12 posts tagged “blogging”
It's good to see the Federal Government adopting Web 2.0 tools such as blogging in order to democratise the conversation on the future of Australia's digital economy.
The Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Stephen Conroy and Minister for Finance, Lindsay Tanner have launched a trial blog to get the opinions and thoughts of the public on the topic.
This blog will help with the development of the 'Future directions paper for the digital economy' that is being created by the Australian Government. This paper has been described on the joint blog as "a roadmap for Australian businesses, households and government to maximise participation in the digital economy."
The blog will explore themes from what the digital economy includes, how the digital economy can respond to environmental concerns, how can the success of Australia's digital economy be measured and how to maintain a 'civil society' that experience offline in the real world in an online world. This last topic is particularly interesting as it is likely that it will raise the issue of filtering content and moderation on the blog. What public comments will be uploaded to the blog? Which ones will be dismissed? Moderated content lessens the democracy of a blog.
This is one of the first times that the Australian Government has adopted Web 2.0 tools to engage with the public. I encourage this and hope we see more of this across the board.
If you have a point of view, jump on and get blogging.
It's been really interesting to see how the terrorist attacks in India, Mumbai, have played out using social media - Twitter and blogging in particular. I am led to believe, in fact, that social media even beat traditional media to the punch with the announcement of this news.
CNN has reported that "...an estimated 80 messages, or "tweets", were being sent to Twitter.com via SMS every five seconds, providing eyewitness accounts and updates".
Some Twitter users used the micro-blogging platform to send out calls for blood donors to make their way to Mumbai hospital where existing and anticipated casualties were being sent. It was also used to get news out fast on those that had been injured and killed and information regarding support numbers for those that had friends and family involved in the attacks were also posted on Twitter.
Although this has been a great tool to get information out on what those on the ground were experiencing in instantaneous nature, it has also fuelled a rumour-mill. There are accounts of Twitter users publishing posts exaggerating the number of casualties and generally sensationalising the situation of the attacks.
CNN reported in the article I cite above: "What is clear that although Twitter remains a useful tool for mobilizing efforts and gaining eyewitness accounts during a disaster, the sourcing of most of the news cannot be trusted."
People caught up in the Mumbai attacks, including the hotel hostages, were also using their blogs as a news medium to disseminate information on the situation on the ground in India. Bloggers posted their accounts of the tragedy when it unfolded, as it unfolded.
This is indeed a strong reminder of how powerful social media can be as a disseminator of news - whether this news is entirely factually correct or not. Social media has the power to beat traditional media to the punch due to its instantaneous nature and a force to be reckoned with. It's an online tour de force for distributing instant information to the masses.
I'm interested to get your thoughts on this. Do you think social media played too large a part to play in telling the stories surrounding these tragic circumstances? Do you think it levels the playing field between traditional media and citizen journalists and social media? Feel free to contribute other parts of the discussion that are missing in this post.
Sorry Brad for not acknowledging your B&T feature on Australian marketing blogs earlier!
Although it's a fast moving target, I was happy to see myself also come in at #44 in the Top 50 Australian Marketing Blogs - compiled by B&T. And thank you Brad for my closing words :)
Shout out to the following top 10 that made the Top 50 Australian Marketing blogs:
- Banner Blog
- Servant of Chaos
- Young PR
- Laurel Papworth
- Get Shouty
- Copy Write
- Corporate Engagement
- Better Communications Results
- Ettf
- Online Marketing Banter
Keep up the good work Aussie bloggers!
A colleague recently asked me how her clients can integrate social media and web 2.0 into their organisations in order to more effectively work on collaborative projects across mobile workforces. What tools help close geographical borders within organisations? Are there easier ways to communicate other than back-and-forth email, telephone and IM that helps employees share work internally? I figured I would address these questions in a public forum.
As we all know and have heard time and time again, the use of web 2.0 tools in the enterprise is becoming more important and increasingly evident. It facilitates an environment where workers are less constrained by geographic borders, allowing them to communicate and collaborate across dispersed workforces (whether it be different offices, states, countries with relative ease).
