O.TV

On August 18 the team at O travelled down in full force to the CIPR’s North East Summer Social.

A well attended event in which Speed PR managing director and frequent conference speaker, Stephen Waddington, talked to guests about how to get ahead in social media.

Stephen’s presentation focused on how the media landscape is changing to how individuals can build their own online reputation and get ahead of the competition online.

It also discussed how recent developments in technology have enabled PR practitioners to talk directly to their audience without using a third party.

Some local examples of companies who do this particularly well include Tyneside Cinema, who has a strong Twitter presence, and Tyne and Wear Metro who regularly use Facebook to communicate directly to their customers.

After the talk the team at O walked away with some new insights into social media and individual ideas to how they can strengthen and monitor their presence and influence online.

One of the most significant questions raised at the event was how media organisations will successfully manage to recoup up revenues lost through declining newspaper sales and the growth of direct to consumer communications through social media. 

It is very much a space we will be watching…

To  see Stephen’s full slideshow presentation and discover some great free tools that test your online reputation click here.

Stephen can also be followed on Twitter via @Wadds

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Newcastle’s restaurant scene is set for a boost with revered chef Marco Pierre-White bringing his culinary genius to the pallets of the North East next year. Even though it is called a ‘Steakhouse Bar and Grill’, whichever way you look at it, it will help put Newcastle’s restaurant scene on the map.

With the economic climate putting a dampener on spending and retailers struggling through the recession, many restaurants have still survived.  Fine dining was one of the first things the consumer was going to cross off the recession budget list as a luxury more than a necessity so restauranters had to do something smart and quick.  All of a sudden parts of the UK seemed to have developed a good stock of fine dining-style gastronomic restaurants. 

Working to the consumer budget, established and Michelin star chefs such as Marco Pierre-White started to make dressing down, the new dressing up.  Rustic style back-to-basic venues with wooden tables and a homely feel have started cropping up but with an explosion of ‘gourmet’ style traditional British food.

Take for example the recently opened The Broad Chare by Cafe21 restaurateur Terry Laybourne whose bistro style restaurant has notched down a level to a traditional style pub that treats beer and food with equal reverence yet guarantees by association the same standard of food, but in a much more conventional way.  The fine dining consumers who had previously crossed that luxury off their budget lists are now trading down in order to trade up.

Of course for restaurants, the recession is not the time to cut marketing and PR budgets – in fact it can help in its survival. That and the obvious notion that the food must be good! If people are spending their hard earned pennies to eat out, rest assured that it will have been researched online or via food reviews in magazines and papers, or come from recommendation.

If we can eat our favourite classics such as fish and chips, or pie and peas showcased in the spectacular finesse one would expect from an award-winning chef, then not only would Newcastle be renowned for its stunning architecture and buzzing nightlife, but also put it on the foodie map as a fine place to dine, without the fuss.

Chrissie Gardiner – Senior Account Manager & Head of Lifestyle PR

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One thing I’ve learnt in life is that most people don’t like change and that goes for social networks as well as in real life.

The first thing I immediately struggled with on Google+ was how unfamiliar I was with, well…everything.

Logging in, I had to think twice about what the URL was – unlike when using Facebook and Twitter, which is often done in autopilot.

The second thing I struggled with was the sudden loss in the number of friends I had. I was on a social network that at that moment wasn’t really very sociable.

This, coupled with the fact that I was watching a video last night of Mark Zuckerberg talking about real-time video on Facebook with President of America, Barack Obama, made me wonder how ever Google + could compete.

I realise there are counter arguments to this and that even Facebook had to start somewhere, but when Facebook started up its main competition was MySpace – a social channel already being seen as out of date by its users back then!

And in short, that’s where I stand.

Of course, Google + has created something very different in its latest social channel by taking parts of Facebook and Twitter and combining them together. The result of this is Google Circles.

It allows you to separate contacts into groups through a drag and drop motion making it easy to communicate with your pre-chosen groups of people in a clear and quick way.

In Twitter, everything you Tweet is public apart from a Direct Message, which can only be sent to a single person. In Facebook you can, in effect, send updates to any number of people, but it almost seems like an effort.

This is a clear plus for the new social network and a clear selling point.

Google + also allows users to communicate in group videos in what they call hangouts video chat areas. These areas also allow anyone in your chosen circle to jump in and out of a video chat conversation – a feature that sounds very cool.

 I’m sure these areas will be very impressive when I have enough friends to partake in this activity.

We must also all remember that this latest social network is still in its infancy and has time to grow and develop.

Nevertheless, I can’t help but feel a little sceptic after watching ex Google CEO Eric Schmidt launch Google Wave only a few years ago as the latest revolution in social media.

Where is Eric Schmidt now? And what happened to Google Wave? I’ll tell you: Eric got fired and Google Wave flopped.

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Northumberland’s biggest shopping centre Manor Walks has appointed OPR to manage all its communications as it enters an exciting new phase of development.

Plans have been unveiled for a multi-million revamp of the retail and leisure complex in Cramlington town centre, including the creation of a multiplex cinema with restaurants to be built next year.

Following the recent appointment of new general manager, Bruno Coppola the 500 000sq ft shopping centre in the heart of Cramlington quickly set out to find a local agency that could help him with a community engagement and events programme.

Bruno said: “OPR pitched a creative campaign that put the community at the heart of all Manor Walks’ marketing, from a fantastic programme of community events to some exciting competitions and initiatives with local schools and aspiring retail entrepreneurs.

“Also we will be keeping our community up to date with all the development plans as they unfold, and news and events at Manor Walks, with our first ever Facebook and Twitter Feed and our own Manor Walks YouTube channel launching this month.”

