It seems an accidental tweet from Vodafone on Friday has got the company in big Twitter trouble. The tweet has since been deleted by the company but was quickly put on Twitpic and has been picked-up across the web including on The Guardian Unlimited, Telegraph.co.uk, and econsultancy to name but a few.

Twitter can be a great way to engage with customers, but whether it’s one tweet or an ethical fauxpas, as with Habitat in 2009, blunders like this on the Twittersphere are not forgotten easily, not forgotten easily at all.

The importance of not giving all employees access to a corporate profile could reduce the risk of mistakes like this happening. And an innocent tweet on your personal profile may be one too far when you realise your logged in on the company profile.

At least with good old newspapers today’s headlines could be tomorrow’s fish and chip wrappers - not the same for online, especially with Vodafone’s 8,800 followers. Oh, no sorry it’s now 9,277 followers – the pesky employee may have even done some good, no?

Posted by Sally Barr

The Manchester Evening News reports that players for Manchester United and City have been advised against using Twitter, on the basis that 1) content posted by players could be taken out of context by the media and 2) since there are so many fake twitter profiles around, if none of the players are allowed to tweet, fans be certain that any player they come across on twitter is bogus.

The risk of staff twittering off brand is obviously an issue for employers, whatever their business may be.  If you happen to earn your living as an actor in a high profile film franchise for example, there isn’t much in your working life you’ll be allowed to tweet about.  Tom Felton, who plays Malfoy in the Harry Potter franchise is limited to tweeting the Potter related news that he’s getting his hair dyed blonde (again) and talking about crisps and the weather in case he gives away a Top Secret plot development.

If you’re not sure what your own company’s approach to staff members disclosing information on social networking sites, tweeting or blogging should be, then the BBC’s own editorial guidelines on personal use of Social Networking and other third party websites  and IBM’s Social Computing Guidelines are good places to start. (both links via Roo Reynolds)

posted by gemmaT

It was interesting to see today the buzz created online and offline about Dr David Walsh’s comments that women should endure more pain and use less pain relief during child birth. Well,  actually that’s not really fair, he didn’t quite say that, and he said a few more things besides too.

But he did say child birth pain can be good, and he’s a man! How would he know what it feels like! And of course that was what the media focused on.  Dr Walsh started his morning with the usual round of Radio 4, BBC Breakfast, and it didn’t take long for the social media wheels to start turning.

As you would expect the online parenting community (well the mums anyway), mummy bloggers and parent Twitter followers didn’t take long to get fired up. So by lunchtime when he was due on Radio 2’s  Jeremy Vine show, I was eagerly anticipating him taking questions from the show’s enthusiastic (opinionated?) listeners.

First he was running late. Then he decided he couldn’t speak to the show. Had he been spooked by the quick reaction online to condemn him?

Who knows.  Perhaps he had expected that the detail of what he was saying would be covered and understood, that his experience would mean more than his gender. But I’m afraid two things were working against him:

1) The media love a good ruk and want to get mummies fired up by his comments

2) Child birth and motherhood are bloomin tough, and the last thing we need is anyone else saying we are not getting itright (on top of grannies, mother-in-laws & competitive mums).

I’m not going to comment on where I side (not on this blog anyway), but I will certainly watch with interest how the debate moves forward online.

Once again the social media mummies are in the news.

Charlotte Renwick

Originally, Twitter was set up to answer one simple question: what are you doing?  But now it seems that it’s remit extends to:

• Customer service
• Sales
• News
• Celebrity gossip
• Lifestyle advice

Twitter is of course enjoying an enormous surge in popularity, helped by the fact it is incredibly easy to set up to and use.  But recent research by Purewire indicates that 40% of Twitter users have not tweeted since their first day on Twitter.

The same research points out that over 1/3rd of Twitter users haven’t posted a single tweet, and nearly 80% of users have fewer than 10 tweets, suggesting that a large number of users are there to consume or find content like in the list above, not to create it.

Will Twitter go the way of Second Life as a high profile site that became more of a niche community (albeit one hampered by millions of dormant accounts)?  Or will it evolve into a ‘to go’ version of the internet?

posted by gemmaT

Last week Gordon Brown was under fire again, but this time being mocked for his most recent, and slightly uncomfortable post on YouTube.

His direct addresses on the Number 10 channel answer current public concerns and questions put to him from YouTube users. This provides a great opportunity for him to show a more human side, and is an excellent tactic for communicating with hard-to-reach groups such as young, up-and-coming voters.

Social media use in politics has recently become a major success story for Obama’s online campaign for the US presidency. His online presence was everywhere – YouTube, MySpace, Flickr, Twitter and Facebook. Social media enabled Obama to have direct engagement with the American public, and was a channel for him to present himself as an ‘ordinary’ person; having dinner with people in the community who have sponsored his campaign.

His use of social media encouraged the public to sign up to receive live election news, through their social media profiles and mobile phones - a clever promise to engage with voters on a personal level.

And hats off to Number 10 for also embracing social media as an instant portal to the British public, but some considerations do need to be made when using it.

After negative public comments on the Number 10 YouTube channel, the option to comment on posts was disabled. Taking a few tactics from Obama’s book, such as better message delivery by Gordon Brown and welcoming comment and debates, could be more successful in encouraging wider public engagement.

