Friday 26 March 2010
We'v moved our blog - please come and find us
We've moved our blog to our website - please visit us at http://www.breenmedia.co.uk/blog/
Friday 19 February 2010
Is Facebook set to dominate the net?
Is Facebook set to dominate the net?
Every so often, a statistic comes along that is a real game changer for business. Here’s one of them – Facebook now drives more traffic to key sites than Google
Steve Rubel of Edelman Digital has pulled stats from compete.com showing that Facebook is becoming the major source of traffic on the web, overtaking the seemingly omniscient Google in driving people to sites like Yahoo and MSN.
Compete.com go on to say: “This shift is changing the way Web site operators approach online marketing, even as Google takes steps into the social media world. Some experts say social media could become the internet’s next search engine”.
The internet’s next search engine! That’s an earthquake on the business landscape. Ruben argues: “I see them (Facebook) becoming the number one website in the world in under three years. It could eat the web.”
That might be over-stating it, and I am always wary of evangelists who think social media will replace everything. It won’t, but it is an emphatic reminder that social media isn’t some fad for kids, but will be a fundamental part of doing business this decade.
If Facebook is driving more traffic to major sites than Google, it follows that social media platforms will be pushing more and more potential consumers to business websites as well.
It is no longer an option for worried companies to hide their heads in the sand and hope this stuff will go away. Consumers will be chatting about brands online whether businesses like it or not. The challenge for forward-thinking companies is how to get involved and help shape – forget about control as that’s not an option – these conversations.
At Breen Media, we have integrated social media into the heart of our business. The lessons we have learned are allowing us to help businesses combine digital platforms with their traditional public relations and marketing campaigns.
www.breenmedia.co.uk
Every so often, a statistic comes along that is a real game changer for business. Here’s one of them – Facebook now drives more traffic to key sites than Google
Steve Rubel of Edelman Digital has pulled stats from compete.com showing that Facebook is becoming the major source of traffic on the web, overtaking the seemingly omniscient Google in driving people to sites like Yahoo and MSN.
Compete.com go on to say: “This shift is changing the way Web site operators approach online marketing, even as Google takes steps into the social media world. Some experts say social media could become the internet’s next search engine”.
The internet’s next search engine! That’s an earthquake on the business landscape. Ruben argues: “I see them (Facebook) becoming the number one website in the world in under three years. It could eat the web.”
That might be over-stating it, and I am always wary of evangelists who think social media will replace everything. It won’t, but it is an emphatic reminder that social media isn’t some fad for kids, but will be a fundamental part of doing business this decade.
If Facebook is driving more traffic to major sites than Google, it follows that social media platforms will be pushing more and more potential consumers to business websites as well.
It is no longer an option for worried companies to hide their heads in the sand and hope this stuff will go away. Consumers will be chatting about brands online whether businesses like it or not. The challenge for forward-thinking companies is how to get involved and help shape – forget about control as that’s not an option – these conversations.
At Breen Media, we have integrated social media into the heart of our business. The lessons we have learned are allowing us to help businesses combine digital platforms with their traditional public relations and marketing campaigns.
www.breenmedia.co.uk
Thursday 11 February 2010
Is journalism doomed?
Are we, in the words of Dad’s Army’s Private Frazer “all doomed”? I’m talking, of course, of the future of Scottish journalism.
Talking to ex-colleagues still working in journalism these days, the atmosphere is funereal. It is timely that this week a new online community, The Scottish Future of News Group, has been set up by the Daily Record’s Iain Hepburn, to ponder this prickly question.
At Craig McGill’s recent Scottish Social Media dinner in Glasgow, Iain launched an impassioned defence of the value of journalism. His argument was essentially that unlike the legions of bloggers in their pyjamas whose contributions are little more than opinions, journalists do the hard work of checking out facts to make sure that stories actually stand up.
He’s right, of course. Proper journalism – good old-fashioned digging around, finding out things the authorities don’t want you to know, verifying the facts and then publishing – is a noble calling and serves a very important purpose in public life.
