our public as we do not want to lose control of the company pr. Having an individual or individuals representing our company and taking our stand point on our behalf could go badly in our favour. What if they get it wrong? What if they get bombarded with off topic questions? What if? What if?”

DigiKev:
“There is a great opportunity here to get down to the grassroots. Yes you will have to let go of the control. Social media is all about human communication. You don’t need to get sucked into off topic questions; if they are irrelevant say so, if the information is contained in your site then direct them to that information. Don’t be worried about losing control and if someone makes a mistake they just tell the community, look sorry I am human, I made a mistake and this is what it should have been. Finding out where your company is lacking from those that you are selling to is golden information; giving that up is just business suicide and your competitors (who are or will be employing a public figure to the company) will succeed. If you can’t trust whoever you have employed to be the voice of your company to speak to your public then I am afraid you have employed the wrong people.”

Does this sound familiar to anyone? Plenty of businesses are yet to jump on what the web can offer at the detriment of sales and popularity. Hiding behind thickly built walls of pr and controlling every element of how the company is seen and portrayed isn’t going to cut the mustard. The trends section of Marketing Week 17.01.08 notes “two thirds of social networkers are likely to buy a product as a result of a referral by a friend or online acquaintance – equating to £750m in online sales”. I am not saying that the only method is to deploy public speaking figures of the company in forum websites. Embracing social networking and the new age of digital media by conversing, allowing comments and feedback on a blog or by whatever other means you feel fit is key to business survival online. Non-communicative businesses that turn there back on social media, or worse try to control and fake in the social playground as described in the opening dialogue, in my opinion will begin to lose out to competitors that fully embrace and get social media.

What experiences have you had with clients and there perception of social media? How have you dealt with and explained the subject to them? Do you agree that businesses embracing social media and engaging conversations with the public will prosper?

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Tags: birminghamuk, Blogging, digital media, social media
Posted in Blogging, Social Web | No Comments »

The BIG Picture

Tuesday, January 22nd, 2008

Stefan Lewandowski and Jon Bounds have launched In The Big Picture today. I was very lucky to get a sneak preview at The Birmingham Bloggers Meetup a week or so a go. The idea is to make a big picture of the West Midlands in 2008. There will be a World Record attempt to gather as many photos together as possible into a huge montage. The website makes clever use of the Flickr API. Simply login with your Flickr account details or create a new account from the In The Big Picture website to take part.

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Tags: birminghamuk, Blogging, digital media, Flickr API, In The Big Picture, jon bounds, social media, Stefan Lewandowski, upYerBrum
Posted in Birmingham, Social Web | No Comments »

Birmingham Bloggers Meetup

Monday, January 14th, 2008

Kitchen Garden Café in Kings Heath was the meeting ground for likeminded individuals linked by their common interest in blogging and social media. On Thursday 10 January 2008, Nick Booth (Podnosh) arranged for the informal gathering with no agenda but to discuss blog writing, share knowledge and to build a community of blog writers around the Birmingham area. Some of the individuals that I met there were Dave Briggs, Stef Lewandowski (3form, Creative Republic, Type Records), Charlotte Carey (Creative Enterprise), Jon Bounds (Birmingham: It’s Not Shit, UpYerBrum), John Mostyn and Nick Booth amongst others who unfortunately I did not take URL’s from, sorry!

Stef got the ball rolling by asking the question to the group: “What does everyone reckon about the article that was published in the Guardian last week saying there are lots of cities in the UK that have fantastic blogging scenes, and Birmingham wasn’t even on the list?&rquo;

Stef has kindly posted the audio capture of this topic for download.

My personal additions to the discussion were:

• The Guardian article was focusing on cities that have already built up a blogging community where bloggers meet on a regular basis and had someone heading the movement for them. Due to this I think Birmingham wasn’t mentioned but now that there is a community being formed this will likely change in the future
• I feel we should interlink with each other more, referencing each other and also bolster this by using the XFN (XHTML Friends Network) system

One of the key points that came out in context to commercial blogging was that everyone wants to read an honestly written article from someone who cares about the subject they are discussing. The written word has to come from the heart, not off the back of pr guidelines or stringent rules on how the company wishes to be perceived. If the post comes across as less than honest it will be picked up on, sniffed out and discarded as a waste of time to read. I read in someone’s blog recently (apologies I can’t find the reference point, I will update when I do) that if you can’t trust the individuals you put in place to shed good light on your company through the posts they write then you’ve employed the wrong people. The best investment you can make is to find excellent writers who care about the company values and express this in their own creative way.

A common tagging theme was also agreed upon as a great way to increase awareness of blogging in Birmingham. A general tag of “BirminghamUK” to be added to all blog posts regardless of topic will improve visibility and will be added to Technorati. I also hear from Jon that Dave has built BrumSearch (based on Google) off of the back of this tagging consensus, thanks Dave.

Charlotte has also written a blog on the evening which picks up on some interesting questions on the direction and value of blogging. If you also wish to meet with us at the next gathering find out when and where as well as contributing to the Birmingham Bloggers UK facebook group.

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Tags: birminghamuk, Blogging, digital media, social media, upYerBrum
Posted in Birmingham, Blogging, Social Web | No Comments »

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