Bury’s got The Rock Factor

December 7th, 2010
C&T

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 7th 2011, when we will be announcing the overall winner.

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

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The ‘surprising’ possibilities of Foursquare

November 26th, 2010
surprise_gift_250_x_340

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?

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Down with silver surfers

September 2nd, 2010
surfer

It’s been hard to miss the efforts going into transforming the nations over 55s into “silver surfers”.

Online workshops, niche networking sites like Saga Zone and even Sir Terry Wogan as a Silver Surfer Day ambassador (Yes – it really exists!) and all urging the over 55s to log on.

It all seems to be working. According to the latest research from Pew Research, the average age of users of social networking websites such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are getting older.

According to the research, the number of online users over the age of 50 has nearly doubled to 42% in May 2010 from 22% in April 2009, as older people use social networks to keep in touch with relatives and catch up with old friends.

So what? Well to many brands, the rise and rise of social media has been considered a youth phenomenon (or under 35 anyway). Encouraging brands to reevaluate this, even with the latest stats is challenging. Just like all social situations – understanding who you’re talking with, and why, is key.

I don’t think many do – and what’s more, I believe that the ‘silver surfer’ title may be doing us all more harm than good.

Lumping everyone over the age of 55 in one group in any other sense seems ridiculous.  At 55 you may have taken early retirement and be pottering around the garden, but you may also be a high flying businessman or woman. At 65, 75, 85 and 95, life, commitments and challenges are different. (For those who think 95 might be pushing it, then remember Ivy Bean, the world’s oldest tweeter, who died aged 104 this year.)

Mixing an older audience into current social media communications means that we all need a greater understanding of how all of the people over 55 use that space.

Just like the niche communities that spring up in our teens, twenties and thirties – this 50 year age block wants different things, from different people at different times.

They may be on Facebook but are they watchers, commentators or broadcasters? Do they actively look up brands that they engage with to share their opinion, or do they silently read, absorb and relay the news to their offline community?

It’s time for brands to consider the people behind the tag and gain a greater understanding of their desires.

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The digital future of the BBC

June 9th, 2010
BBC Coat of arms

This is a rather bold headline but I’m feeling very cheerful about the digital future of the beeb this morning after an informative evening last night spent at the second There Will Be Blood event at Common in Manchester. (That’s the BBC coat of arms in case you’re wondering.)

The second speaker, Hugh Garry, although at pains to make clear he was expressing his own opinions and not those of his employer, outlined an interesting creative vision for the potential of the future of the BBC’s audio content. I probably won’t be able to recap as well as him so here’s Hugh’s blog with links to a few of the projects he mentioned.

I, of course, threw in my two pence worth with the idea that I was happy for user generated content to pop up on radio stations, websites and the BBC’s social profiles but I was less keen on the idea of the user generated Middle East Correspondent or host of Question Time; and thankfully Hugh agreed.

Alongside being a classic early adopter and evangelist for new social technologies he also issued a note of caution citing ITV’s snapping up of Friend’s Reunited before it had had a chance to prove itself, and the subsequent substantial loss.

Although the next big thing can be tempting it’s always worth sitting back and watching it grow with its audience, as he pointed out it’s unlikely to be Foursquare or Gowalla that make their millions from location based technology but another company that right now is watching, waiting and thinking.

A selection of film clips from the night will be uploaded later in the week – so do check back.

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First meeting of Open Data Manchester

April 29th, 2010

Slightly late blog on this one as the event took place on Tuesday night but Hannah and I were running all over London with Jack Daniel’s in tow to give our friends at various publishing houses their first try of the new Jack Daniel’s Barbecue Sauces yesterday.

Held at the MDDA building on Portland Street the event was really my first foray into the open data field and as I don’t profess to be an expert I thought I might just share some of the links used in the meeting to demonstrate the principles and potential of open data:

A good place to start seems to be Tim Berners-Lee giving a TED talk on his view of how open data will shape the future of the internet.

