danleach.co.uk

Like blogs, Twitter has almost become a staple comms. tool for brands. But before jumping into the world of micro-blogging make sure your company can answer the following questions:

1. What will your Twitter username be? Make sure it’s short, snappy and relevant. Use the company name if possible so fellow tweeters can find your easily
2. Who will be responsible for updating the feed? Will it be a single person, a team of people – how much time will you allocate to Twitter each week? If it’s not enough you won’t get out of the starting block.
3. What is the purpose of your Twitter account? Is it a news feed, customer support channel, lead generator, personality-builder, media engagement tool, event promotion, competition promotion, internal communications or simply amplifying another Twitter feed? Make sure your tweets serve a purpose.
4. What is your follower strategy?  How will you decide who to follow and who does the following?
5. Who are you targeting with Twitter? Journalists, industry influencers, customers, competitors, celebrities, staff? There are numerous audiences on Twitter but make sure your tweets aren’t being lost in space – make them targeting and attract the people you want to speak to.
6. What is your response strategy? What do you do if someone sends a reply or DM to you? Is it an instant response, do you have a 24 response time? Who manages the replies?
7. What is the expected life-span of your Twitter feed? Is this something that will live for 6 months or indefinitely. Ask the question, if the answer is less than 3 months then Twitter probably isn’t the way forward for your brand.
8. How will you integrate your Twitter feed across your other social platforms? LinkedIn, Facebook, Foursquare – they all allow you to further spread your tweets amongst your target audience.
9. How will you measure the success of your Twitter feed? Be accountable, will you measure the number of followers you have, the number of leads you have generated or the amount of conversation created. Have a goal and you’ll find it easier to find success on Twitter.

Creating a Twitter account isn’t rocket-science but having an effective and useful Twitter feed isn’t easy. Only by questioning the role that micro-blogging will have for your brand and dedicating focused resource towards the platform will you ensure Twitter becomes an invaluable tool for your company, your employees and your customers.

My morning kicked off with a conversation about Twilert and in particular why the site was launched in BETA and what BETA actually means. It got me thinking about my reasoning behind it and I ended at the question of “Why would I ever take the site out of BETA?”

For me, BETA means the final version of a service or site before small tweaks are made and a final, clean version is rolled out to the masses. However, that implies that the service is perfect as doesn’t require constant TLC, tweaks and improvements and I’m yet to find a single online service that fits in the “perfect” bracket.

The point is that, as I am finding with Twilert, user interaction online now means that feedback and advice for online tools and services comes thick and fast and webmasters (for want of a better word) need to react to this feedback by incorporating it into their sites. The feedback will never stop and therefore neither should the tweaking.

BETA works for real-world things, things that can’t be upgraded or changed en-mass easily. But online, there is no such thing as BETA. Every CEO, CFO and webmaster should treat their site like it is constantly in BETA and mould their service to meet the demands of those using it. If you don’t then a competitor that does, will, and you’ll lose users overnight.

This week I watched an interesting video stream from Hot Dog Media where we discussed, amongst other things publishing content. Along the course of the debate we touched on whether making content available online means it should free and that artists/authors/developers should look to monetise their creations through additional services.

I argued that we shouldn’t assume that because something is online it is free however I do believe the way content is published should change.

For the music industry, I still find it amazing that the record companies continue to rip off fans with albums costing £15 plus. Their decision not to embrace the digital movement is leading to their own downfall as consumers look for more convenient and cost-effective means of getting their music such as Last.fm, Napster and of course illegal downloads. I have no doubt in my mind that the level of music piracy would plummet if labels offered consumers a fairer price for their purchase.

But, this issue isn’t confined to the music industry. We hear little from the publishing industry on the impact that e-books are having on hard-copy sales. Probably because e-books haven’t hit the mainstream in the same way MP3s have. However, with more cost effective readers coming on the market and mobile phones such as the iPhone offering e-book support, it is only a matter of time before this form of content overtakes the traditional hardback.

