Sorry about this but I need to have a quick rant. I have been working in PR for more than a decade and using social media for around five years and the shift I have seen in the understanding levels of social media marketing has been great as the industry develops. I saw a piece the other day about Sony hiring one agency to do everything and thought, brilliant, people are finally getting it. However, one of my big bug bears now is that people seem to want to use social media on a purely tactical basis rather than actually thinking things through properly. They look for the easy quick win. If I hear another question like this “can you just ...

I love it when somebody uses social media a little differently, rather than following the sheep and simply setting up the usual channels. I like it even more when someone goes out there and tries to do something a bit creative and different. Step forward musician Imogen Heap, who is well known for a being a big social media advocate. Imogen has created a dedicated microsite for her latest project, which cleverly has a #hashtag as its working title. Here is how she explains it: #heapsong1 is the working title of ...

Here is an interesting concept – everyday we hear more and more about Facebook growing and I read a lot of posts of people asking for new features or making recommendations on how Facebook can change and get better. This has prompted Venessa Miemis to create “The Future of Facebook” project which is basically a campaign to gather enough money together to interview a huge amount of big hitters and ask the big question “What is the future of Facebook?” Let’s hope it’s better than that of Friends Reunited. For the record my view on the future of Facebook is that it will become a mobile hub that allows us to buy, interact, share ...

You will remember we have been running a competition online for Audio-Technica, well we now have the winner. Here it is in all it’s glory – the winner is Zebedee Budworth with Astropets. We received more than 1,500 votes on the final shortlist and this won with 650 votes. Here is his official description of his entry: Hello I'm Zebedee and I'm a musician based in London! I wrote this song on the banjo then added all the instruments and vocals in my little bedroom utilising a book as a kick drum and keys as sleigh bells and stuff. All the sounds are 'real' things, apart from the glock ...

In this country cameras and any other form of recording equipment are banned from our courtrooms to stop the media interfering with live trials, but this week the British Chief Justice actually ruled that there is to be no ban on using the social network Twitter in the courtroom. Twitter finally became a courtroom tool last week when a court judge allowed mediamen to tweet from a bail hearing for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. However, two days after this ground breaking moment another judge barred it, so it’s clearly still a contentious issue. I have to admit I am slightly worried what a micro-blogging service like Twitter could do to a live trial and I think they need to treat ...

In November a good friend of mine Charlotte Britton, conducted a survey with businesses in Yorkshire to find out how companies in the region were utilising social media marketing. One of the most interesting statistics I noticed was that 75% said social media had been responsible for creating positive PR about the company and 40% saying social media had helped mitigate PR problems. Those are quite bold statements but here are some of the other interesting headline statistics: 82% of respondents said they used LinkedIn to promote their business with 67% saying there key individuals were using LinkedIn to promote ...

This post idea came from a chat I had with a current client the other day, we were discussing the success of their corporate blog. The client is happy with the work that we have done to build the social presence of his company up. However, he then told me that he did have doubts about making his team members in his words ‘too famous’. He asked me what I thought about other businesses trying to poach his staff. I have heard this one before, my advice was this, if you are committed to making your businesses more engaging online and using social media as part of a wider online thought leadership programme then yes ...

It’s been a busy few months over in the Dinosaur caves, we have scooped a number of new social media accounts and we also have a few new team members who will be revealing themselves to you shortly I expect. I don’t normally cover that many case studies on the blog but I decided recently that I am going to try and do more of this. This is mainly because when I have been speaking at events, people really seem to prick up and listen more at the case study section. I think most people prefer to here about ...

This is an interview with me conducted by sales and motivational speaker and blogger Gavin Ingham, his original post is here. As a sales expert and someone interested in improving lives and businesses in general I strive to ensure that I am doing the best that I can to be at the cutting-edge of what is going on with new selling ideas and strategies. One area that I have some strong opinions about is social media and the uses and abuses of social media. I have shared some of these in previous blogs and will do in the future however for this post I sought out social media expert Chris Norton ...

I was presenting at the Wealth Enhancement Forum last week on social media and the business opportunity it presents. I was asked several months back if I would do it and I said I would be happy to share my thoughts with the group. I managed to get about five slides into a presentation before the quick fire round started and the questions started to come thick and fast. I found it extremely interesting to hear this group of wealthy business owners talking about social networks and the varying ways in which they or their staff use them. I will be honest here and say that most of my clients tend to be marketing directors ...