Category Archives: Social Media & Digital Marketing

On Poundland and Twitchforks

Posted on October 29, 2011 | 2 Comments

I watched with interest this little storm in a Twitter teacup this morning. (I couldn’t bring myself to write Tweacup. Oh, look, I just did.)

To be honest, I found the whole thing pretty disquieting.

Now, generally speaking I wear a poppy. Even when I don’t, I still give to Poppy Appeal at this time of year. I do not lack respect for what the poppies stand for.

But the attacks levelled at Poundland today through social media really disturbed me. “People died for your freedom!” (to be told what to do by a baying mob). “I bet you’d let a Muslim wear a turban!” (Actual, distressingly bigoted and hilariously inaccurate statement on the Poundland Facebook Page that betrayed what, for this man at least, the argument was really all about).

I rarely talk about my faith, or my beliefs, or anything else that is largely a private matter, but I can tell you this: if my work uniform policy told me I couldn’t wear a symbol of support for something that is personal to me, I wouldn’t think twice about removing it. Because symbols are only external props; they do not take away what’s within. And what’s within can also be kept private; not wearing a poppy is not an act of disrespect.

When it comes to charity symbols, I think that they’re a perfectly valid and enjoyable fundraising tool: from badges and pins to Twibbons, people like a way to indicate their adherence to a particular cause and in our private lives I think it’s lovely that we have that opportunity. But, as grateful as I am to generations of soldiers, I don’t see why one symbol should be an exception when others are not. Poundland’s policy was simply to have their chosen charities’ symbols visible, but no others.

To many, the moral of today is that if you kick up a righteous stink, your wishes will be granted. And that’s true. But, at the risk of sounding like Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben, with great power comes great responsibility. When we march upon anyone waving our pitchforks over something like this, how long before it all stops being taken seriously at all? I can’t help feeling that if Poundland had dug their heels in, everyone would have forgotten about it shortly anyway (and, really, if they hadn’t gone making statements about it in the first place hardly anyone outside Lisburn would have heard of the story), and they would have discovered that it might not have been as big a crisis as they thought.

I really love that people power has been given a new lease of life through social channels. I just think that when you compare this to using social channels to organise a revolution, we might want to think about whether we’re mindlessly abusing the privilege – and whether we’ll be the Tweeters that cry wolf.

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In Pictures: The last few weeks (not silent, not Sunday)

Posted on October 1, 2011 | 5 Comments

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Posted in Social Media & Digital Marketing

NFPtweetup social and getting back to work

Posted on July 30, 2011 | 2 Comments

On Thursday, I had a day that felt pretty much like I had never had a baby. Okay, it began with dropping the littleun off at nursery, and I did pick her up and say a quick goodbye, but I spent the morning doing grown up things like, erm, cleaning house. Then I headed into the office to do some catching up, and was answering email queries within five minutes of stepping through the door.

I then headed over to the NFPtweetup social with my manager, Jacqui, but we didn’t end up being all that sociable, at least for the first couple of hours! Though I got to chat babies with the wonderful Rachel, Jacqui and I spent most of the time talking about work… and it was brilliant! We were bouncing around a few ideas, talking about things that have changed in the last year, talking about how we could develop one thing or another. Nothing concrete and certainly nothing I could talk about here, but it just generated this exciting atmosphere of Things To Be Done. And it made me go from happy to be going back to work to itching to get started. I was all set to start brainstorming some ideas for Monday today, but had to remind myself to enjoy my weekend and spend my last few free days soaking up as many Ramona cuddles as possible!

And those cuddles are wonderful. I will miss them. But I know from that swell of positivity and surge of determination that work is exactly where I’m meant to be.

Having said a quick hello to the lovely Steve Bridger and got a chance to meet my husband’s newest colleague, Rochelle, I then got a delicious dinner bought for me at Moshi Moshi (my first visit; quite pricey but excellent – I recommend the soft shell crab).

Thank heaven for grandparents who agree to put a squirmy little baby to bed. And thank heaven for squirmy little babies who start the next morning by giving you a just-beginning-to-be-toothy smile and a hug that melts hearts at fifty paces.