At the same dinner, Stewart Kirkpatrick, editor of Scotland’s latest newspaper, the Caledonian Mercury, claimed there has never been a better time to be a journalist and that we are entering a new golden age for journalism in Scotland. I worked with Stewart at The Scotsman and I glory in his spirit. I wish him all the success in the world with his new venture, but I cannot share his sunny outlook for journalists.
Journalism will evolve into new forms as the contours of the digital revolution become more apparent. Paper may become a thing of the past, people may even, if Rupert Murdoch is correct, be prepared to pay for some of the online stuff they have been used to getting for free for the past few years.
But what journalism will not do, if current trends continue, is pay journalists – certainly new recruits – a decent living wage. Journalism must be one of the few occupations in the world where people entering the profession are paid less in actual terms now than they were 20 years ago. Journalism was once a reasonably well-paid profession. For the past two decades or so, greedy newspaper proprietors have squeezed more and more profits out of the business while wages for new recruits have gone down and down and down.
Newspaper owners have systematically destroyed newsrooms up and down the country. Experienced reporters – with contacts, a nose for a story and proper grammar – have been forced out the door and replaced by cheaper weans willing to work on a shoestring. Today, journalism is a low paid profession with no sign things will get better.
While in the past, the bosses bled the business dry, today, thanks to the advertising slump and declining circulations, they genuinely don’t have the money to pay good salaries. If one of my kids asked about getting into journalism I’d advise them they’d be better off stacking shelves in Tesco – at least there they might eventually earn a decent wage.
Unless media groups can find new and innovative ways of making money from the net, the outlook for journalists is looking grim on the financial side. Good quality journalism that holds a mirror to authority and entertains and informs us is worth paying for. I’d certainly fork out for high calibre information from the likes of the FT and The Economist, and my hunch is that amid the oceans of junk on the internet, there may be a flight towards quality paid-for journalism. That way lies hope. I haven’t worked out what Stewart’s model is for the Caledonian Mercury but I hope he’s cracked the conundrum of how to make money out of online news.
Most journalists are feeling unappreciated, under-paid and unloved – but they still have much to offer. I believe that in the near future, smart businesses and organisations that want to stand out from the rest of the digital dross will realise they need to produce high quality content.
Journalists are excellent communicators with much to offer. The challenge in the future is how to position themselves as providers of top quality content.
We’re not all doomed – we’re just not quite sure where we are going.
www.breenmedia.co.uk
Talking to ex-colleagues still working in journalism these days, the atmosphere is funereal. It is timely that this week a new online community, The Scottish Future of News Group, has been set up by the Daily Record’s Iain Hepburn, to ponder this prickly question.
At Craig McGill’s recent Scottish Social Media dinner in Glasgow, Iain launched an impassioned defence of the value of journalism. His argument was essentially that unlike the legions of bloggers in their pyjamas whose contributions are little more than opinions, journalists do the hard work of checking out facts to make sure that stories actually stand up.
He’s right, of course. Proper journalism – good old-fashioned digging around, finding out things the authorities don’t want you to know, verifying the facts and then publishing – is a noble calling and serves a very important purpose in public life.
At the same dinner, Stewart Kirkpatrick, editor of Scotland’s latest newspaper, the Caledonian Mercury, claimed there has never been a better time to be a journalist and that we are entering a new golden age for journalism in Scotland. I worked with Stewart at The Scotsman and I glory in his spirit. I wish him all the success in the world with his new venture, but I cannot share his sunny outlook for journalists.
Journalism will evolve into new forms as the contours of the digital revolution become more apparent. Paper may become a thing of the past, people may even, if Rupert Murdoch is correct, be prepared to pay for some of the online stuff they have been used to getting for free for the past few years.
But what journalism will not do, if current trends continue, is pay journalists – certainly new recruits – a decent living wage. Journalism must be one of the few occupations in the world where people entering the profession are paid less in actual terms now than they were 20 years ago. Journalism was once a reasonably well-paid profession. For the past two decades or so, greedy newspaper proprietors have squeezed more and more profits out of the business while wages for new recruits have gone down and down and down.
