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#Twitter4brands, breaking news and this week’s bits & bytes

#Twitter4Brands: Twitter’s annual update on what’s what with brands and advertising took place yesterday. Some thoughts about it below, although it is by no means an exhaustive summary. Here’s another view from Matt Chapman on Brand Republic.

The fact that Twitter is the second screen shouldn’t surprise anyone, but it should influence how brands use Twitter to talk to their followers. 80% of Twitter activity in the UK is from mobile phones and people are tweeting about what’s happening in the real world.

I’ve talked before about this trend, so I won’t go into much more except to say that the Twitter TV book has been updated with new data.

The big news was about keyword targeting in timelines. And this one is going to be HUGE. Imagine you’re in a foreign country, your flight has been cancelled, you’re stuck and you need a place to crash. You don’t know anyone. You take to Twitter and voice your anger and frustration. You might tweet something along the lines of ‘Flight cancelled. Stuck with nowhere to go and no place to sleep. I need a hotel’. Perhaps throw in a bit of colourful language to round it off. What if there’s a hotel just down the road from you that has bought a keyword targeted tweet (say to the words ‘need’ and ‘hotel’ and that their message will pop up in anybody’s Twitter stream, provided they are within 5km of their hotel and they’ve used those two words in a public message).

Serendipity as Head of Twitter UK @TonyW called it.

Tone of voice was the big topic for the second half of the conference. The key point being that people expect brands to speak in normal language on Twitter, not in some sort of stilted, formal tone. There were many excellent examples, culminating in O2 winning the first ever Flock award for the most outstanding use of Twitter – interestingly, not for how O2 used the various promotional mechanics that Twitter showcased in the first half of the day, but for how they enter into real conversations with their followers. The most famous example of which was how they dealt with enraged customers during a network outage last year. Other excellent examples came from @The_Dolphin_Pub and @Mangal2.

Still not convinced? It’s not just Twitter who are saying that brands should be human on social media.

Finally, Gary Lineker showed up and talked about England going out to Germany at Italia90 on penalties (which I enjoyed very much) as well as the infamous Poogate (which I may actually have enjoyed more)…

… but he was mainly there to talk about how he uses Twitter to promote brand Lineker, Match of the Day as well as how he deals with trolls (Piers Morgan and Joey Barton received a special mention here).

I’ll leave it to @TonyW’s to sum up #Twitter4Brands – in just 5 tweets.

Screen Shot 2013-04-18 at 19.54.55

Breaking news: There was a lot of it this week. From the Lion Air flight that skidded off the runway in Bali into the sea, to the Boston Marathon bombing, to the exploding fertiliser factory in Texas. The Boston bombing in particular horrified many. Much has been said about how news travels on social media – and that is how I found out about all of the above: from Facebook and Twitter. Interestingly though, in all three occasions my immediate reaction was to turn on the TV. An almost knee-jerk reaction to confirm these things had actually happened. The fact that the 24 hour news channels in each instance were already on the story was weirdly reassuring, yet the longer I watched them, the more facts were replaced by wild speculation and leading questions about all of our safety. It’s nothing new really, just in a week with some much bad stuff happening, I felt very increasingly angry at the media’s fear mongering.

Interesting then to read that news actually bad for you. Rolf Dobelli argues that news causes disruption, anxiety, shallow thinking – basically that it’s a waste of time. And as I’d like to join his movement of not consuming news, that would make my job pretty darn difficult to do. Dobelli doesn’t think that all journalism is useless: he does concede a special place for investigative journalism, reporting that goes deep and uncovers truth.

Now given my chosen profession, it’ll be difficult for me to just abstain from the news, but it should act as a reminder to turn off the incessant news stream every once in a while before we all lose our minds.

Or – you could immerse yourself entirely and join Guardian Witness. Similar to CNN’s iReport, The Guardian is inviting its readers to register, pick their assignment and provide images, video and copy to cover news events. As I write this, The Guardian is calling for stories about Syrian refugees, photos of sleeping pets and how budget cuts have affected you. A simple – and free – way for the paper to augment its eyes and ears and tap into a willing network of eager freelancers.

