As the footy season is nearly upon us, it might seem prudent to point out a couple of good pieces on football and social media (one of them written by a guy who did a book on football) that give pointers on how clubs of all sizes could increase interaction with their fans:

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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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So, as part of a plan to lighten things up around here, I asked for submissions for fictional PR problems (inspired by my Star Trek social media and PR post) and got some really good replies (at least if no-one gives me a new one next week, there’s plenty here to play with). Thanks everyone for the entries, the winner for this week was from the wonderful Barry Dewar:

A giant Japanese monster descends on the UK. The police are quickly overwhelmed while people and property is being destroyed. The press discover that it’s all being stage-managed by an evil criminal mastermind with a self-image problem. The world teeters on the edge of distaster….Save us Social Media!

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Let’s be honest, everyone involved in PR and social media can get a bit up themselves at times and take it all far too seriously (not that there aren’t times for being serious, but you know what I mean).

So in the spirit of my friend Lee Barnett who does a Fast Fiction challenge (go read lots of them or buy the book), here’s what we’ll do here every Friday (unless no one plays): I’ll put a post up looking for ideas – a fictional scenario that needs a PR/social media response on Thursday afternoons (yes, like the Star Trek PR Problem one I did but better formatted. If you watch it below you’ll see what I mean). I’ll close entries at midnight UK time, pick an idea and then one of the first things I’ll do on a Friday is do a PR/Social Media treatment for it.

If any idea is put forward that is a genuine stumper, I’ll say so and give them a bottle of Whyte & Mackay whisky.

Let’s keep it light-hearted and fun – and I look forward to the challenges….put them in the comments below…

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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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The row over the Apple iPhone 4 reception signal goes on (with many not convinced about Apple’s response); there were grumblings over iPhone 4 availability, some moaned about pricing, there’s the ongoing unhapiness over how Apps are picked/dropped from the store – and now, potentially the worst thing that can happen: reports are coming in that their iTunes store accounts have been hacked and they’ve bought stuff they never ordered, specifically copright-breaking scans of a manga.

Can Apple’s PR stick to the usual head-in-the-sand tactic for this one?

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Think about it. Many of the senior people in marketing (who are male, which is still the case more often than not) at the moment are all going “we want blogs, we want Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo, podcasts, Foursquare, blogs, Flickr stream, everyone will love us if we have all of this – and we want it now, if not yesterday, because in an hour there will be something else we need to sign up to.”

And, when you think about it, that’s how many men see having two penises as well. They think that it would be great, people would love them for it, it would get them all the hot buzz that they crave.

And in both cases they would be wrong.
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It’s the last one of the season! After this the SSMD’s will be taking a hiatus until August and then returning with monthly events in Glasgow and Edinburgh (on fixed monthly dates no less!) but let’s talk about that in August. For this event, at Moo Cafeteria, 9 Brandon Terrace, Edinburgh, EH3 5EA (go look at the posh cheese on toast!) we have three speakers, providing us with a bit of sunshine and entertainment:

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This funny post about a World Cup PR and podcast FAIL got me chuckling, but also wondering: why is it that a lot of PRs don’t listen to podcasts? (yes, it’s sweeping generalisation time!)

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