Rick Williams » Social Media

Digital Democracy – some themes to look out for in UK General Election campaign

Rick — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 12:34:06 +0000

Many thanks to Albion London for putting on a cracking panel last Wednesday in Spitalfields for a discussion on Digital Democracy and the impending UK General Election. More info on the specific event can be found here, including a video with Alan Rusbridger’s insightful views on Us vs. Them and Open vs. Closed.

With the UK election getting into full swing, MPs have been scrambling over themselves to be interviewed by the MumsNet community. Both David ‘Call me Dave’ Cameron and Gordon ‘I’m Just about to Blow a Gasket’ Brown have courted the active and passionate Mums.net community, but having heard from Justine Roberts, founder of MumsNet, I’m really not sure what kind of impact either of them made with that community. They’re doing what politicians have always done; look at stats/results, target a particular demographic of disenfranchised, sitting-on-the-fence voters and trying to woo them.

But is that it? Is the UK election really ‘The MumsNet Election’? The UK election isn’t going to be anything like the US Obama election, that much is clear. So far all we’ve heard are fluffy promises and the same old negative politics and fear; this time though such tactics are being amplified for all the wrong reasons by digital. It goes to prove that in this general election you have to say something meaningful.

Take for example the brilliant work of Clifford Singer’s spoof campaign posters over on mydavidcameron.com:

This one’s still my favourite though (because it’s real and it’s online affecting offline ;p):

There have been 256,463 David Cameron posters created using the online poster generator courtesy of Andy Barefoot. Go and create your own.

There’s much more Clifford has to say on the experience in a blog post he’s written, Five Lessons from MyDavidCameron – Definitely worth a read.

And recently he’s announced he’s going to stop them now. The timing couldn’t be better. These spoofs have a certain shelf life and now that the Conservative’s have jumped on the bandwagon and created a nasty, bitter tasting version themselves, it’s all getting a bit ‘unappetitlich‘.

I think they have captured the public’s imagination because the posters themselves have been so devoid of anything meaningful; either in their message or in their substance.

Since Obama, what democracy has needed to be respected is meaningful action as opposed to political in-action which we’ve become used to. I wrote a couple of musings prior to the US Presidential campaign on what impact digital and social media would have on politics and yes, Obama’s campaign managed to create an incredible grassroots swelling on Facebook providing the largest donation pool in modern political campaigning – but social media isn’t just a route to raising more funds for a campaign – any brand worth their salt could tell you that by now! It also enables activism and cuts through the bullshit. Look at what’s happening right now with the threatened closure of BBC 6Music or the Robin Hood Tax campaign to give you an idea of the power social media has when it’s got a purpose.

Which brings me to my second theme of the UK General Election: Independent MPs.

Tasmin Omond, the Climate campaigner has announced she will be standing against Glenda Jackson in the newly formed borough of Hampstead &Kilburn, who Tasmin called “the laziest MP in London”.

She has now formed a political party, called The Commons, and is believed to have substantial financial backing from green campaigners.

Last week cryptic posters started appearing in the area, of a silhouette alongside the other candidates including Ms Jackson, Liberal Democrat Ed Fordham and Tory Chris Philp, proclaiming that the election race would include “not just the usual suspects”.

Ms Omond said: “Hampstead and Kilburn is a new constituency and we want to show people what a new MP can do. We’ve had enough of distant politicians droning on about broken Britain but doing very little.

“Labour and the Conservatives represent a type of politics that people are bored with. We want to remind people that politics is about choice. The other candidates are going after the dwindling older population in the area who still vote.

“We are going after the tens of thousands of young voters. If we get their vote, we will win by a landslide.”

Ms Omond said that if she wins the election, she will put a third of her salary into local projects selected by her constituents. She also vowed to do one day of community service each week and said she would ensure everyone in the constituency who is eligible to vote is registered by the end of her first period in office.

Ms Jackson, Labour MP for Hampstead and Highgate, last year repaid more than £8,000 in expenses she had wrongly claimed. Glenda Jackson has previously been shown to be one of the MPs who offers least value for money.

In 2007/2008, she claimed £136,793 in allowances despite turning up for only 27 per cent of votes and speaking in just two debates.

Ms Omond said: “The expenses scandal definitely influenced my decision to stand. People in the constituency I’ve spoken to are incredulous that Glenda Jackson would even bother standing in the election. She is the laziest MP in London.”

Ms Omond said the Climate Rush group would be “heavily involved” in her campaign: “We’re going to have people dressed as suffragettes going door-to-door offering to draught-proof houses and sort out insulation.