The news lifecycle: An interesting look at how mobile has not only influenced how people consume the news, but when they consume it. FT data shows quite clearly how people get up in the morning and read the FT on their phone or tablet first thing and on their commute in to work. As soon as they get to the office, desktop readers of the FT website spike and then slowly drop off during the day. Finally, mobile devices spike for a second time as people start their commute home again. On the weekends, desktop use is low, with spikes coming early in the day from mobile devices.

Why do you see the things you see in your Facebook newsfeed? It’s not as easy as just following somebody or a brand. It depends on four factors: previous engagement, the type of content your interacting with, how popular it is within your network and increasingly, how much negative feedback its received. Here’s a clever little infographic that explains what Facebook’s Edgerank algorithm is and how it works.

Facebook Home: It launched, they made an ad, then another one with Zuck in it (bad idea), and now most people are giving it a 1 out of 5 star rating. Ouch.

Geekgasm: HMV have come out of administration and are under new ownership. To celebrate, they’ve hidden Nipper in the source code of their revamped website. Kudos to HMV for this extremely nerdy Easter egg, although I cannot for the life of me understand why you’d check out the source code of a website (HT @TomParker81)?

Videos of the week: Check out this brilliant ad from K-Mart to advertise their new direct shipping service. Ship the bed!

The dove real beauty campaign continues with real sketches

and with an even better parody.

There is much Lego awesomeness in the world and this folding Buddhist temple blew my mind (HT @gin_lane).

Bringing Instagram and CSR together: FoodShareFilter is an Instagram-esque photo filter with a purpose. Download it, and the proceeds go to an agricultural program in El Salvador run by Manos Unidas, a major charity. What better way for Hipsters to Instagram the food they eat and make it worth their while?

Viral cake: If you’ve not seen the best viral cake resignation letter ever, you’ve clearly been living under some sort of rock.

And finally: Every Facebook birthday wall, ever.

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#NowThatchersDead, monetising spam and this week’s bits and bytes

Twitter and the death of Baroness Thatcher: Wall to wall coverage, equal parts mourning and vitriol, and many, many tweets. The hashtag #nowthatchersdead started trending shortly after the news was announced – some people misread that as ‘now that Cher is dead’. An Oddbins manager tweeted that Taittinger was on offer for £10, down from the usual £29 – the message was quickly condemned as ‘shameless’ and ‘sick’ and the manager suspended. The Met Seargeant who tweeted that he hoped Thatcher’s death was ‘painful and degrading’ resigned a few days later. And then there’s Ding Dong, the With is Dead. There’s more and the Beeb has a great post on how the news was reported online.

Was it really such a surprise though? Nope.

Is the vitriol a neat summary of everything that’s wrong with Twitter? Absolutely not.

People have their opinions – with or without Twitter. The fact that any comments you make on the Internet without first activating your brain can (and will) come back to bite you is something that should be a part of media literacy courses in school. Perhaps that would have saved Paris Brown’s job as Yout Crime Commissioner?

Is the scoop dead? That is the question @Marcousleroux and @Steve_Hawkes discussed after a comment from Kevin Ryan, co-founder of Business Insider:

Marcous argues that market forces are driving people away from news gathering, while Steve believes Twitter and scoops, more than ever, are a must. Here’s the full thread (HT to @antsilverman).

Retail geekery: A bakery in Tokyo has implemented a new scanning system that scans food by recognising the shape and colour of each item, no need for a barcode or human assistance, while New Balance launches Its Own 3D-Printed Shoes. Still on 3D-Printing, our very own Rob Fraser recently spoke about 3D printing saying that we have to prepare for the fact that consumers may soon not want to buy pre-packaged iPhone cases, but build and design their own. This lovely little animated clip from GrafixTV shows how 3D printing is changing retail:

http://youtu.be/NiOKDOnJ3VE 

Facebook looking to monetise spam: Would you pay $15 to direct message Justin Bieber on Facebook? I wouldn’t, but that’s what Facebook are looking to do in the UK. The prices are staggered at $1, $10 and $15 (depending on how popular the person that you’re looking to message is) and Facebook say that it is an attempt to cut down on spam. Looks like a brilliant way to monetise millions of terabytes worth of Belieber spam. I wonder how long until artist management bods demand their cut.