Newspaper owners have systematically destroyed newsrooms up and down the country. Experienced reporters – with contacts, a nose for a story and proper grammar – have been forced out the door and replaced by cheaper weans willing to work on a shoestring. Today, journalism is a low paid profession with no sign things will get better.
While in the past, the bosses bled the business dry, today, thanks to the advertising slump and declining circulations, they genuinely don’t have the money to pay good salaries. If one of my kids asked about getting into journalism I’d advise them they’d be better off stacking shelves in Tesco – at least there they might eventually earn a decent wage.
Unless media groups can find new and innovative ways of making money from the net, the outlook for journalists is looking grim on the financial side. Good quality journalism that holds a mirror to authority and entertains and informs us is worth paying for. I’d certainly fork out for high calibre information from the likes of the FT and The Economist, and my hunch is that amid the oceans of junk on the internet, there may be a flight towards quality paid-for journalism. That way lies hope. I haven’t worked out what Stewart’s model is for the Caledonian Mercury but I hope he’s cracked the conundrum of how to make money out of online news.
Most journalists are feeling unappreciated, under-paid and unloved – but they still have much to offer. I believe that in the near future, smart businesses and organisations that want to stand out from the rest of the digital dross will realise they need to produce high quality content.
Journalists are excellent communicators with much to offer. The challenge in the future is how to position themselves as providers of top quality content.
We’re not all doomed – we’re just not quite sure where we are going.
www.breenmedia.co.uk
Tuesday 26 January 2010
Social media fatigue sets in
“I get overloaded. Who has time to look at all this, even in one venue (ie. Facebook?). Can’t explain the ROI to traditional old school print ad clients. I want a model of measurement for each if there is such a thing. I need to take more time to understand it…but think much of it is too time consuming — Twitter is … useless.”
You can just feel the frustration pouring out of the person who posted this message on a LinkedIn group asking people for their biggest challenges using social media.
Other responses included: “Sifting through the noise to find the gems”; and “Time AND cutting through the garbage AND making it 2-way. And, lots a people just selling/hawking.”
I think we are seeing a new phase in social media that is becoming more prevalent – fatigue. For our generation, first there was the bewilderment. Then the fear about how to use it. Most of us followed that up with jumping in enthusiastically to learn how to use it. Now, a growing number of people are so frustrated by the amount of time they are committing to this for very little obvious return that they are simply giving up.
While in some ways this is understandable, it also demonstrates one of the pitfalls of social media – too many people just use these tools for the sake of it without having a clear strategy and goals.
You could easily spend several lifetimes lurking around on these sites clicking through billions of links. You can’t be on every social media site, so for businesses, the trick is to find the sites where you can have meaningful interactions with people who might, some day, become customers.
While it is relatively easy to build up a huge following on Twitter by randomly following thousands of people and attracting a large number of automatic follow-backs, the vast majority, I would bet, are of no use whatsoever. It makes much more strategic sense to build a smaller community of high quality contacts who are contributing useful information – and, of course, contributing yourself.
As a public relations business based in Scotland, we target sites where we can reach out to potential clients, so naturally, we are members of a number of business networking groups. As a graduate of Strathclyde University, I also post my blog on the Strathclyde alumni site and this has proved to be extremely useful.
As a result of posting regularly on this site, I was asked to give a presentation on social media to the MBA class there last week, which was extremely enjoyable. To get the opportunity to speak to a group of people who either are – or will go on to be – very influential business figures, was another great result from our social media activity.
This is exactly the kind of relationship-building that can be achieved if you use social media properly – and it’s why, despite some of the headaches, it is worth sticking with.
You can just feel the frustration pouring out of the person who posted this message on a LinkedIn group asking people for their biggest challenges using social media.
Other responses included: “Sifting through the noise to find the gems”; and “Time AND cutting through the garbage AND making it 2-way. And, lots a people just selling/hawking.”
