eModeration Blog

Spoof Twitter accounts: marketing headache or the new satire?

2012-05-28T09:00:00.000Z

The Queen and Mark Zuckerberg have one. George Osborne (though only when drunk) has one. Even Angelina Jolie’s right leg has one. Spoof celeb Twitter accounts are taking their place in satire, and becoming the new Spitting Image. And they’re not always unwelcome: Iain Duncan Smith was reportedly unfazed by his spoof alter-ego tweeting such insights as “Last night was messssyyyy!!!! Nothing beats G-A-Y on a Saturday night with Theresa May”.

Sometimes, the laissez faire approach is the best one to take. Being too heavy handed with satirists can make you look humourless at best, and aggressive at worst. But there is a line between spoofing a celebrity (or brand) and impersonating them, however blurred. The spoof @QantasPR account was suspended by Twitter after Qantas complained that it was ‘confusing customers’, which goes against Twitter’s rule that: “You may not impersonate others through the Twitter service in a manner that does or is intended to mislead, confuse, or deceive others”.

However, Twitter recognises the value of these parody accounts and their loyal followers, and has actually created guidelines for them, which emphasise that the spoof account should be named as such (e.g .‘@NotCelebrity’) and that the bio should clearly state that the account is a parody.
Cricketer Shane Warne was among those to be fooled by the spoof account, when Qantas lost his luggage in January this year. Marketingexposure.net reports him tweeting: “I thought you were meant to look after Australians, not be sarcastic…You too often are late, cancel flights and lose luggage.” He followed it up with: “Actually your lack of sympathy towards all those passengers you left stranded is quite simply staggering. SORRY might help everyone.”

The spoof of 2011 (and my personal favourite) was the much-loved @ShippamsPaste (“hi i used to be the social media EXECUTIVE intern for shippams paste!!! i tweeted to help you engage with our brand!!! but it turned out i wasnt real ”). There was much debate about whether the tweets were ‘brilliant parody’ from the brand itself, but in fact “Ben”, the social media intern (later promoted to ‘social media EXECUTIVE intern’) behind the account turned out to be Ed Jefferson, an account manager from London. Shippam’s felt they were losing control of how the brand was portrayed online. ‘Ben’ was getting real questions from consumers, and answering them ("theres no vegetarian pastes sorry but why not try the crab spread its only crabs"). As a result, Twitter ordered Ben to make the joke clear, and in November 2011 the tweets stopped. Shippam’s spokesperson Paul Smith, quoted on the BBC, showed the brand ‘got the joke’, saying: “I know people will miss Ben. He really touched a chord with people.”

Less funny, perhaps (from the brand’s perspective at least), is BP’s spoof account, @bpglobalpr. Tweets such as: “ATTN Smokers: Do you love messing with carcinogens, but you hate the taste? Eat gulf shrimp! #FDA #bpcares” and (this in response to a concerned consumer) “We're sorry you're upset. Please send us your address to receive a free* "bp cares" t-shirt? *$25 shipping” can’t help an already troubled reputation.

Where spoof accounts really have the potential to do reputational damage is when they are mistakenly picked up by media. There were red faces across CNN and Huffington Post recently when both titles reported stories based on tweets from an account that claimed to be from North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue. In the UK, the Media blog reports a Daily Mail story that Katie Price had used her Twitter account to take a swipe at new mum Stacey Solomon (the tweet actually came from a spoof account @MissKatiePriice. The real Ms Price then took her own swipe at the Daily Mail for not checking sources properly).

Faking tweets isn’t completely alien to Ms Price, who found herself at the centre of an advertising-based Twitter storm, when Mars used her to send ‘out of character’ tweets on the Eurozone debt. The tweets ended with a picture of her eating a Snickers bar, with the line: “You’re not you when you’re hungry @snickersUk #hungry #spon”. While the campaign was cleared by the ASA, ads were criticised for not marking clearly that they were sponsored.

The truth is that many spoof accounts are very funny – and make much better reading than the marketing puff of the original. There’s a lesson here for marketers – humour travels. But it’s not always a pleasant experience, so here’s our advice on how to deal with a spoof Twitter account:

1. Make it harder to spoof in the first place. Own your brand name on Twitter, and all reasonable variations of it, and manage the account so it’s visible.

2. Decide whether your reputation will suffer more damage by the spoof account, or by shutting it down (remember Nestle’s attempt to remove Greenpeace content from YouTube?). Abusive, offensive or spammy tweets from an account that purports to be from your brand is going to do you harm, and should be shut down. If it’s funny, or harmless, you could look overly confrontational by reporting it. Consider asking the account holder to make clear that the account is a spoof, to avoid genuine confusion.

3. If you feel you are being impersonated (as opposed to gently ridiculed) report it to Twitter by filing a report ticket. Twitter lists: brandmark and trademark complains; breach of privacy; copyright complaints; impersonation; name squatting among its terms violations (and of course all illegal, pornographic or spam content).

Twitter do have a verification system in place to confirm whether an account holder is who they claim to be. Any account with a blue verified badge on their Twitter profile is a verified account. Whether or not is effective, free to use - or indeed in operation - is a moot point, as the recent case of the (verified) @Wendy_Deng account demonstrated in January this year. In fact, tweets such as (to Ricky Gervais): "i think you look HOT ricky!!! (sssh dont tell @rupertmurdoch!)" weren’t coming from Murdoch’s wife at all but a bored British man living in London.

However, let’s not be too hard on Twitter for that one. Apparently, even News International was initially fooled:

“A News International spokeswoman said that she had had many conversations about the authenticity of Rupert Murdoch's account on Monday and if she confirmed the Wendi Deng fake account to be genuine late in the day, it was an accident.”

What does it take to give? Great Ormond Street children need YOU!

2012-05-25T10:32:00.002Z

It's that time of year again. Birds are singing, the grass is greening - and every other minute you're being asked for sponsorship for a charity run. And to be really honest, that's exactly what this post is about. I'm very much hoping that as it's Friday and hopefully the sun is shining where you are, your compassion fatigue is running low and you'll keep reading ...

eModeration has put another team together this year for Race for Kids, in aid of Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, to raise much-needed funding for equipment and care. If you don't know Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH), it's an extraordinary place, leading the world in the treatment of childhood illness and cancers. GOSH provides inspirational and world-class care to hundreds of children every day. But it needs to raise over £50 million every year to help keep the magic alive: sadly it just can't do all that is needed under the NHS. The hospital is battling with buildings that are nearing the end of their useful lives and must urgently be replaced. Without the current redevelopment project, advances in technology and treatments will not be so readily translated into real improvements in the care of sick children.

Take a look at what GOSH has done to tranform the lives of Lara, Georgia, Dominic and Oliver - and so many others. The money that I'm really really hoping you will pledge helps the hospital to build state of the art facilities, develop new treatments, provide the best equipment and support their remarkable patients and their families.

Running, walking, dancing and puffing their way round the 5km for eModeration will be Rebecca, Blaise, Janice, Fiona, Delphine, Anke and Lisa. I happen to know that this run is going to be a big ask physically for a couple of them who have injuries, and as our staff live all over the world, two of the team are flying in especially for the race at their cost. Please join me in thanking them in the best way you can - click through to their sponsorship page and help them raise £2000 for the children who need the care that Great Ormond Street can give with all our help.

Visit http://my.raceforthekids.co.uk/emoderation to give anything you can - every little helps. I'm going to come back to this post after the race and tell you how much we raised, and put each and every one of our lovely sponsors into an eMod Roll of Honour :-)

Top Twitter abbreviations you need to know

2012-05-22T12:22:00.000Z

by Bliss Hanlin, a Community Manager for eModeration

Twitter abbreviations and acronyms are an odd mash-up of text slang, old school chat room phrases, common sense short forms and corporate buzzwords. There is nothing more terrible than parsing a customer tweet and finding out what you once thought was a compliment was really a product slam or worse, a drug reference. (Small personal anecdote – for the longest time, I thought HAGN was some form of Scandinavian slang for good-bye.)

While not quite a comprehensive dictionary of all things Twitter.com, what follows below is a quick-print glossary of common Twitter abbreviations. Notice one we missed? We would love to include it and credit you for the spot. Just leave a note for us in the comments.

image courtesy of Twittonary.com

Technical Twitter abbreviations:
•    CC = Carbon-copy. Works the same way as email
•    CX = Correction
•    CT = Cuttweet. Another way of saying partial retweet
•    DM = Direct message. A direct-message is a message only you and the person who sent it can read
•    HT = Hat tip. This is a way of attributing a link to another Twitter user
•    MT = Modified tweet. This means the tweet you're looking at is a paraphrase of a tweet originally written by someone else
•    PRT = Partial retweet. The tweet you're looking at is the truncated version of someone else's tweet.
•    PRT = Please retweet, a plea to put at the end of a tweet
•    RT = Retweet. The tweet you're looking at was forwarded to you by another user

Industry Twitter abbreviations:
•    EM = Email Marketing
•    EZine = Electronic Magazine
•    FB = Facebook
•    LI = LinkedIn
•    SEO = Search Engine Optimization
•    SM = Social Media
•    SMM = Social Media Marketing
•    SMO = Social Media Optimization
•    SN = Social Network
•    SROI = Social Return on Investment
•    UGC = User Generated Content
•    YT = YouTube

Conversational abbreviations:
•    # = start to a hashtag, or a way of organizing subjects on Twitter
•    <3 = heart, love
•    AB/ABT = About
•    AFAIK = As far as I know
•    AYFKMWTS = Are you f---ing kidding me with this s---?
•    B4 = Before
•    BFN = Bye for now
•    BGD = Background
•    BH = Blockhead
•    BR = Best regards
•    BTW = By the way
•    CD9 = Code 9, parents are around
•    CHK = Check
•    CUL8R = See you later
•    DAM = Don’t annoy me
•    DD = Dear daughter
•    DF = Dear fiancé
•    DP = used to mean “profile pic”
•    DS = Dear son
•    DYK = Did you know, Do you know
•    EM/EML = Email
•    EMA = Email address
•    F2F /FTF = Face to face
•    FB = Facebook, F--- buddy
•    FF = Follow Friday
•    FFS = For F---‘s Sake
•    FML = F--- my life.
•    FOTD = Find of the day
•    FTW = For the win, F--- the world
•    FUBAR = F---ed up beyond all repair (slang from the US Military)
•    FWIW = For what it's worth.
•    GMAFB = Give me a f---ing break
•    GTFOOH = Get the f--- out of here
•    GTS = Guess the song
•    HAGN = Have a good night
•    HAND = Have a nice day
•    HOTD = Headline of the day
•    HT = Heard through
•    HTH = Hope that helps
•    IC = I see
•    ICYMI = "In case you missed it," a quick way to apologize for retweeting your own material
•    IDK = I don't know
•    IIRC = If I remember correctly
•    IMHO = In my humble opinion.
•    IRL = In real life
•    IWSN = I want sex now
•    JK = Just kidding, joke
•    JSYK = Just so you know
•    JV = Joint venture
•    KK = Kewl kewl, or ok, got it
•    KYSO = Knock your socks off
•    LHH = Laugh hella hard (stronger version of LOL)
•    LMAO = Laughing my ass off
•    LMK = Let me know
•    LO = Little One (child)
•    LOL = Laugh out loud
•    MM = Music Monday
•    MIRL = Meet in real life
•    MRJN = Marijuana
•    NBD = No big deal
•    NCT = Nobody cares, though
•    NFW = No f---ing way
•    NJoy = Enjoy
•    NSFW = Not safe for work
•    NTS = Note to self
•    OH = Overheard
•    OMFG = Oh my f---ing God
•    OOMF = One of my friends/followers
•    ORLY = Oh, really?
•    PLMK = Please let me know
•    PNP = Party and Play (drugs and sex)
•    QOTD = quote of the day
•    RE = In reply to, in regards to
•    RLRT = Real-life re-tweet, a close cousin to OH
•    RTFM = Read the f---ing manual
•    RTQ = Read the question
•    SFW = Safe for work
•    SMDH = Shaking my damn head, SMH, only more so
•    SMH = Shaking my head
•    SNAFU = Situation normal, all f---ed up (slang from the US Military)
•    SO = Significant Other
•    SOB = Son of a B----
•    SRS = Serious
•    STFU = Shut the f--- up!
•    STFW = Search the f---ing web!
•    TFTF = Thanks for the follow
•    TFTT = Thanks for this tweet
•    TJ = Tweetjack, or joining a conversation belatedly to contribute to a tangent
•    TL = Timeline
•    TLDR/TL;DR = Too long, didn’t read
•    TMB = Tweet me back
•    TT = Trending topic
•    TY = Thank you
•    TYIA = Thank you in advance
•    TYT = Take your time
•    TYVW = Thank you very much
•    W or W/ = With
•    W/E or WE = Whatever or weekend
•    WTV = Whatever
•    YGTR = You got that right
•    YKWIM = You know what I mean
•    YKYAT = You know you're addicted to
•    YMMV = Your mileage may vary
•    YOLO = You only live once
•    YOYO = You're on your own
•    YW = You're welcome
•    ZOMG = OMG to the max

Common hashtags and chats:
•   #BrandChat = private chat about branding
•   #CMAD = Community Manager Appreciation Day
•   #CMGR = Community Manger topic chat
•   #FB = The user is sending this post to Facebook
•   #FF = Short way of saying Follow Friday, or a recommendation that others follow the user
•   #in = the user is sending this post to LinkedIn
•   #LI = This user is sending this post to LinkedIn
•   #LinkedInChat = For general use questions and questions about marketing/self-promotion on LinkedIn
•   #Mmchat = Marketing and social media chat
•   #Pinchat = a chat for maximizing Pinterest use
•   #SMManners = Social media manners chat
•   #SMMeasure = For discussion of analytics and mesaurement, lead by MarketWire and Syomos
•   #SMOchat = Social Media Optimization chat lead by Stanzr
•   #SocialChat = Social media chat lead by SocialParle.
•   #SocialMedia = an all-inclusive chat for subjects big and small in the subject of Social Media

Many thanks to Business Insider, Webopedia, and the Twittonary for their excellent information that helped pave the way for this Twitter abbreviation compilation and to Mashable for the compilation of social media Twitter chats. Looking for an explanation of Twitter terms, phrases, neologisms and slang that go beyond abbreviations? Be sure to click through to see the awesome resources they have made available.

