Via TheNextWeb

Add to that all the people who may have had something better to do that day, and you have more than 800 million ‘active’ users. Putting that in perspective, that’s the population of Europe. You can start to see where their $80 billion valuation is coming from.

In contrast, an estimated 2 billion people tuned in to watch the royal wedding earlier this year. Two billion. That’s one third of the world’s population tuning in to watch Pippa Middleton’s arse. Four times that of Facebook.

Therefore, I’m putting a value on Miss Middleton’s backside. A crude calculation based on very little I agree, however it’s estimated that 2 billion people have access to the internet in the world, and I’m of the belief that news of the royal wedding could have reached even those without access to the World Wide Web. So for Coca-Cola to slap their logo on Kate’s little sister’s rear end, she should have put a value at least quadruple that of Facebook. Her bum reached more viewers than the internet!

Hence, in terms of grossly overestimated advertising value, I’m arguing that Pippa Middleton’s arse is worth at least 4 times that of Facebook, $320bn, or just over £200bn.

Try insuring that one J-Lo…

Don’t get me wrong. Social media has undoubtedly changed our lives, and for the most part, for the better. We’re able to communicate with friends easier. Share photos without sending monumental zip files over email. Interact with brands on a more humane level – there are a thousand and one benefits.

However, it has come at a price, and this goes for the internet too. The problem is our inability to unplug.

Connecting online is something we do almost unconsciously now. I pull out my phone to check in somewhere, to take a photo, to edit, upload and share that photo, to tweet, to check links friends are sharing. The list goes on, and it all happens without thinking about it.

I’m regularly advising clients on how to use social media more efficiently in the workplace, and at work, I’ve become militaristic on organising my time on social platforms. Working in an agency, and even more so, freelancing for six months, taught me that very quickly. Being so plugged in can be a huge detriment to productivity if not managed right, hence I strongly recommend any client of ours to have a social media policy in place (contact me if you’d like us to help with yours).

However, it all seems to fall apart once I leave the office. I get sloppy, and browsing becomes lazy. The commute home is led by a check on Twitter, Facebook, and then another check after dinner, and last night I even found myself on Facebook in bed. I idly browse through friends photos, uploading some of my own, check on the progress of some of my client’s pages. It doesn’t really stop.

I’m addicted, which I guess is partly why I do what I do. But tomorrow, I won’t be celebrating social media day. I won’t be tweeting. I won’t be on Facebook. I won’t check LinkedIn, and I won’t be blogging. I won’t surf. I won’t browse. I won’t poke.

This social media day, I’m going to be unplugging, and I’ve scheduled this post. Besides, the 30^th of June is my fiancée’s birthday, and I’m taking the day off to go hot air ballooning.

Ok, so I might tweet a photo…

(this post was written and published at Receptional.com on the 29th June 2011)

The words “Social Media” bring to mind disaster and lazy employees to many a CEOs mind, and often justifiably so. According to a survey from harmon.ie, 53% of employees are wasting at least one hour a day on distractions at work such as social media, text messaging and other applications.

Not only are there huge losses in productivity, but also there is the associated risk of the employee endangering the brand or company itself – hence why many organisations are resorting to banning access to Facebook and Twitter entirely in the workplace. Because of which, social networks have been given a bad name in the board room – unjustifiably so.

Social networks present brands and organisations with a whole new way to interact with customers, and a fresh and constant view of their marketplace. Not to mention that all the “Generation-Y” employees entering the marketplace now are using technology and interacting with each other in very different ways, and numerous studies have shown that breaks in the working day can help improve productivity.

The solution is simple:

Organisations need to have a social media policy in place to govern how employees use social networks in the workplace

Our consultants at Receptional have a wealth of experience developing social media policies for organisations such as PR agencies, right through to global technology companies – both in cases where social media marketing activities need to be focused and productive, as well as where employees need to have their time spent tagging their Facebook photos kept to a reasonable amount!

We can also help with tailored guides for how to utilise social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter to gain the most out of them for your industry.

