Social Media Monitoring and Engagement Specialists - 6Consulting - Radian6

LEADERS IN UK PUBLISHING AND MEDIA TO GET TOGETHER TO DEBATE THE IMPACT OF TWITTER ON THEIR BUSINESSES

Media140 will be the UK’s first micro-blogging event, bringing together the worlds of print, broadcast, online and social media together to debate and discuss the impact of new micro-blogging services such as twitter and how they are changing how news is being sourced and consumed.

The non profit event to be held at Iris Digital on the 20th May is being sponsored and supported by Sky News, Telegraph, Iris Digital, Sun Microsystems, 6Consulting, Tweetmeme, Winston & Strawn Bootlaw, Times Online, Capital Business Media and Gorkana.

With speakers from mainstream media including BBC, The Times and Sky and their new media counterparts from Frontline Club and TechCrunch with a number of respected technology critics, commentators and academics scheduled to attend.

This event shows how the industry is starting to look across commercial boundaries to debate the impact of emerging trends such as twitter as the advertising and publishing markets feel the strain of the recession.

Early bird tickets are available from £35 at  www.media140.com

“Being part of this is important as it is an opportunity for us to discuss what twitter and similar services will mean for industry going forward. Critical to that is that this event is independent and non profit allowing a neutral platform for discussion.”

“The twitter storm is with us and I had originally planned to run this event informally to raise money for Mencap as part of a charity run. As I started to talk to colleagues in the industry it started to grow organically and has shown how the industry is keen to debate these trends early and find ways to empower their businesses rather than shy away from them. ”

“Twitter is and will continue to be one of the central tools we use to locate, engage and collaborate with clients, the industry and subject matter experts.  From a news resource to a customer service platform, Twitter and similar services are set to continue there meteoric rise.  We are pleased to be a part of this important event.”

Cold calling has been served notice, a new era beckons and with it an altogether different way of working. Social networking has arrived and will soon replace cold calling as the predominant method of prospecting in business.

I have profoundly changed the way I do business and have firmly embraced social media and the networking possibilities it has created. To that end I have reduced to a very small percentage the amount of time I spend cold calling. Read More…

This is yet another example of how videos on YouTube or other video sharing site can become very viral.  The person in this interview is Steve McClaren, ‘X’ England football manager.  It must be stressed that Steve is English but now in charge of a Dutch club.

The video has become viral because of the very strange accent he is using.  The video has been posted numerous times on different sites and is currently standing at around 1million views.  Notice of the video has been monitored on countless blogs and forums and was widely circulated on Twitter.

Enjoy!

Twitter is a great platform, if only it would work all of the time.  Like many we have become frustrated at seeing the whale, loosing contacts, loosing SMS updates (if you are in the UK) and more.

SO…..

Whilst waiting for Twitter to work today I decided to update the Whale Picture!

Is your social media identity being stolen?

I haven’t put a blogpost out for a week or so as I have been playing with some new social media tools and writing for my book (watch this space). So there I was suffering from social media overload and unable to sleep when it struck me (as I am sure it has others) that companies still don’t protect themselves correctly.

There has been a great deal of talk in the media of late about personal identity theft. You chuck out your old bank statements, some low life wades through your potato pealing’s and fag ends, retrieves the discarded documents, steals your identity and takes out a loan in your name. The result is bad credit and a huge waste of your time solving the issue. If, like me you live in the UK, you can be as careful as you like, but when the government loses the details of all 25million parents it doesn’t matter how careful you are.

One would have thought then, that companies would be equally as protective of their brands online. I am afraid to say they are not. So, are big companies (and small for that matter) aware that their identity or brand name may end up being used or squatted on by others?

Because this kept me awake, like the argument on social media vs cold calling, I decided I would find out just how slack these companies are and conduct ANOTHER test!

Let me give you an example. I know not everyone uses Twitter, but lets face it whether it is Twitter, Plurk, Facebook, MySpace, Bebo or any other so called social media platform you don’t want someone taking your name in vain.

I remember the legal wrangles over domain squatting (still happening today) because some shark decides to take your name or brand, use it and hold you to ransom to buy it back. Now what I am going to tell you does not mean I advocate this in anyway, in fact using someone else’s brand or name in this manner is like stealing to me and needs appropriate punishment, but I am going to name and shame a few well known organisations. I have registered some well known brands and institutions on several social media platforms, if any of them notice this blog, or the fact that I have set a profile for them they can have it back free of charge, no hassle, I only want to prove their stupidity for not having done it themselves.

Lets take Twitter as our case study. Their terms and conditions state:

1. We reserve the right to reclaim usernames on behalf of businesses or individuals that hold legal claim or trademark on those usernames.

Fantastic, I am safe then. Anyone can use my name and when I am ready to wake up and use social media I get in touch with Twitter and WHAM! I get my name back, perrrfect.. Well not exactly! How long have they had your identity? who has been following them? how many people? have they Tweeted in a positive or negative way? has ANY damage been done?

The name and shame role call - people/companies without a profile (well they have one now cause I registered it!)

1. Magners - Irish cider brand, incredibly hip and cool summer drink, very big in England
2. Bulmers - Irish cider brand, incredibly hip and cool summer drink, very big in England
3. Micorsoft - Global software company. I thought I had struck gold here but look closely at the name!!
4. Harrods - probably the best known department store in the world!
5. ITV1 - one of the largest and oldest TV channels in england!
6. Cherirblair - Tony Blair’s (ex PM) wife!!
7. Primark - another huge department store chain
8. AsdaWalmart - just a small company (Walmart is the second largest company on the planet)
9. Sysco - 33rd largest company on the planet
10. Centrica - in other words British gas

The list goes on. What is interesting is the spread of companies, celebs and brands. Take Harrods for example, how on earth could they have missed this? who is in charge of protecting them against this sort of activity?

I understand that some may argue as to why on earth they would want a Twitter profile and I don’t want to appear biased towards one platform or another, therefore I checked out the names above on other social media with the same result.

So who is to blame? the company? the agency? or should social media sites build in a protect list of global brands? it would save an awful lot of legal paperwork, cost and heartache, but in my opinion someone within these organisations is liable for the mistake.

Companies need to keep up on what’s happening, or employ someone that can. Protecting your identity, be it personal, company or brand is important, there are individuals out there that will spend hours searching for names, registering profiles all in your name. Some may wish to write about how great you, your company or brand is, others may not.