Fellow blogger Graeme Harrison recently dropped me an email asking me to contribute to his list of Timeless Classics, a list of a list of books that have shaped the advertising and marketing communications landscape.

An impressive list of bloggers have contributed to the list so far including Seth Godin, Chris Anderson, Helge Tennø, Adam Richardson, Russell Davies, Neil Perkin, Jon Steel, Eoan Pritchard, and last but certainly not least, Katy Lindemann.

I’ve been thinking about which book should be included in this wonderful list over the past couple of weeks, and have finally settled for THE social media bible, Groundswell.

Right now your customers are blogging about you, creating spoofs on YouTube, complaining about you on Twitter, and hating you on Facebook. As a Brand Manager you can either a) get scared and quit your job, or b) turn social media into an opportunity. I choose the latter…

Companies are increasingly turning to PR agencies (thank you for keeping me employed!) to help them with their online WOM, and this book should be on every bookshelf across the country world. With Google soon to index Twitter updates, Social Media is something that can no longer be ignored. Groundswell explains how organizations need to adjust to remain relevant to consumers, and how can they actually benefit from this trend.

Although the platforms we use may change in the years to come, web 2.0 marks an important shift in the way we use the Internet, and communicate in our daily lives.

The search continues – what’s your Marketing Timeless Classic? Let me know in the comments alternatively write a blog post linking back to Graeme’s blog.

Recent research by healthcare company Pfizer shows that more than one in seven British adults surveyed (15%) has admitted to bypassing the healthcare system to get hold of prescription only medicine without a prescription. This is a shocking trend as fake medicines purchased online can contain harmful ingredients such as rat poison3 and can cause harm to patients and even lead to death.

Pfizer launched earlier this year a cinema ad of a man coughing up a dead rat after taking medicine bought from an illicit website.

The ad has now made it to our TV screens and is considered so shocking that it can only be broadcast on television after 11pm. The ad was aired for the first time on Channel 4 earlier this week.

Warning: do not watch this ad if you’re squeamish

The Get Real, Get A Prescription is a public awareness campaign which is being launched to educate the public on the risks involved in purchasing fake medicines from unregulated websites.

Head over to realdanger.co.uk for more information about the campaign

Now, this is THE best online promotion I’ve seen in absolutely ages.

I stumbled upon a micro-site yesterday called theroyalfail.com; the site does what it says on the tin i.e. pokes fun at the Royal Mail strike. The game is simple: throw as many envelopes as you can in the van to help get rid of the mail backlog within 30 seconds.

This is when it gets better; upon completion of the game, players get £4.50 off at Firebox with all items purchased delivered by courier!

I had never heard of Firebox before and they sell some seriously cool geeky things! This promotion has not only helped them get noticed, but they’ll probably also make some serious ££ in the process.

Very well done indeed!

As some of you may know, I’ve recently started freelancing for blur Group, and just thought I would send a little link love their way

blur Group is all about crowdsourcing i.e. making the most out of collective intelligence and re-architecting the creative industries. blur Group offers a wide range of services across the whole digital spectrum, so If you’re looking for a web designer, social media specialist or a web developer, I would strongly recommend you check them out!

Here’s my first entry for this year’s Bathroom Blogfest 2009 which is all about ‘Flushing the Recession and Plunging into Forgotten Spaces.’

Don’t forget to check out the full list of blogfesters here, as well as the Bathroom Blogfest’s official Blog and Facebook Fan page

One of the key things in Social Media Marketing, is how brands can use different channels and add value to their customers. Now imagine you’re faced with a purchase decision, and suddenly remember this cool Facebook Fan Page / YouTube video / Twitter Feed, you’ll probably end up buying the brand that made you feel good, instead of a competitor product… well I do anyway!

Social media is a relationship channel and you could add value by sharing something to help your customers, or it might be by providing a customer with a chance to give you feedback, or simply sharing a joke with them!

Here are a few ways to provide value and usefulness to your customers:

- Listen to your audience online and let them know you hear them by making changes based on their feedback
- Follow the 90/10 rule: 90% of your messages will be about adding value, and the remaining 10% will be about promoting your brand and ‘pushing’ your marketing messages
- Be human – Social Media is about giving your brand a voice (or a face, e.g Zappos)
- Online messages spread fast – follow the social networking code of conduct and be nice (remember Habitat?)
- Every time you Tweet / Blog about something, ask yourself if it’s useful
- Ask questions, answer questions, retweet content your followers might find useful

What other useful tips could we add to this list?

Does anyone understand the meaning Yahoo!’s latest advertising campaign ‘This Time it’s Personal: It’s You!’?

After a little Googling (ooo the irony!), I found out that this campaign is in fact supporting Yahoo!’s new search format which now features a new left column that allows users to filter results, but also to include notes in their Search Pad (does anyone know what a search pad is? I didn’t…)

Will people understand the meaning of this campaign? Unlikely.

