Tom Cooledge

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My thoughts on social media, PR and who, truly, was the very best Thundercat.

23/01/2010 • 11:46 am 1

Unchartered territory

Last week the Crème Egg came back en force. Utilising New Media in every which way, the 2010 reappearance was not only inescapable but, with online gaming and a Facebook fan page, it had a much greater Web 2.0 draw.

Handling several online incarnations of the brand, like this, is here to stay according to Hill & Knowlton’s Tech Decision-makers Study last year. Results confirmed certain Retail Marketers found ‘online social media…as important as traditional media.’ However, it was refreshing to see on industry sites this week that the PR professional is not the only one to pit their skill set against these new, emerging channels.

The pressure to understand and even create new digital interfaces now lies with the Journalist, according to American blogsite Gawker. ‘As if the journalism job landscape wasn’t terrifying enough, now you’ve got to think about learning to code.’ Prompted by the bankruptcy of several US newspapers, ‘Network Journalism’ (coined by academics Bardoel and Deuze) i.e. to devise and maintain Web 2.0 news forums is more economically viable than the traditional press. Also, ‘shovelware’/simply uploading content to a website is no longer sufficient. If the readership or the content requires a new platform, it’s down to the Journalist to create it.

As Clay Shirky points out, though, the rise of Programmers will not negate the difference between ‘people who write code’ and ‘people who are paid to write code.’ The journalist’s trepidation to broach unfamiliar territory could partially be down to the news industry’s incessant eye rolling at those amateurs that ‘dabble’ in Citizen Journalism.

Mercedes Bunz of The Guardian is right to point out that the sooner journalists engage with emerging technology the better; ‘journalists of the future will have more forms of expression than ever before.’ Plus, almost as an incentive, Gawker lists writers such as New York Times’ Nick Bilton who’ve embraced coding, or the ‘nerdy trend’, to their benefit. Gawker’s quite right to infer that coding will ensure the news spans further; the same dream as the early ‘pamphleteer, typesetter, postmaster and newspaper publisher.’

OK, the professionals haven’t always welcomed the reports of the Citizen Journalist but the qualified journalist can maintain their advantage, according to Bunz, as long as he/she continues to ‘value the ethics of journalism.’

Filed under: Coding, pamphleteers, personal journalism, Uncategorized

20/12/2009 • 1:40 pm 1

Cuppa and a heavy duty stapler

So, today I needed some binding done. Unfortunately my Assistant was on holiday, having flown out on Purefiction airlines to the small province of Idontexist. It was down to me to head to our usual binders. 

On arriving, I was turned away having been advised the company was ‘far too busy to handle small jobs.’ It was ‘not what they did’ and ‘not what they wanted to do.’ Back in the warm, with a cuppa and heavy duty stapler, Google showed their business listing in between poor reviews from several credible sources.

Search Engine Results Pages or ‘SERPs’ have ‘changed little during the past 10 years’ according to MediaWeek digital editor Rich Sutcliffe. Since the millennium, we’ve been presented with a very similar format although a wider variety of media (i.e. videos) has become incorporated. Although, it’s likely that maintaining the SERP’s style has given rise to those determined to manipulate it.

Search Engine Optimisation, according to Phillips and Young, ‘is the method by which websites can gain enhanced positions in the organic listings’ of major search engines. By finding the balance between popular search words and phrases specific to a niche, designers can embed words into site’s HTML, content and title to manipulate their search ranking.

To say search engines are used by 93% of web users everyday and a majority of B2B sites are located by engines like Google, this binder’s reputation and CSR is in jeopardy. Their site might look good but the web user might be completely put off by negative previews collated on the same search.

Maybe the organisation in question can take some comfort from the recent scrutiny Google, the world’s preferred engine, is coming under from bloggers such as Julian:

“In some ways Google has set up its giant monopoly in a way that if it ever veers from its “Don’t be Evil” way of thinking, it will lose its monopoly status”

To have a truly unaffected and organic search – as sought by Google – the relationship between the engine and SEO specialists is contradictory. A pure engine, unaffected by marketing opportunities like adwords, would a) affect income and b) reputation – results would be riddled with SPAM.

