Those fine people at the Social Media Academy/Social Media Library have put on a one day event about Twitter called Twitter in Scotland and, as you would expect, it has a hashtag – #twitterscot – but there’s a fair few people chatting about it online. I’ll list their details below but if anyone has been missed out, feel free to add your name in the comments sections…

@craigmcgill

@whyteandmackay

@jurawhisky

@scottgdouglas

@iainpope73

@musaaberdeen

@daily_record

@aberdeencc

@millerhomesuk

@smlupdates

@stu_mackenzie

@lorraine_fraser

@alahiffe

@stephanie_todd

@crowdsurfing

@simpleaud

@peterdsampson

@kellymfarrell

@miss_ell1

@tzanaj

I am utterly delighted to be announcing ex-Digital Editor of the Daily Record and STV Local Editor Iain Hepburn has joined Contently Managed as the country’s first Director of Brand Journalism allowing us to add to our social media package to businesses in Scotland.

This, as they say, is exciting times folks…

Read more…

Tesco Scotland had a little IT hitch (though it may have been a PR stunt, you never know) with the result being that you were able to buy three cases of beer for £11.

But how did word spread so quickly to cause the police needing to be called in to certain stores? Quite simple – social media and mobile phones, in particular SMS. But there was one other element to this: the messages on Twitter, Facebook and blogs as well as the mobile text messages all came from people that the receiver knew – in other words a trusted network.

And that’s what made the difference. If the message ‘Tesco giving away beer at £11′ had been from strangers or companies, then it would have been treated sceptically or as spam (and ignored). But because it came from people that the end receiver (in this case, you and I) had previous, trusted relationships with, we knew it was legit. And many people jumped in the car.

The next time someone asks what’s the power of digital communications, get them to call their local Tesco and ask how much beer they had on their shelves left at end of business on June 1 2010.

Why you want to be part of or create a trusted network

If people trust you, they will believe you and have a deeper relationship with you. If you are a company or brand, that makes them more likely to want to spend time and money with you. If you’re part of a trusted network you have credibility.

How to become part of a trusted network

Engage with people on their terms and platforms, don’t sell to them all the time online. Be helpful, be conversational. Talk with them, not to them. And always remember the 7:2:1 rule of engagement – only one in every ten of your posts should be a blatant product sell.

Now this is what I call digital democracy. There’s tons that could be said about the Scottish Elections last week (or you can read this post, this post, this post and listen to this Audioboo and that pretty much covers it) but here’s something that’s popped up that gives all online types a chance to be involved (even if just a wee bit)…

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The BBC seems to be in a bit of a muddle regarding social media use for staff, according to politics site Guido Fawkes. Business Editor Robert Peston cracked a sexual joke about the Royal Wedding and was asked to remove the joke, which he did (you can see what the gag was here). And it’s not the first time the BBC has had problems with Twitter.

Now you can read Guido’s article as BBC bashing but it does have a fair point – are the feeds the staff post on personal or private? Apparently, they are private. In which case, does the BBC have a right to censor it?

What’s the lesson here for businesses in Scotland and elsewhere thinking of social media?

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For years, business types have been told – time and time again – to make sure they have their own domain names and professional looking email addresses. It’s a basic thing. It inspires confidence in who you are dealing with and you’re going to feel better dealing with a pro than someome with a Gmail, Yahoo or Hotmail account as their primary work address.

Which begs the question: why are so many politicians not being professional? Don’t they see how bad it makes them look when they hand out tacky-named Gmail, Yahoo or Hotmail addresses?

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I used to crack the joke that you know you’ve arrived when your work appears on the major BitTorrent piracy sites and I’ve seeded things (legally) in the past myself but I had a chuckle this morning to note that a book by one of Scotland’s best journalists, the Daily Record’s Gary Ralston – a book about the founding of Rangers Football Club (link to book’s official, content-rich site) – has turned up on one of them.

