Millions of people love Twitter because it’s a great way to share information and socialise. So folks in Twitterland really hate the old hard-sell ‘buy my product’ type messages  Companies that try to use traditional sales and advertising ploys in social media usually get slapped down pretty quickly.

So when Twitter announced this week that it is clamping down on would-be advertising platforms, you would think that you’d be hearing cheers from across the twittosphere. Instead, there was a collective intake of breath and then quiet, in anticipation of the next announcement.

Twitter’s blog said, “We will not allow any third party to inject paid tweets into a timeline on any service that leverages the Twitter API.”  This could spell doom for services like Magpie and Tweetup.  Magpie boasts that it’s the original Twitter advertising network. It claims to assist brands in harnessing sponsored conversations via mutually beneficial partnerships between advertisers and twitteri. Tweetup uses much the same model as PPC search engine advertising, giving priority to ‘high quality tweets’ in its search platform.

But one has to wonder why, when the likes of Magpie and Tweetup have been trundling along steadily growing business for quite some time, that Twitter has now decided to call a halt to it all?  Perhaps it’s because Biz and his team have got something similar up their own sleeves and want to pre-empt the competition?

The microblogging service has already announced a new  ‘promoted tweets’ function that will see advertisers pay to have their Twitter updates highlighted in searches; Best Buy, Bravo, Red Bull, Sony Pictures, Starbucks, and Virgin America are all said to among the first brands to sign up for the service.

So will the community tolerate this commercialisation of Twitter or will there be a huge backlash that puts the advertisers’ brands at risk?  My guess is that the community will bear it rather well.

We tweeps want Twitter to find a viable business model to ensure it remains a going concern and at the same time, we’re unlikely to actually want to pay to use the service ourselves.  So putting up with a few search ads seems a rather small price to pay when you consider all the benefits to Twitter that we enjoy.

And, promoted tweets are likely to be the thin end of the wedge. As brands get to grips with social media generally along with specific platforms such as Twitter and location-based services Foursquare and Gowalla, we’ll be seeing a much higher volume of ‘commercial messages’ as integral parts of the  conversation.

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This is the third month for the Isle of Man Twitter Top 10.  It started with my post on Twitter popularity v influence .  Numbers are not necessarily any measure of value, but these tables are just a bit of fun and are a snapshot of the Manx Twittersphere today.

There have been a few changes since last month. Firstly @robertcurry seems to have disappeared off the list altogether; @OwenC has changed his handle to @mbageekdotcom and @jadeboylan has joined the Grader table. And we welcome @nickop to the TweetLevel table, but to be fair his score is tied with @jamesq; so it’s up to them to fight it out to see who makes it next month To be in with a chance of being included in next month’s tables, make sure you get listed on Twitter Grader’s Isle of Man Elite list.

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This is a cross post from our new blog at sherrilynnestarkie.com.  Please reset your RSS to the new blog.

Many organisations don’t want start a blog or Facebook fanpage because they’re afraid of people contributing nasty or unwelcome comments.  This can be a big issue for many organisations; we only have to look at the whole Greenpeace v KitKat affair of a couple of weeks ago for an excellent example of a corporate fanpage being hijacked.

But, with a little fore thought and advance planning, it doesn’t have to be that way. Have a thoughtful plan of action for all different types of  social media feedback before you get started and most headaches can be avoided.

It’s important to remember that  traditional organisational communication structures, those with a top – down point of view and are controlled centrally from within the org have pretty much gone out the window, thanks to the social Internet.

Management likes to think it decides who knows what and when they find out, but the truth is , despite how it might seem from inside an organisation, today’s real communications models more closely resemble interdependent star clusters.

Groups of people, staff, customers, stakeholders alike, group together around shared interests, values and concerns. They communicate amongst themselves and between groups using social media. Geography and location don’t come into it.  A company CEO could be a participant in any one of these groups or all them.  So too can the temp receptionist … or a  columnist from the Sunday Times.

Thought leaders on this subject have tried to come up with diagrams to depict this trend, but they really don’t come close to actually capturing a true reflection of the interconnected relationships of any community. This would be very difficult to map, indeed; some would say near impossible.

So it’s best just to accept that everyone will find out about everything and they’ll probably do it very quickly.  Once you’ve accepted this, there are some basic principles that will help in handling feedback effectively.

The number one rule when responding to all feedback, even the negative type, is to stay positive. Sound defensive or negative and you’ll fuel the fire.  We saw this play out in spades on the KitKat fanpage when the moderator admonished commenters and sarcastically thanked them for ‘the lesson in manners’ before threatening to remove their posts.  This spurred one the fastest, global social media backlashes any brand has ever experienced.

Think about categorising feedback to help understand its nature and ensure the appropriate response is taken.  For example, negative feedback usually addresses  a problem. Or at least the commenter genuinely believes there is something wrong and lays out exactly how they came to the view.  This feedback can be damaging in the sense that it paints a business in a poor light, but it can be helpful in exposing real problems that need to be dealt with and is an opportunity to make improvements to products and services.

When dealing with  problem, a response is almost certainly necessary.  Whether that response is personal or a broad public-facing message depends on how  widespread the problem is and how many people reported it.

Regardless, if a real problem exists, steps should be taken to fix it and customers should  be notified that those steps are being taken.
For example, recently it was time for me to renew my membership to the Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR).  Because I live on a island in the Irish Sea there are few opportunities for me to attend the Institute’s events, I’ve had very few interactions with other members and have not accessed many services.  So in wondering if I should make the investment in a renewal I asked the PR Twitter community if anyone found significant value from CIPR membership.