Authors and publishers are beginning to react to the growing e-book trend and finding new and innovative ways of distributing their work. A good friend of mine, Stephen Morris, wrote his second book last year and instead of popping it on the shelves of Borders he decided to distribute it online in five parts. The book was free until the final section where consumers were asked to donate £3 to homeless charity, Shelter. The book made thousands for the charity and provided some fantastic publicity for a young, new author.

Likewise another author-friend of mine left 20 copies of his new book on various London Underground trains in the hope people would pick them up, read them and pass them on. They did and he received hundreds of emails from grateful bookworms willing to buy the book.

Authors and the publishing industry are benefitting from the generational gap of readers. e-books are lagging behind MP3s but over the next five years I suspect we’ll see a sharp increase in e-book downloads and with it will come the inevitable financial and copyright challenges currently facing the music industry. Publishers have plenty of time to address the issue and plan a viable business solution that will allow the industry to thrive under sales of e-books but they can’t afford to wait for consumers to start exploring cheaper means of getting their reading material.

As I mentioned during the Hot Dog Media webcast, online content doesn’t have to be free but not adapting to an online audience will see creators and publishers lose out.

A couple of weeks ago I posted an article discussing how traditional PR is dead and today’s Google Chrome announcement only furthers my belief that PRs must continue to looks at new and interesting ways of communicating to the media and consumers.

Google has pulled off, in my opinion, a mini masterstroke by announcing its new browser through a cartoon. Why? Well for a start it’s much more interesting than a press release. But, more importantly look at how the story is being reported, there are just as many blog posts and news articles discussing the cartoon as the product itself.

The cartoon does nothing more than communicate the key messages and features of Google Chrome but by packaging it in an interesting and unique way, (all of) those messages are reaching the end-user. By discussing or even posting scans of the cartoon the media are doing the equivalent of reprinting a press release.

I don’t think we can all go start sending out cartoons to journalists, we can’t lose sight that the Google brand and this particular announcement carries a fair amount of weight with the media. However, we shouldn’t be afraid of exploring new ways of engaging journalists and consumers, especially now that Google has given us the perfect case study.

I get a little bit of stick in the office for being a self-confessed techy but more and more I am finding an array of software, websites, gadgets and tools that allow me to stay one step ahead in the fast-paced world of PR

I thought I would compile a selection of things I kit myself out with to make me a little more PR 2.0:

1. Firefox & add-ons: I took the plunge with Firefox earlier this year and have never looked back. Aside from the speed, stability and usability it provides it also allows you to install add-ons and plug-ins to tailor the software. Pertinent to this post include:

• LinkedIn Companion: Allows me to keep access and my business network at the click of a button (Disclaimer: LinkedIn is an H&K client)
• Foxmarks: Invaluable for working between the office and home. Synchronises your bookmarks across computers so you never have to find that obscure news article you saved during some late night surfing
• Googlepedia: Displays a Wikipedia article next to your Google searches. Excellent resource and time-saver when doing desk research
• Cooliris: Fantastic tool for some one-man creative thinking. Turn your PC into a mood-board in seconds
• TwitterFox: I can’t remember the last time I visited Twitter.com. Tweet and access your feeds from the comfort of your toolbar
• Brief RSS Reader: I know a lot of people like Google Reader but I actually prefer this reader. It’s quick, intuitive and allows me track my 70+ feeds easily

2. Google Alerts: An absolute must for any PR worth their salt. Say goodbye to emails from clients that start, “Did you not see this article?”

3. Factiva Alerts: If you do have access to Factiva you’ll know it provides a useful if not limited service. People tend to overlook its alert service though, which I have found very good. I have it setup to send me an overview email of relevant news articles every morning at 8am. A good indication of what’s on your clients’ agendas that day

4. Mobile Internet / TV: I check the news on a regular basis either through Orange’s WAP site or via Sky News through Orange’s 3G mobile TV service (£5 per month). Increasingly useful as the meetings tot up in my calendar.

