Made Social on 19 November 2010 | View Comments
The mulled wine is a brewing and Rudolph has been polishing his nose but what will you be getting in your stocking this year?
For a special Christmas treat, your Social Collective team has joined forces with Santa to bring you The Official SoCol Secret Santa.
The premise is simple:
- Register your interest by leaving your Twitter handle in the comments box below or simply tweet ‘I’m taking part in the #SoCol #SecretSanta http://ow.ly/3cnZa‘
- We will make sure we’re following you from the @SoCollective Twitter account and invite you to DM us your postal address and telephone number – don’t forget to follow us back or we can’t send you details
- Once you’ve signed up we will send you your Secret Santa contact details
- Head to the shops and pick your present. Try to keep the cost between £5 and £10.
- Post your gift and wait patiently for yours to arrive
- Once the elves have dropped off your bounty, share a picture of your pressie on Twitter using #SoCol and see if you can guess who it’s from
- We will reveal the Secret Santas on Christmas eve along with a selection of the best pictures (but of course, not your contact details)
So let’s get giving and make a fellow Twitter friend’s Christmas sparkle.
Who knows what Santa will send through your chimney!
Seasons greetings from the #SoCol awesome foursome, Beth, Barry, felix and Simon.
A note from your organisers: This is for fun not profit. Your contact details will only be passed on to your Secret Santa and not used for any marketing purposes.
Made Social on 24 August 2010 | View Comments
In advance of Social Collective, we have been inviting select people to guest blog and join the SoCol debate, hopefully offering a fresh point of view. We have been asking a range of people to contribute, including those working in social, client side, techies, journos etc with a view of building a wider picture. Any questions raised during this process will be addressed during a panel at SoCol in September.
The latest in the series is from Mr Tweet himself, Max Tatton-Brown, aka @MaxTB who’s talking the talk…
Social Media: “The Talk”
By Max Tatton-Brown
Now, you may be wondering why we’ve called you here for this family meeting. But all will become clear. I just want you to know 
that your marketing manager and I love you very much and we wouldn’t do anything to hurt you.
But what we’re about to say may come as something of a shock.
By now, you’ll have noticed that you’re going through various changes. And not all of them are entirely pleasant.
Of course, you’ve started noticing girls, which is perfectly natural but beware that they may not always be honest with you.
But of course you’ll want to do your best to smell and look good for them. But don’t get carried away, and don’t pretend to be something that you’re not.
Sometimes, you might do something silly. It may seem tempting to try and push the blame on someone else. But if you really hope to grow up, it’s best that you’re just honest with everyone and honest with yourself.
Indeed, you may find some difficulty finding your voice and it may even break. In a worst case scenario, it could give way when everybody’s looking and make you look something of a fool. Don’t worry, it may be embarrassing but you’ll come out the other side stronger.
Don’t be afraid to get out there and talk to people – nobody likes the chap who turns up to the party only to stand in the corner in silence. Especially when their friends are out having a whale of a time.
Sometimes people will make fun of you and have a laugh at your expense. Don’t just ignore them, stand up for yourself! But if you start to hear the same criticism from serious sources too, it might be worth trying to address the problem itself…
Despite all this advice, you can be sure of this at least- one day you’ll look back on these experiences and laugh at how little you knew despite the confidence you had in your convictions. But that’s okay – everyone is going through the same process and we’ve all been there before.
Just be careful whose advice you take and remember one thing.
Do try to have fun.
About Max Tatton-Brown
Max is a technology PR consultant at Wildfire. He tweets here and blogs at maxtb.com and the Wildfire Tech PR blog.
Max is a brazen early adopter- if there’s a beta, he’ll do his best to get in it and work out what the point is. Proudly, he is perhaps the only PR in history to secure an interview through Google Wave- apparently being able to embed a live weather forecast within the conversation was a deal-clincher.
View other posts in our guest blog series:
Sshhhh; Social Media is a Feminine Model by Michelle Rodger
Social Media is Dead; Long Live Social CRM by Eric Swain
Power to your employees! But do brands have the guts? by Danny Whatmough
Helping clients better understand and engage in social media by Jonny Stark
The social media strategy series: Getting Buy In by Gemma Went
The tall and the long of it by John V Willshire
Social Media in the 21st Century – Deja Vu all over again by Paul Smith
The Secrets of Pitching Social Media by Paul Sutton
The social media strategy series: Is social media right for your business? by Gemma Went
Talk is cheap by Peter Bouvier
Show social or show business by Chris Hall
Back to the future… by Adam Vincenzini
Managing Client Expectation in Search by Chris Hyland
Get Excited And Make Things by Stuart Witts
Made Social on 14 August 2010 | View Comments
When you push it, you got to push it real good!