Among the answers was a very thoughtful and detailed email from the Institute itself.  Someone there had seen my tweet and within a couple of hours I had nice letter explaining all the specific services and benefits that were relevant to me which I had been ignoring.  I was really impressed with the responsiveness of the CIPR I have to admit (and I renewed without hesitation).

Another category of feedback is a  comment that comes with a suggestion attached. Many customers — including some of your most loyal — will use social media to suggest ways in which you can improve your product or service. While this type of feedback may point out  flaws, and so feels negative, it can be extremely helpful to receive.

Certainly there will be times when a company  won’t want to implement the suggestion given— but it’s still an opportunity to build loyalty and trust by responding to with a positive message.

The air craft company Boeing recently learned this lesson.  It received a idea for an aircraft design (drawn in crayon)  from a eight-year-old boy and responded with a cold, form letter saying unsolicited designs were never accepted.  The boy’s father blogged about it and the story went viral on Twitter.  Seeing all the negative comments online, the company responded by creating a kids’ design contest and managed to turn the situation around. But it could have been avoided altogether had the original response been appropriate.

Sometimes  a company can become the target of a social media firestorm because of an actual screw up – a ‘merited’ attack. While the attack itself may not be merited, the catalyst issue does deserve negative feedback. Essentially, something went wrong, and someone is angry.

We saw this play out when against the American airline Southwest when movie director Kevin Smith, also known as Silent Bob, was allegedly kicked off a flight because  he’s  too fat to fly.  He vented his spleen on Twitter and almost instantly the  airline was in the middle of a major PR crisis as the story was retweeted among Smith’s millions of  followers, and then made it onto the agenda of most American mainstream media.

‘Merited’ attacks can be  tough to deal with. It’s best to to respond promptly with an apology and assurances that steps are being taken to fix the problem. In addition, offering a refund along with some kind of compensation such as free merchandise can help smooth ruffled feathers.

Unwarranted attacks are harder to take. These are often made by ‘trolls’, mean-spirited individuals who have no valid reason for being angry. They just take delight in being mean or want to vent their hatred for all to see. This category also includes spammers, who can clog up your blog with self promotion or who leave negative comments to promote a competitor.

It’s almost always best not to respond to trolls and spammers; it’s better to moderate comments before publication or to just delete them, making a note of the deletion.  For example ‘post by Name has been deleted owing to the use of profane language’, or ‘post by name has been deleted owing to non  with our site’s Terms & Conditions’.

Planning for feedback is the key to managing this aspect of social media.  A plan should encompass discovery, assessment and response considerations including who responses will be handled by and how.  The old adage ‘failing to plan is planning to fail’ certainly holds true in social media.

A couple of months ago I wrote a blog post about how Twitter popularity does not necessarily equal Twitter influence. I thought it might be fun to update the league tables of the Isle of Man’s most popular and most influential tweeps now.

Overall there hasn’t been tremendous change.  A few tweeps have changed places in the ranks, but there’s nothing too radical taking place.

We’ve got one new entry on the popularity side, @programx but I’m afraid @steveburdett has forsaken his top ten place.

On the influence side we’ve had @alansuspect drop out because he’s protecting his updates and TweetLevel can no longer read his profile.  But this creates the opportunity for @JadeBoylan to join the ranks of the Isle of Man’s top ten most influential people on Twitter.

My hope is that movers will leave comments here to share what’s changed for them, if anything since February.

If you want your profile to be considered next month, make sure you get listed with Twitter Grader under the Isle of Man location category.

This is a cross post from our new blog at sherrilynnestarkie.com. Please reset your RSS.

Seventy per cent of public relations and communications agencies cite social media as a major cause of communications crises, according to a survey conducted by Dynamic Markets, a research consulting firm.  A hundred senior PR professionals took part in the survey early this year which revealed:

• 24% said traditional media had ignited crisis situations
• 34% said bloggers had been to blame
• 24% said crises had started in online social networks
• 8% said discussions in online forums had been the root of crises

Half of all agencies had had client crisis management situations involving social media in the past 12 months.  Almost two-thirds of those said social media had exacerbated a problem.  Forty-five per cent of respondents felt that social media gave journalists easy access to disgruntled individuals which fuels crisis situations.

Yes, social media may very well fuel PR disasters (as we’ve recently seen with the Greenpeace campaign against Nestle), but as the same time they can be used to diffuse potential crisis situations. A disgruntled customers can be reached by a company just as easily as by a journalist.

To get things right in a crisis situation takes advanced planning and practice.  Organisations should assess their crisis  readiness and build social media elements into their response plans.  Ideally they’ll run simulation exercises to test their response capabilities.

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My friend Susan Getgood is speaking on Tuesday’s Blogging with Integrity webinar, and I encourage everyone who is interested in learning what is best practice in terms of blogger outreach to check it out.

Susan and I worked together many moons ago when the dot-com trend was bubbling up, but she’s since gone on to become a leading voice in the marketing and communications blogosphere.

She is  co-founder and managing director of Blog With Integrity.  She blogs at Marketing Roadmaps and her first book, Professional Blogging for Dummies (Wiley) will be published in July 2010.

Blogging with Integrity serves as an independent, informational resource for the blogging and business communities. It works with the US government, individuals and organisations to promote the principles of the Blog with Integrity pledge.

