Real Fresh TV | Specialists in Social Commerce and Social Media Marketing » Trends

b.TWEEN09 and WordCamp UK – The Media and Web Conference Season begins

Chi-chi Ekweozor — Tue, 26 May 2009 16:39:54 +0000

Regular readers of the Real Fresh TV blog will recall that last summer I spent a fair amount of time live blogging the b.TWEEN 08 conference.

A veritable cornucopia of digital, marketing, media and future thinking, b.TWEEN08 was a pivotal event for me last year and led to lots of great meetings, friendships and collaborations that have since pushed Real Fresh TV forward.

You can read my writings from b.TWEEN 08 by perusing articles tagged ‘b.TWEEN 08’.

This year b.TWEEN takes place at FACT Liverpool over 11-12 June.

This year’s conference sees presentations by Alex Fleetwood (Hide & Seek Festival), Kelly Sweeney (Bebo), Charles Leadbeater (of the provocative and widely read response to the Digital Britain report) and many more.

With less than 50 tickets remaining, you’ll need to book your ticket fast to attend.

On a similar vein, this is the last week to get early bird tickets for WordCamp UK, the conference for WordPress users, developers, bloggers and designers.

WordCamp takes place in Cardiff over the weekend of 18-19 July.

Are you planning to attend WordCamp or b.TWEEN? Let me know in the comments!

Is That A Degree Qualified Social Media Consultant?

Chi-chi Ekweozor — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 01:49:24 +0000

I don’t know about you but I think Social Media has started off the year with a bang!

From being talked about at the World Economic Forum in Davos to cropping up on Twitter accounts of the great and the good, it looks like participatory media has finally arrived in the UK.

You want more examples?

There’s the insanely popular Stephen Fry on Twitter and Jonathan Ross and his side kick Russell Brand, each Twitter empires in their own right.

When Russell Brand joined less than a week ago, he picked up 2,000 followers in 20 minutes, proving that the microblogging platform du jour may now have reached tipping point in the UK.

The proof is in the pudding, I hear you cry. Well, here’s proof: the launch of more and more innovative digital development projects like this one we are working on for the Arts Council.

So… I would say that so far in 2009, Social Media is less ‘fad’ and more ‘fab’. But is it worth studying for?

On Friday the Manchester Evening News featured my comments on the University of Salford‘s latest world first, an MA in Social Media in an article written by Sarah Hartley on the Mancunian Way Blog.

Like I said in the piece, I think Social Media is worthy of a degree qualification in its own right, no less than English with Creative Writing, Journalism or Advertising.

The key is in devising a course that can stand up to the battering of a rapidly changing industry.

Today’s Twitter could well be tomorrow’s Geocities, recognised as ground breaking in its time but relegated to second class status as everyone signs up to the next shiny new thing.

Here at Real Fresh TV, we are currently busy at work on a number of interesting participatory media projects.

There’s the much anticipated Facebook app we’ve been developing for a production company and the meaty digital arts project with the Arts Council I will talk about in a future blog post.

Put it this way, the newly published Digital Britain report on empowering a better equipped digital economy couldn’t have come at a better time.

There’s certainly a lot more interest in all things digital and much more of an awareness of the need to use social media tools to add real business value.

I’ll round off this missive on academic qualifications in social media by turning it over to you.

What do you think?

Is a degree in Social Media worth studying for?

In the style of blogging memes, I will be tagging some well known social media aficionados for responses to this.

I’m looking at you: James Gordon-MacIntosh, Tom Chapman, Martin Byrant, Will McInnes, Craig McGinty, Paul Dervan, Jon Clements and Ben Matthews.

Share your thoughts in the comments.

Image Credit: MikeFunMath.com

A Glimpse Into The Future

Chi-chi Ekweozor — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 12:19:13 +0000

A day later than expected, here’s the last in the 5 part series covering Sheffield’s impressive Melt 2008 Inspiration Session.

These are notes from my favourite talk at Melt, Tom Savigar of the Future Laboratory’s trend briefing covering consumer trends and insights for a number of industries.

Melt is a three year, digital content development programme for South Yorkshire which was launched in 2005.

