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I’ve written a lot recently about what I feel is a movement by Facebook to increase their hold on the social media world and become the hub for all that we do online.

So I was interested today to see a quote from CNN’s US president Jonathan Klein suggesting that although rival Fox is currently winning the ratings war in the US, their real threat comes from Facebook:

“I’m more worried about the 500m people on Facebook versus the 2m on Fox. The people you’re friends with on Facebook or the people you follow on Twitter are trusted sources of information. Well we want to be the most trusted name in news. That’s a challenge and we have to rise to that challenge.”

In many ways, CNN probably shouldn’t see Facebook as a threat, more an opportunity. But, with AP already making strides in the direction of the western world’s most popular social network, it’s now time to act.

And if this is an opportunity for traditional media, then it is most definitely an opportunity for PRs and brands too…

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Over 350 million people have a Facebook account, 60 million people use Twitter and hundreds of millions of videos are watched on YouTube every single day.  Social media is mainstream , with even the BBC giving Stephen Fry’s threats to abandon Twitter headline news status..

But what is this social media thing all about? Is it just a way to link up with like-minded people, a load of old hype, or does it present real value for businesses, in particular small to medium-sized companies?

I caught up with freelance journalist Guy Clapperton who has just published a new book - “This is Social Media” – and asked him about  demystifying ‘social media’ and  why he thinks business managers and owners everywhere should be thinking about putting social media into their marketing mix.

Can any business get involved in social media, or is it just for the big brands?

Good grief I hope not, or I’ve been wasting my time! Seriously, if a sole trading freelance can get work out of social media then so can anyone. In fact it might be more difficult for a big brand to achieve a consistent voice, weigh up whether to sound personal or businesslike, how to get the right balance.

What are the top five things that any business should think about when it comes to social media?

1. Who your customers and prospects are and where they’re likely to be in terms of social media. Don’t guess at this, treat it as a piece of market research. If they’re not on Twitter then don’t market yourself through Twitter – otherwise you’ll be spending half your time selling the idea of Twitter to them.

2. Observe what’s going on in the networks your prospects are part of. Facebookers tend to think it’s a bit naff to publicise your own blog posts, for example, whereas Tweeters don’t mind it. Don’t think the rules are going to change around you.

3. Don’t go for the hard sell – in just about every part of life it’s really easy to ignore.

4. You might not have started using it yet but if you have any sort of branding the chances are there are people talking about you on Facebook etc. already. It’s important that even if you can’t control it absolutely you get your say.

5. Use it as part of a strategy. In the 1990s a lot of people had bad experiences with their use of the Internet because they thought of it as some sort of bolt-on to the business rather than part of the overall business plan. The same thing is happening again.

Are there any ‘rules of engagement’?

Engage, participate, be seen to be someone who’s contributing rather than just selling.

What are the benefits for smaller businesses?

Although I don’t accept the ‘It’s free!’ argument as your time and that of your colleagues certainly costs money, if well managed it’s inexpensive and easy to get into very quickly.

Can you name examples of who’s doing it well and who’s doing it badly?

I had a problem with my accounting system. I mentioned it on Twitter and they’d offered me a solution within two minutes – I’ve waited on help lines for longer. So 10/10 to MYOB. On the other hand there are the disasters like Habitat, which famously tried to associate all of its Tweets with Iran so that people searching for Iran would find an ad for a sofa or something. Lunacy, and they’d probably agree with me after thumping me for bringing it up yet again.

What’s the one piece of advice you’d give to a business looking to get into social media?

Plan it like any other promotion and don’t expect miracles – in fact, measure the time you’re putting into it against stated objectives. Like a load of trendy topics it’s been described as a panacea in too many quarters; in my book one of the first things I say is that it might not be right for everyone.

Who should manage social media accounts?

Whoever can make them work. A lone office junior who’s been tasked with running social media might be really into Facebook but won’t necessarily be able to answer all of the queries or action any requests. Think of your desired outcome from social media. Consider what the social media person needs to put into it and how they need to be supported throughout the organisation and see who matches that set of requirements the best.

Online information overload is one of my favourite little themes that I keep returning to. As we consume more and more content on the web (social and otherwise), it becomes harder and harder to stay on top of all the updates, tweets, news articles, emails etc. that come our way every single day.

Efficient aggregation of all this content therefore becomes extremely important. And the company that can become the social media dashboard or destination – allowing us to integrate and aggregate everything in manageable place – will go some way to taking the online crown.