Social media guide to the Olympics Part II: The Golden Rules and other practical guidelines

2012-05-17T16:11:00.000Z

By Rachel Boothroyd, General Counsel at eModeration

71 days and counting to the very first 'Social Olympics' here in London. As a social media marketing professional, do you know yet what you can and can't say about the Olympics?

In last week's blog we looked at the UK legislation that social media professionals need to be aware of when tweeting/posting/blogging about this huge global event. Check it out; but don't expect enlightenment - it's complex and in practical terms is about as clear as the muddy puddles all round London right now.

In this Part II we ask 'what does this really mean?' for those of us sitting at a keyboard, creating campaigns, moderating content, creating guidelines and making those day-to-day decisions about what we can and cannot do around the 2012 Olympics.
This post suggests some practical rules to follow for social media professionals working for brands who are NOT sponsoring the 2012 Games (that's most of us, right?) who are dealing with content that is:
(i) not created by an athlete, volunteer, official or other attendee at an event; and
(ii) not created on behalf of a sponsor brand; and
(iii) not from a private individual just doing it for fun with no commercial gain.

THE GOLDEN RULES

Part I of this blog described the broad-reaching LOAR (London Olympics Association Right). The key to not infringing the LOAR and posting legitimate Olympics-related content is not to create an association between the brand and the Olympics. The tricky issue is how do we create a rule for this broad, subjective test?

In my view, there are two Golden Rules: (i) post only certain types of content (from the 'you can' list below or other exemptions - see Part I); and (ii) keep a check on relative quality of permitted-category social media output about the Olympics.

For most established, active social communities, to completely ignore this huge global event would be a bit odd. But we are not permitted to create an association. Where does the balance lie? I suggest that to find the permitted level, simply keep a close watch on the relative quantity of output. One tweet (in a permitted category - see below) referring to the Olympics amongst many would probably be ok. An intensive period of tweeting about the Olympics would not. Essentially use this rule as a quantitative guide to help you measure the subjective test of whether you at risk of breaching the LOAR and creating an association with London 2012.

A health warning here - this quantity measure is our own 'Golden Rule'. It is not mentioned in the legislation. Nor is it referred to in any of the LOCOG guidance. To us it does make most sense for social media content when applying the advertising guidance from LOCOG to non-sponsor businesses. Essentially, social media content for brands is advertising material. And the LOCOG guidance on advertising features states : "Do provide relevant, factual information to clients and customers in a way which does not promote your business in association with the Games. (For example, one section on the Games amongst several in a regular client bulletin or seminar)."

Do's and Don'ts

So, with this Golden Rule always in mind, here are some more general do's and don'ts regarding the content itself:

You can (if it is not completely out of context for your brand to make a comment on a sporting event):

give relevant, accurate, factual information;
report on the facts of an event (e.g. The Olympics starts today!!);
state when an event is taking place (e.g. 100m race in 5 minutes).

You should:

moderate pictures, video or audio from events to be posted on your social media sites by applying the special rules applying to participants and attendees as you would any other potentially copyright infringing content (see part III of this blog);
update moderation guidelines to cater for the Olympics legislation;
consider re-tweets in the same way as your own tweets when applying these restrictions;
be cautious, moderate and appropriate when linking to any content that refers to the Olympics. Linking rules to London2012.com have been published by LOCOG in section 5 of their terms of use.

You shouldn't (unless an exemption or defence applies (see Part I) or one of the 'can do' list above):

use the Olympic symbols, the words 'Olympics', 'Paralympics' or any derivation of those words;
use the Listed Expressions (2 from List A or one from each list - for details, see Part I);

You mustn't:

run a marketing campaign to get your brand associated with the Olympics;
encourage Olympics themed-responses from your community;
run a competition for Olympics tickets;
give specific expressions of support (e.g. "Go Team GB in London 2012!") or excitement/enthusiasm suggesting a connection with the brand (e.g. "everyone here at Brand X so excited about the Olympics!")
mention a specific product or service in connection with the Games (e.g. "London 2012 athletes should drink Brand X for energy")
sponsor London 2012 broadcasts or reports

Specific types of social content

Let's get even more practical and look at the nitty-gritty of what a type of social network postings we could be talking about. Please note: the Golden Rule about relative quantity of output (so you don't create an association and infringe the LOAR) must always be applied to each one.

Re-tweeting Olympics comments from the general public This is a super-grey area in this sea of greyness. In our view, if a brand re-tweets a consumer's tweet then it takes on responsibility for the content in that tweet as its own. Check out our blog on the subject. That is certainly the view of the ASA in terms of advertising compliance. So if you would not be permitted to say that yourself, you don't get a 'free pass' as a re-tweet.

Re-tweeting @London2012 comments

OK.

Linking to Olympics-related blogs
Links to blogs can be seen as an incorporation of that blog. And if it is an Olympic-related blog that does not comply with the rules above, don't do it.

Factual information about the events
OK.

Expressions of support for athletes
Avoid. LOCOG has specifically given the example of "BRAND X supports our team at the Olympics" as a forbidden message. So a post on a brand's social media platform expressing support (e.g. "Go Team GB!") could be interpreted as having the same impact.

Expressions of enthusiasm about the events
OK with caution so long as not specific (see Part III of this blog) and not suggesting a connection with the brand (e.g. "Olympics opening ceremony was awesome! Well done @London2012")

Running commentary on an event
In theory OK but likely to be difficult to follow the Golden Rule due to the intensive period of posts. Ideally avoid.

Encouraging participation/comments/discussion around Olympic events/participants from your community
We think this would be likely to be seen as an attempt to create an association. Avoid.

Pictures of London/stadia/crowds/events around the Olympics
Avoid if possible and if used, then apply enormous caution. We know this means the Pinterest options are limited. But LOCOG has said that even a picture of a runner in outline carrying something that looks similar to a torch against a silhouette of London landmarks would infringe the LOAR by creating an association. Essentially avoid any image that suggests an association with the London Olympics.

Posts (words) on your site/Facebook page/Pinterest page other forum from your community about or from the Olympics
This one is subject to debate! Does UGC on your site or Facebook page become a marketing communication for your brand? One of the issues here is re-purposing. If you select an image from a user and pin it as a brand image on, say, your Facebook or Pinterest page, you are repurposing the image as marketing material for the brand and thus bringing it within the restrictions. This is something we've considered in our blog before.

For content posted by users but not 'repurposed by the brand', a cautious approach would be to remove this type of content just in case. A more 'commercial' approach would perhaps be to allow the conversation to happen but not to participate in it on the part of the brand. Keep the content under review and if it starts to take over your site/forum or Facebook page then consider removing on the basis that if it becomes too dominant it could start to create an association between the brand and the Olympics i.e. even if it is not content originated by the brand, keep applying the Golden Rules.

Posts (video, audio, pictures) your site/Facebook page/Pinterest page other forum from your community from the Olympics
This is likely to be infringing content - suggestions as to how to assess this will be in Part III of this blog. As such, it should be treated the same as your brand would treat any other intellectual property right infringing content and be removed.

Campaigns about sporting excellence
If there is no reference to the Olympics in words or pictures, no reference to London but just a reference to sporting excellence, winning, running fast etc. this is likely to be ok. Remember to keep a watch out for use of the Listed Expressions.

Patriotic campaigns
Never have there been so many British flags featured in campaigns (or so it feels right now). OK we have the Queen's Jubilee and Wimbledon, but the Olympics certainly contributes significantly to this flag-waving spirit. Despite all the restrictions, participating in the general mood of patriotism that can surround the Olympics does not breach the legislation - provided that there is no subtle suggestion or link to the Olympics. Remember to keep a watch out for use of the Listed Expressions.

Other than that, wave your (social) flags and enjoy!

In the final part of this series of posts on the Olympics rules (which we aim to post next week), we will look at content from athletes, volunteers, attendees and officials. There are actual social media guidelines on this and the penalties for mis-use for those involved could be severe. We will also examine the enforcement regime and look at how these restrictions apply internationally.

From the mouths of babes: learnings from children at the Digikids Conference

2012-05-15T13:03:00.000Z

By Jennifer M Puckett: US Production Director at eModeration

Last month I was invited to speak on a panel at the Digital Kids Conference, held this year in Pasadena, California. Now in its sixth year (and previously known as “Engage! Expo”), Digital Kids focuses on youth online and digital entertainment, and draws industry leaders worldwide, from such brands as Disney, LEGO Group, National Football League, Cartoon Network, Ubisoft, Sony Online, Mind Candy,Google, Yahoo! Kids, The NPD Group, and many more..

Panels included topics such as: “The State of Mobile Kids”, “Family Gaming”, and and, of course, my own panel on “Tech Scaling and Toolsets”. Leaving aside my own contribution, for me the most engaging panel was the Kids Focus Group: “What Are They Playing? Where Are They Spending?”

Kids’ panels are always fun, but this panel was just such a breath of fresh air I couldn’t resist sharing the findings. Engaging as well as educational, it consisted of 10 kids, aged 5-13, and was moderated by Jori Clarke - CEO of Circle 1 Network. Questions ranged from types of games they like to play, mobile app games they download and how they use technology in general. Below is a summary of the most interesting questions and answers:

“How many of you use a tablet, like an iPad or Kindle?” - 10 out of 10 said yes.
“How many of you download mobile app games?” - 7 out of 10 raised their hands.
“Who do you go to when you want to buy an app?” - Mom is the “soft touch” to getting money for games. However, the panel shared some best strategies for getting her to cough up the cash: making sure mom was relaxing on the couch was a good tactic ..! Doing your chores ahead of time was also quite effective. Chores ranged from making your bed to helping with dishes. Some even resorted to more emotional strategy: such as making breakfast for mom, and “being extra loving, and giving extra hugs” was a winner.

The most encouraging and thought-provoking question asked came from the audience about their online safety:

“Has anyone ever said or written anything that made you feel uncomfortable or scared?”
General consensus is that yes, all of the kids have had one or another kind of “weird” experience, but what was refreshing was how adept they were at handling the situation themselves. The most popular solutions were to mute the offender, or turn off their headphones, or remove them from their friends lists.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/wizzer/

What was not stated but clearly stood out, was how easy it was for kids to identify what made them uncomfortable, and how easily they resolved the problem. This is so encouraging for those of us that work in the field of family-friendly digital entertainment.

An interesting side-note came from the tween-aged male panelists. When asked what games they are playing on game consoles, the most popular answers were games such as GTA (Grand Theft Auto) and Mass Effect 3. Both aimed at mature audiences. So what does this mean? Are parents playing alongside their children? Are children playing these games unbeknownst to their parents, or are parents unaware of how much game content focuses on mature subject matter? Probably a combination of the three.

Whatever the reason, it is important to make note that they are in fact enjoying products with a mature context. Understanding any potential for negative effects will require much more research. I do believe that all products have a responsibility to their users’ enjoyment (and therefore, safety). Parents would do well to understand the games their children enjoy, listen to their children talk about their gaming experiences, and educate themselves in order to properly empower their children to make smart decisions.

Most of us that work in youth online entertainment are passionate not just about engagement and fun, but also making sure that they can enjoy the products in a safe, happy and supportive environment. We tend to get so focused on those that are testing the rules, finding ways to get around our well-managed filters, and bullying others that we forget to appreciate the players that are in fact, identifying problem-people and make smart decisions about their own gaming enjoyment.

The best part of this means that the new generation of digital citizens are becoming well-equipped to continue the safety discussion and teach younger individuals (as well as us seasoned professionals!) what works, and what doesn’t, to protect and empower young people online.

These youths had a standing-room only room full of tired, conference-weary game developers, marketers, community managers and others in stitches with laughter at their blunt honesty and emotional rawness. Truly the best way to end a conference!

eModeration LOTW: social media overload and mobile love

2012-05-13T17:05:00.001Z

A social media links bonanza from a (mostly) US perspective.

Enjoy!

Shameless posting of non-related KitKat ad archived at Coloribus.
It was just too good not to share.

Let KitKat post that for you

Nestle, the makers of KitKat candy bars and owners of the "Give me a break" and "Have a break, have a KitKat" tag lines, are planning on easing the social media networking upkeep burden that apparently is weighing heavily on young users by creating a service that will post random updates for them. The software, Social Break, automatically sends random updates to users' Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn accounts. It will be officially launched in Singapore later this week and is free to download from kitkat.com.sg/socialbreak. "Social media used to be fun. It shouldn't be an obligation, it shouldn't be another life we have to maintain," says Valerie Cheng, executive creative director of JWT's Singapore, which was hired by Nestle to develop the app. Asia is home to some of the biggest social media populations in the world. Socialbakers, a service which monitors usage, lists Indonesia, India and the Philippines among the top 10 countries on Facebook.

