Friday Roundup 23rd May 2008

Good to see advertising getting an airing in this social media obsessed community. Philip Sheldrake posts about the news this week that Microsoft wants to buy your attention with their new "cashback" approach to search engine marketing.

And back to social media, hats off to Stephen Waddington for achieving a first as far as we've heard... making a hire via his Twitter network. We can only assume that the candidate was permitted to use sentences with more than 140 characters in his interview reponses.

And Brian Solis picks up the recent thread on social Web analytics with his explanation of the new service from Summize. Well worth checking out.

Best regards, Andrew and the MarCom Professional team.

The Social Media Library

by Ben Matthews of Pudding Relations

Sitting on the corner of my desk is a small (but growing) collection of books on social media and Web 2.0 that I've somewhat affectionately dubbed "The Social Media Library".

The idea is that people can borrow books from the library to get up to speed with what's going on in social media and Web2.0 right now and the theories behind the latest developments. Sure, there's blogs and Twitter to keep track of too, but books are still an important way of exploring current issues. More...

Outside Line at WOMM-U

by Chris Applegate of Outside Line

Last week I had the privilege of joining a series of professionals at the Word of Mouth Marketing Association’s (WOMMA) education & insight conference, WOMM-U in Miami. It was a highly edifying experience in a variety of ways. I was one of the few Brits there and before I went, I expected the US to be ahead of us in the word of marketing game, but once I got there I didn’t really find any gap to speak of. All the same issues we are working on are the same ones confronted by our colleagues across the Atlantic. More...

Should vendors pay journalist press trip expenses?

by Andrew Smith of escherman

I’ve been having an interesting e-mail discussion with an ex-colleague (now in-house) around the issue of IT and telecom vendors paying journalists’ travel, accommodation and subsistence expenses for foreign press events. He raised the issue on the back of a rival vendor who has organised a 2 day press trip abroad inviting over 100 journalists from around Europe. Having seen the agenda, it does appear to be little more than a thinly disguised “junket”.

Of course, my American readers at this point may be scratching their heads. More...

Buying market share - when all else fails, get your wallet out

by Philip Sheldrake of Racepoint Group UK

Six searches are conducted via Google for every two on Yahoo and one on Microsoft Live. That's not how Microsoft would like it. So the news from Microsoft last night (well, by British Summer Time anyway), CASHBACK!

Here's how it's worked so far. The search engines deliver paid-for results alongside so-called organic (not paid for) search results. When someone clicks on one of these paid-for results / aka "sponsored links" / aka "ads", the search engine charges the advertiser. More...

What is your attitude to marketing investment risk?

by Andrew Smith of escherman

One of the first questions a financial advisor will ask you is: “what is your attitude to investment risk?” Whatever response you give - cautious, moderate, high - should determine the financial products the IFA recommends to you. Broadly speaking, the higher the potential return, the higher the risk (profit is the reward for risk).

What if we used a similar analogy with marketing investment?

Are clients and prospects seeking well above average marketing returns? In which case, they may need to spend money on original and creative programmes that have never been tried before - and thus have no track record or guarantee of success (much social media activity could be placed here). More...

The Escalator Pitch, Going Up?

by Brian Solis of PR 2.0

The escalator is the new elevator when it comes to pitching and the emerging practice of micro public relations.

While some bloggers and reporters are actively blacklisting PR people, whether it's fair or not, it's not truly fixing or changing anything at a grand scale - at least not yet. I'm part of a growing number of PR folks who are committed to sharing stories, experiences, tools, practices, and ideas on how to specifically fix the relationships between PR and influencers.

But, it's not only PR people who are guilty of unfocused and irrelevant storytelling (spam), it's also company executives and founders who loose a bit of perspective during the reality and grind of product development. More...

Comments = Cash for Burma

by Ben Matthews of Pudding Relations

Made a promise to make more comments on other people's blogs?

Always looking for ways to help people in need?

Well now you can kill two birds with one stone.

The Digital Influence Group is donating $10 for every comment made on this post as part of their work on the Burma: It Can’t Wait project.

If you want to find out more about the issue, Guardian journalist Helen Pidd reported from neighbouring Thailand after spending a week in Burma, seeing first-hand the extent of the damage caused by Cyclone Nargis and recording her views in a video that you can view here. More...

That question keeps coming back - should you blog?

by Graham Jones of Internet Psychology

Business owners keep asking whether or not they should have a blog. They've heard of blogging, but they are not convinced it has any business benefits. Rightly, business owners need to know if their is a return on their investment in blogging; and it's not just the costs of the technology - there's time involved as well.

See also:

Blogging will get your business more media attention

Blogging still isn't getting through to business

How to avoid blogger's block

New data suggests a mixed picture. More...

Twitter hiring

by Stephen Waddington of Rainier PR

We’ve made our first hiring via Twitter. Liverpudlian Matt Watson joins us next month. He’s run a cracking blog for the last five years about his experiences as a student, most recently at Huddersfield University. We got in touch directly via Twitter. Welcome Matt you’ve got a great career ahead of you.

Recruitment via social networking: it’s the brave new world. Like traditional networking but much better. A place in the network is earned not only by who you know, but crucially through personal expertise and reputation. More...

Future of recruitment agencies

by Stephen Waddington of Rainier PR

We're not the only agency to have made a hiring via Twitter. You'll see from the comments on my last post that other people in the PR industry have done the same via LinkedIn and Twitter.

What does this mean for the recruitment industry? Over the last decade we've seen the web squeeze businesses based on an agent or intermediary model many times. Think about estate agents, dating agencies and travel agents. During tough economic climates, such as we're currently predicted to be facing, the impact will always be exaggerated and businesses seek to drive out cost wherever possible. More...

Internet businesses should cut down online promotion

by Graham Jones of Internet Psychology

People who own or run an online business tend to focus all their energies into online promotion. They look at Pay Per Click advertising, banner ads, social network marketing and article marketing. Then they consider online PR, affiliate marketing and online joint ventures. Rarely do online businesses focus their attention elsewhere.

True, many online companies use offline methods of promotion - but frequently this is merely the use of a web site address in adverts, or on company literature. Very few businesses use offline marketing as a means of selling specific online services and products. More...

PR Event: Chinwag Live's Micro Media Maze

by Ben Matthews of Pudding Relations

I piled in late to the Chinwag Live event last night, which took place at The Slug and Lettuce on Wardour Street, Soho. I managed to get a fairly good seat at the back though (complete with clear route to the bar), so got to catch plenty of the action.The event was billed as follows:

"First the music track was decoupled from the physical product and the "long player" album, then the newspaper article was severed from the website. The same wave rolled over the blog post, the TV show, the photo, the vlog, and now the tweet... More...

Summize Listens to Conversations and Sentiment on Twitter

by Brian Solis of PR 2.0

Just a bit ago, I wrote a post covering my favorite tools for monitoring conversations on Twitter.

I’d like to add one more to the bunch. Recently launched Summize is similar to TweetScan, but also unique in its capabilities and in turn, changes how we may view Twitter search. At the very minimum, it’s a basic search tool that operates similar to how you would naturally search in Yahoo or Google. Both tools bring Twitter alive and expose the layers of conversations taking place that matter to your personal life, your professional brand or the companies/products you may represent. More...