There are particular tools that give employees have access to content that helps them be more productive in their job function. Tools such as wikis are helping organisations promote and share talent, IP, experience, case studies, learnings and so forth.
I would make the suggestion for organisations wishing to foster a culture of sharing and collaboration that they take a plunge by implementing an internal Wiki. A wiki is a site that allows you to create, edit and share content easily with one another. A great example is Wikipedia. Wikipedia is an online encyclopaedia created and edited by citizen journalists (you and me).
An internal wiki would allow employees to manage work documents efficiently. Allows one to create, edit and link documents that they’re working on. This allows you to track a history of changes to documents and the people that made particular changes. It's a much more efficient and user-friendly system - and is definitely easier than storing down multiple versions of the same document.
This about the documents that you have saved to your work folders. I guarantee if you're anything like me that you have versions titled .final, .FINALFINAL, .v2, .v3, .v3LK_edits and the list goes on. Every Tom, Dick and Harry adds their flavour to a press release (for example) and all of a sudden you are stretched to figure out which is the 'REAL' final document.
From my knowledge as well, a company intranet can be hosted on a wiki - although I look to my blogging community to back me up or knock me down on this one.
Another fabulous Web 2.0 tool is RSS or 'Real Simple Syndication'. I would have to say that this is one of the most underestimated tools to date. It complements other Web 2.0 tools. For example, using an internal wiki, all employees would be able to subscribe to an RSS feed - which is basically a web feeds. This means if changes are made to the wiki, the new content would be sent directly to the employee (can be in the form of an email update) with a link and possibly even a summary of the content changes. This enables employees to decide whether they want to click through to the site. This means that employees do not have to manually log on to the wiki every so often to check whether amends to internal documents have made been made.
I’d like to build a list of wiki software that exists in Australia (and costs). If anyone has any insight, I invite you to share them with me.
In another interesting exploration of Twitter and its uses comes this article on Film School Rejects titled "The 8 most entertaining fake Twitter users." Similar to the increasing popularity of fake blogs (think Fake Steve which has since become The Real Dan Lyons), it appears as though people are using this micro-blogging tool to maintain the popularity and notoriety of famous celebrities and TV/ movie stars even well past its expiration date (that is when TV series have discontinued and/ or movies have well and truly left the box office).
In most instances famous TV and movie characters are being perpetuated on the site, along with their nuances and catch phrases being conveyed to fans across the site. Some of the ones listed in the article include the famous Borat (Sasha Baron Cohen), Dr. Tobias Funke (Arrested Development) and Roger Sterling (new show, Mad Men).
The interesting observation to make here is how marketing/ comms. can use Web 2.0 tools such as Twitter to push out characters from new TV series and movies in order to generate buzz around them and build up a larger and truly global fan base. We have already seen this on blogs - although I think Twitter is a faster and more effective approach for this.
I'm looking forward to the Frocomm New Media Summit in Melbourne today. Shortly I'll be heading off here with one of my MDs, Graham White, and then it is back-to-back sessions, keynotes and workshops till I return later this week.
The New Media Summit will cover off all things new and social media including what it is, why it is important, legal considerations, Web 2.0, blogging and how you can apply new media to your business to achieve desired business outcomes.
I'll be particularly interested to listen out for case studies and instances where companies have integrated social media strategies and report back on cases where it has and hasn't worked. Hopefully there will be some best practice examples and key learnings that I can share with you.
