You may have seen the (re)launch of flattr this week, a service which has just becoming bigger and better from the idea first proposed in 2010. The basic concept is that, providing there are the (pre-paid) funds to do so, anyone viewing a post, a picture, a blog, or a video can give the creator of the material a flattr credit by simply clicking an icon - essentially heralding the era of microdonations. The service is compatible with nearly all major platforms, including Instagram, flickr, twitter, Facebook and various blog platforms.

What this means is that there is, perhaps, finally a small scale monetisation opportunity for everyone creating fresh, engaging content, through a broad all-encompassing service - such a reach that means the reliance on individually monetised silos could be obsolete. This has long been one of the biggest challenges for content creators in the social era; how do you make yourself profitable as a blogger or occasional commentator?

This 'Oyster' card approach is one which could become hugely effective in that it could break down the barriers to siloed content - you can't help but wonder whether if newspapers got together and created a similar approach they'd be able to monetise their content collectively rather than in individually subscribed services.

If you could pre-pay to read a finite amount of content across a variety of news sites (which then divvied up the proceeds based on reader behaviour) then you'd browse more. As it is, the increasing number of subscription-based models merely means people get tied to one title only - or, as seems to be the case, simply find the news for free elsewhere rather than pay multiple subscriptions to be able to browse multiple sites. There's power in working together.

For individual bloggers, it provides a nice opportunity to see tangible rewards for your work (albeit rewards that are unlikely to allow you to retire), as well as be able to give flattr credits to others you enjoy reading, watching or reposting. It's a novel idea, and it'll be interesting to see it progress.

@wonky_donky

It shouldn't *really* be a surprise that people tweeting ad infinitum about social media techniques and tips should describe themselves as 'social media gurus', but the report from What's Next Blog shows how ridiculous this self-aggrandising chest thumping has got.

Over 180 thousand twitter users describe themselves as 'social media gurus' in some shape or form, with some of the worst perpetrators being those who modestly dub themselves 'warriors', 'mavens', and (strangely, given the industry's relatively nascency) 'veterans'.

What would be interesting would be to assess the *actual* guru-ness of these people. In my experience, accounts who boast such a title are often the worst culprits for spamming linkbait blogs repeating the same old nonsense - let's be honest, there is a genuinely finite amount you can write about how to run a good social media programme or engaging twitter account. It doesn't need a dozen posts a day to explain it. Furthermore, they often have tens of thousands of followers, but rarely a RT - they're not practising what they preach by means of engagement.

What really annoys me though is that these accounts follow people, then, within 24 hours, unfollow if they're not followed back, or unfollow you the moment you do so to them (when you get bored of being spammed crap blogs).

Twitter isn't about reciprocal follows, it's about following people you find interesting, funny, or informative; 'follow me if I follow you' is the wrong approach, yet so many self-styled 'social media gurus' do just that - harvesting followers to increase their perceived popularity.

We're all, individually and as an industry, constantly learning about the opportunities social media brings and finding new (and not always perfect) ways of using platforms in the best way possible. However, calling yourself a guru is perhaps arrogant at best and when you fail to grasp the basics, downright annoying.

This time last week I was at home, recovering from the Isle of Wight Festival and basking at the sheer joy of being home, and clean, and on a proper bed, and clean, and having had more than three hours sleep, and importantly…being clean.

The idea to go the Festival was first seeded over a bottle of wine, when I asked my friend whether being the tender age of 32 and 13 months made me too old to go to a festival. A gentle 'No babe' was given in reply and a plan was hatched. Yes it might rain a bit, yes it would involve camping and I'd be cold, but we'd have each other and booze, which would make it all okay, right?

Wrong.

Our plan first seemed at risk when the weather report in the week ahead looked shoddy at best. 'No fear', I said. 'I have a Kagool and Jack Daniels, it will be ace.' The closer it got to the event, the more it rained and the more nervous I became about it being a mud-fest. So, I put my hope into modern communications to aide me. After all, knowledge is power.

I became obsessed with weather reports and following anyone vaguely useful on Twitter, from official festival organisers and ferry operators through to anyone tweeting about their journey. Come Thursday afternoon, day 1 of the festival, tales of woe were literally flooding in and there was a Twitter frenzy with people complaining of being trapped in their cars and on ferries in the Solent.  No one could get into the festival site due to mud and social media was awash with panic. Rumours were spreading that thousands were trapped, the main stage was sinking and the whole thing had been called off.