As stated in earlier write-ups, all this is posted from hastily jotted notes. If you were there and read anything outlandish, please pipe up in the comments and I will correct accordingly.

A quick recap for those who have just joined us…my earlier posts on the Melt 2008 Inspiration Session include:

Part 1 – A write up of Adam Gee, head of Factual Interactive Commissioning at Channel 4’s talk about 4IP, Channel 4’s £50 million fund for new media.

Part 2 – Paula Le Dieu, director of new media company Magic Lantern’s talk on new media for social engagement.

Part 3 – James Kirkham director of digital agency Holler’s talk about work on E4′s Skins.

Part 4 – Presentations by the Melt Awardees

Who are The Future Laboratory?
The Future Laboratory are a 25 strong team in London who try and help brands anticipate trends and move forward. They have delivered over 200 case studies to brands.

Science-fiction writer William Gibson’s quote “The future is here. It’s just not evenly distributed yet” is a frequent saying around their offices.

Tom’s 2 hour talk presented the Future Laboratory’s Spring 2008 Trend Briefing. I’m diving straight into the notable points and memorable quotes from each consumer trend category he shared.

This is quite a long post, you must be warned but some of the insights and ‘consumer common sense’ Tom shared, particularly towards the end when he talks about the rise of ‘Concierge Culture’, are very helpful for companies in the current economic climate.

Slash/Slash

The Slash/Slash generation is characterized by multi-tasking 16-24 year olds who espouse a do-it-all attitude. The term Slash/Slash comes from the fact that when asked to describe themselves, this generation would reel off a number of different roles, for example ‘designer slash artist slash film maker’.

An example is Zezi Ifore. The Big Brother’s Little Brother presenter would describe herself as “TV presenter/A&R/DJ/Journalist

What does the future hold for advertisers? The attitude for this generation is “I’m going to do it all because if not, who will do it for me?”

Another example: Babycake T-Shirts on MySpace.

It’s the playground ethic: if you’re not there, you’re not relevant.

“They build micro-empires around their personality and image and fans.”

‘Always on’ is hardwired into their lifestyle.

To be busy, to be connected, is to be alive, to be recognized.

They’d rather spend 15 minutes on their favourite social network to watching TV, reading, playing video games or talking on their mobiles. From the MySpace: Peple, Content, Cultures report by the Future Laboratory.

They discover ‘the newest thing’ on social networks.

9% assess whether a new friend would be a useful business contact or creative contact.

Dual purpose – make money, connect friends.

How brands get involved – by spotting underground talent.

Example: Kate Moross (fashion designer) & Top Shop

Cult of personality, tongue in cheek self promotion and self-depreciation valued above all within this demographic.

It’s a new system based on peer networks and recommendations. An example is the Rock The Vote initiative on MySpace.

How They (Slash/Slashers) Work?

They develop a brand around what they and their friends like. They develop products and events alongside their customers.

Sense of mashup culture: they have 50, 60, 70, 80 decades of music to play with.

Keeping Up Appearances

Impression Management: being so visible and so distributed means that more are investing in keeping up appearances.

SnapMania gets rid of crowds from holiday snaps. They understand the importance of having 9 profiles.

Local Heroes

Sarah J Tingle – an Aberdeen based artist who is a local hero.

All this shows how hard brands now have to work in this micro-fragmented media framework.

This demographic buys into brands not just because of their skills but because of who they are.

David Beckham, Jay-Z, all have multi-faceted empires. The attitude is “my ethos is this and I can spread it really thin.”

HSBC’s recent Future of Entrepreneurship (study? report?) uncovered that the average person thinks that they will have 6 or 7 careers.

Another example: Fraser Doherty of SuperJam who decided to start a jam making business after deciding his mum(?) could make better jam than he bought in the supermarket.

Paul Griffiths, founder of Babycakes T-shirts and owner of Secret Party Ltd has 62000 friends on MySpace and sells directly to them. There are scores of MySpace profiles of people wanting to be him.