There have been some major developments this week that I feel firmly positions Google and Facebook at loggerheads in this social aggreation war.

Facebook threatens new email client – Facebook 1 v 0 Google

As the biggest social network, Facebook is ideally placed to win this battle. It’s 400m users are very loyal and use the service on a regular basis. But Facebook is keen to increase this loyalty and one of the key tasks that would likely take Facebookers to another website is email.

Facebook’s messaging service is frequently utilised by its users, but isn’t a fully blown email client. The rumours this week are that Facebook is working on an email client that would give it a key foothold in this area.

Google rolls out Google Buzz – Facebook 1 v 0.5 Google [jury's still out]

Then yesterday, Google rolled out Google Buzz – a new social network/updater/integrator service that sits within Gmail. I blogged a few thoughts about Google Buzz last night and I remain unconvinced – it’s great if Gmail is your thing, but that only really accounts for the 140m Gmail users.

It’s still a fascinating move though by Google. And for me, it shows that the fight is on.

Facebook hits back with IM integration – Facebook 2 v 0.5 Google

And then today, just as the excitement around Google Buzz was dying down in the cold light of another day, Facebook hits back with the news that it is going to open up its internal chat to external developers.

Things move very quickly in social media and this week has brought this home very clearly.  I don’t think this is a ‘winner takes all’ situation, but there will be winners and losers and, so far I give Facebook the upper hand.

I wonder what tomorrow will bring…

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Google has started to roll out its ’social search’ project to all searchers on Google.com in what is another move towards integrating social media into the search engine.

Social search allows you to search your social networks rather than the entire web. For example, if I wanted to look at the latest buzz around the iPad launch, I could restrict my search to what my friends on Twitter have been saying.

Social search results are also now appearing towards the bottom of general searches.

Following the integration of real-time results into search results last year, this development is further proof that Google sees social media as a new frontier in search and one that it is putting social media firmly front of mind.

For brands, this only increases the importance of building social media relationships with your customers and prospects.

I blogged last week about the new version of Forrester’s Social Technographics that has just been unveiled.

If you haven’t come across them before, Social Technographics allow you to identify how certain users or segments of users participate in social technologies. As Bernoff explains:

“Social Technographics was carefully constructed, not as a segmentation, but as a profile (that is, the groups overlap). That’s because the actual data told me that people participate in multiple behaviors, and not everyone at a higher level on the ladder actually does everything in the lower rungs.”

Now Charlene Li and Jeremiah Owyang (both formerly of Forrester and now at Altimeter) have released a really interesting presentation called ‘Understand your customers behaviours’.

The main thrust of the presentation, the slides and video of which you can see below, is to focus on a thorough understanding of your audience rather than looking at specific technologies or tactics. This is very much our philosophy when putting together PR campaigns at Wildfire, so is great to see it shared in such a clear and detailed way.

Li and Owyang suggest you ask the following questions before embarking on an online campaign:

1. Where are your customers online?
2. What are your customers’ social behaviours online?
3. What social information or people do your customers rely on?
4. What is your customers’ social influence? Who trusts them?
5. How do your customers use social technologies in the context of your products?

When Facebook made changes to its privacy policy back in December I commented on how I felt this was a sign that the network was attempting to take advantage of some of the success that Twitter had been achieving of late.

Yesterday, Facebook introduced a new feature that essentially allows its users to ‘retweet’ information that has been shared. This doesn’t apply yet to status updates or pictures for example, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see this coming in the future.

This is yet another move in Twitter’s direction, so why is Facebook worried?

• Twitter for business – Twitter is the opposite to Facebook’s walled garden – it is totally open, anyone whether you are a pigeon, a brand or even a bridge, can join. This is in contrast to Facebook’s previously strict joining rules. Facebook fan pages and groups are the key battleground here as Facebook looks to get in on the ‘business action’
• Real-time – Twitter’s inclusion in Google and Bing real-time search results will possibly be a defining moment for the company. Facebook will be eager to get in on the real-time bandwagon, but it has real problems with privacy…
• Privacy and openness – users on Twitter are encouraged to keep their updates public and the vast majority do. Facebook again is polar opposite here with the majority of users traditionally keeping their profiles hidden and viewable only by friends. This opt-in model presents real problem for Facebook

So does Facebook need to be worried? Not yet.