Joining Susan on the webinar is  David Wescott, VP, APCO Worldwide and member of Blog with Integrity Advisory Board and a panel of bloggers including, Beth Blecherman, Tech Mamas, Michelle Madhok, SHEfinds.com and Tim Hurst, ecopolitology.org.

The webinar takes place Tuesday 6 April , 2010,  17.00– 18:30 BST and is sponsored by the Council of Public Relations Firms.

It’s US $95 for Council of Public Relations Firms members (You can register through the Council). Or pay the general public rate of US $150. Either way, it’s an excellent investment in getting to grips with blogger relations.

Register at brandsandbloggers.eventbrite.com

The Blog with Integrity pledge

• By displaying the Blog with Integrity badge or signing the pledge, I assert that the trust of my readers and the blogging community is important to me.
• I treat others respectfully, attacking ideas and not people. I also welcome respectful disagreement with my own ideas.
• I believe in intellectual property rights, providing links, citing sources, and crediting inspiration where appropriate.
• I disclose my material relationships, policies and business practices. My readers will know the difference between editorial, advertorial, and advertising, should I choose to have it. If I do sponsored or paid posts, they are clearly marked.
• When collaborating with marketers and PR professionals, I handle myself professionally and abide by basic journalistic standards.
• I always present my honest opinions to the best of my ability.
• I own my words. Even if I occasionally have to eat them.

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This is a cross post from our new blog www.sherrilynnestarkie.com. Please reset your RSS to the new site.

This is a question that many organisations are grappling with.  And, after working with many organisations in various different ways my own answer to this question is that no, you can’t fully outsource social media.

The traditional agency/client relationship will not work when it comes to social media.  I know this because I’ve tried it and found the arrangement to be impossible.

The first casualty of such an arrangement is authenticity.  The individuals in social media communities have an expectation that they are conversing directly with an organisation, not with an agent.

The second casualty is immediacy.  Even with the best of intentions, I’ve found it to be just about impossible to get client approvals quickly enough to meet the needs of social media.

However, I don’t think this means that organisation should not get some help from social media agencies and consultants.  Most organisations don’t have the necessary knowledge base or skill sets to implement sophisticated social engagement strategies.  Nor do they have the necessary bandwidth to manage communities and create compelling content.

So for me, it’s got to be the Third Way, a whole new approach to working together for agencies and clients.  The consultant’s job  is to teach, coach, train and inspire clients to embrace social technologies to tranform their organisations and reap all the related bottomline benefits.

Consultants are experts at developing strategy, creating content and supporting the day to day management of various profiles and platforms, and we’ll continue to provide these services.  But once our ideas  and concepts are implemented and momentum is gained,  we need to hand back the reins to our clients or we risk undermining the whole mission.

This blog post was inspired by some of the discussion at the Getting to grips with social media workshop earlier this week.  But it’s also informed by an excellent discussion taking place on the Conversation Agent blog.

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More than a hundred people turned up at Jaks on Thursday night for the Isle of Man’s first ever Twestival which has so far raised £1577.62 for the charity Concern Worldwide. Donations on the night amounted to £788.62; Barclays Wealth will match this amount to make up the total.

The event was only one of about 200 that took place in cities around the world as part of Twestival Global 2010.  Almost $350,000 was raised on the right around the world, and funds are still coming in.

“The Isle of Man Twitterati turned up to support this important cause and we had a lot of fun in the meantime,” said Sherrilynne Starkie, Twestival Isle of Man committee member.  “The money we raised here will go directly to helping build a school in the third world.”

Twestival (or Twitter Festival) uses social media to bring people together offline to rally around the important cause of education by hosting local events to have fun and create awareness. All of the local events are organised 100% by volunteers and 100% of all ticket sales and donations go direct to Concern Worldwide’s education projects.

Twestival Isle of Man saw people paying a fiver for a chance to live out their rock star fantasies and sing with the band.  Party favourites Red! put on a fun karaoke sing along with more than 30 songs on offer.  Solo artist Chris Flood’s performance set the scene for a fun night of music.

Two members of the band, bass-player Paul Nicholson and drummer Ben Watterson are Barclay’s Wealth analysts, making Twestival eligible for the banks employee matched fundraising scheme.

Stuart Nelson, head of Corporate for Barclays Wealth in the Isle of Man said: “We are delighted to be able to match the money raised at the Isle of Man Twestival to double the fund raising effort.  As an employer, Barclays Wealth is committed to supporting and nurturing the charitable work of our team members and I am pleased to see more employees taking the opportunity to help both local and international charities.”

Twestival Local 2010 takes place in September and will support an Isle of Man charity.  Charities interested in taking part are invited to contact the Twestival committee.

This means that for every £5 ticket sold, another £5 will be added to the total.  Not only is 100% of all ticket sales and donations going to support Concern Worldwide’s educational projects, that amount will be doubled!

“We’ve had lots of people sign up on Facebook to attend the night and many more are tweeting their intentions to come out on 25 March, but these numbers are not yet reflected in our online ticket sales,” said Sherrilynne Starkie, a member of the Isle of Man Twestival organising committee. “Please be sure to book soon to ensure the value of your ticket gets doubled as a donation.”

Twestival (or Twitter Festival) uses social media to bring people together offline to rally around the important cause of education by hosting local events to have fun and create awareness. All of the local events are organised 100% by volunteers and 100% of all ticket sales and donations go direct to Concern Worldwide’s education projects.

