I hate the term ‘social media’ and I think we should kill it off once and for all.

It is meaningless, confusing and doesn’t convey the real concept.

Here are a few thoughts on the matter:

1. What we are really talking about is how we share information, not social media, whatever that meant.

2. Most of the ‘old’ media has incorporated elements of ‘sharing’ via the Internet, so splitting the media by old and social is inaccurate.

3. In fact, media has always been ‘social’. Talking, gossiping, letter writing and even watching TV can be a social experience where we share.

4. No media exists in isolation, each channel – TV, newspapers, Reddit or whatever – influences the other

5. Why lump blogs, forums, wikis, bookmarking, microblogging, geolocation and innovations like Stickybits together? They are all so different and some have more in common with ‘old’ media than we think.

6. If we kill social media we can get rid of annoying social media gurus.

As you can see, a compelling argument. I know I have used the term social media in the past too, but as of late it has started to annoy me.

I met with a journalist contact yesterday and he was saying that he thinks all journalists should blog and use Twitter. I agree and told him I would pick out some old presentations that I found on the subject matter. So, instead of sending them to him via email I thought I would share my post with you all.

There is some good stuff in this presentation too but some of it is a bit old hat now. It is still worth a scan though.

Por qué Obama es para más de 3 años y Michelle para más de 15?, originally uploaded by seretuaccidente.

Is Obama suffering from raising the expectations of a nation?

His campaign was heralded as an incredible success by the public relations industry, but were the American people expecting too much?

Without a successful strategy to follow through on ‘brand’ promises, be they ones of policy or business, a media relations or social media campaign can fall flat on its face.

The best campaigns of public relations are those which are so closely intertwined with its subject that communication messages and the client are inseparable.

This meant, in Obama’s case, he should have created a messaging framework which adapted to the changing narrative of the nation. As expectations shift so should the communications.

Of course all this falls down if a client can’t deliver against its promises.

This tool is a fun little Flickr gizmo to brighten up even the most dull of blogs… In fact this gadget’s use doesn’t have to stop with blogs, you can use it for presentations, print, or just for fun. The tool is available here and was designed by @kastner

You can type in a phrase and it uses Flickr to spell out what you have to say.

I wasn’t very inspired with the phrase I chose to spell.

Here are a few links to interesting articles which I found this week

Excellent Resources Help You Create Your Own Social Networking Site
This is very geeky reading but there are some excellent tools, tips and plugins here for the digital and web savvy social media professional

How To Rank Top In Google
Nice summary of SEO, should you need to explain it to a client or marketing contact

List of The Top Free Press Release Sites — Moola Days
Public Relations professionals can argue whether news agencies are useful or not for securing press coverage, but what you can’t deny is that this blog has the most definitive list

20 Real-World Uses for Google Wave
What I like about this post is that it doesn’t get carried away and gives real, tangible uses. Any PR professional who has read up on Google Wave will have come across these uses before. However too often Google Wave blogs talk about the platform like it is a cure for cancer, while this post reiterates the most useful functionality

Techcrunch made an interesting announcement today about Cliqset.

I’m loving Cliqset (http://cliqset.com/) and want to give it more love. I think if a developer creates a good client for it, (like Tweetdeck) then I could use it more and more and more. Without a client I think it is pretty damn good too, so give it a whirl.

The Cliqset Marketer @rockinrobyn is a lovely helpful sort too. I recommend you follow her.

In short like the way you can:

Discover a new blog: By clicking on the home page blog icon, Cliqset will filter your activity stream to render a blog-only view. From there, you can easily browse until you find interesting content

Follow blogs: Integrating a blog platform with Cliqset allows you to share posts across selected social networks. To set this up, go to the Services page in Cliqset and activate whichever blogging platform you (or selected blogger) use, including WordPress, Tumblr, Posterous, Blogger, LiveJournal, and Xanga. Enter the blog URL or add the RSS/Atom feeds of the blog, and check the “Share my blog posts on Cliqset” box. Then watch as your blog content rolls through your home page activity stream, as we automatically start pulling your feed.

Share a post: To share an interesting post, click on the share button and choose the other communities with which you would like to share the content. Click the Share button, and the post will be delivered in real-time

Discuss: After you’ve wired up your blog to Cliqset, you can engage readers in a real-time, dynamic conversation about your ideas and opinions. On Cliqset, your blog post will have its own unique URL where readers can “Like” or “Comment” on your post to interact with you, the author. And of course, the process is the same for starting a discussion around a blog you’ve discovered

I want to give it more love. Spend some time with it. Make it my own. But as I have just started at http://www.citypress.co.uk, I am time poor. But Cliqset, I promise that at somepoint soon I shall show you some tender loving care and use you more as I think you have potential.