Facebook is still growing and its user figures world wide are substantially more than Twitter (indeed in some areas, Twitter’s growth is slowing quite quickly).

But Facebook is at a junction in its development. It needs to decide whether it continues to cherry pick the best bits from other ‘pretenders to the throne’ or whether it sticks to its guns and innovates and develops with its loyal user base front of mind. And with the attraction of real-time and local-search, choosing the former path might be appealing.

However, I can’t help but think the latter is the best option and that merely trying to dumb down to match Twitter and whoever comes along next will just end up infuriating users and creating a ‘Myspace’ like network where no one is particularly sure what it is and where they are…

It’s been coming for ages and yesterday Google finally announced the introduction of real-time search. This will allow you to see ‘real-time’ results from social networks in normal Google search rankings (see the video above for a detailed look and how it will work.

I already think ‘real-time’ will be the big social media trend in 2010, so this move by Google is significant.

However, it also feels slightly rushed; I don’t think the user interface is particularly slick or intuitive (or useful), but the company had to do something to respond to Bing’s efforts and Twitter’s own search platform, and this is the first attempt (though it certainly wont be the last).

But what does (or could) real-time search mean for brands and PRs? Is it an opportunity or a disaster waiting to happen?

The potential opportunity

There is a clear opportunity here for brands that are active on Twitter or other social networks with ‘real-time’ interaction at their core. If you are tweeting about a certain topic, trend or incident, then this will potentially come up in search results, giving the searcher awareness of your account. Obviously for popular searches the amount of noise suggests that it will be almost impossible to be heard. But as the service matures and real-time results are included in less popular searches, the potential of being found becomes far greater, especially if influence becomes a ranking factor (or one option at least).

The potential disaster

But on the other hand, the risks become greater too. Imagine how real-time results in searches could severely escalate crisis management situations. If you think of incidents like the Habitat fiasco, real-time results takes this beyond just a Twitter trending topic into a totally new sphere. This is not a bad thing in itself – it is yet another example of media democratisation – but could potentially be very damaging for brands if not handled correctly.

How to prepare

It’s usually impossible to totally predict what disasters might occur, but in terms of real-time search, making the most of it and staying on top of it when things go wrong, relies on having a presence there in the first place.

By using these social tools to engage with customers and prospects – empowered by real-time search – brands will be able to learn about problems or issues quicker, build strong relationships with users and broaden the reach of social media interactions.

Econsultancy has today released its latest Online PR and Social Media Report and it makes thoroughly interesting reading (download here – login/membership required).

The report, edited by Linus Gregoriadis and Michelle Goodall, is based on a survey of more than 1,100 companies and agencies.

I’ve been wading through some of the findings and have pulled out the following, that are particularly interesting:

Social media participation is growing, but heavy participation is still rare

It’s hard to miss coverage of social media in the media, but the report suggests that many brands and agencies are still just dipping their toes in the water with only 26% saying they are heavily involved in social media and 64% having experimented but not ‘done much’.

“Softer” brand-building factors are seen as “major benefits” as opposed to harder financial advantages such as increased profitability

No surprise here, but there are some interesting statistics when you dig a little deeper: 73% of respondents have seen greater brand awareness through using social media. 71% saw increased customer engagement, 66% better brand reputation and 62% increased communication / networking with key influencers. These are all benefits that you would also expect (or would have expected!) to achieve through traditional PR.

Overwhelming personal enthusiasm for social media, but many organisations do not share the same positive outlook

I wrote recently about the difficulties of getting internal buy-in for social media and the report seems to support this. When asked about the opportunities provided by social media, 61% of respondents said that as individuals they saw tremendous opportunities for their business, but only 31% said their organisations as a whole have this same positive outlook.

Twitter is increasingly popular

Interestingly a massive 78% said they are using Twitter, compared to only 47% using a corporate or brand blog. Perhaps the convenience of micro-blogging is just as appealing when it comes to brands as it is for many individuals.

Customer service teams yet to embrace social media

I also revealed recently that the growth in usage of social media by customer services teams is likely to increase in the near future, however the Econsultancy report shows that 35% of respondents said that social media activity was managed by digital marketing teams, 21% by PR teams, with only 2% saying it was managed by customer services.

Monitoring tools

Despite the array of tools out there, a surprising 46% said they didn’t use any form of online repuation or buzz monitoring technology. 39% used a free tool with only 8% paying.

