Facebook forces HSBC climb down

For a while now we have been advising clients about the power of Facebook and need to engage in conversations where their company is directly or even directly involved. Be Open, Be Honest is our motto.
So it was interesting to see that banking giant HSBC has been forced to back down on student overdraft fees after a campaign on Facebook orchestrated by the National Union of Students. More than 5,000 students got the bank to reverse its decision to stop free overdrafts for graduates after joining Facebook's Stop the Great HSBC Rip-Off!!! group.
The U-turn comes at a time of year when HSBC is trying to sign up potentially lucrative students. The bank said yesterday that it was not "too big" to listen to its customers – good on them.
According to a report in today’s Telegraphy Andy Ripley, HSBC's head of product development, said: "Like any service-orientated business we are not too big to listen to our customers. Following the feedback from our graduate account holders, both directly and via the National Union of Students [NUS], we have taken the decision to freeze interest charging on 2007 graduates' overdrafts up to £1,500 and refund any interest charged in August."
The NUS set up the protest site because it felt HSBC had reneged on the banking deal offered to students. It gave them accounts on the basis that they could have an interest-free overdraft of up to £1,500 for three years, reducing the facility by £500 a year.
But last month it informed customers that it would be charging this year's graduates for those overdrafts unless they paid a £9.95 monthly fee.
The move would have cost a graduate who had the maximum overdraft of £1,500 nearly £12 a month, or more than £142 a year.
Now according to a NUS statement on Facebook: “HSBC have contacted NUS to discuss this campaign. Following our discussions and negotiations, HSBC have decided to freeze interest on 2007 graduate overdrafts up to £1,500, with future policy subject to review. All those recent graduates who have been subject to additional interest charges this August will be eligible for a refund.
"Following this development, we will suspend the planned action on 4 September at HSBC HQ. We will send out a further communication later today."
The joint NUS/HSBC press release here.
"NUS would like to thank you all for your involvement in this campaign. The commitment, time and energy shown by the members of this group has precipitated real change. Despite all those who suggested that our concerns would not be listened to, our voice has been heard. HSBC have agreed to continue a dialogue with NUS, and we remain committed to expressing the concerns of students and graduates in our future correspondence.
“We recommend that all those HSBC customers who are affected get in touch with their local branches to discuss this matter in further detail.”
Who says social media doesn’t work? And who would still argue that companies should ignore it? Answers please.

Make Stupidity History

A one man effort to stem what he sees as the growing tide of stupid thinking in the world is being launched by our creativity expert Andy Green, in an ambitious week-long 14 venue tour across the UK from September 3.
Called Challenge Your thinking - 5½ ways to overcome stupidity by thinking more flexibly and creatively, the tour features a 35 minute, fun yet practical lecture sharing key techniques and tools to highlight how you are never more than 12ft from an opportunity.
The tour will visit Edinburgh, Newcastle, Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Nottingham, Cambridge, Norwich, London, Reading, Southampton, Bristol and Cardiff and will also seek to raise funds for leading children’s and young people’s charity Barnardo's. Ticket prices will be just £25.
Andy says: “Every day we see examples of stupid thinking as individuals respond to the increasing complexity of the world around them coupled with the faster pace of life by doing the first thing that comes to mind, or what might appear superficially easy. As a result they often fall into a trap of producing stupid decisions.”
Andy is a world-leading expert on the subject of flexible thinking, creativity and opportunity spotting. Andy is author of Creativity in Public Relations the world’s first book on the subject, Effective Personal Communications Skills and A Minute with Tony Blair after a chance encounter with the former Prime Minister.
He is a partner at my company GREEN Communications and specialist flexible thinking skills consultancy creativity@work, and is also the driving force behind the Wakefield Media Centre which is Britain’s only moo-ing building and home to a community of creative businesses.
He works with blue chip organisations around the world to facilitate creativity and brainstorm sessions, and deliver training to enable his clients to achieve more with less.