Facebook Home: Facebook are serious about their new immersive mobile experience. They moved quickly to address the privacy concerns about having your entire private life display on your home screen on their newsroom blog (if you don’t want Home to appear as your lock screen, you have the option to turn that off) and they’ve launched their first ever TV ad. But is it going to be enough to get kids excited about Facebook again?

Social media investor relations: a great post from Edelman on what the SEC rule on disclosure in social media means for IR.

Crowdsourcing products: Nissan is using its social channels to allow fans to help customise and name a one-off version of the Juke Nismo. At Saino’s, we’ve crowdsourced feedback on our 20×20 sustainability plan with Green Mondays and our 20×20 event last year. We’ve also asked our fans what cookie flavour they’d like to see in store and put the results to a vote.

Source: Sainsbury’s Facebook page

Econsultancy looks at what other brands are crowdsourcing.

InstaAds are here: The Internet was up in arms when Facebook bought Instagram for $1bn because it though all photos would now be used in and as ads against their will. It’s been six months and the InstaAds haven’t materialised. Obviously, things aren’t moving fast enough for brands because they are advertising on Instagram – and neither Instagram nor Facebook are seeing a single dollar for it. Unilever and Pepsi have teamed up with celebs such as Beyonce and Nicole Richie (OK, ‘celebs’ might be stretching it a bit) for sponsored posts.

Video of the week: Dove hair care for men

and Samsung test their new washing machine in the extreme of conditions – with unexpected results.

And finally: Vinetune.com

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Facebook Home, pizza box art and this week’s bits and bytes

It’s that time of the month where I compile some of our favourite tweets of the month. This edition contains a hilarious dose of Comic Relief goodness from our colleagues around the country, featuring everything from a gorilla in a mankini to a life-size T-Rex chomping its way through the South of England.

Facebook Home: Facebook is doing exactly what they said they wouldn’t do, launch a phone. Well kind of. Only not. It’s called Facebook Home and changes your phone into one giant Facebook app (I’m most freaked out by your phone’s lock screen becomes a direct link to your Facebook profile, messages and notifications. Privacy?). Facebook Home will come pre-installed on the ‘HTC First’ or you can convert your existing Android handset into a “Facebook Phone” by downloading the new software on 12 April. Unsurprisingly, the people at Twitter weren’t impressed.

Source: Mashable

Classy Brits: Class was the big story this week (isn’t it always?) with the BBC publishing the The Great British Class Calculator. No longer are there just three classes (upper, middle and lower), we now have seven; ranging from ‘elite’ to ‘precariat’. My favourite though has to be ’emergent service workers’, possibly the best euphemism for ‘hipster’ I have ever heard.

Now that’s one pissed off journalist: There is something poetic about beautifully phrased foul language. The Indie’s Tom Peck has provided a cracker.

Social media investor relations: The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) this week unveiled new rules that allow companies to to make key announcements via Facebook and Twitter – only if shareholders have been alerted beforehand about which social-media outlet they should turn to (as to how shareholders are alerted, the SEC doesn’t say – suppose I wouldn’t be surprised to see @CompanyNameIR accounts popping up soon).

Blogs more influential than Twitter: An interesting post from The Wall Blog (who I suppose would agree) that blogs drive sales more than other forms of social media. Confirmation comes in the Technocrati 2013 digital influence report, that sees blogs come out ahead of Facebook, Youtube, Google+ and Twitter.

Facebook get’s in line: Great news if you provide customer service through Facebook. The big blue social network is launching in line replies on posts, allowing community managers to respond directly to questions. This will of course also make any type of topical interaction such as live Q&A much easier to manage on Facebook, so customer service and social media managers around the world should welcome this with open arms.

Sketchy customer service: Fast food deliveries that come in a cardboard box provide a great canvas and opportunity for fulfilling the demands of your customers. A splendid gallery of pizza box art at the behest of customers from around the world in this gallery.

Source: takeaway.com

Twitter for business: Twitter launched a page chock full of case studies from companies on how they use the micro-blogging service to meet their business objectives – hoping (I suppose) that you’ll end up using their services and tools and spend more money.