I think we are seeing a new phase in social media that is becoming more prevalent – fatigue. For our generation, first there was the bewilderment. Then the fear about how to use it. Most of us followed that up with jumping in enthusiastically to learn how to use it. Now, a growing number of people are so frustrated by the amount of time they are committing to this for very little obvious return that they are simply giving up.
While in some ways this is understandable, it also demonstrates one of the pitfalls of social media – too many people just use these tools for the sake of it without having a clear strategy and goals.
You could easily spend several lifetimes lurking around on these sites clicking through billions of links. You can’t be on every social media site, so for businesses, the trick is to find the sites where you can have meaningful interactions with people who might, some day, become customers.
While it is relatively easy to build up a huge following on Twitter by randomly following thousands of people and attracting a large number of automatic follow-backs, the vast majority, I would bet, are of no use whatsoever. It makes much more strategic sense to build a smaller community of high quality contacts who are contributing useful information – and, of course, contributing yourself.
As a public relations business based in Scotland, we target sites where we can reach out to potential clients, so naturally, we are members of a number of business networking groups. As a graduate of Strathclyde University, I also post my blog on the Strathclyde alumni site and this has proved to be extremely useful.
As a result of posting regularly on this site, I was asked to give a presentation on social media to the MBA class there last week, which was extremely enjoyable. To get the opportunity to speak to a group of people who either are – or will go on to be – very influential business figures, was another great result from our social media activity.
This is exactly the kind of relationship-building that can be achieved if you use social media properly – and it’s why, despite some of the headaches, it is worth sticking with.
Friday 20 November 2009
Social media - it's great when it works
Swimming around in the vast ocean of information that is social media, it's easy to feel lonely and wonder whether all the time and effort you put in is really worth it.
That's what makes all the little, real life triumphs, all the sweeter. The other night I was at a Glasgow Chamber of Commerce search engine optimisation seminar where the speaker was Brian Mathers of ICT Advisor.com - one of the world's genuine SEO gurus. Before the talk, I was chatting with a woman called Jacqueline Morrison who was looking at the list of attendees and asked if I know anyone on it. One or two, I replied.
"I only know one - Stephen Breen," she said. "That's me! How do you know me?" It turns out she has been reading my blogs on various of the Glasgow and Scottish entrepreneur groups on LinkedIn I've joined, and she said how much she enjoyed the last one Social Media - how much faster can it get?
It turns out Jacqueline runs a very interesting reusable nappy business called Nappy Makers. What on earth was someone in the nappy business doing reading my blog, which mainly concerns itself with public relations, social media and business? Well, first of all she found it interesting, which a relief, since there's no point posting any content on social media if it is poor quality and doesn't give any value to readers.
Secondly, she, like many other business people, is trying to get their heads around social media, which is why she is on LinkedIn.
This little episode has demonstrated nicely the value of putting in the time to blog, but also, the importance of being active on the social media sites where your potential clients and customers are also likely to be. By posting useful information on these influential digital platforms, not only have I raised the awareness of what Breen Media does, but I've gotten into a dialogue with people who may, at some point, want to use our services.
Later in the evening, I met another woman, Adriana Dunlay of Glasgow-based Trumpet Design, who picked my brains on how I use platforms such as Twitter.
The next morning, I received a Tweet from Adriana, her very first, saying 'Joining Twitter as a result of last night's Chamber meeting at the Corinthian. Now what do I do?'
I was able to give her a few simple steps to get started. I like it when that happens.
www.breenmedia.co.uk
That's what makes all the little, real life triumphs, all the sweeter. The other night I was at a Glasgow Chamber of Commerce search engine optimisation seminar where the speaker was Brian Mathers of ICT Advisor.com - one of the world's genuine SEO gurus. Before the talk, I was chatting with a woman called Jacqueline Morrison who was looking at the list of attendees and asked if I know anyone on it. One or two, I replied.
"I only know one - Stephen Breen," she said. "That's me! How do you know me?" It turns out she has been reading my blogs on various of the Glasgow and Scottish entrepreneur groups on LinkedIn I've joined, and she said how much she enjoyed the last one Social Media - how much faster can it get?
