Archive for the ‘social media’ Category

By Danny Devriendt

Dabbing my toe left and right in the stormy waters of Social Media, I bumped into a fascinating quote from Google big boss Eric Schmidt (Google him, it’s impressive ). He said in an interview with the Wall Street Journal: “I don’t believe society understands what happens when everything is available, knowable and recorded by everyone all the time… I mean we really have to think about these things as a society… Young people may one day have to change their names in order to escape their previous online activity.” This is a concern I have voiced for a long time now. Do people really know what they are sharing? Do people really want to tell every last detail of their most private lives online, for Google to index? Do people realize that that very cute picture in that minuscule teenie weenie yellow polka dot bikini is available for their future boss? What about the massive tagging of pictures taken by smartphones in the dark of a hen night? Do people realize Tweets are indexed and kept, long after their authors have deleted and forgotten them? Schmidt has a point. Digital citizens should be more aware of the digital traces they leave behind. Some social auto-responsibility is required, indeed. Some social clean up even: map your real friends. Find a circle where sharing is mutual and well defined. Un-friend and un-follow the shady ones. Be online street-smart. And we need more e-netiquette. The freedom of waving your digital camera around ends where someone else’s freedom (for privacy) begins. An opt-in/opt-out for tagging? We all can become social-digital smarter. But we’ve all been young. We’ve all partied. We’ve all made big, social mistakes. Luckily, for my generation, the memories of those mistakes have been blissfully eroded by the softening hand of time. Should we now be merciless on youngsters that made that one drunken mistake online? Should we continue to judge that one girl for loving the wrong guy just a bit too much, and ending up tagged on exgirlfriends.com? Maybe Eric Schmidt and his all-powerful Google have a responsibility here: can you get a second chance from Google? Imagine, mister Schmidt, if a youngster made that one online mistake, and motivates why he/she would like to see it blown into –permanent- oblivion. Could you alter your logarithm, and give the kid the rest of his/her life back? Would that not be easier, more respectful, and more educative than just offering future generations the possibility to change their names? But I do not want to put the entire burden on Eric Schmidt’s shoulders, I agree with online consultant Suw Charman-Anderson who said somewhere: “As a society, we are just going to have to become a bit more forgiving of the follies of youth.”

Are you smart, driven and passionate about social media? You love it and you want to spend the whole day learning and doing it? Then you will fit perfectly into the Porter Novelli Social Media Team! We need an intern who is looking to dive in and get their hands dirty and is willing to do everything related to social media from research through tweeting to blogging and more!

Responsibilities:

• Social media research across any given topic (collecting, organizing and analyzing data)
• Social media monitoring
• Social media outreach
• Blogging
• Developing creative ideas for social media campaigns
• Any other tasks given by a supervisor

Requirements:

• Familiarity and interest in Web 2.0, social media and the blogosphere
• Excellent computer skills
• Excellent writing skills
• Fluent in English (and preferably another European language)

Bonus points if:

• You’re an active blogger
• Have more than 250 followers on Twitter
• Speak several languages

Start date: August or September

Job type:
Full-time (preferred)

Based in:
Brussels, Belgium

Interested? Contact me @princess_misia or send your CV and motivation to marta.majewska@porternovelli.be (don’t forget to include your social media details such as Twitter, blog etc.)

by Marta Majewska

Ladies and gentleman … or señoras y señores! On Thursday night we reached our final destination – Madrid! The next morning we were expected at Loft39 – a very elegant location where the seminar was taking place – and after some good café con leche (or a triple espresso if we’re talking Danny), the seminar could start.

After a warm welcome and the introduction of the speakers by Juan-Cruz Más Vidal, the CEO of Porter Novelli  Madrid, Gary Stockman was the first to take the floor to talk about how real-time has redefined communications, the need for a holistic, integrated approach and the urgency of authenticity and innovation. John, using a fluent Spanglish;), talked about his experiences with Community Management, the need for brands to become curators of high-quality content and took our attendees to the magid world of augmented reality. Danny showed off with his mayorships and foursquare badges when talking about location-based services and introduced the participants to new analytics and Delphi – Porter Novelli’s forward looking cornerstone.  Next to our great speakers from Porter Novelli, we also had a guest speaker, Celia Morales, Head of EU Social Media and PR eBay Europe, who talked about the latest, and very successful, social media campaigns of eBay and the company’s take on social media.