5 strategies to manage tech overload
While we feel pretty solid on the social network management front, we are getting a tad overwhelmed by the sheer number of apps, screens, dashboards, doohickeys, and tech bricks we interact with day to day. Dean Kackridas's piece for FearlessRevolution on managing the flood is both timely and insightful.

How people spend time online

Ever wondered how many people are online, where they hang out and what they do?

This infographic of how people spend time online by web services company Go-Gulf takes a shot at beautifying the global stats. (Apparently, 82% of people who use online services have searched for directions, making the rumor that Apple for iOS6 is planning on dropping Google maps in favor of proprietary mapping technology much more intriguing.)

More time spent on Facebook mobile than Facebook web

A recent report on the state of mobile from ComScore shows that people spend more time viewing and interacting with Facebook via the mobile version than the web version. A total of 441 minutes per month is spent using Facebook via a mobile phone, compared to just 391 minutes per month accessing the classic full website. This week, Facebook warned potential investors in its IPO that the more people who access it from mobile instead of the web, the worse its business is doing. Mark Zuckerberg says that transforming its mobile and advertising experience are top priorities for 2012. Clock is ticking on that, Mark.

(Judy Lathrop, Community Manager at eModeration, contributed to this week's links round-up. Thanks, Judy!)

Social media guide to the Olympics Part I: legal overview

2012-05-11T12:30:00.001Z

by Rachel Boothroyd, Legal Counsel, eModeration

As the torch is lit and we approach the 30th Olympiad in London, the excitement is unmistakeable. Add to that the fact that this is being dubbed the 'first social Olympics' and we're positively abuzz.

It may be hard to believe, but just 4 years ago there was no official integration of the Beijing Olympics with social media platforms. At that time Facebook and Twitter had 100m and 6m users respectively. Today's user figures are 845 million and 140 million respectively and we have sanctioned integration with the official Olympics hub.

With those factors what more perfect environment do we have for social community engagement?

But, but, but...as most of us are aware of by now, there is a suite of fiendish (not a technical legal term but you know what I mean) legislation surrounding use of anything to do with the London Olympics. Legislation in the host country is enacted specifically for each Olympic Games, and the laws created for London are the most stringent that have ever been created and involve some concepts new to the Olympics.

Now, I'm not a novice in this area - I have a degree, a diploma in Intellectual Property and have been a specialist in this area of law for nearly 18 years - and yet to interpret the network of legislation and guidance for the London Olympic Games as it applies to social media usage is a ... challenge. LOCOG (the organisation with responsibility and authority for the London Games) has issued some helpful guidance for brands and advertisers generally. But the application to social media still presents particular questions.

We are aware that there a lot of moderators, community managers and agencies both in London and globally who need to know what is and is not permitted around the Olympics. So here is Part I of our three part as-user-friendly-as-possible guide to social media usage around the Big Event.

This first blog gives an overview of the legislation, particularly as it applies to brands who have not purchased sponsorship rights to the London Olympics.

The most important question is: where is the proposed content coming from?

(i) From people directly involved with the Olympics in some way; this could be:

an "accredited person" (athlete, coach, trainer, official, accredited journalist)?
a volunteer ("Games Maker")?
a ticket holder in an Olympic venue?

If so, special rules apply, that last only for the Olympic Period (18 July to 15 August 2012). LOCOG has published specific social media guidelines for this type of content. This is a whole blog in itself which we'll post next week.

(ii) From Joe Public - are you a private individual, tweeting or blogging just for fun?

So long as you are not in category (i) above and don't get any commercial benefit from your blogs/tweets (no advertising, no affiliate schemes, no paid-for promotions, no book deals etc.), then you are pretty much free to comment and talk about the Olympics. Although do remember that the usual rules about copyright in photos, audio and video apply and to take care with trade marks.

(iii) From brands

So that 'just' leaves the industry of social media - businesses, agencies, individuals who are creating and engaging in dialogue with their communities. The beauty of social media is the direct engagement between brands and their customers, the ability to blur distinctions between 'them' and 'us', to genuinely participate in community together. It is this blurring and dialogue created by social media that makes application of the legal rules surrounding the London Olympics so difficult.
This blog delves into the legal framework for this type of content.

The legislation for brands

In legal terms the key legislation here in the UK is the London Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Act 2006 ("the Act"). Countries around the world have enacted similar legislation. For our purposes, the Act and prior legislation created two key rights:
(1) the 'Olympic Association Right' (OAR) and 'Paralympic Association Right' (PAR); and
(2) the 'London Olympic Association Right' (LOAR).

(1) OAR/PAR is about rights to use the well known symbols and representations associated with all Olympics. These are rights we are familiar with from previous Olympic Games. See the LOCOG brand guidance for a full list.

(2) LOAR is a new right created specifically for the London Olympics. The LOAR is a right to be "associated with" the London Olympics. This sounds broad, vague and far-reaching because it is. Essentially if whatever use of whatever content you are making might create an association for customers/users/readers with the London Olympics, this will be a breach of the LOAR. It is the most far-reaching intellectual property right known and highly subjective. Concrete examples are needed to understand how it works - see Part II for more detail on this.

The key legal points to know about for OAR and LOAR are:

infringement requires use, in the course of trade, in relation to goods or services and without the owners' (i.e. the Olympics authorities') consent;
if you are accused of use of the OAR/PAR (i.e. classic Olympics representations), the usual burden of proof is reversed i.e. you are guilty unless you can prove you are innocent *gulp*;
for LOAR infringement, the usual burden of proof applies. i.e. innocent unless proven guilty.
defences and exemptions apply to both. I've outlined these below.

Other prohibitions to be aware of include:

no use of Olympics tickets as part of competitions;
no holding of conferences or seminars on the topic of the Olympics.

The exemptions and defences to infringement
It is safe to use the Olympic symbols and words where there is a defence or exemption. The most relevant specific defences/exemptions to the OAR/LOAR are where the content in question is:

a statement which "accords with honest practices" as this will not create an association. LOCOG clarified that key factors here are: is the statement true and accurate? Is there any suggestion or implication of a connection with the Olympics? Is there any unfairness to the interests of the Olympic authorities (and presumably their official sponsors)? Is the context of use relevant?

part of publishing or broadcasting a report or information about the Olympics. This must be a genuine journalistic report. No sponsoring of news conferences is permitted (e.g. "news report brought to you by Brand X"). LOCOG has specified that this does not apply to "marketing collateral" such as corporate newsletters. A potential grey area is where a brand might report on events via its social media channels - we look at this in more detail in Part II of this blog.

OAR: If you use Olympic symbols or words, warning signs should be flashing

Any commercial social media posting that includes the classic Olympic symbols or the words Olympics, Paralympics or derivations of these should be a massive warning symbol to check. Without the consent of the Olympics authorities, use of these in any commercial social feed that is not covered by any of the Defences (see above), will be an infringement.

In essence, a good rule of thumb to apply is: always avoid the symbols and words connected with Olympics/Paralympics unless it is really nothing to do with the Olympics or it is a genuine facts-only report which is not unfair or suggesting a connection i.e. like this blog.

LOAR: we can't be 'associated with' the London Olympics - how broad is this?

The Act defines "associated with" as suggesting any kind of contractual or commercial relationship, any kind of corporate connection or provision of financial or other support (i.e. free services or sponsorship).

In our view, the broad scope of this right is, in a sense, an acknowledgement of the creativity of agencies and brands past and present. Incidents from Olympic Games past such as Linford Christie wearing contact lenses showing a white puma (Puma were not a sponsor) at the Atlanta Games mean that the Olympic powers-that-be decided to turn the legislative approach for London 2012 on its head; instead of giving rules the London 2012 LOAR laws focus on the overall impact of any activity.

Trade mark law (generally and for previous Olympic Games) usually has specific and fairly clear rules re what you can and cannot do. Historically, at the Olympics non-sponsor brands have always found very creative ways to get around and become associated with the Olympics without paying the huge sponsorship fees (otherwise known as "ambush marketing"). The new LOAR rules aim to put a stop to this. For London 2012, we have a subjective, results-based approach with some general guidance. This means there is no real way to get around it and win. If a brand succeeds in being associated with the Olympics without being a sponsor, it is in breach of the LOAR.

LOCOG's guidance suggests that any "concerted marketing campaigns or promotional events framed around the Games" are likely create an association and thus infringe the LOAR.

So, we have a subjective, results-based test: does the brand's content or is proposed campaign likely to or intended to create an association with the Olympics in the mind of the user? If so, it's likely to infringe the LOAR.

There are some words to watch for to help us check when we might breach this LOAR. These are called the Listed Expressions:

List A : "games", "two thousand and twelve", "2012" and "twenty twelve";
List B: "gold", "silver", "bronze", "London", "medals", "sponsor" and "summer".

If you use two words from List A (e.g. 2012 Games) together or one from List A with one from List B (Gold Games), this is something that a court 'may...take account of' when deciding infringement of the LOAR.

So, another rule of thumb is watch out for combinations of these Listed Expressions and assess that content in more detail before publishing.

All clear then? OK maybe not. In fact, what we are finding with our community management and moderation teams is that the subjectivity of the LOAR legal test means it is tough to create guidelines (although there have been some helpful publications on this, particularly this report from The Guardian and yesterday's CAP quiz to LOCOG).

What we have found very useful is to look at specific examples of what the LOAR means in practice for social media professionals. Here is the Do's and Do's list - a handy guide to what you should and shouldn't say about the Olympics.

How brands can engage teens online

2012-05-09T16:14:00.000Z

by Tamara Littleton, CEO, eModeration

Brands are becoming quite good at connecting with adult fans online. Most know the best ways to entice fans into ‘liking’ them on Facebook or replying to them on Twitter. Targeting a teen audience, however, is a whole different challenge. An audience of teens makes for a more volatile, less predictable community. Trends that take months to play out in an adult world can come and go in days. Teens aren’t just slightly shorter adults – they’re a whole different market and should be treated as such. Teens may seem impossible to engage, but it can be done if the brand follows some basic principles (if you’d like to know more, do watch this video seminar on teenagers and social media that includes presentations from Paul LaFontaine from Sulake (Habbo Hotel), Dr Barbie Clarke, founder of Family Kids and Youth and eModeration's own Tia Fisher.)

Click on the image to go to the video

Create an authentic voice which is genuine, non-corporate and human sounding (after all, you’re not trying to engage shareholders here – it’s all about the teens). The voice needs to be true and sustainable (teens can spot a faker a mile off and there’s nothing less engaging than being patronised). Brands that succeed in crafting a voice that is in touch with this audience – who know what they want but don’t try to ‘get down with the kids’ and look foolish – can foster a genuine connection with teens. And you can use this voice to engage with your market rather more frequently than you would do with adults. Teens only go offline when forced to do so, and it’s all about ‘social’. You can become part of their ongoing dialogues with the world.

Be authentic. Teens are smart. They understand that adults make promises and break them, and that on occasion they lie. But this means that they’re also often unforgiving. Brands that lie, or break promises to their teen audience will have a lot of explaining to do. A teen who’s saved up pocket money for months to afford the latest must-have computer game isn’t going to appreciate a three month production delay. If you mess up, apologise and explain what happened. Yes, you might get a certain level of stick for your mistake, but fans will really appreciate being able to know what went wrong and what you’re doing to fix it.

Most importantly, don’t pretend to be something that you’re not. You need to be interested in them and their interests – but don’t try to pretend you *are* a teen. That’s either creepy, embarrassing or just plain unsuccessful – your audience will sniff you out, know that you don’t understand or care what they want, and will not engage.

Dialogue not monologue. It’s not about the brand. About how wonderful the brand is or what fantastic things it’s doing. It should be about the teens and what the brand can do for them. Publishing a stream of tweets advertising the awesomeness of the brand won’t do anything to achieve that. Creating conversations, or even jumping into existing conversations between fans, is a much more effective way to build a relationship with a teen audience. Asking fans for advice, what their favourite lines are in your clothes shops, or what items they’d like to see in their virtual world, are all ways to prove to your teen audience how much your brand values them. It’s always better to do than to say. If they like your brand, they’ll be happy that you’re consulting them and have taken the time to talk to them.

Mob mentality is something that brands targeting teens have to deal with every day. It’s not going to make headline news if I say that teens can, at times, be a bit on the sensitive side, and that friends have their rivalries and alliances which often spill over from the offline to the online world. Even teens who have only ‘met’ online can quickly form factions and start verbally hacking away at each other via your brand’s community. You’ll often see a mob mentality build up around a fight between a few people (almost like a playground where everyone gathered round screaming “Fight!” “Fight!” “Fight!”). What’s important is that you don’t get in the middle of this mess.

Of course, such disputes should be moderated – if community members break house rules they should be penalised – but don’t take sides in the dispute. Equally, don’t create one by asking hot button questions. Posting “The Hunger Games makes Harry Potter look like Sesame Street – discuss” or “Who do you prefer, Edward or Jacob?” might get discussion going on your Facebook page, but these questions are just as likely to create an argument which the brand runs the risk of having to referee. Whatever happens some of your fans are going to be alienated. Set clear boundaries. If you say that a type of behaviour isn’t acceptable, don’t accept it. But be consistent: nothing will outrage a teen more than inconsistent or unfair behaviour.

Research the teen market thoroughly. As I’ve mentioned, teens can detect a faker a mile off. They are the biggest sceptics in the world. The teen market is unique: trends and fashions can be in one second and out the next, while in the adult world these trends tend to change over longer periods of time. Brands targeting the teen market need to stay on top of what’s cool and what isn’t – and they need to know why it’s cool. Otherwise they’ll only have half the story – they won’t understand their audience at all.

