How do the Global Fortune 100 use social media?
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I work for BM London, so I thought I’d share the latest report on social technology usage.
#MWC10 :My Sony Ericsson Developer liveblog starts this Sunday night!
As many of you know, I am the PR for Sony Ericsson Developer World. Because colleagues and I have been planning for Mobile World Congress, I thought what could be better than sharing the latest updates of the event? Starting on Sunday, we’ll be streaming a live webcast the Sunday press conference, and sharing information from a dedicated page. If you’re not already linked up to us via the social tools on this page, I’ll update you from this blog.
Do you deserve a smack in the Face (book)? Irritating characters on social networks
A quick funny thanks to The Oatmeal reminded me of one of the challenges of interacting on social networks; namely getting through to people who are weary of being spammed, annoyed and stalked by their own connections. What is surprising is the lack of  ’unfriending’ that happens on Facebook as a result. Even when I get annoying content, it takes quite a lot of time before the offending person invades my social space so much that I have to give them the heave-ho. I tend to leave groups if they overdo the email reminder function, and I always turn down fan pages that bear no relevance to my life. Apart from that I’m relatively placid. I find that having too much of a stringent policy means you sometimes miss the ‘good crap’ –  namely the event invite that was actually really good, the link to the blog that inspired an idea I had at work, the party in another country that you find out a friend of yours is actually going to and maybe you could go there as a birthday treat.  It’s what I call the TK Maxx Theory – namely that you wade through loads of dull stuff and in there you’ll always find a few jewels.  But not every user is as open to random information as me. It would be interesting to get your views on how avoiding the ‘Facebook annoyance’ tag affects your business activities on that medium?
The role of social technologies in facilitating interactive, responsive enterprises
This is a LONG web cast, but worth every moment. Thanks to Jeremiah Owyang and the Altimeter Group.
Reading articles from today’s Economist report really brought home the extent to which not matter what the ’social media echo chamber’ on Twitter likes to say about the effectiveness of web  2.0 approaches in comms, the fact is that most of the rest of the business is in no way prepared for interaction. We have moved from a ‘tell me’ society to a ’show/speak with me’ society; requiring greater proof of companies’ brand  ’proof points’,  more consideration of their services’ relevance to customers’ daily lives. What’s more, new competitors are entering the market constantly who do ’show me’ really well.
Marshall MacLuhan’s refrain, “The medium is the message” has never been truer – ’social media’ is indicative of this show me culture.
Therefore our real role as consultants is not just to execute campaigns that impress the central marketing function, but also to coach and strategically guide the business as a whole to become more social, that is:  empathetic, authentic, responsive, conversational… like a group of humans committed to a common goal rather than relying seemingly entirely on the communication of  a ‘brand’ or USP to its stakeholder communities.  We need to teach a man to fish, that is, to get people in HR, R&D, customer service listening and interacting (regardless of whether that is on or off-line) on their own, rather than being their ’social media arms and legs’, which regardless of rhetoric, is often still the case. Like ‘digital management consultancy’ if you will.
Twincentivising: Would you Tweet about a brand for cash?
Couldn’t help but to send out a quick post after reading about ‘Twincentivising’ – I do it a lot as a PR, but I chose to work on my current clients so it’s a moot point. But consumers? Hmmmm…. Let me know what you think:
Loading ...Shameless tech fetishism: the iPad
I’m sleepy, so I’ll keep this short. After procrastinating over whether I get a Sony Vaio netbook, or this, I *might* go into the Apple store and have a peek. Enjoy the video of the iPad in action thanks to TechCrunch.
The Digital Economy Bill: Let them eat content!
The wires have been awash with articles decrying the much maligned Digital Economy Bill, for seemingly criminalising internet users, hamstringing broadband providers and leave unsuspecting users vulnerable to Wi-Fi hackers, who could then get them in trouble for using P2P services on their network. What immediately springs to mind is the fact that this bill misses the point: piracy is a market signal; it suggests that one should create an alternative service, that is ‘better than piracy’, based on flexible and inventive revenue models in order to make headway towards a solution.
ThinkBroadband has already rightly pointed out the fact that the bill will likely produce a cottage industry for web developers making apps that hide filesharers’ tracks, boost the use of darknets, and drive money away from music publishing houses in the longer term anyway (which might hopefully boost the attention given to smaller, independent artists and labels that promote themselves directly using social tools). And yes, of course I see why rights holders are pushing for this legislation. We’ve all got to eat. But coming up with a compromise that works for all wouldn’t hurt either…