Bloggers of the world unite

News just in about an international initiative of bloggers known as "Blog Action Day", with the aim of uniting thousands of blogging voices, talking about one issue for one day.
This year on Blog Action Day, October 15, 2007, bloggers will be discussing the environment. Major blogs have signed up to participate, including Lifehacker, Dumb Little Man, Lifehack.org, Get Rich Slowly, Web Worker Daily, GigaOm, The Simple Dollar, Zen Habits, Freelance Switch, LifeClever, Unclutterer, Pronet Advertising, Wise Bread and many more. I’ve just added mine.
According to Collis Ta'eed, an Australian blogger from FreelanceSwitch.com, and a co-founder of Blog Action Day: "For just one day, we'd like to unite as many of the millions of bloggers around the world and speak about one issue - the environment."
"We want to display the potential and the power of the blogging community, which is a disparate community but one with an amazing size, breadth and diversity. By bringing everyone together for one day, we can see just how much can be achieved, and how much we can be heard."
Blog Action Day is a non-profit initiative, and will be an annual event. As an alternative to blogging about the environment on Blog Action Day, bloggers can opt to participate by donating their blog's proceeds from October 15 to one of several environmental organizations chosen for this purpose: Greenpeace International, The Nature Conservancy, and the National Wildlife Federation (NWF).

Making money from blogging

There was a conversation on Twitter recently, started, I think, by Mike Butcher. He asked the question: Who is making money from blogging in the UK?
It’s an interesting question, as the implicit assumption is that bloggers are making money by blogging, ie being paid to write, whether it by sponsors, advertisers etc. Or are they making money through their blog.
Well I certainly don’t make a bean from mine – I don’t even have AdScense on this blog – but I know plenty who do. The obvious ones are Mike Arrington’s TechCrunch in the US, but Sam Sethi is now carrying ads on Blog Nation.
Even The World’s Leading is hosting adverts on his(?) dedicated Tech PR blog – a good niche player who should be able to make a bob or two.
But the real money is to be made using blogs to boost your business. For instance English Cut and Des Merrion both earn a healthy living as bespoke tailors by offering their services via their blogs.
Meanwhile, companies like Innocent are making a mint by using their blogs to get close to the customers. At Wensleydaleblog, which we developed at GREEN Communications, we receive requests for product from across the globe and we are increasingly talking to clients how they can best generate a conversation about their business and, by extension, create some extra income.
A lot of small niche players are also benefiting from blogging too. I went to Otley Farmers Market recently and many of the stalls manned by local farmers, bakers, butchers, cheese makers etc – where using blogs to pimp their business and good luck to them.
Like the long tail – blogging levels the playing field and can, if done properly, let the little man or woman make a living.

TFG PowerPR List 2007

GREENblog has been named in The Friendly Ghost PowerPR Index for August 2007 – which is nice.
The Friendly Ghost has been compiling the PowerPR list for some time now and while I am dubious about the rankings – based as they are, by necessity, on the usual metrics thrown up by Technorati et al – I think it is pretty bang on as most of the PR bloggers I read are here.
The list is generated by Easy Bee Software and TFG will continue refine the list over time. TFG offers many interesting points but its best if you check him(?) out here.
It has always been my contention, however, that the blog ranks – while they are good fun (we all love list journalism) – perhaps don’t capture the quality of the bloggers, their intellectual rigor, journalistic nouse and good sense.
And I suspect that will only be achieved by some sort of qualitative poll. Meanwhile, social media has been so skewed by new tools like Twitter, Facebook, Pownce et al that it is getting harder to discover where real influence comes from. For instance Hugh MacLeod and Steven Rubel seem to spend most of their time on Twitter and others have all but given up on their blogs.
Interestingly GreenGathering doesn’t feature at all – in spite of the fact that I do shamelessly re-cycle some content from GREENblog. Perhaps that’s why! What is encouraging is that the ranking is not based on the shameless pimping of blogs by getting as many people as possible to link to a particular blog regardless of the content.
Anyway good luck to TFG and thanks for taking the time to create The Friendly Ghost PowerPR Index.

Where do the over-50s go to network?