Give us a call, or email me (bjordan@receptional.com) if you want to know more about how we can help your business and employees become more productive.

Inside Facebook recorded a 6 million user drop in the US over May – potentially a huge drop, and at first glance it was pointing out that cracks were starting to appear in Facebook’s blitzkrieg to 1 billion global users.

However, Facebook have brushed aside the report, saying the user base in the US actually grew by 21 per cent in May – a bit of a difference there…

“From time to time, we see stories about Facebook losing users in some regions. Some of these reports use data extracted from our advertising tool, which provides broad estimates on the reach of Facebook ads and isn’t designed to be a source for tracking the overall growth of Facebook,” Facebook said in a statement.

It seems there’s no stopping the world’s largest social network becoming even bigger. Even Steve McQueen isn’t going to be able to help us out with this one…

Via stateofsearch.com

Along with the usual YouTube videos, leaflets, tweets, etc, there are also three accompanying posters.

The Tories’ last poster campaign, you know, the one sporting a rather smoothly airbrushed David Cameron, looking more like Morph then a regular human being, didn’t take long for the blogosphere to say something about it.

Doctored versions of the poster started springing up everywhere, from Facebook to websites such as mydavidcameron.com, which even uploaded blank templates for people to edit as they saw fit.

And it only took a few hours Monday morning for exactly the same thing to happen again:

If the Tories had replaced their entire poster campaign from the previous in order to stem the effort non-conservatives were going to with parodying their messages as The Independent had reported, they failed. Before lunchtime #ivenevervotedtory was trending worldwide on Twitter:

• #ivenevervotedtory because actually I think Gordon and Alistair have done a great job … mwahahahaha
• #ivenevervotedtory because that New Labour, New Danger ad campaign still gives me nightmares
• #ivenevervotedtory because I believe in genuine co-operative values not made up twaddle
• #ivenevervotedtory because of their position on Europe. Oh and because they remind me of all the stuck-up braying arses I was at uni with!
• #ivenevervotedtory because Phil Collins will come back if I do
• #ivenevervotedtory because they are home to homophobic bigots and promote an unequal society
• #ivenevervotedtory because Jim Davidson does. And you don’t want to be associated with that c**t

By mid week, the ‘I’ve never voted Tory but’ poster parodies had made pretty good coverage, both online, and nationally. They had spread across all manner of social networks and news sites, from Facebook to New Statesman. Seemingly a fail for the Conservatives, and a win for the Government. However, was this exactly what the Conservatives wanted to happen? (Cue evil genious laugh)

As Paul Owen wrote in his blog over at the Guardian, the new posters practically beg to be altered. The slogans are set out on big blue oblongs, making them so simple to edit my 5 year old cousin could manage it, and that half sentence; “I’ve never voted Tory, but” pleads for defacement louder than a whitewash wall in the middle of Hackney.

The defacement of the posters helped elevate public interest in the original campaign to levels well above what our political apathy often allows for, and at far lesser cost. Plus, by the end of Monday, #ivenevervotedlabour had replaced #ivenevervotedtory, which was no longer trending:

• #ivenevervotedlabour because ultimately they run out of other people's money
• #ivenevervotedlabour and never will because the bastards have stolen my hard earned pension
• #ivenevervotedlabour because they are a bunch of joyless self righteous authoritarians who want to dictate how we all lead our lives
• #ivenevervotedlabour because their policies are designed to keep poor people poor
• #ivenevervotedlabour because ALL Labour Governments run out of our money in the end
• #ivenevervotedlabour Because quantitative easing is the economics policy of Mugabe

The Tory tweeters had come out in force, in their Uggs and Jack Wills, probably sitting in the Sloaney Pony in Parsons Green, tweeting furiously on their iPhones.

If anything, the tweets from both sides provided a lot of public opinion, more so than you’d expect to get from spending thousands on focus groups.

As the dust slowly starts to settle and the posters continue to bounce through peoples’ inboxes, you’ve got to ask, was this a stroke of viral marketing genius?