Faking it on Twitter: Faking a tweet isn’t the most difficult thing to do. Take a screenshot of an existing tweet from an account you’d like to spoof, modify it in your image editing software of choice, post it to t’interwebs as ‘check out what so-and-so said’ as a screenshot, adding that they’ve since removed the tweet (t’interwebs loves a cover-up!). However, this requires a basic level of image manipulation skills and a bit of effort – until now, with a new web-based software that allows you to fake tweets in a few clicks. Brian Solis looks at why this is a dangerous situation, one that I imagine Twitter can’t be too happy with!

Video of the week: Arthur C. Clarke completely predicts the Internet. In 1974.

Some of my favourite April Fool’s stories from this past week: with its Guardian Goggles video, the Guardian showed that they not only know exactly who their readers are, but that they also have enough of a sense of humour to poke fun at themselves.Meanwhile, Google went slightly OTT with their pranks – here are just three of them: Youtube announced that after eight years, they were shutting down the site to give the 30,000 strong jury until 2023 to announce the best video ever. Google Maps got a treasure hunt upgrade to find Captain Kidd’s treasure. Finally – a way to plug in your olfactory senses into Google search and find that smell you were always looking for. Or, to put it simply: Smell-o-vision! I’d argue though, that The Metro did the best with their made up April Fool round-up. Very meta.

Workplace etiquette in poster form: a beautifully designed set of posters for today’s office population. My favourite: “Respect headphones as a sign of intentional isolation”.

Mad Men Season 6: The penultimate season starts with a double episode in the US on Sunday, coming to Sky Atlantic in the UK on April 10th. To get in the mood I am rewatching season 5 and enjoying this post on Business Insider about how SCDP’s ads compared with the actual ads that ran in the 1960s. And yes. I am hyperventilating.

And finally: three new memes popping up over the last few weeks that are looking to take on the mantle of ‘the new planking’. First, we have Pottering. The trend looks to have kicked off in Oz and there’s a Pottering Facebook page with some quality efforts. I have to admit though, I’m quite fond of Vadering – something that has already made it into The Sun and The Metro. My favourite though has got to be Hadouken. Anyone with a mispent youth playing ‘Street Fighter’ will know the move and the precise flick of the wrist required to generate that devastating fireball will recognise these poses.

Source: The Tech Journal
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Twitter is for PR, giftastic Jennifer Lawrence and this week’s bits and bytes

Sainsbury’s Twitter faves: Here are my favourite tweets about Sainsbury’s from February 2013. You’ll see some amazing Red Nose Day cookie creations, Goktastic reviews for collection 6 and lots of love for Lulu Guinness’ Red Nose Day totes. And, of course, a few customers declaring their undying love for our cookies. 

Twitter for PR, Facebook for branding: Sir Martin Sorrell, the WPP Group chief executive, spoke to the Harvard Business Review about everything from where we are with the advertising business, to social media and emerging technology like Google Glass. He also said some interesting things about Twitter and why it’s a PR medium and Facebook and how that is a branding medium.

I get myself in deep doo-doo when I say this, but Facebook to my mind is not an advertising medium. It is a branding medium. So if I can get you to say something nice about WPP or me or one of our companies on Facebook to your wife, your friends, or whoever, that’s good. But it’s a long-term mechanism. Compare that with Google. Say you’re searching for a car: We know that up to 90% of car purchases in the U.S. are search-influenced. Depending on where you are in the purchase cycle, that number one ranking on Google seems more important than a Facebook “like.” This doesn’t deny the potency of Facebook. But it has to be seen in the context of a long continuum of brand building.

I’m going to get myself shot again. I think it’s a PR medium. Again, it’s very effective word of mouth. If you look at the Olympics in London, the big winner was Twitter. It wasn’t Facebook. It wasn’t even Google. We did analyses of the Twitter feeds every day, and it’s very, very potent. But—and this is the old fart speaking—I think because it’s limited in terms of number of characters, it reduces communication to superficialities and lacks depth.

The fail trail: This great infographic from social media monitoring firm SDL illustrates really well some recent case studies of how Nestle, Dominos and United dealt with their respective social media crises.