It turns out Jacqueline runs a very interesting reusable nappy business called Nappy Makers. What on earth was someone in the nappy business doing reading my blog, which mainly concerns itself with public relations, social media and business? Well, first of all she found it interesting, which a relief, since there's no point posting any content on social media if it is poor quality and doesn't give any value to readers.
Secondly, she, like many other business people, is trying to get their heads around social media, which is why she is on LinkedIn.
This little episode has demonstrated nicely the value of putting in the time to blog, but also, the importance of being active on the social media sites where your potential clients and customers are also likely to be. By posting useful information on these influential digital platforms, not only have I raised the awareness of what Breen Media does, but I've gotten into a dialogue with people who may, at some point, want to use our services.
Later in the evening, I met another woman, Adriana Dunlay of Glasgow-based Trumpet Design, who picked my brains on how I use platforms such as Twitter.
The next morning, I received a Tweet from Adriana, her very first, saying 'Joining Twitter as a result of last night's Chamber meeting at the Corinthian. Now what do I do?'
I was able to give her a few simple steps to get started. I like it when that happens.
www.breenmedia.co.uk
Friday 13 November 2009
Social media - how much faster can it get?
I read recently that there are something like 11,000 apps for Twitter alone. I defy even the most the Twitter-addicted geek on the planet to be up to speed on all of these.
The Twitter app explosion in many ways symbolises the breakneck speed at which social media is growing. Those of us in public relations have had to pretty much start from scratch in the past year or so and completely relearn our trade to use these new digital tools. For most PR pro’s, I suspect the social media revolution has been bewildering, scary and exhilarating – all at the same time.
How much faster can this rollercoaster ride get? Moore’s law states that computer capacity doubles roughly every two years, so there is nothing to stop the internet growing at an exponential rate to carry much more digital data at even faster speeds.
New York University Professor Clay Shirky has stated: “The moment we are living right now, this generation, represents the largest increase in expressive capability in human history.”
The question for media professionals is how can we possibly keep up if the flow of information becomes even more rapid?
I don’t have the precise answer – otherwise I’d be a billionaire – but I suspect we are going to see the emergence of some digital super-tools that will help us make sense of all this white noise that will gain market dominance. There are already lots of platforms out there like Google and Addictomatic that monitor multiple online platforms that allow us to track what’s being said about oursleves, our businesses and our clients in cyberspace.
Social media has matured from something used by kids to keep in touch with their mates to a more mainstream business tool. Right now, there are just way too many options for consumers to make a sensible choice about what digital platforms really work. (I known this runs counter to the whole self-publish, everyone can be a content creator, ethos of social media).
My sense is that in the next year or two, things are going to settle down a little and some really clever people are going to come up with solutions that will make life online a little bit easier for us all.
I could, of course, be completely wrong, but I’d welcome the thoughts of others on this.
The Twitter app explosion in many ways symbolises the breakneck speed at which social media is growing. Those of us in public relations have had to pretty much start from scratch in the past year or so and completely relearn our trade to use these new digital tools. For most PR pro’s, I suspect the social media revolution has been bewildering, scary and exhilarating – all at the same time.
How much faster can this rollercoaster ride get? Moore’s law states that computer capacity doubles roughly every two years, so there is nothing to stop the internet growing at an exponential rate to carry much more digital data at even faster speeds.
New York University Professor Clay Shirky has stated: “The moment we are living right now, this generation, represents the largest increase in expressive capability in human history.”
The question for media professionals is how can we possibly keep up if the flow of information becomes even more rapid?
I don’t have the precise answer – otherwise I’d be a billionaire – but I suspect we are going to see the emergence of some digital super-tools that will help us make sense of all this white noise that will gain market dominance. There are already lots of platforms out there like Google and Addictomatic that monitor multiple online platforms that allow us to track what’s being said about oursleves, our businesses and our clients in cyberspace.
Social media has matured from something used by kids to keep in touch with their mates to a more mainstream business tool. Right now, there are just way too many options for consumers to make a sensible choice about what digital platforms really work. (I known this runs counter to the whole self-publish, everyone can be a content creator, ethos of social media).
