There has been a lot of talk lately about the relative merits and burgeoning role that #hashtags are playing online.
The increased usage, thanks to bots and mainstream adoption has inevitably led to overuse and abuse of #hashtags, but I remain a firm believer that beauty, (relevance and usefulness) is in the eye of the beholder. ‘One man’s treasure’ and all that.
I see Twitter as a massive jumble sale type place. By this, I mean no money exchanges hands, just ideas and thoughts and like a real jumble sale there are some real finds to be had, as well as some real tat.
You never know what or who is going to turn up, but if you look hard enough you will find some treasure (David Dickinson style). That is what makes Twitter alluring…there are no rules. You don’t care what someone has had for lunch, but there are some great conversations and networking opportunities to be had.
And unlike a jumble sale…it is all free. You just need to look around. #hashtags help to bring some of these gems to the fore.
Whilst, I fully accept that the ‘mutton dressed as lamb’ analogy could be applied to #hashtags e.g. ‘spam masquerading as #hashtags’, in spite of the spamdexers, they have a big part to play in the web 2.0 world.
After all, anything that helps us spot trends and monitor online conversations has a very real use in the PR industry.
25 July, 2009
10 July, 2009
Afghan election candidate goes digital
I was delighted to hear this week that a revolution of the social media kind is happening in Afghanistan.
Whilst Twitter is still causing Tehran to tremble, Dr Ashraf Ghani, a candidate in the forthcoming Afghan election has been emailing campaign messages and policy to supporters that have internet access.
These supporters in turn host community events where it is hoped Ghani’s manifesto will be scribbled down and communicated by word-of-mouth to remote communities. It is great to see old (WOM) and new (digital) strands of PR working in harmony on a brief such as this.
The second part of the campaign is to target Afghans that live abroad and get them to raise funds and become politically aware of their homeland. Ghani is using Twitter and Youtube to win their hearts and minds.
The ever expanding use of social media demonstrates that digital PR is not a fad. With 1.5 billion people online, digital PR will eventually get everywhere – and rightly so.
Whilst digital is not going to replace traditional PR; clients will start expecting a digital strand to campaigns. After all, if they are going digital in Afghanistan, why aren’t you?
It remains to be seen how effective this social media and WOM campaign will be in a country where only 5% have internet access. However anything that can help bring about democracy and stability to the region is to be applauded.
Whilst Twitter is still causing Tehran to tremble, Dr Ashraf Ghani, a candidate in the forthcoming Afghan election has been emailing campaign messages and policy to supporters that have internet access.
These supporters in turn host community events where it is hoped Ghani’s manifesto will be scribbled down and communicated by word-of-mouth to remote communities. It is great to see old (WOM) and new (digital) strands of PR working in harmony on a brief such as this.
The second part of the campaign is to target Afghans that live abroad and get them to raise funds and become politically aware of their homeland. Ghani is using Twitter and Youtube to win their hearts and minds.
The ever expanding use of social media demonstrates that digital PR is not a fad. With 1.5 billion people online, digital PR will eventually get everywhere – and rightly so.
Whilst digital is not going to replace traditional PR; clients will start expecting a digital strand to campaigns. After all, if they are going digital in Afghanistan, why aren’t you?
It remains to be seen how effective this social media and WOM campaign will be in a country where only 5% have internet access. However anything that can help bring about democracy and stability to the region is to be applauded.
04 July, 2009
Game Changer welcomed to the fore
I was pleased to see recently that a quartet of Labour bloggers have risen to the online challenge and formed Game Changer – a new digital PR consultancy. They are headed up by David Prescott, son of the former Deputy PM and punch slinging heavyweight, John.
Two of the GC team played key roles in Labour’s recent online Go Fourth campaign, so it will be fascinating to see how they compete with the Tories and Lib Dems in the new fangled web 2.0 world.
Alastair Campbell said: ‘It’s fair to say Labour’s online campaigning has been playing catch-up with the Tories’.
I dare say that is an understatement by Campbell.
Hopefully this new agency can challenge the Tory monopoly on digital comms and they are already off to a promising start having landed some big lefty clients. When Labours online campaigning picks up, we know who will be responsible.
Two of the GC team played key roles in Labour’s recent online Go Fourth campaign, so it will be fascinating to see how they compete with the Tories and Lib Dems in the new fangled web 2.0 world.
Alastair Campbell said: ‘It’s fair to say Labour’s online campaigning has been playing catch-up with the Tories’.
I dare say that is an understatement by Campbell.
Hopefully this new agency can challenge the Tory monopoly on digital comms and they are already off to a promising start having landed some big lefty clients. When Labours online campaigning picks up, we know who will be responsible.
03 July, 2009
Succession planning in social media
There has been a lot of talk lately about succession planning for corporate blogs and Twitter accounts. For instance what happens when an employee – often the name and face of your corporate blog moves on to pastures new?
There has been recent cases where employees have departed and taken that hard earned kudos (and importantly, relationships) with them to their new employer and some organisation have been left peering nervously into the digital abyss.
Best practice, it seems is to have several people at your organisation all blogging and tweeting at the same time, to avoid one person becoming the digital face or ‘premier blogger’ of your company.
In addition, encouraging all your staff to disclose where they work, as well as to actively engage with social media seems just the tonic. This will also help to mitigate the ‘premier blogger’ scenario that a lot of agencies seem to suffer from, which in turn perpetuates the succession-planning headache.
There has been recent cases where employees have departed and taken that hard earned kudos (and importantly, relationships) with them to their new employer and some organisation have been left peering nervously into the digital abyss.
Best practice, it seems is to have several people at your organisation all blogging and tweeting at the same time, to avoid one person becoming the digital face or ‘premier blogger’ of your company.
In addition, encouraging all your staff to disclose where they work, as well as to actively engage with social media seems just the tonic. This will also help to mitigate the ‘premier blogger’ scenario that a lot of agencies seem to suffer from, which in turn perpetuates the succession-planning headache.
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