IoM Twestival will take place at Jaks Bar & Steak House, a popular music venue in Douglas. The main event is going to be a performance and karaoke singalong with band Red. Audience members will be encouraged to tweet feedback on the singers’ performances in Manx!

Singer/songwriter Anna Goldsmith with also perform and the evening will include a silent auction, raffle and other fun, fundraising activities.

Twestival is raising money to help educate the 72 million children in the world who don’t have the opportunity to go to school through the charity Concern Worldwide.

One hundred per cent of Twestival funds will go to project costs. This includes material purchases (curriculum, desks, pencils) as well as project activities such as construction of schools; rehabilitation of classrooms; teacher/management training; PTAs; HIV/AIDS school clubs; water and sanitation in schools; health education in schools; education advocacy; vocational/life-skills training for youth, farmers and women; and curriculum development for secondary school/university. Money will not be used for things like administration, overhead, reporting oversight, etc.

This is a cross post from our new blog sherrilynnestarkie.com. Please reset your RSS to the new site.

The leaders of the UK’s three main political parties have all agreed to participate in television debates in the lead up to the May election. Most pundits agree these TV events will dominate the campaign and will likely mean candidates spend less time on the hustings.

Not to worry, the Internet will pick up the slack in helping candidates communicate directly with voters across Britain. It will be a interesting blend of super-controlled mainstream media and what some see as chaotic social media. But which will be more effective getting out the vote?

The prime ministerial candidates have agreed to a complex set of guideline for the TV debate comprised of more than 70 rules which forbid, among many other things, heckling and applause from the audience. Contrast this to the uncontrolled blogosphere and you get two very different aspects of political debate.

It was a subject discussed earlier this week by a City University panel of digital and politics experts.

The use of  email and social networks in mobilising activists will be key to getting out the vote according to panelist Matthew McGregor, director at Blue State Digital, the agency that handled the Internet campaign for Barack Obama’s successful presidential bid. In his view, the TV debates will serve as a catalyst for online discussion and viewers will be voicing their responses in realtime…long before any opinion polls can be undertaken.

Google’s head of corporate communications in the UK, DJ Collins took part.  He said, “Online video and camera phones create the moments that create massive drama. And they catch politicians at their most unguarded.”  He said this is taking control away from party strategists, and he predicted that in the upcoming election, there will be candidates that will fall afoul of this.

Professor Ivor Gabor, Professor of Political Campaigning and Reporting, City University London, pointed out that campaigns tend to evolve more slowly than we think; there are few sea changing events. He explained that during the last election we saw the ‘air war’ and ‘ground war’ where the parties tried to by pass the media with a lot of direct mail and phone bank campaigning.  Social media makes fighting the ground war much easier, he said. But social media also makes it easier for the mainstream media to see what’s going on. So the air war and ground war have effectively merged.

BBC Political Editor Nick Robinson didn’t mince his words.  He said that. at its worst, the conversation about new media is self important, narcissistic tosh. “Some of the stuff I see on Twitter is far from being new. It’s like a return to some of those small print magazines that were dashed around coffee houses a hundred years ago.” However he did concede that Sarah Brown, Gordon Brown’s wife, is now one of the most influential people in politics thanks to her 1m+ Twitter followers.

Rishi Saha, a former Conservative candidate and now Head of New Media for the party was also on hand.  He likened the Obama presidential campaign to a start-up company. “It had no activists, no base, no money, nothing. They had to create something from scratch. And the Internet is the best way to scale something very quickly,” he explained. The UK parties are very different. They have two-hundred years of history, hundreds of thousands of members and firm foundations. “It’s like asking Thomas Cook to be a bit more like lastminute.com,” he said.

Another former parliamentary candidate and political blogger, Rupa Huq said that she gets the feeling that all this online mobilisation is better suited to single issues than it is to political parties. She referred to Harold Wilson’s view that a week is a long time in politics.  She said that in an age of status updates, blogfeeds and tweets, a week is really an eternity now.

So what was the overall consensus? A show of hand showed that three quarters of the people in the audience believe the TV debates will prove to be more important to the outcome of the election than any social media engagement.

Unfortunately, the people at City University don’t quite get the ’social’ bit of the piece and have not made the video of the event available on YouTube.  However you can visit their own website to view it by clicking here.

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On Thursday 25 March, people in hundreds of cities around the world will come together for Twestival Global 2010, a fundraising campaign for child poverty charity Concern Worldwide, and the Isle of Man is joining in.

Twestival (or Twitter Festival) uses social media to bring people together offline to rally around the important cause of education by hosting local events to have fun and create awareness. All of the local events are organised 100% by volunteers and 100% of all ticket sales and donations go direct to Concern Worldwide’s education projects.

IoM Twestival will take place at Jaks Bar & Steak House, a popular music venue in Douglas. The main event is going to be a performance and karaoke singalong with band Red. The evening will include a silent auction, raffle and other fun, fundraising activities.  Further details will be released as plans are finalised.

The first Twestival Global was held last year in 202 cities to support the charity Water.  More than 1,000 volunteers and 10,000 donors raised US $250k+, which resulted in more than 55 wells in Uganda, Ethiopia and India having a direct impact for over 17,000 people. It was a remarkable achievement by volunteers working under short timescales and utilising social media tools like Twitter to make it happen efficiently.

This year, the focus is on education and the 72 million children in the world who don’t have the opportunity to go to school. Concern Worldwide was selected by the Twestival global team and local organisers because of its comprehensive and well-respected approach to education.

