I have been really busy recently, with this launch and that, but in my spare time I have been reading quite a lot on the ROI of social media and scratching my head. As more and more of these amazing buzz monitoring tools spring up out of the woodwork providing us with this set of data and that, it seems the big question is still what is the return on investment from social media? Sure data is all good and well but unless you have someone with half a brain who can process that data and tell you why this spike in conversation took place it’s pretty much useless – as useless as giving a caveman a microwave. ...

An article in The Economist last week claimed that public relations companies are feeling much better about things and doing far better financially. The article stated: “According to data from Veronis Suhler Stevenson (VSS), a private-equity firm, spending on public relations in America grew by more than 4% in 2008 and nearly 3% in 2009 to $3.7 billion. That is remarkable when compared with other forms of marketing. Spending on advertising contracted by nearly 3% in 2008 and by 8% in the past year. PR’s position looks even rosier when word-of-mouth marketing, which includes services that PR firms often manage, such as outreach to bloggers, is included. Spending on such things increased by more ...

Just as we all started to think that advertising revenues were dropping off from the more traditional channels. Something has come along to show everyone that advertising does still work. Is the video below the catchiest television advertisement ever? Even if it isn’t, it does appears to have done its job. Yell’s sales have increased by a huge 70% since this campaign started and needless to say it plans to carry it on. I have to admit it I can’t get the song out of my head after watching it just once. ...

With the recent and growing decline of traditional newspapers there are several theories being touted around that could be attributed to the sudden drop in circulation and audience figures. It’s true that the media has become accustom to reporting headline grabbing stories (that’s its job after all) and it’s rare you can open a paper without any new scary statistics being reported on the credit crunch – or should I say impending depression. In truth the recession has been the hot topic for newspapers since October last year and, as of writing it still shows no evidence of slowing up in its domination of the headlines. The constant gloomy reminder of the financial problems in almost every ...

I was watching the news last night as I normally do when I saw Senator Obama address 200,000 people in Berlin. I was hugely impressed at how many people had attended the event in Germany to hear him speak. I like Mr Obama and I hope he wins as we need an inspirational leader in the white house after that buffoon. Come to think of it we could do with one at number 10 too. However, aren't we all just getting a little carried away with "Obamamania"? Yes he is young, charismatic, interesting and inspirational but he isn't ...

I have seen a few interesting articles this morning reporting that social media hasn't been utilised as much as was expected by UK advertisers. It seems that British advertisers are still lagging behind those of the US who have been exploiting social networking effectively. My post yesterday referred to me being approached and that was actually by a US company - so they may have a point that US companies are doing it more. That said, we have been approached by several UK companies attempting outreach programmes recently and some have been done well and some not so ...

I have just read an interesting post from Roy Gleenslade reporting that online unique users and circulation figures will now be added together in a new report format for the first time - this is a big step forward. He reports: "It will reveal that all-important measure known as "the reach" achieved by publications by detailing both month-on-month and year-on-year figures for on-line and newsprint. "The new "multi-platform monthly report" will also break out figures by geographical region; the UK, Republic of Ireland and other countries. "The initiative follows requests from advertisers, agencies and media owners because it will undoubtedly ...

Well after much badgering and lecturing from my boss Mr Stuart Bruce about how great digital TV recorders are, I decided to go out and buy one myself in the January sales. I did the normal Internet research to see which is the best and Humax came out very highly as did the one I purchased. I already knew the benefits of Sky Plus as a number of my friends had shown me their own systems - so I understood the basics. However, that said, ...

It appears that the business community is starting to understand that social media has to be part of an effective public relations programme in 2008. Consumers across the globe are now actively using the popular social networking sites such as Myspace, Bebo, Facebook, Youtube to contact their friends and share content in the form of interesting music and amusing videos. However,  these same people, often become confused as to how social media can then be implemented in a professional/business campaign. I recently held a meeting with a client who was very interested in what Wolfstar do, and they were equally interested in the analysis we ...

If you are already part of the Wolfstar community, you will know that my colleagues have been road testing the new Skype phones, which seem to have been received quite well. I have to say, they do look the business and as we use Skype regularly at Wolfstar, they have been a real help. Anyway, we have been contacted by Skype and told about a new  competition where you can get your mucky paws on a free one yourself - all through the world of social media. The guys over at 3mobilebuzz are running ...