It’s Pat, we mean Pay a Blogger Day

Yep, another social media driven awareness day.  This time it’s Pay a Blogger.

But, we’ve decided to partake because there are some truly fantastic blogs with very talented bloggers behind them and sometimes these are places you stumble upon purely by accident, only to find the answer to that elusive question, the solution to that puzzling conundrum or just a great recommendation for an amazing restaurant.

Social media has turned the internet into our own personal search engines.  If you want to know something then it’s not just out there somewhere, there is someone ready and waiting to tell you personally about it – and discuss it in more detail should you so wish.

So here is payment by way of a big thumbs up (and a biscuit should you wish to pop in) for our favourite five bloggers.  A pat on the back sounds totally humiliating if you ask me.

1. The Women’s Room

Stuff – pretty, inspiring, useful, informative.  Includes art, fashion, style, culture, home, garden, wellbeing – a dose of digestible bits to keep you in love with the internet.

2. Bad Pitch Blog

Learn from the mistakes of others.  If you make the same mistake, prepare to hear the words ‘I told you so’.

3. Red Ted Art

Creativity and PR go hand in hand.  Nothing like a bit of collage or crochet to get those creative cells clacking against each other.

4. Enterprise Nation

Full to bursting with useful hints, tips, advice, ideas and everything else in between.  The kind of stuff you pick up every now and again through a random person – multiple that by one hundred.

5. Blog Tyrant

Great when you want to overhaul something, anything and need the inspiration and motivation.

 

Leave a comment with your favourite.  It’s good to share.

Why not more pop up shops?

With news at the end of last week that eBay is to open its first UK pop up shop in London in time for Christmas, I was prompted to write this post having often wondered to myself whilst shopping on the high street, why there aren’t more pop up shops around.

In its simplest form, a pop up shop is a temporary retail outlet – it pops up, then disappears again.  It might be a clothes store sample sale, a gallery or a cocktail bar.  It’s a way of generating additional interest in a brand, event or service at a key buying time and is especially useful to seasonal businesses.  Disney opened a store for Tron surrounding the movie launch selling futuristic metallic clothing and accessories for example.

In October, Debenham’s went one step further with virtual pop up shops springing up around famous UK landmarks including Trafalgar Square.  Shoppers armed with iPhones or iPad 2′s could scan the area for ten party dresses, try them on virtually and upload the images to Twitter and Facebook for a second opinion.  Please don’t ask me too many questions – this is too complicated right?!  It’s classed as augmented reality I think but don’t quote me.

Back to eBay; not only will you be able to browse in a bricks and mortar shop, you’ll be able to purchase items exclusively using QR codes.  This is the first retail use of the smart phone tool and could pave the way for further uptake.  Shoppers scan the code to be taken to the item in eBay and then pay online t0 have the item delivered directly to their door.

So why aren’t more people investigating opportunities with pop up shops?  And why aren’t councils and local authorities promoting their use to fill our many empty retail units?  I can’t profess to know the ins and outs of setting something like this up - insurance, health and safety and so on, but surely bringing more life and soul to the high street has got to be a good step towards getting Britain spending again?

For big brands they are a great way to provide an experiential shopping experience and for smaller businesses a step in the right direction and that first taste of the retail world.  It’s an opportunity to be creative and stand out, attract customers in new ways.  To me, it’s really exciting.  I want one!

The Plan B advert for Bulmers had a pop up vibe as people gave out tickets for a concert not eluding to who was performing.  Those that took up the offer were overwhelmed to find that the act was Plan B!

I wonder what Mary Portas thinks of pop up shops?  In 2010 she launched the first charity pop up shop in Westfield but then last month suggested that the number of charity shops on the high street be capped.

Off to tell at least three people that they need pop up shops on their 2012 to do lists…

 

HSBC – the world’s local network?

Designed by Surefire Digital

I read this morning in PR Week that HSBC has some big plans up its pinstriped, cufflinked sleeves – to take on the mighty Facebook with their own social networking offering.