This week, Twitter, launched its official ‘tweet’ button to help users share content using the technology that tweetmeme has made so popular in recent times.
On the back of this historic milestone, we strapped on our digital boots and when stomping through the internet to fine the best buttons of all time.
Our criteria was simple:
Functionailty: What does it do?
Style: How cool does it look?
Usability: Does it actually work?
X factor: That something ‘eXtra’
So sit back, relax, take your finger and put it solely on your scroll button…it’s time to absorb some greatness…
Here are our selections:
1. The RSS button – dating back to 1995 when Ramanathan V Guha ws working at Apple Inc he developed something called the Meta Content Fraemwork. Little did we know that 15 years later its ability to push content around the web would make it to the top of the best button of all-time chart. Nice one Ramanathan. Although the RSS button has historical ties with Apple, it is the most orange of buttons on the scene.
2. The Facbook ‘like’ button – for such young button, the Facebook ‘like’ has made a huge impact, and brought the classic ‘thumbs up’ custom into modern day communications. The casualty in the ‘like’ button’s rise to fame has been the ‘fan’ – now relegated to a remnant of past Facebook glory. Weep.
3. The belly button – Incredibly only entering our chart at number three, this button actually helped bring humans into the world. Clinically known as the ‘umbilicus’, it can be in a depression like state (aka an innie) or protrude (aka an outtie). The invention of the bikini in 1953 gave belly buttons a new lease on life, liberating them and becoming a popular destination for piercings.
4. Cadbury’s Chocolate Button – nom nom nom. Time for a snack break. Next!
5. The pause button – the current incarnation of the pause button dates back to (possibly) the first ever videotape recorder produced in 1956 by Ampex which carried a price tag of $50,000. Today, we mainly associate it with DVDs of Live TV to take an extra close peek at embarrassing positions people often get into.
6. The WordPress button – This one made it to number six in our chart for the simple reason that button is preceded by (Word)press. Genius.
7. Jenson Button – 
Jenson loves buttons so much he has one tattooed on his arm. True story. In addition to being a great driver, he’s known for pushing many women’s buttons. People also know how to push his button – more than 123,000 people follow @The_Real_JB on Twitter.
8. The 4sq ‘check in’ button – ruled by all-powerful Pouty Princess, this button lets you compete for all kinds of cool stuff and collect really valuable badges like…ermm…the Swarm Badge.
9. The Reddit button – the social news bookmarking site is owned by Conde Nast Digital (no, seriously) and has made our top 13 ½ mainly due to the lil guy adorning the logo. The Reddit community also helped raise more than $134,000 for Haiti Earthquake victims in 2010 – making it philanthropic button on our list.
10. The digg button – originally an experiment back in 2004, digg made its way into the social media mainstream thanks to its ability to help stories rise (and crash) in popularity based on the feelings of its community. It is also known for having more makeovers than Madonna.
11. Ejector seat button – this post doesn’t come with an ejector button (sorry) but in other situations where escape is required, this does the business. Most famous user? Inspector Gadget.
12. The ShareThis button – the daddy of share buttons. The ShareThis button is a one-click solution that simplifies social media services, by reducing clutter on webpages, and provides immediate distribution for content across social networks, affiliates groups and communities. Using the ShareThis widget, online content publishers can provide their site’s visitors the ability to instantly access their profiles, blogs, friends, and contacts for easy sharing of their content. The question is: does anyone actually use this button? We’re not convinced but threw it in at number 12 anyway.
13. Panic button – A film from 1964, also found on train platforms, and normally sporting a red complexion, the panic button is a panophobic’s best friend.
13 ½. The retweet button – enough has been said about this and the tweet button this week. Good day.
To keep up with real time button updates follow the hashtag #buttonup.
This list was compiled by our host Adam Vincenzini and our co-organiser Beth Carroll.
Made Social on 06 August 2010 | View Comments
In advance of Social Collective, we have been inviting select people to guest blog and join the SoCol debate, hopefully offering a fresh point of view. We have been asking a range of people to contribute, including those working in social, client side, techies, journos etc with a view of building a wider picture. Any questions raised during this process will be addressed during a panel at SoCol in September.
The latest in the series is from Danny Whatmough, aka @dannywhatmough.
Power to your employees! But do brands have the guts?
By Danny Whatmough
Adam spoke previously on here about the need to get buy-in, company-wide, for social media initiatives and, as I’ve blogged recently about some work we’ve been doing on this for a client of ours, I thought I’d riff on these themes for my first blog post here!