Social media spend will grow, but you only get out what you put in

The majority of companies surveyed (86%) said they expect investment in social media to increase in 2010, but there is a health warning in the report - “You only get what you put in” – with only 1% of companies who are heavily involved in social media say that they have gained no real value from the channel. Education seems to be important here with 59% saying a lack of knowledge or understanding was a key barrier to adoption.

As with most emerging technologies, Twitter began life as the plaything of geeks and technophiles. But the last year has seen increasing mainstream adoption.

I’m always coming across interesting new tweeters and last week, found an account for the London Symphony Orchestra – one of the world’s leading musical ensembles.

As someone who was a pro musician in a former life, I was particularly intrigued, also because one of the account’s tweeters was advertised as one of the Orchestra’s flute players.

So I got in touch and spoke with the LSO’s Digital Marketing Manager to find out more. I also managed to speak with Principal Flautist and Tweeter, Gareth Davies – his thoughts are also below…

DW: Tell me about the LSO and your role?

Jo Johnson, Digital Marketing Manager, LSO: My job encompasses running the LSO website, email marketing, text messaging, social networks, film-making etc.

The LSO is a huge and very busy organisation and there’s always a lot of different things going on at once. My job is to make sure the right information about all these activities is in the right places online, where people might find them (and spend their cash on tickets – if you want to get down to the nitty-gritty of the purpose of my existence!).

DW: Why did you start tweeting at the LSO and what were the initial aims?

JJ: We [that's me and my colleague Gavin Bayliss, LSO Live Product Manager] started tweeting really as an experiment.We had been using Facebook since 2007 (and MySpace for a little while before that) and saw the rise in importance of the status update. Twitter started really as an extension of that.

We happened to join at the time when there was a big surge in people joining up, and it became clear that Twitter was really about conversations. We started out with the aim that we would NOT use Twitter for marketing, and that aim is still there.

DW: How do you use Twitter and what do you tweet about?

JJ: We try to use it to inform people about what the Orchestra is doing daily and respond to any replies . We put up photos, particularly when on tour, and share interesting links and thoughts. If we have a bit of new video, or a new CD release, we’ll announce itt.

Occasionally we run what we call Artist Conversations, which are basically interviews and Q&As with soloists and conductors, and we’ll tweet those as a complete event.

DW: Do you measure the effectiveness of Twitter and/or social media?

JJ: We try, although it can be difficult to see hard results in terms of visitor numbers to the main website or sales of tickets or CDs.

We can track visitors coming to http://lso.co.uk from Facebook etc. (Twitter is harder to track because of the wide variety of 3rd party apps that people use) and we can see ticket and CD sales as a result of those visits.

In terms of income, Facebook is our 5th biggest referring website – definitely not insignificant!

We also use the bit.ly service to shorten URLs that we post, which gives us stats like number and times of clicks, geographical location and type of application they have used.

But personally, I think that measuring like this is only half the story. Any organisations looking to justify their use of social networks this way are missing the point.

Surely the most effective way to measure its success is by the amount of user activity within the sites! The more interesting and relevant you are within them, the more people interact with you, and the more fans you gather.

If you’re doing it right, all these people are getting a taste of your brand, just within the environment that they choose and are comfortable with.

The things people say about you and to you in these networks are things they might not say to you anywhere else – for example we get loads of people tweeting mini-reviews after a concert, or telling us how much they enjoy Star Wars, or how they wish we could tour to their city. I suppose one could call it buzz-monitoring.

DW: Was it difficult getting buy-in internally?

JJ: Um… we didn’t ask! Sometimes you’ve just got to go for it and see what happens.

We had already managed to prove that Facebook was a success and worth doing – and that we could be trusted to communicate in these places without sign-off every time! Just as well, since Twitter et al are not the sorts of activities that thrive under those sorts of restrictions. And we are lucky to work in an organisation that encourages and trusts its employees to do something they believe in and to give things a go!

We’d be lying if we said it was all easy – we’ve had to fight our battles and convince people it’s the right thing to do, that we are doing the LSO’s reputation good and not wasting our time. But they are generally supportive right up to the top of the organisation.

DW: Do you have any future plans for using Twitter/social media at the LSO?

JJ: More, more, more! Conversations are really important to us – we want to encourage people to get to know us through social networks. I don’t think this phenomenon is going away. The names may change, but this way of conducting our lives online will stay.

DW: What would be your top tips for companies looking to start using Twitter?

