Whatever...

Moving on up

By Flora Haslam

I’ve just moved house and will try my hardest not to turn this into a rant about estate agents – for every journalist that’s had a bad experience with a PR, I’m sure I could find a dozen people who were frustrated by unresponsive agents.

Agents aside, I was surprised how much things have changed since I last went through the process a few years ago.  It’s clear from the investment in televisions ads that online is king when looking for property – the ease of search and convenience of seeing properties from multiple agents via one of the many portals now available is irresistible.

But I was pleasantly surprised to discover that solicitors have finally embraced the benefits of online communication and acknowledged that letters and faxes are just too cumbersome for today’s home movers.  The ability to upload rather than post documents was a breath of fresh air this time round.  Updates by SMS, while managing and tracking the conveyancing process online, was a significant improvement.

With the cost of moving house rising so dramatically, consumers will inevitably demand that the process is made easier.  There’s an app for everything else, so it was no surprise to see the launch of the first Facebook property app this month and it surely can’t be long before technologies like QR codes and augmented reality become commonplace as the business of buying and selling property evolves.

Found any bricks and mortar via the new Property Place Facebook app yet?  Let Flora know your take on Twitter: @FloraHaslam.  

 

Skegness: What's in a name?

By Claire Ayles

The English seaside town Skegness has today been advised it should change its name, which one expert says has become synonymous with ‘slot machines and caravans’ (which he obviously thinks is a bad thing – others may hold a different opinion).

Perhaps he got his inspiration from the tech industry’s very own the data centre sector which seems intent on convincing us that every facility based in the South East of England is in fact in London, even when a quick glance at Google Maps clearly shows otherwise.

So what’s so bad about calling Skegness ‘Skegness’ or, indeed, Slough ‘Slough’?

The problem of course is not the name, but what the name is associated with.  And the danger of changing a place’s name is that it can make these brand connotations even more negative, creating the impression that the place is so ashamed of its heritage it has to pretend it’s something it’s not – the  geographical equivalent of Hyacinth Bucket.  (Who, let’s not forget, was a complete and utter laughing stock). 

And shame isn’t, let’s face it, the greatest brand value to promote. 

Football club leads the way in Twitter morality shocker

by Mike King

It is not often that a football club can be held up as an example of morality or as a positive example of how to deal with inappropriate behaviour, but Oxford City’s decision to sack footballer Lee Steele for writing a homophobic Tweet about Celebrity Big Brother contestant Gareth Thomas sends a out a strong message that bigotry is not acceptable.

This certainly contrasts with the treatment MP Diane Abbott received from her employer when she wrote not one, but two, racist Tweets last week.

What amazed me about the whole Abbott affair was that the media outcry was predominantly for her to apologise, not to be sacked, for her racist comments.  This missed the point entirely.  The issue isn’t simply that she wrote inappropriate messages on her Twitter feed, it’s that she is a racist.  Her (reluctant) apology for any offense caused after the first Tweet hardly changes the fact that she, as a prominent politician in the Labour party, has shown herself to hold racist views.  I’d suggest Ed Miliband could do a lot worse than nip back to Oxford for some tips.

Surviving on Wikipedia

by Oliver Fischer

‘We need to ramp up our social media activities!’ – This is a sentence you hear quite a lot as a PR professional nowadays.  

I had just started as an intern in the PR department of a German IT company when my boss at the time (he was quite an old-school kind of guy) burst into the office, waved a print-out of a website in front of my face and said something like: ‘Hey there, young fellow! You are young, so you must know of this whole new media stuff.  So tell me why some complete stranger has the right to write about our company on a website called 'Wikipedia'?  They didn't even use our wording or our boilerplate! I already tried to upload our recent press release but somebody deleted it again and called it 'PR bullsh*t' – so now you are going to fix this!’

At the time, those conversations were quite common in many German companies – and hordes of young interns started to handle the social media activities of firms of all sizes (sometimes with hilarious effects). One of the duties they had to fulfil was taking care of the company's Wikipedia entry – which didn't always exist in the first place.  Some of them succeeded, some got virtually punched in the face by the German-speaking Wikipedia community.

You have to know at least two basic rules about the German Wikipedia.  First: the normal language in the German community is sometimes still quite blunt – especially on the site for deletion requests.  Just a link to this page can send shivers up the spines of some CEOs and marketing managers.  Secondly: Wikipedia is not a phone book or product index and the Wikipedia community gave itself a set of criteria to prove what is relevant and what is, well, ‘irrelevant crap’.

If you are sure that your company, product or idea matches those criteria, you are absolutely right to ask a professional for help with the article.  But here’s some advice if you are planning to get things kicking in the German branch of the world's biggest online encyclopaedia: just because Microsoft, Dell and IBM have an entry, it doesn't mean you can get one.  As I said, there are some criteria you have to match first. Otherwise you risk getting your article deleted again just some days (or hours) later with reasons like ‘irrelevant’, ‘Marketing blabla’ or ‘come back when you grew up, kiddo’.  Also, when your article doesn't get deleted, you don't own it. It's a wiki; everybody can edit it – even your competitors.  And, last but not least, never forget that Wikipedia wants to be a neutral encyclopaedia – they want to show facts, whether you like them or not.  There has always been a select few who’ve tried to lighten up articles using Greenwashing, spin tactics or legal threats, but most of the time, this didn't end well.  However, if you are still willing to try tactics, I have one final piece of advice, perhaps you should read this article first: Streisand effect.