Like the binders, maximizing profits and maintaining an indignant attitude towards the unworthy might be shrewd but detrimental to a transparent business.

Filed under: personal journalism, SEO

06/12/2009 • 9:24 pm 2

The Perfect Host

I’m aware that I harp on about company Facebook/Twitter presences a lot. It’s just too tempting this week but I promise to change the record for next time.

Justin Hunt wrote about the ongoing divorce between traditional brand advertising and social media this week. ‘Glossy brand messages – one size fits all- do not work well in a social media context.’ He discusses the need to tailor communications to different ‘niches’ rather than the masses. Logical, really, as he refers to Facebook: one of the most personal and easy to personalise utilities out there.

However, fellow blogger Jennifer Whitehead reported recently on a communications initiative to be applied to all Starbucks Facebook fans across 16 countries. The chain intend to bring users from across the globe together tomorrow for a web-cam singalong of The Beatles ‘All You Need Is Love’, raising awareness of its AIDS charity. I’ll admit there’s a worthy cause involved but isn’t this just a ‘one-size fits all’ CSR strategy masquerading as karaoke? Wouldn’t participation just draw a fan’s attention to being simply, as Richard Bailey considers, ‘part of the tribe’?

Yes, but there’s the opportunity to be something more important than a dedicated stakeholder or even philanthropist. That’s why this will be a success.

We have to remember that, as Gillmor considers, we are no longer the audience we once were. We can ‘transcend’ the traditional one-way communications to become part of ‘a larger [two-way] conversation.’ With Web 2.0, we have the chance to become the media rather than be subject to it. It’s not just the elite that are published these days and, in the same vane, singing to the world shouldn’t belong solely to U2 either.

Blogger Fisher has coined the phrase ‘Cyberdisinhibition’ – we’re 20% more likely to lash out or express ourselves in a particular way online than face-to-face. If this is the case, isn’t Starbucks doing something to further facilitate our voice (like Gillmor suggests) and our online persona (as put forward by Fisher)?

I still agree with Hunt when he talks about general brand advertising in Facebook etc. ‘If you were at a party’ he writes ‘you wouldn’t want to be interupted by someone shouting about a product which you did not care about, would you?’ We do not want social networking interrupted by irrelevant messages fighting for our attention. But, if we’re lured into a company forum, their message would be ever present and tolerated at the very least. Starbucks has cleverly repositioned itself here out of being the unwelcome guest at the party to become the perfect host.

Filed under: Gillmor, Online Individual, personal journalism

31/10/2009 • 3:00 pm 2

A fine start…

I’ve always got on fine with computers and I’ve never asked too much. The only reason I went for a laptop with a bigger RAM was to keep FreeCell on the go whilst simultaneously tackling things less important.

A couple of weeks ago, I sat down with my laptop and discussed that I had a blogging assignment now, the likes of which we had never attempted. ‘I’m game, you?’

I got my response two days later when the hard drive imploded.

Despite this headache and major setback, it’s easy to take for granted how easy it is to embark upon ’personal journalism’ as a blogger. As considered by Gillmor’s We the Media, the 18th century pamphleteer worked doggedly with pen on paper, often without the finances to utilise a printing press.

However, with the popularization of the newspaper in the 19th century, being heard over all others was even more difficult. The early newspaper barons exercised a dangerous amount of power over public opinion through their medium; Hearst, for example, supposedly instigated the Spanish-American War in 1898.

As one of the earliest examples of media hype here, a plurality of voices has been proven critical. But, with the blog, it’s far easier in comparison to create something outside of mainstream media. As Gillmor writes:

‘Communications has completed a transformation. The printing press and broadcasting are a one-to-many media. The telephone is one-to-one. Now we had a medium that was anything we wanted it to be: one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many.’

It’s supposedly cheaper too; laptop repairs estimated at £100.00. Ouch.

Filed under: Gillmor, pamphleteers, personal journalism, , ,

About Tom


Tom is a PR professional with six years experience of working within Leeds' creative community. With a background including events management and journalism, he recently graduated with an M(Sc) in Corporate Communications and continues to support high profile clients on national B2B and B2C campaigns.

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