Okay, working world. Make some room: I’m ba-ack!

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Posted in Parenthood, Social Media & Digital Marketing

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Why I haven’t written an analysis of Google+

Posted on July 18, 2011 | 1 Comment

In the swirling social media maelstrom, new products, especially from the likes of Google – remember Wave? Launched with fireworks and died like a damp squib -cause a lot of excitement. And busy professionals do need to sometimes make snap judgements about whether these things are going to be worth investing time in.

However, sometimes I think people are driven more by the desire to write the ten-ways-google-plus-will-help-you-make-10-million-dollars-of-sales/donations-OMG article than to actually give the new platform or product a chance.

The thing is, it’s not brands that are going to make or break these things. They are not being built, primarily, for us to use professionally (although Google is planning a professional platform, which should be interesting). The proof of the pudding will not be whether we think on first acquaintance, with just a few hesitant conversations going on, we can build as vibrant communities here as we have on Facebook or Twitter.

Suddenly the fact that communities have a very different character depending on the platform gets forgotten. We try to apply what we’ve learned from Facebook because ‘it’s a bit like Facebook’. We try to apply what we’ve learned from Twitter because ‘there are Twitter-like elements’. We forget we have to learn some new things from Google+, if it succeeds, because it is Google+, and not anything else. Sure, tribal human behaviours online are pretty similar wherever you go, but the specific ways they manifest themselves take on quite astonishingly different flavours on different channels. Google+ will have its own.

My first approach to a new tool or platform is always, always to approach it on a personal level, as myself, and learn its etiquette, syntax and possibilities. I have to have this knowledge of this as an ordinary user if I have a hope in hell of understanding it and using it effectively as a marketing professional. Customer services breakdowns and crises happen when brands forget to be human. The basics of marketing stay pretty much the same online and off, but each individual interaction needs to be appropriately tailored.

So, while I’ve read an article or two musing on interesting points of development, I’ve deliberately shelved any premature analyses for later, and held fire on making any. Of course I have ideas about how this might go, but I like to give these things a chance to breathe and grow.

In the meantime, I’m building circles.

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The point of blogging

Posted on May 10, 2011 | 5 Comments

That’s a bit of a misleading title actually. What I should have said is ‘the point of this blog’. I had to face up to that a bit in redesigning it, and it got me thinking about all the different reasons for having the site in the first place, and how I got here.

My blogging history is pretty much LiveJournal… Vox… (brief foray into Blogger)… here. My LJ was locked, my Vox was not under my real name but I gradually put real photos on it. And then I started working in this field and thought it would be a good idea to have an online home for me.

Of course there are downsides to that. When I had a blog not in my name, I could blog about family and friends without making their identity public (to this day if I’m going to say anything really personal about someone on Twitter I’ll do it by DM. It’s not fair otherwise- it’s my public profile, not theirs). I wrote about my pregnancy before I told work, which was a wonderful outlet. I could be, I think, a little more honest and transparent, as we all are under a film of anonymity.

But I also couldn’t easily talk about my work, and was always second-guessing how much I could say about myself.

Part of the reason for creating this site was essentially to have something that could serve as an online CV. It’s good to have a place to collect achievements and things I’ve been involved with. Every so often I update my real CV without doing anything with it, just to give myself a sense of what I’ve learned and where I’m going and I often come back here to remind myself!

That’s why I couldn’t call this a blog about anything in particular. I talk about social media because they’re the basis of my job and a major interest. I talk about babies and parenting because that’s my life at the moment. I talk about Disney and cakes and books and feminism and cats because I want to.

I used to think that maybe that was a weakness of this blog, and I think it put me off updating it sometimes. I’ve got so used to the pro-blogging world that I felt like this blog ought to have a niche area of interest and stick to it (fairly) rigidly. But of course I’m not trying to make money out this blog. (One could argue that ultimately I’m trying to make money out of me, but I think if you’re considering hiring me for something then it’s okay if you know I have a life outside work. I would have thought that would be a bonus, actually). I’m not trying to appeal to a particular audience. I’m just using this in a simple, cave painting kind of way: to talk, to share, to vent. And, if I’m lucky, and people are interested, to listen, too.

