There have been many negative news reports predicting a recession recently. There's a reason for this: bad news is good news. The same applies to social media. People are more willing to pass on and take in bad news than good news. For example a tweet that says, "My car got me to work without any problems again today." is a lot less interesting than "My car broke down on the motorway today. I'll never buy a Ford again!"

This is why monitoring what people are saying about your brand or product is so imperative. This is particularly important in an age of social media where that negative message could quickly go global. Fortunately by reacting to negative messages and using blogger outreach you can use bad news like the recession to your advantage.

Reactions to negative messages:

• If a blogger has been made redundant offer them a free trial of your recruitment service.
• If a Facebook group has been started to complain that your product is now more expensive, apologise and explain why the price change has been made. Maybe even offer a one-off discount to members of the group.
• If someone isn't happy with their mobile phone. Offer them a free trial of your company's phone. Chances are they will want to keep the phone at the end of the trial so offer them the option to buy it.
• If a blogger can't find any holidays in their price range, suggest some cheap options.
• If someone tweets to say their taxi is late, offer your services instead. (See feverbee)

Managed correctly bad news can really be good news for your company.

UPDATE: Stephen Davies of Prblogger.com gives a good example of the Carphone Warehouse reacting to a negative blog post here.

Labels: bad news is good news, blog, blogger outreach, blogging, facebook, formby, matthew watson, new media, social media, twitter

We got the prints back from the family photo shoot that I organised with Alex Petricca of AP Photo for my mum's 50th birthday last month.

Labels: alex petrica, formby, matthew watson, photograph

Three weeks ago I started using Twitter to link to my blog posts and news stories that I found of interest. I didn't really see the point of it, but I thought I'd give it ago afterall it only took up a few minutes of my time.

Gradually I immersed myself into the 'Twittersphere' and started following other PR people and entering into conversations. I thought it was interesting but I certainly had no idea that it would further my career.

After just ten days of twittering I was contacted by Stephen Waddington of Rainier PR and invited to attend an interview the following week. A few days later I had a second interview over the phone and now today I have been offered a job with the company. I start next month and cannot wait. It's been my dream for quite some time to work in technology public relations, so to work for one of the top 10 tech PR companies in the UK is unbelievable! Plus I got a mention on their blog to boot.

Directly through twittering I have also acquired twenty-one followers or contacts. This means that I have gained a new contact for every day I have spent microblogging. Indirectly I look set to gain many, many more contacts in the form of my new work colleagues.

Not bad for a website I didn't see the point of.

Labels: formby, job, london, matthew watson, microblogging, rainier pr, stephen waddington, twitter

Last month Pizza.com sold for a staggering $2.6million. That's one pricy pizza and one dear domain name. It shows just how much companies value domain names. But are they right to do so? Are domain names really that valuable? Is Pizza.com really worth the sames as 69 Lexus RX series sedans?

It's generally agreed that domain names should be short, memorable and easy to spell. That's why you don't see many websites like Order-A-Pizza-Online-And-Get-It-Delivered-To-Your-Door.com or 15inchPizzaIn15minutes.com.

Domain names that are short, memorable and easy to spell, like Pizza.com have therefore become very valuable commodities. But is this all about to change? Are the days of domain names selling for millions coming to an end?

Is the domain name dead?

I've noticed a trend recently in the Guardian and on websites such as Twitter, for domain names to be replaced by TinyUrl's. This is perhaps most prolific on Twitter, where nearly 40% of users use the service to share links, yet have only 140 characters to do so.

For those of you who don't know, TinyUrl is a website that turns big and nasty domain names like this - http://www.m-p-w.co.uk/2008/05/green-light-for-virtualisation.html in to small and friendly ones, like this one for my last post - http://tinyurl.com/3vcj8v. It's sort of like txt spk for domain names.

We are becoming more accustomed to clicking on short links that we probably can't remember or need to remember, yet alone spell. But despite this companies spend millions to get us to remember their web addresses. But is it worth it when their links may just be converted into TinyUrl's or found through search engines anyway? I know so many people that google websites such as You Tube instead of typing youtube.com into their browser. I'd love to see some research into how people actually find websites. Do the majority of web users type the web address or use a search engine? I'd put my money on a search engine.

