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Following the news that Durrants, Metrica and Gorkana have joined forces to provide the PR industry with a best of breed PR planning, media monitoring and PR evaluation platform Metrica is looking for an Account Director to join our succesful team. As an Account Director you will be working on an enviable list of global household names and taking the lead on a portfolio of clients. You will also be responsible for: -
Growing the client portfolio revenue - Provide guidance and advice to Account Managers and your account team
- Attending and running senior management meetings and contributing appropriate strategies to achieve the desired business direction
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Provide support on process management and quality control -
Motivate and develop individuals and take an active role in the internal training and development programme -
Attend PR events for networking purposes -
Present at industry events where appropriate Exciting times are ahead for Gorkana, Durrants and Metrica as we continue to expand our business with our passion for PR Measurement, media analysis and how it all fits into the PR planning and implementation cycle. If you always strive for brilliance, are excited about change and want to enjoy your business career then you may be the right candidate. If you are interested please see our job section on the website for more information about the Account Director role and how to apply. We look forward to hearing from you! Tess Donnelly, HR Manager.
Britain’s Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) certainly think social media can be regulated, having today announced that online content from the UK will be subject to the same regulation as that of other media. The extended regulations are aiming to provide protection for consumers from misleading claims made by advertisers.  Content hosted on company websites and other promotional sites will be subject to the same rules currently applied to advertising. The move is in response to several thousand complaints made by consumers that the ASA was unable to act on because their remit previously excluded company websites. In principle this makes sense as company websites are an extension of advertising. Interestingly the extended regulation is also attempting to monitor official corporate use of social media channels such as Twitter and Facebook. I expect the exact level of control exercised over social media to develop over time through custom and practice. There are lots of unanswered questions about this. How does the ASA regulate corporate social media content where an employee makes a false claim about their employer’s products or services from their personal account? There are several high profile examples of companies encouraging their staff to promote the company in this way rather than using an official channel, such as IBM. I’m not sure whether it is even possible to regulate this section of social media or if it is advisable. I suspect it is likely that the regulations will need to be tested at some point and only once we see them applied will we begin to understand their wider implications. Of course, this only covers UK based content so in the context of global social media usage it is only a drop in the ocean unless other regulators follow suit.
This week: - An Australian "futurist" predict the end of printed newspapers within 12 years
- Germany legislates to stop employers from auditing potential employees on Facebook
- Sports stars are banned from Twitter
Twelve years left for newspapers? Australian media strategist Ross Dawson has predicted that newspapers will be irrelevant in Australia by 2022. He argues that the socialisation of content means the current media organisations and journalists will need to reinvent to share any future spoils. He doesn’t argue that newspapers will cease to exist, but that the current model will change significantly. He points to an iPad style news reader future where ideas are crowd sourced and the best journalists oversee conversations. This is already happening and it is likely there will be both victors and victims, as some adapt and share the profits of doing so, and others who either refuse to or are unable to adapt. German Facebook users get a reprieve Politicians in Germany are legislating to prevent employers from checking the Facebook profiles of future employees. The proposed law will allow employers to check the profiles of prospective employees through professional networking sites such as LinkedIn, but not through “social” sites like Facebook. Individuals have always been able to restrict the content on their profile though most do not. For those of us not protected by legislation the advice is to restrict access to your profile, or just don’t let anyone take compromising photos of you in the first place. Sports stars banned from Twitter There have been numerous examples of sports team news being leaked by players on Twitter before any official announcement. Others have sought to hit out at perceived injustices from their employers. Rather late in the day several sporting bodies have reacted by banning their players from tweeting while on official duty. England’s cricketers have been banned, Leicester’s rugby team have suffered the same fate. These sporting bodies are facing the same challenges as many organisations. They are no longer able to control the message or the content. In the past there would only be a very small coterie of official spokespeople. Now anyone with a phone can broadcast to the world with bored sportsmen having more time than most. Closing ranks is no longer possible and a different approach will have to be adopted as a social media generation won’t accept being cut off.
My
colleague Lucy recently announced “Ah ha! I’m the new mayor of Metrica!”
It took me a moment to realise she was referring to Foursquare, rather than an
actual political contest that I had failed to register my vote in. Mashable’s
recent article on the ‘Top 5 Ways Big
Brands are Using Foursquare’ caught my interest. I have always associated
Foursquare with keeping people updated about where you’ve been, so I struggled
to think of ways this could be used for business.
However,
the article lists some interesting ways to engage with the social network.
Bravo, a television network, uses Foursquare to make recommendations on
restaurants, shops and hotels, tied in to its key programmes. MTV allows fans
to see where the cast of shows such as Jersey
Shore and The Hills have been and
what they have done. New York Magazine
uses Foursquare to offer tips about where to go and what to do in the city.
Facebook recently
unveiled Places in the US,
a new feature that enables users to declare their location and keep up with
where friends are going. It seems that location-based social networking is
growing in popularity and with Facebook Places there are lots of business
opportunities, in the shape of location-specific advertising. The move (if
you’ll pardon the pun) has caused some inevitable controversy, particularly the
notion of other people being able to check you in to places – Gawker has listed some very amusing
situations when this might not be such a good idea.
