Google knows if you’ve been naughty or nice

December 8th, 2010
santa-naughty-list

They see you when you’re tweeting, they know when you’re on brand, *ahem*, that’s quite enough of that.

Yesterday, google amended its algorithm to take into account the sentiment of your online chatter, after an article in a US newspaper published a story about a brand using negative reviews to boost their google ranking.

Any sensible marketer will already have been working under the assumption that when talking about your brand online, it’s important to manage and respond to negative messages or these can quickly undermine any positive messages being put out by a brand.

If the first thing a potential customer finds about you online is negative, that’s going to colour their future opinions of your brand. With some companies becoming obsessed with search ranking, a high volume of negative reviews can be a badly thought through shortcut to search heaven.

If it was ever the case offline, this latest move by google proves that online, not all publicity is good publicity.

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The day the diplomats sprang a leak

November 29th, 2010
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Everyone in the office this morning is fairly sure they haven’t had a private conversation with a US diplomat in the last few years. For those of you who can’t be certain, you’d better look out for any indiscreet remarks or culturally sensitive jokes appearing in print this week.

As the highlights of nearly a quarter of a million diplomatic cables are published by media outlets worldwide and online by Wikileaks, the wider media tries to sort the state secrets from the tittle tattle. What it feels like we’re reading is the personal diaries of Americans abroad, who throws the best state dinners? Who’s a ‘Hound Dog’ around women? Surely a member of the British Monarchy hasn’t said something offensive!?

Apart from, of course, these aren’t private correspondence, they’re intended to be read by any one of 3 million people deemed to be trustworthy by their belonging to an American Government department. Fortunate really for Wikileaks, as this is believed to be how they ended up in the public domain. Which begs the question, can you share too much?

In digitising the cables to make them easier to share internally, they were made easier to share with the world. SIPDIS, the US government system which the cables were loaded on to partially stands for ‘Secret Internet’ and really, they shouldn’t need me to tell them that’s an oxymoron.

(image Island Vittles; Flickr)

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Is Mr. Jack Daniel the best host in the world?

October 27th, 2010
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I think you’d find a group of 16 lucky people across the UK this week who would agree that he is, after a weekend in his hometown of Lynchburg, Tennessee.

On Wednesday last week two lucky members of the Democracy team and 14 competition winners boarded a plane and headed for the weekend of a lifetime.

Between touring the distillery, a private tasting with the master taster, partying on barbecue hill and VIP access to the World Championship Invitational Barbecue there was plenty of soaking up the atmosphere and southern hospitality that Lynchburg is famous for.

Winners from Delicious, Asda, Stuff, The Telegraph, Times plus, The Mail Online and the Jack Daniel’s Barbecue Sauces website were lucky to be drawn from tens of thousands of entries and, even if it’s getting a little chilly to barbecue now, with the skills they picked up I’m sure it’ll be Jack Daniel’s Glazed ham this weekend.

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Black White Denim

October 4th, 2010
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The majority of my wardrobe is black, with the occasional pair of jeans, so I couldn’t have been happier when I was asked to work on the launch event for a brand new boutique, Black White Denim.

Opening its doors in Wilmslow last month, the official launch took place on Wednesday and Thursday last week – where around 150 invited guests visited the store for a VIP catwalk showcase of the Autumn/Winter 2010 collection.

It was my first ‘PR event’ and a real learning opportunity for me – from fine tuning the guest lists to sourcing the chairs, I had no idea how every decision is carefully considered and costed to create the right experience for the guests.

By 10am, when the first guests were met with bucks fizz/champagne and delicious cupcakes from  The Sweet Little Cake Company, I was keen to see how all the planning would work in real life.

The catwalks took place in the boutique’s personal shopping studio, where concept creator, Jo Davies, talked through each killer combination, sharing her thoughts on the brands and pieces selected. Shows continued throughout the day, concluding in a slightly more raucous evening do as guests sipped on the specially created Panacea cocktail: ‘The Black White Denim’.

Local media and renowned stylists sat alongside our guests as Jo explained her vision for the store – clothes that you can buy now, keep forever. The only added pressure came when Drapers, the fashion bible, called for an interview with Jo just a few moments before the next show was due to start.

By 10pm, smiling but shattered, we sat down as a team for a glass of champagne and to recount the event. It’s in my nature to enjoy fashion but Jo and Democracy PR worked to create an event where you could really appreciate it and it was great to be a part of it.

Posted by Susie Whitby

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Facebook gets square

September 1st, 2010
you are here

There have always been rumours about Mark Zuckerburg , if the strapline of the new facebook film is anything to go by anyway:  ’You don’t get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies’.

If you’re not familiar the story goes that the world’s most successful social network may not have been entirely his idea, but then are any ideas ever totally original?

The inspiration for these philosophical ramblings is the launch of Facebook Places, essentially an introduction of the services already offered by the likes of Foursquare and Gowalla into Facebook’s smartphone app.

