There is no doubt in my mind that Nissan’s Cube Minicar is one of the worst looking cars I have ever set eyes upon. Technically the car isn’t even a cube but it was the focus behind an ingenious Canadian PR Campaign. My tutor, David Phillips, has been put on the record for controversially announcing that “marketing is dead”. During the summer of 2009 this mantra appeared to be true for Nissan.

During the promotional period for the Nissan Cube ‘excuse me whilst I be sick’ Minicar all traditional media was avoided. Not a word was spoken on the radio, television was devoid of Cube Minicar adverts, no billboards advertisements and certainly no newspaper inches were used. Instead the PR campaign involved purely using social media.

The structure of the campaign was simple. Nissan ran a ‘Hypercube’ contest which was aimed at the creative classes in Canada. The aim of this contest was to get people to draw pictures personifying the Cube brand. Thousands entered the competition, this was narrowed down to 500 people and eventually a top 50 were selected. These “lucky” individuals received a free Cube Minicar.

The campaign touched over 5 million potential customers and generated extra publicity for the celebrities, musicians and artists who got involved.

There is a fallacy that social media is a cheap effective way to promote. It might be effective if done well but it is never cheap. The amount of time it takes to monitor social network profiles costs a lot of time. Keeping this in consideration Nissan Canada saved a lot of money by keeping away from mainstream media communication channels.

So is it possible to run an effective social media campaign avoiding traditional communication mediums? Yes.

Should everybody promote purely using social media? No. It is too risky.

Cheltenham’s social media conference, the #AddMe conference, will play host to some of the country’s most prominent social media speakers.

The conference has been set up by me as part of my role as CIPR Student Representative for the University of Gloucestershire. Open to students and businesses alike the #AddMe Conference aims to tackle the key questions of how to create, manage and utilise relationships online. To highlight the significance of creating relationships online keeps the #AddMe Conference open to a wide range of topics.

The conference will highlight the significance of creating relationships online and will explain the continually adapting communication landscape for industries. The evening will begin with a talk from David Phillips who is an active PR practitioner, has been involved in the communications landscape for 20 years and is the author of three books about online public relations. He will be followed by Alex Sass, named “Best of British: Entrepreneur” by Attitude Magazine and currently heading up the digital team at Renegade Media. He will cover methods of digital PR, social media marketing and a warning to the industry.

The keynote speaker of the evening will be Aren Grimshaw. His roles include lead organiser of the Cornwall Twestival events, founder of Cornwall Social Media Cafe, marketing director of Tonick Media, publisher of Business Cornwall and consultant to a range of clients. He is a regular speaker on the subject of social media and its role within business.

The event will take place at the University of Gloucestershire, Park Campus on Wednesday 10^th March at 7.00pm until 10:30pm. Normal tickets cost £5 and student tickets cost £3 (using promo code STUDENTDISC). Refreshments will be available on the evening.

Further information and ticket sales can be found at: http://www.addme.mikewhite.co.uk/

You can also follow the event on Twitter: http://www.Twitter.com/Addmeconf

It is in my strictest, sternest and possibly controversial view that advertising online is dead.

Once upon a time it did flourish and at the same time the internet was known as a commercial trap for users. I remember in the early 1990s it was almost impossible to visit a website without a pop-up advert greeting you. Sometimes you would be unfortunate enough to stumble upon a hoard of multi-pop-up adverts which would force your browser to take you to all sorts of corners of the internet.

I can hardly say that advertising isn’t used on the internet. This would be untrue and in the past I have had deals with companies to host their advertising on my blog for a fee. It just so happens that such companies are growing in numbers on the internet. Ideally a website owner would want to avoid banner ads and these new online advertising companies are offering text links.

Why though? Why would a company ask for text links to be placed at the bottom of each page of another’s website? It would be very unlikely for a user to actually click on them, especially if the site in question featured a mass of content. There is only one possible answer and that would be search engine optimisation. If your company’s hyperlink can be found on the bottom of many website pages then searches would yield a crop of hyperlinks directed to the advertised site. There is something sly and accidental about such influence on individual’s searches though.

Advertising relies upon a passive audience. This is an audience that is subjected to a message which they are to take as granted. Hypodermic Needle theory explains this well as there is only a single line of communication. It is this single line of communication that does not exist on the internet anymore. Social media shows how internet users are engaging with each other on a two way communication model.

A few days ago I heard an Ex-Journalist talk about(…)

Before a company can implement a successful social media strategy it is critical for them to analyse how they are to manage their own reputation. To represent your client online requires you to wear the mask of your client. Due to this you must accept full responsibility to act on the part of your client on the side of promotion.

Social networks are no longer a question of the scripting languages being used but instead concerned purely upon the relationships between individuals. Each social network is different as the medium changes the message. Sometimes a particularly social networking site may not be suitable for the class of client you are attempting to promote. If anything the reputation of that client might be harmed because you implemented a strategy involving the wrong mediums of social media.