People wanted answers. What they got were two tweets. One at 2pm in the afternoon saying that there were some difficulties getting people on site. The next one six hours later saying 'Cerys Matthews is opening the Big Top' which was understandably met with a torrent of expletives from people who were still stuck on the road and hadn't moved in eight hours.

It comes down to this. If you have a Twitter presence, use it. If people have questions, answer them. If you have nothing to say or update people on, tell them. Just keep in touch. The organisers said that they were busy helping people get on site which is why they were unable to talk to media or put updates on Twitter. This sounds noble enough but just doesn't cut it in an age where everyone is online. Knowledge is power but if you opt for radio silence, you lose that power and the online world will make up their own reality.

In the end, after purchasing an extra groundsheet and an extra bottle of Jack Daniels to see me though, we had a surprisingly easy journey to the festival. Yes we renamed it 'Mudfest 2012', yes the mud will haunt me for years to come and yes it was a brilliant weekend in the end, but poor social media management meant that we could have called it off altogether.

So, my two 'take-aways' from the weekend are as follows. Silence isn't always golden, and white isn't always a sensible choice for festival attire - evidence below.

Helen @fablett

It's been all over the news this week - Google falling foul of Britain's privacy watchdog over the misuse of personal data. The online search engine has been accused of using their Street View cars to gather information from unsecured Wi-Fi networks.

Scary stuff! Even scarier that George Orwell told us extreme surveillance was going to happen - fair enough he is about 28 years out in his predictions, and we aren't all being controlled by the dictatorship of The Party - but still this 'Big Brother' state is a little worrying.

Yesterday, I frantically made my Facebook profile private in as many ways as possible, without removing the ability for people to write on my wall... which is actually just a space for me to post things that I/other people find funny.... I digress; I suddenly became very worried about who had seen my photos and who had been trawling through them, although in reality it is probably just my mother taking a peek at what I have been up to. Still, I do know people who take great pleasure in extracting information from people's Facebook pages -  "OMG did you see she liked his status? I am defo looking through her photos!" The thought of someone doing that to me worries me greatly, especially as these are individuals, not companies, who are following our online movements! **Shivers**

Let's face it; if Google weren't going to extract data from unsecured wi-fi networks then they would probably just get it from our online movements. Both of which are creepy. My advice? Everyone should get offline and go play in the sunshine…..Oh wait? It's raining? I better update my Facebook and Twitter and tell everyone just how much it's raining #EnglishWeather.

Rambo (aka Kelly) @KelRams

Driving to work this week enjoying the sunshine with my window down and music turned up I was not best pleased when a stone bounced off of a passing lorry straight towards my windscreen.  I closed my eyes but knew from the sound of the stone hitting the glass that it had chipped.  I decided to take the mature route of cursing at the chip and at the lorry which had now long gone and continued my drive to work. What a crap start to the day.

When I got to work I vented my frustration on Twitter as most people do (we all know that's what it's really for).

Within an hour I was surprised to see a reply from @Autoglass - especially since I hadn't tweeted them directly or hash tagged them. My first reaction was that it'd be a sales punt that would've caused my frustration and annoyance to spiral. But I was pleased and shocked to see it was a charming, friendly personal note. It cheered me up.

I replied, thanking them for the tweet, and said that I'd speak to my insurers and give them a call if I needed any further help. Turns out my insurers work with Autoglass anyway. So I gave them a call, booked an appointment and they repaired it. Simple.

But what makes this even more remarkable is that it has very little value for Autoglass (it only cost me £10 to have it fixed). I was so impressed with how personal and effective they had been that I've been telling everyone about it (as will this blog!). My experience shows that using Twitter correctly can really help to engage customers and help shape brand perceptions.

I later found out that Autoglass are using Radian6 which is how they came across my tweet.  They simply monitor tweets that contain words like 'chip' and 'cracked' together with 'windscreen' and 'car'.  Specific searches are set up so that irrelevant tweets such as those that include the words 'chip' and 'fish' are ignored. People tweeting about their dinner obviously won't need to be contacted.

I think this is a fantastic example of a brand engaging with consumers through Twitter successfully. Autoglass listened and understood my tweet before responding, were helpful without being pushy and made an effort.

Becca @beccakennett

Customers, employees and journalists came together this week for a Taleo breakfast event discussing the impact of LinkedIn on recruitment, which I was lucky enough to attend.