If you’re not quite sure what Google Wave is, I would suggest you watch this awesome video before reading this post:

The Google Wave interface has three columns which are very similar to an Outlook / Entourage interface with your folders/contacts, inbox, and finally the messages preview pane. It could be described as a hybrid between Messenger, Email and Facebook to a certain extent. Once you start actually using it, things slowly fall into place, but until you do so, it’s pretty hard to explain or understand.

Google Wave is like real-time email, and you can easily add hundreds (!!) of people to a Wave. Once you include gadgets, things start getting a bit out of control! Gadgets let you drop in pretty much anything into a conversation; Sudoku, maps, videos, voting buttons and anything else that people will develop in the future.

I really like Google Wave, however there are still loads of improvements to be made… Waves get messy and it’s actually quite hard to find out who’s added what.

Google Wave gives you the option to replay the Wave to see the full conversation, however I don’t think I would have the patience to watch a very long Wave being re-played in front of my eyes! Can you imagine how long it would it take to replay 250+ messages?

Will Google Wave replace emails? I don’t think so, not at the moment anyway. I see Google Wave being used in addition to emails. Say for instance, you needed to brainstorm ideas, you could easily add the whole office to a Wave, as well as your clients to contribute to various ideas. Your client would be able to upload files, leave feedback etc on the spot.

We’ve created a number of Waves to play with the service; let me know if you’d like to be included in any of these:
- London gWave Contact List
- Figuring out Google Wave
- Google Wave 101 Do’s and Don’ts
- Social Media Resource Library
- Will linkup between Google and Twitter (and Bing & Twitter) mean new SEO challenges?
- We love Foursquare in London

The 2009 Bathroom Blogfest, now in its fourth year, brings together 20 bloggers from the U.S., Canada, the UK and India who will post at least once on some aspect of the theme: ‘Flush the Recession and Plunge into Forgotten Spaces.’ The topic is very much ‘open-ended’ so it’ll interesting to see what other blogfesters talk about!

The Bathroom Blogfest began in 2006 as the brainchild of Stephanie Weaver, and Susan Abbott, who wanted to connect with fellow bloggers passionate about the customer experience. The Bathroom Blogfest has now grown into a resource for retailers and restaurants that are looking for tips on how to create a better experience for customers.

You can stay up to date with the Bathroom Blogfest by joining our Fan Page on Facebook, and you can of course, follow us on @BathroomBlogfes.

Participating bloggers for the Bathroom Blogfest ’09 include:

• Susan Abbott at Customer Experience Crossroads
• Reshma Anand at Qualitative Research Blog
• Shannon Bilby at From the Floors Up
• Shannon Bilby and Brad Millner at My Big Bob’s Blog
• Jeanne Byington at The Importance of Earnest Service
• Becky Carroll at Customers Rock!
• Leslie Clagett at KB Culture
• Katie Clark at Practical Katie
• Iris Shreve Garrott at Checking In and Checking Out
• Julie at Julie’s Cleaning Secrets Blog
• Marianna Hayes at Results Revolution
• Maria Palma at People To People Service
• Professor Toilet at Professor Toilet’s Blog
• David Reich at My 2 Cents
• Bethany Richmond at The Carpet and Rug Institute Blog
• Carolyn Townes at Becoming a Woman of Purpose
• Stephanie Weaver at Experienceology
• C.B. Whittemore at Flooring The Consumer and Simple Marketing Blog
• Linda Wright at Lindaloo.com: Build Better Business with Better Bathrooms

I am absolutely delighted to be involved in this blogging event, once again, and I look forward to reading your posts ladies!

Funny things often happen in Twitterland… Today’s randomness definitely got me LOLing away behind my screen…

Back in the old days, bloggers used to link back to one another other as a sign of appreciation, and an effective way of sharing content. Linking back also helped increase our Page Rank and Technorati authority; we (bloggers) call this the Link Love. With conversations now moving to Twitter, linking back to other bloggers is sadly a behaviour in decline…

In an attempt to help my friends with their Page Rank, I’d like to introduce you to my blogging buddies Nicolas the Frenchie (who’s going to kill me for calling him Frenchie ), pun-extraordinaire Hayley, Italiano vero Matteo and last but certainly not least, Gavin Heaton of Servant of Chaos fame who inspired me to write this post!

As always thanks for reading

Here’s another little gem I wish Dopplr had come up with… Ladies and Gents, I’d like to introduce you to MySkyStatus™, a new travel tool powered by Lufthansa.

MySkyStatus™ is a nifty application that sends precise departure, altitude, location and arrival updates automatically to the traveler’s Facebook and Twitter pages while they’re in the air. MySkyStatus is able to track all flights so travelers of all airlines (not just Lufthansa travellers) can keep their global networks updated, and most importantly their mums as they travel the globe.

It’s something I’ll definitely be checking out next time I travel somewhere!