Go to a social media training course or have someone present a social media plan to you and the odds are it will tick the following boxes:

• Strategy
• Staff policies
• Blogging
• Twitter
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Mobile/location
• YouTube/video/podcasting
• ROI

Even now in Scotland, where companies are afraid to tread in digital engagement, you could say that’s a good covering of the basics. It’s a solid foundation.

But there’s so much more – you could argue sharing content on Slideshare and Prezi is being social, there’s Instagram, Pinterest, Path, Google+ and that’s just the platforms off the top of my head. Path’s usage is going through the roof, Pinterest is going great guns, Instagram has been a phenomenon (even moreso when you consider it’s only available on iOS).

But what does this mean for social media and PR/marketing agencies? What about businesses?

Businesses, don’t panic

If a business hasn’t jumped into using social media yet, then there’s no need to panic. As with all companies, start out slow – pick out one or two platforms that you want to use/that your customer base is already on. As you get comfortable with those, expand into other ones you want to use and remember, don’t be afraid to experiment.

PR/Marketing agencies, panic

Yes, this fragmentation is probably only going to continue which means we need better monitoring tools, more time to digest and analyse data and so on – all without any increase in client fees probably. It makes it vital that you know exactly why your brands are on each platform and that they are playing to their strengths. (And if you’re a PR firm that just says you know social media (you know who you are – you probably claim social media is about big numbers) then you’re hosed. But that’s good, because you should be sticking to what you’re good at to, so get back to calling reporters and asking if they got the press release.)

The Future

It may well be that web3.0 won’t be social search as many seem to believe but an age of smaller communities – some gathered around forums, but others gathered around apps and specialised sites. Facebook may well remain top for a while yet but just as Coronation Street got used to declining viewer figures, so will Facebook. Advertisers will be in for a hell of a time though so they better enjoy Facebook while they can.

Related posts:

1. Free Social Media training for Scottish police, fire and other emergency services
2. How to get a job in Social Media
3. Tesco Scotland beer binge shows power of social media & trusted networks
4. In Social Media strategy, should you put all your digital eggs in the Facebook basket?

Whyte has issued a statement that hasn’t done anyone any favours and we’ll explain why in a moment. But let’s look at the statement (as seen on ScotZine):

“In the most lurid terms, the Record accuses the Club’s management and, specifically me, of using supporters’ money to help fund the buy-out of Rangers. Not true. The Club is accused of not paying £5million in VAT. Not true.

“I can categorically assure supporters that when I launched a takeover bid for the Club it was funded entirely from one of my companies and that was demonstrated clearly to the satisfaction of the previous owner, Lloyds Banking Group and professional advisers.

WHAT WHYTE SHOULD HAVE SAID #1

If the club has paid the £5million bill then show a piece of proof – a JPG of some kind with any sensitive details blacked out.

He should also have stated which company of his funded the purchase.

A statement from Lloyds would have been good too.

It goes on…

“What is true is that Rangers, like many other clubs, has a financing arrangement in place with a company called Ticketus which enables the Club to receive revenue from a portion of season ticket sales in advance.

WHAT WHYTE SHOULD HAVE SAID #2

He should have named the other clubs that do this. Would have given the scheme more credibility. After all, if Man Utd, Liverpool and others do it, it must be OK mustn’t it? Ticketus should also have been backing Rangers up with a statement of support.

And then…

“This is a perfectly straightforward way of raising working capital for the Club. Money from season ticket sales goes directly to the Club and is used for the Club’s operations and that remains the case. In effect, all this financing arrangement does is release the revenue to the Club earlier.”

WHAT WHYTE SHOULD HAVE SAID #3

He should explain exactly what the deal is. There’s no need to but he’s currently on the defensive. Giving all the detail gets him back on a better footing, it shows there is nothing to hide (and I’m not saying there is)but the more open he can be, the better.

WHY WHYTE NEEDS TO SAY & DO MORE

Some – including those close to Whyte – may be wondering why he has to give so much information. Why can’t they just put out a normal statement and leave it at that. Quite a few reasons:

He’s being accused of various things. By being transparent and offering factual information he’s showing that he’s completely above board and being open. Being open builds trust.