Should be interesting, if only as a side show…

Best Buy: A social media case study

Rick — Fri, 29 May 2009 00:07:24 +0000

Best Buy: A social media case study

by Robin Grant in News on 28 May 2009 at 17:10

Amongst the famous examples of Dell, Ford, Zappos, Skype and the like, Best Buy may not be the first company that comes to mind when thinking about which companies using are using social media well.

They’re also not the sort of company you would immediately assume would be ahead of the curve in terms of social media – they’re the world’s largest multi-channel home electronics retailer (similar to Currys or Comet in the UK) who have recently made moves into Europe with the acquisition of 50% of Carphone Warehouse’s European stores (and with rumours they may go further than that).

However, in reality they’re as advanced as any of the examples I give above – let’s start with a short introduction from Best Buy’s Chief Marketing Officer, Barry Judge:

And then move onto this presentation from Gina Debogovich, Best Buy’s Community Manager:

It’s also worth finding out more about Best Buy Connect, Blue Shirt Nation (a community for Best Buy Employees), how they use customer reviews, their recently launched API and looking at how they use their own forums and Get Satisfaction to support their customers.

Let’s finish with a 4 minute video

looking at Best Buy’s internal use of social media followed by a 20 minute interview with Best Buy’s CEO Brad Anderson talking about the issues in detail:

via wearesocial.net

Posted via web from rickwilliams’s posterous

URL shortening and why it’s important to brands

Rick — Tue, 26 May 2009 10:44:17 +0000

Links are the lifeblood of the internet.

Social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook are giving people the power to 'spread' content that they like and that they think their friends and followers will like.
Because of the 140 character constraint, links to content invariably are fed into url shortening solutions. There are over 100 such solutions online right now.

URL shorteners are very simple, they take a url such as:

http://inside.nike.com/blogs/nikefootball-en_GB/2009/05/20/razor-sharp
and shorten it to become something like this:
http://nike.com/u/2/a (this doesn't work by the way)

The benefits are huge:

It enables you to take your brand into these areas (e.g. http://nike.com/ and not http://tinyurl.com/) – This is free advertising.
It increases trust and click-through rates. e.g. You know that clicking on it will take you to something to do with nike.
It enables you to track where and how people are finding your content by ensuring you're adding the necessary meta data and tracking info to the links you are shortening.

One way to try this out in a cost effective way is by using http://awe.sm. For $99 a year you get 10,000 unique urls a month, all tracked by Google Analytics and customisable by you.

Posted via email from rickwilliams’s posterous

Another Car, Another Social Media Marketing Campaign

Rick — Sun, 24 May 2009 11:18:38 +0000

via wired.com

Nissan has launched a marketing campaign for its Cube that incorporates Cube-themed iPhone apps, games, videos and ringtones to prove just how hip it is to be square.

The Cube Mobile Hub site gives Cube owners and enthusiasts the chance to bond over a car that Nissan says is designed for interacting, all while disengaged from the real world, poking away at a tiny cellphone screen.

It’s yet another example of automakers using social networking to sell their cars, and it comes on the heels of similar campaigns by Ford and Honda. Honda recently launched a microsite where people can virtually drive the new Insight and learn more about the dirt-cheap hybrid.

Nissan is hoping that the mobile site will convince potential buyers that the slab-sided subcompact is just as essential to the mobile lifestyle as text messages, Twitter and Facebook. “We envision owners using their Cubes as one of their essential mobile devices, connecting with friends, sharing music and sharing fun,” Nissan marketing exec Christian Meunier said in a statement.

Nissan says the Cube features a “socially oriented lounge-style interior.” At the risk of sounding like Andy Rooney, we think it might be a perfect place for five friends to text each other.

We visited the site Mobile Hub and everyone seems to be having a lot more fun than we are. Our favorite feature might be the forthcoming iPhone App called “Cube Party Roundup.” The objective of the game is to gain points doing things that we thought only happened in commercials for cars and liquor: Drive around a city picking up friends, dates, and “ice, music and other items,” all in preparation for a big party.

Posted via web from rickwilliams’s posterous

Three forms of Community Affiliation

Rick — Fri, 01 May 2009 01:57:27 +0000

via tumblr.com

Posted via web from rickwilliams’s posterous

Games With A Purpose

Rick — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 22:56:13 +0000

Social gaming, in it’s truest sense, has interested me since I came across Dr. BJ Fogg back in 2006.

Dr. Fogg is the Head of Captology at Harvard University and ran the 1st Facebook course at Stanford in 2007. He’s written a couple of books. The one I’ve read is Mobile Captology.

Captology is the study of ‘persuasive technology’ – motivational avatars can be as impactful as video games at enticing you to keep playing.