After the seminar, we met with the Spanish from comms&marketing, business and technology publications including  PR Noticias, IPMark, Brandlife, Negocio, El Periódico de la Publicidad and El Publicista with who we’ve had some really great and open minded discussions. We discussed the role of social media for companies as well as governments and oh how handy it is to speak fluent Spanish in moments like that

The day was rounded off with an internal session at PN Madrid where we’ve met with our wonderful colleagues!

Big thank you to Juan-Cruz Más Vidal, Higinio Martínez and all our colleagues from the Madrid office who helped with the organization of the event!

If you speak Spanish, check out the blog of our Madrid colleagues for further reading.

by Marta Majewska

Yesterday, the first digital seminar of our EMEA roadshow took place in the PN Amstelveen office. The event attracted high attendance from the social media knowledge seekers. Participants came from all different industries ranging from automotive to gaming. We also welcomed three attendees from the most popular social network site in the Netherlands – Hyves.

After some opening words from Maurice Jansen, Director @PN Amstelveen and the organizer of the seminar, Gary, John and Danny gave a lively presentation during which they discussed Porter Novelli’s take on digital and its role in the communications industry. They presented the most important trends that are shaping the communications industry these days from augmented reality through location-based services to gaming. There were some great and varied questions from the audience that initiated a spirited discussion.

The event was rounded up with a drink where more discussions on digital and social media took place and we were happy to receive many enthusiastic reactions from the attendees.

Kudos to PN in the Netherlands for hosting the event!

by Marta Majewska

Our colleagues at Porter Novelli Atlanta created a video with great insights on women and their use of social media in the United States.Take a look below:

by Danny Devriendt

Everyone goes high on social networks these days. Twitter and Facebook –just to name the two obvious ones- propelled themselves to the absolute zenith of popular online services. Barack Obama used the dialogue and “tribe” possibilities of social media to fuel his –winning- campaign.

Most Belgian politicians are following slowly however… they discovered social media just in time for the last elections. Bizarrely (or predictably?) a lot dropped their engagement again just after being elected… with the new elections a two weeks off, they started to target their online friends and followers again. Not very respectful, and frankly lots of orphaned followers do not take this treatment kindly.

Twitter behavior is also bizarre. Some Belgian politicians have gathered a couple of thousand followers, but do not take the courtesy to follow back. That is about as polite  as giving somebody a business card, but coldly refusing the card that is offered back… it is rude, and arrogant.

I know it is not about numbers, and I do understand you cannot interact with everybody. Star profiles like Bill Gates, or miss Spears cannot possibly even follow back their countless followers. But a Belgian politician? Should follow at least the people who are interested in him/her. Out of courtesy, for one, but also out of curiosity.

How can a politician who is not listening represent me adequately? Ignorance, or arrogance… I do not care. I will not give my vote to someone who is not even interested in following me back.

And you?

find the Belgian politicians on http://www.netvibes.com/politicibelgie

Brands don’t properly take into account the influence of social networks like Twitter and Facebook to open up a dialogue with consumers. They need to be more present and control what is happening there in order to avoid difficult situations. Some groups or communities appear on the web around a certain brand without the consent of this brand, and not always for the sake of this brand. Besides, the effect of a tweet, especially negative messages, is exponential even if short in time. On social networks, the consumer approaches the brand, not the other way round, while companies are unilateral in their way of communicating. Finally, brands needs to understand that a ‘human’ message will have more impact than a commercial one. Community Managers are key to more and more companies.

