Social Media, Digital Marketing & PR Agency

Wow!  Don’t things change fast.  Not so long ago, no serious marketer would’ve let senior executives talk off the cuff on a video and slap it up on the internet for all to see.  But after reading this article in US Advertising Age, that’s just what’s happening at MasterCard no less.

Quoting from the article, Andrew Foote, senior VP in the digital media practice at WPP’s Cohn & Wolfe, MasterCard’s PR agency, said unlike three to five years ago when web content had to be polished and professionally produced, MasterCard has gone the low-production route. It’s taping its executives using Flip video camcorders, editing the video on laptops and uploading them to YouTube.

“They’re realizing they can comment on issues and get the points of view of their experts out there and on the record,” Mr. Foote said. Once the videos are up, the company will often tweet the links and follow up with reporters letting them know MasterCard commented on the topic.

“Sometimes those videos end up on the blogs of those publications and [it] leads to building online relationships with reporters, analysts and industry influencers,” Mr. Foote said. He said MasterCard isn’t “necessarily becoming less reliant” on mainstream media; the company just realizes it’s not the only game in town, and, when speed is of the essence, creating its own content or relying on digital channels is the best approach.

“Sometimes mainstream [media] can’t keep up with the needs of the company to get stuff out,” Mr. Foote said.

Precisely.  We couldn’t have said it better ourselves.  Here are The Funky Agency we are all experienced ‘traditional’ marketing and PR folk, but also experts in the new shiny digital and social media.  Things have moved so rapidly that traditional and digital are of equal importance now – the days of letting a student or somebody junior with some spare time to ‘do a bit of Twittering and Facebook’ are well past.

We’re encouraging clients to take digital cameras and flip camcorders with them to meetings, so that they can capture material to use in their SM campaigns.  Of course, we are on hand to ensure that their corporate messaging stays true and that they are communicating the right information to their target audience. But the days of the uber polished corporate video and the ‘planned months in advance’ photo shoot, are diminishing.

Social Media is fast, furious but a deadly serious business now – you have been warned!

Book To be Published by Bookshaker.

I wrote an ebook last year to help businesses understand what social media can do to help them market themselves and increase their traffic. It was a takeaway product for The Funky Agency, the digital marketing and PR agency that is now all grown up and known as The Media Marketing Co, where we help clients plan and implement their marketing and PR, micro manage and depth mine their Social Media, sort out their SEO in every part of their digital arena, create SEO-rich and compulsive content and products, and join all the dots to establish a robust and cohesive online brand or campaign.

Called ‘WTF Can Social Media do for Your Business’ it soon proved a great hit with our visitors and is often quoted to me as a trusted source.. and then…cue trumpet fanfare!… I was signed up by Bookshaker (Lean Marketing Press) to write a full-length version for publication in eBook, Kindle and paperback.

The new extended edition includes the expected drill down descriptions and guidelines for businesses using the main social media sites, including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, Squidoo, MySpace, smaller and more niche sites, and Bookmarking sites, such as Delicious, Stumbleupon and Digg. What to do, who should be doing it, how to do it and how to measure it to keep tabs on your ROI and not lose heart. All as expected.

However, my book on using social media for b2b business goes much further as it also includes setting up and running a business/corporate blog for maximum leverage, how to plan your PR and marketing alongside your social media to amplify your messaging, plan your digital strategy, raise your brand’s profile and protect it in the digital space, join the dots and make it all happen seamlessly.

Basically it’s a brain dump – but a beautifully written and edited one, obviously!

Lean Marketing Press have a history of being innovators, with ‘Dangerous Debs‘, one of their two founders, being very active in internet marketing, well, since forever. This bodes well as Lean Marketing Press’s marketing is much better focused than any other publisher I know, and this coupled with our comprehensive digital media marketing expertise, could mean that, to rip off a fairly well known advertising campaign slogan, this book I am currently gestating may very well reach areas other books fail to reach…

More than 40 per cent of shoppers unaware of fake reviews online, Reevoo survey shows

London, 21 October 2009 – Millions of British shoppers are at risk of
falling for fake reviews online, suggests a recent YouGov survey,
commissioned by shopping advice site, Reevoo.com.

