Last week I spotted a Tweet announcing that marketing tech company SpyderLynk have launched Social SnapTags exclusively in US Glamour magazine’s ‘Friends issue’.

Like QR codes, now routinely integrated into PR and marketing campaigns, Social SnapTags look set to become a useful way for brands to instantly interact with their market.

After a little research, it seems that what sets the tags apart from the QR code is that they link exclusively with a social media platform, in this case, Glamour’s Facebook page.

According to Glamour, user incentives include: ‘access to huge shopping discounts, scoop on the stars you love and insider advice from your favourite experts.’ It also allows readers of the magazine to shape the content they receive and control the conversation – accelerating an increasingly important trend for two way engagement between brand and consumer.

For Glamour, and the brands within its pages, the SnapTag is a valuable tool directing consumers to exactly where the brand wants them to be, giving brands the ability to use social media channels to their fullest potential.

Furthermore, as content is already on social media sites, it is much more likely that users will share it with their friends, and for it to become viral.

The SnapTag has a much wider appeal than the QR code – they can be ‘unlocked’ both by downloading an app onto a Smartphone, and, by sending a photo taken on a camera phone to a designated short code. This instantly brings a more mainstream element to the SnapTag and increases the number of people able to use them; meaning that SnapTags are more likely to be picked up, or at least trialled by more brands.

For me though, the main draw is that the tag, a neat circle with a logo inside, is much more aesthetically appealing than a QR code. The familiarity of the logo evokes a sense of trust and is explicit about the tags purpose, so hopefully the user will be more inclined to use it.  In choosing Glamour’s female audience to trial the codes rather than a technologically focused publication – Spyderlynk was easily able to highlight the wide appeal of the SnapTag.

I can’t wait to get snapping!

McDonald’s in-house PR firm has pulled another great engagement trick out of its hat with an interactive billboard, Pick n Play.

The beauty of this idea is that with or without a smartphone McDonald’s still has its name up in lights; even if you don’t have a smartphone you’ll see the advert and those who do, well addictive gaming and a fast-food freebie await.

The concept is a hi-tech, but seemingly lo-fi, idea. A huge billboard allows smartphone users to play a Pong-like arcade game live on-screen through a mobile website. If players manage to keep the ‘ball’ in play for more than 30 seconds of increasingly difficult gameplay they are rewarded with a choice of;

• Free milkshake
• Burger
• McFlurry

Redemption is simple too. The website will display a code to all successful players that they can show over the counter.

PR genius

It’s a shrewd PR move, not least because of the increased footfall, and store awareness (the one closest to the billboard that is) but the PR coverage across media channels not normally frequented by the fastfood chain shows the burger empire in a different light, a positive one that has introduced a bit of unexpected fun into the lives of shoppers and commuters.

What’s more old arcade games are nostalgia-inducing and addictive; players will come back time and time again.

What’s clear is that the time to embrace smart phone marketing is here. Those who tried it too early and had their fingers burned need to step back, reassess and reconsider how the smallest screen has the potential to deliver the biggest returns on your bottom line.

Spotify has recently been valued at $1bn following a recent drive for investment and for me it brings some sanity to the current digital media market that has seen big social media sites receive valuations that seem to be based on guesswork alone.

Happily Spotify bucks this trend as it seems to be well monetized. Guaranteeing no advertising ‘wastage’ and offering a unique mix of audio and visual formats are huge revenue-generating tools. Spotify also offer their premium service which allows users  to avoid ads thereby generating money from people wishing to avoid ads they generate money from!

Now while I’m a complete convert to twitter’s microblogging service I don’t understand where the revenue is! Yes there’s a huge reach, but will Promoted Tweets bring in the dough? Does twitter have a viable business model to explain its recent valuation of £6bn on this year’s predicted sales of just £67m?

Perhaps I shouldn’t worry and just thank my lucky stars that there are seemingly plenty of backers willing to pay big money.

Here’s a video that asks a similar question

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ZRd-xX5zk0A (check out the rise of Groupon)

Maybe you disagree? I don’t pretend to be an expert on the subject so if you can show me the light then I welcome your comments below, but beware-i’m charging 10p per comment!

NEWSFLASH: Facebook has announced that it will be making some more changes. Shock.

OK, so any regular Facebooker will know that this is a pretty common occurrence for the world’s favourite social network to have a bit of a ‘tweak’ and update the site, however this time the changes  are specifically for ‘Pages’.

Formally known as ‘Fan Pages’, the updates are designed to improve the ways that hosts can engage with fans, with the overall appearance replicating that of a profile page. Changes include the way photos are viewed, and navigation of the page including tab locations which will be located below the profile page- which is generally the first place people look.

Perhaps the most exciting development is the ability to view and post on to third party pages-  as your own page- meaning that brands will now be able to interact directly with other brands, as if they were friends (yey!).

This basically will allow companies to operate on the site much in the same way as people do. As a marketeer this is very exciting, and will allow us to engage more directly with the consumer and provide them with relevant content, tailored to their ‘likes’.

Admins are able to preview the changes now, and convert to the new format manually, although all pages will be transferred over automatically on 1^st March 2011 – so there’s a date for your diary.

A new Ofcom ruling will allow product placement on certain programmes  from the end of February 2011 providing a much needed lift to commercial channels following a well-documented dip in advertising revenues due to the recession.

News, current affairs and children’s programming may be excluded from the new ruling but that still leaves  a wealth of opportunities in soaps, sports programmes and dramas where product placement could generate a huge additional income.