One facet of social media is the gaming aspect. People are playing online social games, they’re incredibly popular (particularly on Facebook & the iPhone). One of the reasons for this is because they can’t offer the graphics of console games so have to work harder with what they have.

‘Play’ is an integral part of online digital engagement and for finding content online.

Tristan Ferne is a blogger I’ve followed for many years. He’s an exceptional Technologist and his latest work involves the work of Louis Von Ahn and Games With A Purpose (GWAP) I can’t wait to see what Tristan and his team have been playing around with.

Lego extending its devotees through social media

Rick — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 11:35:46 +0000

As Jake McKee commented on my previous post, there are some excellent niche communities which, over the years, have created such an active community of members that the brand they’ve advocated has had to stand up and do something about it.

In the case of Lego, they embraced the online community activity on the Internet and created a ‘Lego Ambassador Program’ back in February 2005. This, I presume was entirely down to Jake, who at the time was a Lego employee (Jake, please correct me if any of this is incorrect…).

Initially the individuals who were nominated for the Lego Ambassador Program not only had no tangible benefits, but were also a merry band of only 15. Now, with the nominations for the 08/09 Ambassadors having been announced only a few days ago, there are not only very tangible benefits but also a much larger group of Ambassadors.

Brothers-Brick is one of the major contributing communities and blogs which have generated Ambassadors. Over the last 3yrs their blog has grown to one of thousands of subscribers, all of whom have an interest and a passion in Lego from an adult perspective and now they’re embracing Facebook.

It’s fantastic to see how Lego’s confidence and belief in their customers and fans has led to a really excellent Ambassador program which is not only aspiring to the Lego enthusiasts in the community, but offers an opportunity for Ambassadors to shape the future of their favourite bricks and be first to be asked opinions on new up and coming ranges from Lego themselves.

Lego’s 50th anniversary celebration video, released to the community:

Lego’s Social Strategy

Rick — Fri, 13 Jun 2008 10:03:07 +0000

Jake McKee, ex-Lego employee and now founder of social media consultancy Ant’s Eye View, talks about his work in developing a community for Lego. Interestingly, his target audience was the parents.

Thanks to Fresh Creation* for the scoop.

.car Evolution

Rick — Tue, 20 May 2008 23:25:58 +0000

(Disclaimer: I am personally involved in the development of Fiat’s digital presence with my work at AKQA)

BMW and Crysler DO NOT GET IT! (read the comments).

Ford sounds like it’s right behind them…

It’s interesting to see how Fiat are describing and marketing their Blue&Me technology.

They seem concerned about the detail, which is always a good sign. They offer Blue&Me EcoDrive as standard and have Nav and Map add-on features.

Fiat EcoDrive is described in greater detail here, but essentially it measures your driving style irrespective of the car you drive. It puts everyone on a level playing field and gives them tips and suggestions on how to improve their driving style, saving them money by lowering their fuel consumption.

It’s a niche, but interesting, concept and importantly it’s engaging whilst not being disruptive. EcoDrive promises to ‘teach drivers how to go greener’. Drivers can fit whichever navigation system they choose to the car, rather than being tied down to a locked-in version, suceptable to bugs and poorly executed updates.

I’ll be interested to find out how drivers communicate between their car and their desktop computers to make intelligent use of all the data that’s captured and (possibly sharing that information within a community???), but it strikes me as a far stronger proposition than attempting to steal a march on the SatNav’s out there like TomTom and Dash.net in the US, who only last week announced that they were opening up their API to developers.

What do you think? Do you want to watch YouTube in the car? Is being online important?? Is this running before you can walk or a bold move?

Micro-blogging & the power of Ambient Intimacy

Rick — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 00:23:59 +0000

Something happened on Twitter over the last week.

Twitter, the micro-blogging platform used by a niche user-base of very vocal early adopters and internet marketers, took a giant leap in its user-base as the most immediate communication channel of choice again at last week’s SWSX conference.

Twitter really took off at last year’s SWSX, so it’s no surprise that it took the headlines again.

It showed its potential to great effect during the US Super Bowl last November and I would ove to see how it could be used during the European Football Cup this summer.

“The fabric becomes stronger as the threads connect”

The more like-minded people connect with one another, the richer the conversation becomes.

Twitter can take comments made during a TV commentary and extend it online.

The beauty of Twitter is that it’s limited to 140 characters per post so either you make your point succintly or you link through to further, more in-depth conversation and opinion.

There’s no spam and your peers and audience are individually picked by you – that’s a powerful, if not so sexy, channel to get in on from a brand perspective.

For more read these:
Conversations are moving onto Twitter
Ambient Intimacy, Collective Musing & intellectual Musings

Tags: twitter, European Cup