Cross-posted from snoo.ws.

A study released last week by Big Mouth Media, a digital marketing agency, identified who among the top businessmen in the UK is using social media the most. The study surveyed 50 CEOs from the FTSE100 as well as representatives from the Sunday Times Fast Track 100 (a list of fast growing businesses compiled by Virgin once a year). Big Mouth Media reported that John Heald, Senior Director of Carnival, was the most active on the FTSE100 list while Steve Endacott, CEO of On Holiday Group, was named top user on the Fast Track list.

Big Mouth Media then interviewed the people involved in the survey who offered some valuable insight for all small, medium and large scale businesses. John Heald said this about large businesses that have been around for a long time and may be stuck in their ways:

“The Internet has changed the way that people want to communicate with companies, and even the FTSE100 has to come to terms with that. Customers have become accustomed to a certain level of transparency and informality in their dealings with business and even large-scale enterprises need to adjust their marketing strategies accordingly.”

Endacott, a fairly new business owner whose resume includes running MyTravel, says that all businesses need to get in touch with these new tools:

“I believe that these are tools every business has to get to grips with. There’s a generation of consumers growing up with social media, and unless you truly understand the culture there’s a real danger of losing touch with them.”

In a world where many companies are still unsure of the value of the new mediums this advice from successful business owners who are working with new technology becomes very valuable. Chris Lake of Econsultancy, a source of independent advice and insight on digital marketing and ecommerce said:

“What’s needed is a shift in mindset. Firms should embrace customer feedback and act on it. By engaging with customers you increase satisfaction, which is a proven way of generating repeat business and referrals. Why wouldn’t you want to do that? Social media really is win-win, but I’d stop short of filing it under ‘marketing’. It’s about customer service, as much as anything.”

A quick breakdown of the report shows that the biggest companies, the old guard if you will, are still relatively new to social media and have not yet totally embraced it. If you look at the findings, newer Fast Track company CEOs are almost all using some form of social media to develop a dialogue with their customers while the FTSE100 list shows very little use. What this means for companies on the rise or that want to grow is that social media is a must. The benefits are just too great and the downside is just as big of not using the tools that younger generations have grown up with.

One of the cool things about working with great clients like ICUC Moderation Services is that we come into contact with all sorts of new information all the time. Today’s snoo.ws blog includes an interesting post on how the value of communications executives is growing quickly these days due in large part to the increasing importance of social media.

That is no surprise to me - though I can think of a couple of former bosses who could use  some education there. With the growth of social media, there is no place to hide for companies and organizations.

Even companies that choose not to participate can be thrown in front of the public glare of crisis thanks to a viral video post. Witness the recent Dominos Pizza debacle where a couple of employees from the low end of the gene pool posted YouTube videos of themselves doing disgusting things to pizzas.

As social media makes communications so much easier, companies will need to invest more time and effort into monitoring online conversations  about their brands, as well as participating in those discussions. Often the best way to do that is to start the conversation yourself, which is why we find ourselves frequently working with out clients to create blogs and broadcast feeds (via Twitter or Facebook for example).

It takes time, money and planning, but social media is a vital tool for contemporary communicators.

Just a quick post to say I’m looking forward to giving a presentation on social media tools in modern communications to the foodManitoba Group later this month.

Many thanks for the invitation. I hope it’s an interactive and lively session.

Throughout his seven Tour de France victories, Lance Armstrong earned adulation from around the world. And why not? He came back from cancer and transformed himself from a middle-of-the-pack racer to the best cyclist the world has ever seen.

Not surprisingly, his success fuelled whispers of steroids or other performance enhancing drugs. Books and magazine articles have been written alleging his transgressions and several high profile legal battles have ensued. It doesn’t matter how many times he has denied the rumours. And it doesn’t matter which authority has come to his defence. People are inclined to either believe the worst or put an asterix next to his achievements.

And then along came Twitter.

And how does the micro-blog social network help him? Let me count the ways.

Armstrong has been on Twitter for several months now and has become one of the most followed people on the network. Twitter allows him to communicate instantly several times a day to his nearly half a million ‘followers.’ So when he recently crashed during a Spanish race breaking his collar bone, he was able to relay the news nearly as fast as the news networks.

I’m alive! Broken clavicle (right). Hurts like hell for now. Surgery in a couple of days. Thanks for all the well wishes.

For the past week or so he’s reported on his subsequent surgery, return to the United States and ongoing recovery. He’s also posted links to video messages and continued to promote his other main passion - fighting cancer through his Livestrong Foundation.

But where Twitter has really helped is with the drug tests. Twitter has given Armstrong a tool to broadcast to the world exactly when and where he is being visited by drug testers. You need only follow him for a few days to notice the frequency of the visits. Here are a few tweets following his March 17th test:

March 17:

Yet another “surprise” anti-doping control. 24th one. This one from the French authorities. Urine, blood, and hair! Classic..

