How-Do Awards 2010. Drinks reception sponsored by KMP Digitata from KMP Digitata on Vimeo.

KMP Twitterfall Awards

In addition to this we have had some requests to expand upon some of the Tweets we featured in our previous post. I’ve had chance to read through the 600+ tweets featured on our KMP Digitata Twitterfall and have selected my favourite tweets for an additional mention.

Best Dressed Award

Purely from the Tweet he sent, the reward for the best dressed goes to Jamie Lyons

@whatjamiedid: Slightly regretting the deckchair shirt look now, looked fun at home

First to get drunk Award

This tweet was sent relatively early on and after re-reading it many times, I still struggle to understand what it is meant to say. The first to get drunk award goes to Joe Bowler

@ItsJoeBowler: apparently I everything these things but I’m glad to be here on behalf of Refinery

What Happened Next? Award

There is always someone you see or hear that make you wander “What happened to them later on?”. In this case a tweet was sent and makes me think about how his night might of gone. Winner of the What Happened Next Award is Michael Pettyt

@speedia: look out, 2 pints and an empty stomach can’t be good

Awkward Office in the morning Award

It’s a clique at office parties that there is always one event during the night that causes an awkward moment the next morning. This also goes for Award Ceremonies and the winner of this award goes to Jon Clements for tweeting;

@JonClements: boss admiring shirt says “matching collar and cuffs”. And it’s still early….

Best way around the Profanity Filter Award

Throughout the night the ever entertaining Gordo came out with some classic Tweets, some that were banned and even one asking if I could fight after putting him in the Sin Bin for the 3rd time. One of his tweets got past my filters and due to his politeness I believe this tweet wins the award

@GordoManchester: Nina, my darling, just been sin binned again for saying what a tight derriere you have m’dear…

Nina Webb later returned the complement

Fail of the night Award

This Award is actually being awarded to the same person for two separate occasions. The first is for an attempt at trash talk towards us of all people, but ultimately failed by getting our name wrong

@ajevans85: who are @kmpdigital?

Yes Adam….who are KMP Digital? His second tweet was picked up by a couple of people who noticed his error. CTI rightfully received a highly recommended accolade but Adam jumped the gun slightly and sent the tweet;

@ajevans85: well done @ctisn for digital agency of the year

Andrew Binns was quick on the case to point out his error

@keeperbinns: @aajevans85 erm, they didnt win it

The Twitterfall would not have been such a great success if it was not for all the people who got involved, so from everyone here at KMP Digitata, we thank you.

The How-Do Awards bring together the cream of the North West’s media , from Digital Agencies, PR, Press, Radio and Television for a bit of a shin dig, a few awards, a pat on the back, a dig in the ribs, you know the score. This makes for an interesting mix of ideas and contrasting fortunes on the future of the Media within the North West.

The event was kicked off by Robert Shrimsley, the managing editor of the FT.com, delivering a stirring speech on the challenges UK journalism is facing as content and classified are finding more effective platforms online. Likening the landscape to that of the Wild West, where after the many battles for land peace was finally achieved and people found their place and their living within the new order. It was an interesting speech and for the gathered digital practitioners such as ourselves it offered a stark reminder of the realities faced by traditional medias within the North West as our digital world blossoms.

And so after being suitably fed and watered the collective back slapping began. Congratulations are extended to all the winners, KMP Digitata were up for best Digital Agency, an award won by Code ComputerLove, with CTI Digital highly commended, both richly deserved. Other notable winners included Brazen for PR agency and Made in Manchester delivering the best Radio Program for Gay Life After Saddam. Perhaps juxtaposition of the night was delivered through the best Newspaper category as Crains Manchester Business shared the stage with The Westmoorland Gazette as joint winners.

That’s not to say we didn’t make it on the stage in some sort of presence. Throughout the evening’s events, our Twitter Fall was showing on the big screen providing much entertainment. Having learnt from ITV the perils of allowing unmoderated comments on screen, we tasked our placement student Graham with building an app that would allow us some control over the wall, should people get a bit giddy.