In brief users log their locations or ‘check in’ from a list of places generated by the app in response to GPS technology. In the existing apps users can earn points, rewards and badges.

Clearly in a commercial sense brands investing in rewards and prizes makes more sense on Facebook because of its superior user numbers, but as with the rest of the online world you have to decide who you’re after. Because of their release policies and early adopters Gowalla and Foursquare have difference audiences and it remains to be seen which sectors of the Facebook community take up the offer of Facebook Places.

In a true lesson from Zuckerburg himself we’ll be keeping a close eye on how things pan out in America in the run up to the UK release, and learning from the experiences of others.

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What could be more Chorlton than a vegetarian vampire?

July 30th, 2010
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The MEN is loving Chorlton at the minute, which is a coincidence as we do too. Our office is located bang in the middle of ‘Manchester’s most bohemian suburb’ (their words not mine), and it’s a great place to work.

As well as the proximity of great bars for after work drinks and restaurants for client lunches we are also in Chorlton’s most iconic building: Cosgrove Hall. Not, as it may sound, a stately home, but named after the fathers of animation Brian Cosgrove and Mark Hall.

In the same room where we now spread the word about new jams and hatch up schemes to launch retail destinations Ratty and Mr Toad were once crafted from clay. Cosgrove and Hall were awarded honorary doctorates by The University of Manchester this week in recognition of their work creating Dangermouse, Chorlton & The Wheelies and Count Duckula amongst many others.

Also this week Manchester’s Council chiefs announced the protection of Chorlton from chain supermarkets and bars and plans to promote more independent shops and a possible revamp of the precinct.

If you come to visit we might take you for lunch at The Barbakan and let you play with our Count Duckula toys… if you’re nice.

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A right royal album

July 26th, 2010
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Today, as well as those awful pictures of you from Saturday night, and your niece’s christening photos, you’ll be able to check out the Queen’s holiday snaps and official portraits.

In an historic move ‘The British Monarchy’ has launched a flickr account, the papers have reported it with a mixture of awe and amusement and it really is a good diversion for ten minutes or so.

The Queen really is ‘down with the kids’, she has a youtube channel and she tweets; except of course she doesn’t. Usually we’d recommend that social profiles for individuals are managed by that individual, with a little help of course. But I don’t think any of us really believe that the Queen would have the time to get out her iPhone  at state dinners and tweet her thoughts.

It would seem that it depends what your starting point is: if you’re Jordan people already know so much about you that your twitter feed is going to have to be pretty salacious to keep followers, if you’re The Queen then releasing some archive photos of royal engagements is enough to keep the media and the public happy.

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Breaking into the industry!

July 26th, 2010
Graduate

*** guest blog by Susie Whitby***

As a recent graduate I have been eagerly on the hunt for a job in PR, competing against other candidates with real life experience. At times it seemed no one was willing to give me the essential experience required in progressing my career. However, this week I was fortunate enough for the opportunity of a work placement here at Democracy PR.

So far I have been here three days and am already beginning to understand the ins and outs of the industry which will prove invaluable to me in the future.

With a welcoming, passionate team around me, I am confident I have much more to learn about this exciting and fast passed industry.

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Get yourself some summer threads

June 24th, 2010
Threads

We’ll have some exciting fashion news to announce later this week but for the minute I thought I’d share my favourite ‘social fashion’ site.

I found Threadless, via a friend, while I was a student and have been kept in charming and original t-shirts ever since. If you’re not familiar, the basis of the American site is that users submit sketches that they think would look good on a t-shirt, everyone votes and the winners get made into t-shirts (and hoodies and plenty of other things).

The social benefits don’t end there though as the designer takes a cut from each of their t-shirts sold, and if you buy one you can upload a picture of yourself wearing it to a gallery on the product page.

Threadless is a great example of encouraging your community to get really involved with the things you make and sell and they’re clearly not doing too badly out of it.

(image from incurable_hippie Flickr)

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Sun in blogger shock

June 17th, 2010
world cup ball

This week The Sun has been giving a crash course in how not to engage the blogging community. In executing a perfectly good idea they’ve managed to annoy some respected bloggers and make themselves the poster boys for bad blog campaigns.

A perfectly harmless football sweepstake idea to promote their new sweepstake app went a little bit wrong when they didn’t get permission from the bloggers concerned to use their sites.

They did ask, but just didn’t manage to pay attention when the replies were a firm no, or nothing at all. One blog had been inactive for over a year.

The fact that this story has spread through the tech and media community at speed illustrates the keen interest in all things blog and reflect a widespread unease about how to deal with the blogger.

Actually the truth is that bloggers are both journalists (of a sort) and real people. Offer them something they’re interested in (in our case anything from baby food to Jack Daniel’s Barbecue Sauce) and treat them like people and you’ll find that ‘the blogosphere’ isn’t really that hard to work with.

(image from www.shine2010.co.za Flickr)

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