The advantage that advertisements hold over product placement is their ability to ‘go viral’. A great idea broadcast once can lead to millions of hits on free-to-use YouTube, adding reach and value to the campaign. Product placement has to be editorially justified and as such is unlikely to lead to a viral and any great amplification in audience figures. Of course some scenes in our favourite soaps are repeated endlessly, but, and this is just my opinion, the most popular soap scenes are grim murders, revelations, explosions and fights; what product wants to be associated with any of that?

I think 2011 will see companies getting to grips with product placement, we might see a few blatant initial offerings to begin with as producers fail to wrestle overall control from the fat cats chasing money. The ‘editorially justified’ clause certainly prohibits any characters in period drama Downton Abbey stumbling across a time-travelling Honda and racing to 2010 for a can of Pepsi but now that Ofcom has officially opened the floodgates anachronisms might well be omnipresent 10 years from now, if that’s where the money is!

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.

As XFactor reaches its conclusion (vote Matt Cardle) and Strictly filters down to the top 5, people of Bury are also being treated to their very own array of talented performers as local singers, dancers and musicians battle it out in ‘Street Stars’ at The Rock.

We launched the Street Stars competition as an opportunity to showcase the best emerging talent in Bury, and the initial campaign was launched on The Rock’s popular Facebook page. Performers auditioned back in October with the final 8 chosen by our panel of judges which included representatives from Democracy PR, The Rock and David Agnew from Bury’s Met Theatre.

The 8 finalists are of an exceptionally high standard, and include an eclectic mix from original singer-songwriter Martin Poole, to teen street dance sensations Darcey & Paige.  Krazy Horse has even produced an exclusive Christmas song for the contest, aptly titled ‘Christmas at The Rock’.

The Street Stars have performed every Saturday at The Rock in the lead up to Christmas, and Democracy have launched an application that enables Facebook fans to vote for their favourite acts.  The act that receives the most votes will scoop a prize worth £1000 to help further their performance career.

The competition has seen fantastic online results with not only a massive increase in fans but also general activity (status likes, video views etc) and time spent on the site.  The competition has proved a phenomenal success.

So the Street Stars will continue at The Rock  over the next 2 weeks, with performances taking place on Saturday 11th and 18th December. Voting will carry on until January 7^th 2011, when we will be announcing the overall winner.

View all the Street Stars, and vote for your favourite here

KLM airlines are using Four Square, the location-based social networking site,  to introduce a new incentive scheme that will ‘spread happiness’ amongst their customers. When people check in to one of their venues, a KLM ‘Surprise’ team will then delve in to their social networking profiles and create a bespoke gift for that person. For one customer, the team managed to discover that he was missing out on a big football game while away in New York, and so they ‘surprised ‘ him with a Lonely Planet guide highlighting all the best soccer bars in the city so that he wouldn’t miss out.

It’s a lovely idea in theory- tailoring an unexpected gift that is specific to the individual certainly goes above and beyond for customer service.

Yet I can’t help but feel it’s slightly creepy, and in my head George Orwell is screaming ‘Nineteen Eighty Four’ at me (a strange image, I grant you).  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not naive and realise that this type of information is readily available to those in the know should they want to acquire it, and inevitably we are going to see a lot more of this personalised form of marketing as it enters the mainstream. Such blatant use of personal data is exciting, I just wonder if Joe Public is quite ready for it yet?

So Greater Manchester Police are in the process of making social media history as they use live Twitter updates to reveal every crime/incident that they have to deal with in the space of 24 hours.  

It is the first time that a Police force has used a social media platform in this way and has certainly made for compelling reading as the day unfolds.

By 9am they had received over 400 calls- varying from the somewhat expected reports of traffic collisions, theft and domestic incidents- to the downright ridiculous – one woman had called for assistance in suing the benefits office because she had no money?!! (Nice try love).

The purpose of the activity is to demonstrate to both the public and politicians just how busy the force is, ahead of impending public spending cuts which could see their budget cut by up to 25% next week. Chief Constable Peter Fahy has stated that two thirds of all calls are social problems and that actually only a small part of police work is now dedicated to tackling serious crime.

It’s a great tactic by the GMP PR team, who have already received national media coverage and massively increased their Twitter following. It just goes to show the massive potential impact that the correct use of social media can have on a business and how influential it can be.

Let’s see if Mr Cameron pays attention…

Computer Engineer Barbie, unveiled at Toy Fair early this year to the gasps and exclamations of the media and the online community as Barbie (now well into her 50s) embarks on a new career following the results of a democratic ‘voters poll’.

In case you’ve missed the early previews, Barbie will now come complete with binary-themed clothing, pink netbook, stylish pink spectacles and a fetching bluetooth ear piece. (How come she isn’t on a mac?)

But I’m not quite sure how I feel about Computer Engineer Barbie. I know many women working in the industry through our links with Girl Geek Dinners and BarCamps, have attended events where talk about shoes and tech sit side by side, but most of them don’t wear pink or have hair quite so quaffed. So, as a member of the geek squad, do i fell patronised?

Let’s be honest, Barbie is hardly a role model that we can all live upto? If Computer Engineer Barbie was full size, she’d stand out like a sore thumb at a geek event … but then wouldn’t she anywhere? From Vet Barbie to Astronaut Barbie – those blond locks and impressive vital statistics would leave most normal people feeling like they were in the presence of a supernatural goddess.

But despite appearences, to me Barbie has never been just about the way she looks. Barbie is an ambassador for women, crashing though glass ceilings and breaking down gender barriers and egnighting a spark of possibility in the imagination of youngsters.

So, I’m welcoming Barbie, not because of the way she looks – but because if there’s a chance that a child playing with the doll might start to open their mind to a world of new opportunities then whatever she’s wearing, she’s part of the gang.

For that reason alone, my 3 year old niece will be getting one for Christmas – but please, don’t tell her!