I’ve just gone back to the start, really, and just taken blogging for what it is for most people, most of the time.

But you know if I were ever going to launch myself down the path of pro-blogging for myself, I’d want to keep this bit of Pro Blogger wisdom about not comparing myself to others in mind.

And now maybe I should get on with the actual blogging about stuff other than, erm, blogging.

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Posted in Reading & Writing, Social Media & Digital Marketing

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Community moderation: when trolls cannot be ignored

Posted on April 21, 2011 | 3 Comments

Every so often there’s some sort of awful bullying campaign online that makes me wince at the honking great downside to all this instant, often anonymous communication. I could no longer get by happily without the Internet: it’s the hub of my friendships, the focus of my livelihood, a massive convenience that I mostly love. But there is this horrible pit of nastiness that rears its head every so often, and gets me thinking about how we should deal with it.

It’s often said ‘don’t feed the trolls’. And as a community manager, I do believe in that. But there’s a context to it, and a limit.

A troll is generally someone who invades another’s space in order to post inflammatory comments. I’ve had it once or twice on dog-related fora, where someone’s come along to say something indisputably outrageous like ‘all dogs should be put down’ and is promptly dealt with. Communities are getting pretty smart and most people will just ignore them and report them to the moderators, who can remove or shut down the posts as necessary; I think this is one of the few areas where no-one really argues with deletion, as it’s not shutting down a debate, it’s getting rid of something which is there just to upset and annoy. But what about those cases where Facebook groups are set up to bully some poor kid, or someone creates a thread on their own website ripping someone they disagree with to shreds? What about when it goes beyond a few needles in the haystack and becomes a big, scary juggernaut of threats, insults and intimidation? Should you just brush it off as a hazard of the Internet, maybe report it to the mods / hosts / site owners and keep quiet in case the bullies realise they’re getting to you? But that provides the bullies an outlet without also giving the victim a voice. It doesn’t seem fair.

Because the thing about ‘don’t feed the trolls’ that gets my goat is that it demands that you take responsibility for someone else’s poor behaviour. If you respond to someone else’s inflammatory drivel, it  somehow becomes your fault for encouraging them, even though the decision to behave appallingly was theirs in the first place. There are times when it is just easier – perhaps even sensible – to say ‘fine, I’ll ignore them, block them, and they’ll go away and everyone will forget about it’. In the case of the one-off troll who comes in to stir up trouble, it’s the most straightforward moderation route and I would encourage members of a community I was moderating not to engage and to report it immediately so it doesn’t escalate and the troll doesn’t get the oxygen of attention. And it also works away from group discussion spaces; if I was, for example, to get unpleasant comments on this because of the nature of it, I would probably not publish them, because this is my space and I’m under no obligation to give them air time.  But to end up feeling like complaining about a dreadful act of bullying then makes further bullying your own fault is simply unspeakable.

I feel there does come a point where so-called trolling needs to be spoken out against, condemned and perhaps even reported to the police. Too often I see people writing posts about how they’ve felt victimised with comments going ‘but it’s not personal to you’, ‘they’re just social inadequates’ and ‘you know by writing this you’re giving them what they want’. And all that might be true, but surely it feels deeply personal to the subject. When someone is being bullied away from the online spaces, we don’t accept the old advice to ignore it anymore; we say tell the teacher, tell your parents, tell, tell, tell. Say it out loud, and they lose their power. Why so different online? What about when it’s adults involved? Just because we’re over eighteen, do we have the capacity to switch off feelings when real nastiness is focussed right at us?

Not feeding the trolls is just another way of saying ‘suck it up’. Sometimes you have to because it’s the best way to remain professional and just make the damn thing go away. But no-one should have to just suck up systematic abuse. Sometimes we need to speak up, and I’m admiring of anyone who has the guts to do that.

If you’re a young person reading this and need impartial advice on dealing with bullying, know that there are organisations out there that can help you. Like this one.