Lastly, brands need to develop a thick skin. It’s not uncommon for teens to become enraged with a brand for one reason or another. Maybe the brand has pushed back the date of a game they’re desperate to have, or banned a user from the site for trolling. Or perhaps the brand made the mistake of insulting Team Edward. Whatever the reason, teens will often explode with rage at the injustice of it all. But they’re as likely to move on quickly, and want to return to business as usual. Ultimately, if you’re dealing with teens you have to know how they behave, and prove that you understand why – even if you don’t approve of how they express themselves from time to time.

Teens are probably even more social media savvy than adults , because they have grown up using social media. It’s in their DNA. They’re intelligent, quick-thinking multitaskers who just don’t want to buy what you’re selling. They want a genuine experience, they want to be heard and recognised by the brand. They want to be famous and anonymous at the same time and they want you to leave them alone, while not ignoring them. It’s enough to give most marketers a headache. To succeed in engaging teens, brands need to know their audience, not make promises they can’t keep, own up when they make a mistake, and, as in the real world, provide boundaries.

LOTW: Ashton in brownface a complete brand misstep

2012-05-06T20:17:00.001Z

A social media link fiesta from a (mostly) US perspective.
Enjoy!

image courtesy of Hindustantimes

Ashton Kutcher's Bollywood Fiasco for Popchips
This week, Ashton Kutcher and Popchips faced a backlash (led by tech pundit Anil Dash) against a video advertisement that had the actor (and minority stakeholder) portraying "Raj," an Indian Bollywood character, along with other assorted (and clichéd) personae. In Anil's words, "[If] you find yourself putting brown makeup on a white person in 2012 so they can do a bad “funny” accent in order to sell potato chips, you are on the wrong course. Make some different decisions.” Popchips chose to revise the video, but no response was made, tweeted or otherwise, for the self-proclaimed king of new media, Mr. Kutcher himself. Read more from our own Tia Fisher in a blog for eModeration. For a different take, Crushable curates the Twitter responses, most of which are a zillion times funnier than the ad itself.

Toss Out the Advertising Model
We were interested in social media strategist Rawn Shah's thought-provoking piece, "What if We Tossed Out the Advertising Model" for Forbes, but wonder - where should the line be drawn between targeted messaging and invasion of privacy? (Thanks to SimplyZesty for including this on their weekly link roundup.)

Spam Filter or Censorship? Facebook Explains
Like Anil Dash from above, Robert Scoble's influence in today's tech thoughtleader scene goes beyond influencer to pacesetter. No wonder, then that Facebook lept to clarify why a seemingly innocuous comment made by Scoble to a public post was removed by an algorithm designed to limit spam with a message that stated the comment was "irrelevant or inapporpriate." Facebook immediately began tweaking the classifier after Scoble made the snafu public.

Anil Dash versus Popchips - It ain't half hot Mum

2012-05-04T14:19:00.001Z

In what seems like a remarkably apt fit to my recent post: When social media humour #fails - if it ain't funny, don't say it, this week it's all been about Ashton Kutcher and Popchips.

In case you missed the social media furore of the past few days (and as briefly as possible so as not to bore the rest of you) Mr Kutcher starred as a 'comedy' Indian character in an ill-advised YouTube commercial for Popchips. Tech guru Anil Dash objected on his blog to what he - and many others - saw as the inherent racism of such a portrayal, and the social media debate was unleashed.

Anil Dash didn't want apologies, or even the withdrawal of the video. He was after what some would regard as blood: the film left up and linked to, not an apology, but a full explanation from everyone involved in conceiving, making, promoting and reviewing the commercial as to what on earth they were thinking of. It "revealed a much larger, more complex problem with their company and with the ecosystem of people and companies that they partner with," Anil wrote on his blog.

His success has so far been mixed: he got a private and a public apology from Popchips founder Keith Belling; but the video was made private on Youtube, against his wishes. And nothing from any of the other culprits in the affair, not even the normally twitter-loving Kutcher. The offending character will be withdrawn from the upcoming outdoor campaign, but the public apology from Popchips does look rather rather like the kind of lame response that Anil said he specifically didn't want: "the usual mumbled apology for the company where they offer the bullshit non-apology apology of saying "We're sorry if anyone was offended" and then take the ad down, but continue on with the campaign, padding out the apology with a few generic tweets to a contrite blog post."

The debates, references, rehashings and picking apart of the Ashton Kutcher controversy are still wriggling around the interweb like maggots on a corpse. Here are the ladies from The View talking it over, and Sharon Osborne putting in her ha'penny worth.

So, what are we to learn from this (apart from the fact that Keith Belling types one-handedly)?

1. Before you go ahead with your idea of a hilarious campaign, run it past a few people of varying social, racial and cultural backgrounds first. Your bezzy mates in the office may not be the best people to tell you want is and what is not potentially offensive (though I confess here to being gobsmacked that no-one in the entire process thought that browning up Kutcher was a bad idea. Perhaps they all grew up on It Ain't Half Hot Mum and The Black and White Minstrel Show?)

2. If you want to go viral, create a scandal. I have no idea how much the PR value of the coverage has been so far, but if Belling had wanted to put Popchips in everyone's mouth (sorry, couldn't resist the pun) he couldn't have planned it better. I'd be really interested to look at his sales charts over this period.

3. Social media protest goes a long way - but it can't change the world (yet). Anil Dash's list of demands was not a kneejerk response - he really wanted to make a difference. But to be honest, I don't think we are ready for him yet ...so, for now, lame apologies it still is.

4. Be careful of associations - apparently, all of this reminded Demi Moore's publicist that it was past time to change her Twitter name - from @mrskutcher to @justdemi ...

Facebook provides 'Organ Donor' status - and will save lives

2012-05-01T13:21:00.000Z

Those who know me, know that am am ever-so-slightly inclined towards the moral high ground, especially where responsibilities of large organisations are concerned. This has led to me having, well, one or two digs at Facebook in the past for their sometimes cavalier attitude towards privacy and child safety.

But recently they've made some pretty good moves: there was the anti-bullying initiative and a referral system for friends expressing suicidal thoughts. Now comes an 'Organ Donation Status' which will hopefully push up the numbers of people around the globe currently registered to be organ donors. In the US, UK, Australia and the Netherlands, people can now say they are an organ donor as part of their "Facebook Timeline" (though note that this move hasn't rolled out yet, not to my Facebook account at least). Facebook hopes to widen the scheme to other countries around the globe, which would be really great to see.

To set your status, go to your timeline, and choose 'Life Event' in your status update box, then 'Health and Wellness' and 'Organ Donor'.

This could have such wonderful consequences: it's estimated that more than 114,000 people in the U.S, around 10,000 people in the UK and millions more around the world are waiting for a suitable organ. Many, many of those people will die waiting, because there simply aren’t enough organ donors to meet the need.

In the UK, the NHS said only half of registered organ donors told their families that they wanted to donate their organs after death. If somebody is on the register then legally the organs can be used for transplantation. However, organs are not taken if the family is too upset by the prospect - but if relatives know the person's wishes, they are far more likely to consent to the removal. And the other beneficial effect is that this 'Organ Donor' status' just gets the word out there - makes people see it as normal, even aspirational, especially amongst some of the harder to reach groups who may never have considered it in the past.

Note that you still need to click through to the relevant organ donation body in your country to sign up - but Facebook will provide the link and make it a simple process.

So keep an eye out for the appearance of the Organ Donor Status - and let your friends know that you care about more than lolcats :)

eModeration LOTW: Likeapella, Klouchebag and sneaky Facebook

2012-04-29T19:03:00.001Z

A social media roundup of the week's high and lows from a (mostly) US perspective.
Enjoy!

Likeapella from Kraft
Kraft Macaroni & Cheese (with a little help from Crispin Porter + Bogusky) flipped the fan/brand paradigm on its head this week, asking its Facebook fans to "like" a post, because you just never know what might happen (language that carefully skirts the Facebook contest and promotion guidelines) and then delivering in a big way: they put each and every one of the name of the 4,000 and something fans who "liked" into a song performed acappella and pushed back out into the social media world in video form under the umbrella "Kraft Mac & Cheese Likes You Back." Even better? The like call to action was made Tuesday. The video released Friday. Now that's some serious fan appreciation.

Klouchebag Parodies Klout
The Atlantic takes us through a timely review of Klouchebag, the Klout parody site that scores social media asshattery. We appreciated the context author Eric Randall gave in linking to pieces from about Klout from Wired and The New Yorker, too, and enjoyed this piece from Forbes that proclaims Klout only matters if you think it does. What with the new Klout iOS app and Klout brand pages having been recently introduced, is it any wonder the intertubz are abuzz?

Facebook Reporting Support Dashboard
AllFacebook tells us that Facebook is quietly testing a user support dashboard that would allow users who report objectionable content for violations with Facebook's Community Standards to follow the progress of their reports and receive alerts about outcomes. A sneak peak of the dashboard is here. Another quiet change from FB for users this week? Adding names to profile photos in the friend pile view. No more guessing just whose funny child/cute pet/beautiful flower/ironic sign belongs with which person of your acquaintance. Thank you, Facebook!

Why rehearsing for a social media crisis is crucial

2012-04-27T10:39:00.001Z

In the last of our social media posts this month (see what we've already covered at the bottom of the post), we thought it was time to talk about how brands can best arm themselves against the onslaught of the social media savvy public.

Avoid the crisis in the first place. Not much you can do about things like natural disasters, transport crashes, illness or death, some instances of technical failure, and so on. And sometimes brands need to take knowing, calculated risks - for example, a utilities company might take the calculated risk to offshore their call centre, knowing that there’s likely to be some consumer backlash, but that the business case makes it a risk worth taking. As long as you’ve (honestly) identified the issues you’re likely to face and their impact on the business, you should know whether it’s worth it.

But then there are the foreseeable issues which could have been avoided by taking business action, and often they may depend upon different silos within the organisation informing, consulting, and listening to each other. Think about the Nestle Palm Oil debacle, so beloved of us crisis pundits. How much different would the story have been if someone in PR had sat the sourcing team down early in the process and said “Really? We need to get our palm oil from there? But if Greenpeace gets hold of the story, there'll be an uproar ..."

And Qantas marketing would have done well to have talked to their PR department before launching the #QantasLuxury hashtag very shortly after the CEO had grounded the entire Qantas fleet, stranding 68,000 passengers across the globe. (A reminder that an editorial calendar should be a flexible tool). The irate responses to the marketing campaign even included a Hitler Downfall parody (the social media #fail equivalent of an Oscar) ...

Handle it correctly over social media channels
The way a crisis plays out over social media has fundamentally changed the way the communication of a crisis unfolds. News of a crisis is more likely to break on Twitter than any other channel, so there’s virtually no opportunity for a brand to control how the crisis is first communicated. At best, you’re playing catch up with your social audiences. So the way we approach handling a crisis has changed. Taking the Qantas example above, the way that both the grounding situation and the backlash to the #QantasLuxury campaign was handled were heavily criticised.

No matter what your legal teams say, doing nothing is no longer an option (as Blackberry found to its cost in the early days of its outage in October last year). How you respond on social channels can do much to neutralise, or inflame, the situation.

Preparing for a crisis
Together with our partners Carrot Communications, we’ve developed a number of services to help clients prepare for a crisis, including:

Auditing a brand’s crisis processes
Running workshops to identify crisis avoidance actions
Scenario testing

(for full details of what we offer, see our website).

However, as good as thorough preparation is (and believe us, it's crucial), nothing can really prepare for a social media crisis - except actually experiencing one. Which is why, together with Carrot Communications, we’re also helping a number of brands to practice their responses to crisis with a social media simulation tool which mimics social media channels in a secure environment. It's a crisis without the pain.

The social media simulation workshop

Each simulation is developed specifically for a client, and takes a scenario that each client could potentially face: from retail recalls to disgruntled employees posting videos on YouTube or an aviation disaster. We look at how the crisis might unfold over services like Twitter, Facebook, blogs, news sites, and forums, and mimic these channels in a live simulation. Teams of trained community managers from eModeration are behind the scenes, providing the public response as if this was happening live, so the brand can practice how to respond to different groups, over different channels. The 'attack team' of community managers are experienced in handling all sorts of crises, so they are better placed than most to know how the public is likely to react, lending the rehearsal authenticity.

The simulator responds to the brand team's input: so, for example, it will incorporate their tweets into the Twitter response, or their press statements into developing news stories. (Of course, all this happens in a closed, secure environment, not on the channels themselves.)

Acting out a crisis situation in near-reality both exposes any gaps in the crisis plan and gives your social media team invaluable experience. You wouldn't expect to be able to drive a car from reading the highway code, and the hands-on taster is a great team training tool. If you'd like to know about the crisis simulation workshop, or any of our other social media crisis tools, see our see our website or email tamara@emoderation.com.

See also our previous social media crisis posts this month:
Tips for using social media in product recall
When social media humour #fails - if it ain't funny, don't say it.
What we can learn from the crisis: Volkswagen vs. Greenpeace

12 ways to use Ifttt for Social Media Management Magic

2012-04-25T18:48:00.001Z

by Bliss Hanlin, a Community Manager for eModeration

We are crazy for Ifttt ("If This Then That"), the social media management uber utility in beta that makes an orchestra out of your social media service soloists.

Recipe of photos from Instagram saving to Dropbox courtesy of Ifttt

Ifttt breaks every task into three simple components - a trigger event (the "if" part), an action (the "that" part,) and channels where the actions and events occur. Every fully scripted task is described as a recipe - and recipes are shareable with your friends as well as the Ifttt community. Ifttt currently has 42 channels available and adding more everyday.