5. SpinVox: We all know what it’s like. Leave a 2 hour meeting, turn your phone on…”you have 15 new voicemail messages”. Streamline your voicemail by using SpinVox, a service that turns your voicemails into SMS texts. You’ll no longer be fumbling around for a pen on the 12:05 from Weybridge

6. The Web: Couldn’t really leave it out. But, whilst 99% of it is useless there are some gems in there that every (tech/consumer) PR should have in his or hers bookmarks:

• BBC News Online
• Digg.com
• Mashable!
• Techmeme
• Getty Images
• Wikipedia
• TheWebList.net
• PR Week UK

Follow me, be a geek and amaze your colleagues and clients with your knowledge, speed and creativeness. Just don’t tell anyone that without the web we’d be nothing!

Have I missed any? Let me know!

These seem to be popping up all over the place but I feel it’d be unfair to write about one and not the other.

Following my post on the demise of the Airline industry, the Guardian has reported on the new “Live” advertising campaign launched by British Airways.

The tagline is “Terminal 5 is working” – you know there are problems when your key message to your customers is our product/service ain’t broke.

But, I’ll admit they have been quite clever by using the advertising as a customer information channel to communicate general statistics about the terminal in real-time such as flight punctuality, baggage arrival times etc.

A nice idea and should go some way to heal the damage caused by the disastrous opening. The only potential issue however is it’s all very well saying things are 100% but it only takes on delayed flight to put a sour taste in the mouth of your customers. And, the very last thing you need after spending the night on the cold floor at arrivals is an advert saying all’s well in the world and we have the stats to prove it.

Another day, another badging exercise. This time the FA has announced it is teaming up hi Hi-Grade to produce a range of England-branded laptops which will hit the shelves before the end of the year, just in time for Christmas.

Cue the adverts of David Bentley and Michael Owen hunched over the notebook pretending they know what PowerPoint is.

Aside from making a fast buck from the fans (the FA wouldn’t do that would they?), what exactly is the point of this? It’s simply another merchandising operation and unless the notebook comes with some kind of exclusive content for fans my guess is the FA laptop will be coming to a bargain bin near you. Fear not though, I have some suggestions…

- Michael Owen’s betting tips
- Ashley Cole’s get rich scheme
- Frank Lampard’s pie recipes
- Your Feminine Side and You by John Terry

I could go on…

BT, Virgin, Orange, Tiscali, BSkyB and Carphone Warehouse have all signed up to a new deal with the music industry in a bid to tackle piracy online. For now this means that thousands of ISP customers suspected of sharing music will receive letters asking them to stop.

A small step in the right direction but in reality telling people to stop sharing music does nothing. People don’t do it because they don’t know it’s wrong – they do it because the music industry has seen fit to charge consumers extortionate amount of money for music over the past 25 years!

I refuse to pay for albums and singles but get around it by using the very good Napster (flat fee for unlimited listening). And with the likes of Pandora and Last.fm becoming more mainstream the music industry is fighting a losing battle.

The solution is not to wag the finger at consumers or switch their internet connection off, which is what the music industry is pushing for. The crux of the issue is that the music industry has not adapted to changing consumer needs. Why pay £15 for an album when that same amount will give me to listen to unlimited music and put it on my MP3 player. Until the music industry realise the world is very different from that of over two decade ago and change the fundamental elements of how they conduct business, people will share music.

The answer is simple: labels – make your catalogue available online and charge a flat fee to listen to it. Split a cut of the revenue amongst the artists based on whose music is being played, you can keep the rest!

See what Kid Rock has to say on the matter:

PR Week’s Best of the tech blogs…

This week: the transformation of Prices Harry and William from fist-wielding drunks to charity-giving officers. And we’re all freetards apparently…nice!