My sense is that in the next year or two, things are going to settle down a little and some really clever people are going to come up with solutions that will make life online a little bit easier for us all.
I could, of course, be completely wrong, but I’d welcome the thoughts of others on this.
Friday 6 November 2009
Twitter – freedom of speech or a digital lynch mob?
The hounding of Jan Moir recently over her extremely tasteless attack on Stephen Gately’s lifestyle before he had even been buried has thrown cast a new a somewhat sinister light on Twitter.
Twitter has rightly been lauded as a censorship-busting tool which allowed the world to find out what was going on in the Iraq elections and exposed oil firm Trafigura’s outrageous attempts to gag the Guardian from reporting on parliamentary proceedings on the dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast.
Moir’s attack on Gately was a typical and nasty Daily Mail hatchet job, pandering to the worst type of Middle England bigotry. The Mail is used to orchestrating moral outrage towards whichever victim it chooses to pick on that day, and it didn’t like it one little bit when it was on the receiving end of a storm of public outcry. Thanks to a Twitter storm, the Press Complaints Commission received an unprecedented 21,000 complaints against Moir’s article and advertisers began pulling out.
Some saw this as a textbook case of digital people power and rejoiced at seeing the Mail get a hefty dose of its own moral medicine, but there’s a strong case to be made that this was nothing more than the crudest form of mob rule and censorship.
I’m sure many – perhaps most – of those who complained to the PCC – hadn’t even read the article, but were simply egged on by others on Twitter. And here’s part of the problem with Twitter: it encourages the re-tweeting of instant communication without time for careful thought.
British journalist Brendan O’Neill has coined the perfect phrase for this behaviour – a twitch-hunt. Rather than seeing the Moir Twitter storm as a triumph for people power, it is, in fact a crude example of a liberal lynch mob on the rampage in cyberspace.
It’s disturbing that a tool that is supposed to be about freedom of speech has been used by some to bludgeon those with whom they disagree. Homophobia is unpleasant, but so too is the hypocrisy of liberals who tell us they are all for freedom of speech, just as long you agree with me, otherwise I’ll shut you down.
Social media is a powerful and potentially liberating tool. Let’s hope the Moir affair isn’t a taster of things to come.
Breen Media
Twitter has rightly been lauded as a censorship-busting tool which allowed the world to find out what was going on in the Iraq elections and exposed oil firm Trafigura’s outrageous attempts to gag the Guardian from reporting on parliamentary proceedings on the dumping of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast.
Moir’s attack on Gately was a typical and nasty Daily Mail hatchet job, pandering to the worst type of Middle England bigotry. The Mail is used to orchestrating moral outrage towards whichever victim it chooses to pick on that day, and it didn’t like it one little bit when it was on the receiving end of a storm of public outcry. Thanks to a Twitter storm, the Press Complaints Commission received an unprecedented 21,000 complaints against Moir’s article and advertisers began pulling out.
Some saw this as a textbook case of digital people power and rejoiced at seeing the Mail get a hefty dose of its own moral medicine, but there’s a strong case to be made that this was nothing more than the crudest form of mob rule and censorship.
I’m sure many – perhaps most – of those who complained to the PCC – hadn’t even read the article, but were simply egged on by others on Twitter. And here’s part of the problem with Twitter: it encourages the re-tweeting of instant communication without time for careful thought.
British journalist Brendan O’Neill has coined the perfect phrase for this behaviour – a twitch-hunt. Rather than seeing the Moir Twitter storm as a triumph for people power, it is, in fact a crude example of a liberal lynch mob on the rampage in cyberspace.
It’s disturbing that a tool that is supposed to be about freedom of speech has been used by some to bludgeon those with whom they disagree. Homophobia is unpleasant, but so too is the hypocrisy of liberals who tell us they are all for freedom of speech, just as long you agree with me, otherwise I’ll shut you down.
Social media is a powerful and potentially liberating tool. Let’s hope the Moir affair isn’t a taster of things to come.
Breen Media
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