Posts Tagged ‘social media’

Number 10’s social media story

January 10th, 2012

Storify is one of my favourite online tools

Every time I’ve ever demoed it to someone unfamiliar with it, they always love it and it’s not hard to see why; it has a great UI, is simple to use and has a ton of different potential applications; from curating a news story, a conference or event, to pulling together a discussion taking place on twitter or other places on the web, used in the right way it gives a story depth and resonance.

It was with interest then, that yesterday I saw that Downing Street has started using Storify. The irony of course was this was just as the news broke about the fact that Olympic volunteers have been tightly restricted from using social media while at events.   Storify makes perfect sense as a PR tool, you can carefully craft exactly the story you want your audience to see, with no messy bits that haven’t been approved.  But what number 10 need to understand is that, like any good story, it’s only going to be interesting with colour and variety; if you create a corporate, vanilla version of an event, no one is going to give it a second glance.  The ‘Olympic Cabinet meeting – 200 days to go’ Story from Number 10 is little more than a glossy press release with no commentary or content from third parties (which is of course, the beauty of Storify).

So Number10gov you may find that Storify doesn’t work for you, because if you insist on having complete control over every element of your social media ’story’, you’ll find that no-one will give it a second glance.

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Social Media & Digital Predictions for 2012

January 4th, 2012

Tech and media bloggers fall over each other to herald in the new year with predictions that 2012 will be the ‘Year of….’
I’m adding my voice to that cacophony but with the proviso that I will come back in December, revisit them and we can decide whether I was completely off the mark, somewhere near or, in fact, the leading new oracle.

So my 5 predictions for 2012:

1. From real-time to slowing down. Heard a lot of talk about this at sxsw in 2011 but seeing an increasing number of blog posts about it from tech early adopters and certainly feeling it myself. Have we all gorged ourselves on ‘real-time’ instant communications to such an extent that we are feeling the need for abstinence? Inevitably when these new technologies were created, we all crammed ourselves with them in a feeding frenzy. But frequently now I want to shout “SLOW DOWN”, it’s not a race. Faster isn’t always better.

2. The rise and rise of the storyteller. It’s arguable that storytelling is already the comic sans of the digital world, so much is the term being banded about but there are two sides to this that I want to flag up. Firstly, this is the year that I think more and more organisations will come to understand the importance of storytelling when developing their content for social media content and secondly, the rise of live storytelling in the UK (see The Moth for an idea if you’ve never been to a live storytelling event). The first London Storytelling Festival took place in October 2011 and other small events are popping up all over the UK, like Tales of Whatever, in Manchester. This can only be a good thing. There is nothing and I repeat, nothing that warms the heart as much as a good story.

3. Listening as much as reading. Audio is on the up. Audio stories (see no 2 above and please, if you’ve never done so, go to This American Life this instant and listen to one of the podcasts) and audio for reporting. I know this isn’t new but I think 2012 will be the year that audio in social really explodes.

4. A return to long form. Five years ago, Twitter turned the heads of bloggers and they skipped off into the sunset holding hands, leaving behind a trail of broken and abandoned blogs. This was desperately sad as many brilliant writers went from posting 3 or 4 times a week to once a month if we were lucky. It’s great that so many are returning to those blogs, dusting them off and reacquainting themselves. Yes I know that blogging generally has continued to grow in the last 5 years but I’m talking about the really good, thought-provoking bloggers that you can’t wait to read. There aren’t many of those.

5. The year social media stopped being talked about as a separate ‘thing’. Will 2012 be the year that the overall knowledge level as risen to such an extent that we can stop the echo chamber discussions about whether social media ‘matters’ or how to measure engagement. Personally I’m hoping on this one but realise it’s a long shot.

So they are my wise {sic} predictions. Let’s see how we get on…

*Image: J W Waterhouse’s The Crystal Ball, courtesy oubliette (reproduced under Creative Commons license)

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What a difference six months makes…

November 3rd, 2010

Poor neglected blog.  It’s been six long months since I’ve posted.  Except it feels like about six minutes.

Anyway, so much has happened.  Many interesting developments in my own life and about a zillion fascinating things in tech land.

But tonight in particular I was reminded how quickly things can change out there in computer land.  Six months ago I did a blog post titled, ‘Where were you when?‘, it sort of related to the historical UK election and hung parliament but also to the increasing importance of location based services (having just come back from sxsw where that was all anybody was discussing).  And for six months now, on and off in training gigs, I’ve been using a quote  I scribbled down at sxsw (and apologies to whoever said it, I didn’t make a note of the name):

“Your current location (and location habits) will further enhance the delivery of your digital experiences.  Content will become increasingly aware of its surroundings and configure itself accordingly”

What a difference six months makes indeed. Google launched Google Places, which allows you to search specific for specific venues (hotels, restaurants, shops etc) by location, Facebook launched Facebook Places, a mobile app that effectively mimicked Foursquare and Gowalla by letting you share your physical location with your friends by checking into places.  And tonight they weighed in with another major, location, based development: Facebook Deals, effectively letting businesses offer deals to customers who ‘check-in’ to their venue using the Facebook app.  So again, not a new idea but what makes it so important of course it that when a heavyweight like Facebook do something, it has the potential to change everything.  For even small businesses who have a physical rather than online sales operation, this is a chance to turn ‘friends’ into actual cash sales.  This round-up by The Next Web tells you all you need to know about today’s Facebook announcements.

