I have just found out I have won a place to stand on the forth plinth in Trafalgar Square as part of Antony Gormley’s ‘living monument’ project One & Other. I will be on the plinth from 7-8pm on Sunday 2nd August.
For more detail of what this project is about this is an exerpt from the One & Other website:
This summer, sculptor Antony Gormley invites you to help create an astonishing living monument. He is asking the people of the UK to occupy the empty Fourth Plinth in Trafalgar Square in London, a space normally reserved for statues of Kings and Generals. They will become an image of themselves, and a representation of the whole of humanity.
Every hour, 24 hours a day, for 100 days without a break, a different person will make the Plinth their own. If you’re selected, you can use your time on the plinth as you like. One & Other is open to anyone and everyone from any corner of the UK. As long as you’re 16 or over and are living or staying in the UK, you can apply to be part of this unforgettable artistic experiment.
And to see what Antony Gormley has to say about it check out his video here.
I feel very honoured and excited to be involved and want to make the most of the opportunity. Antony talks about the democrotisation of society and representing people in the UK today, and I would love whatever I do up there to reflect this.
So, I have had a couple of ideas about what I can do with the help of a few of my colleagues, and I would really like to do something which involves crowdsourcing and letting others input to what I do.
One idea is to ask people to twitter to me (create a hashtag for this project within the project) with tweets they would like me to hold up written on card while I’m on the plinth.
Another (which is my favourite so far, from the genius ideas machine that is Jenni Lloyd) is to get people to tweet me stuff they would like me to draw while I’m on the plinth. I could take a flip chart, some pens, and have a lot of fun in that hour. I could even mix it up with requests from the crowd (the real life one, in Trafalgar Square) and take in live tweet requests. I could fold up each finished giant drawing and send it out into the crowd in giant paper planes (so long as people don’t throw them back to me and knock me off!)
What do you think? Any other ideas? Really open to ideas and would like my time up there to be a collaborative peice made by all of us.
If you’re going to the Online Marketing Show on Tuesday next week (30 June.) at Olympia, come along to the Olympia Room at 9:45 where I’ll be on a panel discussing how you can get a social media strategy kicked off. My angle will be based on our experience with large brands.
If you can’t make it but would like to find out more then please get in touch and we’ll be happy to help.
This is one of the most exciting WordPress news our team of developers has had this year!
VideoPress is a well thought through offering from Automattic (the company supporting the awesome blogging platform that is WordPress) that allows bloggers on WordPress.com to quickly and easily upload and share HD video content online. Read more…
Hitwise data released yesterday shows that Twitter has continued its inexorable rise in popularity, with UK internet visits to the micro-blogging site up by six times since the beginning of the year - leading to its entry into the top 50 UK websites for the first time.
Whilst the name Twitter and all its related Tweet-isms might be breeding ennui in some jaded marketers, it’s also the case that according to Hitwise this site is receiving
‘more UK internet visits than the Daily Mail, RightMove, MSN UK Search, Directgov, and all retail websites - with the exception of eBay, Amazon UK, Play.com and Argos’
- all of which probably pay large parts in many traditional online media plans.
Not only is that a whole lot of eyeballs but Twitter is also proving to be a valuable referrer of traffic. Hitwise reports:
‘As well as being the 50th most visited website in the UK, it was also the 36th biggest source of traffic to other websites in the UK during March’.
All this activity has lead to a rapid growth in the amount of attention paid to Twitter in companies’ marketing strategies, according to Econsultancy’s UK Search Engine Marketing Benchmark Report, released last week. Compared to last year’s 3%, this year 49% of marketers cited in the report are including Twitter in their social media marketing mix.
Ideally this new focus on Twitter would be part of a holistic social media marketing strategy with the tool being chosen to fit the target audience and set objectives - not just a bit of ‘me too’ activity. Sadly the same report carries evidence that this might not be the case - 19% of respondents aren’t tracking their activity at all and 49% have admitted that they have no idea how successful or otherwise their campaigns have been.
So, we can see that there are sound reasons for brands to engage with Twitter - but it’s essential to first identify a clear purpose for the activity, alongside a set of objectives against which you can then measure your success and justify your investment.
Today is the 10th anniversary of The Cluetrain Manifesto – a set of 95 theses about how business is changing forever - that became a book of the same name. Although the term ‘social media’ wasn’t used until years later, many people hail Cluetrain as the start of this new world, and it’s been a huge influence on us here at NixonMcInnes since we started in 2000.
To mark the 10th anniversary of Cluetrain, a wiki has been set up where people have been volunteering to pick up one of the theses and write a blog post about it.
I grabbed theses No. 20, mostly because I thought it would be fun to write about:
“Companies need to realize their markets are often laughing. At them.”
You see, in the age of Cluetrain, a brand isn’t something that you position and control. Your brand is whatever the people out there say you are. And as Chevy found out, they’re often laughing at you.
And you don’t just get laughed at when you invite the crowd to write advertising slogans for you. Next time you have a corporate slip on a banana skin, you’re gonna get laughed at. Very publicly.
Having rats infest your fast food restaurant is unlucky. Having a TV crew show up is unwanted attention. But having a million people forward the clip to their friends because they think it’s funny. Well, that’s Cluetrain.
Oooh, people are cruel aren’t they? Yep, but it’s hardly surprising after centuries of corporations telling us what to think them.
Even messages to your own employees will make their way into the public domain, and you can get laughed at for that too, as Mike Soutar found out.
“It makes such a difference”
So where does all this leave us? Well, it leads us quite neatly onto thesis No. 21 - “Companies need to lighten up and take themselves less seriously. They need to get a sense of humor.”