With social media, YouTube especially, being used mainly for entertainment purposes, it’s inevitable that the number of unfavourable videos of Gordon; picking his nose and ‘running like a big girl’, will outnumber those posted by Number 10, and will receive thousands more views.

With the rise in social media interest from British politics and such a growing political online forum, could Obama’s winning online campaign be a taste of what’s to come in the next general election? Here’s hoping.

Posted by Sally Barr

Last Friday Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk) became the first person to attract one million followers on Twitter.

Twitter is in serious growth (some data even suggests that it is doubling in size month on month) and even Oprah Winfrey (@oprah) has started tweeting.  Since a seal of approval from Oprah can send an unknown author to the top of the best seller charts, heaven knows what it’ll do for Twitter take up among the masses.

Which is all very well, but Twitter users, whether they be brands, celebrities or Oprah fans need to bear in mind exactly who they are twittering to and who they would like to follow them:

Friends?
Customers?
Colleagues and competitors?
Journalists?

Twitter is very similar to blogging in that you can’t control who reads it.  You can only create open and honest content that is most likely to appeal to the kind of people you are trying to attract. 

Ashton Kutcher may have 1M followers, but he is in the business of putting bums on cinema seats.  You might want to be seen as a thought leader in your particular industry sub-sector or as a helpful point of customer contact, which makes it more important that the right people follow you rather than the actual quantity of followers.

posted by GemmaT

I really must say hats off to the creative team behind Aleksandr (sic) the meerkat, which I’m sure you’ll all know by now as comparethemarket.com’s fabulous new marketing concept. And of course congratulations to the in house marketing chiefs who stuck their necks out to sign it off.

You can imagine them all scratching their heads saying, ‘we love it, but will everyone else?’ And of course we do! He is just one of those characters we can’t help but love.
Not only is the ad a stoke of genius, but they have followed it through in a really impressive way.

If you haven’t yet compared meerkats, I suggest you do here . They could have so easily gone for just a holding page to link the two sites, but allowing people to create ‘scubakat’ from Rio and comparing it with ‘rollerkat’ from Miami Beach gives their integrated campaign credibility and creates the longevity which will help people remember who was behind it all. Given they have reported the site crashed recently due to traffic overload, it seems a resounding success.

Twinkling on Twitter

Such a lovable character as Aleksandr works fantastically with social networking sites, and his Facebook page is clearly helping him establish a cult fan base, with 111,215 signed up to date. But it’s Twitter where Aleksandr really shines.

His regular updates about his solid gold golf clubs and his fur coat from Minsk keep him firmly in mind. Posting photos of his meerkat mum and dad encourage his Twitter fans to interact with him, and after a fortnight where the world appears to have gone Tweeting crazy, I’m sure his fanbase there of just under 3,000 is set to grow.

It’s great to see the campaign also uses PPC to generate maximum awareness - shown here -who would have thought ‘meerkat’ would be a desirable key word?

You might think that while Aleksandr is fun, and is an entertaining friend on have online, he won’t actually bring home the bacon. I think you’ll be wrong. Wrapping up his concept so closely with the name of comparethemarket.com means we will remember not only him, but why he existed. I for one have been impressed enough to mentally commit to making them the first place I look when I need to renew my car insurance.

Even the son of a mongoose would agree. Simples!

(For more info see)

Posted by Charlotte Hancock

After working in PR for five years, I’m always looking at new ways to promote my client, add something fresh to a campaign or just throw something different into my PR toolkit.

When I began working in this industry, social media wasn’t really mixed into the PR pot, yet now, there are endless possibilities to bring our PR campaigns well and truly into the digital age.

The changing face of the media never ceases to amaze me.  Media coverage of Barack Obama’s inauguration really demonstrated the multitude of channels available to us, both as consumers and PR professionals. If you weren’t content with tuning into the live, streaming coverage on BBC or Sky News, there was always the real-time commentary from other sources.  Not only could you log on to the constant updates on news websites or click onto  camera-phone coverage on You Tube, you even the chance to see the trivialities of the day through Twitter feeds from those in the crowd, anxious to share their own experience of the day’s historic events.

It really showed that we’re living in an online world, where news travels so much faster and where stories are often broken or made online.

Now, I’m the first to admit, I’m no technology whiz.  I’ve spent years hitting the phones, selling in stories and helping clients achieve creative campaigns but have only just dabbled with social media.

Now it’s definitely time to challenge myself and that’s exactly why I’ve joined the OnVisible team at Brahm.  I’m excited about embarking on this journey into the OnVisible world and look forward to unveiling the latest wonders the web has to offer.

Posted by Jessica Davenport.

It seems we Brits love Twitter.

Up, Up and away

How are you?  Are you coping with the name calling, finger pointing, endless examination of your value and purpose?  Did you ever think you would become the worldwide phenomenon you appear to be (especially in the US) or does it scare you a little..are you waiting for the party to be over, do you worry about a younger, better model coming along?  How do you feel about President Barack Obama, Wossy and Janis Krums? Grateful?  Did you ever think your ‘what are you doing now?’ idea would become the finger on the pulse, the mood of nations?  Will less and less people say they “don’t get it” and more and more say they “have to have it”?  Well, in time, we’ll see.  Keep us posted, stay in touch and remember if you can’t say it in less than 140 characters,then you might need a blog!