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Is Your Password Obsolete?
In the last week or two I’ve been playing with different password protection services as I’ve been acutely aware for a while that, for someone who should know better, my web security has been pretty poor. I’ve now started using LastPass to manage my online passwords and increase my security. So when I was sent […]
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On Having Vision
“You don’t need eyes to see, you need vision.” ~ Maxi Jazz, Faithless: ‘Reverence’ So often in my line of work as a social and digital communications consultant I encounter blinkered thinking. And that doesn’t just apply to big whackety-whack creative ideas that, in the real world, you might expect would be a stretch to […]
Weekend Wisdom: On Saying Thank You
And meaning it. That’s the thing here; not just to say thanks but to actually mean it. Because us Brits aren’t very good at praising people and expressing gratitude. We tend to sound either like we’ve been on some kind of motivational course, or like we’re being sarcastic. “Thanks for doing that report for me, […]
Weekend wisdom: On Showing Empathy
This is an experimental post. I’ve been thinking recently that I read so much great stuff around the web by truly insightful people that inspires me to do better things in my professional life and to work in a more mindful manner that I’d like to share these. But they don’t necessarily fit within the […]
Get Your Coat Facebook; You’ve Pulled
Over the last few days I’ve started to feel a bit dirty whenever I login to Facebook. It started on Sunday when Facebook asked me “What’s going on, Paul?”. On Monday, it asked me “What’s happening, Paul?”. By Tuesday, our burgeoning relationship had moved to a slightly more flirtatious (in a Joey Tribbiani kinda way) […]
Evenin’ All. #IceIceSurrey Casts the Police in a New Light
A couple of weeks back I put out a call for the social communications industry to start sharing and celebrating best practice and success. And this morning I hit upon a fantastic example of engaging social media use from an unlikely source: the Surrey Police. What might you expect from a police force using Twitter? […]
#PitchAloft: When Pitching for PR Goes Bad
<rant> Pitching for a PR account via Twitter. Good idea? Bad idea? Would you do it? Personally, I can think of little more degrading than being asked to parade myself along with dozens of other suitors in a public competition of who’s got the most Twitter wit. But that’s exactly what Aloft Hotels is doing […]
Five Easy Steps to Make a Facebook Crisis Disappear
In the last week or two I’ve been managing a social media crisis on a client’s Facebook Page. Things kicked off around a specific political issue after a post on a forum, and suddenly the Page was swamped with new ‘fans’ sounding off and being generally unpleasant. Within a couple of hours, it turned a […]
Recommended Reading: Social Media and Public Relations by Deirdre Breakenridge
It’s not exactly ground-breaking for me to say that public relations is evolving, and that PR pros have to adapt with it in order to stay relevant. Nor should it come as a surprise to anyone reading this that, as a result, chaos is rife within the industry as agencies and individual consultants alike try […]
Stop Making Excuses
“He that is good for making excuses is seldom good for anything else.” Benjamin Franklin It’s very easy not to do the things that matter to you and your business. It’s very easy not to spend the necessary time developing effective social media platforms because you’re “too busy”. It’s very easy not to invest […]
Facebook Suicide: Is Edgerank Killing User Experience?
There’s been a lot of talk over the last month or so about how Facebook’s new Edgerank tweak is hitting organic reach on brand Pages, and how unhappy Page owners are at the prospect of having to use the Promoted Posts function to pay for the distribution of their information to their own hard-earned fanbase. […]