Over at GREEN on behalf of a client we are looking at how we can use social networks to bring together men in the over-50s demographic and to be honest we are struggling.
The obvious starting place was Facebook and I’ve even asked the question on my Facebook account on where to find the over-50 users. But the answers so far have been of little help.
Clearly there are Baby Boomers on Facebook – thank you Neville for your observations – but they are very difficult to access as you can’t search Facebook by age, at least not so far as I can see.
There are some dedicated Boomer social networks like Eons – but they are largely US-centric. Saga has a social network in the UK but it is a bit clunky and when you look into it appears to be a dating agency for wrinklies.
I can’t find anywhere where there is a serious debate addressing the issues surrounding men’s health – possibly because men don’t like discussing their health. However, it does seem to me there is a gap in the market here – particularly in the UK.
Any thoughts and advice are welcome.

Coffee, cake and conversation

The OpenCoffee gig returns to Leeds next week – anyone is invited (just turn up) to talk about emerging technologies, social media, marketing – you name it and all over a nice cup of coffee too.
Imran Ali has done sterling work to organize this and the third event is on Tuesday, August 7 at 10.00am at Justin Whiston's Loftart gallery space just off Vicar Lane.
Everyone at OpenCoffee would love to share some interesting developments on co-working spaces for Leeds, the progress of BarCamp, participation in Seedcamp and the exciting new dot.north community. Ali and his mates (they are legion) want to make the North of England an essential hub for the web industry and we want you all to help make it happen.
Please come along and join us for free wifi, coffee and cakes...geeks, coders, bloggers, investors, entrepreneurs, designers, developers and anyone with a passing interest in digital.
Head on over to the event listing at Upcoming and let us know you're coming...see you on Tuesday, August 7.

Is SMNR the new PR?

For a while now over at GREEN we have been experimenting with out own social media news releases (SMNR) – which have been refined over a period of time to take in comments, Flickr, Digg, Technorati, Del.icio.us, You Tube and other rich content. It’s a rather laborious process but very compelling once we get them out there.
Most recently we have been using the services of the excellent Stephen Davies and his new company webitpr to pump out some SMNR on behalf of a techie client and the team have been pleasantly surprised by the results.

Stephen has now issued five SMNRs and has some views on the latest shtick. Here they are in precise:

Not everyone links, not everyone references
I guess, in hindsight, I’m stating the obvious but just because you think you’ve got an uber cool, bleeding edge news release it doesn’t mean bloggers do too.

People are comment shy
Well, they are on the SMNR that’s for sure. As of yet, no one’s left a comment on any of the five we’ve done.

A SMNR is not for all news
Again, stating the obvious but it is interesting to see which SMNRs pick up more traction than others.

PR people get the concept
I really don’t want to sound like we’ve been trying to teach our granny to suck eggs but the people we’ve spoke with get the SMNR concept straight away. (Yes we did – Ian)

The provision of multimedia is an issue
A few people we have spoke with say that collecting multimedia (mainly audio and video) is a problem.

For Stephen’s more considered view check out his thought here.

This blog is now a year old

I've been away for the past week. Ostensibly I was on holiday but spent most of the time in Sussex with the in-laws nursing a soar throat and runny nose - all with little or no access to t'ternet!
Anyway, during that period my blog - it transpires - is now one year old! How did that happen?
I accept this is not my most profound post on the issue of social media but it is one worth observing. More profound stuff to come later but I just added this as a milestone.
Will there be a two year celebration? You know, I am just not sure as things seem to be moving so quickly now. We will see.
What do you think?

Further to my earlier post...

Further to my earlier post I've just come across this on Facebook's Wensleydale Appreciation Society.

See? This stuff does really work.