Providing everything you can will also build allies and experts can look at the material provided and go “he’s completely above board, this is all legit, the Daily Record is full of nonsense.” There are Rangers fans who are lawyers, accountants, heads of big businesses who would analyse this stuff and endorse it, giving Whyte even more credibility. What businesses must never forget is that in a 2.0 age, there are people out there cleverer than you and they can make you or break you in their analysis of what you put out.

Putting out more information also heads off the second set of questions – naming the businesses and sums involved.

It would also give him a platform from which to go on the offensive. Every time someone tweeted or blogged a negative comment, his team could fire back with “See what we said in this link. We answered your point.”

He should also have put this out as a video statement and audio. And then followed up every few hours with more video and audio updated.

BUT IT’S ABOUT MORE THAN THE PRESS RELEASE

That’s only the start. Giving all the information in one place – in this case the news site of Rangers FC – is just the start. There should be people out there hitting every tweet, every blog post, every Facebook update going “here are the facts” and setting the record straight. 

THIS ISN’T JUST FOR FOOTBALL

Related posts:

1. Scottish journalist’s Rangers football book ends up on popular piracy site
2. Footballer casualty of social media as he’s sacked over tweet
3. Celtic fans go on the PR offensive over “Old Firm” sectarian issues – should the club?
4. Should Liverpool Council dump local press and go online only after CIPR, PRCA row?

Now, some may scoff but the smart, switched-on operator will be seeing plenty of potential in this sort of thing. Press releases in games? Perhaps as historical documents? We may not be too far off from that. There’s a lot of ways the canny PR or social media type could get coverage this way.

Of course, most will stick to just calling the news desks of the declining traditional press and ask: “Did you get my press release? What edition will it be in?”

Related posts:

1. The press release hasn’t evolved – 2.0 in form but 1.0 in content (AKA what does John know?)
2. Should Liverpool Council dump local press and go online only after CIPR, PRCA row?
3. Contently Managed Podcast 1: could computer games be used as news/media delivery service?
4. Free Social Media/PR Surgery, Dundee, October 8

Scotsman iPad App review

What is it?

It’s The Scotsman newspaper in an iPad friendly format (the old iPhone app wasn’t that great as I said in this Scotsman iPhone app review). You get a bunch of stories from the paper/website and the digital edition claims it will update during the day. You also get the option to view the traditional paper format. It’s £7.99 a month – which is a good deal – and the first month is free. You may even get the Evening News for free (more of that in a minute).

Is this a good thing?

Hell yes. More and more news is being consumed this way – on tablets and phones, so it most certainly is. This is the future. And even though The Scotsman isn’t what it was – it went through a period of being hellbent on losing the traditional audience – and the website it (slowly) rebuilding its way to former glories that Stewart Kirkpatrick made of it – this is a good thing. It’s still an influential paper, especially on the East Coast.

Is it a good app? A good read?

Umm… let’s split this up…

The Good

The fact The Scotsman has done this is good. We need more Scottish press embracing possibilities.

What’s utterly brilliant is the setting for ‘Read the paper from the back’ (it’s buried in the settings options) – that’s great for those who start with the sports section and whoever came up with it should get a gold star. Great consideration of audience.

It’s very stable and quite quick. There’s some nice options with each story to share via email, Facebook or Twitter and it takes your settings from what is already on your machine – no need to input your details again. There’s also a nice ‘related stories’ link at the end of each.

It’s genuinely free for a month. It doesn’t ask for your card or PayPal details up front, hoping you’ll forget to cancel (like so many sites do)

You can get Jobs, Announcements and so on – it takes you to The Scotsman site so this is always the fresh material that it should be.

You can archive stories and editions.

The Not-so-good

(in no particular order)

The video could do with better mics. Quite a bit of background hiss.

There’s no back button on any of the pages so you always have to click the Home button to leave a section.

The first few attempts at downloading the edition of the day are horrifically slow – three minutes on a 50MB wifi connection (for comparison, PressReader pulled today’s edition down in 26 seconds – the whole thing) – and I can’t tell if the Scotsman pulls down the whole edition or streams pages at a time as there’s a 2-3 second lag when you flick through pages.

The stories at the top – seven stories in the ‘cycle’ but only two are from today. Five are from yesterday.

While there’s options to share, it doesn’t tell me if any my friends have read/liked/tweeted the stories. Similarly, there’s no ‘what are my friends reading’ option which could have boosted engagement.