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NFPTweetup 10 and thoughts on being a community manager: Back to work!

Posted on February 17, 2011 | Leave a comment

Well, not really. I’m not planning to return to my desk just yet, but it was good to dip a toe back in the water. Of course I never really exited the pool; part of being so interested in things like social media – look, I’m blogging! – means you follow what’s happening even when you’re not being paid to.

Anyway, in a change of the usual play – change – feed – play routine, I attended the 10th NFPTweetup, and enjoyed it hugely. Rachel Beer, the team at beautiful world*, sponsors JustGiving and the speakers did an excellent job bringing it all together, as ever. Last night was a return to an older but much-loved and very useful format: a couple of short, focussed presentations, some break-out sessions on particular topics and a panel and plenary.

The introductory presentations were two of my favourites so far because – at least out of the five or six tweetups I’ve attended – they were the most unusual. Jonathan Waddingham of JustGiving provided some insight into the next generation of their Facebook app, and the way it plans to simplify giving through Facebook, and then Amnesty International UK’s Fiona McLaren spoke about Amnesty‘s use of social media surrounding the recent protests in Egypt.

The latter was the one that felt really different and especially interesting for it. Although in specific content it’s far from what we do at Dogs Trust, actually every charity sometimes has to ride the wave of a public story. A lot of talk around social media is about creating the content, making the story and bringing it into the public eye. This was about becoming part of something already bigger than any individual or organisation and using it to send an important message to both existing and new audiences. It was fascinating stuff and I felt very glad I’d got mum to Whifflesit so I could be there to hear it first hand (even if the event was being livestreamed for the first time in a while).

A break out group led by Rachel and Ashley Clarke followed for me – others went into groups with Jon and Fiona – focussing on new and newish developments such as Facebook’s Page settings, Quora and Paper.li. It also segued off into an interesting discussion about brand feeds vs personal feeds and whether avatars should be logos or individuals as well as some talk of Twibbons (that’s a previous event’s presentation from my manager).

It’s thinking about that session that lead me into some other thoughts about community management that I’ve been musing over lately and meaning to blog about. I see post after post after post on what it means to be a community manager and whether it’s the same or different from a social media manager or a digital marketing manager. And of course no two community manager jobs can really be defined the same way in the particulars, just in the overall aim: to build, maintain, engage and influence a community around a particular brand, interest, message and/or product. But I got thinking about it in the context of my job title – Digital Marketing Officer – and what that means.

One of my favourite discussions about social media teams is from David Jones, from his H&K days (and it’s only five minutes, so you should totally watch it now). It defines four different people / jobs: Reconnaisance, Mad Scientist, Communications General, Community Manager. I love this because I think if you work in social media you should instinctively know which one you really are even if you do some of all those things, but sometimes the lines get so blurred it’s hard to do. I’ve been thinking about it recently because while actually at work it was hard to know for sure. Wasn’t I all of them?

Well, yes, in a way – I think everyone in this field is – but being away from the day-to-day of it let me know at heart who I am and what it is I love doing. I enjoy being part of strategic planning and I think you can’t carry out a strategy if you haven’t been involved in creating it. But if I’m totally honest I enjoy the daily implementation more. I do enjoy getting the internal buy-in and learning about / researching the big picture stuff, but get even more excited about the chance to get on and do it. So I’m maybe 20% Recon and Communications General.

I really do like trying out new tools and platforms and enjoy the buzz I get from using them in a way that results in something positive, in meeting an objective; I also love getting to grips with the language and etiquette. However, I can find it dull and frustrating at the beginning stages when it’s just a bunch of geeky early adopters talking in circles (*cough* Quora *cough*), so I’m maybe 25% Mad Scientist.

So if I’m the person that enjoys listening, talking, creating and curating content and generally being a helpful, positive voice, I must be the Community Manager (or at least 55% CM). And oh, I totally am. I miss all sorts of bits of my job at the moment, and the biggest part is actually feeling useful in the community. Sure, it can be frustrating sometimes, and occasionally I wonder if my skin is always thick enough for this. But if I ever wasn’t sure which element of the job I really own, now I am.