77 per cent of online shoppers use reviews and ratings* when purchasing,
yet more than 40 per cent (41%) are unaware that some reviews online may be
not completely genuine. The older generation (45-54 year olds) is most
likely to fall victim to fake reviews as almost half (47%) were unaware of
the existence of fake reviews online. Almost 1 in 10 respondents (9%) who
purchased items based on reviews, felt misled and subsequently unhappy
about their purchases.

Household names such as Belkin and DeLonghi have already been caught and
chastised for posting fake reviews online. However, with a low level of
consumer awareness and no means of ‘policing’ user-generated opinion,
fake reviews are still a common occurrence. Sellers on Amazon Marketplace
and eBay are notorious for publishing misleading or even fake reviews in a
bid to improve their rating, said respondents.

The government has recently taken action in The Consumer Protection from
Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 which states that it is now a legal offence
to “falsely represent oneself as a consumer”. But although this law has
been in place for more than a year, it has proved impossible to enforce and
police across the internet. The Office of Trading Standards is still
heavily relying on consumers to report the instances of fake reviews.

According to the research, shoppers are taken in by highly promising
reviews of beauty products including acne and anti-aging creams, laser-hair
removal kits, hairloss-preventing shampoos, teeth whitening pastes and diet
pills. They soon find out that customer reviews, even when provided by
‘real people’, exaggerated the benefits. One respondent said about his
‘fake review’ experience: “I bought shampoo to stop hairloss, what a
fool.”

“Customer reviews are such a valuable tool for everyone in the shopping
community, whether it’s shoppers, retailers or manufacturers. Fake
reviews jeopardise this community for everyone. It is the responsibility of
the retailers and manufacturers to provide accurate and true customer
opinion. If this cannot be guaranteed, then they should not offer it at
all,” said Richard Anson, CEO, Reevoo.

Fake reviews are not that easy to spot, but consumers can ask a few
questions to help them determine whether they are dealing with an opinion
provided by a real person.

•        Does the review sound like a sales person has written it?
•        Does it stand out? Are the rest of the reviews negative and yet
this one is overly positive or vice versa?
•        Is this a first review this person has written?
•        Put the review into a search engine. Has it been duplicated on lots
of review web sites?

Via SourceWire

The ritual of making tea or coffee for your office colleagues is about to be transformed with the launch of www.officecuppa.co.uk an online method for storing drinks preferences.

OfficeCuppa is free and allows the creation of a simple list detailing tea,
coffee or other hot drinks. Members can choose the strength of their drink
and the quantity of milk and sugar using an attractively designed
horizontal slider, coupled with a handy  function allowing the ‘Brew
List’ to be printed ready for display in the kitchen area.

The orange and tan themed website allows users to move their list-making
from temperamental .doc lists carelessly stored on a PC desktop to a wizzy
online system.

As more office communication goes through sites like F**cbook, Tw@tter and
Link’dbin, one of Britain’s oldest office traditions has finally had
the online support it needs to survive in a wired world.

According to the team behind OfficeCuppa the site also gives a voice to
drinkers who have more extreme likes. “Those people who enjoy tea like
‘flea-pee’ or ‘builders-mud’ now have a way of reminding their
colleagues that a ‘middling’ brew is not for them”,  a spokesperson
said. This site could mean the end of ever needing to repeat that question
“How to you take yours?”.

OfficeCuppa even helps those poor mugs reliant upon a capitalist vending
machine for refreshment as it will remind you of the type of ‘slurry’
to order.

Soon to have office celebra-titty endorsement, OfficeCuppa has been brewed
up for use by workers united by their hate of graft and love of a nicely
made cuppa.