One hundred per cent of Twestival funds will go to project costs. This includes material purchases (curriculum, desks, pencils) as well as project activities such as construction of schools; rehabilitation of classrooms; teacher/management training; PTAs; HIV/AIDS school clubs; water and sanitation in schools; health education in schools; education advocacy; vocational/life-skills training for youth, farmers and women; and curriculum development for secondary school/university. Money will not be used for things like administration, overhead, reporting oversight, etc.

Twestival Local will take place in September 2010 and will benefit an Isle of Man charity yet to be decided.

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I’ve been trying out Foursquare recently.  It’s a social network that taps into location-based services.  It’s early days for Foursquare, but I think the idea has legs.  It works much like the other social nets; you find friends and connect with them online to share information and socialise.  But what’s cool is that you ‘checkin’ when you visit a shop, restaurant or other location and add your views on the experience.  And there’s a game component too.  Foursquare, or a network like it (Google Buzz?), will open up a myriad of marketing and sales opportunities for anyone targeting consumers once the community of users reaches critical mass.  Here’s a fun video that explains how it works.

Thanks to GIGAOM for the heads up on the video.

Three out of four Fortune Global 100 companies are using social media in some way, according to a study  published by Burson-Marsteller, the global PR firm.

Twitter has proven the most popular with 65% of the Fortune Global 100 have a profile. Unsurprisingly, Facebook and YouTube are the second and third most used with 54% and 50% of top companies involved in those networks.  A third of companies have corporate blogs.

Only one in five international companies are involved in all four social platforms. Companies based in Asia are more likely to publish blogs.

The study also found that Fortune Global 100 companies were active in social media. The study found that  82% tweet each week and 59% post content to their Facebook fan page each week.  Sixty-eight per cent post a video on YouTube each month and 36% update corporate blogs at least once a month.

There is also evidence that stakeholders are listening and engaging. In the study corporate Twitter accounts averaged 1,489 followers, while each Facebook fan page averaged 40,884 fans.

Some companies are interactive and not solely using social media to broadcast corporate messages. Companies using Twitter were following an average of 731 people each, and 38% of companies were responding to people’s tweets.  Thirty-two per cent have also “re-tweeted” or reposted user comments each week.

Other key findings include:

• On average, the Fortune Global 100 companies have 4.2 Twitter accounts, 2.1 Facebook fan pages, 1.6 YouTube channels and 4.2 corporate blogs.
• Companies with active accounts have 27 tweets per week, 3.6 Facebook posts per week 10 new YouTube videos per month and 7 blog posts per month.
• Corporate YouTube channels have an average of 452 subscribers each and over 38,000 views per channel.

Twitter isn’t a popularity contest.  A tweep might have a ton of followers, but this is not necessarily a measure of his influence. How an individual behaves and interacts within the community is a better indicator of how influential he might be.

To illustrate this point, here’s two lists.  The one of the left is list of tweeps with the most followers and is based on Twitter Grader scores. The one on the right uses TweetLevel’s Twitter influence score.

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When is comes to apportioning blame for the current economic recession, it seems that bankers are getting the lion’s share, according to a PR Week survey carried out by research company OnePoll.

In fact, 72% of survey respondants  blame irresponsible corporations and individuals for the recession and it’s investment banks that people blame first, closely followed by high street banks.

Two in five people say they no longer trust banks.  They want greater regulation of banks and disapprove of  the bonuses awarded to those within the profession.  Eighty-eight per cent of respondents say bankers don’t deserve bonuses and nearly half would like to see bonuses both capped and regulated. And as for the argument that that UK bankers will find work abroad if they can’t earn bonuses here, 60% of respondents don’t agree.

It’s not shocking that bankers get the blame; but its a bit surprising that they get almost all the blame with so little landed with politicians and policy-makers.  But then maybe politicians have had a lot more practice at managing their own reputations.

In the Isle of Man the finance industry represents a huge part of our GDP, so we all have a stake in helping  rebuild the reputation of  banking. But first bankers must help themselves by taking a proactive stance and leading the debate on industry issues.  Making their voices heard is the first step on the road to recovery.

It’s been a bad week for the American airline Southwest. Movie director Kevin Smith, also known as Silent Bob, was allegedly kicked off a flight because he’s too fat to fly.  He vented his spleen on Twitter and the next thing your know, the airline was in the middle of a major PR crisis as the story was retweeted among Smith’s followers, and then made it onto the agenda of most American mainstream media companies.

Kevin Smith is a bit of an extreme case, but this kind of incident happens every day to all kinds of brands and organisations, especially those who are consumer facing. Anyone left to queue for too long or served luke warm soup can immediately publish his displeasure for all to see.

But how can you tell if a flamer has any influence on Twitter?  Looking at the number of people following that profile will give you an indication of popularity, but it’s not a good indicator of influence. For example, a disgruntled tweep may only have 50 followers, but if these individuals are MPs the actual influence could be much greater.

Luckily there are a few free tools online which help determine Twitter influence.  A smart one is TweetLevel, launched a few months ago by Edelman PR, which helps in understanding how ‘important’ someone is, and therefore how much effort and time should be invested in any one individual who is tweeting negatively.

TweetLevel compiles Twitter data from more than 30 sources and feeds the data through an algorithm to rank an individual according to four weightings:

• popularity (number of followers)
• influence (level of interest in what’s tweeted)
• engagement (level of activity and participation)
• trust (belief and faith in what’s tweeted)

With more than 1.6 million followers, Kevin Smith is popular, this is true.  But perhaps more interesting is his high trust score of 88.5. So when he complains about a brand, people are actually listening to what he says. Instant PR disaster for Southwest!