The first round Tuesday speakers include:
- Laurel Papworth, Director, World Communities and Social Networks Blogger
- Andrew Maiden, Director, Media Relations, Telstra
- Greg Roebuck, Managing Director & CEO, carsales.com.au
- Mary Henderson, Founder/CEO, Geek IT Group
- Richard Lord, Chief Marketing Officer and COO, Hyro
- Tom Martin, Cirector, Strategic Communications, Department of Premier & Cabinet
- Michael Park, Senior Associate, Deakons' Technology, Media & Telecommunications Group
- Guy J Cardavlho, CEO, BrandAide Communications
- Kirsty Shaw, Director, Fairfax Digital and GM, Stayz
- Kate Torney, Head of Asia Pacific News, ABC
- Ben Wise, Online Editor, 3AW
- Simon Johanson, Online Editor, The Age
- Brian Semmens, Night Editor, Herald & Weekly Times
- Alan Parker, DIgital Media Specialist, Burson-Marsteller
- Corrie McLeod, Managing Director, Espresson Communications
- And our very own Graham White, Managing Director, Howorth, Ogilvy PR Australia
- And our very own Scott Rhodie, Media Manager and Digital Strategist, Pulse Communications, Ogilvy PR Australia
I will be posting regular updates to my blog, the Howorth website and of course to Twitter. Please feel free to comment on any of the information that I post. Looking forward to it!
Watch this space!!
So I've been toying around with Twitter a lot more these days. So much so, I have been abandoning my blog. I think more and more we will start to see the quality of blog posts decline with the emergence of microblogging - thanks to Web 2.0 tools such as Twitter. Twitter gives you the option to update your network/ neighbourhood on what you are doing in a mere 140 characters.
The instantaneous nature of this means that you can easily update those that are following you on what you are up to and track what others are up to as well. I was originally critical of Twitter but I am starting to find it more useful in a professional work sense. In fact, in my perception it is taking over Facebook as one of the most valuable social networking sites.
The interesting thing here for me is that you can apply it to every day work. My Twitter neighbourhood, albeit small, is a circle of PR people and journalists. The aim = to expand my small neighbourhood! Anyway, I digress...
Although many of the posts that we upload don't necessarily provide too much insight - I find out when people need to go to the bathroom, what they had for breakfast and when they are on the train but on several occasions it can really useful. You can pick up a lead on a story that a journalist is working on, what topics he/ she covers, when he/ she is going overseas, find out what they think of products they are reviewing and reporting on, what topics light a fire under them and so forth. It's a great way to keep your finger on the pulse and stay in contact. Now that I think about it more, I would actually compare this to LinkedIn - it seems to be quite valuable as a professional networking tool.
I'd be surprised if blog subscriptions weren't in decline due to the rise in Twitter feeds. This has strong implications for mobiles as well. These days, new and emerging technologies are mirroring the lifestyle trends of today's consumers'. As people want to access to real-time information from friends, access to news, entertainment, and be able to communicate from anywhere at anytime - we are finding that today's technologies such as mobile phones and web 2.0 tools such as Twitter are accommodating these needs.
Feel free to pipe up if you have some answers because I haven't done all my homework in this area. Are we seeing a trend now - as people become more time poor are we seeing blog posts getting shorter? Rather than well-researched, quality blog posts - are these increasingly becoming short excerpts and randon bursts of one's thoughts?
I'd love to hear your thoughts on this...
One of my fellow neighbours shared a presentation that that I absolutely love and want to continue sharing with the rest of the world. The presentation simply conveys what social media is all about.
It takes all the fabulous thinking from Cluetrain Manifesto and culminates it into an easy-to-understand representation of what this online space is all about. The thinking is around how markets are conversations and business as we know it is no longer. It is the end of ''business as usual".
"A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter - and getting smarter faster than most companies."
I'm not too sure if it is something you could package up and use to sell to all your clients but for those that are not easily offended, it makes sense of 'social media' - which has previously been something that was considered uncertain terrain - something that people have been reluctant to explore.
If you want a more insightful read, please get a copy of Cluetrain - you would think I wrote the book with how I am promoting it - you'd never tell I'm in PR!
Enjoy!
A story was shared with me by a colleague and I feel the need to add my 2 cents worth. I have to laugh out loud, partly because the PR story I am about to tell you is completely unacceptable if you are taking a bloggers viewpoint, but sadly we are all capable of mistakes and to err is human.