The challenge
Anyone that comes into social media from a more traditional marketing background (as many of us do, me included) can find the idea of getting involvement from employees throughout an organisation really tough.
Those of us that are used to tightly controlled PR messaging or advertising campaigns that are focus-grouped to within an inch of their lives, can have real issues coming to terms with the fact that, in some cases, we are opening up our external communication to internal stakeholders that have never even heard of ‘media training’.
And this is not to demean these internal stakeholders because, if there is one thing I’ve learnt, it’s that often they are more engaging and more interesting than the official spokesperson or CEO!
If I consider when and why I’d engage with brands on Twitter or Facebook, I’d be much more likely, in most cases, to want to speak to someone in the product development team or a member of customer services than the PR manager (or agency) and/or the CEO.
It takes guts
And with social media this is possible, if the brand has the guts to do it. Recent social media research we conducted suggests they don’t!
Of course, there are safeguards that can be put in place. Things like social media guidelines, strategies and training, not to mention monitoring and measurement, all have their place, but it still takes guts and ultimate transparency for a company to take these steps.
A strategy like this begins to really put the ‘public’ back into PR. Building and developing these relationships between employees and customers (and/or prospective customers) has been proven to bring incredible results that, despite what you might read, can be measured.
Internal benefits
This ‘sustainable’ approach to social media not only brings commercial benefits, but internal morale can also be boosted. Giving employees the freedom to participate in online communities, and the efforts made in energising them to do this, can also be extremely beneficial. Bringing employees closer to customers and letting them interact in an open, ongoing way can really help deliver insights that just aren’t possible otherwise.
It’s time for companies that are really serious about social media to throw off the old marketing mindsets of the past, get stuck in, and empower their employees to actually use social media channels to engage.
Are they brave enough? Some are, and they are reaping the results.
About Danny Whatmough
Danny Whatmough is a technology PR consultant at Wildfire. He can be found on Twitter and blogs at dannywhatmough.com and the Wildfire Tech PR Blog.
Danny’s background is not typical. He is a professional trained classical musician with a music degree, but has always had an interest in technology and, more specifically the internet – with self-taught web development skills – launching his first website c. 14 years old! He ran a e-commerce start-up whilst working in his first (on and offline) marketing job, which let him to forge a career in marketing.
View other posts in our guest blog series:
Helping clients better understand and engage in social media by Jonny Stark
The social media strategy series: Getting Buy In by Gemma Went
The tall and the long of it by John V Willshire
Social Media in the 21st Century – Deja Vu all over again by Paul Smith
The Secrets of Pitching Social Media by Paul Sutton
The social media strategy series: Is social media right for your business? by Gemma Went
Talk is cheap by Peter Bouvier
Show social or show business by Chris Hall
Back to the future… by Adam Vincenzini
Managing Client Expectation in Search by Chris Hyland
Get Excited And Make Things by Stuart Witts
Made Social on 07 July 2010 | View Comments
We believe our speaker line up represents some of the best and most innovative thinking going on in the social media space. But why should you take our word for it? In the spirit of sharing, we’ve set up a series of Twitter chats with our speakers, giving you the opportunity to find out more about what to expect at Social Collective. Chris Hall is kicking off the sessions on 8 July at 3.30pm and will be explaining the thinking behind Social Clarity, following the first Social Clarity event on earlier in the day.
Social Clarity is the brain child of Chris Hall and our co-organiser Beth Carroll, who are setting up a series of round tables to in the run up to Social Collective, with an aim of addressing client needs. Social Clarity shares the end goal of Social Collective. We want to collectively find a way to pitch better to clients, produce better results and help clients grow their businesses.
Social Clarity is not another opportunity for the industry to pat itself on the back. Each session, five core industry insiders will be asked to each bring a guest from outside the space to challenge the debate across the table. This may be a client, a specialist in a relevant area or simply a social media cynic.
On Thursday, Chris will be available to discuss the findings of the first round table topics:
What’s different about social media as a communications tool?
Can social media be outsourced to an agency or does it need to be part of an organisations internal culture?
What are the main reasons ALL companies don’t embrace social media?
To join the debate and pose your questions to Chris, simply follow the #SoCol hashtag between 3.30 and 4.30pm on Thursday 8 June.
If you’ve missed the session, Chris and Beth will be revealing some of the content through the Social Collective blog and will be collating their findings in a report, which Social Collective attendees will be given first access to. As you know, Chris will also be talking through the findings during his session at Social Collective, drawing some conclusions from what the round tables have revealed.
The mulled wine is a brewing and Rudolph has been polishing his nose but what will you be getting in your stocking this year?