If the of rise of the TinyUrl continues will we see all websites linked to via their TinyUrl address or their existing url? Or will the two co-exist with companies, journalists and web users using whichever is shorter?

I think the latter, although I think the TinyUrl will have to be significantly shorter. For example http://tinyurl.com/3yc3wc is shorter than http://www.guardian.co.uk/media but only by 6 characters, and that is including all the w's. So is shortening it really worth it? I don't think so.

Labels: domain names, formby, google, internet, matthew watson, pizza, pizza.com, the guardian, tinyurl, twitter, txt spk, url

Last week at my interview with AxiCom, the managing director, Lyle Closs, explained the concept of virtualisation to me. I was a little unsure but I understood that it involved sharing space on servers so that fewer servers are needed. This seems like a great idea and a good way to reduce spending on IT.

However, what I hadn't considered was the environmental impact of virtualisation. Fewer servers means less electricity is required to power the system.

Today in the Guardian there is an article about this subject, Why the future's green for IT. It explains that at present most servers use less than 10% of their capacity whilst running. So by using virtualisation, one server could replace ten. This has the potential to save money and reduce the amount of energy required to power the system and keep it cool.

From a PR point of view this is fantastic. If a client reduces their server use through virtualisation then there is the opportunity for "X&Y Computing Goes Green" style articles. However by adopting this approach it leaves the client open to accusations by the press of being less environmentally friendly elsewhere.

In his blog, Seth Godin recently suggested that green marketing will soon face a backlash from reporters and consumers who see through the eco-friendly promises and campaigns, and want to see that companies really care. So perhaps companies should make more of an effort to be green, instead of simply jumping on the back of new research that shows that they are slightly greener than they thought.

Labels: climate change, environment, formby, green, matthew watson, public relations, seth godin, the guardian

Almost five weeks ago I posted about Barack Obama's viral campaign, Logobama. This is an update on how that campaign is progressing as well as the presidential race.

Since then nearly 6700 have created logos using the website and a total of $651 has been donated by 24 people. That's not a lot of money or donations really, but I'm sure the number of exposures will be much higher.

Barack now has 156 more pledged delegates than Hillary Clinton and needs just another 183 to become the Democrat candidate. Significantly less than the 339 that Hillary needs to beat him.

Perhaps this is down to Barack's inventive use of new media to support his campaign. A strategy, which Hillary seems to be replicating. In April 2007, Barack started using Twitter to aid his campaign. In January 2008, Hillary followed suit and started microblogging too. Since then Hillary has posted 139 times, whereas Barack has posted a mere 115 times.

If frequency isn't the key to using Twitter successfully then what is?

I think interaction. Although neither candidate has actually entered into a two-way conversation with their followers. I think following other users has been a crucial factor in Barack's success. Barack follows almost 30,000 other users, whereas Hillary follows nobody. No one. Not a sausage. I think people like to have followers, it feels good, even if they know that their followers are not really reading what they have to say. So it's not surprising that Barack has over 25,000 more followers than poor old Hillary, who has just 3,745 in total.

Labels: barack obama, formby, hillary clinton, logobama, matthew watson, microblogging, new media, presidential campaign, twitter, viral campaign

I've given my blog and website a bit of a face lift this week. Added some much needed colour and implemented some exciting new features.

Firstly, I have started using Twitter. I think it's ace. It's perfect for all those little updates and questions that are too big to be my status on facebook and too small to be blog posts. Plus further networking opportunities to boot.

Secondly, I've used Blogger to modify the rest of my website. The pages are all now in blog format so I can update them anywhere and people can comment and subscribe to individual pages. Plus I have a feeling that it might boost my ranking on Google. Search engines love pages like that.

Check out my site and let me know what you think of the new design, and if you get the chance check out Tom Harle's superb marketing and graphic design blog, Aspire To Enquire. It's a really good read!

Labels: blog, formby, matthew watson, website