In the playground, in the office, on the rugby field, in a political world…social dynamics are fascinating, complex and volatile. Naturally this translates directly from the offline world into social media.

Nowhere are the complexities of online social structures better illustrated than on forums. In many ways forums seem “old school internet” but that’s where many commentators miss the point; social media isn’t about the technology, but the interactions.

There have been plenty of attempts to pigeonhole internet users (as an aside, I nearly typed “web surfers” there, but realised nobody’s used that term since about 2007). This is one of my favourites – not far off the mark: Read More »

Now the conventions are over the US Presidential election is really heating up.

Mitt Romney is now regularly using his Twitter account to attack President Obama while the president is taking a more positive tone and continues to win the social media numbers game.

The attacks by Romney helped it part to ensure that the number of mentions he picked up (both positive and negative) soared this week. Read More »

Web 2.0 has released a new set of consumer motivations and behaviours. Consumers want to share their thoughts and opinions. They create and share content and become increasingly active in dialogues with brands on social media.

More and more consumers are turning to each other for service and product information before making a purchasing decision. Today, retailers must take the right decisions to take advantage of this new dialogue with their customers.

User Generated Content is the contribution of any rating, review, testimonial, video, blog article, image, audio file or other types of content made available for other online consumers. Read More »

London 2012 may be over, but the digital world continues to reverberate to a dizzying halo of statistical superlatives.

The 44 world records we’ve seen broken at the Olympic Games and 251 at the Paralympic Games were accompanied by unparalleled broadcast reach, new milestones of social media engagement and ever more progressive uses of digital technology.

It’s a significantly transformed landscape from the one in which the British Olympic Association first began working on London’s bid in 1997, when broadband internet reached just 17 per cent of the UK population, Nokia commanded 37 per cent of the global mobile phone market and Google operated under the name Backrub. Read More »

UPDATE — Violence has spread this afternoon across the Muslim world with protests in Cairo, Yemen, Iraq, Iran and the Lebanon as the storm surrounding the YouTube clip attacking the Prophet Muhammad grows.

In the Sudan protesters have tried to storm the British and German embassies in the capital Khartoum as allies of the US are drawn into the storm.

It raises the question should Google now pull the offending video from the web when it is causing so much trouble?

The incident is similar to the uproar caused by the ‘Everybody draw Muhammed day’ group on Facebook two years ago. Read More »

It’s no surprise – and nothing new – that brands are looking to social media to market their products.

There have been plenty of lessons to be learned, and casualties along the way, as brands work out how to make social.

One of the key questions from the start has been how do you keep communities on your side while trying to sell them something and make a return on investment in a way that doesn’t look like you’re trying too hard? Enter Mumsnet. Read More »