JJ:

- Be original. Be funny. Allow your personality through, don’t just be corporate.

- Don’t just tweet mini-press releases, there’s nothing more boring. But on the other hand, don’t just tweet about what you had for lunch, how bad your commute was or how awful the weather is!

- Do respond to criticism in a positive way.

Gareth Davies is Princial Flute Player with the LSO. he has a blog and also contributes to the @londonsymphony Twitter account

DW: How and why did you start using Twitter?

Gareth Davies: I didn’t use Twitter before I started using it with the LSO.

I started writing a blog for the Orchestra nearly two years ago and it became apparent that a lot of people enjoyed finding out about what went on behind the scenes and also having a more personal relationship with the players.

DW: What do you tweet about?

GD: All sorts of things. Sometimes it’s just information like what we are doing, where we are, who we are working with.

Or it might be telling people about an upcoming concert or CD. But my favourite stuff is when things happen backstage that we tell people about, which they wouldn’t find out about otherwise!

DW: What’s the best thing about tweeting for the LSO?

GD: I hated it at first, and managed to get into a few arguments with some people on it, so I had a break.

It really got going when we went on a tour of the US. We got into tweeting all sorts of stuff.

My favourite one was when our principal cellist forgot his black socks for a concert and so was backstage with a pair of black and white striped socks, filling in the white lines with a black marker pen. I got a picture of that up in about 30 seconds!

People also seem to like pictures of the rehearsal from a different angle than they are used to seeing.

The thing I like best is that it really breaks down a few perceived barriers between the orchestra and the audience which can only be a good thing. Its also is really nice when I’m on the train home after a concert and people are already tweeting how much they loved it.

You can follow the LSO on Twitter at @londonsymphonyorchestra and find out more about forthcoming concerts at LSO.co.uk. Don’t forget to check out Gareth’s either! lsoontour.wordpress.com

Last week, I attended a PRCA event on Linkedin where the speaker was Cristina Hoole – European PR and Marketing Director at the business social network.

For the regular users of Linkedin, there wasn’t really anything new to report, but it did get me thinking about ways in which Linkedin could be used to improve a company’s (or an individual’s) PR efforts. Here are my top ten tips:

1. Make sure your spokespeople has a unique URL – this is easy to configure in your Linkedin control panel and will give you a search-engine-friendly URL – e.g. http://uk.linkedin.com/in/dannywhatmough
2. SEO your spokesperson and company profiles – make sure that your spokespeople appear in internal and external searches by including lots of relevant keywords in their Linkedin titles, biogs and the rest of their profile
3. Set up your company profile – you can now have company profiles in Linkedin just as you can individual ones. Point 2 still applies here – make sure the page is properly optimised
4. Create a group for your company or industry group – Linkedin groups allow users to connect and chat with each other on a whole range of themes. This is a great way to start chatting to customers, prospects or partners
5. Make sure you list all your events – Linkedin events was a feature that I hadn’t come across before Cristina mentioned it. It is free to add events you might be running (or attending) and will even flag up events that other users in your network have found interesting or are going along to
6. Run a poll – Linkedin polls can be targeted to particular demographic splits or interest groups. The service does have a cost attached, but could be a great way to get relatively cheap industry insights or even get research for a PR campaign
7. Monitor questions and answer any that relate to your business – Linkedin Answers is a way for anyone on Linkedin to ask questions of the entire community. Monitoring these questions on a regular basis and answering any that apply to your business or sector will help you build up recognition and respect
8. Join groups in your industry or sector and give involved in the discussion – as well as setting up a group for your business or sector, you should also join and monitor other relevant groups that are in existance. Join in the conversation if and when it makes sense
9. Connect with journalists and influencers – If you’ve recently met a journalist, analyst or even a blogger, make sure you connect to them on Linkedin. This will keep you front of mind and might mean that they will come to you first the next time they need a comment or interview. Better still, they’ll have all your contact details!
10. Update your status – Having built up a following on Linkedin, make sure you keep your connections updated with your latest goings on by updating your status. You can now link status updates to Twitter (and vice versa), but bear in mind that Linkedin isn’t primarily a micro-blogging platform, so you’ll probably want to go easy and not overload your connection’s streams with continuous updates

Linkedin is often ignored by many in PR, but there are lots of really beneficial ways to use the service. Let me know if you can think of any I’ve missed and don’t forget to connect!

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