No company has done this better than Blendtec. Taking their slightly awkward, nerdy CEO and putting him in front of a camera blending stuff that was never meant to be blended. From an initial outlay of $50, Blendtec have increased sales by 700% just by allowing people to laugh with them, and not just at them.
Do you have a project that you would like to discuss with us? Or perhaps you know someone who is thinking about how to implement their digital strategy for 2009 and could do with some useful, actionable input and direction?
If so, we are running a limited edition special offer to help you shine online. Check it out.
If we can’t be of assistance or if you are not satisfied with the results then we will send you a delicious cake from the lovely Brighton cake boutique Choccywoccydoodah. Mmm, how can you refuse such a tasty proposal?
“And if you want to know a little bit more about our practice areas and service offerings then check out our “What we do page”. This will give you guys, the wonderful NixonMcInnes audience, a little more information about the kind of work we are helping folks with.
Just so you know in case it is still not clear; we are a full service agency; this means that not only can our skilled social media consultants help you apply social media to your marketing strategy and help you use this medium to plan specific campaigns, but the consultants are backed up by a fully formed delivery team made up of talented developers and designers able to make your ideas for websites, widgets, applications, blogs, social media press rooms and anything else web wise a reality. You can even get to know the team in advance.
So go on, book your conversation with us now, we are ready, poised to listen to your challenges and lend a hand; guaranteed!
One of our favourite models of social media here at NM Towers is Forrester’s excellent (although cringeworthingly buzzwordy titled) ‘Social Technographics Ladder.’
Don’t let the name put you off - this model is just a simple and useful description of the different types of behaviour that people have come to adopt using social platforms and tools on the web:
Critics: Post ratings and reviews; comment on other content; take part in forum discussions
Collectors: Use RSS feeds and social bookmarking tools like Delicious and Digg
Joiners: Maintain a profile on social networking sites like Facebook and LinkedIn
Spectators: Read, watch, and listen to social media content but don’t actively participate
Inactives: Do none of the above
It’s described as a ladder because the participation becomes more active as you progress from Spectating to Creating.
I was thinking about structuring a presentation on social media around these behaviours but it occurred to me that the important social behaviour of ’sharing’ doesn’t seem to neatly fit in the model. For example sending a viral video to your friends by email or via a social network; sending links to colleagues and peers using Delicious; or embedding someone else’s content from YouTube or Slideshare into a blog post.
It’s definitely closely related to publishing, but you’re not actually creating anything new so it doesn’t fit at the top of the ladder. It’s also closely related to the Critic behaviour because you’re performing an action on existing content, but again, you’re not adding anything new. I think sharing is a cousin of collecting: Posting to Digg is a form of sharing, but to me, collecting is about taking, whereas sharing is about giving.
Lauren wrote: “Good question. Facilitated by creators, but think it deserves its own rung. Need to identify how to turn critics into sharers…”
Steve replied: “On every rung I’d say. Creators share by publishing, critics share by commenting, collectors distribute their collections etc etc”
Dave said: “somewhere between “critics” and “collectors” I reckon, but it seems like an omission to me…”
I agree with Steve that there’s something over-arching about sharing that applies to the other behavious as well, but I do think that Dave and Lauren are correct that sharing deserves its own rung on the ladder. This isn’t about getting hung up on definitions in a navel-gazing way. If Forrester created a new run for sharing, they could specifically survey for this behaviour so we could see what its adoption was like within our target demographics (which I think would be much higher than the 5% of UK Internet users who are currently collectors,) and it would help to prompt us to look at ways to turn people lower down the ladder into sharers.
This week’s been great for blogging stories – first Ryan Air gave us a first-class example of how not to engage in the blogosphere, then the medium gets great public recognition courtesy of the George Orwell prize.
When lone blogger Jason Roe posted that he’d got the Ryan Air website to display a flight price of 0.00, he probably didn’t realise he’d end up featured on the Times Online within a week.
But, thanks to a vitriolic and profane response by (a now confirmed) Ryan Air employee, bloggers everywhere have been linking to Jason’s blog.
The result? The number and influence of sites talking about this means that now a Google search for ‘Ryan Air’ brings up the Times Online at number five.
Whether Ryan Air care about this is doubtful, given their official response denouncing ‘idiot’ and ‘lunatic’ bloggers – but it is a great example of the potential effect on brand image when you go about engaging in the conversation in the wrong way.
A polite, or even grateful response might not have got the same coverage (given everyone’s love of a juicy story), but at least it wouldn’t have further cemented the company’s ‘bullish’ (and that’s being polite) image.
On a more positive note, Radio 4’s today programme announced that this year’s George Orwell prize for political writing is featuring a category for political blogs.
It’s a great public endorsement of the medium and recognition of the people behind it as credible writers (rather than idiots or lunatics!).
About time too – as Evan Davis asked this morning – if Orwell was still around today, might he be a blogger?
Jenni recently spoke at an event held by Fresh Business Thinking on the subject of internet marketing and more specifically how small businesses can start to engage with social media and some practical tips of how to get going with your digital strategy.
See the video and view the accompanying slides for a breakdown of:
- five easy tips to get you started with social media
- some examples of how we have been using these approaches with our own clients
- a list of must reads for those bookworms who want to know more
Like what you see? Sign up to receive more of Jenni’s and our collective wisdom from our range of free, no nonsense ebooks for marketers.
Would you like to book Jenni to speak at your event? Please get in touch with me, Ruth Baker, Marketing Co-ordinator to discuss the possibilities.
