Online PR and social media marketer, consultant and trainer.
I blog (rarely) here and on the econsultancy.com/blog and tweet as @greenwellys on Twitter.
Contact me on +44 (0) 7977 418 630 or goodallster@gmail.com
Great study into the causes of social media crises by Christian Faller.
His research and supporting blog post can be found here: The Epicenters of Social Media Crises.
Here is a simple infographic highlighting some of his key findings about the most common platforms, causes and protagonists.
Location based services are the mobile feature set for most growth in 2012 according to a study launched today.
TNS's annual, global 'Mobile Life' study explores mobile use among 48,000 people in 58 countries. Their research shows that a fifth of the 6 billion global mobile owners use location based services such as maps, GPS and check in services like Foursquare and Facebook Places.
41% of the UK's mobile phone owners currently use location based services on their phones. There are over 81 million mobile phones in use in the UK according to the study.
The use of these check-in services has increased globally by 50% from 2011 with 13 per cent of current social network users now ‘checking-in’ through platforms like Foursquare, or Facebook Places.
The study has some excellent dynamic data visualisations and can be found at TNS Mobile Life.
Here's a really interesting blog post about the UK SEO Industry from Tom Sizer-James at Browser Media.
They desk-researched 101 UK SEO agencies to provide a barometer of the services they offer, how they describe themselves, the content they create and their use of social media.
I commented about bloody agency battles for shares of client digital/social/pr/search budgets on a panel at the London Book Fair this week and this makes for some interesting findings.
Wouldn't it be great to compare these results to PR/Social/Digital/Media agencies? Anyone got the time or inclination?
Browser Media say:
Here's their Infographic, if you like that sort of thing...
The study looks at how agencies are responding through their own use of technology and the required adaptations of skillsets, processes and behaviours. Worth a read - The Progression of Agency Value: Developing a Model for Agency Maturity in a Digital World is free to paid subscribers.
Changes to how Facebook check-ins on Pages are calculated are 'imminent'. A sign that Facebook is placing more emphasis on location/check-ins 7 months after killing off Facebook Places?
Here's a screengrab from an email sent by Facebook today:
Gorkana Barometers are monthly industry benchmarking reports that combine mainstream and social media data and inisghts.
I've been kindly sent some examples from them earlier today. I hope to spend some time understanding their methodology, costs and the potential value of this data.
With London Fashion Week in full throttle, the launch of David Beckham's pants, the annual mass consumerism-fest and PR hook that is St Valentine's Day and Waitrose facing a backlash from its customers on Facebook as a backdrop, which UK retailers generated most media coverage and social media buzz?
Was it H&M, ASOS, Argos, Asda, Sainsburys, Tesco or Waitrose?
Well here are the answers...as a handy-to-scroll Infographic. Kapow!
Happy International Women's Day. Google today certainly ensured that more people knew about it more than ever with their fantastic Google Doodle.
It has its critics but I believe that it is important to celebrate it, meet inspiring people at IWD events, reflect on just how far we've come in terms of equality, challenge unconscious sexism, question why so many women fail to realise their potential and highlight the brutal inequality battles that some women across the world face.
Mentioning IWD also allows me to cunningly segue into a brief summary of an event I attended last week.
M3 (Marketing and Media Mums) is a networking group for women working in marketing and media. It's the brainchild of Becky McMichael and Emma Sinden:
"M3 is a not for profit network that provides events and networking opportunities for mums in corporate roles within the marketing and media industries."
We meet and talk about the issues that working mums in our profession face and support one another. Sometimes we meet up in the evening for drinks and food, provide a broad pair of shoulders and empathetic ears…then physically support each other as we wobble off home.
The last event was called "The Ultimate Survival Guide for Working Mums". Thanks to the sponsors, Ruder Finn and BT, we listened to 3 brilliant speakers Liz Fraser, Diana Norris and Victoria Megginson and then we shared our personal 'survival' techniques for working mums.
Becky McMichael has written up a brilliant summary of the event here and has included the survival guide.
One of the attendees brought her 4 month old baby. My kids are now at school and my challenges are different to when they were babies and toddlers. Here are two very personal reflections about my early days of being a working mum with the wonderful benefit of hindsight.
I'd like to stress that these are *my* opinions and experiences. They may not be shared by you or other M3 mums.
1. Working mums are powerful role models
There have been dark days when I've wondered why on earth I worked. At one point, childcare costs were significantly higher than my mortgage repayments and it was tough going. The occasional 4.30am starts at 3am finishes, kids with swine flu, tube strikes, dangerously hot offices and London Underground carriages at 8 months pregnant made me question my sanity and were certainly not good for my health.
I'm not wholly convinced that every single working day was worth it, but my career has progressed and I enjoyed the balance of being a mum and continuing with my career. My kids also have very clear ideas about equality and I think that they are proud of their mum. They see a career woman with a healthy work ethic and strong personal and professional friends and connections as well as someone who doesn't take themselves too seriously, laughs with them and gives them as much love as they need (plus some).
In spite of all the hardships, guilt, logistical, physical and emotional battles that working parents face…IT IS WORTH IT BECAUSE WE ARE ROLE MODELS FOR OUR KIDS
That's not exactly a challenging thought. How about this?
2. I shoud have shared less about my love for my family at work
If I could change one thing about being a working mum, it would be to have been less vocal about my babies/toddlers at work and to take fewer pains to explain why I couldn't make that date/time/arrangement and the difficulties/complexities of working motherhood.
Easy to say with hindsight. After all, how intoxicating is your love for your kids is as they grow from tiny babies to little people? How central are they to your very existence? Isn't every milestone and mispronounced word is pure joy? How loved, proud and special do they make you feel? No wonder we want to shout about it.