For more information please visit www.officecuppa.co.uk

Press release from Ulitzer

Launched in March 2008, Kaixin001 already has more than 50 million subscribers in China and among Chinese speakers across the world, and is attracting about 200,000 new registrations a day. With subscribers now mainly accessing the website via their PCs, the cooperation between Ericsson and Kaixin001 will bring new applications that will allow users to manage their virtual space, interact with friends and stay updated on their online communities, all via their mobile devices – anytime, anywhere. Future services could include real-time uploading of photos and videos from mobile phones, SMS alerts on a favorite celebrity’s activities, and location-based services, such as checking if friends are nearby.

Press release

Alterian Establishes Social Media Marketing Council to Champion Responsible Use of Social Data by Organizations

19 October 2009 Alterian (LSE: ALN) the leading international integrated
marketing platform provider today announced the launch of the Social Media
Marketing Council (SMMC) an independent committee designed to ensure the
responsible use of social media and the resulting data by commercial
organizations. This new council has attracted leading figures from the
business and marketing worlds to ensure that data collected by businesses
through social channels is used ethically and responsibly. The announcement
was made at annual marketing event – DMA ’09 in San Diego.

The SMMC will be an independently chaired organization with a mandate to:

-    Help regulate how businesses harvest and use data from social
networks and other online channels
-    Provide guidance on what constitutes responsible use of social
media data
-    Encourage organizations to use best practice when they interact
with consumers.

“Nobody joins a social network or uses online public communications tools
to become a sales target, however it’s inevitable that organizations will
recognize the opportunity that emerges when a huge mass of people
congregate,” said Michael Fisher, Senior Vice President Sales and
Marketing, Alterian. “While Alterian is committed to helping businesses
market their products and solutions in an innovative fashion, it needs to
ensure they do so in a responsible way. By establishing the SMMC, we are
championing best practice in how businesses market using social channels,
while relying on third party communications experts to lead the way for the
best, most responsible use of consumer data generated via such social
channels”

The council will be chaired by Bernice Grossman, principal consultant and
founder of the DMRS Group and includes representatives from leading
marketing services providers such as Merkle and Targetbase. As a leader in
the integrated marketing space, Alterian is sponsoring the formation of
this group to help foster a positive approach for businesses to the use of
social media for marketing purposes.

“The explosion in social media has dangled a huge carrot in front of
organizations that see it as nothing more than an opportunity to scrape
email addresses and phone numbers for their direct marketing efforts,”
said Grossman. “This council is designed to bring together industry
leaders to draw the line of what is acceptable for organizations to do when
gathering information from, or marketing via, social channels. We’re
hopeful that businesses will pledge their support for the SMMC to
demonstrate that they’re interested in the rights of the consumer, not
just in making a fast buck.”

The SMMC will provide guidelines, documentation and best practice advice
for organizations on exactly what kind of data it is acceptable to source
through social media, and how they should be using it responsibly for lead
generation and customer service. There will be an online portal to provide
access to these resources, which will include a discussion forum and
opportunities for companies to demonstrate that they are exhibiting best
practices. The council will meet for the first time at the DMA in San Diego
and thereafter on a quarterly basis to discuss the latest developments in
this space, with the first objective to define what constitutes the
unacceptable use of social media information.

“We all have responsibilities when it comes to using social media for
marketing purposes,” said Don Patrick, Chief Operating Officer, Merkle
– a leading customer relationship management agency. “Customers will
rapidly grow tired of aggressive social targeting and businesses are likely
to do themselves more harm than good by trying to over-exploit social
channels. As responsible marketers we need to be self governing to ensure
we have the consumer’s best interests at heart.”