We take PRide in our work

I’ve just spent the past week co-ordinating GREEN’s entries for the annual PRide Awards and for the first time we have entered two campaigns in the social media slot.
They are Wensleydaleblog and Beat Blue Monday. It’s interesting to revisit campaigns for awards – as we seldom have the time to look back and pat ourselves on the back but even I was surprised how bloody good they were.
Beat Blue Monday was conceived and driven on virtually no budget at all and co-ordinated by the excellent Simon Collister – who is sadly no longer with us. The campaign – to raise the issues surrounding depression on the saddest day of the year – revolved around a blog, with other social media tools like Flickr and a forum.
What was most exciting looking at it again was just how much buzz we created online with thousands of people around the world blogging about it. Most intriguing, however, was the amount of cuttings we generated in the deadwood media.
Meanwhile, with The Wenselydale Creamery (the site is having problems at the moment so you might not be able to access it) we had the first client who whole heartedly embraced the idea of blogging and social media. This campaign used the blog, podcasts, Facebook, Flickr, online competitions etc – and generated oodles of deadwood media coverage.
One thing we did not envisage was the creation of online communities who love Real Yorkshire Wenselydale Cheese – there are two on Facebook (neither of them created by us).
Meanwhile, we have visitors to the blog from Canada, US, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and the Far East. Bizarre! All for an English territorial cheese.
From past experience our best campaigns never win an award – we usually pick up a couple but they are usually on behalf of a client who has dumped us. No one has dumped us this year – so who knows.
Meanwhile, given the debate about the decline in blogging at TWL and Simon Says it's good to see that a blog can still stir up an interesting conversation.

Measuring social media

Hats off to David Brain at Sixty Second View and Edleman’s attempt to create a Social Media Index that goes beyond the simple measurement of blogs.
David and his team have attempted to take in the spaces that really make social media rock – like Facebook, Twitter, Digg and Del.iciu.os. They are making some pretty broad assumptions but given that measuring the influence of social media is a bit like trying to eat soup with a fork – they have done a pretty good job.
Read more here.

Talking to some nice people about social media

I’m with the Yorkshire arm of Chartered Management Institute at the Community Learning Centre at Kettlethorpe High School, Wakefield, West Yorkshire, doing a presentation on social media. So this is a live blogging session and people around me in the audience can challenge anything I say. Bring it on! I might add something on Twitter too!
Writing this is seems a bit old school – but yes, a lot of people still don’t use all the social media tools we have been using since blogs were created more than five years ago. Therefore, I am in evangelist today – again!
As usual I am amazed at the ignorance about social media and its possibilities in business – but these are a great bunch of people and are currently setting up their own blogs using Blogger as a platform as I write. Do you remember your first time?
By the end of the session, hopefully I will have explained the issues surrounding Web2.0, blogs and stuff like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin etc and convinced some marketing professionals that social media is something they cannot ignore.
I will post and update in a few days time…

Cut out the bad words

When I was a journalist there were certain words I hated in a press release and I’ve been thinking about this all week – following a recent comment about the fact that you cannot “polish a turd”.
Good writers should avoid the following words at all times – especially those operating in PR where any press release should deal in facts and facts alone and stay away from PR bullshit. So here’s the Greenie Guide to Bad Words. If you have any of these in your press releases delete them now:
No product or service is ever the First; Biggest; Best; Latest; Ground-breaking; Cutting-edge; Leading-edge; Unique… add more as you please
No CEO is ever “delighted”; “over-joyed”; “over the moon”; “pleased to announce”; “pleased to be associated with…” … add more as you please.
Other bad words, for me at least, also include “utilise” – what’s wrong with “use”?
This might sound a bit smug – but I think people who are uncomfortable about their writing try to pad it out with jargon, or self-inflating verbiage which is just a waste of time.
My advice is stick to the facts and tell it like it is.

I love this

Click on the image to read in full...

Five lessons learned

Five things I discovered this week:

• Some people will never change – even when you explain the blindingly obvious to them, they will never concede a point. Stay away from them.
• Most people mean well, even when they make mistakes. So I now try to congratulate people on their failures.
• Tax bills can come down as well as go up. This week mine came down. Result
• The things that you think are important don’t mean a damn to other people. So get over your self.
• Gordon Brown will probably be a very good Prime Minister. I now feel confident in the Labour Party again.

What did you learn this week?

My site is now X-rated!

My site is X-rated according to the Cinema Test I have just taken. It rates your blog content just as if it were a movie."

Well, having put my 'URL' to the test, it seems that, like Mr Blunt, I am not deemed suitable for children, unless accompanied by a parent or adult guardian.
Why you may ask - I don't particularly suffer from Potty Mouth. The errant words were:
Death (x6)
Sex (x5)
Punch (x3) - this in a post about boxing
Abortion (x2)
Crap (x1)

How do you rate?