The event saw a series of insightful sessions from speakers such as Dan Dackombe (EMEA Enterprise Sales Manager Hiring Solutions at LinkedIn), Richard Doherty (Head of Business Transformation, Taleo) and Chris Phillips (VP EMEA Marketing, Taleo). We all know how social media is transforming the game in terms of PR, so it was interesting to see it applied to the world of recruitment.

All about LinkedIn, from LinkedIn

First up, I was really interested to hear Dan give some great insight into LinkedIn itself, and he impressed the audience with some serious stats on the business. Take these for example; in the past 14 months, the number of employees working across EMEA for LinkedIn has grown from less than 50 to an impressive 350. And for anyone doubting the impact of LinkedIn, Dan told us that 62% of all UK professionals now use the site.

He also explained how LinkedIn works to the following three objectives;

1)      Identity - to help recruiters, companies and individuals create an online identity that is constantly evolving.

2)      Insight - allow potential candidates and recruiters to learn more about the individual or the company through various groups and references.

3)      Everywhere - make the process of recruitment and job-hunting a constant experience through their mobile app.

Best practices:

As ever, the Q&A session brought up some nuggets of vital information, and one of the biggest questions for employers, it emerged, is how to engage employees in social media participation? However, the Q&A threw up a great number of things for employers to consider when it comes to social media. Creating groups within your network, thereby allowing employees to own a group by contributing content, beginning conversations and forwarding invitations onto friends was just one idea, as was giving employees the chance to talk about their company or about relevant topics. This allows employers to carve out their identity amongst the greater community and reach their target audience of potential employees, even if they are only passive candidates.

What I definitely learnt is that social media means that the world of recruitment is undergoing massive change, led by the expansion of social media recruitment and the acceptance of new mobile applications and platforms. It's not just PR that social media is changing.

As the morning concluded, many recruiters were left excited about beginning or expanding their journey into the world of social media and all were full of delicious mini eggs Benedict and hash browns! Yummy!

Lindsey @lindsey_hemming

The creators of Friends Reunited were arguably pioneers in the social space. And it wasn't created by some Harvard geeks, oh no, it was the brainchild of Steve and Julie Pankhurst from Hertfordshire in our very own Blighty.

When the site launched in 2000 Mark Zuckerburg was only a wee nipper at 16, and whilst he was hardly collecting his pension when he launched Facebook four years later, Friends Reunited had already established itself with 20 million members and a bit of a reputation as the go-to community site to reunite with old school mates.

Their success didn't last long sadly, and despite a lucrative buy out by ITV for £175 million - lucky Steve and Julie - it went on to be sold to Brightsolid for only £25 million (ouch for ITV).

But news announced this week says Friends Reunited is on the cusp of a re-launch on March 27^th. Interestingly though it's not planned to be just a new look and feel site but a whole new approach to the very nature of social media - private content focused on digital memories, firmly planting the control of content back with the user.

With momentum building against Facebook's vast monopoly over an incredible amount of the global population's data (845 million active users at the last count) and some rather questionable privacy policies, it most certainly is quite a different proposition but can they pull it off?

They certainly have a bit of a challenge on their hands shaking off pre-conceptions of Friends Reunited of old but it might be worth shaking the dust off your old username and password and checking it out.

With the frenzy around Pinterest, visual led social media interaction could be the next big thing and a site that gives control back to the user could be the next evolution of social media.

Helen @helen_carroll

Nowadays you can find just about any brand on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, as so many have jumped on the social media bandwagon to engage and communicate with their customers. However, how many of those embracing social CRM actually have a successful strategy in place?

Up until last week, I had been having so many problems with my mobile network provider Vodafone and had been resorting to the old fashioned call centre for first hand advice and help. However, having been put on hold for hours on end and being transferred to different call centres all over the world I officially gave up and as per usual took to Twitter to let off some steam.

Now I'm a huge fan of Twitter, I use it as a platform to share my views, catch up on news and gossip, and have the odd rant here and there. Many a time, I even mention brands within my tweets, for example @Selfridges when I complain about their miserable staff and @NationalRail for leaving me stranded at the train station for hours. However, not once have any of these brands ever responded to me or acknowledged my tweet.  I was therefore taken by surprise last week when @VodafoneUK decided to reply to my tweet within seconds, after having complained about their call centre customer service.

Within an hour of me complaining, Vodafone had responded to my tweet, sent me a link to email their web team about my issue and acknowledged receipt of my complaint! I then received an email within 24 hours with an apology and resolution to my problem.

