Friday Roundup 9th May 2008

Thanks to everyone who forwarded last week's Roundup to colleagues and clients. No preamble today, we'll just leave the talking to this week's featured posts.

Best regards, Andrew and the MarCom Professional team.

Tech still in the ascendency

by Stephen Waddington of Rainier PR

Despite the credit crunch and claims of a knock on effect on the business economy, there is clearly cash available for smart ideas.

According to market watchers at Ascendant, 2008 has started very well for the tech sector with increase in both the value and volume of private equity investment deals, though more investment groups appear to be pairing up to commit cash in a bid to share risk.

Although activity declined slighted, VCs and private investors increased the capital they invested in Q1 by 15 per cent to £357m - backing 13 per cent more companies, which rose to 72 businesses from this time last year. More...

PR and social media – an alternative view

by Stephen Waddington of Rainier PR

Tim Hoang has just had a quick lunch with the Justin Kirby, founder of the International Viral & Buzz Marketing Association (VBMA). The meeting came as a result of an email exchange in Tim’s role at New Media Knowledge where, to put it mildly, Justin was rather negative about the way the PR industry has so far tackled social media.

One of his main criticisms was that “the PR industry gravitates around certain individuals – much in the same way that people consume media that reinforces their ideology” More...

The sign brings customers – a beginners guide to signage

by Stephen Bourke of Endpoint

"The sign brings customers"

The Fortune-Tellers. Fable 15.

Jean de la Fontaine, 17th century French poet (with no doubt family in the sign business)

Before I joined the brand implementation racket I knew nothing about signage. I still know very little about the technical specification of signs, but I have been blown away by their importance to both the decision making cycle and branding in general. These 5 points will hopefully shed some light on the role signage plays for those more at home with Adwords than AutoCAD. More...

The Agency as Community Facilitator - a new biz dev mode or future reality?

by Rebecca Caroe of Creative Agency Secrets

I have been given sight of the Forrester report "The Connected Agency " Feb 8th 2008. And it spells gloom and death for the current traditional agency business model.

Definition of a CA is

An agency with a deep understanding of consumer communities, helping brands create and nurture connections, deliver targeted, on-demand messages, and network for talent and insights.

Key points and the impact on your biz dev methods are:-

Data - if you aren't deeply into collecting it (audiences as well as prospective clients) start now. More...

Social Media Continues to Rival Traditional Media

by Brian Solis of PR 2.0

As each day passes, we're presented with new information that documents the decline of traditional media in favor of online counterparts and new media competitors. It seems that newspapers are among the hardest hit with circulation and print advertising down - forcing layoffs across the country.
The Newspaper Association of America (NAA) recently released a study showing newspaper Web sites attracted an average of about 66 million unique visitors in the first quarter, up about 12 percent over the same period a year ago. More...

Zattoo... live content TV broadcast on your PC

by Philip Sheldrake of Racepoint Group UK

I'm at RIPE56 today and tomorrow. RIPE (Réseaux IP Européens) is a collaborative forum open to all parties interested in wide area IP networks in Europe and beyond, and RIPE56 is, you've guess it, the 56th meeting.

This week-long event brings together the best minds on IP networks, and I'm here working predominantly on the issues of IPv4 depletion and IPv6 uptake. This is a complex issue requiring some deft communications.

Right now however, I'm in a very interesting presentation by Thomas Billeter and Fredy Kuenzler of Zattoo. More...

Why the Google advertising change doesn't matter

by Graham Jones of Internet Psychology

Google quietly changed it's terms and conditions for advertising yesterday. Up until now, advertisers using Google AdWords have been banned from using the brand names of their competitors in their adverts; now they can.

This has spawned all sorts of suggestions as to how businesses might capitalise on the change. One example I read was if you are Sainsbury, you can now use the word Tesco in your online advertising with Google. Fine; but what value does it bring you.

See also:

Do you need a brand?

Internet marketers focus on the wrong things

Let's take a look at some statistics. More...

Online, offline, up a tree, down a cellar - effective networking is all in the mix

by Philip Sheldrake of Racepoint Group UK

Being so fascinated by and engrossed in social networking, and digital media relations more widely, I'm asked on a regular basis "What's the point of spending so much time online?".

The very basis of the question betrays the fact that the questioner still, like the majority of people to be fair, feels it necessary to divide their life up into "offline" and "online" portions. Yet they don't distinguish "time eating / not eating", "time talking / listening", "time with new people / with old acquaintances", "time on the phone / not on the phone". More...

Social networks are the place to be

by Graham Jones of Internet Psychology

Researchers at the Center for the Digital Future at the University of Southern California have just published their report on the consequences and benefits of children going online. However, embedded within the report are some interesting facts that every online business needs to think about.

Firstly, the annual study shows a dramatic shift upwards in the use of "online communities" of all kinds. Plus it reveals the kind of online groups that people are joining. Even though "social networking" More...

Charity Communications: Brave New World

by Ben Matthews of Pudding Relations

This session was billed as "An interactive and entertaining session about the opportunities new media offers to charities, for communications and fundraising. A particularly innovative format; inspiring and a little outrageous."

And to be fair, Russell Davies (@russelldavies) - internet marketing guru and columnist at Campaign magazine - lived up to the hype.

Russell started by admitting that he didn't know what charity communications people do and wouldn't pretend to, but he was here to tell us what he tells all the brands he's worked with and hoped we were clever enough to use it in our own way. More...

Milkmatters.co.uk named NMA ‘Site of the Week’

by Chris Applegate of Outside Line

Outside Line and Cravendale celebrated today as its site MilkMatters.co.uk was billed as the website of the week by the influential digital industry magazine, New Media Age. Rating it 25/25 top marks for creative content, NMA was suitably impressed with how Cravendale’s brand has been cleverly brought to life digitally with something useful or “damn good fun” for everyone to get involved in.

Milkmatters.co.uk definitely has a lot to offer whether it’s the breakfast recipes inspired by Cravendale, downloadable cut-out masks or ringtones based on heroes Pirate, Cyclist and Cow. More...

Top ten PR tips for small businesses

by David Meerman Scott of David Meerman Scott

Last week I participated on a call with John Jantsch who asked me to share my top ten PR tips for small businesses with his audience. John is the author of Duct Tape Marketing: The World's Most Practical Small Business Marketing Guide and he writes the very popular Duct Tape Marketing blog.

I had to take the call from my room in the Beverly Hilton because I was speaking at The Milken Institute Global Conference. OK, I'll admit that I didn't prepare for the call (sorry John) and just banged out ten tips a few minutes before we spoke. More...