Graham was more than up to the challenge and throughout the night the KMP team were happily moderating whilst trying not to let the power go to our heads. Although we were fairly permissive (we’re all adults after all), a few choice comments caused the guilty tweeters to be sin-binned for a cool-off period. By the end of the night the leader of the Naughty League was, perhaps predictably, Gordo from Manchester Confidential. He stormed in front mainly thanks to his overly-enthusiastic and potty mouthed appreciation of the female form. He’s not known for his tact or enlightened gender politics, our Gordo! The Sin Bin feature quickly became a challenge to some Tweeters to see who could get to the top of the list and a special mention must be given to @jameskay83 for his effort and appalling language he almost got through our moderating, but we were wise to him.

Our Twitter fall was used to discuss more than Awards. Tweets relating to other subjects appeared thoughout the night. One example was that it was used to keep people informed of the latest scores for Liverpool’s Europa League Semi-Final tie. There was a notable cheer when the news of Diego Forlan’s goalflash appeared on the big screen thanks to Paul Fabretti, the relationship between Manchester and Liverpool seems as strong as ever.

@paulfabretti: Hang on Liverpool fans…Forlan has just scored. Liverpool need one more now. 20 mins of ET left. #howdoawards

The awards was attended by some of the brightest technical minds in the North West who would of loved nothing more than to crash our system but we learnt from the Tories Twitter mistake and was able to build a system that was able to hold up to their attacks. @ajevans85 attempted to get some Java Script in there with the Tweet on behalf of @ctisn:

@ajevans85: while(true){print “@ctisn for the win!”} // #howdoawards

For @danielashcroft, behind the scenes of the Twitter Fall, it was an enjoyable night of watching discussions happen and observing the jousting to get into the Sin Bin, unfortunately these tweets prove too rude to publish but gave us a good giggle at the KMP Digitata table.

So thank you again everyone who attended and helped out with #howdoawards.

Photos from the event can be found on our Facebook page and Flickr.

For too long now events like this have been the property of London, dragging the digital world to capital and delivering a thoroughly mediocre affair. It’s about time the North had a platform to attract an international audience, and show our selves off a bit.

SAScon is a truly international event, with celebrated practitioners from the US, Spain, Holland, Belgium and Iceland sharing the stage with some of Manchester’s own, Paul Fabretti from Gabba and Neil Hardy from the Co-operative group to name but two. Personally I can’t wait to hear some more on the darker arts of SEO from Ralph Tegtmeier, who, according to Aaron Wall, is “one of the most insightful minds and original voices in the search game”.

A great deal of credit needs to go to SEMPO and Manchester Digital for delivering SAScon at a time when the digital landscape in the North demands it. We have some of the most innovative minds and cutting edge ideas, not just with the digital agencies, but with the digital departments of our regions forward thinking companies.

Up here in’t North have always been willing to take a punt, always keen support and embrace new initiatives, happenings and events, as the success of Manc Twestival proved. SAScon has the potential to be a permanent fixture on the digital calendar for digital marketeers from around the country. If you can make it, please go, it will be great to see you there.

www.sascon.co.uk

@sasconference

#sascon

In an attempt to attack Gordon Brown and his links to the Unite union (currently involved with the BA strikes) the Tories launched the Cash-Gordon website with a scoring system to encourage people to spread the word and the Twitter hashtag #CashGordon. The site featured a counter, a leader-board and most importantly a live Twitter feed of the #CashGordon tag.

The live Twitter feed was where the Tories fell afoul of the dark side of social media. Their first mistake was that they didn’t monitor or filter the tweets that appeared on the stream as soon as this became known the feed was filled with tweets that I’m sure the Tories wouldn’t want to appear;

@OllyBeat: All tweets with #cashgordon appear on Tory campaign website. The sh*t door is open and the nutters are pouring in. See you there…

Mistake number 2 came when Twitter users discovered that the feed didn’t strip out HTML and Java script resulting in people being able to write HTML styling into their tweets and the site creating it, such as;

@steviemarshall: <span style=”font-size: 100px; color: red;”>Made a **** of that eh! </span>#cashgordon

This produced some interesting tweets appearing in the feed.

Tweeters who put Javascript into their tweets were able to set up redirects causing the Cash-Gordon site to briefly load before redirecting to another site. At one point people would be redirected to the Labour website. Another smarty pants Rick-rolled everyone by inserting a redirect to the “Never Gonna Give You Up” video on YouTube.

Whoever was in charge of managing the site picked up on what was happening relatively quickly and attempted to place a 301 redirect on the site taking people to the Conservative Party’s website, but in their haste another mistake was made and the URL on the 301 was spelt incorrectly and only sent people to a “Server not Found”.