He turned down Nike’s offer to be a brand ambassador and sells his own t-shirts. Makes £15k a year in sales. Kate Moross sells Choose Your Own Adventure t-shirts for £25 online.

eBay allows you to be free.

For brands the takeaway:

Empathy, right brain, conceptual brands, human traits.

There is now an accelerated product cycle – idea inception to delivery taking only a matter of weeks.

Tastemaker underground

Reciprocal relationship. The ‘target audience’ is now fully aware of the potential benefits their endorsement could bring.

All a brand needs to do is provide a platform for people to display, share and showcase their talents.

Make it portable, converged, it’s about utility brands like Carling who are now seen as a music brand, likewise O2 etc.

Providing platforms and endorsing are vital. Working with the indie scene.

Perma-adolescence

Create unique, varied and constantly evolving product lines to hold this generation’s attention.

It’s about a life time response. Great brand example: 3 developed a service called 3Care that texts members every 3 minutes until they respond after observing that young girls sent a text message with the number plate of the taxi they hopped into, and a picture of the driver’s face, to friends and family before getting in.

Importance of doing something live for brand ambassadors.

There is now no such thing as being offline – it’s about being ‘in line’.

Content and messaging online, offline, on TV, etc.

As soon as the line of consumption is broken there is a dissatisfier

Another example – Teacake Tuesdays on MySpace, a group of teenage boys who meet to drink tea and eat cake. Now being sponsored by Twinings?

Superheroes anonymous

Mr. Silent, Indianapolis’ own Superhero who guards the city without uttering a sound.

Examples of other anonymous superheroes – the Tactical Ice Cream Unit, providing grass roots access to sophisticated mobile communications as well as free ice cream!

From the Tactical Ice Cream Unit’s website:

“The Tactical Ice Cream Unit (TICU) rolls through the city in an act of intervention that replaces cold stares with frosty treats and nourishing knowledge.”

The idea of ‘social nice working’. Having a more worthwhile network.

Babajob – a social network connecting poorly paid workers with better paying jobs through people they know.

Do Good 4 Debt – a scheme in which a company sponsor’s an individual to work for a charity in return for repaying their debt.

Bring Light – Donors and charities build communities to fund specific charitable projects.

Food Futures

75% believe people have a duty to recycle, up from 65% in 2002. £4.8billion spent on ethical foods in 2007.

The trade-off is between ‘organic and air-freighted’ and ‘local and pesticide-covered’.

What is it actually buying?

Average woman between 30-37 years of age has 3.5 hours sleep.

Cheap is over. It’s the return of label watching. What is value for money?

Why is it so cheap?

Consumers realize that they have to start paying more to get better quality, ethically produced food. Going to the source.

Leftovers.

Eco and civic concerns reflected in the purchase of local foods. ‘Localvores’.

It’s about ‘provenance’, the origin, or the source, of something. People are aware of food miles. Growing rarity agenda.

“Cook it, kill it, eat it” attitude. I want to know what’s in it.

People’s attitudes to brands, whenever surveyed consistently cynical. “I don’t know what they stand for”

Provenance increasingly a big deal.

Super foods

Goji ‘Super fruit’

The always going, 24/7 culture means that something has got to give.

Increasingly, DNA screening and being told what to eat to keep well are appealing.

Products like Glico’s Mental Balance GABA chocolate, big in Japan. Supposedly good for de-stressing.

There is now the possibility for products to be injected with nano particles which allow them to keep longer or take on a specific flavour when shaken, for instance.

So one shake changes an orange juice drink and it turns into a blueberry flavoured one, for example.

‘Zeno Youth’ are so busy achieving they won’t mind products that tweak their bodies to allow them to perform.

Brand takeaways:

Value is a growing concern for consumers who have new found ‘food ethics’.

Be a clean brand. I want to know that as a company what you do is clean.

Other trends: Food exchange programs – consumers increasingly growing their own vegetables and sending boxes to friends.

Nu Thrift – wastage of food a civic concern.

Concierge Culture

‘Everyday concierge services’ growing in popularity.

The notion of paying that little extra for someone who is considering and bearing you in mind for a few minutes.

