Katie Price and Rio Ferdinand are facing a probe by the Advertising Standards Authority for their part in a wicked spoof by Snickers that quickly went viral across the ‘net. The celebrities posted a series of out-of-character tweets: Katie, whose breasts are bigger than her head and, almost certainly, than her brain – posted about quantitative easing, liquidity in the bond market, and the political economy, while footballer Rio Ferdinand posted about the joys of knitting.
Several tweets later, it was revealed to be a marketing ploy by Snickers: the celebrities tweeted ‘you’re not yourself…
Don Draper, the eponymous head of fictional ad agency Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce in AMC’s Mad Men, is a man with a past. He’s intriguing, popular, and his relationship status and family life is asked about by most everyone he meets.
In other words, you’d imagine that Don is exactly the kind of customer who’d embrace Facebook Timeline with open arms. So much so, in fact, that one individual even mashed up one of Don’s famous pitches to create the Don Draper delivers Facebook Timeline…
What kind of child were you? Did you have brothers and sisters? In the playground did your parents ever tell you off for not ‘sharing’ your toys? Or were you the kind of child who got everything, and never had to share?
Is sharing always a good thing? Do you think you got more pleasure out of that new toy when you played with it alone, or when you were forced to share it with others?
I ask because that’s exactly how Facebook works. Like a pushy parent, Facebook is forcing you to share more and more. And, perhaps inevitably,…
When I joined Tumblr in 2009, I thought I was pretty late to the party. But the microblogging platform has only gone from strength to strength to strength. But although I hang out there all the time, and have even made a few friends there (although not as many as my livejournal days) I don’t use it for business.
Tumblr started out a little like a cooler version of Twitter. I’ve often said that Twitter feels like a water cooler for us bored, lonely freelancers who don’t get to enjoy the simple pleasures…
What kind of person do you portray yourself as online? Are you businesslike or fun? Loud and noisy, or quiet and thoughtful? Does your personality change when you’re talking to friends on Facebook or Twitter? And are your online friends completely surprised by what you’re like when they meet you in real life?
It was an article about the ‘golden years’ of Livejournal that got me thinking. If you don’t remember Livejournal, it was more or less the first social blogging platform. Before Facebook, before Twitter, before Tumblr, before Blogspot and WordPress, it was a place where people met…
I used to avoid Twitter because I can’t stand mobs of any kind. I’m no more keen on flash mobs than I am on lynch mobs, and at times, Twitter has seemed like both — a place for people to club together in self-righteousness and club down other people whose opinions they disagree with. As one commentator said, “Most Twitter users like to think of themselves as better than Daily Mail readers. [Their moblike] behaviour doesn’t chime well with that.”
And so to politics. For some reason, it’s socially acceptable to tweet regularly about politics, even when it…
Why do you need social media?
I suppose I should start at the start: with an explanation of exactly why you should be using social media. It doesn’t matter what you do: if your business in any way relies on web traffic, and, specifically, your organic page rank in Google, you need to be using social media.
Why? Because Google changed the rules.
I set up my own business as a freelance copywriter at around the time when core SEO strategy was to have a good site, with lots of keywords and information, and a regularly-updated, keyword rich blog that…
It’s London Social Media Week, a 5 day series of events, panel discussions and seminars on social media — how to monetize it, and how to take advantage of it. I thought about dropping in on a couple of seminars and reporting back to you. Then I realised two things:
1) half a dozen other people will be doing the same thing, and at least one of them will be doing it better than me, and
2) I’m not a “social media type”. I don’t tweet, I’m a reluctant user of Facebook, and my tumblr doesn’t have…
Has a song ever made you feel sad? Lonely? Depressed? Of course it has. But has a song ever made you feel sorry for someone else? You tell me.
I’m a big Scott Walker fan. Scott’s a cult singer who started out as a 60s pop crooner who gradually evolved into an experimental noisemaker by way of the dark, lyrical lounge music of Jacques Brel. Imagine if Frank Sinatra got a gig in Vegas and went from playing crowd pleasers to crooning deep numbers about call girls, death and torture, before finally just deciding to pummel a side…
I hate to break it to you, folks — but social media isn’t social. “Social media” is a buzzword. “Social” is something that really happens, really takes place in real time. It’s social to go out for a drink or a meal with friends. It’s social to call someone up on the phone and see how they’re doing. It’s social to have a kick around in the park with your friends on a Saturday or go bowling in the evening. And if you can’t tell the difference between that and an instant message I feel very sorry for you.…