TweetLevel reveals some interesting facts about the Isle of Man Twitter community. @Pokerstars , the profile of a global industry leading brand, has a large number of followers at almost 8K, but TweetLevel reveals its influence to be only average with a score of 50.7.  But Manx school girl @BeckiiCruel has a similar influence score, 43.8, although her follower numbers are significantly lower at about 1,500.  Perhaps even more interesting is the profile for astrologer @RobertCurry who boasts almost 68k followers, but whose influence score is only 50.

So which of these three tweeps is more ‘important’?  According to TweetLevel, they are all just about equal

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If you’re already using Facebook, Twitter and email you might wonder why you’d ever want or need to get involved in Google Buzz.  The new social service, launched last week, seems to mimic many of the functions and features already available on other sites.  And there have been quite a few concerns about personal privacy voiced online and in the media.

These are all pertinent facts.  But remember the thing that makes social networks useful and fun is the community.  Having a lot of great features and functions helps facilitate social interaction, but it’s socialising with people that makes these platforms important.  So although there are huge numbers using Facebook and Twitter, it would be folly to ignore Google Buzz because it’s linked to Gmail which boasts 100 million users worldwide.

While we’ve not seen a grand exodus from our favourite social networks quite yet, I certainly wouldn’t rule it out.  The folks at Google do have a rather impressive track record for success so far.

So while you are deciding if you’ll dip your own toes into the Buzz waters, check out this video to see how it works:

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This is a cross-post from out new site sherrilynnestarkie.com. Please reset your RSS to the new site!

The Isle of Man’s International Business School has asked to me to speak at a lunchtime CPD seminar on 19 February 2010.   I will cover the basics…

• What is social media – an overview of platforms
• How is it used – marketing, communications, innovation and HR
• What are the benefits – to an organisation? to an individual?
• How to get started – simple steps

It’s only £15 including lunch.  It starts at 12.30 and everyone will be away by 13.45.   For more information or to book click here.

Mark your calendar!  I’m running a ‘Getting to grips with social media’ workshop on 30 March 2010.  Last November’s event proved very popular. It was sold right out and I’ve had several enquiries about running another one.  Here’s the deal:

Getting to Grips with Social Media

Learn:

• how the social Internet is changing how humans and organisations communicate and interact.
• about the various social networks, tools and platforms
• about blogging and the democratisation of information
• policies and best practices in social media
• strategies and tips to get your organisation involved

Workshops  include case studies on  local, UK and international organisations.

Understand:

• where social media fits into your organisation
• what social networks can (and can’t) achieve
• the risks and benefits of the social Internet
• the art of online conversation

Leave with a good grounding in how the social Internet works, the tools of the trade, and some ideas on how to get started.

The workshop will be held  9.00 to 13.00, 30 March 2010 in Douglas, Isle of Man. The venue is to be confirmed.  The cost is £75 per person and includes coffee, tea and nibbles.  Becasue the workshops are interactive, space is limited so book early to  avoid disappointment.  Email workshops(at)sherrilynnestarkie.com or Twitter @sherrilynne.

Here’s a video from the Q&A at November’s workshop:

If 2009 was the year of Twitter, then let 2010 be the year that social media comes of age and takes its rightful place at the centre of business process and communications management.

It’s not enough to slap up a Facebook fanpage and push out website content via Twitter.  To gain the true, significant benefit of social media requires thoughtful consideration and a smart strategy driven from the very top of the organisation.

Social media integration is a complex, evolutionary process. It takes a change of culture and mindset, and these are things that cannot be done overnight. A company needs to understand where and how Web 2.0 technologies are impacting the organisation. It needs to understand the risks and benefits, where and when to engage and how this engagement should be evaluated.

This takes time. I  use a ten-step framework for social media integration to assist organisations through the transition. It’s a flexible approach that can be implemented swiftly or with a more measured approach. There is no one right way on the path to online social integration; each individual and organisation takes a unique course.

This is usually guided by a focus on stakeholder engagement. Striving to build relationships with these groups and individuals is the ultimate goal, and all strategy and tactical programme elements dovetail under this ambition.  In past times, it might have taken a distinct communications strategy to reach each group.  Social media means that companies must successfully navigate a complex ecosystem of online communities in which individuals expect transparency and are all empowered to participate equally.

Finding the right mix
The social media aspect is important. But the key to success is the ‘integration’. New technologies must fit with existing software applications, established websites and microsites as well as with traditional communications media such as newsletters, team briefings, mainstream advertising and PR.  Finding the right mix to enhance what’s already in use and to amplify those benefits is fundamental.

Social media integration is not simple. It’s a complex process which actually started about ten years ago when the business world went online, but is now at the tipping point. Still it’s a new world for most people. That makes, organisational internalisation of the social internet a particularly lofty ambition, but it is crucial. Now is the time to throw away the idea that messages are to be controlled from the top down and from within.

Already, there is no longer any control over company messages in the real world. As a company’s information moves from person to person, each forms a unique connection to the organisation based on his own reaction, perspective and beliefs. This is the birth of a relationship, hopefully a positive one.

For traditional organisations making the change in thinking takes a significant attitude adjustment. It takes requires the recognition that everyone is equal, as people from across the organisation, every department and division, begin to socialise amongst themselves as well as with customers, shareholders and other outside communities.

This is powerful stuff; but in truth for most organisations, this scenario is already ‘current reality’ to some degree. Keeping heads in the sand will benefit no one.