If you’re partial to a nice graphic, and I certainly am, then check out this baby from the Sunlight Foundation to demonstrate how open data policies can be used by and influence society.

For me, by far the best use of open data demonstrated on Tuesday was an app called San Francisco Trees which uses data that the council already had about when and where trees had been planted, to create an iPhone app that allows users to get data on any tree they happen to be standing in front of.

The same company has created apps for finding pharmacies, doctors and postboxes but that seems a lot less fun to me.

This is an example of asking permission to use data that a public body has but doesn’t bother to share, which seems to me to be an important part of the open data movement. In a similar move the Open Election Data project is seeking to gather election data that councils hold as standard into one easy to access place.

Open data can also inspire people to gather data themselves; as in the case of open streetmap, a response to other online mapping tools not giving access to their data. Instead users have mapped large parts of the world themselves and have shared the data freely for use by the public and developers.

What struck me on Tuesday night was that even though I thought I had access to a lot of data, I don’t, at least not in a ‘useful’ form. The talk opened with the example of the Transport for London website which publishes massive amounts of information every day about tube, train and bus times. Yet this data is only accessible on the platform of the TFL’s own website. If you want to use it to compare house prices, crime rates and public transport connectivity for example, you can’t.

With lesson number on learnt I’m very much looking forward to next month’s meet up and  getting to grips with where open data can really take us.

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Earning a buck in the digital age

April 21st, 2010
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Hannah and I spent an interesting evening in the impressive setting of Halliwells Manchester offices last night debating why digital agencies and professional services just don’t seem to be getting on.

The question was put to a  well selected panel of Shaun Fandom, Chairman of Manchester Digital, Nick Rhind, MD from Web Development Agency CTI, Simon Wharton, MD online marketing agency Push On, Steve Kuncewicz, IP and Media lawyer Halliwells LLP, Coral Grainger, Innovation Activist M:KC and one of our clients Philip Hemsted, MD at Business psychologists Psycuity.

I think I’m inclined to agree with a point made by Nick Rhind that the heart of the problem lies in the fact that the digital community is used to crowd-sourcing information and will sooner have a quick look around online if they have a legal issue, than make their way to Spinningfields and knock on some expensive doors.

Having said this, as I put to the panel, both sides have something to gain from each other in their dealings with companies in the FMCG sector, like most of our clients.

Law firms have problems communicating human personalities and individuality to this sector and there’s never been an easier way to do this than online. Digital agencies are perfectly placed to implement the content managed, media rich websites which law firms desperately need to build their online profiles, although I would argue that they would be best off seeking guidance on strategy and tone from communications professionals. Marketing is a professional skill, not something to hand over to an inhouse person who could be put to better use stacking up billable hours.

In turn Digital Agencies are at risk of being seen as unreliable by this sector; we hear tales all the time of web agencies being slow, unresponsive and not delivering what was asked for. If, at the very first stage of a web development, contracts and agreements were properly drawn up then web agencies would have a better chance of maintaining their reputations and covering their backs.

The most noticeable thing last night, being neither a lawyer nor a web developer, was the amount of jargon thrown around by both sides and the obvious lack of understanding between the two industries. Both law and digital need each other moving forward, and the firms who understand and embrace that have the potential to take the lead on a growing business opportunity.

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Food for thought

March 30th, 2010
Picture 18

Apparently Jamie Oliver’s school dinners are making children cleverer. Since the introduction of his nutritious meals, SATs results have dramatically improved. Perhaps there’s a scientific reason, or maybe kids are being spurned on by the ever more infrequent reward of chocolate for doing well.

Oliver’s scheme may be making kids healthier, but the media don’t seem to like his “I was right all along” stance.

In fact school dinners are certainly on the media menu today as they also report on fingerprint scanners being introduced in a school in Brent, North London to substitute cash in canteens.

Although mother’s can watch what their kids are eating this way, danger surely looms. As a child, I was constantly worried about the infamous demand of ‘Give me your dinner money.’ Well imagine if a surly bully forced you to give him your thumb.