Social media magic: Two things you need to fulfil to have a chance at creating a successful social media campaign are the need to be loved and the need to be heard.

Oscars! The Internet fell in love with Jennifer Lawrence for being so darned down-to-earth and genuinely lovely – and heck, if you can recover from falling up the stairs of the stage to collect your award for best actress that gracefully, then you deserve all the adulation you can get. My theory though: Jennifer Lawrence is just animated-gif fodder.

Source: justnormalfangirl.tumblr.com

AAANYWAY. In terms of predicting winners, turns out that social media beat Google. Looking at the top categories (film, director, actor, actress, supporting actor, supporting actress) Google got 4/6 and social media got 5/6 right.

Pope wiped: So the Pope finally said his goodbyes this week and the holy social media quickly changed the name on the Papal Twitter account to ‘Vacant Seat’, and wiped Benedict’s tweets. No chance for Ratzi to walk away and do the disgruntled former employee thing with the 1.6 million followers. But what about all those (well, 39) tweets Pope Benedict? Worry not digital Catholics, all of his have been archived on the Vatican’s news site and you can read all of them in nine different languages.

Source: @Pontifex

I want to be a cop: When looking for inspiration for clever web design that puts people and their stories at the foreground I immediately think of Coca Cola and their new(ish) site. Seriously. Google ‘corporate website story telling’ and whole first page is nothing but links to articles about Coke’s page. So when @davidjstocks emailed me a link to the Milwaukee Police’s website, I was a bit surprised. But within about 5 minutes I was looking for how to become a US citizen and sign up to join the men and women in blue. The site uses some of the slickest combination of parallax scrolling and floating navigation I have ever seen alongside gripping photography and a fantastic arrangement of infographic type visuals to convey the PDs story. Well worth a visit.

Source: Milwaukee Police

On Twitter? Don’t break the law: An overview of some court cases that suggest that ordinary social media users need to have a grasp of media law to make sure they stay out of trouble (HT @a_little_wine)

Videos of the week: Samsung are working with Tim Burton on a new flick about the ‘Unicorn Apocalypse’;

Nike combined GPS data, maps and Facebook to drive their ‘Run Like Me’ campaign (it’s from Nike Japan, so it’s especially mental);

and Heineken conduct probably the best intern interview process I have ever seen!

And finally: Ever been to Starbucks and they totally mess up your name when they write it on your cup? You’ll love this (HT @stangreenan).

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The Harlem Shake and this week’s bits and bytes

Sainsbury's Giraffe Bread
Source: Sainsbury’s

What does Sainsbury’s have in common with Apple, Zappos, Trader Joe’s, the Ritz-Carlton and Lexus? According to Business Insider, they’ve all shown examples of big businesses actually getting it right. Some really wonderful stories, all showing that going above and beyond customer expectations will generate a lot of positive sentiment towards a business.

I’ve talked about the growing trend of second screening. 80% of Twitter users in the UK us the service via their mobile – or to put that differently, they tweet from the sofa and while they’re on the move. Twitter recognised this and even published a book on the link between TV and Twitter – how people talk about what is happening on telly while it’s happening. Not a big surprise then that Twitter acquired a social analytics start-up that measures just those two things what’s happening on TV, and what’s happening on Twitter.

The Harlem Shake is the newest Internet meme to take the world by storm. The 1-minute videos have already amassed over 44 million views on YouTube in two weeks. The meme is a combination of a track by Brooklyn-based DJ Baauer that was released in 2012 and the popular dance move from the ‘80s, both called ‘Harlem Shake’. It all seems to have started with a video by DizastaMusic where a group of people wearing bizarre outfits dance to the an extract of the track. Since then, the meme has mutated slightly, with videos now following the pattern of one person dancing while the rest are either going about their business or there’s no one else in shot. Then, once the lyrics kick in, everyone goes into a frenzied dance off. Completely mental but obviously brilliant fun for those taking part – and YouTube. There have been versions from Westpoint Cadet’s, the Norwegian Army, Western Uni students and the British Army. My favourite has to be this one from two DJs who incorporate their entire audience.