Danny Devriendt, Intelligent Dialogue Director at PN, has just created a social media lab called @PNBR5. As a former journalist, he now has more reach on Twitter than the audience he had when he worked for a daily newspaper. For him, social media is essential to any communications strategy. “There’s an ambiguous approach around the phenomenon, and not only around Twitter. Web-users expect brands to be present on these networks to discuss and criticize. Brands think it’s only a new advertising channel. On the +/- 200 existing digital networks, there are a few stars, but also some targeted and more confidential networks,  that are more efficient depending on the product or brand. What many brands don’t understand, is how you can and must communicate on these networks. Until now, their message was one-way through advertising and would either convince the consumer or not. With digital interaction, dialogue is key, also when you get criticized or attacked. For example: an overweight person was denied single tariff by a US airline company. The company was then hit by boycott calls on the social networks. Brands still need to be educated about this new way of communicating to their consumers.”

Posted by Kathy Van Looy

By Danny Devriendt

Have you noticed? Lately online it is all about “conversation”. It’s the new buzzword in town that shall be listed in Vogues Great Guide Of Words To Drop @ The Next CocktailParty (have you noticed the “@”?). Conversation online. In social media. Because, you know, nomen est omen: it is about conversing with people, having a chat with attitude, talk on steroids. Bidirectional swapping of digital thoughts. Dialogue for the brainy ones .

Now, do not get me wrong. I’m all for it. I love “conversing” online, swapping witty reflections with notorious clever people with a laser sharp vision. I love the gentle battle of like wired minds, the old jousting with rock solid arguments.

Mind you, I do enjoy intercultural reflections on life, the universe, everything, even with people I only know as a slightly silly, greenish one eyed Avatar.

But what bothers me lately is that some virtual nitwits these days position it as a “sine qua non” for digital presence; as a “must do”. As a “have to”.

I hate “have to’s”. I listen to everyone. Most is not interesting, short of even vaguely amusing. Some is nice. Some is intriguing. Some triggers desire to engage, comment, swap, battle, encourage…. I gladly succumb to these feelings…. Because I want to. Not because some digital guru with a fan club thinks it is a wise thing to do.

You’re seduced in a conversation, invited into one, sweet talked into one, maybe even bribed into one… but never ever forced into one

Conversing is an art form of connecting, persuading, pairing up. You have a conversation going on, or not. There is no grey zone. It’s a war on my terms

So you, conversation manager, better be a darn good artist….

“Conversation should be with people who give a rip what you have to say, not just anyone with a frontal lobe”

By Danny Devriendt

I must say that this weekend’s Social Media stream on natural disasters triggered very mixed feelings. I followed both the devastating earthquake in Chile, and the brutal storm over France live on social media. Twitter and YouTube proved to be way faster than CNN and even the local French news desk. The social media warrior in me had a glorious “told you so” moment, the journalist in me felt fundamentally and completely by-passed. Simply no way in covering news any faster than this live-stream… you can follow the ripples of the news as they unfold.

What is astonishing is the near real time experience. The constant stream fully local tweets gives a hallucinating vivid image of what is happening. Multiple channels (more people tweeting on the same event) and location tracking filter out hoaxes and disinformation. Direct links to online pictures, videos and text-content give this crowd-journalism a cross-media and very visual impact.

As Social Media can be done on most mobile phones these days, the technical barrier to use it is extremely low. Anyone armed with an 89 dollar phone can cover, edit, shoot, post and share news-as-it-is-happening and will probably have hours of head start before a traditional journalist can work on the premises.

But as the stream of abhorrent news kept on flooding my trackers and feeds, the big difference between this unfolding disaster covered by people who are involved (even committed) and the more distant approach of the traditional channels became very clear.

It is not all about speed, and volume of data. TV gives you a filtered, selected story based on information that is carefully put in a context. It is calibrated for a normal audience. Too shocking or disturbing facts and images will be polished, or left out.

The news will be packed in an item that is tailor made for understanding and assimilating.

Social Media feeds are unfiltered, un-blurred, and raw. It puts you right at the receiving end of a fire hose of pure emotion and drama that is happening right now. You are simultaneously voyeur, analyst, journalist, editor and news anchor.

My question is: can you handle it?

According to Pingdom’s statistics, Facebook is the most engaging social network with an average of 661.8 page views per user per month. Statistics are a bit unfair to Twitter though since most of Twitter users rely on third party clients and don’t spend too much time on the site itself.

originally posted on iheartsocialmedia.net