When you go to Jobs, Announcements and so on, the UI changes and you are suddenly in the territory of The Scotsman website. This is bad. The UI experience should be consistent so that if someone is accessing these pages from the app that they still have all the options at the bottom (in fairness, they do have it at the top but it’s just a button saying ‘done’ which takes you back to the app.)

WTF is the ‘Remember the Children’ thing all about? Make a virtual star in the night sky to remember a baby or child no longer with us? I mean really, what the fuck? Crass, insensitive. Just what was the thinking behind this one? Cheap and manipulative in my opinion – and seems to be something a bunch of papers are doing. Nice idea but to me, just… no. And yes, I think the same about the poppy field for soldiers and the daffodils for cancer victims. At least those are a bit more relevant than stars in the night sky.

The Questions

What times of the day does this update? Will it inform me by email? How will I know? Do I need to just click and hope?

What about the Evening News stream at the bottom – is that the full paper? Just the highlights? Will the Evening News be getting an app? What about the Scotland on Sunday? A standalone app or will it appear on Sunday in this one?

Why isn’t there a one-touch button for sending comments (to appear on the website) or Letters to the Editor? Is there an option to read web comments?

What time does it update in the morning? Does it come out the same time as the streets edition or is it 9am?

Over time, will it remember what I have read or shared and put those sort of stories first?

Conclusions – is it worth buying?

This is a very decent app and deserves to make The Scotsman money. It’s probably the best Scottish newspaper app out there at the moment and hopefully sparks others into getting out there. £7.99 for a monthly subscription isn’t bad – if it includes the Evening News and S0S then it’s even better.

Will I be buying it? Probably not. I may subscribe for a month just to give it some cash, but that’s it (unless you get the full Evening News/SoS). Why? I use PressReader on my iPad and here’s why I’ll be sticking with that…

What’s so good about PressReader

£19 a month gets me all-I-can-eat press from more than 2000 newspapers from more than 100 countries. Every day I turn on the app and I get downloaded at 7am the print editions of The Scotsman, The Courier, The Press & Journal, The Herald, The Guardian, and The Indepdendent. Every evening I get The Evening Times, Evening Telegraph and the Evening Express. Now on top of that, for no extra cost I can get the Daily Mail, Daily Express (English editions), access to the likes of The Engineer, Marketing Week, Sunday Herald and many other weekly publications. I can also get plenty of other regional UK titles if I’m doing a PR search for local press – or foreign press.

Basically, it’s a steal and even at £7.99 The Scotsman app can’t compete with it. I can forego the likes of the odd video interview and save my £7.99 – but in fairness that may change. If there’s enough new fresh content that is non-paper and appeals to me, I’ll be there, waving my credit card.

And what they put up today is an optimistic start.

Related posts:

1. Scotsman iPhone App: a review – 4/10
2. It was The Sun online wot lost it (AKA readers being stung by Sun iPad app?)
3. Roundup of iPad observations for journalism, gamers, authors and… grandparents?
4. What newspapers wanting on the iPad should do

So who is?

Everyone makes an impression on others. One person in the right – or wrong – place in a bad mood can ruin a day for everyone else. A grouchy ticket conductor can spread misery by not being nice and polite. A grumpy bus driver being unhelpful can ruin the day for hundreds of people before they even get to work. There’s a reason people say ‘misery loves company’.

Now just think if it’s your first time in a country and a train conductor or bus driver is unhelpful. And then you get to your hotel and they are unhelpful (for example: wanting something to eat 5 minutes after breakfast/lunch is no longer served). Shop staff saying “that’s sold out” without checking to see if there’s somewhere else you can get it. You aren’t going to be impressed at all.

The truth is this: it’s the people in the public’s frontline that are a country’s best or worst ambassadors – taxi drivers, bus drivers, ticket conductors, shop staff, police, parking wardens, the public.

You and me.

And it doesn’t just apply to visitors to a new country. We’re all visitors somewhere – a new office, a new building, a new shop, a new relationship. Equally, we’re all indigenous to somewhere – but we should remember others won’t be, so we should help them out and treat them like we’d like to be treated.

So think about that the next time you moan about rotten service from someone else. Are you always on your top game, helping others, going the extra mile? Every action you do reflects on you as an ambassador for your work, your family, your culture, your country, you.