Cheeky Valentine’s Day advertising from Ikea in Australia: a free baby cot (some assembly required, I’m sure) for babies born on 14 November 2013. All you need to do is show them the coupon and a birth corticated.

Source: Coloribus.com

A great stunt from Nivea in Germany for the launch of their new ‘Stress Protect Deodorant’. Titled ‘The Stress test’, the stunt plays out in real time as an unsuspecting passerby is photographed and their image used to create newspaper splashes and breaking news reports showing that same person as the main target in a nationwide manhunt . It’s an idea that’s been done before in different guises but I think this execution in a German airport, bringing together a host of extras is excellent. You can really see the panic in their eyes increase, especially when the PA system announces in minute detail what they are wearing. And they say Germans don’t have a sense of humour…

Econsultancy provides a good overview of some of the common pitfalls for brands and their social media initiatives. In summary, stay away from campaigns that are only geared to gaining followers, promoting a purchase, offer a lame prize, or only serve to make something simple more difficult.

And finally: Love reading the Guardian but can’t quite come up with an appropriate comment? Try the random Guardian comment generator.

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#SocialBrands – my thoughts and slides

Today I had the great pleasure of speaking on behalf of Sainsbury’s at the Social Brand Conference in London. A packed day of brands and agencies talking about all things social media. From best practice customer service, content strategies, legal frameworks and ROI – there was just so much information to take on board and digest.

I spoke about how in today’s digital age, every crisis is now social, global and viral. I’ve embedded my slides below, but before I get to that, I wanted to put to paper some of the thoughts and inspiration from the other speakers that stayed with me.

Hats off to @Larssilberbauer from Lego for the work that his team has been doing. I’ve mentioned them on my blog before and I was very excited to hear first hand about how they go about social. What stuck with me the most was his deceptively simple approach to developing a social media strategy for Lego: If you understand people to be hard-wired to be social, then you have to understand what your customers social needs are. In the case of Lego, this is the need to build together and to show off that sense of pride you have when you’re completed your creation. Combine your business strategy with your customer’s social needs and hey presto, you have a social media strategy.

The results speak for themselves – just check out Lego’s brilliant “Brickmented Reality” campaign.

Lars then went on to talk about the simple yet entirely brilliant Lego social media driver’s licence. Put simply, a day-long course at the end of which Lego executives have to pass a theoretical and practical exam on social media. And much like any driver’s licence – if you mess up, it can be taken away from you.

A big theme of the day was that of agile social media teams (or SWATT – Special Weapons & Twitter Tactics, thank you @Jeremywaite for that bit of awesomeness) that sit somewhere between PR and Marketing and are not only plugged in to the big events and news stories of the day, but have the authority and resource to develop creative content for their brands to be a part of the bigger conversation.

With the Superbowl powercut fresh in people’s memory, no wonder then that it was Oreo’s ‘You can still dunk in the dark’ Tweet – created, approved and posted within minutes of the lights going out.

Other examples were Lego’s tribute to Neil Armstrong, Spec Saver’s cheeky ad on the back of the Eden Hazard/Ball boy incident and some more from the Superbowl:

@Jeremywaite provided the best definition of ‘Return on Investment‘ I’d ever heard at a social media conference: the actual definition of the concept, which was a very pleasant surprise.

ROI%  = ((revenue gained – investment) / investment) x 100

That definition coupled with his 1 slide social media report (Who is saying it? What are they saying? When are they saying it? Where are they saying it? and Why are they saying it?) will prepare you for any budget meeting with the CFO.

Finally on to @BruceDaisley from Twitter who showed a great clip about how the news of the recent helicopter crash in central London was shared on Twitter. The visualisation clearly shows how initial tweeters are at the centre of the story at the start, but then the power of trusted sources on Twitter during breaking news events such as Sky News and more prominently BBC Breaking News become hubs for the news (as I’m sure both Sky and the BBC will be happy to learn).

My mind is still buzzing from all the input, inspiration and ideas so I’ll leave you with my take on crisis comms.

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HMV’s Twitter meltdown, a masterclass in multimedia storytelling and this week’s bits and bytes

Pinch, punch, first day of the month – it can only mean our monthly look back at @SainsburysPR’s favourite tweets from January 2013.

