Two Cents

At lunchtime on Tuesday, Brisbane went from a sunny 29°C day to a stormy, flash flooding mess. It was some crazy weather which caused some major disruption throughout the city. So, how did you find out about the damage caused by this little storm?

Was it through a mainstream news outlet?

Or was it through a social network such as Facebook?

For me, it was through Facebook (yes, I was on Facebook during work hours… but that’s what I get paid for). In fact, one of my friends posted a video of the flash flooding outside her office in Milton to Facebook. This was then taken from Facebook and uploaded to the Yahoo!7 breaking news.

It highlights the different way in which we consume our news. We are less reliant on major news outlets to deliver news to us. The ease and speed of spreading information means we are likely to see breaking news through our online networks before a camera crew, reporters, editors and publishers can hit the ‘publish’ button.

But it’s not only content we are creating which is changing the way we consume our news. Content we are sharing on social networks is influencing what we are exposed to. Research released this week by Compete concludes that Facebook drives more traffic to news portals than search giant Google does. According to their research, Facebook drove 13 percent of traffic to portals such as Yahoo and MSN while Google accounted for 7 percent. Even though we may not be seeking this information out, we are more likely to view it because it has been recommended from a credible and reliable source.

It’s obvious that news is becoming more social in the way we create, consume and share it. And that’s no surprise is it? Current affairs have always been central discussion points around dinner tables, BBQ’s and water coolers. Social networking just means we want it faster, personalised to our interests and from people we trust. In that order.

And you thought Facebook was just for drunk party photos…

Nathan Bush is an Interactive Strategist at BCM

As each natural disaster happens in the world I watch with interest the ever increasing role that digital and mobile technologies play in driving disaster relief efforts.

Take the devastating earthquake that hit Haiti on 12 January. The response for aid was astounding and more rapid than other recent natural disasters.

Social networking certainly played a key role with Facebook, Twitter and YouTube all involved. A survey conducted by Facebook and The Nielsen Company in the week following the earthquake revealed 39% of Facebook users in the US, UK and Australia had already donated money or goods to the relief efforts (24% from Australia).

In addition, 21% of Facebook users who had not yet given to the cause planned to do so. Meaning an incredible 60% of Facebook users in the US, UK and Australia had donated or planned to donate money or goods, which clearly shows the growing importance and effectiveness of Facebook as a marketing tool and its power to activate people.

According to The Chronicle of Philanthropy in the days immediately following the Haiti earthquake more than $150 million in relief had been contributed. This is said to be five times the amount donated in the days immediately following the 2004 Asian tsunamis and more than the $108 million received in the first four days after Hurricane Katrina.

Another significant issue in this latest relief effort is that the relatively new method of text message donations really took off. The Red Cross campaign was promoted on Twitter and Facebook. On the Thursday (48 hours after the earthquake) text message donations hit $3 million and by Friday morning this figure had more than doubled to $8 million, with Red Cross among the 10 most popular topics on Twitter. To put this in context, in all of 2009, the Red Cross received $4 million in mobile text donations.

And even more interestingly, the Big Four mobile operators in the States (Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile) reportedly not only waived fees on text message donations, but they advanced the transfer of verified donations (rather than just passing along the funds once the monthly bill was paid).

Is this a significant business opportunity for telecom companies that could lead to a big shift in financial services? Futurist and Chairman of the trends forecasting company Global Change Ltd, Dr Patrick Dixon, certainly thinks so:

What do you think?

Tracy Straughan is an Account Director at BCM Brisbane

Twhat up tweeps? Are you sick of those hipster twicksters making up their own twords whenever they reference anything to do with Twitter?

Twexting. Tweeting up. Tweethearts. Twoublemakers. Twublicity… the “tw” craze took the online jargon world by storm in 2009 and like a rollicking mexican wave rolling around the Gabba cricket ground at a 20-20, we’d like to play our part in pushing the misuse of language along in 2010.

So in the spirit of making up new words, attention-seeking behaviour and experimentation… we bring you our new ‘Twebsite‘.

With the upcoming launch of the shiny new BCM website just around the corner, we’ve created an interim Twitter-based website to give users a sneak preview of the new site’s design and content.

Created partly as a demonstration of how social media platforms can seamlessly link together, and partly because we like playing buzzword bingo, our new Twebsite has certainly thrown the tongue-in-cheek cat amongst the industry pigeons.

Some of our favourite comments so far include…

From here on out, anyone who creates a word with the prefix “tw-” in the hopes of being seen as cutting edge gets a courtesy dose of herpes. – likeomg

Every time I hear ‘Twebsite’ I throw up a little in my mouth. I hope to one day throw up in the mouth of whoever at BCM came up with it. – Warlach

There is a new word out there “twebsite” – a website that uses multiple Twitter pages to form a website – Mikjryan

You’re right: twetarded! RT@the_enthusiast: Oh man, I just lost my temper on Mumbrella. Some companies are twucked. – dalecampisi

RT @mumbrella: Agency claims 1st ‘Twebsite’ “harvest the functionality of social media platforms” #wordsdouchebagssay – acatinatree

Word of the day : Twebsite….not a bad idea for a placeholder website. – siddarthdas

I don’t understand agencies that have social media gimmicks on their website – what do they think this is supposed to demonstrate? Are these the same agencies agencies that had podcasts 5 years ago? Or geocities sites 10 years ago? Or hypercolour promo t’s 20 years ago? – Larry

To all of you, thanks for caring and taking the time out of your busy lives to comment. We hope you don’t take it too seriously.