Eight Things You Don't Know About Me

Kevin at fuelmyblog has tagged me in a game of Eight Things You Don't Know About Me started by Bill Blunt. So here's my list:

1. My secret super human power is that I can talk to animals and they seem to understand what I am saying – however, this only works with cats, dogs and meerkats.
2. I have never successfully played Flight Of The Bumble Bee all the way through on a Tuba. I usually pass out half way through.
3. My wife and I often have conversations styled on those between Dr Watson and Sherlock Holmes. Example: Mrs G: “Forsooth! The chocolate biscuits have disappeared.” Me: “Great Scott! Mrs Green I suspect villany!”
4. I have never voluntarily been fired from a canon.
5. Despite the rumours I have never worn a truss.
6. My favourite song is When The Banana Trees Are Ripening I’ll Come Sliding Back To You.
7. I have platform ticket for Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.
8. I book I wrote was presented to the Queen when she visited Leeds during her recent Jubilee Year.

So, now I have to tag eight people to do much of the same. I have gone back to fuelmyblog and chosen eight lucky victims. They are:

Simon Says - an old pal
Baker Street Blog - with Dr Watson I presume
One Red Paper Clip - The paper clip guy
Lionheart's Den
Weird Girl - I think she's Canadian
All Other Crap
Sacha - He's German
La Belle Saison

Do your stuff guys.

A reminder of the Tag Rules, for the blogs listed above...

One: Each player starts with eight random facts/habits about themselves. Two: People who are tagged need to write their own blog entry about their eight things and post these rules. Three: at the end of your entry, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names/pseudonyms/blogs. Four: Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

New Grub Street revisited

We’re based in Wakefield. Home of George Gissing.
He’s been dead now for 150 years now (born November 22, 1857), but brilliantly captured the anxiety of modern British journalism with New Grub Street – even though he was writing in the late 19th Century.
I know that Paul Routledge, Wakefield-born, and currently Political Correspondent of the Daily Mirror is a big fan too - curiously his home city is doing nothing to celebrate his memory - bizarre given that Wakefield needs all the help it can get.
Anyway from Wikipedia we get this:

New Grub Street opens with Jasper Milvain, an “alarmingly modern young man” driven by pure financial ambition in navigating his literary career. He accepts that he will “always despise the people [he] write[s] for,” networks within the appropriate social circle to manufacture opportunity, and authors articles for popular periodicals. Gissing provides a foil to Milvain with protagonist Edwin Reardon, who prefers to author novels of a more literary bent and refuses to pander to contemporary tastes until, as a last-gasp measure against financial ruin, he quickly attempts a popular novel. Even in this venture, Reardon fails, precipitating a separation from his wife, Amy Reardon née Yule, who cannot accept her husband’s fallen status.
The Yule family includes Amy’s two uncles—John, a wealthy invalid, and Alfred, another author—and Alfred’s daughter, Marian. The friendship that develops between Marian and Milvain’s sisters, who move to London following their mother’s death, provides opportunity for the former to meet and fall in love with Milvain. However much Milvain respects Marian’s intellectual capabilities and strength of personality, the crucial element (according to Milvain) for marriage is missing: money. Marrying a rich woman, after all, is the most convenient way to speed his career advancement. Indeed, Milvain slights romantic love as a key to marriage:
‘As a rule, marriage is the result of a mild preference, encouraged by circumstances, and deliberately heightened into strong sexual feeling. You, of all men, know well enough that the same kind of feeling could be produced for almost any woman who wasn’t repulsive.’ Eventually, reason enough for an engagement is provided by a legacy of £5000 left to Marian by John Yule.
Life (and death) eventually end the possibility of this union. Milvain’s initial career advancement is a position on The Current, a paper edited by Clement Fadge. Twenty years earlier, Alfred Yule (Marian’s father) was slighted by Fadge in a newspaper article, and the resulting acerbic resentment extends even to Milvain (an employee of Fadge’s). Alfred Yule refuses to countenance Marian’s marriage; but his objection proves to be an obstacle only after Yule’s eyesight fails and Marian’s legacy is reduced to a mere £1500. As a result, Marian must work to provide for her parents, and her inheritance is no longer available to Milvain.
By this time, Milvain already has detected a more desirable target for marriage: Amy Reardon. Reardon’s poverty and natural disposition toward ill-health culminate in his death following a brief reconciliation with his wife. Amy, besides the receipt of £10,000 upon John Yule’s death, has the natural beauty and grace to benefit her husband (by reflection) in the social events beneficial to his career. Eventually Amy and Milvain marry; however, as the narrator reveals, this marriage motivated by circumstances is not lacking in more profound areas. Milvain has married the woman he loves.