Things worth bearing in mind for retail brands:

74% say friendly service is essential

65% cite after sales service as important

60% prioritise home delivery services

Sense of consideration – anticipating your every need. Making life a little easier for people.

The demand for good service is outstripping supply.

More than half of consumers reported that their expectations for better service have increased in the last 5 years.

Time Pressed 35 Ups

HEIDIs – Highly Educated Independent Degreed Individuals

For these it is less about consumption more about customer service. Democratization of luxury.

Competition is really hard so the little extra helps. Tom’s test of a good hotel’s concierge service: where’s the best place I can get the best toothpaste in the area, the best suit etc?

Different concierge services for different industries but the trend is catching.

Travel – Extending the experience of travel right from the taxi from home to the destination city.

Computers – iTrunk tech support and assistance from Apple for a £79 annual fee.

Fashion – Louis Vuitton RFID cards for VIPs, shows how much they have spent in the past before they even enter the store.

Time poor – iWait: personal queue jumping service – people will wait in line for you. DesignataBooks(?), Music Concierge – cut out all the bits I don’t need in magazines, albums. Buy.time – pay someone to do things you don’t want to do but need doing; buy time.

Brand Takeaway:

A ramping up of your service ethic is essential. Impression management is key.

Customers who are wooed will become customers who are won over.

Expect to work at winning their loyalty and to give more than a loyalty card.

People will pay a premium for “Are you alright?”

Do you only deal with issues relating to business or will you help in other areas?

Genuinely surprising – being ingenious is the fact you’ve been thinking about them.

That’s it!

Fascinating wasn’t it?

What do you think? Should all businesses provide a ‘concierge service’?

If You So Much As Twitter This

Chi-chi Ekweozor — Wed, 20 Aug 2008 14:14:44 +0000

I’ve been reflecting on the phenomenal interest in Twitter of late. From Dell’s 40+ Twitter team to a Social Brand Index that lists the brands on the microblogging service du jour, it seems like there’s no escaping the Twitter addiction. And this despite a recent decision to axe outgoing SMS updates to Twitter users in the UK.

It’s incredible how much groundswell is gathering around a service that is barely two years old.

Twitter’s main devotees in the UK are early adopters and PR types. Very smart PR types I must add.

If any of those are reading this, cast your eye over this brilliant article on the 13 Skills of the Public Relations Pro of the Future by John Bell of OgilvyPR. Thanks for the credit, John!

Whilst delivering a recent workshop to the smart planners at Publicis QMP, I found that a single mention of the service sent us off on a merry distraction on the pros and cons of Twitter with more mentions of its uses (student twitters himself out of Egyptian jail, the beady but spooky Twitter-service of SouthWest Airlines etc) than I thought possible in ten minutes!

There were very few UK specific mentions though. And there’s my point. As New Media Knowledge recently pointed out, UK marketers are hesitant to use social media because of a lack of case studies to compare successes from.

Completely independent of NMK’s article, I recently tweeted about this, asking whether folk would be interested in a blog series covering UK social media case studies. I was very quickly met with a couple of positive responses.

So, to that end I have started a Twine covering that very topic.

Twine? Twine is a social bookmarking service that is powered by semantic web technology. The idea is that it learns from your bookmarks and suggests new topics.

The service includes a very neat group feature in which you glean from the collective wisdom of many who have bookmarked interesting topics on say… Web Future Trends, for example. Thanks to @annmargaret, uber-savvy digital strategy type at Mediaedge:cia for the heads up on Twine.

I recently received a beta invite and have been using the service ever since.

My Twine on Social Media Case Studies in the UK includes BT’s Web 2.0 adoption case study and will eventually include coverage of Barclaycard’s World Freerun Championship.

I will be adding to my Twine over the next few days in preparation for a whole new blog series on UK Social Media Case Studies.

And yes, I’m working on the next instalment of the ever popular study of social media usage amongst FTSE 100 brands…

Stay tuned.

Anyone else found any unusual uses of Twitter amongst UK brands? Please share in the comments.