There’s no better ambassador for you, everything you are and everything you represent than yourself.

(Partly inspired by this post by Kevin Gilmartin)

No related posts.

Which brings us to BrewDog, a young brewing and pub company from Scotland (disclaimer: I’ve done work for them in the past but not at the moment). There’s been grumblings of late from some customers about problems with deliveries from their mail order.

So James Watt and BrewDog decided not only to do something about it, but tell the world exactly what happened and do so at length in this blog post.

Now, I think it’s a fantastic piece of customer information and service update – including a discount voucher at the end – and I think that while they criticise others, they stress time and time again that the key decision(s) in all of this were taken by BrewDog.

Now, will BrewDog have told the others mentioned in the article – My Brewery Tap, Yodel, Expect, UK Mail- that they are going to be blogged about? I don’t know. They are under no obligation to do so. And what will those firms make of the blog post?

But – as Mike Ritchie points out on Twitter: “How do you think the others will respond?” Do they take what has been said on the chin? Do the try and deny it? Do they say they are being used as scapegoats? Do they even monitor what it said about them online? Because this is quite a serious boot for those involved. It’s not one disgruntled person, it’s a disgruntled firm – and a firm with a vocal and active fan base (more than 5700 fans invested £2.2million in a recent share issuing) who will remember these firms and avoid them where possible.

So how do you handle that?

Handling negative comments in a blog post

First off, you do have monitoring in place so you can see what’s being said about you, don’t you?

1. Judge the issue of complaint – is it one person, a company, more than one firm? How influential are they?
2. Be frank with yourself about your level of fault/blame
3. Have platforms in which you can reach out to people and tell your side of the story – blog, Facebook, Twitter, press (if need be)
4. Leave comments wherever someone mentions this situation
5. Be adult. Look at how BrewDog do this one. They point out where the weaknesses in the supply chain have been – while reminding people that they are to blame as well. Learn the thin line between criticism and blame
6. If the fault is yours, own up – and tell people what you’ve done/are going to do to bring in change and improve matters.
7. Show people on a regular basis how much you’ve changed and improved

So, in a BrewDog age does every firm need a blog? Yes, but before BrewDog were founded every company should have had a blog anyway. It should be a core and key part of any social media engagement strategy.

(As an aside, there’s nothing in the BrewDog blog that constitutes a crisis for any of the firms mentioned in it. Any of them could be on the road to setting things straight within 24 hours.)

Related posts:

1. Celtic fans go on the PR offensive over “Old Firm” sectarian issues – should the club?
2. PR firm feels the Reverb and anger over astroturfing and fake reviews on Apple’s App Store
3. Sound advice for anyone starting a political blog – or any blog
4. Blog awards show the healthy state of Scottish blogging

20 tips for firms doing Social Media on Christmas Day

1. You do have Google Alerts set up for all relevant brand names and topics, yes?
2. Let people know you’ll be available online
3. Your site does work on the most popular mobiles and tablets, yes?
4. Have your FAQ updated and revised with most common/popular questions from this time of year at the top
5. In everything you put online, think like a consumer. What will they be asking?
6. Is your online store up and running OK? Do you have emergency contact phone numbers for any technical or PR issues that arise?
7. Schedule tweets across the day with links to the most commonly asked questions regarding your brands
8. Are there any relevant online links you can link to? Again, feel free to schedule them
9. If scheduling Facebook posts via Hootsuite or other tool, remember that it will impact on your Edgerank
10. Think about the times people will go online – for example, 3pm in the UK is a bad time as most are having dinner – and when your customers are like to be online
11. Is there anything you have – app for example – that you can encourage people to go to to download with their new tablets/phones/etc? Bonus points if it’s a free download (for example, a client of mine – Whyte & Mackay have a SatNav voice from a Scotsman that they make available as a free download for TomTom users)
12. Schedule some tweets wishing a Merry Xmas to the people who have been key helps or influencers to you over the year
13. Have a reply policy in place covering the most expected comments from consumers
14. Let people know in your biogs for Twitter and your latest Facebook updates – that you might not reply as promptly as normal but that you will reply (give them an ETA if you want.)
15. Check a few times throughout the day when you get a quiet moment. Having a properly set-up smartphone can be a gift for this as you can check things in the car (as long as you aren’t driving)
16. Remember, the odds are that if people are mentioning you for help or to moan about an issue, they just want you to resolve it quickly so they can get back to the fun stuff
17. Try not to post if you’ve had too much of the Christmas spirit (or any other kind of spirit) – a drunken tweet could cause the issues you are trying to avoid
18. As it’s Christmas, why not wish your competitors a Merry Xmas? After all, the British and Germans could do it during war. Also, the odds are they’ve taken Xmas off, so why not monitor their timelines/mentions and help people out if you can. It may get you customers in the long run…
19. Remember, many people will be watching TV with their laptop/mobile as their second screen for tweeting. Feel free to join in the chat if you have time
20. Have fun. Yes, it’s work but you can enjoy work you know