Nicholas Carlson, one of the Valleywag bloggers recently published a post called 'Great Moments in PR'- basically a PR consultant from MWW Group had sent an email pitch to the blogger regarding Asolva, an MWW client and provider of customised software solutions.
Where this story gets interesting is that the email pitch had red tracked changes marked throughout the email and the changes had crossed off an email pitch regarding Samsung. Essentially, the email pitch showed that the PR function at MWW is template, one in the same for each client and each journalist/ blogger. It was in no means personalised and judging by the Samsung pitch, appears to be the very same pitch packaged up for one for all. The email goes against the core PR mantra of building and maintaining relationships albeit clients, media and so forth.
Where it gets even worse, I know - you probably didn't think it could, is poor miss Monica Roberts from MWW got her email posted on the Valleywag blog for all to see and comment on. Her reputation as a PR consultant has indeed been tarnished and she will forever have this marked against her name, and on the online ether it will sit.
What came next was probably not something that was well thought through and I have a strange feeling that Monica responded off the bat and not according to company policy. Monica sent yet ANOTHER email to the blogger stating:
"Take the Geat Moments in PR article off your site with my personal information gone, or deal with wrath from my lawyer. If it's not gone by EOD today, i'm pursuing legal action. Have you ever heard of computer glitch? Apprently not. Accidents happen, you didn't need to make fun of me. I'm sure you've made mistakes too."
The above is an uncensored excerpt from her email. She did in fact make the situation worse by firstly, insisting she would take legal action and secondly, making spelling mistakes throughout the email. Obviously, she did not learn the second time around. Another email of hers now sits on the Valleyway blog!
In this instance, the client - Asolva- definitely got some widespread press coverage but not the type they would have intended or hoped for. In fact, I don't think anyone even knows exactly what it was MWW was trying to pitch in. It was beside the point.
I wonder how long it took for Asolva to find out? Has Monica been removed from the team? Has Asolva walked? So many questions. I might probe a little more and see what I can find.
There are a lot of lessons to learn here:
- Exercise extreme caution when liaising with media, bloggers in particular.
- The very nature of new social media is all about transparency and accountability. Don't send something you wouldn't want to see in print or online!
- To avoid email/ computer glitches - create your email pitches in a word document and absolutely do not copy into email until it is final!
- Try and mix it up for your clients and media. I don't think they would appreciate finding out that you have done a cut, paste job when sending out email pitches.
- Read, read, re-read, read again. Borrow someone else's eyes before you send an email out.
- Lastly, if you have any concerns about sending an email to a blogger, chances are you should be. Consider picking up the phone. Bloggers are people just like you and me and are more than capable of having a conversation.
Anyway, enough from me perpetuating the MWW Group, Monica Roberts story, so I will rather open the discussion with you PR folk.
I was mucking around on the net and came across a blog called PronetAdvertising. The author had a really simple way of explaining the difference between Public Relations, Marketing, Advertising and Branding.
For any of you out there that struggle with extremely long and complicated definitions of each of the focuses or are still just unclear as to what exactly it is that those on the dark side to you do, then the following simple images are probably the easiest way for you to interpret it for yourself. I don't think the disciplines have been simplified in this way before so I wanted to share it with you.
These images are also hosted on Ads of The World.
I think the new social media tools that exist such as YouTube, MySpace, online video sites, blogging, wikis etc..., if used correctly, will give those in the Marketing and Public Relations industries the opportunity to move closer towards the branding discipline - where emerging technologies are providing agencies with the ability to form online communities over common interests for their clients, big companies will not need to flog how great they are through their PR agencies because instead consumers will be talking about their brands and not their intermediary agencies, opening direct dialogue between the consumer and the company will enhance the credibility/ reputation of the companies - all of which will hopefully result in the public talking amongst themselves about the brands.
I believe this is what will help build better brands and what will make true impact on the clients bottom dollar!
