Everything is Just So

August 23rd, 2010
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This weekend for BabyDeli we’ve been at the delightful Just So festival with a pop up gastro restaurant for the under 2s.

It’s the first time that Louise has invested in live event activity to support brand building and the team at Democracy managed every aspect of the campaign – from the design and production of the vinyl branding, the management or the kitchen and the data capture tool – all supplemented by a social media campaign.

The event was fantastic, the visitor profile matched the BabyDeli target customer perfectly – and the cafe proved a real success with some parents popping along twice a day to feed their little ones delicious BabyDeli food.

The lovely Hannah also managed to secure a break at luxury family hotel Calcot Manor to encourage parents to check out the new facebook.com/LoveBabyDeli page.

We’ll upload more photos and some video footage later today. Can’t wait for next year!

by Jennifer O'Grady and tagged , , , , , , , , ,
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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.

by Charlotte Morley and tagged , , , , ,
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Naughty twhispers

June 25th, 2010
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I very nearly fell off my chair today with an anouncement on twitter that brand Beckham was about to call it a day.

Although i’m not allowing myself to feel shocked anymore about the break up of these seemingly blessed celeb marriages, the thought that the Beckhams were on the verge of announcing their split had me practically screaming into the office ‘noooo…not the Beckhams! I can’t read  OK! without the Beckhams’.

Not to fear though, as with a number of rumours that are filtered through twitter, this has turned out to be nothing more than chinese whisper that have got out of hand, and the fabulous couple’s PR rep has strenuously denied the rumours, stating “there is no truth to them”.

Well, it would’ve been particularly poor timing during the world cup now wouldn’t it? There wouldn’t be nearly enough space in the tabloids to cover the both. So tweeps, would you please stop spreading naughty rumours about our favourite sporty hunk and his poutiful wife? You nearly gave me a heart attack.

by hannah and tagged , , , , , ,
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Social Media Virgins

June 9th, 2010
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Last night, i  headed into Manchester for my first experience of a Social Media Surgery. Held at the offices of the MDDA and attended by a rounded mix of people eager to understand the hows and whys of social media.

Social Media Surgery is like a beginners guide to helping people struggling with how to maximise the opportunity and to someone living and breathing it on a daily basis – it was something of a reality check.

Friendly and informal, the debate of the night Facebook vs LinkedIn. Although eager to learn, the group was apprehensive. Struggling against the self imposed barriers that they’d already placed on themselves or their business. Who could or should be a friend? How to say no to requests on Linked In? How can this help my business? Why doesn’t bombarding my social group with special offers not work?

Twitter inevitably became a strong topic of conversation. As a platform the announcement of everything from product launches to births and deaths was supported by the panel’s discussions.

I found it an easy going and informative environment. The reality is that people with true experience of using social media for business are few and far between. As each new topic was explained and then questioned I could see many faces filled with fear start to brighten as they considered how the boom in social communications would change their business.

Social Media Surgery events are informal, free-to-attend and are clearly doing a great job of giving people real world advice about how to use social media in every day life. Why not take a look.

by hannah and tagged , , , , , ,
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Using Twitter to make news

June 8th, 2010
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The anti-twitter brigade often don’t see the potential of the medium, opting to believe that time wasted engaging the public online is worth less than shouting from a hill with a loud hailer.

So we like how much news twitter is making lately, not just as a way of assessing the groundswell of public opinin on everything from politics to Glee, but as a tool that’s making news across the traditional press too.

This week, twitter God Stephen Fry (and one, assumes festival organisers at the Hay Festival in Wales) revealed the most beautiful tweet in an international competition. Although I’m not convinced the criteria for judging has been explained in any of the press reports, the festival said the most beautiful tweet – posted by Marc MacKenzie from Canada – read “I believe we can build a better world! Of course, it’ll take a whole lot of rock, water and dirt. Also, I’m not sure where to put it.”

The winning tweet was revealed by Fry, who paused from his daily musings about Apple to praise the message for its humour.

The combination – new medium, social participation through an engaging competition and celebrity backer secured column inches in over 100 traditional and online titles and catapulted awareness of the Hay Festival in Wales to a new, wider audience.

With this much potential, are you missing a trick not including twitter in your communications campaign?

by Jennifer O'Grady and tagged , , , , ,
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Twitter’s bug bite

May 12th, 2010
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What a stressful 10 minutes celebville must have had when the world of Twitter cleared all followers from our favourite celebs pages. One minute you’re bragging about being a member of the ‘million followers club’ and the next you’re sat wondering where all your thousands of adoring followers are hiding, “I feel so lonely” P Diddy tweeted, “come back soon. I can’t live without ya!!” The ‘Twitterbug’ even confused Stephen Fry, “I was sure I had more followers. Must have imagined it.”

Popularity on the site isn’t an indication of influence however; size doesn’t necessarily matter on Twitter, except to boost delicate celebrity egos. A study by Harvard Business School says, “Our claim is that follower count is not sufficient to capture the influence of a user (i.e., the ability of a user to sway the opinions of her followers). It only shows how popular the user is (i.e., the size of her audience).”

Actively searching out people who’s opinions and voice you find engaging and subsequently mentioning and retweeting them is a stronger indication of a person’s influence… so feel free to get mentioning and retweeting me (@hannahtelford28) as I work my way up to my millionth follower!

by hannah and tagged , ,
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Manchester Confidential: “The paywall hasn’t worked”

April 14th, 2010
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Last night I spent an enjoyable and informative evening at Common in Manchester’s Northern Quarter for the very first ‘There Will be Blood’ – a better name than the apparently previously considered ‘Digital content club’.