Although details aren’t yet very clear, they are setting out to provide a social platform to cater for the financial and non-financial needs of customers, and provide a forum for questions, answers, support and feedback.

This is certainly something that will stand them apart from the competition – a strong personal presence on-line; but it leaves you to wonder how many customers will want to talk to their bank in such an open way.  Maybe the odd question here and there – how far back do my statements go, what is your best savings rate at the moment and so on.  It will be interesting to hear what the non-financial offering will be – can you ask them if you’ll need your brolly on the way home from work, like you can of Siri on the iPhone 4S?

Bearing all of this in mind it’s not surprising that HSBC are also looking for someone to handle crisis communications – setting up a social networking platform for people to share their views is certainly going to open the flood gates for people ranting about bank charges, poor customer service and overdraft limits.  For example Waitrose this week found themselves caught up in a right stink on Facebook over a post from a customer complaining about a staff member calling her son an animal and her scum.  Hard to believe, but still, a crisis ensued.

If they can turn the barrage of complaints into a positive PR exercise then they deserve a pat on the back.  It certainly supports their philosophy of being ‘The World’s Local Bank’.

If they can make this work, then I’m moving my account from Lloyds TSB – well, no fun not being invited to the party is it?

 

Is there a place for more news?

We do lots of work within the toy and nursery sector so we work with both the trade and consumer press on a regular basis.

Recently the two main toy trade magazines had a new player to contend with – a new rival who promised to do things differently - Toy World headed up by the man who was previously at the helm of one of the incumbents.

All three publications are free on a subscription basis and it was an exciting announcement; some new energy and ideas, but also surprising – a launch at a time when we know just how much news is consumed online and tracked via social media channels.  Only in their second month, Toy World are however already creating a buzz.

So for now I am putting my reservations to one side about launching new publications in this ‘day and age’ as you might say.

Take another example, First News, the weekly national newspaper for children – they have a circulation of nearly 50,000, some fantastic content and have been going strong since xxx.  They’re also active on Twitter and Facebook, plus have a great website to support their offline presence.

Finally, Oxfordshire free paper The Oxford Journal now has a sister paper, The Oxfordshire Guardian launched this summer.

When we spoke to John Baulch at Toy World, he said that they’re very keen to support advertisers in lots of ways to add value to their marketing spend, whether it be via editorial, social media activities or otherwise.  Which shows just how much the advertising landscape is having to change.

“It’s important to provide people with information across a range of formats, so that whichever way they choose to access the information, they can find your brand in that space. Hence we talk about the ‘Toy World brand’ – which encompasses print, online, blog, Twitter, Facebook etc –  rather than just refering to it as a magazine”.

John believes that the reason new magazines are still being launched and advertising is still firmly within the marketing budget is because people haven’t figured out how to monetise online and social media advertising in the same way as print advertising.

“People are still very much happy to pay for advertising – and thank goodness they are, because without it, there would be no Toy World, nor for that matter any other b-2-b magazines in existence”.

John concludes by saying that there has to be a balance – that a publication cannot be totally ad driven to be credible or keep readers engaged.  Which is lucky or we’d all be out of a job!

Ric Sumner the News Editor of the Oxford Journal and Oxfordshire Guardian says that the opportunity to launch a second paper was a no-brainer and combining it with the local property paper and delivering it door to door has given them a real edge.

“The important things for me as news editor are that we have quality, original news and sport unique to each title, and on the whole we have managed that.  The look and feel of the paper has also been well received, with a clean, modern style helping to make the paper ‘feel’ like a paid for newspaper” said Ric.

Ric also commented that new websites for each of their publications was of paramount importance.  He’s also excited about other developing online opportunities and possibilities with apps.

Ric also said “I think the free model will be equally popular in five years time, with papers like the Metro and Evening Standard thriving – people will continue to want to pick up a paper for nothing to read on the train or bus”.

So the message in conclusion I guess is, if you’re paying for advertising, ask for more than just a printed ad for your money.

None of the above mentioned publications have iPad apps as yet, although Toy News has an iphone app, which may be a future step as more reader opt for this form of news digestion!