Ifttt is a brilliant tool for those of us of Generation C, plugged-in to several social networks, services and cloud storage boxes at once. For the brand or community manager, Ifttt can also act as an amplifier or personal assistant, filling in all the little holes that come from managing multiple platforms.

Below are just a few ways where Ifttt can help bring together those individual bits and pieces of your social media strategy to make social media magic.

Brand Page Text Alert
Having a bit of a crisis and need to be notified of every single interaction on your Facebook brand page? Click ‘this’ and select the RSS trigger, then input your Facebook Notifications RSS feed, and then select ‘that’ and choose the SMS option (you’ll have to activate your phone number, but it’s a snap). Viola! Now, when your page receives an interaction, you’ll be texted within fifteen minutes, ensuring a rapid response. The basic recipe for RSS to SMS is here.
(Tip of the hat to LunaMetrics for this fantastic Ifttt Timeline Notifications to SMS recipe.)

Thanks for the Retweet
No one likes automation, but no one likes going without thanks, either. A nice recipe for Ifttt is that you can use it to automatically reply to tweets. There are various options such as when someone follows you or tweets about a particular topic. The recipe allows customization, so that you can use different language for person A raving about a product versus Person B retweeting a blog. The basic recipe for a Twitter to Twitter Ifttt is here. (A specialized recipe to send thanks for a #FF Friday Follow is here.)

When Facebook profile picture changes, update Twitter profile picture
Want to show a consistent "face" with all your brand voice accounts? Let Ifttt be your genie in a bottle and take care of reconciling your profile photos. By putting several of these tasks together, you can ensure all of your profile photos on all your platforms update via chain reaction. The basic recipe for Facebook profile photo triggering Twitter profile photo change is here, but also useful is Facebook to Tumblr, etc. (Iffft can also store a record of those profile photos for you, by using storage destinations like Evernote and Dropbox or notating the change on your Google Calendar. More about GCal below!)

Duplicate Status Updates from Facebook to Google+
Frustrated by G+'s less than open API, but want to make sure you aren't missing out on Google+'s potential? Through a somewhat convoluted work-around, Ifttt can make the magic happen so that when you update a brand page on Facebook, the same update will appear on a G+ account. The recipe (and link to the more involved directions) can be found here.

Tumblr Your Content
Have a YouTube presence and been thinking of getting into Tumblr, but not sure if you have the bandwidth? Let Ifttt be your personal Tumblr assistant and automatically send your YouTube videos to Tumblr. Don't want your Tumblr to feel one note? You can vary things up by also having your favorite YouTube videos automatically sent, along other content you surface, like "tagging" a Flickr photo or pretty much any action imaginable on Instagram. (For more on curating content for Tumblr via Ifttt, see Brian Groth's great tips on language to wrap around your automated curation.)

Send your Pinterest photo board updates to Facebook
Want to show off all the hardwork you've done with your Pinterest boards (and get a little synergy going while doing so?) This task will automatically update a Facebook status with the newest photo entry to a specific Pinterest board, using the magic of RSS. (Pinterest via RSS can log to your editorial calendar, too. See below!)

Archive your actual Tweets to your Editorial Calendar
If you are using Google Calendar to document and map your editorial calendar (just like the team at Huffington Post,) you can save your actual tweets and retweets to the Google calendar itself, giving you a one-stop look at how practice is measuring up to strategy. Same principle can be used for Facebook and Google+ status updates, too. Find the basic recipe here.

Document your PR Calendar
Love your Editorial Calendar but think sometimes you are missing the PR/Media aspect? Fill out the bigger picture by setting up your Google Alerts in RSS, then have Ifttt work its magic to add context to your buzz via a dedicated Google calendar. Can be used to document Quarterly Earning reports, press releases, news articles and interviews, product recalls and more.

Twitter Faves saved for later
This Ifttt recipe makes it easy to save and search the posts you mark to Evernote. You can specify tags and the notebook in Evernote, too. Love the concept, but not Evernote? Make the destination Pocket or Instapaper or even Delicious instead. A real boon to link junkies. Not that we would know anything about that. *cough*

Cross-Promote on Twitter
Greet a new Twitter follower and suggest other places he might want to follow your brand account (blog, Facebook, Linkedin, the weekly poetry slam at the coffeehouse?) via an automated message. Recipe here.

Edit Personal Tweets for Linkedin
Let's face it, not all of us are perfectly professional 24-7 on Twitter. Ifttt lets us trim down the fluff and promote the respectable via the edition of a hidden hashtag, so that your Linkedin updates are a credit to yourself, your professional development, and to your current company's overall reputation. Now one Twitter account really can have business in the front and party in the back. See the recipe here.

Archive Facebook Page Tagged Photos
Need a tidy place to see what your fans are doing when tagging your product name? Ifttt gives you a simple way to archive those photos by taking the tagged photo and adding it to a file in Dropbox. Perfect way to stay on top of visual mentions. Recipe here.

just a few of the Ifttt channels

Although the recipes above discuss how Ifttt can aid social media, marketing, and community professionals, Ifttt has literally hundreds of ways to make services integrate and better serve any person who is living the digital life. One of our favorite recipes for personal use? Having Ifttt mark our family's Google calendar with a warning about a possible school snow day as soon as the weather service releases the forecast. So simple yet so useful - that's Ifttt!

eModeration LOTW: Dubstep dancer hits it big and Facebook news

2012-04-23T12:23:00.000Z

A social media round-up curated from a (mostly) US perspective. Enjoy!

Haven't yet seen Nonstop in action? Definitely worth watching!

Viral Video Dancer Lands Big Ads
Dubstep dancer Marquese "Nonstop" Scott (part of Canada's RemoteKontrol urban dance crew from "America's Got Talent" and "So You Think You Can Dance") found himself a viral wunderkind at the end of 2011 for his YouTube video of dancing to a remix version of Foster the People's "Pumped Up Kicks." Since his full-frame, one-shot, single take video (Fred Astaire would be so proud!) hit the big-time, he has gone on to feature in specialty advertisements for Coca-Cola and now this charming ad for Roomba.

example of integrated profile photo displaying in 125 X 125 dimensions from AskAaronLee

Facebook Timeline Page Profile Photo Changes
(Depending on your web browser, you may already have this update.) April 26 will see the universal roll-out of a larger-sized profile photo for Facebook pages, from 125 X 125 pixels for display amped up to 160 X 160. This will impact especially the cover photo and profile photo artists, who have used creative positioning to integrate their profile photo visual into their cover photo design to make one dynamic banner-like visual at the top of the page. Profile photos for individuals have already been introduced, following Google+'s recent redesign announcement.

Facebook Timeline for Pages Notifcations RSS and Photo Repositioning
We were happy to stumble across this blog from LunaMetrics which explains how to set up a RSS feed for Facebook Page notifications and shares that Facebook quietly has added a photo repositioning tool when most us weren't looking. Thanks for the tips, LunaMetrics!

Facebook Timeline Page Traffic
Wondering how traffic has changed since Timeline for Pages was introduced? Wildfire Interactive's short version is - comments are down, shares and likes are up, but there is still no officially released data from Facebook on the changes. (From personal experience, we can add - things are quiet out there. Perhaps too quiet? Add these long form journalism articles from Businessweek and The Atlantic to your Pocket to read later and you too will be pondering our tech age.)

Spotify Partners with Coca-Cola for Facebook Page
Spotify and Coca-Cola announced this week a global partnership, putting the music streaming service directly on Coke's Facebook page. Coca-cola's VP of Global Entertainment said of the deal, "The potential for this partnership is limitless." (This week, Spotify also announced branded app deals with McDonald's, AT&T, Intel, and Reebok.)

Facebook Tweaks Terms over Censorship Fears
ZDNet's David Meyer phrased the explanation of this much more beautifully than we ever could, so we've quoted his piece below:

Thousands of users sent in responses to the proposed revisions to Facebook's Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, during a brief consultation period that Facebook quietly ran in March. The social networking firm said late on Friday that it would re-open the consultation for the next week, and that it had already altered some proposed changes due on the reaction they received.
"Based on your feedback during the recent comment period for our Statement of Rights and Responsibilities (SRR), we have decided to revise some proposed changes [PDF] and further explain many others. We are also re-opening our comment period," Facebook said on its site governance page, the only place it now notifies users of changes to its terms.

Tips for using social media in product recall

2012-04-20T13:34:00.002Z

It's a brand's worst nightmare. Your products are on the supermarket shelves, in people's homes - and there's a problem discovered with a batch. At worst, a potentially life-threatening one. You have to recall - and quickly.

This week, that scenario is exactly what happened to a Nestle brand: Stouffer's Lasagna was hastily recalled after some boxes were found to contain not lasagna but stuffed peppers with an ingredient which may provoke severe allergic reactions in some people. Recalls happen all the time: last week it was Dole Food's Seven Lettuces bagged salad, of which a random sample tested positive for salmonella. BMW and Minis are having problems are being called back to have colling pumps fixed.

The viral, hyphae-like spread of social media - which so frequently works against brands in other types of crisis - here is a boon. Never before have we been so in touch, so able to receive and pass on news to a mass audience via social networks, using our mobiles, desktops, tablets. Brands have the ability to reach out through online news channels and their own social networks to quickly spread the message, reach retailers and consumers quickly, encourage them to spread the word and monitor the feedback for both the recall action and the sentiment against the brand. For the safety-conscious market (especially parents), there are even specialist recall alert apps to let consumers know immediately if they are affected by a recall.

It will obviously depend on what the problem with your product is, and whether any consumers have been badly affected, but it's important to know that the handling of your recall situation can have a real impact on how the recall is perceived, and in fact upon your liability, at least in the US, following the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA). Companies are now not only liable for the problems that led to a recall but for the effectiveness of the recall itself.

As Patrick Kerley from Levick Strategic Communications put it in Mashable, preparedness is the key.

Anticipate your likely scenarios and the keywords and hashtags which will be used and choose which platform to monitor and which to spread your message. Have your guidelines and approval process worked out in advance. Rehearse situations to test failure points (eModeration has a handy simulation tool to help with that).

Make sure your recall message is in all your social spaces before the news gets out. Without the correct information, consumers will speculate and make possibly disastrous assumptions. Anticipate the questions which will come in with a good set of live FAQs, and make sure that all searches for information are directed back to the same place, so that information is accurate and simple to control.

A recall is not without its silver lining, if handled well. As Ellie Cachette from ConsumerBell says: "Sometimes having an excuse to actively converse with consumers isn’t a bad thing." The important part is to have a Recall Plan in place with a strong social media element.

Cachette's tips to handle a product recall include:

Set up a group or network immediately - use a hashtag or a Facebook app (now the Discussion tab is gone it looks like third party apps are your best option).
Increase engagement. Use this opportunity to see in what spaces and by what methods your consumers are talking about your product. Learn where they got the news from - useful for future PR forays
Keep talking - as with any crisis, keep the lines of communication open: never ignore or silent your critics
Become a 'trusted brand' by reacting as fast as possible and giving people all the information they need and the recompense necessary. You can be forgiven for having made an honest mistake by doing all you can to put it right.

By using a simple a tool such as the free socialmention.com, it's possible to track what is being said about the brand, gain some idea of the feeling about the brand via their sentiment indicator, and - very importantly - see what hashtags and keywords are being used so that you can track mentions, and communicate more effectively.

Here you can see what is being said about the Stouffer's Lasagna: as you can see, most of this is simply information being passed on, with little negative attention directed at the brand.

To see how an issue can best be handled proactively, there is the recent case of Pfizer, who in the February was forced to recall batches of the Lo-Ovral 28 contraceptive pills due to another kind of packaging error. This video tells the story of how (at least once Pfizer decided to go public with the recall) the company reached out to women across their social media spaces. All the more reason, of course, for Pharma to keep their social engagement with consumers active, so that they can effectively listen out for problems which may lead to recall.

Instagram and Facebook: the legal view

2012-04-19T19:37:00.000Z

Image courtesy of www.slashgear.com

The biggest news in social media over the last few weeks has been Facebook’s acquisition of Instagram for an eye-watering US$1 billion. Not bad for two years’ work...

Our social networks have been abuzz with speculation as to why and how Instagram could be worth so much for Mr Zuckerberg and friends. One particular point caught our eye; namely that the price was for ownership of the users' data and their pictures. Really? Is this allowed?

An important perception to clarify is whether Instagram in effect has simply become Facebook; is it just another young minnow gobbled up by the giant shark of the social media sea... Is Instagram now merely a brand and when we sign up to Instagram, in fact we're signing up with Facebook? There have been a lot of emotive tweets on this subject alone. In fact, unlike some acquisitions, Facebook has not "consumed" the fledgling photo-sharing company so that it no longer exists legally. The best analogy for the legal aspect of the acquisition is that Facebook has become the adoptive parent of Instagram.

image courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/kphaubrich/

The parent and child analogy is also the one used in law for the very reason that the parallels run and run:

They are separate legal entities - if you enter a contract with one of them, you do not automatically enter a contract with the other;
The parenting style is the choice of the parent - they might be very controlling and basically decide everything the child is permitted to do. Or they might set some boundaries and allow The child to explore itself. A few children may be allowed to run wild;
The parent is likely to provide funding for the child. Up to a certain point;
The parent may seek to install its own values and business outlook in the child.