Cryptic names aside the night was expertly compered by Manchester legend John Robb (invented the word britpop, and managed cornershop amongst other achievements) who introduced first the lovely Martin Bryant of Visit Manchester and The Next Web, and then the provocative Gordo of Manchester Confidential.

Much of the talk was, given the presence of Gordo, about how it’s possible to make money from content. A neat conclusion wasn’t reached, but Gordo’s honesty was refreshing: in the case of Manchester Confidential the controversial paywall hasn’t worked. He admitted that the company was facing the wall back in September and they introduced everything they could think of to try and turn a profit.

What has ended up making them money though is more traditional revenue streams: restaurant bookings, spa days, priority reservations and advertising. The eyes of the UK’s online and offline media have been on Manchester Confidential for the course of this experiment and the conclusion that seems to have been reached is that a straight paywall won’t work.

Users, who are used to free content, are not willing to start paying, we will however pay for something that adds value and advertisers will pay to reach a targetted audience, which bodes well for twitter’s new promoted tweets strategy.

Whatever the reason  we’re inevitably coming to the point where the internet is going to have to start making the producers of its content some money. The way Gordo sees it we’re all living in a free trial, when the internet ‘began’ it’s content creators didn’t know how to make money from it so they just put content up while they worked it out.

Now though they are working it out and the free trial is coming to an end, as Gordo pointed out “it’s not all Kerry Katona; someone’s got to pay for the Baghdad Bureau”.

Bring on #twbb2

by Charlotte Morley and tagged , , , , , , , ,
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Gossip Girl in Cyberspace

March 11th, 2010
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Once again, another relationship has been targeted and is being carefully scrutinized by the gossipmongers of cyberspace. It doesn’t seem that a day goes by without another celebrity couple being unfaithful to their partner. This time it is the turn of France’s flamboyant, diminutive President Nicolas Sarkozy and his wife Carla Bruni.

According to rumours, Carla Bruni is having a passionate relationship with a French musician and Nicolas Sarkozy is enjoying a relationship with his Ecology minister. Well, at least the rumour this time is that both parties are having illegitimate affairs which makes a change from the usual footballer and WAG scenario!  Unsurprisingly, Sarcozy has refused to confirm or deny the rumours, but the simple fact that the rumours have become so widespread has given the story credibility.

Rumours began on Twitter before gathering momentum on more mainstream media sites, which  makes me wonder about the power of ‘Chinese whispers’ on Twitter and other sites and how quickly they can make or break the reputation of a couple, brand or business.

Nicolas Sarkozy and Carla Bruni aren’t the first and they won’t be the last couple that have to face seeing their relationship scrutinized thanks to some unfortunate remarks on Twitter or Facebook. We all know somebody who’s had a real world fall out following a thoughtless online comment.

In the 21st Century, the pen truly is mightier than the sword – which makes taking care of your reputation the holy grail of the modern day world.

by hannah and tagged , , ,
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600 tweets a second

February 23rd, 2010
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New stats which appeared on Mashable yesterday show that Twitter has reached 500 million tweets a day, or 600 tweets a second.

There’s no indication as to whether this is due to more members or just more active members but it does show that twitter is continuing to grow at quite a pace.

The other big Twitter news is that His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who has had an account for some time, has become active, enabling Twitter to cater for the spiritual needs of the 500 million daily tweets.

by Charlotte Morley and tagged , ,
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Scruffs get dirty with Democracy

February 1st, 2010
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How pleased are we? Scruffs – the cheeky brand of workwear – has decided that they want Democracy to launch their new MAN TIPS campaign due to launch in Feb. MAN TIPS is a cheeky national campaign developed in conjunction with our friends at Manchester advertising agency CBJWT and features been-there-and-done-that Uncle ‘Arry as the ultimate brand advocate.

We adore uncle ‘Arry – he’s always on hand with wise words to help the nation’s tradesmen get out of the sticky situations they face when the opposite sex becomes overwhelmed by seeing them in their Scruffs work gear.

We’ll be working in partnership with the Scruffs in-house marketing team, led by the wickedly creative Chris Mellor-Dolman and CBJWT to exploit the social media opportunities across Twitter, Facebook and YouTube as we engage tradesmen with the MAN TIPS concept through traditional and online channels.

It was a competitive pitch, so we were chuffed when Chris from Scruffs told us the news, but even happier when he told us why:  “MAN TIPS is a great creative, and Democracy PR understood that what we needed was a campaign to support that, not another campaign all by itself. Their social media strategy will be at the heart of everything we do and the tactics they have developed will help deliver on our ambitious sales targets.”

On return to the office (they’re based in Nottingham) even Uncle ‘Arry had something to say: “What can I tell you? Those birds at Democracy know that my words of wisdom could mean a lucky escape for one of my boys next time Big Mrs O’Reilly wants more than ‘er drive layin’.”

What we love about Scruffs is that they aren’t afraid of what social media can do for their brand – in fact, they can’t wait to start talking with their online community. Their cheeky approach to marketing is reflected in the ideas we pitched – we know it’s going to get dirty and that’s just the way we like it!

by Jennifer O'Grady and tagged , , , , , , ,
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