I also think VCs should give them more funding as there is definitely a commercial proposition here.

As usual I spent Christmas in France. While drinking the finest wines of humanity I also had plenty of time to think about their media. Here are four random observations and thoughts:

1 – The French have banned advertising – this is bad for the BBC
The French government has banned advertising on their state run TV channels. There is more information on this here

Strangely, advertisements are only banned between 8pm-6am, which I guess are the hours when Sarko is watching TV with Carla Bruni.

Although this brings the French model closer to the BBC’s, ultimately this move is bad for the Beeb, as it is another example of western governments cutting back the size and scale of state run TV.

2 – French TV has a lot of talk time
There is an incredible appetite for talk shows in France. Be it a panel show discussing current affairs, daft comedy or quiz shows, the French like talking. A lot.

Many talk shows can last for two or three hours and as a result of the huge amount of talk time, celebrity brand endorsement is a cost effective way of marketing a product or service. Public Relations people take note.

3 – French satire is better
This is a HUGE generalisation, based on the fact that Le Canard Enchaîné is better than Private Eye http://www.lecanardenchaine.fr/ . If you are in France, make sure you buy a copy. It is published more regularly and more widely read too.

In addition, their love of satire doesn’t stop with the print media. Long since the Brits dumped Spitting Image, the ever popular Les Guignols still draws in the viewers with its puppets doing their best to ruin the reputations of France’s politicians.

French comedy might be much maligned, but perhaps they have the edge on satire? After all satire is based on a French word, non?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3vLGmLhsSY

4 – The French are off the pace with social media
I’m going to get beaten for saying this, but the French are well behind the times when it comes to Social Media. This is is in part due to the French reluctance to use English ahead of their own language. The French are very nationalistic when it comes to the products they use, and while the Germans are happy to chat, blog and converse in English, the French see it as their mission to further the French language. This ultimately holds back progress.

Yes there are French versions of Facebook and Twitter etc but that is not the point. The point is that when a new Social Media is launched, usually it is developed in the US. It is not until a year or so down the line that a French language version is launched.

Ultimately this gives PR practitioners an advantage over our counterparts in Paris.

PR crisis communications is never dull. It is the part of the job that most public relations consultants love, because handling an issue can become a roller coaster ride and practitioners never know what type of crisis they might be presented with. Over the years I’ve worked on my fair share of crises – from date rape to ‘poo’ in swimming pools – and this video illustrates the variety of problems that can come your way.

This video is an interesting case study. The question is whether this video is a media relations opportunity or a threat.

On the face of it this video is obviously of a negative tone and therefore a threat. However when dealing with any crisis one must recognise that coverage of this nature is part of a wider narrative, and like any story there will be twists and turns along the way, and what was an isolated issue can be turned into something positive, or it can morph into something, much, much worse.

The test will be how Hewlett Packard handles and responds to the video. I am sure there is a very simple explanation, such as the fault being a one off technical error. Whatever happens, I am sure their handling of the issue will win them friends in the long run as HP are a good, solid company with an excellent track records.

I’ll be keeping an eye out for their response. Good luck to them! The first response I can find is here on Wired.com . Maybe that will be the end of the matter?

(hat tip to http://twitter.com/PRtweets/ )

On the day that actress Brittany Murphy died from what reports suggest to be drug abuse, the DJ Brandon Block is fronting a new Government anti-drugs campaign. The results, I feel, are exceptional and you can watch it here.

Everyone has seen a public health campaign which takes the wrong tone or, worse still, could motivate youngsters to do the opposite – after all, adolescence is all about rebellion. The Brandon Block video should put people off cocaine and congratulations should be given to Mother, the agency behind the campaign.

The only small worry about the message is perhaps it won’t resonate that well with the young because many won’t know Brandon Block, as his career peeked at some point in the nineties. I remember him and his music ‘wasn’t to my taste,’ but he was a famous self-styled “nutter”, and hopefully the scale of his lifestyle can be put across to those under 30 years of age. Using the Pablo Facebook campaign I am sure this generational problem can be overcome.

For those of you who are under 30 and don’t remember Brandon Block, then perhaps the following video of him in action at the Brit Awards, is just as strong a message about “Just Saying No.” Looking back at the clip now, it is both funny and sad, and it is this complex picture of drugs, the highs and the lows, which this campaign gets across so well.

I proposed a toast to the agency or in-house team which dreamt this campaign up:

Then I checked out this post. Maybe this Facebook initiative wasn’t the roaring success it was made out to be?? I still think it was a creative solution though…