So I’m clear - never complaining about these tests. Def part of the job. Feel targeted? Of course. But anything to prove I’m clean. Onward.

March 18:

I’m hearing from a lot of folks that there’s a lot of press clips re: my hair test/drug test yesterday and I was surprised and asking ?’s.

First off, I’m never surprised anymore. What does surprise me is that AFLD feels the need to publicly comment on confidential matters. (AFLD = the French anti-doping agency)

The Tweets about the ongoing drug tests are illuminating. Taking Armstrong at his word, they’re almost always a suprise; testers are frequently awaiting him at his home or hotel just after training rides; they come at odd times and are conducted by multiple agencies.

Reporting these events as they happen is a powerful means to rehabilitate his reputation to those who question whether he’s clean. Simply reporting after the fact that he’s been tested x times over x days by x agencies just doesn’t have the same credibility as reading about the tests as they happen.

I’ve always wanted to believe in Armstrong. His story is so good that it’s hard not to pull for him. I really hope he recovers from his current injury in time to compete at this year’s Tour de France and I hope he goes on to win for a record eighth time. If he does, and if he continues to use Twitter the way he has been, his reputation will be polished to a high gloss shine.

What a blunder. What a perfect case study in what NOT to post to your professional blog. Yesterday, Jeremiah Owyang, a senior Forrester Research analyst, posted an item that attacked Mzinga, a company he follows.

Gah, it’s painful stuff to read. It’s clear within the first two sentences that this is a post that should never have been published. Relying on hearsay, this respected social media industry analyst hints that Mzinga is a shaky company on the verge of falling apart.

He never lays out the evidence of the company’s failings - surely there must be something bad - because he says he doesn’t want to start rumours. Yet he succeeds in doing only that by dealing solely with innuendo… and then, in a rhetorical flourish that only a self-important analyst could write: I strongly recommend that any Mzinga clients or prospects stall any additional movement till they brief me next Monday.

Really? I mean, really? Lawyers, start your engines.

The blog post blazed a fast and broad trail through the Twitterverse and the comments that followed the original post correctly blasted Owyang. It was an irresponsible post made without much, if any, forethought. Owyang responded quickly, to his credit, but with only a weak apology.

There are times in everyone’s professional life when you want to strike out publicly at a client, or a vendor or a rival. In almost every case, it’s best to keep your mouth shut at least until you have all the information (and often afterward too).

Maybe he was frustrated with a perceived lack of response from the company and he wanted to use his bully post to whip the company into line. That’s something my first journalism instructor Mack Laing called the phallic typewriter syndrome. Maybe Owyang was tired and wasn’t thinking clearly. Or maybe he was just plain sloppy.

Always take care in what you write and how you write it.

Twitter has lately become all the rage. It’s the tops. It’s da bomb. It’s the new black.

So what is Twitter really? Technically, it’s called a microblog, which allows users to record what they’re doing  or thinking or finding interesting in small 140 character messages. It’s also called a newsfeed in that it constantly feeds news about its users to whomever wants to receive it.

But I’ve got another definition for people who are unfamiliar with both blogging and feeds: Twitter is your own personal broadcasting outlet. You start by following a few people like your friends, family members and work colleagues. Then they’ll follow you. Voila, you have the beginning of your audience. Then you can start following other people and organizations you find interesting. Find mavens like popular bloggers or journalists or thought leaders. Follow the people they’re following.

Find other people living in your home town, province or state (you can use Twitter’s search or you might want to use Twellow for this). Look for people in the same line of work or with the same interests as you. In time, you’ll notice more and more people following you.

If all your posts are just notes about your morning breakfast and what the cat’s doing to the couch, you may not care too much about who’s following you. But if you’re running a business or interested in networking, Twitter can be your best friend. There is currently no faster (or free) way to reach such a huge targeted audience as quickly as Twitter. And as more and more people join the service, it’s becoming an increasingly robust means to target people by demographic group, interest and geographic region.

Twitter hasn’t turned a profit yet, but its owners seem confident in their plan:

Todd Dagres, founder of one of the venture capital firms backing the microblog, Spark Capital, recently told blog Innovation Economy, “We know how we’re going to do it, and we’re very confident about how we’re going to do it, and it’s not necessarily in our interest to tell people how we’re going to do it. There is a biz model that has yet to be implemented. Of course, I can’t guarantee it’s going to work.”

Speaking of Twitter: if you’re already using it (or even if you’re not), why don’t you join us for our Winnipeg Tweet-up next Tuesday, March 10 at 5 p.m. at the Confusion Corner Bar and Grill. #wpgtweetup

Calling all Winnipeg Twitterers! The time has come for a face to face tweet-up. Dooley Communications together with ICUC Moderation Services will host an informal gathering of Twitter.com users in the Winnipeg area on Tuesday, March 10 from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Confusion Corner Bar and Grill.