The council is currently made up of the following representatives and
organizations

•    Bernice Grossman, Founder & Principal Consultant, DMRS Group
(Chair)
•    Jennifer Barrett, Global Privacy and Public Policy Executive,
Acxiom
•    Don Patrick , Chief Operating Officer, Merkle
•    Trae Clevinger, VP Strategy & Innovation, TargetBase
•    Jim Schwab, VP Business Development Social Media, Alterian
•    Janet Rubio, Chief Insights Officer, Engauge
•    Mike Coakley, Vice President Marketing Technology, Epsilon

“Maintaining one’s privacy, especially online, gets more challenging
and important to individuals every day. Businesses are equally challenged
to identify the boundaries around what represents responsible use of social
media for marketing purposes,” said Jennifer Barrett, Global Privacy and
Public Policy Executive, Acxiom. “The formation of this council is a
fantastic step in setting the acceptable standards for organizations and
ensuring they think about what they do with the information they have
access to.”

Press Release

Recent social media trends are showing that social networks that add value
in terms of real life activity and social interaction are becoming
increasingly popular according to Punch Communications, a PR agency with a
client list stretching to all corners of the globe.

The recent popularity of social networks such as Foursquare and Qype show
that many users enjoy participating in communities that result in them
having new experiences in real life, for example visiting new bars or
restaurants.

Foursquare allows its users to let everyone else know what their favourite
activities are in the major cities of the USA and now London, including the
ability to become the virtual Mayor of a personal favourite venue if it is
checked into by them often enough. Some venues are even offering prizes to
the users who check in most frequently using the application. Users are
also notified of a recommendation whenever they get near to a venue
frequented by one of their contacts.

Social networks like Dopplr are popular due to their ability to map
people’s social and geographical movements. Dopplr allows its users to
log a planned trip, notifying them if their destinations co-inside with any
of their contacts – a useful meet-up tool. Users can also get information
on any new destinations that they haven’t visited before from their
respective communities.

Note from The Funky Agency – Not sure which social networks to use or how to leverage your or your clients’ brand awareness on social networks? We can help you keep updated and in the mix in social networks of any type and size, as well as keeping your blogs up to date and increasing your online profile. Email us now for a free consultation on how we can help you – team@thefunkyagency.com

PRESS RELEASE

Social Media Marketing and Digital PR company, The Funky Agency, has won a contract to provide comprehensive Social Media management services to leading international freelance PR organisation, The PR Network.

The Funky Agency will be working with The PR Network to raise their profile across a host of social media platforms and online publications.  In addition, The PR Network has accepted The Funky Agency into their exclusive group of ‘recommended only’ consultants, and will be offering The Funky Agency’s services to its clients.

Nicky Imrie, Director of The PR Network said,

“Social Media has been growing in importance in the PR world for a while now, but this year it’s gone very mainstream.  However, we struggle to keep up with the fast-pace of the SM world as so much of our working day is taken up with meetings and writing.  Having The Funky Agency on board means that we can give them quick updates from our laptops or iPhones, and they broadcast what we’re up to across our social network, from Twitter to Facebook.  We know that our clients, both blue chips and PR agencies, have the same sort of issues that we have, which is why we are keen to show them that outsourcing to The Funky Agency is a practical solution.”

Claire Burdett, Director of The Funky Agency commented,

“Coming from a marketing and editorial background, I know how difficult it is to integrate traditional methods of marketing and promotion with the array of digital techniques that must be applied to contemporary campaigns.  All of us at The Funky Agency are seasoned professionals and know how to take the strain from our clients and provide a comprehensive Social Media management service that integrates fully with other elements of the marketing spectrum to leverage maximum coverage and profile.”

The Funky Agency is a specialist Social Media management, digital marketing, design & development agency.  It has expertise with both B2C and B2B clients and works directly with companies to enhance their brand profile, websites and development as well as providing an outsourced team for PR agencies.

The PR Network matches the best PR freelancers in the market with clients’ briefs. By drawing on an unrivalled global network of talented consultants, it delivers communications resourcing to blue chip brands, select agencies and high potential start-ups. Headquartered in London, UK, The PR Network spans the UK, continental Europe, Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), the USA (East and West Coast) and the APAC region.  There are over 400 senior consultants in The PR Network who are admitted only after a strict selection process.

For further information on The Funky Agency please look at www.thefunkyagency.com or contact Claire Burdett on: team@thefunkyagency.com or + 44 (0)7788 887534