But no work colleague or client will ever match your love and fascination for your kids. Very few will empathise with the 'dark side', those challenges that you face to make that 8.30am breakfast meeting when your husband has to be at work at 7am and your closet family member is over 100 miles away. Not many of them will genuinely understand how tough and expensive it is to arrange last-minute care when that big pitch/project/meeting demands your physical presence 'out-of-hours'. Few will understand the pain that you suffer on those mornings when you leave a snot-covered howling child with their carer and commute tearfully to work.
One of the speakers said, "keep your care and love of your family out of your CV" as she talked about changing jobs or seeking employment. I'd also add that it is vital to have a strong sense of self-awareness about just how much of your family-life you share with your colleagues or clients.
I was the first in a young and rapidly growing agency to negotiate extremely flexible working before home broadband and mobile phones were commonplace. My colleagues and HR used to call me 'Momma Michelle'. I didn't like it, but I didn't challenge them. I wasn't professional enough about my work-life boundaries and did little to change their perception of me. I believe that it profoundly changed how I was viewed by colleagues and the board and affected my career progression within that organisation. It was naive of me. It was perhaps unfair of them. By the time I realised it, it was too late.
Here are some of the things I believe I could have done to mitigate this:
- Paused and reflected before sharing my logistical challenges.
- More self-editing about the things that fascinated me about my kids.
- Been more professional in post-maternity discussions and spoken to more working mums with older kids who had experienced returning to work. This is one of the reasons why I think M3 is a brilliant network. If I knew then what I knew now...
- Whilst there are times when you can't avoid saying no to things, I should have better appreciated that there are non-child related things equally important to colleagues that also require flexibility from employers (hobbies, sport, caring for elderly relatives, religion, volunteering, pets, evening classes, MBAs, hot dates, romantic breaks etc).
Diana Norris said, "a lot of women stop themselves from succeeding post-maternity leave". I agree.
Listening to the speakers and other mums, I drew some clear conclusions from this event. I wish that M3 existed years ago. It's important to negotiate the working flexibility that is right for you, put you and your family first and draw up appropriate boundaries between your home and work life.
The next M3 event 'Building your Personal Brand' is on the 26th April if you'd like to jon us.
Why do consumers unfollow, unlike and email unsubscribe from brands?
Useful Infographic from the brilliant team at Get Satisfaction.
Original Source: It's Not Me, It's You: Consumers Breaking Up With Brands - by Get Satsfaction
As most of us struggle with the inevitable privacy concerns that Facebook Timeline has thrown up, this interesting study from uSamp highlights how men and women feel about sharing personal information on social media.
Chatted with some lovely people and they were happy to share examples of the work that they are doing and the challenges that they face. I learned a lot from them and I hope that some of my thoughts and tips have helped them out too.
It's still online here if you wish to take a look at the discussion:
Social media surgery for culture and the arts
My fellow panellists were:
Orna Ross - Author and Publisher - @OrnaRoss
Helen Black - Digital Marketing Manager of Citizens Theatre - @citizenstheatre @spikeyhelen
Rosie Clarke - Marketing Co-ordinator of Museums at Night - @Culture24@RosieClarke
Gilly Roche and Marianne Maxwell - Trainee Project Asst and Marketing Manager at The National Theatre of Scotland - @NTS_Gilly @NTS_marianne
Remi O - Director of Actor Expo Tradeshow - @actorexpo @industryhub
Laura Tosney - co-founder of Twespians - @lauratosney @twespians
Christina McDermott - Web Manager for the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts - @lipaliverpool
Chris Unitt - Head of Social - Made Media - @chrisunitt
If this is your sector, you could do worse than to follow this lot....what's the Posterous equivalent to a #ff 'Follow Friday'?
Econsultancy have published their third annual State of Social Report, the most comprehensive social media study of its kind and it's jam-packed with trends, data and insights.
Econsultancy have benchmarked and tracked the attitudes and opinions of over 1,000 clients, agencies and consultants over the past 3 years and have reviewed the application of social media across all major industry sectors in the UK. It's an essential report for any B2B or B2C marketer or strategist responsible for their organisations' social media strategy.
I've been closely involved with the study each year and helped to kick off the first survey in 2009 with Econsultancy researchers and analysts Aliya Zaidi and Linus Gregoriadis. It's an invaluable benchmarking tool for my clients and an excellent barometer of the growth and maturation of social media in the UK.
Some key positive outtakes this year are:
- The smartphone is overwhelmingly deemed to be the most persuasive device for social media, according to 73% of company respondents
- Maturation of social media beyond experimentation into a more established, optimised and integrated activity for many organisations
- A marked increase of interest in social media from client-side C-level executives
- The resurgence of the company/corporate blog as a key inbound-marketing channel
More frustratingly:
- social media is still reviewed primarily a 'push' marketing channel for
promoting content rather than the opportunity for 2-way customer service and reputation management
- A reliance on scheduled updates in social media reflects that many still have 'push' marketing attitude when it comes to social
- The vast majority of respondents do not have proper social media governance models and systems in place and 39% of all respondents still do not monitor their brand - in spite of free tools and cheaper commercial buzz monitoring solutions (it was >40% in 2010).
The report has 60 charts mapping agency and client-side attitudes as well as invaluable analysis and expert opinion from some very smart people including Stephen Waddington, Stuart Bruce, Mel Carson, Michael Wu, Darcie Tanner, Pipa Unsworth, Ged Carroll, Phil Allen and Andrew Girdwood.
You'll find a few thoughts in there from me too.
The 74-page report is sponsored by LBi and Bigmouthmedia and is free to Econsultancy members or can be downloaded at a cost of £250. If you can't stretch to membership (you should if you can!) then a short report extract is also available for free.