In the short time that this mistake became public knowledge the tag #CashGordon became the 3rd most trended topic on Twitter for the United Kingdom and has got people talking about The Conservatives, but in a negative manor.

This has been a tough lesson on how Social Media is not just a medium that can spread the word and create positive results with minimal effort. It requires strategy, especially in anticipating and handling the inevitable mudslinging that will accompany activities such as this.

It is often cited in Darwinian theory that significant events bear witness to big leaps in evolution, and so seems the case with Manchester Airports Social Media experiment on Twitter. What had started in the summer as a fantastic service for their customers, giving them the ability to track their arrival and departure times as well as the power to communicate directly with the Airport, quite literally overnight, grew wings and flew at a time their planes could not.

When their customers needed communication, the Airport had the tools and their staff the skills to be able to talk constantly, and the importance of this will not be lost on either party from now on. The Manchester Airport Twitter Team became both voice of authority and the reassuring arm around the shoulder to their stranded passengers. They sent instructions to their followers both general and responding to the concerns of an individual. Travellers were comforted by the knowledge that information would be freely shared as and when it became available, and took further solace in the fact they were watching all airports, not just their own. If a passenger was flying to Paris, they could easily find out the conditions they were to land in though the Twitter team.

It was this constant communication that made the difference to the travellers stuck in the terminals, or the relatives waiting for loved ones to arrive. Everyone was aware that the conditions were beyond the control of the Airport and its staff, however, the one thing they could control, the information, they did so with aplomb. While other airports could be accused of hiding behind the conditions, leading to frustration in the departure lounge, Manchester Airport’s Twitter followers were calmed by the fact that the Airport was engaging with them, there was sense everyone was in this together, jokes were even sent to @ManAirport by travellers trying to lighten the mood. I guess it’s a lot harder to blame someone or something when they are constantly chatting with you and keeping you informed of any developments.

A great deal of credit for the way the Manchester Airport Twitter Team handled the situation, and here at KMP we are extremely proud of them. It was only last July that our very own Gez Daring stepped back from the training sessions, took the stabilisers off and watched them peddle Twitter forwards on their own.

Since then they have been engaging with their followers on a commercial level, by offering updated flight information and details on discount vouchers for the Terminal outlets. However, more importantly they have been communicating on a conversational level, gossiping about which famous person has been spotted in which terminal and what they could be doing in Manchester? It is this mix of professionalism and banter that served them and their followers so well when it was needed most.

Jon was selected thanks to Digital Mission, organized by Chinwag and UK Trade & Investment (UKTI), which enables digital companies to expand into overseas markets and attract investment outside the UK.

This is an exciting opportunity for the company and will also help promote the British digital industry over in America.

This is not KMP Digitata’s first trip over to America. Gez Daring went over to NYC at the end of last year to attend the Web 2.0 Expo and got to meet some of the leading figures in the American Social Media sector.

These trips are great for agencies to make contacts in international cities that can benefit the business, either directly though project wins or though learning how other businesses work and grow. Chinwag do a great job of organizing useful events in addition to the conference and it’s great getting to know the other delegates through the extracurricular activities! – Gez Daring

Click here to view the embedded video.

The workshop will be hosted by KMP’s Content Strategist, Dave Kinsella along with Andrew Lloyd Gordon, a digital marketing trainer who often hosts courses on behalf of e-consultancy. 

The aim of the workshop is to show you how you can manage your brand reputation and engage consumers with your brand online.  Dave and Andrew will guide you through this half-day workshop with a combination of practical training sessions and educational tips and advice.

We will be providing an introduction to blogging and online PR, explaining what it is, how it differs to traditional PR and an overview of the changing media landscape.

Tickets are available at an early-bird discount of £125 + VAT. Book now!

This is one seminar not to be missed… With an impressive line up of speakers, including Rob Brown from Staniforth, Simon Rogers from Market Sentinel and the MD of KMP, Jon Keefe.

Jon will be discussing “Are you ready to manage your reputation,” where he will be finding out how social media ready your business really is.  Jon will talk about the resources, skills and time required to manage your company’s reputation compared to the resources that are currently available.

Rob Brown from Staniforth will be discussing the “PR Challenges of the Social Web,” including how reputations can be affected, how reputations are built and lost and how you can manage your brand’s reputation through the use of PR and social media.