Indications from the Facebook camp so far are that they want to be a modern-style parent and nurture Instagram's development but allow it to keep its own identity. Whether that is true will remain to be seen. But for now, we have two different legal entities which are part of the same family. So what does that actually mean for us as users?

The answer lies with the law and in particular the legal terms and privacy policy. So, as is our wont, we took a look at the nitty gritty of what the terms and conditions and applicable laws say.

Overview: Instagram terms

Instagram's current terms and conditions are good (Pinterest - take note). They are short. Legal terminology is kept to a minimum. The tone is appropriate for social, with a focus on choice and clarity. The key principles for users are relatively simple:

We keep ownership of our own pictures (phew!)
Instagram has no rights to use our private, unpublished pictures.
There is nothing saying we have to pay Instagram's legal fees (an "indemnity") if our use of Instagram causes someone to sue them. We have to pay for "royalties, fees... monies owing" if we use someone else's picture without permission. Fair enough.

In my humble legal view, these are well pitched legal terms both in style and proposed liability. Longer-established social networks could do well to take note - Flickr and ... ahem... Facebook for example.

from iphoneography.com

What can Instagram do with our pictures?

For pictures we “post”, Instagram can do almost anything with them – on any media and any channel. For example, Instagram could use our photos on TV ads or in hard copy newspapers or magazines (without paying anything to us for that use).

In fact Instagram's terms specifically state that they might display adverts on the Instagram Services “in conjuction with your Content”. Hmm, not sure how comfortable we all feel about Instagram incorporating our own photos into advertising directed to us? The advertising is permitted on "any media format" – so could include a banner ad on Facebook for example.

This distinction in the terms between publically shared content and the pictures we keep private means that the decision to share something is a bigger decision that we may have thought. Not only do we share it with our friends in our chosen channels, but by sharing, we also grant Instagram an unlimited licence to use our picture on any media channel for any purpose.

image courtesy of http://www.flickr.com/photos/namestartswithj89/

What about our names, email addresses – personal data?

Instagram generally knows who we are, and so does Facebook. One concern is that a pooling of data between Facebook and Instagram would allow our Instagram pics to be linked to our Facebook accounts. Might this mean Instagram advertising on Facebook could be targeted at us (or worse our Facebook friends) using our own Instagram images?

The law helps us with privacy legislation (at least in the European Union) which means it is not possible for parent companies to get hold of their 'child' (subsidiary) companies' personal data without telling us about it in the privacy policy. Also for many types of use by a parent company, they would have to get our consent.

The positive news is that, as with the terms, in my view, Instagram’s current privacy policy is fairly good:

There is a choice about whether we give personally-identifying information (“pii”) to Instagram i.e. we can stay anonymous if we want;
Our pii is only disclosed to others where (i) there is a ‘need to know’ to function for Instagram or to deliver Instagram services; (ii) the other companies give assurances not to disclose the pii to others.
We are assured it will not sell or share our pii; and
We don’t get the chance to opt out of communications from Instagram (about products or features) but there is assurance this will be kept to a minimum.

So on the basis of this policy, Facebook cannot get hold of pii we give to Instagram.

But the rights for sharing our Facebook data with other applications and platforms under the Facebook privacy policy could be the subject of an blog (well, perhaps even a book) in itself. The Facebook privacy policy is written in a 'friendly' jargon free style. But what it is saying in precise legal terms is ... well... a bit vague. And that tends to make us lawyers suspicious. My interpretation is that Facebook can use our data to advertisers who purchase ads on the site. So... if Instagram advertises on Facebook, it may well be given access to our pii to target us and our friends with our own content.

That sort of sharing (other than maybe being a bit spooky on a personal level) is perhaps the type of integration that Facebook was prepared to pay a billion dollars for. A way to blur the boundaries between it and its new baby, a way to perhaps supercharge the growth of Instagram and in doing so also allow Facebook to keep up with the cool kids?

We have to add a health warning to all of this. As with nearly all free social services, the terms and the privacy policy tell us they may be liable to change at any time. It will be very interesting (and a good hint as to Facebook's likely parenting style) to see if the terms change and drift towards allowing sharing with a parent company... Rest assured we'll check out the small print and get blogging if they do.

Step by step guide to moderating comments on Facebook timeline

2012-04-18T12:31:00.003Z

By Lisa Barnett and Tia Fisher

If you're the administrator of a Facebook Page, you’ve had a while now to get used to the changes imposed by Facebook with the introduction of the timeline. How have you got on? The first time you were presented with the new admin panel, you may have been completely lost and been searching around for all those lovely admin tools that Facebook promised us. Well, we’ve been testing it out, and here's our step-by-step guide to moderating posts and comments on the Facebook timeline. Hope it helps!

The Admin section
So first things first – you need to be in the admin section. To 'unhide' the admin panel for the page, you need to click on admin panel button found in the top right hand corner at the top of your timeline.

Once you are in the admin panel, you will see something similar to this:

Step 1: See Activity. Check 'Notifications' for the last post, response, vote or like
From here you can see who has most recently liked a post, posted on your timeline or replied to a status update. You can click through from here to see the actual content on the page, and you can delete or like comments and check out the hidden spam comments from here (also from the 'Activity Log', see later).

You can see that there are Spam comments (hidden from the page) by the three little dots. Click on those and you'll have the chance to delete the spam altogether - or mark it as 'Not spam'.

If you click on 'See All' you can set up an RSS feed of notifications and also click through to the user profile.

Step 2: Go to the 'Activity Log' by clicking on 'Manage', and on the drop down menu choosing 'Use Activity Log'. Go here to moderate the content on your timeline - check it against your terms and display/hide/delete the content by Page admin or by others. Here you can also check the Page admin activity (useful for teams) and your spam posts.

This takes you to this page, with 'All' as default in the dropdown menu in the top right.

The other drop down options under 'All' are:

The 'All' section excludes 'Spam', by the way, but otherwise, all content can be seen here, and the dropdowns give filters so you can search for content more easily. Note though that 'Comments' means 'Comments by the Page Admin'. Comments by users have to be found via the post they relate to.

'All' shows you, in chronological order:

Status updates made by the Page admin

Responses (aka comments) made by the Page admin

Photos/videos posted by the Page admin

Photos/videos posted by users - either hidden or visible.*

Posts by others on your timeline - either hidden or visible.*

Responses (aka comments) made by users - to find comments on posts, look for the speech bubble against a post and click it.

Questions, events posted by Page Admin

* Important: We have found the occasional post by a user which was on the front page, but didn't show up here. Also, we've had odd occurrences of posts which we've hidden manually and should have been retained in 'All' and 'Posts by others' with the hidden icon - but have strangely found their way to the Spam folder instead. Has this happened to anyone else? Lesson: always check the spam folder for missing posts, and the front end as well, to be sure you've missed nothing.

Comments: If a post has comments, a speech bubble icon will be on the left of it. Hover, and it will say how many comments the post has. Click it to be taken to the thread (from where you can 'like' or delete).

Hidden vs 'allowed' (= 'visible on page') On the right hand-side are icons showing whether the content is visible ("allowed") or hidden on the timeline. If you click on either of the icons, you can choose to delete it or if it is hidden, allow it on the page.

Step 3: Check 'Spam' posts
This is now where you will find all the posts which have been caught by:

1. The filters set by Page Admin
2. Facebook's own inbuilt filters - which remain a mystery to us. This is what is says about them on Facebook Help:

All the posts should show the circle with the line through it, depicting that the content is hidden from the page.We strongly advise you to check your spam filters as part of your moderation and 'unmark as spam' where Facebook has got it wrong. Note our comment above - we've sometimes found posts we've hidden manually in this folder, but we've pretty sure this was a Facebook blip.

Step 4: Check 'Posts by others'
This content should all be in the 'All' section above, but you may find it more efficient to check it here.

These are posts that users have posted directly onto your timeline, rather than replying to any Page status updates. Users can now post to your wall without being a fan and 'liking' your page.

On the right hand side, it will show you whether the post is visible or hidden from the page. You can choose to hide or delete posts here by clicking on the icon. You can also get the link to the post by clicking on the word 'timeline' or right clicking and choosing 'save link location'.

You can see if there have been any further comments/responses by clicking on the comment box marked by the red circle, as we showed in the 'All' section:

From there you can delete (or 'like') comments as you wish.

Step 5: Check 'Posts by others' on the FRONT END of your timeline

As we have said above, it's best not to rely on everything appearing in the activity log so, if you aren't using any other kind of reliable Facebook management tool, then we would recommend that you also check the front end of Facebook. 'Posts by others' (above) filters your Page admin posts out from the timeline content, making it easier to see what others have posted.

You may have opted in ('Manage>'Edit Page') to show the box containing 'Recent Posts by Others' at the top right of your timeline, and alternatively, you can quickly check this box, expanding it by clicking 'See all' in the corner, and delete (not hide) posts from the page this way too.

Page setting options
Posting by others options

Of course you could choose to stop people posting on your altogether, and there may be situations (such as a social media crisis) where you may choose to do so - or you may choose to have them hidden until you have checked them to make sure they are within your terms. Here are Facebook's instructions for turning off, or pre-moderating posts, or removing the 'recent posts by others' box at the top of your timeline. We should point out here that it's very unwise to delete criticism of your brand from your timeline just because it hurts. Honesty, transparency and responsiveness are king. And remember anyone can write on your wall now, even people that haven’t 'liked' your page.

Edit page options:

Allow a 'posting by others' box for text / photo / video to appear at the top of your timeline. If you don't allow this, others can't 'start a conversation' on your page, only respond to you with a comment (and no photos or videos are possible on a comment)
You can choose to have the box collating recent posts by others at the top of your page.
You can choose to have posts (although not comments) hidden until Page admins approve them
You can choose to allow users to message Admins directly by offering them the 'Message' button on your timeline (just under your cover image). These messages will appear in the 'Admin Panel', in conversational thread display
Moderation blocklist - add words you would like to filter as 'Spam' - for example "http://" which will pick up spam links. Facebook also offers 2 inbuilt levels of profanity blacklist medium/strong (though we've never seen the lists to say what is blocked).

Things to note:
Note that spam and hidden posts are always visible to the user who posted them, and their activity will appear in their own timeline and be visible according to their own privacy settings. It is hidden only on the Page.

Note that if you choose to delete, rather than hide content, it is gone forever, with no record of it.

Escalating content
You may need to refer content on for a second opinion or to another department. In order to send the link for the actual post when you are escalating anything, you can click on the word 'timeline' to get the comment to open in a new window, or right click and copy link location.

Friend's activity
This is a box which will appear to a user if they have friends who have tagged or mentioned the brand in an update. It appears below a box of profile pics of friends who have liked the page.

You have no control over this - nor will you be able to see what your page visitors are seeing. Visitors to your page will be able to see what their friends are saying about your brand (subject to the privacy permissions they applied to that post) Here's what Facebook says about it:

"When people visit a Facebook Page, they'll see what their friends and people they subscribe to are saying about it. For example, if someone tags a Page in one of their posts or checks in at a location, the people they originally shared with will see these stories highlighted for them on the Page's timeline. Friend activity is only visible to people included in the post's audience, and the icon in the upper-right corner distinguishes these posts from posts by the Page."

We mention this as a point of information only, as it can be a little confusing. But there is nothing admin can do - nor will they be aware of what users are seeing.

Is it an improvement?

We don't think the new admin panel has made lives of the those who have to moderate the comments any easier. Whilst it does have all the functionality there, but it feels very clunky and somewhat un-intuitive - and we don't quite trust it yet, to be honest.

At eModeration we moderate a wide variety of client's Facebook pages and there have been some strange anomalies occurring since timeline started. As well as the Spam folder issue mentioned above, we use some third party Facebook management tools and these have shown some oddities. Some of the content has been appearing first in these tools before it is appearing in the timeline. While one tool saw the content appear first there, the other tool was not showing responses made by the Page admin in theirs ... It's been a fun time. No matter what tool you use, we always recommend that you look at the front-end of Facebook so you have the view that your fans and potential fans see.

Over the next few weeks, we hope to see these bugs or glitches disappearing from the Facebook timeline. Interestingly when we tried to report a bug with some content not appearing, there was a bug in the Facebook reporting tool ... If you have found any weird stuff, shortcuts, hints and tips on how to moderate content on your timeline, do let us know below.

eModeration LOTW: Instagram blows our socks off

2012-04-16T11:08:00.000Z

A social media news strand from a (mostly) US perspective.
Enjoy!

image courtesy of Fast Company

Instagram, Instagram, Instagram!
After acquisition and benefiting from an Android bump, mobile photo app Instagram achieved 40 million users total, with 10 million added in 10 days. Wowza! The news and blog worlds are full of chatter about the billion dollar Instagram acquisition for a company that has no revenue model, and no wonder: rumor has it that Facebook beat Twitter to the acquisition deal with Instagram. We especially enjoyed this piece from the New York Times on the networking that brought Facebook and Instagram into sharing company, and a blog by Sophos (the online security experts) about acquisitions, data, and privacy. (Have you seen the stats on the insta-backlash to the acquisition announcement? Now that's some negative sentiment.)

Internet Smilies
Sometimes, you just need to a read a little fluff. We :) at and <3'd this interview with Scott Fahlman, the man Wikipedia credits with inventing emoticons.

This is Why You Fall in Love with Brands
We like to temper our fluff with serious journalism, and this long form interview by The Atlantic with Susan Fournier, author of the seminal study from 1998 on cognitive psychology, advertising, and consumer-brand relationships, Consumers and Their Brands: Developing Relationship Theory in Consumer Research, certainly did the trick. (The original study predates wide-adoption of Internet use. None of the data came from social media. Mind, meet boggle!)