Here’s to the next six months.

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Social media fatigue and tweeting taxi cabs

April 6th, 2010

After coming back from SXSW I was suffering a bit from social media fatigue. Despite deliberately avoiding panels that had social media in any part of the description (always a rehash of the same stuff; the gems at SXSW are in random, bizarre and more pure tech based panels – oh and Clay Shirky), the endless talk about location based services being the next social media landgrab left me feeling a bit, well, bored of it all. Apart from my chat with the lovely James Hart of course ;)

And I’m even more dulled by the never ending “10 ways to demonstrate social media ROI”, “5 ways to build a blog”, “3 ways to skin a cat” blah blah blah.

Then I saw this post by Will McInnes about how taking a break from work, on holiday in the real world, made it even clearer to him how much of a feedback loop the world of social media can be, “Because it has got a bit cluttered and noisy and samey and frankly, a bit overwhelming hasn’t it?” I couldn’t agree more.

But then, just when I was feeling particularly jaded, I had a lovely experience that reminded me of why social media can be hugely enabling. I’ve talked before about the power of social media to build communities but down in London last week I came across a fantastic example. Tweetalondoncab are a collective of London black cab drivers who have got together to offer direct bookings of black cabs via twitter. It’s a great service and one I’d highly recommend. But it’s not the service itself that I wanted to mention, it’s the way in which their use of twitter has helped to build an offline community for the drivers.

My driver was @cabbydavid and he explained how twitter has been fantastic for building a network of like minded friends,”I love it, if it’s 2am and I’m quiet, I just tweet that I’m going to xyz cafe for a cup of tea and I meet up with some of the other cabbies for a chat”. He went on to say that using twitter had expanded his circle of friends and made the whole experience of being a London cab driver, just, well, better. Simple, effective and a reminder that social media doesn’t have to change the world, sometimes it’s enough that it helps us connect with others.

As an aside, we talked briefly about how they could incorporate Foursquare or Gowalla into their services. I’m still pondering this one; tie-ups with cafes, bars? 10% discount offered for cab journeys from various specific check-ins? If anyone has any bright ideas, I know @cabbiescapital would love to hear them.

Oh and I reckon @jackcabnory’s audioboo election updates will be well worth a listen.

*image Patrick Mayon

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Are we any nearer to the Tipping Point?

November 26th, 2009

Tipping

Econsultancy launched their Social Media and Online PR report yesterday, providing a comprehensive insight into how businesses are currently approaching social media (or not) in the UK. The headline to fall out of the report is that the overwhelming majority of companies (86%) plan to spend more money on social media in 2010, and a further 13% are planning tokeep the same level of budget.

But I think of equal interest is whether we’ve moved on in the last 12 months: are businesses really embracing social media or is there still more talk about it than actual action.

In my recent experience the only larger business that are really embedding social media into their business are either a) those with someone at board level who understands it or b) younger businesses without a pre-existing company culture to stifle it. The report bears this out citing lack of knowledge (50%), lack of senior buy-in (33%), lack of resource (32%) and company culture (28%) as the main barriers preventing clients from engaging in social media activity.

It’s also interesting that smaller organisations (turnover less than £1m) are significantly more likely to be heavily involved in social media.Makes perfect sense, it’s much easier to change direction if you’re a nippy speed boat than a lumbering cruise liner.

I was genuinely surprised that when asked what people viewed as the main benefits of social media, “increased direct traffic to website” was only viewed as a “major benefit” by 56% of respondents. I mean what? Brand awareness, customer engagement, reputation management are all vital but perhapsnot understanding how being able to demonstrate ROI by measuring the effect of activity on brand owned spaces, is why we’re not, as an industry, winning the battle of trying to convince clients why they should bother in the first place.
The first three are lovely and what we know to be valuable but on which we can’t as yet put a price tag, the last one can make it easier to open the door to the sceptic at the top table.

Overall it seems thereis still along way to go before social media engagement (is it just me or isn’t digital engagement starting to sound like a better term?) is anywhere nearbeing an accepted part of business operations. As an industry, education and best practice not quick wins, will be the only way to move this on.

That Tipping Point is a way off yet.

Image by Nicora

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