And despite the expected brouhaha over the name, we’re really pleased with how it has turned out as a short-term placeholder. The Twebsite will remain live until our brand spankin’ new agency site launches in a few week’s time.

Now off to pick up our hypercolour promo t-shirts from the printers… and apologies in advance to our copywriters for my crimes against the written word.

Scott Esdaile is BCM’s Social Media Manager

2009 was a tough year on the career front for many Australians. Redundancies were widespread as companies endeavoured to cope with an uncertain economic climate.
 
The employer marketing and recruitment advertising sectors were highly sensitive to the economic slowdown, with reduced marketing budgets calling for smarter thinking, greater ROI and diversification across the board. The job market had taken a big hit, shifting the dynamic for HR professionals who had previously been dealing with skills shortages and a candidate short market. Inevitably, print media suffered a free-fall in advertising revenue.

From our own agency experiences with employer marketing, the job market appeared to be in recovery late last year – hopefully a barometer of an improving economy – even prompting expert comments of forthcoming skills shortages in some sectors. The credible medium of print, still preferable for sourcing the elusive ‘passive’ candidates, should continue to perform when targeting the baby boomer and senior executive markets but for the rest, the migration to online looks set to continue.

Companies and recruiters alike are continuing to use popular job boards such as SEEK, CareerOne and MyCareer to advertise vacancies, as well as many other niche and industry specific boards.

Mirroring a shift in B2B and B2C communications, we are also seeing social media assist recruiters in candidate vetting and appraisal (so watch those privacy settings on Facebook!). Equally, job seekers are using networks such as LinkedIn – where it really is in their interests to publish (rather than hide) as much relevant information as possible – all to improve employment prospects.

A recent innovation, Brazen Careerist, allows the modern professional to not only showcase their CV but also share ideas and engage with peers in their field, giving them control in a social network that they are happy to share information with.

Another interesting site is KODA, the imaginatively titled “opportunity community”, where employers can take a closer look at young professionals with talents beyond posting a CV in Word format.

This brings me to the latest example: Hire me, HeadBlade (which unsurprisingly led to the sequel, HeadBlade Hired Me!).

This recent success story in how to score your dream job in the new economy is further proof that people can create their own cut-through in competitive fields if they treat job seeking like an industry project or campaign. The bottom line: identify what it is you want to do and where you belong, and go the extra mile.

With innovation and increased usage of social media channels by job seekers, so too increases the need for businesses (as employers) to understand and be actively using these channels to their benefit to source the best available candidates. As the economy improves and, if as predicted, skills shortages make their presence felt, so the spotlight will turn back on employers as they strive to position themselves ahead of the competition. We might then see increased traffic to employer review sites such as JobVent, Glassdoor.com or Vault – and a return to larger budget employer marketing websites and campaign microsites as employers work harder to attract the right candidates.

As every employer would be aware, their human capital is the most important asset they have.

Steve Jennings is an Account Manager at BCM Brisbane

If you are a regular Facebook user you may be wondering what is going on with all your gal friends.

Status updates stating a particular colour are currently the rage but if you are part of that 50% of the population that have the Y chromosome, you are probably clueless as to what is going on.

Here is what it’s all about….

We’re not really sure where it started. One theory is that it’s very clever marketing from one of the hundreds of Breast Cancer organisations across the globe (really??).

The fact is that this game of Chinese Whispers has massive potential for commercial use.

The precedent has been set with Twitterer Kim Kardashian being reportedly paid $10,000 US to Tweet brands to her 2.8 million followers.

Could this be the way to embrace Facebook as a channel and spread brand loyalty?

What do you think?

Sarah Ferguson is an Account Director at BCM Brisbane

News flash people – consumers aren’t waiting with bated breath for our next campaign. They’re far too busy, cynical and jaded to care.

But they will give us the time of day if we create something of value. Let me give you an example.

QUT, which operates in the higher education category, recently wanted to promote its Master of Business (Public Relations) degree. The course is specifically designed for PR practitioners who want to upgrade their professional qualifications.

In the old days we would have dutifully taken advertising in some professional journal, perhaps advertised on some industry websites, sent out a press release and maybe done some direct mail. We would have spent the budget in 4-6 weeks and hopefully generated a result.

But if you subscribe to the idea of creating value not just creating ads, then you take a completely different approach.

This thinking led to the creation of Tweepr – a website which aggregates, in real time, the thoughts and observations of Australia’s top 100 most followed PR specialists on Twitter.