And while we’re on the topic – Sainsbury’s has landed on rank 6 in the FTSE 100 social media index (up from 27th last year!). The report highlighted Sainsbury’s strong presence across all six channels in the index, especially the YouTube channel with its variety of content from recipe tutorials to playlists on its involvement in the Paralympics and with Fairtrade. Sainsbury’s use of Twitter and how we engage our corporate and consumer audiences through dedicated accounts @SainsburysPR and @Sainsburys was also seen as a reason for the strong performance.

Over on Escherman’s blog, @andismit takes a look at which journalists you should follow on Twitter. He uses data from Twitonomy to look at how The Guardian’s tech editor Charles Arthur uses Twitter (does he RT? Does he @? When is he most active?). This leads to a number of suggestions for how PRs should engage with journos on Twitter. It starts to get interesting though when Charles responds in the comments to the post and provides his own view on how to use Twitter – very useful to read his point of view and also goes to show that while using and understanding data is increasingly important for PRs, it should not be trusted in blindly.

In what ‏@marcusleroux from The Times called the most entertaining parting shot since Stephen Pollard left the Express, HMV’s official account @HMVtweets gained 10,000 followers in the space of a few hours yesterday as a an employee live tweeted the firing of over 100 employees. Apparently, HMV HR had started internal redundancy meetings with the marketing teams, including the person responsible for their social media account. The tweets were quickly deleted, but not before they’d been screengrabbed and retweeted all over the world. The social media manager behind it all later posted her motivations from her personal account. I’ve pulled together a summary of it all together in a Storify about the #hmvXFactorFiring.

You should always read things carefully. Especially when you retweet them, as Capital Hotel learnt when they shared what they thought was a positive review by Jay Rayner with their followers. Oops (HT @tomparker81).

Everywhere there is talk about the old media world dying. Interesting then that it is old media institutions like Forbes and the New York Times that are blazing a trail for the rest of the publishing world. Forbes offer a great insight into the changing of the guard that is evident in both the technology used by the journalists as it is in the their mindset in a great piece titled Inside Forbes: A New Wave of Digital Journalist Is Showing a Profession the Way Forward.

But what really blew my mind is this brilliant project by the New York Times about an avalanche at Tunnel Creek. Titled ‘Snow Fall’, it is already being seen as a seminal piece of work in terms of online storytelling techniques. It combines videos, animation and audio around one specific event and pulls it all together through some beautifully written and exceptionally harrowing narrative to deliver what is an entirely engrossing online experience. Truly magical in its implementation as it keeps perfectly the balance between tech and storytelling. Bottom line: PLEASE LOOK AT THIS. IT IS ABSOLUTELY MAGNIFICENT. I can also highly recommend the Q&A with the author of the piece, John Branch (HT @davidjstocks).

Vine, Twitter’s new 6 second video app launched last week. Imagine Instagram without filters and instead of a photo you record a short video. I played around with the new Vine app myself and also had a look at how brands are starting to use it.

Image credit: Vine

Remember Foursquare? That app where you check in and get to be mayor of a location if you check in most often? Well as someone who was once the mayor of my local pub, my local coffee shot, my local Sainsbury’s, Sainsbury’s Head Office and a number of other places – I never really saw the point. Why? Businesses just weren’t rewarding check ins or mayorships. Launched in 2009, it’s taken them four years to finally come up with an app that allows business owners manage specials and view analytics. We’ll see if that will make checking in worthwhile…

Videos of the week

“Push to add drama by TNT – the sequel”

and “The Replacer”

Awesome. And you gotta love the Fargo reference in the second one.

Image source: Failposters

And finally: anybody who has ever spoken to me about QR codes knows I hate them and, given the chance, will go on a rant full of colourful language. Mainly because of the half-arsed and poor executed implementation. Generally I point people to the brilliant Pictures of People Scanning QR Codes but our very own @SimonLP has started curating these wonderfully painful examples of QR Code fails on Pinterest so I shall from now on point people who mention them there.

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How brands are using Twitter’s Vine

So here’s a wee video of Momo and I running in sub-zero temperatures along the Schuylkill River trail in Philly.