Related posts:

1. Why your B2C social media staff should be working Christmas Day
2. Companies need to be better than the BBC in social media policy
3. Free social media workshop downloads for PRs/marketeers/businesses
4. Tesco Scotland beer binge shows power of social media & trusted networks

There’s two main reasons for why any consumer label or brand worth its salt will have people monitoring social media channels though: happy customers and new customers.

Social Media at Xmas is all about customer service

Children of all ages – from 10 to 70 – are online now and at Christmas you can bet they will be sharing details of what they’ve been given as gifts. What a great opportunity to start building a customer relationship, on a happy and positive note. If someone tweets that they received one of your products, tweet back saying “hope you enjoy it” or add some extra value to the message you send them.

Whyte & Mackay for example (disclaimer: client) will be sending out links to videos to people who receive  a bottle of their whisky – if someone mentions the Whyte & Mackay Special, they’ll get a greeting and a link to a whisky tasting notes video, which will let the person with the bottle compare their thoughts with that of the whisky Master Blender Richard Paterson:

Click here to view the embedded video.

You can also bet that if someone asks about what makes a good whisky at Christmas, this whisky video will be getting shared (and if you’re in the mood here’s a link for a Scotsman reading The Night Before Christmas…)

Social Media at Xmas can also prevent a domestic crisis

But it’s not just about building a positive relationship. Having your brand online on Xmas Day can help make things go a lot smoother. Everyone has a toy or present that they can’t get to work right or build properly (old-school Transformers toys, Dr Who’s TARDIS and Mouse Trap I’m looking at you) and that can lead to frayed tempers in many a home.

But if you are online and see people having problems, perhaps you can jump in and help. Perhaps you’ve even been proactive and updated your website FAQ to head off potential Christmas problems. And if you’ve really wanted to be on Santa’s nice list you may even have included helpful how-to videos.

Christmas day is stressful enough for people, so if you are able to do something that helps that day go well or easier, people will remember that and you’ve minimised negative online PR for your company.

Just being helpful

It might not even be about a problem toy. People might just be wondering where to spend gift vouchers (you do have an online store that can take gift vouchers yes?), what hours your shops are open, what your exchange policy may be – all of these questions and many more will be asked on Christmas Day – some people might even want to spend their gift vouchers immediately.

I don’t want to work Christmas Day

Frankly, tough. Millions of people work Christmas Day – police, nurses, doctors, firemen, coastguards, journalists, PRs, soliders, pilots, air traffic controllers, parents, bar staff, singers, chefs, waiters. And that’s before we mention the big guy with the beard and the red outfit. If they can all do it, so can you.

And besides, if you’re doing it right – either just responding to people or helping fixing people’s problems, you’re bringing a bit of joy to someone on Christmas Day. And who wouldn’t want to do that?

For those of you really struggling though, here’s 20 tips to make your life easier if working in social media on Xmas Day.

Related posts:

1. 20 tips for companies doing Social Media on Christmas Day
2. Do Facebook Page changes mean business staff need Facebook signatures?
3. Social Media Myths 1: It’s a level playing field
4. Tesco Scotland beer binge shows power of social media & trusted networks

I’ll say one thing for them: it’s a ballsy move.The award-winning team at Red Ant do some fantastic work and their white papers are great to read, so they’ll have done their homework on this one but it strikes me as a very short-term move. I wish them all the best for it and hope it pays off but at the same time it’s not a strategy I’d encourage others to do.