Who doesn't use the Internet? The Pew Center knows
According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project's recent poll, 1 in 5 Americans do not currently use the Internet on a regular basis. “Senior citizens, those who prefer to take our interviews in Spanish rather than English, adults with less than a high school education, and those living in households earning less than $30,000 per year are the least likely adults to have Internet access.” Also noted, that just over half of the American population now owns a smartphone. Given that context, now this remark from James Pearce, head of mobile development for Facebook, makes much more sense: "If Facebook were built today, it would be a mobile app."

The Oatmeal gives us a talking to
Our networks were abuzz this week as this Likes and Facebook edition of the Internet cartoon The Oatmeal made its way around the tubes. Oatmeal, we will do our best to bring on the awesome with more tanks. Promise! (Fair warning: The Oatmeal is a little bit saucy, so don't read at work unless sauce is HR approved.)

When social media humour #fails - if it ain't funny, don't say it.

2012-04-13T07:29:00.000Z

Continuing our Friday look at this year's social media crises to date, I couldn't help but be struck by the number of misguided attempts at humour there have been so far. Particularly sexist gibes. Listen up men (I'm going with my hunch on the authorship here): taking the risk of insulting half your audience - the purchasing half at that - just isn't a clever idea.

Who wears the trousers (or indeed washes them?)

The washing label inside the trousers from Madhouse. Photo: Emma Barnett

This peach comes from Madhouse (and thanks to our friends at Carrot PR for spotting it). When the Digital Media Editor of The Telegraph, Emma Barnett, spotted this label inside a pair of chinos from the UK discount clothing store Madhouse, she was appalled. Not, she was quick to point out, because she lacks a sense of humour, but because - perhaps unlike the t-shirt slogans from Topman which caused such outrage last year - she felt that the label really was making no attempt to be funny. She tweeted her displeasure - and back came the tweets of support and the odd inevitable brickbat. Eventually, Madhouse got the message and apologised for their oversight in not spotting the sexist message, promising to be "more careful in future". And to do their own washing, one hopes.

Who dunnit? Belvedere Vodka wishes it hadn't.

No-one owned up to being the brainchild ad agency behind the notorious rape-promoting Facebook and Twitter ad, which scored pretty highly on the poor taste scale - though it seems all signs point to digital PR firm Last Exit, who issued a fairly self-damning 'no comment'.

It seems the image itself was actually filched from a video - and the video creators have a lawsuit pending, just waiting for someone to deliver it to.

It was left for the brand to fall upon their sword, and they duly did ...

Belvedere pulled the ad and apologised, though initially in a lame kinda way which attracted yet more ire. Then they put their money where their mouth was and gave a contribution to RAINN (the Rape Abuse and Incest National Network) - unfortunately linking their announcement to a private individual's Facebook page (Ms Rain Chan's moment of fame). They sorted it out in the end, but it could have been a quicker and better process. As far as we know, no agency has yet stepped up to the mark and admitted stealing the image or thinking sexual asault is amusing.

The moral of the story? 1. Agencies - don't create crap (stolen) ads which promote violence against women and just aren't funny. 2. Brands - Don't sign them off. And learn to apologise better.

It was internet start-up Sqoot's turn to be really really sorry when someone at the company thought it would be a good idea to promote the fact that they had female bar staff serving at an event. "Women: Need another beer? Let one of our friendly (female) event staff get that for you."

Now I have to be honest here: set against the backdrop of serious offences committed against women, that one doesn't rank very highly with me. But nonetheless, people in the tech community were upset, and let Sqoot know it. Sqoot didn't handle the conversations awfully well at that point ...

When the event sponsors started to pull out - with tweets announcing their decision - Sqoot issued this apology: "While we thought this was a fun, harmless comment poking fun at the fact that hack-a-thons are typically male-dominated, others were offended. That was not our intention and thus we changed it." Too little, too late. The event was subsequently cancelled, and Sqoot was left doing the Twitter equivalent of writing 100 lines: "I must not make sexist quips. I must not ..."

And finally ...

No record of this year's social media sexism would be complete without mention of Samantha Brick, who wasn't trying to be funny but ended up an international laughing stock with her assertion that the only reason women didn't like her was because of her drop-dead gorgeousness. As many of us begged to disagree with both points, she trended for days on Twitter, and - apologies to the sisterhood and all that - but the ensuing barrage of tweets, spoof Twitter accounts and doctored images gave us the best laughs we've had for a long time.

Increasing Engagement on LinkedIn (Guest blog)

2012-04-10T13:20:00.000Z

Many thanks to Kerry Butters of the excellent My Social Agency, a UK based social media agency, for this article on how to up your engagement in LinkedIn.

Image courtesy of Mashable.com

LinkedIn has always been known as the more serious social network, one that is for and used by professionals. As the second largest social media site in the world, with rapidly increasing traffic, companies can’t afford to ignore the value that LinkedIn has. One new professional joins LinkedIn every second and the site now has more than 100 million users worldwide.

So once a company or individual has joined LinkedIn, where do they go from there in order to increase engagement?

Start at the beginning. A well fleshed-out profile will attract user’s attention; ensure work history, education, company/work ethos is clear and comprehensive and upload a resume.

Invite all of your professional connections past and present in order to improve connectability. This should be done for individuals and companies; for employees whose company doesn’t have a profile, do it for them (with permission of course, once you have convinced them of the need). The more employees a company has connected on LinkedIn, the higher the visibility will be for the business, and the more likely it is to make new connections.

Profiles are essential for LinkedIn success, so don’t stint on this, list every single relevant skill possible and give a thorough overview of experience and key abilities. Alexis Krase of LinkedIn says that a profile should be considered your “executive bio”.

Start a group. There are more than 900,000 groups on LinkedIn, a lot of competition maybe but not as high as Facebook, which at December 2011 had more than 37 million pages. Think of the group as a company blog, keep it relevant to your industry and visit it daily, adding people as you go and ensuring you interact regularly with members. This will improve visibility and connectability, as well as help your network to grow.

Use LinkedIn’s Outlook Social Connector tool. This adds a LinkedIn widget to your email signature which displays your profile picture and latest activity on the site. This means that every professional email that you send will give potential connections the opportunity to view your professional profile and connect with you as an individual and your company.

Give recommendations. Of course, what you are looking for here is for others to return the favour. Whilst you can just request that previous workmates/employers/clients recommend you, they are more likely to be willing if you have already extended the courtesy. 78% of people buy a product/service through referral, so using recommendations is a savvy way to improve connections and engagement.
Connect wisely. Remember that LinkedIn is a professional social network, you’re not there to make friends and post silly photos, that’s what Facebook is for, so choose connections wisely and don’t add everyone in sight. This will help you to grow your network organically as people choose to connect with a profile they see as having some professional value. Start by connecting only with people you know or have known in a professional capacity, add through your group, choosing people who are relevant to your industry in some way and resist the temptation to add randomly and frequently.

Finally, use LinkedIn daily, make it part of your routine, update with high-quality, relevant information and interact with those who respond. Like any other social network, LinkedIn won’t do the work for you and in order to grow your network, it’s vital that you provide content that interests others and provides an incentive to connect with you. http://www.mysocialagency.com/

eModeration LOTW: Popcorn TV from Silicon Valley

2012-04-09T11:30:00.000Z

A social media links of the week list curated from a (mostly) US perspective.
Enjoy!

image of Hermione Way courtesy of yourhiddpotential.co.uk

The Real Silly Valley?
US cable television network Bravo announced this week that it is moving ahead with a reality series focused on Silicon Valley, executive produced by former Facebooker Randi Zuckerberg. Snark is already flying about the trivialization of the start-up culture. (Guilty, here! We suspect brogrammers will be highly featured. Also, gratuitous hot tub shots.) Confirmed for the show are:

Hermione Way, video director at The Next Web, founder of Newspepper
Ben Way, founder of Rainmakers, brother to Hermione
Kim Taylor, account director at Ampush Media
Jay Holanda, model, producer, and founder of a stealth startup
Marcus Lovingood, founder of Futureleap
Dwight Crow, founder of Carsabi (one of only a few that can code)
David Murray, founder of a stealth startup, formerly of Raptr (and the other one that can code)

Also in the works, a show about meme meisters Ben Huh and the I Can Has Cheezeburger crew. If you just checked to make sure that all of this wasn't a belated April Fool's Day joke, you weren't the only one.

How to Change a Pinterest Board Cover Photo (finally)
Pinterest has introduced a couple of tweaks to cover photos for boards, allowing users to position the frame from which Pinterest will take the cover photo on a particular pin, as well as select which pin will be used as the cover photo. A top request from users, we say - big huzzahs for listening, Pinterest! Looking for more boost to your Pinterest expertise? Take a gander at our 19 Tools for Pinterest piece and our look at Pinterest from the legal point of view.

Pinterest Now the Third Most Popular Social Network
A new report from Experian says Pinterest is now the third most popular social network in the U.S., based on number of visits, surpassed only by Facebook and Twitter. (With context, now that billion dollar valuation makes a lot of sense.)

just a few of the eModeration languages

Path Crowdsources for Translations
Path, the iOS and Android social network app coming soon to Windows Phone and designed for close friendship social sharing, is taking the Twitter route of crowdsourcing translation services. (Did you know eModeration offers moderation services in approximatedly 50 languages, and that our very own hyperpolyglot Richard Simcott has a personal repertoire of 16 languages and counting? Multi-lingual community and social media management is a core competency for us.)

Path Sets the Benchmark for Apps, User Data, and User Privacy
Recently under fire for accidental sharing of address book info (and again for GPS/photo information,) Path has also introduced a beefed-up privacy layer of hashing the data sent to the Path servers, stating it hopes to "set a new standard" in user privacy.

Zeen - reserve your username

YouTube Founders and Zeen
A splash page for a new service called Zeen has surfaced, promising to allow you to “Discover and create beautiful magazines." Zeen tracksback to AVOS, an Internet company led by YouTube co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen that acquired social bookmarking service Delicious last year. The Privacy Policy page seems to indicate that multimedia sharing will be a focus of the service, and suggests that there will be a browser bookmarklet available. The logo is pretty! We'll have to wait and see for a bigger take on the service.

Twitter Suing Spammers
Twitter is taking spammers to court, hoping to force "bad actors" (ie, spam tool creators) to own up to accountability for the growing spam problem on Twitter. Via a blog post, Twitter states: "By shutting down tool providers, we will prevent other spammers from having these services at their disposal. Further, we hope the suit acts as a deterrent to other spammers, demonstrating the strength of our commitment to keep them off Twitter.”

What we can learn from the crisis: Volkswagen vs. Greenpeace

2012-04-06T07:38:00.003Z

We're just past the first quarter of 2012, and we thought it was time to have a look at some of the social media crises over which we have tut-tutted this year; look to see what patterns are emerging and where we think the brand concerned could have done better. We'll aim for a post on this each Friday of April: a little schadenfreude for the weekend, sir ....

First up: Volkswagen (January)

The background: Greenpeace launched their 'Darth Vader' campaign (a spoof of VW's own award-winning Superbowl ad) against the car manufacturer, accusing it of “using its huge political muscle to lobby against key environmental laws”.

What Volkswagen did: Oblivious to the possible responses, Volkswagen posted an invitation on its Facebook page for users to to list New Year’s resolutions and make suggestions about they would like to see the company achieve in 2012.

What happened next: A couple of days later, Greenpeace U.K. posted its own note to Facebook, urging its fans to ambush the VW page. Environmental protesters flocked to Volkwagen's wall ...

How did Volkswagen deal with the comments? Not very well it seems, as Greenpeace's video below shows. First they ignored the comments - and then they deleted them. Ooops.

What could they have done?

1. Think before you post. Easy to say, but it would obviously have been a good idea not to have asked the question on their page in the first place. Before hitting the 'publish' button, every community manager or content strategist should ask themselves "what could possibly go wrong with this"? If you're a major multinational organisation, you can't allow your social media team to operate in isolation from the rest of your organisation - your PR and legal department for example. Greenpeace's campaign against VW was launched in June 2011 and it was still going strong at the turn of the year. That innocent-looking status update was never going to pass unnoticed by the campaigners, and shouldn't have been given sign-off ... unless of course, the car manufacturer was actually looking to gauge public opinion on its environmental policy? If that was the case, then ignoring and then deleting the comments would seem an odd way to respond. Volkswagen perhaps should have learnt a lesson from Qantas' similar error last year?

Once the attack was underway though, here's what our social media crisis team think should have happened, in a case like this:

2. Get the Facebook-friendly pre-approved PR response on the page asap. Because there would have already been one drafted, right? Because the Greenpeace campaign had been running for 6 months and they could see this might happen, right ? Because it's hard to get something written and approved at 3am, because ... well, you get the idea. This response should include a thanks for to posters for sharing their view. Let the protesters know you hear them.

3. If possible, get debate on the issue away from the page. Now that Facebook have taken away the 'Discussions' tab, you can't move conversations off your wall any more. A place on your website where you can give your stance, with comments possible; an email address to write to - these are good alternatives. Explain that you would like to address their concerns properly and engage with them, and a Facebook page isn't the right platform.

4. Keep talking as long as the comments keep coming. This case wasn't a social media 'storm in a teacup', a three day bashtag wonder. In this case, ignoring people's genuine concerns in the hope that it will all blow over probably isn't the best idea (although with other issues it can be). It's a really fine line between stoking the fire and ignoring people. Mat Morrison from Starcom MediaVest has done some interesting research showing that firestorms are calmed better by responding to comments - so that only those involved in the conversation or visitors to the wall see the responses - than by posting status updates from the brand, so that fans see them in their newsfeed, and are alerted to a situation they may otherwise have been unaware of.