Individuals online change. This is one of the most important overlooked facts which can lead to reputation errors. When communicating online we have the option to change who we are. Our writing style conveys the formality of who we are and semiotics can speak a thousand words.

Do not forget that we are talking about “SOCIAL” networks. The idea is to be social on the internet. Don’t implement a pathetic viral strategy aimed on catching people out otherwise your reputation will plummet. Work to the rules of the social networking site you have chosen, communicate with the community.

Apart from the misguided companies social networks are largely used to be social. Being social usually involves a form of casual conversation and nothing is worse than a company ruining the party by avoiding those personal pronouns.

Remember that I said each social networking site is different? The same goes for the individuals who reside within each of those networks. It is not possible to tarnish each social network with the same brush. Each network acts individually and the users within those networks are different too. They all share one thing in common though. They are on that network to be social.(…)

Apparently there are 15,740 social media experts on Twitter of who take the forms of gurus, consultants, stars, experts and ninjas. I am not entirely surprised and as Mashable observed this self-accredited title is just hot air. Surely the only way somebody can be truly convinced of your worth is through the voice of another?

Notice how on my Twitter profile I have avoided cliché terminology. There is nothing worse than those who big themselves up on Twitter without any experience or content to prove their worth. Just because you Re-Tweet social media posts doesn’t make you an expert; it makes you a regurgitator.

I am not an expert but instead a ‘web 2.0 enthusiast’. Even though I am only a student I have been surfing the internet since the age of five and have built similar social media websites which have received  so much hype today. I am an enthusiast, passionate about the subject and can see potential as well as flaws.

So forgive me as I walk the controversial path into what could be considered short sighted and simply wrong. Social media is experiencing a frenzy of attention at the moment. Rather than personal attributes people are being viewed by how many followers they have on Twitter and the amount of websites they have heard of. I am getting fed up with this hype.

In one breath I can name over a dozen different websites which will help share content from your website. Methods to spread a company’s word into the different sections of the heterogeneous audience in which social networking has created. I did a presentation to a client at the beginning of this month and they were more interested in a social media strategy surrounding Facebook than considering ‘old fashioned pr’.

It is in my opinion that the world has gone crazy. Of course there is value to using social media but let’s all calm down about this. Just because a PR firm has offered social media in their pitch doesn’t(…)

After having read Barbara Ellen’s worryingly inaccurate article in The Observer this morning, “Why I rage on behalf of the ordinary Joes”, I have been convinced to spur into a Rage Against the Machine article of my own.

The fog of chart war first began to form when the Facebook group “Rage Against the Machine for Christmas No.1” appeared on Facebook. The group was formed after X Factor winner Joe McElderry was predicted a Christmas number 1. Why shouldn’t he get the number 1 spot at Christmas? For the last 5 years the X Factor has been at the top of the charts at Christmas. As of writing this article the group has 948,854 members which isn’t taking into account the other numerous fan groups which have since appeared. The only group I can find in support of Joe is, “Lets Get Joe McElderry to Christmas No.1”, which boasts just over 1,100 members.

At first it was easy to become sceptical about the whole matter. Personally I am fed up with how the X Factor dominates the charts and how fame descends upon the chosen individual as some sort of divine power. The more pressing problem is how Simon Cowell was rumoured to be benefitting from the whole rebel outbreak against the X Factor. Apparently Cowell has shares in Sony but research as shown me that this is in fact untrue. Whilst Cowell did establish Syco Music, this is a division from Sony. So Sony did very well out of this debacle, the only extra profit Cowell may have made would have been through some extra sales of Joe’s single but other than that everything is OK.

The best news about the Rage Against the Machine campaign was when it was announced that the profits would go to the charity Shelter. This not only made Rage Against the Machine a rebellion choice for unhappy people to select but also the charitable one. So far Shelter has received over £60,000 of donations.

A confident HMV spokesman(…)

Having digressed into an article within ‘Books Quarterly’ magazine into the Orwellian opinion of CCTV cameras I have just noticed that it was placed there by Public Relations means with a cheeky veiled liberty-human-rights.org.uk. The subject of CCTV, perhaps better named SS (Surveillance Systems) is seen as a sly activity, even underhand, with the way our movements are recorded without recollection. So how is this different to the way Public Relations operates?

I know Public Relations doesn’t store our DNA into a database, keep a record of our finger prints, watch our every move on a monitor or demand us to walk around with an ID card. You would even be hard pushed to call Public Relations parasitical with the way it operates, but it is viral. Make no mistake; a parasitical entity doesn’t come coupled with viral methods.

