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

I have been naughty and published this article 2 days ahead of the main promotional period. Tickets are set to fly so if you want to come I highly recommend to jump the gun before the University starts promoting. Tickets can be purchased here.

For the last couple of months it has been in the making. On a few occasions I thought it would never happen… but now it is official!

Wednesday 10^th March 2010, 7pm – 11pm, marks the date of the #AddMe Conference. Founded by myself as part of my role as CIPR Student Representative for the University of Gloucestershire. The conference is associated with the CIPR and arranged as part of the CIPR West of England regional group.

“Open to students and businesses 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 include 3 prominent, highly acclaimed speakers on social media. These being Aren Grimshaw, Alex Sass and David Phillips. More details about the speakers and their talks with come out over the next few days on the #AddMe Conference Website.

The event is taking place at the University of Gloucestershire, Park Campus. Location and directions can be found here.

Tickets for the event are £5.00 each and student’s tickets are discounted to £3.00 with a promotional code. Considering the speakers; an affordable amount for an amazing social media conference. Tickets can only be purchased online on the #AddMe Conference’s website. The observant of you will notice the website is actually a sub-domain of this one.

No doubt the evening will partly play host to an embarrassingly long list of thanks to everybody who has helped me so far. There are a few people I would like to thank so far though. They would be:

• CIPR West of England group for always being there to help.
• Family friend, Richard Bratton,

(…)

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.(…)

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(…)

In light of the Guardian news iPhone application it seems appropriate for me now to discuss my ideas with how Journalism is changing in the 21^st Century. Perhaps more appropriately how we will see journalism change as we reach the end of a decade.

As John Stuart wrote in the second chapter of his essay ‘On Liberty’ it is necessary for journalists to have the right of free speech as long as there is not a breach of the Human Rights Act of 2000. As of yet there is no formal constitution in the UK to stop the right for free speech and the only possible opposable would have been the Government Press Prosecutions of 1858. Although many prosecutions were not carried out and were not done in the name of limiting free speech but instead focused on the liability of published articles.

It is undeniable in my view though that although the law will act as reinforcement against articles which may breach certain ethical guidelines it will ultimately be the power of individuals who will control the reactions towards published articles. We saw a few weeks ago that the Daily Mail journalist, Jan Moir, was ridiculed by the communities of social networks for her homophobic article concerning the late Stephen Gately. It was not the Daily Mail which became under attack by users but instead the journalist herself.

This suggests that journalists in the 21^st Century will be required to brand themselves as brands of their own specific type of journalism. The Guardian news iPhone application has highlighted this with the ability to favourite certain journalists and view their own content. In many ways this change could be likened to how authors have to act within the blogosphere. A blog is not only known for the subject it tackles but usually, especially in the case with smaller blogs, who the author is behind each post.

Rupert Murdoch has explained that the days of free news content on the internet are over as online(…)

As some of you will know there are Twitter follow limits.

The limits which Twitter has imposed are:

• 1000 updated per day
• 250 direct messages a day
• 150 API requests a day
• Follow limits

The purpose of this blog post is for some therapeutic reassurance. I suspected the event would happen for a little while; I have reached my follow limit. It’s particularly annoying for me because I do not use Twitter for any sort of corporate gain. There are so many interesting people on Twitter to follow and I simply enjoying connecting and learning.

I just need more people to follow me back. The Twitter follow limit is built upon a ratio system. Currently my following to followers stands at a 2001/1665 ratio. It is here that I am stuck and from doing some research into the matter it seems that the ratio figures, before you can follow anybody else back, are perilously close.

At first I thought about using some Twitter tools to get out of this sticky situation. There are many tools on the internet (a quick Google search will reveal all) that will automatically un-follow anybody who is not following you. The problem though relates back with the way Twitter controls its follow limits.

A large extend of the follow limit imposed is based on your account’s integrity. By indulging in a mass auto un-follow strategy will dramatically reduce the integrity of your account and cause limits to remain. According to Twitter every limit is the same but it seems that a 2000 following limit is fairly standard. Perhaps I should be thankful my limit is 2001?

I do understand that Twitter is not a race to get more followers. However, in my case, I just want to be able to return follows for those users who I find interesting. I have never followed in very large numbers before and this limit imposed upon my account now will stop me from making new connections with users on Twitter.

So this post is a little bit of a(…)

A new feature on Twitter has taken the network by storm and has redefined what it means to be followed or to be re-tweeted. Twitter announced their list feature a couple of days ago and yesterday I got to use the feature for myself. At first I was confused to what a Twitter list meant. How would lists affect the way Twitter is used?

A Twitter list in essence is another simple but powerful concept to spread your username around. A few months ago I noticed that once you follow over 400 people it is difficult to keep track of particular individuals. Now I am following over 1,480 people and it is just impossible to keep track.

A Twitter list allows you to organise certain tweeple into particular groups. This might be a list to categorise the subjects they tweet about. Perhaps a list to collate all of your real life friends. Even a list to just focus on the individuals who you find especially interesting to follow. A Twitter list is essentially a method to keep track of users, to filter them through your follower timeline.

Twitter lists can be kept private or be shared publicly. If a list is left public this gives other users the chance to follow your list. To follow the individuals included in the list or to just follow your list as a whole. This provides an effective way to follow many users without actually having to follow them individually.

Ultimately Twitter lists create unique groups of people who would have been lost without the existence of the feature. Since it has been installed I have managed to easily follow certain individual’s updates, find information I want faster and engage more often in conversation.

In the past it was necessary to just worry about getting the followers. The more followers you have, the further your tweets will be broadcasted. However, the Twitter list feature has changed this. It is all fine and dandy having thousands(…)

I have always been perplexed to why people insert the term ‘viral communication’ into a marketing mix. To label a form of communication as viral seems negative. After all, viral shares its base from Latin virulentus which means ‘poisoned wound’. Linguistically what sort of connotations could we derive from this? A communication plan that spreads as a virus on the internet which could be likened to a wound.

Unfortunately some companies, individuals and “so called” entrepreneurs on the internet feel it is necessary to use this term as their flag ship. A term which has a rotten core and has somehow come to mean an effective PR strategy. A viral means of communication could be better described as the junk mail which visits our email inboxes every day. Some fail to realise that communicating on the internet is very different from communication in the digital realm.

The way PR is practised will change depending on the medium of communication you are dealing with. In the real world it is necessary to send out press releases to various newspapers and publications. On the internet the simple act of sending and then receiving feedback does not apply in the same way. We are in the age of Web 2.0, the era of social networking and as PR practitioners/professionals we need to follow by a community’s rule. I say ‘a’ community’s rule because unlike the real world, the internet is full of different communities.

If you were to send a press release out to a publication then you would make sure that your press release suits the audience of that particular publication. In the same way the internet is full of different communities, mostly with interests in one particular subject. One should never look at a network such as Twitter and believe that there are no particular focuses. Any social network is simply a collection of people, like you and I, who do have personal interests. Using various search methods it is possible to(…)

With the uprising of Twitter and other social networking websites I have come to ask myself a simple question…

Do people still bother to leave comments on blog articles?

I think leaving comments on blogs might be in decline. Only you can prove me wrong.