I’m not going to name the link for obvious reasons (here’s the legal Amazon link) but you know that digital is becoming more and more a part of everyday life when this happens to Scottish sports authors! And I think – think – Gary is the first Scottish reporter to be torrented/pirated this way! (Don’t know if he’ll see it as a compliment though).

Having said that, how should authors handle their books appearing on piracy sites? Read on for some tips for authors dealing with piracy and some surprising case studies.

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I do a fair chunk of speaking and social media workshops and while I enjoy them, I’ve noticed lately that I’m relying too much on PowerPoint and Keynote and being a bit lazy. On top of that, in Scotland – a country where for many in the media ‘digital’ (never mind ‘customer engagement’) is still a dirty word – could do with raising its game a bit, so this is my efforts at trying to raise the baseline.

To that end, below there’s a link to a series of social media presentations I’ve done – free to you – over the last year or so, covering social media successes, social media in a crisis, social media basic advice and some semi-advanced (for Scotland) social media advice. There’s versions for iPods and computers as well as the plain PDFs. (And yes, some parts may be a little out of date, but the general material is sound.)

If you’ve ever been curious about social media, wondered about how authors, lawyers, accountant, hotels, bars, general businesses can make social media/digital engagement work, then these are the podcasts for you.

Read more…

Berwick Rangers – no relation to Glasgow Rangers – are a small club in the Borders of Scotland. As highlighted by G40 Celtic, Kieran Bowell, the captain of one of their teams sent out a tweet related to the death threats being made to Neil Lennon of Celtic FC and others. As a result, Berwick Rangers have sacked him and now he’s screwed any career he may have had (any team that picks him up and if he rises through the ranks to the big time, this will always get pulled up – and what senior club is going to pick someone when they know the first thing that will happen is a piece in a paper about him having been a bigot).

Was it a good thing he tweeted this? Can he come back from it? What’s the lesson for others?

Should people be this honest online?

Yes. People should be this honest. People are being honest – they aren’t being fakes – so they can defend their opinions. Digital lives and ‘real’ lives are now one and the same. So if you say something online – and you should only post what you believe anyway -then this lets people see what you are like.

If that opinion is one of hatred that gets them into trouble with the police, then hopefully the people involved would see that wishing ill on someone like this is wrong and change their behaviour accordingly.

How Kieran Bowell could come back from this

1. He’s said it, so he has to take it on the chin. He’s taken his Twitter stream down, which was the wrong move. He should have kept it up.
2. Assuming he is sorry he said it, he should have asked Berwick Rangers to include more of a statement by him.
3. If he’s wanting to be really proactive he could join or make a donation to an anti-bigotry/sectarian organisation.
4. When it comes up in future, just refer people back to what he’s said now, that’s sorry, it was immature and he wants to move on with his life

Lessons for everyone from this

It shouldn’t need said in 2011, but amazingly it still does. If you say something online, it’s going out to the whole world and it could be out there for a very long time. If you are going to say something, then either mean it or specify very clearly that it’s humour (which is a subjective thing). No one is saying you need to be a mindless drone with no opinion, but have the courage of your convictions.

Another points, especially if on Twitter. If using a hashtag accept that if you are flying contrary to the use of the hashtag – in this case hijacking the #neillennon hashtag – people will especially call you out on it.

A thought just occured to me after my previous post. Just as BP bought nearly $1million worth of Google ads over a variety of keywords at the Deepwater Horizon incident should the Scottish Government, Glasgow City Council, Celtic, Rangers or some other organisation buy up domain names and keywords associated with the issue?

That way, if someone was going by words like ‘bomb threat’, ‘sectarian’ and so on, they would see links to pages showing that Scotland isn’t as bad as it was (or whatever the person who bought the ads wanted them to see – they could easily portray the opposite if they wanted).

Or would buying the domains/adwords be seen as an admittance of a problem instead of a proactive PR approach using SEO and PPC? (Though with news of the bombs now all over the UK-wide press, it’s not really time for putting heads in the sand.)

(Thanks to Clarke Duncan and Attacat Ben for a clarification)