5. Don't delete comments. Don't delete comments. Don't delete comments. It doesn't matter how many times they must hear this advice, page admins will keep doing it, and it's never a good idea. Yes, delete a comment if it's profane, trying to start a flame war, racist, or illegal. A screengrab can easily prove the reason for your moderation. But allow criticism, and deal with it. If you must - if, for example, your page is getting spammed with obscene posts, or you are trying to staff up to deal with the volume, then you also have the option to turn off posts by others entirely which is what FB suggests during social media crisises. This doesn't stop people writing on your page - but they have to put comments under your status updates (see point above). This is the setting in FB that allows you to do this:

Of course there is no magic bullet, and we're not trying to say there is. But you can do your best to avoid, not to exacerbate, and to respectfully deal with an online crisis which has its roots in an offline situation.

For more advice on dealing with a social media crisis, or to book a crisis simulation training workshop, please visit eModeration's webpage.

19 Tools for Pinterest Pros

2012-04-04T14:18:00.000Z

By Bliss Hanlin, Community Manager at eModeration

As Pinterest growth skyrockets, so follows the number of tools available to help us manage our content, understand our metrics, and be better pinners. Below are just a few of the tools and services now available for use with Pinterest that are especially handy for brands, marketers, and Pinterest devotees.

(Are we crazy for Pinterest? Little bit! For more from eModeration on Pinterest, try our look from a legal standpoint at the new Terms of Use going into effect April 6, our Everything Pinterest guide, and of course, eModeration's boards on Pinterest.) Update - Since this post has proved mighty popular, this review exists as a handy free pdf, downloadable from our website. Fill yer boots ;-) )

General Use Tools

Official "Pin It" Pinterest Bookmarklet - sometimes the simplest answer is the best one. Pinterest offers a "Pin It" bookmarklet on its goodies page. Just right when you want to pin that, there and then be done.

Pin a Quote - a bookmarklet that turns a text quote into something pinable, although for a more alluring visual, you'll need to PayPal the creator for an upgrade to the Pro version. Reminiscent of how the Wall Street Journal is using quote presentation on Pinterest as lead-ins to articles and stories. We love this one - it is win-win-win for the Pinterest quote/inspiration loving community, the Pin/Board curator, and the original content author.

SpinPicks - for the curating weary, SpinPicks finds topical eye-candy across the web for your Pinning pleasure, and does its best to do so in a responsible digital citizen way by bypassing search link and aiming for original source material linking. SpinPicks is still in beta. We found it to be a little slow, and not being able to input a search topic was frustrating. But we do love the exploring aspect for Flickr CC licensed images. We're hoping for great things from SpinPicks in the future.

Enlarge Pin Images Tools

Pinterest Image Expander - a Google extension, Pinterest Image Expander takes the click out of viewing for the Pinterest surfer by expanding the image with an in-line view upon hover. This kind of tool is great for the repinners amongst us. This particular tool was created by a masterful small business pinner - Brian Noah of Noah Photography.

Pinterest Pro - the Swiss Army knife of Pinterest use tools, Pinterest Pro is a Google extension that adds the hover/zoom feature of Pinterest Image Expander (with an even larger expansion,) but also incorporates a "right click to pin" function and a quickie view of trending pins via a drop-down view from the extension toolbar. By Zach Allia, the maker of "Friendsheet for Facebook."

Screen Capture to Pin Tools

url2pin.it - an alternative to a bookmarklet, url2pin.it offer an easy interface for the casual user for presenting a full-screen capture. The source link pulls over in the description field. We liked how url2pin.it added a little touch of fancy, by presenting color mapping of the image along with (HTML color codes upon rollover) in a handsome color block at the bottom of the pic.

Screen 2 Pin - a Google extension by the makers of url2pin.it, with the same Pinterest-friendly screen capture result.

Snapito! - terrible name, great product. Snapito's "Pin Page" bookmarklet allow you to screen capture a website or landing page, and have that automatically turn into a pin - including the full-source URL into the description. We love responsible pinning, and that the URL is baked into the resulting pin is a big plus to us.

Pinstamatic - the makers of Snapito must have overheard us about that name, as they are working on a similar product that incorporates the screen grab tool, adds "sticky note" images for pinning text, and a Twitter profile card pin-maker. In the early stages, and they are looking for design help.

ShotPin - ShotPin's makers know that while a quick screengrab is handy, sometimes what is really needed is judicious cropping. Their Google extension offers capture and then crop, a functionality the other Capture to Pin tools should take note of. As much as we love cropping, the UX of this one was a little clumsy, and it does not automatically credit the source link. Quibbles, because the easy crop is fantastic.

Curation

Curalate - like some of the other companies in this category, Curalate has big plans, scaling to provide value to big brands by offering a monitoring, analytics, and brand intelligence platform focused on social curation. That's right, they see visual content curation as more than just a one-off, but a movement. Currently moving to an invitational beta, the team at Curalate would love to hear from more brands and agencies interested in getting a first look.

Percolate - overwhelmed by your content needs in general? Percolate is ready to take the whole kaboodle off your hands, make it tidy for you, then hand it back with a bow by using algorithms to learn a brand's taste and then surface relevant content in an organized way. The dashboard then reveals what kind of content resonates the most with the brand's different audiences. We assume with a kit as powerful as what they are describing, a little Pinterest action is not going to be a hardship. For brands that have high content output needs, a tool like Percolate makes a lot of sense.

Influence, Analytics and Metrics

PinReach - (formerly PinClout"), an analytics service that helps Pinterest users monitor trends and gauge their success on the site. We especially like the "trending pins" section. Fun for surfing.

Repinly - yet another influence tracker, Repinly has an attractive design but seems a little light on innovative features.

Pinpuff - one of the first pinfluence raters, Pinpuff is still going strong, with info about much your account is worth, along side reach, activity and virility scores. The PinPerks program is innovative, with business promoters exploring social influence via the platform.

Pintics - Pintics says it will provide a multiple account dashboard (we could really use this!) with with metrics included sales data. In closed beta, and an outgrowth of a hackathon.

Pinerly - promising to be the next best thing since sliced bread, we don't have access to this one yet. The streamlined dashboard is intriguing, as is the "schedule pins" feature. We didn't have the patience for the "Invite 10 friends and maybe we will show you a bigger screenshot of what you might someday be invited to join" game (and apparently, we aren't the only ones who feel that way), but possibly you have more stamina for that kind of thing than we do.

Google Analytics - "But wait!" you might be thinking to yourself. "Google Analytics does not belong in this list! If you are going to mention Google Analytics in relation to Pinterest, might as well stick in Photoshop! Or Ice Cream! Or my Aunt Maude!!" Well, we admit, we weren't going to include it, but then we found this brilliant explanation from Mashable about how to make Pinterest data jump through Google Analytics hoops, and knew we'd be doing a disservice by leaving it out.

image courtesy of Modea

Honorable Mention - A special shoutout for a hobbyist project called simply "Pinterest Bookmarklet" (although "Pinterest Audience" appears to be a contender) that uses Pinterest's source tracking and displays the data as a save-able .csv file. We imagine this could be of particular use for marketers gathering brand competitor intelligence and hope Aaron, Josh, and A.J.continue its development.

If you'd like to see this one in action, try running it on an often-pinned-from site like Pillsbury.com. If it is near lunchtime, maybe try running it from a clothing retailer site instead, as we went weak at the knees at the thought of the Caramel Brownie Bites, a Pillsbury 2012 Bake-off finalist. Yum!

Tumblr Tutorial for Brands, Part II: The Hands-On Guide

2012-04-02T08:55:00.002Z

Image courtesy of FauxShot via deviantART

By Bliss Hanlin, Community Manager at eModeration

In Part I of our Tumblr tutorial, we looked at some of the ways brands are currently using Tumblr. This Part II offers more details on set-up and particular issues that will be of interest to social media and marketing brand managers for establishing Tumblrs for corporate use.

We've kept this post as brief as possible: for more details, please download our free Tumblr tutorial eBook.

Getting Started

Getting started with Tumblr is simple. Its ease of use is one of the drivers of its popularity as a microblogging platform. Upon registering, you'll have the opportunity to choose a URL. A customized URL can be selected after the registration process.

Features

Tumblr dashboard serves both as a publishing platform and an aggregate reader.
Posts can be reblogged and liked by followers directly from the dashboard menu.
Tumblr blogs can be linked with custom domain names.
“Ask” feature allows readers to directly ask bloggers questions.
“Submit” feature allows readers to submit content to other Tumblr blogs with the blogger’s approval.

Themes

Themes are the visual "look" of the blog. Free themes are available, but are considered somewhat passe by the users. Themes are built in HTML or CSS and so can be custom designed to suit your brand. More useful widgets can be found in this directory by ILoveTumblr.com.

The Bookmarklet

The Tumblr bookmarklet makes it simple to post to Tumblr while surfing the web. Just drag the Tumblr bookmarklet to your bookmarks toolbar and use it when you find something blog-worthy.

Content
Unlike a traditional Wordpress blog or an established Twitter handle, an interesting part of the Tumblr culture is the "disposable" blog, or one that has a short-shelf life and is built on a transitory theme. Some brands have used specialty Tumblr blogs for short-live campaigns (Ann Taylor, Target.) Part I of this Tumblr Tutorial and our e-Book on Tumblr cover content in more depth.

Practices

Fan art on display at the Tumblr HQ

Promotion of Fan Art and User Generated Content

In a community that centers on visuals and design, it should be expected that fan art be part of the experience. Savvy brands promote and elevate fan art via direct upload and reblog.

Livetumblring

Using a Tumblr brand blog as a live, second screen reblogging important screenshots, quotes, animated GIFs, and fan reactions to moments as they happen in real time was a practice pioneered by the American version of Doctor Who to great effect.

Click-through link
Setting a click-through link ("watermarking") is a simple way to drive traffic back to your official site or to your Tumblr blog once your post has been reblogged.

Tumblr Famous

The definition of "Tumblr Famous" refers at least in part to follower count. Tumblr fans will also use the term as a pejorative. For brands, it is important to note that part of being considered a legitimate part of the Tumblr community is the level of participation the authors put in.

MTVUK offers a teaser on Madonna

Repurposing Content
Tumblr is an excellent platform for breathing new life into older content from your more mainstream, long-form media sources. A tidbit or factoid that was cut during editing can make perfect sense on Tumblr, coupled with a repurposed visual. Likewise, a synopsis or teaser with a visual from your long form content works on Tumblr when added in with a redirect to the larger piece.

Tagging
Tagging a post with multiple descriptors may seem like overkill, but each of the tags will sort to a different discovery stream. Tumblr users often surf from within Tumblr itself, so the more exposure you give a post, the more likely it is to be read for a new follower to be added.

Accessibility

Feeds and Subscriptions

Tumblr is a self-referential world. While follows and reblogs are desired, it is important to make sure your Tumblr blog is accessible to non-Tumblr people as well. The fansite ILoveTumblr has identified the following conversion points: an accessible feed, an email list, and an opt-in form.

Comments

The default Tumblr blog doesn't have a native commenting system. To make interaction as fluid as possible, you will need to add the Disqus add-in. Moderation of comments is possible via the Disqus admin panel. Disqus allows comments to be posted as stand-alone blog posts - a great way to value contributors and introduce a topic to a wider audience.

Integration

To make sharing seamless, a custom-built theme should include Twitter and Facebook integration for readers and followers. For management, third party tools will allow you to post and track from one central dashboard. Some of the integrations available include: Hootsuite, NetVibes, Postling, Tweetdeck.

Monitoring

Built-in analytics are lacking on Tumblr. Beyond a follower count, there isn't much to be gleaned from Tumblr-provided tools.

Sample data from TumblrStats

Some third party providers can fill in the gap. Google Analytics can provide data on Tumblr once the blog has been enabled. TumblrStats allows you to call up any Tumblr blog by username and is useful for a top down look at your Tumblr as well as for performing research on other blogs' use.

Challenges

Trending Tumblr Memes

Participating in a trending Tumblr meme can be one way for a brand to show its more approachable side on Tumblr. The "Explore" link on Tumblr (currently located on the Dashboard's sidebar) can help surface current topics and interests, and the "Search" feature offers a "Track" option as well. Sites like KnowYourMeme and TrendHunter aggregate knowledge on a popular trends. Reviewing the history of a meme before jumping in is a wise step to avoid an inadvertent #socialfail.

Spamming / Phishing

Tumblr increasingly is dealing with spam Tumblrs that auto-follow and reblog content. Spam accounts, phishing accounts, accounts focused on content (pornography, self-harm, etc.) you'd rather not have associated in any form with your Tumblr community can be blocked from following, commenting, and reblogging your content via the "Block" feature.

Reblogging

Just as participating in a Tumblr meme without understanding the context can be risky business, so can reblogging without reviewing the content of the original Tumblr blog. Therefore, an important step in the reblogging process for a brand is to review the blog before posting. Many Tumblr blogs are dedicated to unsavory topics (thinspo, cutting, pornography, etc.) Although Tumblr recently instituted a "no self-harm" policy, the nature of the platform with its individualized subject streams still lends itself to niche subjects. Reposting, or using another Tumblr's content without using the "Reblog" feature, is considered to be very poor form on Tumblr.

Part I of our Tumblr Tutorial for Brands can be found here, but for a more complete look at Tumblr, please download our free e-Book. And let us know what you think, won't you?