Image Credit: CarrotCreative on Flickr

Building Up To The 5 Day PUMA Manchester Giveaway

Chi-chi Ekweozor — Sat, 24 May 2008 00:35:16 +0000

So this has been a rather frantic week with lots of developments behind the scenes as we prepare to launch the first 5 Day Giveaway by a major brand. The 5 Day PUMA Manchester launches on Monday 26th May at 9am GMT.

My efforts to get a customised version of a third party blog management system retrofitted to support comment voting have proven unsuccessful so far. I’ve deemed this necessary to combat voter fraud in future giveaways. Maybe I’m being paranoid. We’ll soon find out.

A couple of weeks ago, I reached out to a couple of the main blog commenting system developers (Disqus and SezWho) with feature requests that would add this facility to their web applications.

Disqus’ Daniel Ha thanked me for my suggestion but bowed out from adding this feature to Disqus stating they were unable to help right now.

SezWho actually approached me about helping but have proven a little slow in backing up their initial enthusiasm with action.

Both companies got back to me in record time, it must be added and I still hope I hear back from SezWho in time for Monday’s launch…

In any case, I’ve decided that the 5 Day PUMA Manchester Giveaway competition will go ahead at 9am on Monday with or without outside help from SezWho.

Perhaps blogging earlier about my search for assistance would have helped. At the very least, it would have been enlightening to others. After being inspired by a fantastic post on sharing good and bad experiences using a company blog, I’m posting this now.

Looking For Outside Developer Help
I initially looked at paying a web developer to code a custom plugin to provide the features I want in a Comment Voting plugin and tried using freelancer jobsite, Elance to approach developers. I tried Elance after reading Melissa Chang’s post about her successful experiences with the online freelancer marketplace.

A week plus long effort on Elance drew a blank, attracting only one bid from a developer who failed to prove he had the skills to code the plugin I envisioned.

I then turned to my online and offline network of collaborators. Highly regarded WordPress theme designer and developer, Adii of adii.co.za who designed this site was extremely helpful in pointing me to talented US web developer, Matt Harzewski of webmaster-source.com. Matt was professionalism personified in his attitude and response to my initial query.

Manchester, UK based graphic designer Leanda Ryan kindly recommended another US developer, Brett Terpstra of circlesixdesign.com, who happened to be too busy with other commitments to take on the project.

My small band of followers on Twitter, the microblogging community of the moment actually netted a real find. @WebFreelancer, got in touch after I approached him on Twitter and offered some very helpful suggestions even though he was tied up with other commitments.

All in all it was a very useful exercise though fraught with uncertainty.

Just as I had put together a neat specification for Matt to follow, Tedd Corman of SezWho got in touch to offer to develop the plugin. I’m still waiting to hear how far he got.

I learnt a great deal about collaborating with others on the web this week.

Social media forces all parties to be more accountable which can be only a good thing.

Knowing what you want always helps.

Here’s to an interesting time next week with the 5 Day PUMA Manchester Giveaway.

Photo credit: www.polyweb.com

YouTube Overtakes Wikipedia As Top Social Media Site In The UK

Chi-chi Ekweozor — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 23:48:48 +0000

YouTube has overtaken Wikipedia as the most popular Social Media site in the UK according to the latest stats released by web metrics firm, Nielsen Online.

If a picture is worth a thousand words then a two-minute video clip on YouTube is worth more than a profile on an online, user generated encyclopedia, it seems.

YouTube currently attracts 10,426 million unique visitors in the UK, growing its audience by 56% compared to January 2007 figures.

Facebook has also grown by a heady 712% to attract 8.513 million unique visitors in January 2008.

Other big movers are Slide, social networking add-on tool and video sharing site, Veoh, which both grew 207% and 595% respectively.

A strong showing by video sites in Neilsen Online’s latest stats indicates that online video is still very much in the ascendancy.

vidShadow, a niche online video-sharing site is another big mover going from 38,000 unique users to 281,000 in just two months!

Never mind ‘social media’, the future appears to be in Social Video.

Image Credit: AskABlogger.org

What do you think? Could 2008 be the year online video goes mainstream?

Have your say in the comments.