Why is that (possibly) important?

I took the video with Twitter’s new 6 second video sharing platform Vine. Available on iPhone only for now, the app encourages users to record short clips made up of even shorter clips. The UI is really simple, Twitter is integrated (obviously) and it doesn’t play well with Facebook (obviously) – all you really need is an idea and/or a cute subject.

Like Momo.

Vine isn’t even 24 hours old and already we’re seeing Brands experimenting with this new short form video format via their Twitter profiles.

Nothing earth-shatteringly ingenious or clever:

  • showing off their products and services,
  • offering a behind the scenes look at their employees, or
  • providing an interview snippet to entice fans into watching the whole thing.

But they’re showing willingness to try something new and most importantly, they’re having fun with it. Interesting also, that the brands values/identity clearly shine through in those little vignettes.

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Facebook’s Graph Search and this week’s bits and bytes

Using the example of the horrific helicopter crash in London this week, the Guardian looks at how traditional news outlets and broadcasters now use social media and photos posted to Twitter to cover the news – and what implications that has for image copyright: In the past, such material was called user-generated content, or citizen journalism. Now it’s just Twitter and everyone should be aware of the rules of engagement.

The National Retail Federation conference took place in New York this week and Reuters has been very taken by ‘smart screens’ that (a la Minority Report) know who is looking at them and display targeted information from ads to deals or their online shopping basket. Forbes focused on what eight retail CEOs have planned for 2013. Good news: Omni-channel and mobile are here to stay.

With their Track My Macca’s app, McDonalds really hit the nail on the head this week. The app tracks the ingredients in the food you just bought through some nifty use of augmented reality, geo-location and time information – basically allowing you to plug in directly to McDonald’s supply chain data. Social media integration allows you to share the burger you just ate and tracked on Facebook. You can download it from the app store here although I doubt it works outside of Oz (HT to @TaraSThompson).

Twitter released a report this week showcasing the tweeting habits of people while they watch television in the U.K. Why is Twitter important for TV? Well, if you’ve been reading my weekly bits and bytes, you’ll have read about ‘second screening’. Here are some stats to help you understand why the two go together like fish and chips: 60% percent of the U.K.’s 10 million active users tweet while watching a television program and 40% percent of all tweets mention TV in some form. Download TV Twitter Book ‘Tune in with Twitter’. It’s free.

It was all about Facebook this week: they launched their version of Skype/Face-Time but the big news was all about the launch of the ever so creepy ‘Graph Search’ to take on Google. At first, it will allow you to search people, places, photos and interests – before spreading to every bit of information on the network. So for example, rather than search for a Chinese restaurant in London, you could now search for a Chinese restaurant in London that your Chinese friends who live in London like. Mashable has used the Graph Search and learnt, for example, that Google employees like Pink Floyd, while – slightly more seriously, USA today looked at how businesses can use Graph Search to their advantage. Me personally? I think this is yet another reason to make sure you regularly spend time learning the new Facebook privacy settings, think twice about what information you share and remember that on any free platform such as Facebook, you are the product.

Oh yeah. MySpace finally relaunched. With a little help from Justin Timberlake and his new single. Which is horrible and why I don’t have more to say about the new MySpace.

Don’t call an iPad a mobile device. Stats from comScore show that 90% of iPad use happens in your own home, 40% in public locations (most likely café’s and on trains and around 30% at work. Or as Business Insider puts it: they’re home PCs that are a little easier to carry around.

A great spot from @a_little_wine: Helen McGinn, a former Tesco wine buyer quit London to live in the New Forest and turned a weekly email to friends on wine suggestions into an award-winning blog Knackered Mothers Wine Club. Red Online spoke to her about how it happened and Helen’s tips for blogging.

An impressive/mind-boggling look back at 2012 by Pingdom: How many emails were sent during 2012? How many domains are there? What’s the most popular web browser? How many Internet users are there? Find out on their blog.

And finally: The White House responds to a petition on its website to build the Death Star (HT @tomparker81 and all of the world’s Star Wars geeks).

Weather permitting, I will be in Philly next week. I might or might not pull together these here bits and bytes. I do however, plan to eat many Cheese Steaks.

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