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The iPad, what else?

January 28th, 2010
Steve Jobs

It would seem rather against the grain to talk about anything that isn’t the iPad today, even though I’ve spent most of my day talking about anything but. (That’s jam sandwiches, pelvic toners, entrepreneurs, baby food menus, hall tests and grapefruit if you were wondering)

Anyway onto the iPad, after reading the announcement via twitter during ‘The Derby’ last night and reading the opinions of tech journalists in the papers this morning I’ve just managed to watch the video on Apple’s site and I have to say, that, just like everyone else, I think it looks like a big iPhone.

I am convinced that, like all Apple products, you won’t realise you need one until you get one (or all your friends do first) and I really like the name; it’s like an iPod, it’s like a pad, geddit? Best use of the name so far in a blog from Stephen Fry today entitled “iPad About”.

So if we’re all reserving judgement on the product, which seems to be the general consensus, the thing we can marvel at instead is Apple’s PR skills. When was the last time someone launched a laptop and the world’s media gave it this amount of attention?

By keeping everything about their product a secret Apple created the ultimate crescendo of excitement around the launch event. Rather than leaking specs or samples to favoured journalists or bloggers, Apple kept the tech community holding their breath and they passed their excitement on to their readers, friends and followers.

If only Apple didn’t seem to enjoy making such beautiful adverts they wouldn’t need to advertise at all.

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We’ve been away but we’re back

October 2nd, 2009

I know we’ve been seemingly quiet over at Democracy Towers for a while. We’ve been getting our new website sorted, and fingers crossed within the next few weeks it’ll all be done and live.

For those of you who know us, the past few months of silence have felt like some kind of gag – and new website launch or not, we simply couldn’t wait a moment longer to share what we’ve been upto.

Today, we’re out and about at TEDx, meeting old and new friends alike as we share our thoughts on all things digital and looking forwards to the next communications challenges and opportunities.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Nothing to titter at …

April 8th, 2009

Last night, the team headed over to the Northern for the monthly social media cafe. With so many events happening in the digital world at the moment we don’t get along as often as we’d like to, but it’s a great place to meet people and chat all things social.

With presentations on TwitterTitters and Futuresonic to choose from – i opted for the presentation by Louise Boulton (and Linda Jones) on her recent fundraising activity for Comic Relief.

The dynamic duo, which expanded to a trio with the addition of a publisher, decided to create a book of short stories to raise money for Comic Relief and to use Twitter as the main medium to promote it.

With time against them (just three weeks from start to finish), they used Twitter to appeal for stories (and received over 70 submissions), found judges and even scooped a celebrity foreword to give the project media appeal.

Recognising the power of Twitter needed to be enhanced by a more detailed information source the team launched a blog to follow the success of the project.

The publisher decided that selling through lulu in an online or printed version would be the way forward, and although they hit barrier after frustrating barrier, they managed to get their book on sale 10 days before Comic Relief.

Being journalists, the creators had many a PR follower on Twitter and appealed to those to retweet their messages about sales of the book and their very entertaining TwitterTitters jokes to get people in the mood and drive awareness. After much persuading, they even managed to get Stephen Fry to retweet – and traffic to the blog spiked.

On the big day itself, a London journalist decided to take a pop at the campaign and insinuate that the activity wasn’t an official comic relief project – and the action of this one person sadly took the shine away from a campaign that sold 200 books and raised over £700 for the charity.

Tips from the team on people wanting to use social media as a tool: Recognise the power of the retweet (and plan for this with the characters you use), use small hash tags and build in ways to use other social media tools so that the campaign can be bookmarked.

Tips from us at Democracy PR to TwitterTitters: Twitter, while great, needs to be supported with an offline PR campaign and presence in other social networks and seeding the message on relevant communities and be prepared for when people have a pop at you (cos they always will), respond if required and then move on. Oh – and give yourself lots more time.

The book is still on sale and is very funny – buy your copy of TwitterTitters from lulu here.

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