Why Facebook shouldn’t be your whole web experience

We all know the stats – 800million active users, 50million using daily from iOS devices and so on – but Facebook is only one platform and at some point, just like Friends Reunited, MySpace, Bebo, Netscape Navigator, Altavista and many others, it will fade away. Anecdotally, many people are already using it less because they don’t like the new look and how stories are presented to them.

Also, while millions are on Facebook – including around half of the UK – what about those who aren’t or don’t want to be? Can you, in a recession, take the chance of missing out on reaching them?

And if you spend all your time optimising content from a SEO point of view towards Facebook, what happens when Facebook fades away?

Your website as your hub

While many a brand can try to hard and go OTT on platforms, most now accept that it’s prudent (if the audience is there) to blog and be on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and perhaps the likes of Vimeo, LinkedIn and so on if relevant. But they all do it in combination with website and mailing lists, ensuring that they can capture a good chunk of their audience on multiple platforms (miss the blog post? You might not miss the twet and if you do there might be an email along shortly anyway – all with different content).

Again, most of the platforms mentioned above may fade away – new ones will come along, others will merge – but websites are seen as the mainstay. SEO efforts are seen as spending the majority of time on directing traffic to websites as that’s where people will buy items, learn more information and so on.

I realise that this does almost sound like “No one ever got fired for having a website” circa the old IBM argument doesn’t it? Am I just being old fashioned?

Facebook as the hub and only port of call

Varsity are doing it different – and it may well be that we’re seeing a fundamental shift here. We’ve often heard of how people do more on Facebook these days and this move reflects that. For all I’m saying the website is best as a hub, we may be seeing a change come around in which all you need is the Facebook page. The videos can be stored there, the audio, the pics, the text – everything. It’s a great way of focusing whoever is working on their social media – but will they still engage on other sites that mention them?

Having said that, there does seem to be a bit of cake and eat it approach as the company still has the main URL up and running, though it is a bit worrying when you go to the Facebook page and the first thing you get is a security warning (that may just be a very paranoid FireFox though).

But what do you think? Brave move, daft move or a stunt that can easily be reversed in a year or so if Facebook starts to dip?

Related posts:

1. Do Facebook Page changes mean business staff need Facebook signatures?
2. 10 Tips for better Facebook pages – and why businesses need it
3. Communicators remember: not everyone wants to be digital
4. Greenpeace Facebook row isn’t first Nestle social media battle

It doesn’t take a genius to work out why Apple has limited the voices for now – you can bet extra voices will come, just like they have for Sat Navs and Tom Toms (like this Scottish Sat Nav voice by Whyte & Mackay Master Blender Richard Paterson), and some will be charged for.

But in the meantime that means there’s going to be a lot of angry men with their iPhone 4s…

Psychology tests on SatNavs and other units with speech have shown that at a subconscious level people react differently to different voices with one of the most common findings being that men cannot stand being told what to do by other men and are more likely to argue with what they say (or dismiss it) while many females prefer to have a male voice speak to them instead of a female voice.

(I thought this was piffle until I did a random survey of my friends and it turned out that – to a person – where they had the choice, they had changed their SatNav voice to that of the opposite sex. Most did so without knowing why, just that they preferred to hear the opposite sex voice.)

If I can find the link to the research, I’ll post it up (and I just found this post which argues the opposite) but in the meantime, if you see someone getting grumpy with their phone, now you know why.

*And before anyone asks, yes it is possible to change the voice to female but only if you chance the country that the phone is in. Go into Settings/General/International/Voice Control – the Aus version is female.

**General thoughts on the phone (upgrading from a 3GS) – It’s OK. I like the white front and FaceTime. It’s definitely louder in ringtone than the 3GS. It’s buggy for connecting to home networks with passwords. Was it worth all the fuss? Probably not. Is Siri? Definitely not, especially in countries with poor wifi and 3G availability, like Scotland. But it shows how well Apple nailed it with the 3GS onwards that the OS has evolved and not been overhauled.

***And it would be rude not to include this:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Related posts:

1. WordPress adds voice recording for blog posts. Here’s why that won’t work in Scotland…
2. PR, Social Media and Comms ops in the new Apple App Store
3. Apple iTunes App store hacked: Latest PR disaster for Apple after iPhone?
4. The iPad will multitask (Apple in PR move shocker)