Gemma Clarke, head of consumer PR at OPR said: “There is so much happening at Manor Walks that we won’t be short of stories to tell. Our first day of appointment saw me managing the press call for Fish Spa UK, in front of hundreds of local people!”

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Welcome to Four, thought leading insights four times a year from OPR. It is packed with feature interviews from some of the North’s top entrepreneurs and business figures we meet on a daily basis, on what makes them tick and what’s hot in their world of business. We hope you like it. If you would like to join Four magazine’s mailing list please email kari@opr.co.uk

http://issuu.com/oprfour/docs/four

Posted in Behind the scenes at OPR – The Drum magazine’s North East PR Agency of the Year 2011.

Check out what the team got up to in July by watching our monthly O.TV video 

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For most of us, the hash button until now was merely a symbol on our telephone keypads that we had to press at the end of a customer services or telephone banking enquiry.

Now, after a social media revolution, the hash button – now coined the ‘hashtag’ – has taken on a whole new level of meaning and is now used in everyday online conversations.

On social media sites, particularly Twitter, a word or phrase preceded by a hash (#) symbol is used to badge messages around a specific topic.

Twitter users insert hashtags into tweets as a digital index so others can search for threads aggregated together on a particular subject.

Certain topics or themes can ‘trend’ on Twitter where lots of people use the same hashtag phrase and it starts a viral conversation.

It also allows you to extend the reach of your followers, by adding hashtags you can enter other people’s feeds who are following that phrase, often meaning new eyes see your tweets and start to follow you too.

This is common in geographic Twitter communities like #nefollowers where tweeters wanting to speak to North East Twitter users can add this to their tweets to broaden their local reach and relevance and join that online community.

But a question that many people ask that rarely properly answered is, how can a hashtag be used to accelerate a social media campaign?

During a recent hashtag campaign we implemented for motor dealer Benfield Motor Group we utilised the hashtag #enjoythejourney to encourage people to start conversations about the journeys they take in their car, who they are with and what they do when they get there.

#enjoythejourney featured in the end frame of the TV advert, harnessing the now common tactic of allowing people to tweet whilst watching television, encouraging real time interaction and ongoing engagement in the campaign.

We asked open questions on the @drivebenfield Twitter feed such as “tell us your favourite journey of all time #enjoythejourney”. Then we listened and reacted – “thanks that’s a great journey, keep them coming #enjoythejourney”.  We also ran competitions such as “tell us your favourite driving soundtrack of all time #enjoythejourney”.

For social media marketers, the hashtag is a useful tool for evaluating social media campaigns, allowing you to track conversations. Drive Benfield’s tweets using the #enjoythejourney hashtag reached 29,327.000 pairs of eyeballs in only two weeks…

#enjoythehashtagrevolution!

By Gemma Clarke, sector head – consumer and community PR.

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The  latest social media campaign created by the OPR team is harnessing people power to help local charities to win a share of £10,000.

Benfield Motor Group has pledged the pot of money, which will be shared between three worthy causes as voted by its Facebook fans.

Already dozens of nominations for charities Benfield might never have heard of previously have started to roll in, and the word has spread on Twitter via the #benfieldcharitydrive hashtag as charities and their supporters are spreading the word to get more support.

From the nominations made on Drive Benfield Facebook page during August and September The Benfield Charitable Trust will then select 10 finalists who will go into a final public vote during the month of October.

The three charities with the most votes will go on to share the £10,000 with a first prize of a massive £7,000 and runners up receiving £2,000 and £1,000 – just in time for Christmas.

So what are you waiting for? Get on the Drive Benfield Facebook page and nominate your charity.

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OPR is six years old today, so to celebrate we thought we’d put a few photos on our blog of the O team at six years old. What a cute bunch. Can you guess who is who?

OPR6

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There is a longstanding debate that questions Twitter’s effectiveness as a customer service tool.

The latest development comes from a blog post (read here) on Social Media Today by Greg Meyer, Product Marketing Manager/Customer Experience Manager for Gist.

Greg made some prominent points that are worth reiterating and expanding upon.

Firstly, Greg stressed that Twitter is an effective customer service tool because it allows customers to communicate with a company in a channel that they prefer.

There are numerous benefits as to why this is the case but the main is the speed at which a customer’s query can be handled.

For one, the customer does not need to go through the lengthy and frustrating process of using a call steering system – Twitter forces the company to figure out who the relevant department is to deal with query.

Instead, they can write a short 140 query to a company’s Twitter feed and expect a prompt response back. This is because conversations within online mediums are completely transparent, which puts pressure on a company to provide a quick response.

Also, because all conversations are in public, some customers will not need to enquire if they find a conversation which answers their problem before they have to ask.

A good example of this was during the recent Icelandic Volcano eruption. Airlines were bombarded with phone calls and customers couldn’t get through, making them very angry.

Some of the smarter airlines used Twitter to provide regular updates on the crisis and to deliver the information customers needed to know, when they most needed to hear it.

Many customers didn’t have to contact the airline directly at all as they were given the information they needed from the airlines’ live feed and through looking at other public conversations.

I also want to give a special mention to The TrainLine who regularly use Twitter as a customer service channel, interacting with the public and solving queries online.

As recently as last night one of the team members at O experienced positive customer service with the travel company. A tweet was sent out saying “Appear to have lost my trainline e-tickets…” and without even contacting The TrainLine a response was sent back via Twitter early the following morning providing a solution.

I prefer to use Twitter for customer service queries compared to any other method of communication. If the company who I want to ask a question to has not got a Twitter account or is late in responding to my query, it is unlikely I will want to do business with them again.

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