We’ve had Star Trek, we’ve had Godzilla trashing London after being released by a criminal mastermind and now we’re looking for something for tomorrow.

The rules are the same as always: put some ideas in the comments section below. I’ll pick one at midnight and then either get right into it or sleep on it. Either way, the PR solution gets posted tomorrow so you know it’s not faked.

If no-one has any good ideas, don’t worry there’s some great ideas in the comments section from last week and I can use one of them instead.

And as always, if there’s an idea that stumps me (which is different from an idea not used) there’s a bottle of whisky in it as a well done.

So whatcha got?

This is something that’s a bit of a pet peeve of mine – and there’s an online and digital PR lesson for companies here too – this idea that if you aren’t on the internet (or it isn’t on the internet) then it never happened.
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I love Edinburgh as a city. While it doesn’t have the buzz of Glasgow, it is far more relaxed, like a Brussels without the bars. Or diamonds for that matter. But one thing it has plenty of is social media activists and practitioners. It also has a stonking huge festival or two. And now they’ve all come together for the good of Scotland. Or to fight evil. Or something. What it won’t be though is dull…

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… Except for viewers in Scotland. That old phrase used to strike terror into people watching the TV in seventies and eighties (normally on BBC 1) as you would get a description of a great live football game, film or TV show and they you would hear “except for viewers in Scotland” and you’d get Gaelic or something.

And watching the recent video put online (and below) by Simply Zesty, an Ireland-based online PR and social media firm I’m wondering if all this does is show the digital divide up more than anything. More after the video.

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A lot of my American friends see the story as undemocratic, but I think the Wikileaks publishing of 90,000 documents about the war in Afghanistan (background here, TL;DR version of documents here) shows a few things: 1) the power of digital communications to help inform people, 2) the death of traditional media yet also 3) the usefulness traditional media still has?

Thoughts? I suppose I better explain myself first…

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Richard Paterson, Whyte & Mackay’s whisky Master Blender is over in New Orleans just now for Tales of The Cocktail, which sounds like a great event judging by the Twitter stream. Now one part of it is a talk on Keeping Ahead in an Online World, which is being hosted by Paul Clarke and Lindsey Johnson of Lush Life.

Now Richard’s going along as well and he asked me what pointers – based on my work with BrewDog, Tesco Scotland, Whyte & Mackay, Jura Whisky, Snow Leopard Vodka and other brands in online engagement – I could offer those at TOTC and those who sadly can’t make it.

So in that spirit, pour a drink and here’s some quick tips. Anyone who needs more pointers or has questions should get in touch (details above). There’s also a bottle of 22-year-old Scotch whisky up for grabs for those who read to the end…

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Been at a lot of meetings recently where people are worried about the cost of trying to do social media and as I pointed out today, the starting tools are actually very simple, but very powerful… (warning: we’re going into Seth Goodin territory here for those who aren’t fans of the Purple Cow)

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I’ve already praised the Old Spice Online Campaign, which has now drawn to an end and I have two niggling thoughts that make me think about it in a different way:

One: was a sales channel opportunity missed by not including a Buy Old Spice Now option as the first comment in each video? I know many will dismiss the idea but it’s still not being OTT and I bet lots of people would have clicked on the link.

Two: if true social media interaction and engagement is an ongoing process, then someone needs to be continuing the chat with the hundreds of thousands of people who are now following the brand on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and elsewhere. Otherwise it’s been a one-off – a very personalised one-off, but still a one-off – stunt.

We are constantly told that real social media engagement (as well as ongoing sales opportunities and ROI) comes from the ongoing conversation, so it will be interesting to see if anyone does keep the chat going or if the channels will be allowed to die.

If you’re online and in marketing or social media, the odds are that in the last 24 hours you’ll have seen/heard about the new Old Spice social media campaign. In short, it’s really fantastic but if there’s one thing that sticks out, it’s the fact that it’s really simple in execution: basic monitoring of what people are saying, post creative and funny responses. It’s KISS.

If you haven’t seen the campaign, this Social Media Penguin post is a good intro and this tells how the Old Spice videos are made (and this is a decent read too). Read them or just dive in after the jump.
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Once upon a time… well, over the last few weeks actually… when meeting with people I’ve done a lot of talking – like many in social media – about story and the power of it (I’d be daft not to, having been a daily journalist for more than a decade and an author of four books) but what’s surprising is the number of people who say they don’t believe in the power of story or this idea that they have a story to tell.

Oh really?

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