It’s been said that every great journey begins with a single step and, so it is with the social internet. This ten step process facilitates, supports and eases the way to full integration and into the future.

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If you have a social conscious and want to take control of the kind of web advertisements you see, help is at hand.  The DoGooder, is a new browser plug-in that lets people replace push website ads with ones that they actually appreciate seeing and find useful.

The plug-in is free, takes 10 seconds to install, and creates revenues for good causes: the company behind the plug-in gives 50% of its profits to green initiatives, charities, and nonprofits. The range of causes to benefit include everything from environmental campaigns to child poverty to disease eradication.  Donations do not go back to brand advertisers.

The concept is not all that new. There are a number of online ventures focused on raising cash for third-sector organisations through social networks and similar platforms. But the DoGooder has its own slant on getting cash and raising awareness of social causes.

The fundamental premise is that people would rather help people than faceless corporations. It seems to be working: the plug-in has  already had almost 6,000 downloads since the launch late last year.

In Internet advertising, a company or brand will have its adverts served to a range of websites in the hopes that people will click through to their own homepage.  Impressions in the millions typically generate hundreds of clicks; the low return is attributable to the lack of relevance and personalisation of web adverts.

With the DoGooder, people indicate their preference for information about charities and good causes and because they actually want to see this information, there is a significant improvement in click through conversion rates. So instead of seeing a banner ad for the latest installment of Celebrity Big Brother, a DoGooder user will get information about an environmental campaign, or something similar.  In addition, people who use the plug-in can play a role in deciding who gets the cash raised by clicking on ‘Suggest a Cause’.

Here’s the bottomline: it’s easy, almost effortless to download DoGooder. It doesn’t have to cost you anything and you’ll still be raising cash and helping good causes. The plug-in helps eliminate a lot of the white noise on the web.  Seemingly the proposition is win/win.

This is a cross post from our new blog sherrilynnestarkie.com. Please reset your RSS because before long, Strive Notes will be shut down.

Search engines exist to help users find the web content they seek.  These top tips leverage search technology to help get your site to the top of Google page one.

1. Keep adding new and different content. Every time you update your website the search engines are automatically alerted and send a ’spider’ along to have a look.  That’s why blogs works so well. Having a blog component on a website and updating it often will definitely enhance search engine rankings.  Updating a blog three times a week is a good starting point; but three times a day is even better!

2. Go with a CMS (Content Management System) website.  These days, you don’t have to be fluent in HTML coding to update a website. CMS systems are easy to use and are versatile web platforms.  In fact, if you can write an email you can write and update a blog. It’s that easy.  And every time you publish a blog post or someone leaves a comment, adds a little juice to your search ranking. There are several CMS platforms available, but I like  Wordpress and Graffiti because they very easy to use and are open source.

3. If a web page isn’t getting traffic, delete it. You might as well remove information that is out of date or is not generating much interest. The value of the links to your site is diluted if there are large number of pages. You need content that invites links to boost search performance and cutting out the ineffective stuff will keep your site editorially relevant and make it of more use overall.

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Sherrilynne Starkie, Chris Gledhill, CI Mark Payne

Thanks to the more than 50 people who came out last week to Super Third Thursday, this year’s first meeting of the Isle of Man Social media club.  Our speaker was CI Mark Payne of the West Midlands Police who is the driving force behind the use of social media in Britain’s police services.

“My top tip in terms of organisations engaging in social media is that it’s much better to ask forgiveness that to seek permission,” said CI Payne. “Social media are very intuitive and you’ve got to let go some of the control. Let your people talk. Trust them. And let people talk back to them.”

The West Midlands Police service is established on several social networks including Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. In addition, CI Payne is a regular blogger.

The idea behind this is very simple.  CI Payne explained, “Police are often criticised for being difficult to get hold of, or not listening to what local people are saying. We try all kinds of ways to communicate with the public, meetings, newsletters, traditional media, talking to people we meet and anything else we can think of. There is clearly a huge amount of conversation taking place online and, where people are talking about policing or crime issues, we want to be part of the conversation.”

Super Third Thursday was sponsored by PDMS (disclosure) and the West Midlands police are a client of the web development company. Managing Director Chris Gledhill said, “Super Third Thursday was really fantastic. It showed the West Midlands police can engage with the public in a totally different way. ”

Here CI Payne fields questions from the crowd:

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One of the most exciting social innovations to come along for a while is iSites, a just-launched service that lets you create a self-branded iPhone or Android application in a couple of minutes for about £15.

With iSites,  a website’s RSS feed and data are quickly transformed into a full-fledged smartphone app.  The process is very straightforward so just about anybody can do it.

For companies, a good place to start would be with a blog or other RSS feed.  Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, Posterous, Tumblr and other social feeds can also be converted for the iSites app.

A company iSite app can be designed to reflect the brand; the header image, colors and menu are all customisable. Once everything is set to go,  the application is published to iPhone and Android app stores with the click of a button. Added value features include the capacity to monetise the iSites application.

Meet the people behind the service:

Yesterday Chief Inspector Mark Payne of the West Midlands Police spoke to the Isle of Man Social Media Club . Following the Third Thursday meeting, he and I had a fascinating conversation about how social media is changing the police’s relationship with the media.  What follows is a blog post on the subject that Mark published a few days ago and he’s kindly allowed me to republish it here.