Simon Rogers from Market Sentinel will be presenting “Managing your reputation and Measuring the ROI,” where he will discuss how you can manage your reputation online through finding and monitoring the conversations that are taking place about your brand on the web.

This seminar will be held at the MDDA, 117-119 Portland Street, Manchester and tickets are available at the early-bird price of £95 + VAT (available until April 24th). Book Now!

Skittles have revamped their site and the content has almost been completely replaced by relevant pages from third-party social media applications. Visitors to Skittles.com are now directed to the twitter search result for the term “skittles” and invited to navigate their way about Skittles’ social web presence by using the flash navigation menu that overlays the page.

The ‘Home’ and ‘Chatter’ links both link to the twitter search results for the term Skittles, the products links for each flavour lead to the relevant information on the Skittles Wikipedia entry. There is a ‘Friends’ link that goes to the Skittles facebook page and the video and photo links respectively lead to the Skittles profile on YouTube and Flickr search results for the term… well can you guess?

There are only two actual web pages in use: the product overview page and the contact form.

My first impressions were that this is very brave and very cool.  Very Purple Cow.

I did have some reservations, however.

Firstly, the idea is not original. KMP’s very own Dave Kinsella showed me the Modernista “Unsite” about this time last year.

I also couldn’t understand why the Homepage was set to the twitter search results. Ok, having a ‘Chatter’ link is pretty cool but why duplicate it on the homepage? All that will do is encourage twitter users to tweet the word skittles over and over again in order to try to get their tweets to appear on the…

*sound of penny dropping*

Aha! That’s it. The cheapest and most effective viral campaign there is. Genius.

I  was mildly concerned that people would trying to subvert the idea by posting crude and inappropriate things. The public did not let me down. There is the most potential for amusing disaster on the Flickr search page. After all, a picture can speak a thousand crude words whereas there’s only room for about 20 crude words in 140 characters.

Unsurprisingly though, it was those cheeky scamps on twitter, including Techcrunch UK’s Mike Butcher, who straigh away attempted to cause trouble for Skittles. This was closely followed by some wikipedia attacks (which I suspect will stop as soon as Wikipedia lock the entry).

Skittles obviously knew this would happen; they make users fill in an age declaration and those underage can’t continue.

I also don’t think that people acting the goat does Skittles any harm. The negative comments, especially the obviously silly ones, reflect only on the user posting them and at the same time as they are revelling in their cleverness at getting rude words to appear on the Skittles home page, all their followers are busy investigating what all the Skittles posts are about.

For good or bad, Skittles was the number 1 trending term on twitter for most of the day and with twitter’s current high profile, I wouldn’t be surprised to see more mentions of Skittles in the mainstream media in the next couple of days.

I’m also betting that thousands and thousands of people who wouldn’t have thought about skittles ordinarily will now find their hand inexplicably drawn towards that brightly coloured bag while they are queuing at Tesco or picking up a paper. And that’s what it’s about.

There are some out there who are of the opinion that people mindlessly twittering the name “Skittles”, and people talking about the promotion tool rather than the product doesn’t actually add any value. But buying a piece of confectionary is an impulse decision. You’re not buying a car so you don’t need loads of information about price and product.

When was the last time you saw an informative ad for sweets or chocolate? It’s all about pushing the brand into peoples consciousness, breeding familiarity and brand association – as well as garnering lots of press coverage.

I happen to agree that the current homepage , while a great PR stunt, is not ideal in the long term. I think that Skittles will change it to something else in the near future – perhaps to the wikipedia entry, or perhaps to something more general and instructive.

So have Skittles redefined the website? I don’t think so. But for innovative thinking and out and out bravery, you have to take your hat off to them.

To do this we’ve been using the following criteria:

• An account’s number of followers
• Level of engagement
• Networks of influence

The objective is to try and place a value on the network of twitter, and to provide an indication of both the breadth and depth of its social engagement with its customers. We’re then looking to explain and explore how this engagement can be increased.

Incumbent in this analysis are three questions:

1. What is valuable to a brand on Twitter?
2. How can we break that value into metrics?
3. How can we increase that value?

If we can measure, track and improve the value of a brand with it’s audience on Twitter, then we’ve come a long way in understanding how and why a company should sign up and start spreading it’s word. More to follow in the coming weeks….!