Of course, lots of social media jobs demand you be all four simultaneously and usually quite rightly so (though occasionally so much so it’s clear the employer doesn’t really get it and just wants one cheap uber-geek to do what at least two or three decently paid semi-geeks should be doing), and certainly you’ve all got to be holding hands and swapping skills and knowledge. Yet I’ve really found it helpful to know how, at heart, I define myself, and what I’ll be bringing back to the table – and hoping to learn – when I get back to work.

And now, bed. Or there’s no way I’ll be able to keep up with the Whiffle tomorrow.

*I feel like I should point out that my husband is now working with beautiful world as a designer, although he’s only just started doing so and I’ve attended these events loads of times before. But there you go.

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What’s going on: CAF presentation, BitchBuzz parenting column and more

Posted on October 22, 2010 | Leave a comment

A few quick bits of info.

1. My first BitchBuzz column about motherhood, kids and parenting is up. It’s called Are You Thinking About Having a Home Birth? The next few are likely to focus on money, cats, baby milestones and stuff like that.

2. Next Weds (27th) I’ll be heading to West Malling, Kent, to present to a CAF (Charities Aid Foundation) Market Insight session about technology. I’ll be covering Dogs Trust online in a nutshell. I don’t know yet if the presentations will be hosted somewhere online, but they might well be.

3. My daughter slept for nine hours last night. Okay, that’s not so helpful to you, but it is to me. And this is my blog, after all.

4. Ash (my husband) is still casting an eye out for any way that he can swap some design skills for events experience. He’s spent a week at Dogs Trust HQ and a day at a centre making himself useful and is chatting to a couple of other charities and individuals; please do step forward if you need him!

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NFP Skills Swap: My design skills for your events experience!

Posted on September 27, 2010 | 3 Comments

This is a guest post from my husband, Ashley, who was made redundant from his job at 2Simple Software due to education budget cuts. He is now hoping to change careers, and is looking to volunteer to get the experience he needs.

I’ve been a designer for about 15 years, and I really enjoy the creativity. But I feel it’s time to stretch my skills and find a new challenge. I’ve been considering a move to events organising for some time, and am very keen to get some experience in this area. Talking with Alex, we both quickly realised that community fundraising teams are an excellent place to find that experience because so much fundraising is events-driven – like Dogs Trust’s Waggy Walks, which I took part in last year, as you can see.

I’ll be looking for relevant internships and events to volunteer for, but I also thought there might be a way I could use my existing talents and both give and learn at the same time. So here’s the idea.

I’ll exchange a day of free design work, for a day of volunteering with your events / community fundraising team.

My design experience is wide, spanning flyers, catalogues, exhibition banners, invitations, newsletters, web graphics* and more. I’m a flexible user of Photoshop, Illustration, InDesign, Quark XPress and more, so whatever your preferred format, I’ll be able to use it. I’ve also done some event photography, including Waggy Walks 2009 (you can see some of the photos on Flickr).

As for the experience, I’ll happily muck in with anything; all I want to do is learn and be helpful! So whether it’s a nationwide event like Waggy Walks or a small local fete, I’m keen to get involved. And of course if you could just do with a hand with this and don’t need any design work, then that works too!

Here are some examples of things I’ve designed:

More examples can be provided as needed.

I’m not completely new to events in my professional life as I’ve done sales presentations and product demos at huge exhibitions like BETT and I also had the job of keeping photo and video records of any events held at 2Simple’s offices.

So, can I help your team? If so, please email me and I’ll get back to you asap.

*Not animation or Flash, though, sorry!