Will
location-based social networking sites be the next ‘must-do’ for corporate
engagement with social media? From company blogs, Facebook and Twitter pages,
to knowing where your customers are going and where to find them? It creates a
lot of opportunities, but also raises a lot of questions. For now, I’ll just
aspire to be mayor of somewhere. Maybe I’ll go for the Metrica mayorship…
This week:
- News International to build a bigger paywall
- Not all is rosy with Google Streetview
- Facebook accounts for almost half of the average Briton's mobile web usage
- Facebook launch location service Places
- Is Facebook moving away from open third party applications?
News International to build a bigger paywall
Several sources are reporting that News International plan to extend their paywall to include both The Sun and News of the World. This marks a significant shift from current trends where paywalls have been placed around sites providing either niche, such as the Financial Times, or ‘quality’ content, such as The Times. The plan is to offer exclusive video content to draw customers. Roy Greenslade argues that the News ofthe World and The Sun sites currently attract few readers, when free, rendering “paywalls counter productive”.
The paywall means the ‘closure’ of several major UK newspapers to social media and sharing of news. It also leaves open the question of when and if other titles will follow in an attempt to stem heavy losses. Is News International bucking the global trend or starting a new one?
Not all is rosy with Google Streetview
Taiwanese company Next Media Animation have created a video to explain Google’s current problems with privacy and Streetview. A Spanish court this week summonsed Google for breaching the privacy of wi-fi users after the company admitted collecting browsing data while filming images for Google Maps.
Facebook accounts for almost half of the average Briton’s mobile web usage
After recent reports that Americans are spending even more time social networking, in the UK Ofcom has found that Britons are spending more time consuming media than ever before. The “explosion” in use of mobile data has granted access throughout the day as people are no longer fixed to devices athome or in the office. Facebook accounts for 45% of all mobile web use in the UK. Social networkinga ccounts for a quarter of the total time spent online in the UK.
Facebook launch location service Places
In the USA Facebook has launched Places, which mimics Foursquare and allows users to check in to venues. Itis currently available through the US iPhone Facebook app. This poses questions about privacy, that have previously been aired about both Facebook and Foursquare. If it becomes popular, Places will increase the time spent on the site while mobile. If the reported collaboration with Foursquare is true, could Facebook become the only site we access from our smartphones? Location based searching is already taking off and location is becoming increasingly important to social networking sites. This opens up huge opportunities for marketers to better understand their audience, where they live and where they spend theirtime. Measuring social media output by location also looks like a more realistic possibility.
Is Facebook moving away from open third party applications?
Facebook is moving third party application boxes to tabs on personal profile pages. This means that my friends will no longer see imported information on my profile (in a box on the left hand side) but will need to click a tab (at the top) to view it. This makes it less likely that the content will be looked at but looks like a temporary move. One of Facebook’s great strengths has been that it is open to third party applications and developers. Developing an alternative to Foursquare and reducing the visibility of third party content could hint at moves to close ranks and move to in-house applications.
Metrica watched as Levi Sherwood recharged Battersea Power Station at Red Bull X Fighters 2010
Saturday August 14th 2010 saw the return of the UK’s premier free style motocross event to the iconic Battersea Power Station, and the Metrica Red Bull team were there to see the spectacular event first hand. Red Bull have separated themselves from the rest of the energy drink market over the past 18 years with a revolutionary ‘anti-brand’ strategy which has relied more on ‘buzz marketing’ within social media. The brand has associated the drink with youth culture and extreme adventure-related sports, such as motor sports, mountain biking and snowboarding.
Despite the typically English weather, 28,000 spectators made the trip to Battersea to watch the event which created an electric atmosphere, perfectly suited to the highly charged surroundings. There was an early scare when tour leader André Villa overshot a jump during the practice round and landed in the crowd, no one was seriously hurt and the competition continued. We were treated to a vast array of spectacular stunts and tricks throughout the evening.
The spotlight was well and truly stolen by the event winner Levi Sherwood. Sherwood typifies Red Bull’s ‘Y Generation’, young, fearless, the sort of competitor that could become a press magnet for Red Bull and FMX for years to come. His pedigree was highlighted not only by the staggering “super twisted-out kiss of death back flip” in the semi-final. While other competitors were dressed regularly riding to generic chart beats, he emerged wearing a cape and stunting to the sound of “We Didn’t Start the Fire” by Billy Joel, brilliant.
The whole evening was great fun and it was also useful to get a first hand perspective of what we will be reading in the press over the next few weeks. A big thank you to Red Bull for extending the invitation to us and if you get the opportunity next year X Fighters is definitely worth a look.
Photography by Tom Jagger
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Blog Directory ID: 3908
Blog URL: http://www.metrica.net/measurementmatters
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Blog Description: Measurement Matters is a blog written by the team at Metrica, one of the world's leading PR Measurement agencies. The blog covers all issues to do with traditional PR measurement and PR planning techniques - such as media analysis and media evaluation - but it pays particular attention to the new media world and shares ideas and tips for helping organisations to participate in the consumer generated media space and to implement appropriate social media measurement programmes
Blog Category: Public Relations Blogs
Blog Owner: Richard Bagnall
Blog Added: August 08, 2008 02:31:40 PM
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