Sounds dull doesn’t it? But no! I think it is one of the single most interesting books about hacks and newspapers. I feel we should celebrate this forgotten author and was wondering about doing an exhibition in GREEN’s Art of Propaganda gallery in Wakefield. Any thought?

Pros and cons of working with real people

I work in the world of public relations advising clients on how to get the reputation they deserve. They are a demanding lot – both good and bad. Happily most are good. I came across this excellent post on TWL with the following comment from an anonymous writer. He defined client as follows – it’s a bit like Shakespeare's Seven Ages of Man but hits the spot - here it is:

Those you go the extra mile for:
The 'good lad/lass'. You work hard for them as they are just that.
The 'aww bless' who is completely useless but knows it and appreciates the fact you have saved their ass on many occasions.
The 'NKOTB' (New Kid on the Block). Stumbled into a senior position and spends the whole time thinking how the hell did this happen and what the hell is PR anyway? Confesses to you as much and is grateful of the help you give them.
Those you do you level best but no more:
The 'grabber'. Takes all the credit and never thanks the agency.
The 'scary git'. Highly demanding but sadly knows his/her stuff. Treats agency staff poorly and knows when the wool is being pulled over the proverbial. Usually from an agency background.
Those you deliberately sabotage. The 'ignoramus'. Has inherited the PR role as part of a larger marcoms brief and doesn't understand the value in it. Sees you as an unfortunate irritant that they have to deal with but would sack you in a second if they had the opportunity and would use your budget on daft advertisements or even worse, direct mail!
The 'c*@t'. Need I say more...
The 'idiot'. Perhaps the most dangerous. Thinks they understand PR as they did some work experience in a small agency 10 years ago. Has ridiculous expectations and will not take counsel. Thrives on a master/slave relationship and will blame the agency for what they perceive as terrible results but in actual fact is their own inadequacies.

I have my own take on this and it begins with the Five Clients I Love:

1. Pays my company on time, when due and according to the contract. I love my job, I love the client, I love their product. But I have mouths to feed.
2. Clients who tell it straight. Tell me what your business/marketing/strategy plan is and then we can deliver. You cannot polish a turd but we can make it float.
3. Clients who don’t understand what a brief is… we can lead them to the promised land.
4. Clients who like a chinwag. We like people, people are interesting, they have stories and tell them. I would rather have an argumentative chat with a client than a … dialogue.
5. Clients tell me how I am doing. We all like praise but if we are not delivering to expectation we need to know otherwise how can we fix it?

These are the nice clients. Who are the baddies? Clients I dislike. Here’s five of them:

1. Clients who pay late. Why? We’ve done the work, got the coverage and are proud of what we have done. Pay up for God’s sake.
2. Clients who think they know what they want ie "we would like some PR because the CEO said it would be good". Why?
3. Clients who lie. Client: “Yes, the website we are paying you to promote will be ready next week we just need you to populate it with content.” Us: “Content is done – we worked over the weekend to make sure it was ready.” Client: “We need to work on the website for the next month - why have we had no coverage in the press.” Us (inwardly): “Bugger – we’re not going to get paid for this and I missed my son’s birthday too.”
4. Clients who don’t know what a budget is. A press release costs this much, a campaign costs this much, a retained fee is this. What don’t they understand?
5. Clients who think I will lie on their behalf – No, no, no! That is not an option. We have a reputation too!

Or is it just me? Answers please