Come out and enjoy a Twitterini and some live chatting with your virtual friends.

Follow us at www.twitter.com/adamdooley or www.twitter.com/k3ith. Follow news on the Tweet-up at #wpgtweetup.

Facebook backed down today to a storm of protest over its new terms of service that granted the social networking site ownership of all network content forever. Founder Mark Zuckerberg said in his blog that the site was going back to the drawing board and rewriting the terms. In the meantime, the old terms will prevail.

A couple of weeks ago, we revised our terms of use hoping to clarify some parts for our users. Over the past couple of days, we received a lot of questions and comments about the changes and what they mean for people and their information. Based on this feedback, we have decided to return to our previous terms of use while we resolve the issues that people have raised.

Discontent and complaints erupted over the weekend when Consumerist revealed the new terms of service and questioned whether Facebook should be able to own all the rights to all the content that users post on its site.

Part of the issue, I believe, is the way Facebook went about changing its terms of service. They did it very quietly, making no public mention of it other than updating the terms on its site. Nothing leads to a swarm of negative attention on the Internet like the appearance of deceipt and abuse of power.

Now Facebook seems to have learned that the old rules of public relations have plenty of application in social media. I’d argue they’re even more important. With Facebook, we’re dealing with the biggest community relations experiment in human history.The key is to win credibility by acting with consistency, integrity and honesty. You need to be prepared to consult broadly, which means you need to be prepared to not like what you hear.

The process can be messy. It can take longer. It might lead to imperfect solutions. But if done well, it should leave you with your organizational reputation (and market share) in tact or strengthened.

Facebook says today that it will consult with its users as it redrafts its terms of service. That process will be more difficult for it today than if they had started with that strategy two weeks ago before posting the new terms unilaterally.  Instead Zuckerberg and his posse violated one of the most sancrosanct rules of public communications: don’t bully communities.

I spent part of yesterday afternoon talking about social media and public relations with the next graduating class of PR Creative Communications students at Red River College. It was a good group, full of great questions about how to make practical use of social media trends in public relations and corporate communications.

Some of the themes I reviewed included:

• If you own a website, consider yourself a publisher. Publish new content continuously that is relevant, that speaks to your key audiences and that demonstrates your authority in your niche.
• Where PR pros have always needed to understand how to put together things like print specs, or ad buys. Today, they also need to know how to get blogs noticed on Technorati, Twitter, Friendfeed, etc. The web has become the core of communications programs.
• If you’re going to go down the social media road, you need to think ahead about how it will fit with your corporate culture.
• A decision to use social media also means you have to think about how to moderate user-generated content. Whether it’s text, photos, videos, mash-ups or whatever, consider how you’re going to monitor that content before you ever ask for it. (P.S. consider using our client: ICUC Moderation Services.)

Though the class I spoke to will be looking for jobs during the weakest economy in a generation, I strongly believe that they are entering a growth field. Organizations of all types will need competent communications pros to compete in the world of the 21st century. More than ever, corporate communications and public relations are vital for business, government and non-profits.

Cross-posted from snoo.ws…

The pace of technological change on the World Wide Web has been absolutely breathtaking over the past few years. Our new ability to share art, design and ideas through all kinds of media also has the potential to let consumers the world over break free of mass produced sameness.

We’re living in an age where average computer users can create just about anything from their own jeans to cars, mugs to movies. Writing in The Business Times, Dr. Sivam Krish said this week that for the first time since our grandparents’ generation we can again have personalized and unique products en masse. He should know. As the founder of Genometri, his company is offering customers the chance to design and produce their own t-shirts, picture frames and other keepsakes.

I agree with him. In the last few months, snoo.ws has written about a large number of companies that are latching on to the ease of new technologies and our basic human desire to express our own uniqueness (or at least feel as though we are).

Toyota is letting its customers influence the design of its Scion models; CafePress lets us design t-shirts, mugs and just about everything else; RYZ is generating buzz in fashion circles with its UGC shoes; and we have all seen countless options for customizing avatars, the epitome of online self-expression.

Left to themselves, these user-generated content companies may have been able to carve out small niches somewhere in the great Web cloud. But they’re not alone. Thanks to the proliferation of social networks, many of these companies are expanding quickly as word of them is passed from friend to friend.

This week’s announcement of a partnership between CafePress and Sellit is an example of how the technology is spreading. Using embeddable widgets, the companies are offering users the opportunity to set up virtual ‘franchise’ locations across social networks. A lot of what’s on offer may only be trinkets and t-shirts today, but I believe it won’t be long before the trend spreads far and wide into new industries, irrevocably changing each business model as it does.

For the last few generations, only the very rich could afford such personalization in what they purchased, wore drove or sat on. Soon, I expect we’ll all be able to get that [fill in your choice of product here] in just the right colour, size and shape delivered right to our doors… just the way we designed it ourselves.