Never did I think a simple tweet would be the answer to my problems having spent hours on the phone to eight different call centre advisors, neither of which had helped me. It just goes to show, with a strategy in place and a web team responding to your tweets in real time, any brand can win over their customer... hats off to you @VodafoneUK! 

Shereene

This week, I've seen a crazy amount of articles and blog posts talking about Pinterest. So, why not add one more. I joined Pinterest a few weeks back, as I wanted to see what all the fuss was about. According to some, it is the 'holy grail' of the internet, and apparently this website is what the internet was made for.

I guess for those of you who haven't heard about it, or are still trying to figure out what it is (which I am too, to a certain extent), you could describe it as a "visual pinboard of dreams". It's a place where you can gather all the things that you love and show them off to the world, by sharing your pinboard with others. It is also a place where you can dip into other people's dreams and inspirations; you see something you like, you pin it. Someone likes what you have Pin-ed and Repins it, and so on.

Having been around for a few years, Pinterest has only in the last few months started to gain traction, and people are starting to pay more attention. Having taken a while to surface, Pinterest is slowly but quickly becoming mainstream and I fear we only have a short window before we see it hi-jacked by brands, and the monetisation opportunities become all too apparent.

However, brands taking advantage of this "next big thing", is no bad thing. It is a site that should definitely not be overlooked by marketers as there is huge potential here. Not for direct customer engagement as this is not a platform where you want to invade someone's social space, but more of a situation where you provide the content and wait for the magic to happen.

A brand can showcase its products and allow its audience to take them far and wide. Tailoring is key here, as the content shared needs to be carefully selected to attract the attention of a brands desired audience. Brands can offer 'sneak peaks' of new product launches, then sit back and watch people share and spread the content.

Pinterest is a platform that complements the likes of Facebook and Twitter, as these platforms can be used as a pathway to draw people in to your "pinboard of dreams".  As it becomes more and more familiar to brands and consumers, the viral nature of Pins/Likes/Repins will prove to be wildly successful and, when absorbed into a company's existing social engagement strategy, we will see its content spread to a much wider audience.

The buzz around Pinterest is increasing at a rapid rate and as more and more brands and consumers flock to check out this new and exciting platform, the flow of content will continue to grow and create a visual explosion of what the world thinks is, well, cool.

Jen

Sure everyone's aware of the Snickers story doing the rounds at the mo. But just in case here's the gist: Snickers 'hack' a celeb's Twitter profile posting Tweets that appear to be incongruous with that user's house style.

Jordan, for example, Tweeted that Chinese leaders are likely to loosen monetary policy to stimulate growth. A few other surprisingly fiscally-minded Tweets followed, before a Twitpic popped up with said celeb holding a Snickers with the tagline 'you're not you when you're hungry'.

The bit that's confusing me is why this campaign is being positioned as a fail or backfire by some in the digital media. One (fairly spurious) reason being that it's insulting to Jordan. Well, I'm sure she's dead pleased that the digital media is mobilising to support her - but she shouldn't be surprised - such has been the unflinching nature of their support for her and her work in recent years. Further, if Jordan is in on the joke then why is it a problem? Surely they're not concerned that Jordan is... *gasp* ...being manipulated at the hands of Snickers? Poor, naive, non media-savvy individual that she is.

Anyway, let's be real; Jordan doesn't generally tweet about the fiscal policies of the world's super powers, and that doesn't necessarily make her stupid. Which is the point of the joke.

It seems to me that this is more about a 'Fail' story being more interesting than a success story, than it is about providing a genuine insight on a brand campaign. I have noticed this more and more in the digital media recently, this desire to chase the fail, over-analysing campaigns to urgently seek out the most negative stance. I understand that analysis is what they do, but let's not forget that the average consumer won't be arsed to dig that deep (and who can blame them?).

Snickers should be applauded for doing something a bit different, and for successfully causing buzz about their brand - something which is mentioned in an irony free manner by many of the articles I have read. Moreover, as far as I can see, the only real negative buzz is that which has been created by the media.

Maybe it's an overly personal viewpoint, but I just don't like brands that have stuck their necks out being run down in the media for doing so. Let's save that for agencies that send dead goldfish to the media or whatever.

NB: As far as Octopus is concerned you won't be seeing our Twitter handle posting or RTing any 'Fail' stories

Tommy