I wrote a couple of days ago about Barack Obama’s web success (see Obama’s main man?) and the failure of British politicians to use the Internet wisely to conduct campaigns and establish some good PR.

This weeks PR Week (20.02.09) has the insider scoop from disgruntled Labour party members who think their party’s web strategy is unsuccessful. The most widely levelled criticism is that the online campaign and the LabourList website is too focused on Westminster and does not engage constituents nationwide.

Derek Draper

The man behind Labour’s web strategy and the editor of LabourList, Derek Draper, has also been accused of focusing too much on getting the support of fellow politicians and commentators rather than reaching out to those not already politically motivated.

Unusually, it is John Prescott who seems to be leading the pack. Jag Singh, co-founder

John Prescott

of LabourHome blog says about Prescott’s GoFourth project, “It is authentic, funny, and engages with both Labour voters and on-the-fence sitters alike. Most importantly, it reaches beyond Westminster village.”

I’d have to agree, Prescott normally turns me off, but the GoFourth website, even at first glance looks miles better than LabourList and LabourHome, some of his videos are even pretty funny.

In the week where Labour’s poll results were even more dire than the week before, as Polly Toynbee has commented, it is perhaps time for Labour to start taking a few risks and stepping out of their comfort zone. What do they really have to lose?

http://www.prweek.com/uk/search/article/882666/Draper-bloggers-defend-strategy/

http://www.prweek.com/uk/sectors/publicaffairs/article/882665/labour-web-debate-rumbles-on/

Faith Popcorn

Uber-cocooning.

If that sounds a little strange, that’s because it is. But according to Faith Popcorn, renowned trend predictor and marketing consultant, it’s what 2009 is all about. Her BrainReserve predictions for the year ahead are significant in discussing the changing roles of PR and Marketing, especially in the current global economic climate.

Popcorn gives us 4 R’s to define 2009; reclaim, retrench, reset, reinvent.

Popcorn’s key message is about how we will be reframing our relationships with the companies we engage with. Cocooning, the notion that consumers want everything from entertainment to goods available from their homes, has been around for the past three decades. But uber-cocooning, Popcorn states, is born from worldwide economic uncertainty and the desire of consumers to stay in their homes and familiar surroundings, to ‘retrench’.

Popcorn goes as far to say that consumers should no longer just be called consumers, but citizens; citizens who ask questions, who do their own research and can demand exactly what they want. The power relationships in business and the public domain have shifted; there is a new kind of consumerism. Central to this concept, as Popcorn says, is the essential need for organisations to rebuild trust relationships with their citizens, especially governments, Fortune 500s, and of course, banking institutions.

Whether you tend to agree with Popcorn or not, her predictions sound pretty accurate to me. When I think about my behaviour as a consumer it further cements this. I buy most of the things I want online, including entertainment and music, and I don’t really have to leave my house for anything if I didn’t want to! In addition, I don’t trust my bank or its bosses and I feel let down by my government.

PR practitioners and marketers are beginning to realise the potential of online tools in business and communication. Twitter, although not particularly new in the fast-moving online world and already a favourite of many, has appeared daily in the news and media as the ‘next big thing’, and it inevitably won’t be too long before a new site pops up to take its place. Faith Popcorn is critical of practitioners who fail to spot these trends or recognise the advantages of social networking and Web 2.0 in their practice. The best way to build, or indeed, repair a reputation is on the web. Word of mouth is the best PR, we listen to and trust our friends and family’s recommendations, and more importantly, we read their tweets and updates and online posts. If they are saying something good about your organisation they we are more likely to agree with it too.

So while uber-cocooning might be a rather corny title, we would be remiss as students, practitioners, consumers and citizens if we don’t take notice.

Sourced from:  http://www.faithpopcorn.com/

Whichever social network site you use, whether you facebook, Orkut, mypsace or otherwise, it’s a safe bet there is at least one member of your family on your friend list. Be it your cousins, siblings, aunts, or heaven forbid, your mother, one of your relatives will be privy to Saturday night’s excesses kindly posted by your real-life friends for all to see.

Now personally, I don’t mind my sisters or my cousins laughing at my drunk dancing, but my mother? There are just some things your mum doesn’t need to see. My mum is far from naïve, and I’m sure she’s not in the dark about the less academic side of my university life. But I’d really rather not have to have a hung-over conversation on a Sunday morning about why my status update reads, “Michelle is not sure if she’s wearing her own pants this morning…” And just because your mum isn’t on facebook herself doesn’t stop one of your well intentioned cousins asking her, “So, how is Michelle after her arrest?” Thanks cuz.

Similarly, I’m not naïve enough to think that my mum and dad didn’t get up to their fair share of mischief in their younger days, but they didn’t have the evidence plastered all over the internet for all to see within a few hours of stumbling home. It kind of makes me jealous, where they had plausible deniability, I can only hit the ‘untag’ button with the vain hope no one recognises me eagerly attempting to do the YMCA.

A friend recently told me he has closed his facebook profile except to his friends because he is aware that potential employers may well look at his profile for more information. What a terrifying thought, I really don’t want potential employers or colleagues reading through my favourite quotations or my friend’s silly messages. I might know what they mean but things are often misconstrued, especially on the internet.

It got me seriously thinking about where the boundaries in our social networks lie, both virtual and real-life. We are all well aware of the threat of identity theft, or computer hackers. But how many of us seriously think about the ramifications of sharing our pictures and stories with untold numbers of people? Is it fair for your private life to be subject to scrutiny from your boss? It is after all, private isn’t it?

Of course, you could always close your profile or limit outside access…but then how could you possibly know what your friends are getting up to…?