I tweeted about an interesting article in the Guardian last week. The thrust of the argument is that police forces are pumping out PR based press releases, which papers print unedited due to lack of resources. Police are therefore writing their own headlines, and not telling the public about crime. Using my newly acquired media monitoring skills, I noticed that this link had created a huge amount of interest, so I thought it might be useful to give people a personal insight into the relationship between the police and the media.

Firstly, it is right to state that society in general would be a worse place without journalists, both local and national. The role they perform in holding public authorities to account is crucial to a democracy, and as we have seen with the recent MP’s expenses debate, they can foster change on a grand scale. I would not want to live in a world where the media is supressed or controlled. Although nobody likes to be caught out or embarrassed by the media, it beats the alternative where public bodies do what they want without fear of exposure.

Although I now run the press office for West Midlands Police, I have spent most of my career as a Detective. I have investigated murders, rapes, serious violence, taken guns off the street and dismantled drug rings. I am therefore well placed to offer a rounded view on the police relationship to the media.

I have first hand experience of working with the media at the coal face  with varied results. For example, I used a newspaper appeal to trace a crucial witness to a murder, and I have also found the media to be really accommodating when there are important messages that we need to get out to the public. I have also found myself on numerous occasions having fairly heated disagreements with journalists when they want to publish stories that would have a detrimental impact on live investigations.

I have always struggled with the concept of a journalist insisting they want to publish a story, when the police are telling them that doing so would make it more difficult to either arrest or convict the offender. My instincts as a police officer are all about getting the bad guy locked up, whereas journalistic instincts tend to be to get the story out before another media outlet. This is often the cause of friction between police and media.

In the time that I have been in the press office (approaching 18 months) there has been a marked change in the media world. There are many fewer journalists, and less local papers. Although the media are still an important part of our communications plans, we now place greater emphasis than before on local communications, delivered by way of officers contacts in the community, newsletters, local meetings and with web based communications. This is not because we are trying to provide less information to the public, just a recognition of the changing landscape.

One of the assertions in the Guardian article is that police do not tell people about crime. I would argue that there is more information available than ever before. If you click on this link http://bit.ly/54BEsF and type in your postcode, all of the information about crime in your neighbourhood is available at the touch of a button. Even in the halcyon days to which the reporter refers, there was never this amount of information available, so it is a little unfair to suggest we are hiding crimes. What I think the article means is that we are not giving it to journalists in the way they would like to receive it.

In my current role, I have daily conversations with a wide range of journalists. They are generally easy to get along with, and we have good relationships with most local papers. There are clearly competing demands and occasional fall outs over stories, but on the whole the relationship is positive. Often queries from journalists will make us look again at an issue and ask whether we have actually done the right thing. Where we haven’t I encourage officers to say so, and put it right. This seems to me to be a quite healthy relationship, and one that I encourage.

It is not our role to fill the newspapers with stories. We will issue a press release if there is a policing purpose behind it, for example, we want public help to identify an offender, or want to warn the public about a specific crime type which they can guard against.  We will also issue press releases where there is good news to report, so that the public get a balanced view, and are not left afraid to go out at night.

The relationship between police and the media will continue to evolve. I remain optimistic that the traditions of policing and journalism can continue to co-exist for the good of everybody, and I will continue to look forward my local paper every week.

Last night’s  Isle of Man JCC’s Property Outlook event was sold out. No wonder! Black Grace Cowley’s Nic Cooper and Tim Groves teamed up to deliver a comprehensive, state-of-the-market-presentation. It wasn’t the rosiest of pictures; but it wasn’t all bad news either. Thanks to Barclay’s Wealth whose sponsorship made the event possible.

Students get more than they bargain for when a Happiness Machine replaces the soda vending machine.  This YouTube video from Coke has been viewed  +373k times in four days and gets 6,800 mentions on Google Blogs.  It’s a simple concept and it’s working well.

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This article is cross posted from my new site.  Please readjust your RSS reader now because I’ll be shutting down Strive Notes before long and I don’t want you to get left behind.

Social networking tools are spreading into core areas of enterprise, including the marketing and communications, human relations, and customer service departments, according to a new study from Cisco. Within marketing and communications, these tools have already become an integral part of organisations’ initiatives, as marketers have understood and acted on the shift from “broadcast” to “conversational” communications or rich interactions.

The Cisco study assessed how organisations use consumer social networking tools to collaborate externally and it revealed the need for stronger governance and IT involvement. The research is based on extensive interviews with 105 participants representing 97 organisations in 20 countries around the globe and was conducted between April and September 2009.

Of the organisations interviewed, 75% identified social networks as the consumer-based social media tools they primarily use, while roughly 50 percent of the group also identified extensive use of microblogging.

“The study findings indicate that the business world is at the early stages of adopting these tools and in the process of identifying key challenges, such as the need for increased governance and IT involvement, which may impact the integration and adoption of these new platforms and technologies,” commented Evgeny Kaganer, Ph.D., lead researcher and assistant professor, IESE Business School.

It’s clear that businesses are slowly waking up to the collaborative benefits of social computing across the enterprise. Apart from the marketing and PR benefits, the use of social media increases the whole organisation’s agility, thanks to the speed and ease of interaction among team members, customers and partners.

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I thank everyone who has been reading commenting and contributing and invite you all to join me at my new site:  sherrilynnestarkie.com.

I’ll be cross posting here for next few weeks, but before long that will stop so I ask everyone to point their feed reader to my new blog so that no one gets left behind. 

Thanks Strive Notes.  You’ve been a good friend.  I’ll always remember you fondly.