The main downfall with Public Relation is how to actually explain the industry without your sentence becoming superfluous or tedious. Even more frustrating when I am asked by people, “So… which degree have you chosen to study?” Gah! There is no way for it. I only can explain the industry through examples. There is no point quoting the CIPR (Chartered Institute of Public Relations) or IPRA (International Public Relations Association) as their definitions change every few years. To be quite honest, without wanting to be so vulgar to force the sick from your mouth, Public Relations is about relationships.

I am afraid these relationships don’t love. Hardly agape in nature, I have yet to find a communication model where a company or organisation confers with publics on an unconditional level. Let’s face it, I probably won’t ever find a model. May sound cynical to say so but a company needs your money and so does a charity. Relationships between PR and the public is like marrying a girl for her cooking skills.

The only way I can illustrate my point is by reverting back to ePR. If we consider that Public Relations, in the real(…)

Last night I was fortunate enough to attend the iTunes Festival in London, Camden at the Round House. As Stephen Fry pointed out as he came on stage, “It is indeed a house, and it is round, a round house”. The evening started off with a talk by Stephen Fry digressing into the history of print, history of recorded sound, revealed truths and copyright. In a digital age where it is almost easier, in some respects, to “illegally” download content such as film or music, the subject of copyright was going to be a big subject to embark upon. We must remember that the iTunes Festival is paid by the monopoly made possible by the creation of copyright, a legacy made feasible by the Berne Convention. So it was shocking to ostensibly hear Stephen Fry launch an attack upon the nature of copyright protection. For more information regarding the copyright aspects of his talk I recommend reading BBC Technology Correspondent Rory Cellan-Jones’s blog.

Stephen Fry answering questions

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During the talk Stephen Fry also spoke about the nature of online communication. What many could call the ePR approach to promoting bands and artists. Internet communication was picked out as a broadcasting system but of an already present message. Although some would like to think that it is possible for a band to become known by a viral online marketing campaign, this still isn’t the case. Bands and Artists become known for the gigs they do at small venues. From this there might be an online campaign to follow suit but the internet campaign becomes second in the grand scheme.

Although this is a very small blog article I do think it holds a profound message.  Does or should online promotion always come second in a campaign plan? How does the balance work between real world and online communication?

Noun. The act of using Twitter to lessen/destroy a company’s reputation

It is perplexing to why Twitter has gained so much popularity during this year when the social networking organism formed during 2006. The majority, if not all, of the available PR blogs have at least one article on Twitter. This blog is an ode to this but it is also true that most blogs have far too many articles concerning Twitter and its functions – this is the tightrope this blog treads.

I cannot lie. I have done work and indeed still doing work for clients where Twitter has become an important part of the promotion mix. With ePR being such an up-to-date method of raising a company’s image Twitter could be seen as a God send for those of us who understand the effectiveness of the network. Anybody who signs up to Twitter could be regarded as lambs to the slaughter as PR Professionals use every tactic necessary to hunt down users who fulfil the interests of the clients they are working on behalf of. Even I, a student, have had suspiciously relevant Twitter accounts add me concerning club nights and student promotions.

Like with any system though, Twitter is not without its downfalls. The perfection of Twitter as a network works as a positive in both directions of the two-way communication model. Twitter works using the method of asymmetrical communication, a mutual communication balance does not exist like it does with alternative social networks. If I were to become friends with a person on Facebook then they have to accept me back. The same applies with Bebo and Myspace. It is possible to place individual privacy settings around individual users but the communication is still balanced. Friends exist within a symmetrical communication line. However, Twitter allows you to be ‘friends’, a follower but the person you are following does not need to follow back. The communication line is unbalanced. I believe it is this basic feature of Twitter which(…)

This article marks the beginning of a new series of podcasts giving you the option to listen rather than read from the glare of your monitor. Depending on the format of the podcasts the majority of recordings will also be avaliable in standard text form. Podcasts can either be streamed or downloaded from this website. Before not too long podcasts will also be avaliable through the iTunes store.

Before I begin I want to thank you for downloading and listening to this first podcast. Not too sure how the audio will sound as I have no official recording gear as such. Most microphones seem to give me some sort of artificial lisp. Unless, of course, I do have a lisp… Anyway, I hope everything sounds bearable. I have tried the art of podcasting in the past and unfortunately I never really felt it to catch on. This time though, I will make an effort. I know from my own experience that constantly reading all the time can become quite tedious and so I hope listening provides a breath of fresh air into my tiny corner of the interweb.

I’m not too sure about the frequency of podcasts which will bless this site currently or how this new form of media will aid in my PR related articles. I’m sure time will tell though. Before I discourse any further into this microphone I must first detail my sort of terms and conditions… I do not pretend to know everything. Starting this blog was a leap of faith as I am still a student and so I gradually learn more as I walk down the path towards achieving my degree. If learning works as planned then I should be able to listen and read these articles in a years’ time and feel embarrassed that I could hold such a pile of drivel as an opinion in the first place. Learning has the vice to which no man can ever say “I am sure”. So(…)