If you’re in PR then having access to the top 100 gives you tips, observations and insights from industry thought leaders and rising stars.

It’s the stuff ambitious, motivated industry types are likely to find invaluable and it’s exactly these types that QUT would like to attract to their masters degree.

The other benefit of creating something of value is that it gets traction. PR people are actively sharing Tweepr with other PR people, discussing colleagues’ ranks in the top 100 and writing about it on their blogs.

So we haven’t just created advertising, we’ve curated content – and we’ve produced something which has ongoing value beyond the 4-6 week campaign cycle that used to be the norm.

If the buzz we’ve created amongst the PR fraternity on Twitter is any indication, then it’s proof positive that this is a winning approach.

Kevin Moreland is a Partner at BCM

It’s been around 12 months since we launched this blog.

In that time we’ve explored a whole bunch of stuff. We’ve talked about marketing brilliance and blunders.

We’ve showcased our work.

We’ve offered friends of BCM a chance to debate and comment on everything from whether Aussies will embrace Twitter, through to the lament of New-South-Welshmen losing State of Origin.

We’ve run experiments (remember when Anthony, our Interactive Strategist swore off Google for a month – albeit with serious withdrawal symptoms).

We’ve run research forums (yes, people did indeed think iSnack 2.0 was a  massive marketing hoax).

We’ve broken news (Two Cents noticed that Ben Southwell, winner of  ‘Best Job’  had enjoyed  lunch at Hayward Island … ahem … I mean Hayman Island) and the press picked up our post and ran it internationally.

12 months later, we’ve posted 160 articles and  over 11,500 visitors have checked us out.

To the 30 staff  who have taken the time to write a post, a big thanks for sharing your thoughts and observations.

Hopefully it has given some insight into how we think  here at BCM and what we’re about.

Thanks for coming. Please come again!

Kevin Moreland is a Partner at BCM

In the good old days when TV spots were cheap and Colgate-Palmolive seemed to have unlimited budget, a style of advertising emerged under the banner of, “It’s so bad it’s good”.

Mrs Marsh broke the piece of chalk 20 times a night for a year and the campaign worked.

Do we have a new version of the same idea emerging in the digital world?

Is iSnack 2.0 so bad it’s good?  A better name would not have produced 1/1000th of the buzz online. They’re probably looking for it on supermarket shelves in Nome, Alaska.

Kraft is now looking for a replacement name and dubbing iSnack jars a “Collector’s item”. Although they claim innocence, it may be one of the decade’s greatest sampling successes.

How about the Microsoft advertorials or whatever they are, tutorials perhaps?

I suspect they are so bad they’re good -- but for Microsoft or Apple Mac?? But, again, lots of free buzz online.

In this extraordinary age of hyper word-of-mouth it is certainly a very good idea not to suck. But are we seeing a new, weird, counter position with the slogan, “Don’t suck …. blow.”

Bill Bristow is a Partner at BCM

For those of you in Brisbane or Sydney, you may have thought you lived on Mars today with the eerie clouds of red dust over our skies – in fact both “Dune” and “Total Recall” have been referenced several times.

While we are all now pretty convinced of the marketing capabilities of Twitter, it is interesting to see how it is being used by the average Joe for events and things that are of real-time interest.

I tested this out following the Brisbane Riverfire fireworks display two weeks ago – by midnight on Saturday 12 September there were over 700 tweets related to Riverfire and there had been over 2,000 tweets by the Monday morning.

In the context of the whole twittersphere that might not have seemed like much – indeed Riverfire was only up as a trending topic for about an hour before it was knocked off, but this early in the piece I can only guess how many tweets there will be about this crazy dust storm.

Since the dust storm hit Brisbane around 11:45am this morning there have been over 250…no…276…no…289…345…426… (sheesh I’ve given up trying to count) tweets with a great collection of #duststorm photos to be found on the Twitcaps aggregator site:

While the Trendsmap website shows up an interesting collection of words being used this morning by Sydney twitter users:

So if you are still feeling nervous about Twitter because you feel the pressure to always talk about something witty and intelligent, remember that the real-time nature of Twitter has been a driving factor in its rapid growth in popularity – allowing users to group together over shared experiences, or collectively break news stories as they happen.

Sarah Ferguson is an Account Director at BCM Brisbane

There’s a lot of love in the BCM Sydney office following the news that we’ve been successfully appointed to the Mills & Boon account to handle social media for the iconic brand, as well as the redesign of all Mills & Boon romance novel covers, to be rolled out nationally.

Harlequin is the number 1 romance fiction publisher in the world, selling over 130 million books a year, with a worldwide readership of 50 million women.  In Australia, more than one in every five paperbacks sold is published by Harlequin.

We’re thrilled to be working with Harlequin on the Mills & Boon brand to rekindle the affair with loyal readers, and look forward to showcasing our skills in social media as we introduce the brand to a new, younger audience.

The whole team waits with ‘breathless anticipation’ at the work that will be produced.

Paul Cornwell is a Partner at BCM