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Posted in Art & Design, Social Media & Digital Marketing

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Let the Memories Begin: Disney embraces social media even more, I drool a little

Posted on September 24, 2010 | 4 Comments

If you read some of the tweets from Disney’s most hardcore (mostly Florida-dwelling) fans yesterday, you’d have thought that the company emptied a big barrel of acid over Cinderella Castle while they were forced to watch, thunderstruck. In fact, what really happened is that expectations were not managed all that well. You can argue til you’re blue in the face over whether Disney should know better than to announce a marketing campaign as if it’s a major upgrade to the parks or whether the fans should know by now that Disney always does it this way but both of those would be missing the point in a major way. In fact it is an exciting announcement for two reasons: firstly, it’s a fun addition to a holiday – something I think it’s much easier to appreciate if, like me, you can afford to go every few years, not weeks – and secondly and more importantly, it’s a major adoption of social media on a massive scale.

The campaign is called Let the Memories Begin, and it’s a two-part strategy. The new holiday element is the inclusion of a nightly slideshow projection onto Cinderella Castle (WDW) or It’s A Small World (DL) of photos of revellers taken around the parks; something that was derided as a ‘screensaver’ by some fans. The even more social element is actually an advertising campaign; users submit video, photo and text content about memories made at the parks, and Disney selects and uses these in its advertising. One TV commercial has already been constructed with submitted videos.

To find out more you can:

Read the full press release and view the video at The Disney Blog (an excellent site for considered commentary).

Visit the dedicated pages for uploading etc at www.DisneyParks.com/memories

Why were fans disappointed then? Well, there had been rumours of a Monsters, Inc. coaster at the Studios (and of all the parks, HS needs the most revamping) or the addition of Spain to the World Showcase in Epcot. But those rumours probably didn’t account for the fact that Disney is massively revamping Star Tours in two parks, building the Art of Animation resort hotel, expanding in China, re-staging much-loved attractions like Captain EO and carrying out a huge, expensive update to Fantasyland in the WDW Magic Kingdom. With wobbly visitor numbers due to the global financial problems, Disney’s already committed huge amounts of money to park updates, so it’s hardly surprising that they’re committing another chunk to tempting more people through the doors as well as keeping the existing fans happy.

I think it really is exciting to think of your picture being projected against Cinderella Castle. I’ve written before about my first Disney trip, complete with charmingly gormless photo, and  you can guarantee that child would have wet herself with delight if it had happened. I would be ridiculously excited now that I have better bladder control. But what’s even more exciting is the thought of, as a dedicated fan, having those memories recognised and having them appear in Disney’s marketing. Because it’s basically taking what we’re already doing with our blogs, forums, tweets, videos etc and applying a megaphone to it. We’re already telling the world how much we love Disney, and now Disney’s realised that helping us do it makes us feel special and potentially benefits them massively (and let’s not forget, Disney making more money means those precious park expansions can continue to happen).

I understand that the annual passholders who go several times a year every year want to see something new, but when that gormless four-year-old was watching a parade in the Magic Kingdom less than 30 years ago there were just two parks there, and one (the then EPCOT Centre) was only two years old. Now, in Florida alone, there are four main parks, two water parks, swathes of shopping areas, new dedicated resorts for Disney Vacation Club members… you name it. Disneylands Anaheim and Paris have expanded massively and there are cruise liners galore.

Disney’s social media team, in particular the Disney Moms Panel (and just to be clear, you don’t have to be a parent, or even female, to apply) has an enormous job to do; it takes some time for me to go through all the messages to Dogs Trust every day and that’s 100,000 people on a Facebook page and under 15,000 on Twitter – huge, important numbers to us, but nothing like what Disney is dealing with. For us it’s absolutely essential that we reply to everyone we can and make sure they get the answers they’re looking for, because these are the people that make our work possible and they deserve the best we can be. Yet because of the scale involved it can be a disappointing experience messaging Disney in the social space unless you’re talking directly to someone like Thomas Smith or Laura Spencer, who are both excellent. Disney’s found another way to interact and reward instead; it’s less conversational – it sort of turns broadcasting on its head by broadcasting back the message to those who produce it – but no less powerful. They’ve taken the most simple route by addressing the fan’s strength in creating material and the organisation’s strength in broadcasting it.

And simplicity in social media – as in every other arena – is so often the best way. I truly look forward to seeing what happens next.

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Posted in Disney, Social Media & Digital Marketing

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