UK Firms Starting To Embrace Social Media Learning Curve

Chi-chi Ekweozor — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 01:32:50 +0000

There has been much online discussion about a recent poll by TNS Media Intelligence/Cymfony which found that just 18 per cent of the UK businesses questioned believed their brands must engage urgently with social media if they were to avoid falling behind the market.

The Financial Times and Marketing Week provide excellent overviews.

As someone analyzing usage of social media amongst FTSE 100 companies in the UK, I have to say the findings come as no surprise.

Though the poll cites lack of senior management commitment as one of the obstacles preventing UK companies from embracing this new medium, it fails to highlight the key problem:

Most UK companies are struggling to embrace social media, not because they do not want to but because they do not know how.

Leading UK newspaper, The Independent is a case in point.

Last week at an event organized by Manchester’s Creative Industries Development Service, I asked Marketing and Circulation Manager for The Independent, David Greene whether the paper planned on running digital marketing campaigns that targeted the ‘Facebook and YouTube generation’ directly and he said that they would certainly like to but were not sure how.

The Independent has been pretty ahead of the curve in running viral digital marketing campaigns and I am sure it is only a matter of time before they launch something new for UK Facebook and YouTube fiends.

UK companies want to engage with social media and are indeed trying to find out how they can. It’s a steep learning curve but I’ve no doubt it is a challenge being taken quite seriously by most.

To anyone wanting to get started, here’s a link to a fantastic PowerPoint presentation by Shane Richmond, Communities Editor of Telegraph.co.uk.

His tips for ‘embracing the change’ are worth noting:

Be open
Be accountable
Be available

Any ideas on how to make this real? Leave a comment below…

Image credit: http://onlineprguy.blogspot.com

Future of Social Advertising: Branded Content and Branded Social Media

Chi-chi Ekweozor — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 17:45:24 +0000

This post is the next in our series covering the future of social advertising.

To read all previous posts, click on the ‘Social Advertising’ tag.

Three articles into our series on social advertising, I think it is worth clarifying a few terms.

Social Advertising is a term coined by Facebook to describe its recently launched Facebook Ads platform.

Much has been written about Facebook Ads of late including recent reports about potential privacy breaches by third party retail partners who can now use Facebook Beacon to publish information about a user’s online purchase directly into the user’s News Feed on Facebook.

This information can then propagate through the Facebook network through the News Feeds of the user’s friends. It is worth noting that the user’s online purchase is published to his/her trusted network of friends within Facebook and not directly on the internet.

Still, some might find this irksome, especially if they were unaware it was happening.

Change is always welcomed but often resisted.

We are at a cross roads with online advertising.

Technology now allows advertising to be as targeted as an advertiser is willing to pay for it to be. Indeed, next generation Internet TV platforms like Joost are built on the notion that advertisers will pay to target advertising directly to consumers watching content on their platforms because they can now tell the precise split-second when the consumer changes channels.

There’s obviously more to Joost than this rather simplistic view above but you get my point. Much of the ad-supported experiences online are only possible because of the precise targeting now afforded the advertiser footing the bill.

Is it Facebook’s fault that their social network offers advertisers the Holy Grail they have spent so long looking for?

Time will tell whether Facebook’s controversial ‘behavioural’Ads gain widespread acceptance amongst consumers online. It will be particularly interesting to see how much control Facebook allows each user in opting in or out of the current system.

As it stands, users have to opt-out of the system on each e-commerce website maintained by a retail partner of Facebook. I’ve not yet seen a Beacon Ad but I can imagine that it may come as a bit of shock if you were unwittingly featured in one.

Continuing with the term clarifications:

According to the UK’s Branded Content Marketing Association:

Branded content is ideas that bring entertainment value to brands and that integrate brands into entertainment.

It is magnetic brand properties in the form of TV programmes, community events, people, film, video, broadcast TV, narrowband, broadband – linking important passions to important brands with a strategic reason why.

By enabling these new entertainment experiences, brands gain significant fame and goodwill. By creating more value for the consumer, more value for businesses is created.

This post is really about a more prevalent form of social advertising; the combination of branded content with branded social media.

Brands already exploring this include Dove who have extended their Real Beauty campaign to a standalone website, campaignforrealbeauty.com, according to PaidContent.

Global sportswear giant, Nike, have led the charge on this with their highly successful, Nike+ website which acts as a hub for Nike and iPod customers who share and connect over playlists designed to accompany ‘the ultimate jog’.

A casual look on the site shows that Nike+ does allow consumers connect with others over a shared love for jogging and music and … serious sport. The site features several profiles by well-known sports stars including Paula Radcliffe and Serena Williams.

So … the question is? Will it catch on? With social networking already mainstream and widely adopted amongst much of the 13-25 demographic in the UK, should brand advertisers devote time and resources to creating branded social spaces on standalone websites?

It depends.

For strong brands where significant investment has already been made in creating a campaign that has captured the public imagination like Dove’s Campaign for Real Beauty, creating a branded web destination online with social networking features is a sensible approach. After all, social networking features like user profiles and support for user submitted content like videos and photos will power more and more websites going forward.

On the other hand, for brands launching new products or services, a branded social network comes with all the promotional and marketing demands that a standard branded micro site bring.

To gain traction, people need to use the site and to use the site people need to know it exists.

For such brands, it is probably much wiser to invest in creating compelling content that can be published on one of the Big Three social networks (MySpace, Facebook, Bebo) . The benefit is the brand taps into a ready made audience already familiar with connecting with others over branded content and aware of the value exchange that happens when consuming social media.

It’s a trade off between control and promotion. The standalone site offers full brand control whilst a branded page on a major social network is invariably set up under the auspices of the controlling social network.

What do you think? Is a fully branded social network a good investment for brands?

Share your thoughts in the comments.

Image Credit: www.levidepoches.fr

Day 12 in the First British iPhone Giveaway

Chi-chi Ekweozor — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 20:18:01 +0000

Most of you will now know that today’s voting mishap has been resolved and that the deadline for the iPhone giveaway has been extended for the last time to midnight on Sunday to accommodate it.

For those unaware, my web developer inadvertently broke the voting system for a few hours this afternoon when he uploaded the changes I requested back on Tuesday (he has been having email problems), oblivious to the fact that I had already fixed the problems with voting earlier this week.

It was trivial to replace his changes with the fix I wrote yesterday and and so … voting is back on…

The last and final deadline is now midnight on Sunday 18th November.

The winner will be announced at 09:00 am GMT on Monday 19th November.

Good luck one and all.

British iPhone Giveaway: Summary of Events

Chi-chi Ekweozor — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 03:38:43 +0000

Here’s a summary of events as they unfolded, unscrupulous votes and all, in the social media soap opera that is the first British iPhone giveaway. You can also read all the daily updates by clicking on the iPhone tag.

In essence, because the voting system used, Comment Karma, allowed either positive or negative votes to be made for each entry, it was possible to vote down entries as they were made.

This meant that as the giveaway progressed, most entries accumulated negative votes because some entrants(?) were maliciously voting them down.

As the second deadline for the competition approached (I first extended it to allow people to enter up till the Monday after the original deadline: iPhone launch day UK), I initially decided to scrap the voting idea.

The plan was to choose a random winner from the comments entered, much like Engadget and TechCrunch do with their giveaways.

However, Imran pointed out that it would be wiser to only enable positive votes for each comment.

I thought this was a brilliant idea since the rationale behind running the giveaway was to reward the TV show with the most votes and decided to implement it.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing.

I had not foreseen that entrants into the giveaway would deny others a fair chance of winning by voting down entries as they were made.

The idea of modifying Comment Karma, which comes with both ‘thumbs up’ and ‘thumbs down’ buttons as standard, never occurred to me.

I would have set up the system like it is now to prevent unscrupulous voting.

Anyway, I under-estimated how long it would take me to modify Comment Karma to allow only positive votes.

The first attempt to modify the plugin on early Wednesday morning ended up breaking the voting system. The voting system was eventually successfully patched on late Thursday afternoon.

Comment Karma is still working but not quite as the plugin author intended.

Return to post explaining how to vote in the iPhone giveaway.